Weishan Island is located in the east of the middle of Weishan Lake. Its area is not too large. However, because it is located in the endless Weishan Lake, the natural conditions are very good and it is a suitable place for survival and residence.

Weishan Island was originally a mountain, not an island. Later, the Yellow River repeatedly broke and flooded southward, invading the Si River from Huai to the sea, causing the Si River to be vented smoothly and blocked water, causing the mountain to become a lake and swamp, which formed today's Weishan Island.

There were originally dozens of families and hundreds of people on the island. These families relied on the hundreds of acres of wasteland to make some food, raise some chickens, ducks and poultry, then fish, turtles, shrimps and crabs from the lake, pick some lotus pods and lotus roots, and rowed to Xia Town several miles away to exchange for daily necessities such as oil, salt, sauce, vinegar, needles, threads and brains. Although life is not rich, at least it can be eaten and it is safer to stay away from the land.

Weishan Island is under the jurisdiction of Weishan County, Jining Prefecture. Because the island is sparsely populated and has little land, the county government chose the most populous family on the island to be the village chief. If you pay a few coins every year, you will be taxed. Almost no government officials come to harass you, so the residents on the island live a peaceful life.

But this quiet and peaceful atmosphere was completely broken in the second half of the ninth year of Chongzhen.

First, the Ministry of Works sent hundreds of officials and officials from all over the world to Jining Prefecture to observe and plan the entire layout of the reclaimed wasteland and population villages. What followed was the earliest group of well-driving teams established in the imperial village in the eighth year of Chongzhen to explore the water sources and find suitable places to drill wells for the disaster victims to drink.

The officials of Jining Prefecture and various counties, under the supervision and supervision of a large number of Jinyiwei and the inspectors, hired a large number of young and strong laborers from the local area. Under the guidance of officials of the Ministry of Works' Dushui Department and the Construction and Repair Department, began to build houses, build roads, dig open trenches and hibernation channels, and created the prototypes of a large number of villages.

Only after checking the hydrological data preserved by local governments, visiting old farmers in the village, and inspecting the traces of flooding in previous rainy seasons in the past years, officials of the Ministry of Works decided where to build the village to avoid being soaked and washed away by the flood brought by the rainy season every year.

According to the imperial edict, the two million stones of grain and rice and a large amount of salt that were intercepted from the canal were transported from the canal to several large water sub-warehouses along the Jining Prefecture Canal. Then, after the scattered small warehouses were completed, they were transported over for consumption by the disaster victims.

Immediately afterwards, a large amount of ripe lime, wood, stone, thatch and other various building materials were transported from local or on the Grand Canal to the under construction villages for building houses and warehouses. This infrastructure frenzy has also driven the prosperity of related industries in the local and nearby prefectures, from gentry with various resources, from boatmen, porters, big carriage shops, young and strong laborers, countless people became beneficiaries of this large-scale investment.

The reason is very simple. Zhu Youjian took out two million vehicles of silver from the treasury and invested it in this large-scale procurement. All the procurement of materials was settled in cash. Officials sent by the Ministry of Revenue made a budget with the cooperation of local government officials, and then settled the money on-site with the seller on-site. This huge investment also led to the vigorous development of related industries and directly and indirectly increased the income of the people.

The labor employed by the counties of Jining Prefecture also pays wages per day according to the daily wages, and under the strict supervision of the Jinyiwei, silver and copper coins were distributed on the same day.

At this time, people had not learned to be scammers while working. Under the dual stimulation of settled wages in cash and managing two meals a day, the progress of all projects was progressing rapidly. Dozens or hundreds of villages had already begun to form within two months.

These houses for the victims are built with yellow mud and adobe as materials. For those suffering from hunger and cold, it is a blessing to have a shelter from the wind and rain. They don’t even think that they are houses built with hard stones in wooden houses.

In order to increase the enthusiasm of officials and officials to do their best, Zhu Youjian also offered huge rewards to encourage and reward them. All officials involved in this huge project receive corresponding subsidies every month according to their ranks. Officials who work diligently will receive additional rewards, and the money will be distributed until all victims are properly resettled.

With both the dual supervision of the Jinyiwei and the Censor, and the temptation of a large amount of subsidies, the officials who have always been lazy and arrogant and procrastinated in their work burst out with great enthusiasm for handling the work. Almost everyone was in a high mood and devoted themselves to complicated and trivial chores, and the minds of many people have also undergone tremendous changes.

Whether it is Jining Prefecture, the counties under its jurisdiction, or the gentry of Yanzhou Prefecture, they also benefited a lot from this major project.

For the procurement of various massive materials, the officials of the Ministry of Revenue and the Ministry of Works have taken priority measures nearby, placing orders directly to the various shops set up in the city by the gentry, and then almost all the grain stored in the gentry's homes is at a price higher than the market price. The biggest benefit of this grain purchase was the Lu Wang Mansion located in Yanzhou Prefecture.

The officials of the Ministry of Revenue purchased nearly 300,000 shi of grain from the Lu Palace at a price of five cents of silver per stone, and the Lu Palace made a net profit of more than 100,000 taels of silver at once.

Because these grains are rent paid by tenants from the royal palace, there is almost no cost.

As the simple infrastructure is about to be completed, a large number of disaster victims from the northern border came to Jining Prefecture in counties, and accompanied by local officials and yamen runners in the disaster area.

Just as most of the victims were still setting up shacks near the town waiting to be resettled, hundreds of young and strong men were divided into groups under the care of the officials. While the autumn wind suddenly rose and the weeds and trees gradually withered, dozens of fire points were ignited. The blazing fires raged the uninhabited areas around the Nansi Lake with the wind. The flames several meters high were not extinguished day and night, illuminating the night sky as bright as day.

After the fire was extinguished by a continuous autumn rain for several days, before the sky cleared completely, or the ground was completely dry, countless ragged men and women, carrying iron shovels, hoes, willow baskets, and other farm tools, stepped into the charred wasteland and depressions burned by the fire, and opened up wastelands like life.

The scope of this large-scale reclaiming is so wide that several prefectures and counties around Nansi Lake are included. As long as the wasteland that can be irrigated in Nansi Lake and surrounding rivers are covered by people, the originally deserted fields are full of disaster victims. These victims are all working under the organization and leadership of the original local officials. This practice avoids the chaos caused by the large number of people to the greatest extent.

Weishan Island is also among the major developments this time. Thousands of adobe thatched huts were built around the original small village in more than a month. Several small granaries based on stone were also built, and two small paths in the village were also widened and extended.

With the completion of the house, under the arrangement and organization of the government, more than 500 households and more than 2,000 families moved to the island. The quiet Weishan Island was immediately full of popularity and vitality, but at the same time, it also made the dozens of indigenous households feel extremely uncomfortable.

As the newly relocated victims began to open up wastelands and expand land, the wasteland forests quickly turned into fertile fields that could produce food. The government continuously transported various materials to the island, and water trucks were erected one after another. The victims built canals leading to the fields day and night. Under the shadow of the drought for several years, these victims were full of desire and expectation for water.

The construction of villages around Nansi Lake and the cultivation of wastelands finally came to an end before the first snow in winter. The original wasteland had become a continuous field, and a large amount of ripe lime was spread into the soil that was turned out to kill various insect eggs in the fields that were harmful to the growth of crops. After these fields were dried in winter, crops could be planted in the spring of the following year.
Chapter completed!