July.

The Central Plains has severe drought, and the land is barren for thousands of miles.

The drought is spread across more than ten roads in Guanzhong and Guandong, and even Jingxiang, Bahan, Jianghuai and other places, it is a thousand miles away.

It should have been a happy harvest after the summer harvest, but now the cracks in the fields can be stuffed into their fists.

The counties and counties under the Central Plains were fine. After all, the imperial court had predicted that there would be severe drought this year and there might be locust plagues, so it responded early.

All regions have prepared grain early, and with the control of grain, they have generally implemented quantitative allocation to prevent rush purchases and hoarding. Grain merchants have taken the opportunity to hoard prices in the city. In addition, the imperial court has promoted labor-for-relief in various places, taking advantage of the vacancy of people's power that has emerged after the disaster. Therefore, they organized the people to build some water conservancy facilities, build roads and bridges, repair cities, and transform underground culverts in the city, etc.

Although the people are affected by disasters, they can still earn wages when they go to work, and they directly use grain to pay for their wages. The whole family of old, young, wife and children will go to catch locusts. If they catch more, they can get food back.

For the court, it is okay to deal with a major disaster after years of savings. After all, drought is actually much better than floods, and it is better to deal with plagues. As long as there is food, you are not afraid of drought. Even if the drought is serious and people have difficulty drinking water, people will leave and can even temporarily leave places with water shortages.

A severe drought did not cause a great famine, nor did there be any major refugees.

The people of all counties and counties stayed at home, and there were no fields to cultivate. However, there were still projects organized by the government to do, such as building roads, bridges, cities, embankments, dams and reservoirs, digging canals, clearing rivers, clearing ponds and opening ditches, and even renovating cities, building new street markets, etc.

The grains in warehouses in various parts of the imperial court became the strongest currency and the most stable guarantee for the people's hearts during this period.

If it weren't for the cracked fields, people would even mistakenly think that there was no disaster here.

However, Jingxiang, south of the Han River, and Jiangdong, south of the Yangtze River, are different.

The severe drought that swept across the country made the Three Feudals land unable to escape. The largest lake in Lin Shihong Jiangxi Road, Poyang Lake, was originally vast and vast, but now it has become a prairie.

Jingxiang’s Dongting Lake has also been reduced by two-thirds.

In the east of the Yangtze River, nearly half of the rivers broke down.

The most deadly thing was Xiao Xian’s Nanliang, where a locust plague broke out.

There are many lakes in Jingxiang. The drought has caused the Dongting Lake to become a breeding ground for locust outbreaks. In the Central Plains, they were busy digging locust eggs, catching jumping flies, and catching flying locusts early in the Central Plains, but there was no movement in Nanliang.

Even under a slightly stable environment, the struggles among the monarchs and ministers of Nanliang became increasingly fierce.

The battle between Xiao Xian and his generals in command of the various counties became increasingly fierce. The generals in the counties all held heavy troops and did not pay much attention to the emperor Xiao Xian. Xiao Xian was naturally dissatisfied. But at the beginning, except for the princes and generals such as Dong Jingzhen and Zhang Xiu, he also relied on driving tigers and swallowing wolves. He did not really have the strength to suppress these generals.

So if you use this except that, then you will be too big to lose the first time, and you will never change anything.

The small court of Nanliang only had more than ten counties left, but dozens of military towns, large and small, unified two counties, and small two counties, all of which recruited their own troops.

Under this situation, there was no Qin Dynasty invading, so the monarchs and ministers of the Southern Liang Dynasty were busy reducing the vassals and counter-destroying the vassals, and there were constant large and small wars.

The military leaders are busy recruiting soldiers and snatching territory, so how can they have time to rescue disasters and eliminate locusts?

Even the Qin court issued an edict to Xiao Xian and others early, reminding them to resist drought and eliminate locusts and prevent major disasters and famines.

But no one has ever paid attention to it.

Now, the consequences are finally noticeable.

In normal years, Nanliang was busy consolidating its territory and recruiting troops, which led to many young and strong people in the army. When the weather was good, the fields were not produced. Most of the food grown by the people had to be handed over, and there was very little left.

However, in the counties of Nanliang this year, the summer harvest was less than 2, and most people had no grains.

But at this time, a locust plague broke out again, and even autumn seeds were impossible.

The people had no surplus grain savings in their hands, and the military leaders in counties encountered this major disaster, but they were increasingly guarding the granary and refused to release grain.

The people were so hungry that they could only start to flow.

There have even been many places where hungry refugees attacked the manors and houses of landlords and wealthy families and robbed food.

Next, after all the landlords in the countryside are robbed, they may have to attack the county town and rob the grain from the official warehouse.

Many refugees began to head north.

Their purpose was to cross the Han River and go to the territory of the Qin Dynasty to avoid disasters and seek food.

Countless hungry people shouted the slogan of going north to join Qin, dragging their families to take care of their children and helping them with their elderly and young people.

But at this time, both Xiao Xian and the military leaders of various counties were not careful when responding to disasters, but they began to intercept refugees and prohibit them from leaving the boundary and crossing the line.

For them, the people are also resources, valuable resources, replenishing the source of troops, grain farmers, and armed makers. If the people are gone, how can they maintain it?

As for the people who are hungry, they don’t care.

Hankou.

On the Han River, a boat is moored in the middle of the river.

On the ship, Zhang Zhenzhou, the prefect of Mianyang in Nanliang, and Zhou Faming, the prefect of Jiangxia, visited Zhai Mohou, the prefect of Anlu.

"Duke Zhai, we all want to change our flags and change our banners and join the Qin Dynasty!"

Zhai Mohou said, "The time has not come."

"But we can't hold on."

Zhang Zhenzhou and Zhou Faming sighed together, the disaster was getting worse and worse. Now that they don’t talk about disaster relief, they can’t even get military rations.

The victims in the county have now developed into bandits and have begun to attack the cities and besiege the county, and the situation is indeed uncontrollable.

The two of them had long been in love with Daqin. If Daqin had not agreed to their support, they would have led their troops to offer land to Qin.

Now they once again proposed to change the flag and return to Qin.

But although Zhai Mohou has always been responsible for contacting the two counties, he dare not agree.

"Since the saint made an appointment with the Three Feudals, the three Feudals were granted the title of princes and princes for several years. If you surrender, this hard-won security will be broken and the war will begin again."

"Zhai Gong, Xiao Xian is now betrayal of all relatives. Even if we return to Qin, he will not dare to say anything. Even as long as we take the lead in returning to Qin first, many counties will inevitably respond to returning to Qin. At that time, as long as the saints give an edict, Xiao Xian can be summoned to Luoyang and Nanliang will be destroyed without attacking."

"This is not the gain or loss of a city or a place. It is related to the entire game of chess in the Qin Dynasty. Although the Three Vocationals often attack each other, they are both offensive and defensive when facing the Qin Dynasty. Once something happens in Southern Liang, the other two Vocationals will inevitably be affected, and then it will be a change in the overall situation."

Zhang Zhenzhou said helplessly, "If Mr. Zhai still refuses to accept our support, then we will have to lead our troops and people to abandon the land and cross the river to support us."
Chapter completed!