When Zong Wu set off from Luoyang, members of the Xixia royal family and clan also set off from Yinchuan Prefecture and were escorted to Luoyang.
Li Renxiao, the last emperor of the Western Xia Dynasty, was very pleased with the change of Xingqing Prefecture to Yinchuan Prefecture.
He even felt that it was his decisive surrender that allowed Huanghuang Daxia to retain this glimmer of dignity.
The real Yinchuan is actually in the northeast of Mizhi, where Wang Yaksha conquered Yinzhou City first.
It was called Yinchuan County in the Tang Dynasty, and was also called Yinchuan City in the Song Dynasty. It belonged to the Longxing Land of the Xixia Dynasty and was also the location of the ancestral tombs of the Xixia royal family.
Now that Xixia has been destroyed, the capital of Xixia has been renamed Yinchuan. What is this if it is not to preserve dignity for Xixia?
Haha, of course Li Renxiao didn't understand that the reason why Emperor Zhu changed his name was purely because of some special memory.
Before leaving, Li Renxiao requested to worship Buddha, and Ningxia Governor Zhao Ding readily agreed.
The royal family and clan, who were escorted by the soldiers, marched towards Chengtian Temple with their heads down. Before they entered the temple gate, they found that the plaque with the three characters "Chengtian Temple" engraved on it had been removed.
"well!"
Li Renli sighed.
Soon after entering the temple, there were more and more sighs.
Because everyone has understood that everything with Xixia characters has been or is being destroyed.
In the square in front of a main hall, more than a dozen carpenters are busy.
The carpenters took the planes and planed all the inscriptions on the removed plaques in the temple. They probably did not want to waste wood, so they planed the Xixia characters and re-engraved them with Chinese characters.
Li Renxiao wanted to see the stele carved by his biological mother, so the soldiers of the Ming Dynasty took everyone to the Forest of Steles.
"Hoo ho ho..."
A messy sound of rubbing came from the forest of steles. The Xixia royal family and clan members walked over and took a look, and saw that the words on all the stone steles were being polished away.
Li Renxiao looked sad and murmured to himself: "Why is it like this? Why is it like this..."
Li Renli whispered: "Destroy history and writing, and there will be no party in Daxia from now on. Emperor Zhu did the same to the Jurchens of the Jin Kingdom."
It's not directly destroyed.
Before polishing the stone stele, a copy must be made and transported to the Luoyang Palace for storage. These inscriptions have historical value, recording something and someone in a certain year and month, and will be left to future historians for research.
Except for preservation as cultural and historical materials, Xixia characters are not allowed to exist anywhere else.
Groups of monks were escorted out of the temple. Li Renli couldn't help but ask: "How did the Ming Dynasty deal with the monks?"
The civil servant responsible for escorting the Xixia nobles said: "Chengtian Temple, Gaotai Temple, and Jietan Temple are only allowed to retain a hundred monks, and the remaining monks must all return to secular life. Each temple is only allowed to retain 800 acres of temple land, and the rest of the land is all
It is given to the families of soldiers, Han immigrants and local farmers."
Li Renxiao couldn't help but said: "This is a great disrespect to the Buddha. You should not do this. Preserving the temple and the monks can actually protect the Ming Dynasty."
The civil servant laughed and said: "The three major temples in Yinchuan Prefecture, the monks, and the temple property are countless. They have exploited so many people's wealth and support. How come they have not blessed Xixia with good weather? Instead, they have caused disasters in Xixia year after year?"
After asking this question, Li Renxiao was speechless and silently lowered his head and turned to leave.
The next day, everyone set off for Luoyang.
They took a boat south along the Yellow River and found that the farmland on both sides of the river had been replanted, but there was a serious water shortage due to drought, and even the water level of the Yellow River had dropped sharply.
The Ming Dynasty soldiers and civilians who stayed in Yinchuan Prefecture, as well as the families of soldiers and civilians who were sent later, as well as local Xixia farmers, are using various methods to obtain water for irrigation.
Many craftsmen are making waterwheels by the river. Some waterwheels have already been completed. They are stepped on by manpower and pulled by animal power. They are lifting water from the Yellow River and pouring it into the ditch.
Some of those irrigation canals already exist, while others were newly dug this year.
From time to time, you can see many farmers and herdsmen gathered together to clear the semi-abandoned irrigation canals. They are all doing work-for-relief. While the government is carrying out infrastructure construction, it is also solving the food problem. Otherwise, many of these farmers and herdsmen will starve to death.
"Prince Shu..." Li Renxiao quickly changed his words and asked, "Brother, why weren't these irrigation canals dredged before?"
Li Renli replied shamefully: "We have been dredging every year, but corrupt officials have profited from it, embezzled the government's allocations, and deprived the people of their food rations. They also tortured the people to death and starved to death, causing the people to cause trouble, and then nothing happened."
"
Li Renxiao sighed after hearing this: "Alas, with such waste of water conservancy and agriculture, how can Daxia be immortal? If I could have succeeded ten years earlier, I would have resumed production and rested with the people."
Xixia is gone, and it is useless to say more.
Li Renli comforted himself and said: "It would be better to surrender early. At least countless people can be saved. With the degree of drought this year, there will definitely be another famine in Great Xia. I don't know how many farmers in front of me will starve to death. Now that the Ming Dynasty has come, we will organize farmers to build buildings."
Water conservancy also provides farmers with food to survive."
They came all the way to Lanzhou and passed through the entire Shaanxi Province, and found that Shaanxi was also drought-ridden.
Engineering projects are being built everywhere, some are building city walls, some are repairing river embankments, some are expanding official roads, some are digging canals, and some are digging deep wells... The people of Shaanxi cannot bear the drought for several consecutive years.
, every household had little surplus food, and the government could only provide work relief to absorb the hungry people.
Relying on food transferred from other regions, we will support the people of Shaanxi to tide over the difficulties, and at the same time, we will seriously carry out Shaanxi's infrastructure construction.
Li Renxiao was born in a deep palace since childhood. Although he knew what this meant, he only knew it.
Li Renli was shocked as he walked along: "Only China has a vast territory and can mobilize a lot of food for disaster relief. In such a severe drought in Shaanxi, no one was found dead on the roadside, and it is unimaginable that they can take the opportunity to carry out large-scale construction."
"
In fact, this year's drought is not the end, next year will be the most serious drought year!
The people of the northwest and the Ming court had to continue to carry on for another year, gathering the strength of the whole country to support several provinces in the northwest, and even need to provide relief to most of Henan and Shanxi.
The temperature during the Little Ice Age has bottomed out, and the average annual temperature at this time was lower than that in the late Ming Dynasty.
It will take a few more years to start to recover. The next hundred years or so will be a period of recovery, and it will not fall again until the middle of the Yuan Dynasty in history.
Floods in the south and drought in the north, floods in the south and drought in the north... floods in the south and drought in the north every year!
Fortunately, the Ming Dynasty has been constructing water conservancy projects in the south since the founding of the People's Republic of China. A large amount of farmland was forcibly returned to lakes, and landless farmers were directly immigrated to counties that lacked people. Otherwise, I really don't know how to survive.
"Brother, look over there!" Li Renxiao pointed to the construction site in the distance.
Li Renli looked toward the northeast of the official road and saw an official from the Ming Dynasty sitting on a high platform under the scorching sun. A huge flag was erected on the high platform with four characters embroidered on it: Man can conquer heaven!
Li Renli was shocked: "How can you use these four words? Isn't it blasphemy against the emperor!"
They were escorted to the front station, and Li Renli couldn't help raising doubts.
Yi Cheng explained: "Those four characters were written by the emperor and were given to the Shaanxi Drought Control Governor. The official you see on the high platform is the Shaanxi Drought Control Governor appointed by His Majesty. He has been stationed in Shaanxi since last year."
Night has fallen and the heat has not gone away.
Li Renxiao stood in the small courtyard of the post house, accompanied by two sergeants who were guarding him.
At some point, Li Renli came over.
Li Renxiao seemed to be talking to himself or talking to Li Renli: "My mother taught me Chinese studies since I was a child, and my father asked the great Confucians to teach me the classics. I feel that I already understand the meaning of those classics, but after walking all these days, I have learned a lot about it.
Really know what it means to be a king in a place hundreds of miles away."
Li Renli was also proficient in "Mencius" and recited the original text according to his words: "The king is like a benevolent government to the people, saving punishments, thinning taxes and collecting, deep farming and easy farming..."
The meaning of Mencius's words is that if you can implement benevolent government, light corvee and low taxes, let the people have enough food and clothing, and know all kinds of principles and morals, even a small country with only a few hundred miles can make the young people in the country hold wood.
With a stick, he defeated the strong and fierce tiger and wolf divisions of Qin and Chu. Although Qin and Chu were strong, they fought all year round and delayed farming, so the people could not cultivate and support their parents. The parents were hungry and cold, and the brothers, wives and children were separated. How could they do it?
How can a benevolent and righteous teacher be defeated by someone who is well fed and clothed?
Mencius said, This is called the benevolent and invincible!
Li Renxiao said: "The Ming Dynasty has not sent troops to attack, but the people near our capital of Daxia, Dingzhou and Jingzhou, have already rebelled. This is because they don't have enough to eat, don't wear warm clothes, can't support their parents, and can't raise their wives and children.
.When the Ming Dynasty sent troops to attack and such people were recruited as soldiers, how could they be willing to fight to the death for the country? So before the two armies fought, all the armies fled."
"Your Majesty... my dear brother is smart, but it's a pity that he was born at the wrong time." Li Renli couldn't help but sigh.
This wise and benevolent emperor of Xixia, the emperor who brought Xixia into its most prosperous era, was now escorted to Luoyang as a subjugated king before he had time to reform his administration.
He could only sigh in the small inn and use his own experience of national subjugation to confirm Confucian scriptures.
The team continued to move forward and finally arrived in Chang'an.
An angel, who had been waiting for a long time, came and read out an imperial edict, and then took away a large number of the Xixia royal family and their female relatives.
Those who were taken away were mainly Li Qianshun's young concubines and dozens of Brother Richard's young concubines. Due to their special status, their whereabouts had to be decided by Ju Ming, and now they were taken away to reward the meritorious officers.
Senior generals will all have a share, and Yue Fei will also get one of Li Qianshun's concubines.
The two queen mothers were also taken away and will soon be sent to Wangchuan Valley to spend their later years with Dean Zhu.
Zhu Ming didn't bother to care whether the Emperor took it or not, he just threw it away anyway. Lao Zhu was really out of his depth, so he asked the two Queen Mothers to be maids, otherwise he really didn't know how to arrange it.
Li Renxiao's queen was not taken away, but all the concubines were dispersed.
He carefully inquired about the whereabouts of his biological mother and learned that Empress Dowager Cao was going to serve the Ming Dynasty Emperor. He was angry and ashamed but also a little lucky. At least, this arrangement did not humiliate the Xixia royal family too much, and it was considered the best destination for Empress Dowager Cao.
The night before leaving Chang'an, Li Renxiao lay on the bed and cried loudly.