Chapter 277 Emergency Rescue and Disaster Relief
Xiong Buyou is very clear about the situation of the county's grain depot: the accounts and the amount of grain in stock are completely consistent, but the quality is far from poor. A large amount of brown rice reserves are aged grain, which according to modern standards can only be used for feed. It can be used for feeding
People can only eat a hundred stones of rice.
Therefore, Xiong Buyou’s idea was Chang Pingcang’s idea. The level of communication and transportation in ancient countries was very low. It was unrealistic to expect the court to provide relief for general natural disasters in local areas. In most cases, local officials had to solve the problem themselves. The county magistrate directly
In addition to county grain depots, the grains under our control also include private grain storage warehouses.
Generally speaking, local gentry grain farmers donate some grain every year and reserve it, and use it for relief in disaster years. The ideas and methods are good, but things go wrong as soon as they are implemented. The grain reserves in Changpingcang are often used by the government
It was an occupation, so it has always been in name only. The building in Changpingcang in Lingao is very grand, but not a grain of rice has been left inside for more than a hundred years.
What Xiong Buyou meant was to ask Wu County Magistrate to issue a notice asking the gentry and landlords to "please donate" to transport Changpingcang. Anyway, this kind of trick happened every year, and the gentry had long been accustomed to it. When the county magistrate came to "persuad donations", he had to get a
Ten or twenty dan go out to socialize. In this way, you can also collect two to three hundred dan in food.
"It's easy." Wu Mingjin was quite satisfied with the fact that although the Crossing Group had the actual power of the county government, it still sought his approval for everything. "The students just issued a notice."
At that time, the caretaker issued a notice asking all the gentry and grain farmers in the county to donate to replenish the Changping warehouse rice for disaster relief.
"We still have to provide the bulk of the relief food." Xiong Buyou said to Wu De, "I asked the county magistrate and he said that we can only raise about 200 shi of brown rice and miscellaneous grains every year."
“How much does relief cost?”
"The Planning Commission is counting the damage," Xiong Buyou said, "but two hundred shi plus the amount in the county treasury will definitely not be enough."
"Let's do it if we do it. Being a ruler still has to bear some responsibilities." Wu De said angrily, "Now I have to exempt some money and food. This business is a bit of a loss!"
The Australian was the first one, and no one else dared not to buy it. This time the "donation" was surprisingly enthusiastic, and 400 stones were quickly raised from all over the place.
Wu De asked people to distribute part of the rice to various porridge sheds to make porridge and distribute it to the victims.
"Be careful, the food ration should not be too small - not less than their daily caloric intake." Wu De informed Jiang Qiuyan, who was responsible for the health of the victims, "and gather some pickles to ensure the intake of salt."
"Is this necessary? Just maintain the minimum physiological needs to prevent them from starving to death and feed them until next spring."
"No, I don't plan to feed them," Wu De said confidently, "They will feed themselves."
"you mean?"
"Next, we have to feed them better." Wu De said, telling him the plan he had discussed with the executive committee.
His disaster relief plan is simple: relief for work.
Work-for-relief has always been a highly effective method in the history of disaster relief and famine relief in China. It has not only saved a large number of victims, but also created many large-scale local projects. The successful experience of the ancients can naturally be used by modern people.
At the disaster relief meeting, the Executive Committee decided to use the victims of this disaster as the main labor force to start a comprehensive road construction project in winter, including the hardening construction of all roads.
"Facts have proven," Shan Daoqian said, "that simple projects built in the pursuit of cheap and fast construction are the most uneconomical." He then added, "This is the lesson this typhoon has taught us."
The damage to transportation and communication lines was the most serious. The hastily built roadbed had long been loosened after a summer of rain. This typhoon caused more than a quarter of the total road mileage to be washed away. Only the county seat - Nanbao
The highway is smooth and unobstructed, partly because the damage caused by the typhoon inland is relatively small, and also because this section of the road was the first to undergo roadbed and road reconstruction to facilitate heavy vehicle transportation.
Wen Desi said: "All the victims of this disaster will be allocated to you as laborers. They will work until March next year. Is it enough to repair all the roads? If not talk about other things, let's clear all the roads first!"
"I'm afraid it won't be so fast..."
Wu Nanhai said: "Spring sowing begins in March. We need to help the victims resume production and get them back to the land as soon as possible..."
"In my opinion, why should we help them resume production?" Ma Qianzhu said leisurely, "We don't need many small agricultural producers, so we might as well take this opportunity to turn them into industrial workers. We will buy back the land. This is
A good opportunity to promote large-scale agricultural production!”
This idea is a bit reverse, jumping from simple relief to the overall level. The participants exchanged glances with each other tacitly: This idea is not bad. The guiding ideology of Chuanchuan Group in agriculture is large-scale production, which does not require a large number of small farmers.
Taking advantage of the opportunity of natural disasters to move this group of farmers off the land is not only to increase the labor force directly controlled by the Chuan Chuan Group, but also to disintegrate the old rural areas.
"Since most people don't like land reform," Ma Qianxu said, "we must seize this opportunity."
"Isn't it too disrespectful to take advantage of others' danger?" Wu Nanhai expressed concern.
"Without sheep eating people, where would the industrial revolution have come from?" Ma Qianzhu didn't care. "Besides, we are doing fair business. As long as there is no coercion, everyone has nothing to say."
So a decision was made to turn all the refugees they took in into laborers under the control of the commune on the spot, allocate housing and private plots according to commune member standards, and send their children to school.
Land that is willing to be sold can be bought by the Agricultural Committee, and land that is not willing to be sold can be retained. In fact, once you become a member of the commune, your production and labor are completely controlled by the commune. Even if you retain the land, it will just be wasted. In the end, it will be abandoned.
Sold to the Council of Agriculture. This so-called selling of freedom is just a cover.
"This method is really..." Wu Nanhai expressed regret.
"Compared to land nationalization, don't you think we are quite benevolent?" Wen Desi said. He was not interested in tricks such as land reform, but he was very interested in comprehensive nationalization of land.
As a result, the fate of hundreds of people who have been admitted to refugee camps and thousands of people who will soon be admitted to refugee camps has been decided. This part of the land has gradually fallen into the hands of the Agricultural Committee. Especially in some severely affected areas
In this way, the entire village's land changed hands. However, the benefits from the land were not as great as imagined. Families with more land tend to have better disaster resistance, and most of the refugees are poor farmers and tenants with low economic ability.
In addition to establishing refugee camps to accommodate refugees fleeing famine, the Civil Affairs Commission also provided relief based on the disaster-stricken situation of each village - the disaster-stricken villages were exempted from the "reasonable burden" for this year. For villages that were not severely affected by the disaster but only damaged crops, Wu De's relief plan was
Let them carry out production self-rescue activities, and Delong Grain Bank will provide them with loans to rebuild their houses, and also loan them seeds of buckwheat and other famine-relief crops - these crops have a short growth period and are cold-resistant, so they are very suitable for rush planting in late autumn and early winter.
.In the spring of next year, we will loan rice seeds and agricultural tools to the victims.
After calculation, the food currently raised is simply not enough. Just the seeds for spring plowing are a huge expense.
With modern management experience and a large number of well-trained junior administrative staff, disaster relief quickly got on the right track. The original scenes of refugees begging on the streets inside and outside the county quickly disappeared and were replaced by well-organized refugee camps.
.At the same time, the operation to provide relief to the affected villages is also proceeding in an orderly manner.
But Wu De is not at ease about this. One of the characteristics of grassroots administration is that no matter how good the wishes and determination of the upper levels are, it is still difficult to control the actions of every lower-level administrator, especially when the rules and regulations are imperfect and have loopholes.
Next. The evil behavior of one low-level administrative staff member is enough to tarnish the image of all administrative staff. This is a situation he absolutely does not want to see.
Since ancient times, relief after natural disasters has always turned into a feast for those in power at the grassroots level. This has become an open secret. Even the court has no choice but to do so - knowing that the relief money and food will be exploited at all levels, and it will not end up in the hands of the victims.
If you save one, you still have to continue to allocate, otherwise natural disasters will trigger civil unrest-sometimes even if you allocate, it will still trigger civil unrest. An important difference between the so-called prosperous times and the end of the world is that the former can get more disaster relief materials.
Give it to the victims, and the end of the world will become a complete carve-up and annexation.
"In the final analysis, it is the decline of administrative capabilities." Wu De said in the conversation with Ran Yao, "In the prosperous times, the institutions were functioning normally, and the degree of corruption among officials had not affected the administrative execution capabilities. As corruption becomes more and more serious,
, the execution capacity of the administrative system has also declined."
Now for disaster relief, many students who were in the training class yesterday have been mobilized to participate in front-line work, and a large amount of disaster relief materials are distributed through their hands - many materials are not difficult to embezzle as long as you are intentional: brown rice mixed with a little sand
Tares, as long as the quantity is well controlled, will never attract attention. And the common people do not have as strong a sense of reporting and protecting rights as modern people.
Registering disaster victims is another job with many loopholes. Just like Wu De has seen the subsistence allowance in the past. People who need the subsistence allowance do not have the subsistence allowance, but many people who have no worries about food and drink receive the subsistence allowance and are playing mahjong. In modern times,
The government's strong control over the grassroots level is full of loopholes, not to mention the cross-travel group whose conditions are dozens of times worse? Wu De knew very well that it was impossible for him to check one by one whether the victims who received relief rice and were exempted from food taxes were the same.
Is it really a disaster? If someone wants to fish in troubled waters, there is a high chance that they will not be discovered.
"You mean you want us to engage in anti-corruption?" Ran Yao understood what he meant.