The Three Spirit Stones

When the hundreds of truckloads of relief supplies arrived in Luoyang, it was already fifteen days after the earthquake.

During these fifteen days, thousands of laborers and craftsmen worked day and night to repair the road and finally opened up this lifeline.

At the east city gate, Prefect Cai went out of the city in person to welcome Cheng Yu and his party. When he saw the hundreds of carts of supplies, the prefect, who had been frowning for some time, finally smiled. But after being happy, he couldn't help crying, and everyone behind him also cried.

These fifteen days have been so difficult!

Everyone in the team was also moved. It’s so hard for everyone!

After comforting each other, everyone entered the city. Looking at the dozens of heads hanging on the city gate, Cheng Yu asked what was going on?

The prefect replied that these were criminals who took advantage of the chaos to rob property and rape women. They must be severely punished, otherwise it would not be enough to deter those who have evil intentions.

Upon hearing this, Cheng Yu also agreed that severe punishments should be used in times of chaos. Compared to the disaster itself, the social disorder and chaos after the disaster is more terrifying.

……

In several camps for injured disaster victims, doctors were using alcohol to disinfect these patients. Once the alcohol was poured on the patients' wounds, they immediately grimaced in pain. After disinfection and application of the medicine, they used cloth that had been boiled in boiling water and dried to wrap the wounds. Within a few days, these wounds healed visibly. The doctors praised the alcohol as a life-saving medicine.

These alcohols had already been used on the wounded in the army. Considering that most of the injuries caused by the earthquake were external, wound disinfection was the most important thing. So Cheng Yu asked Sun Yuechan to bring a few trucks of alcohol, which really came in handy.

At the resettlement site for disaster victims in the city, the victims are queuing up to receive porridge.

There were nearly a hundred barrel-shaped stoves in front of the open space, and a large iron pot on top of the stove. The pot exuded an enticing porridge aroma that made people drool. The sticky hot porridge in the pot was bubbling, and it contained sweet potatoes, corn, potatoes and other grains, as well as some bacon.

As soon as the porridge is cooked, add more water and grains and continue cooking. A pot of porridge can be cooked in half an hour.

At first, people were worried that the porridge would run out quickly, so they rushed to line up, which would easily disrupt order, and accidents would easily happen.

So at the beginning, Prefect Cai arranged all the personnel that the government could mobilize to go to the porridge distribution site to help maintain order.

Later, people felt relieved when they saw that everyone could get a share of the porridge. Once people were at ease, order was immediately restored at the scene.

In addition to the people brought by Sun Yuechan, there were more local disaster victims at the soup distribution site. After they had taken a breath, they all voluntarily helped at the scene.

It is not an easy task to provide food for so many people. There are countless sweet potatoes to be washed and cut into pieces, water to be drawn, fuel to be added and reduced, etc.

The hundreds of carts of grain that were delivered were actually only enough for four or five days. Fortunately, Zhenzong Avenue was opened, and from the first day it could be driven normally, grain was transported in from warehouses all over the capital.

There must be a shortage of fuel in the disaster area, so it has to be transported from the capital. The porridge is cooked with a kind of honeycomb-shaped coal balls. One only has to take out the coal slag from the stove and put new ones in every few hours. It is very convenient and easy to use.

People began to use coal in the early Song Dynasty. At that time, it was called stone coal. The production area was the Hedong Road area, which is now Shanxi Province.

Since cheap coal became available, people have been using it for cooking and heating in their daily lives. They crush the coal, add some water and loess to make coal balls.

However, the coal briquettes need to be kept burning and the ashes shaken off frequently, and the burning of them produces billowing black smoke and flying ashes, which is very annoying.

After Cheng Yu renovated his own kitchen, he couldn't stand the shortcomings of coal balls, so he made his own honeycomb coal and added quicklime to it, so that there would be less smoke when burning.

A few years ago, he opened several coal mines on Hedong Road, mainly for smelting metals. Because of the advanced mining technology, the output increased, and he began to sell honeycomb coal and stoves.

Honeycomb coal has a strong fire, strong burning resistance, and burns thoroughly without leaving any black blocks. When changing the coal balls, press down with the new coal balls and the ashes will fall into the ash chamber. As long as the furnace door is closed, the ashes will not fly around. It is convenient and hygienic.

Honeycomb coal was reasonably priced and was widely welcomed by the people of Bianliang as soon as it was launched. However, this caused dissatisfaction among some people, such as Chai Zongqing, the son-in-law of Emperor Zhenzong of Song.

Chai Zongqing was the grandson of Chai Yuxi, the governor of Zhenning Army. He married the Princess of Lu. In the fifth year of Dazhong Xiangfu, he set his sights on the high profits of coal, so he began to plunder coal unscrupulously and finally sold it at a high price.

At that time, people were frozen to death or even trampled to death, largely because Chai Zongqing drove up the price of coal.

Later, when Emperor Zhenzong of Song saw this phenomenon, he issued an edict stipulating that anyone who sold coal had to obtain approval from the court. He also set up coal mines so that people would not rush to buy coal when there was a shortage of coal in winter.

It was not until the honeycomb coal made by Cheng Yu became popular that Chai Zongqing wanted to monopolize the coal and furnaces with him. Cheng Yu looked down on his profit-seeking attitude and rejected him with a random reason, but this also offended Chai Zongqing.

In fact, over the years, Cheng Yu had offended more than just Chai Zongqing.

In people's eyes, his Cheng's Industry is like a hen that lays golden eggs.

Soap, sugar, steel products, etc. are all unique craftsmanship, and are things that can make a lot of money. Many princes and nobles want to get a piece of the pie.

Of course, he understands that he should eat meat while others drink soup, but some people are too greedy and want to eat both meat and soup by relying on their power and status.

Cheng Yu is not a good man, how could he let these people succeed?

So, he has indeed offended quite a few people over the years.

In the following period, the imperial court's disaster relief supplies and rescue personnel continued to flow in from Zhenzong Avenue.

After enduring the initial difficult period, the ancient city of Luoyang finally recovered and people began to rebuild their homes.

The Luoyang government office also began disaster relief procedures, first asking households to report disasters, followed by the government's disaster inspection and copying of reports.

Disaster litigation means that after a disaster occurs, the people will report the disaster to the local government as soon as possible and seek government assistance.

After receiving a disaster complaint, local authorities must inspect the damage caused by the disaster. This is the second step of disaster inspection, also known as examination.

Copying letters is the last procedure in disaster assessment. County officials and relevant grassroots personnel register the affected population, estimate the extent of the disaster, and lay the foundation for future relief and assistance.

Post-disaster reconstruction is the most arduous task. During this period, in addition to helping some victims whose homes were not too seriously damaged to rebuild their homes, the government also funded the construction of many government houses for the victims whose homes were completely destroyed.

Among them, cement and steel bars played a huge role. The number of government houses was huge. If they were all built with bricks, there would not be so many at a time. So the craftsmen of Cheng's Industry came up with a solution.

First, use steel bars to build a frame about ten feet long, wide, and two meters high on the ground, fix it with wooden boards on both sides, pour cement into it, and remove the boards the next day to get the outline of a house.

Then add door and window beams. If there are tiles on the roof, use them. If there are no tiles, use straw and thatch temporarily. Finally, lay cement inside, and a house that can shelter from wind and rain is ready.

Although these houses were very small, they were still a hundred times better than sleeping on the streets. When the victims saw that the government houses allocated to them were so sturdy, they were so excited that they almost cried.

Fortunately, Zhenzong Avenue has been completed, and the production of cement can fully support the reconstruction of the disaster-stricken areas.

In addition to the above work, there is also the handling of the bodies of the victims. One of the complications after a disaster is epidemics, which are often caused by rotting corpses. To some extent, burying corpses is a special disaster relief policy of the government.

The Song Dynasty was the era in which natural disasters occurred most frequently among almost all dynasties. The rescue procedures became increasingly standardized and institutionalized based on the experience of previous dynasties. Timely and comprehensive rescue and resettlement of disaster victims could calm people's hearts and promote the recovery and development of economic production in disaster-stricken areas, thus promoting the progress of the entire society of the Northern Song Dynasty.