son-in-law

Chapter 231 Fire Night (4)

Chapter 231 Fire Night ([-])

It's raining.

The clouds were slightly blue, and the sky seemed to be only half clear. The heavy rain rolled the yellow mud in the yard, beside the ruins, and in the streets and alleys into turbid streams.Immersed in the rain, there were still various cleaning sounds. A worker in a coir raincoat pushed a cart and dragged a wooden basket, and was still leaving the ruins everywhere, transporting away the earth and rocks that needed to be discarded. All the streets, lanes and courtyards are full of such scenes.

Many sheds had already been set up in the courtyard of the Su family in Taiping Lane. In the rain, the water droplets leaking from the eaves formed a curtain, and a small figure ran across wearing—or should I say holding a bamboo hat. After a short period of rain, the small figure hugged the bamboo hat and looked into a room after reaching the eaves without rain.This is a four or five-year-old girl with a head injury and bandages.

It was only a few days after the earthquake, and the environment was not necessarily good. The room the little girl looked at was a bit messy, but judging from the condition of the cabinets, big bed, and waterproofing, it was already considered a good place. Pretty good.She glanced timidly at the door, and the man inside saw her and waved to her.

"Uncle Uncle..."

The little girl yelled and entered the room. The man then checked the bandage on her head and nodded with his hand: "Does it still hurt?"

"It hurts a bit..."

"Then rest in the room and don't run around."

"No one is in the room, it's so boring, what are uncles and aunts doing, can Xiaorou help you?"

"This is very dangerous, you can't touch it yet, and you have an injury on your head, I'll give you a candy, sit by and watch."

The man called Uncle Uncle is naturally Ning Yi, and the little girl is the daughter of a accountant in the Su family, named Chen Jirou.On the day of the earthquake, I was hit on the head by something and bled, but the injury was not serious after inspection. It was a fate.It had only been two or three days at this point, and they were already jumping around alive and well.

Although it was raining, because the shed was built solidly, there were no leaks inside and the ground was dry. Several wooden baskets and sieves were placed on the floor of the room, large and small, and some were set up with benches.These containers are basically filled with powders that have been mixed. It is rainy and it is the beginning of autumn when the weather is humid. These powders are not very dry. Ning Yi took some and placed them in a line on the ground next to them.

"Be careful and stay away."

After he finished speaking to the little girl, he picked up the torch and touched it, with a "puff", the flame rose with a bang, and then turned into smoke and dispersed.The little girl snorted suddenly, and her body almost shrank a circle beside her, but her eyes widened after blinking a few times, trying to see the scene in front of her clearly.

Su Tan'er, who came in from the door, was also taken aback. In addition, Chan'er and Juan'er followed. Chan'er poked her head curiously, while Juan'er adjusted her position behind Su Tan'er, as if trying to make herself Rounded up, trying to line up with his uncle and miss, the ultimate goal is to prevent Ning Yi from seeing himself.

"Sir, is this... gunpowder?"

Su Tan'er frowned slightly and walked over, picked up Xiao Jirou, looked at the bandage on her head, but her eyes still stayed on Ning Yi's side.When she and Ning Yi got married, she was a character who would ask and understand everything. It was because of the sense of responsibility. At this time, she didn't ask much about what Ning Yi was going to do, and any unexpected actions.Even if Ning Yi blew up the house and demolished it, as long as she saw that Ning Yi did it, she wouldn't be angry, and I'm afraid she would study with her husband how to dismantle it quickly.But at this time, I was still a little curious and hesitant, after all, gunpowder seemed dangerous.

"Well, I prepared some while I was free. This thing is dangerous. I will receive it later and let people watch it. It must not touch the fire."

Ning Yi put the gunpowder into small wooden barrels one by one, and hammered them tightly.Xiaochan squatted by the side to watch, and then went to help: "It's the bucket that Xianggong ordered to drag from Qian's house a few days ago."

"Added some things." Ning Yi looked at Su Tan'er, then smiled, "It's a rainy day, I hope I don't need it, if not, these are actually not worth the big use."

Later, several members of the family carefully packed the gunpowder into small barrels one by one, and then called someone to move them to a slightly off-camera room at the back where things could be stored.Ning Yi put on a coir raincoat and went outside, Su Tan'er hugged the little girl, Chan'er and Juan'er followed with an umbrella, beside the road outside the courtyard gate, Xing'er, who was mostly wet, was holding an umbrella in the rain Instructing everyone in the family to move the things in the ruins, to throw away or to take in and put away, even Geng Nuyuan and others listened to her instructions.It looks like a girl who has a leadership temperament similar to Su Tan'er.

Seeing Ning Yi and the others, she brushed her wet hair and trotted over with her skirt.

On the street at this time, there were also people from several other families in Taiping Lane, who pushed the cart or lifted the box and passed by in the rain. When they saw Ning Yi, they respectfully called him Su Family Uncle or Ning Family Uncle, and some called Ning Young Master Ning Master , this name is quite confusing, but it can be regarded as a greeting.

After all, the reason for everything still has to be attributed to what happened on the night of the earthquake and the next two or three days.Ning Yi has no specific implementation experience for earthquake relief, but in later generations, a lot of information is subtle, and he always understands many basic measures.He led the people to figure out their own affairs, and then went to help other people in Taiping Lane.

At the beginning, it was just a hand in hand, but in such an emergency situation, many things naturally cannot be hidden.Ning Yi directed the crowd to dig and save people. When the ability to conduct strategic planning and control the overall situation was revealed little by little, others often involuntarily followed his arrangements, and then the whole scene operated very smoothly.After many people were rescued and several disasters caused by recklessness were avoided, everyone naturally remembered him.

This is not something that can be taken advantage of with a slanted sword, and it can't be called very amazing. Once it is exposed, it will shine brightly. It is originally a temperament cultivated by being in the decision-making level for a long time.If the person present is an otaku, even if he is given the position of leader, this person will inevitably feel flustered and lack confidence, and even issuing an order will make people involuntarily distrust him and feel that this person is unreliable.But even if Ning Yi casually said an order of "this should be done", others would involuntarily feel that "this person has something in his heart", and very few people would question Ning Yi's momentum in an emergency, so he also It makes the whole scene orderly.

After all, this is a kind of self-confidence that is naturally developed by a person who has assumed responsibility for a long time. When he has truly grasped some basic points and can make people observe order, the rest of the things will appear simple.

Then they moved things, rescued people, and scolded those who moved the ruins not to cause a second collapse. Especially with the cooperation of others, the corpses under the ruins were moved out of Taiping Lane for incineration at the first time, and nothing happened. obstruction.This was even enforced by soldiers in other parts of the city, and a major conflict almost broke out.

Then the several families in this alley were more or less influenced by the couple Ning Yi and Su Tan'er.To be honest, when Ning Yi joined the Su family, he was originally supposed to be called Uncle Su, but some people knew that his surname was Ning, so they called him Ning. Uncle Ning, Master Ning, and Young Master Ning, Su Tan'er and three The servant girl also made great efforts in such a situation, but they are women, and it is natural for others who are not familiar with them to speak boldly.

On the first day after the earthquake, Ning Yi asked someone to drag enough grain from the Qian family to store it. By the way, he actually asked the Qian family to get two barrels of gunpowder.Today is the third day of rain, and Ning Yi was free to further process the big gunpowder.At this time, black powder was actually used in the military, but it was not the best in terms of performance. Some places were equipped with firearms to defend the city, and they just threw barrels of gunpowder down.Ning Yi made some changes to the ingredients of the black powder, adding and subtracting. After all, there is no very fine processing environment at this time, but the performance can always be increased, and it is barely usable in the future.

No matter how good the performance of pyrotechnic powder is, it is far less than smokeless powder that requires chemical processes. Ning Yi's enthusiasm for gunpowder is actually due to inertial thinking. It can be used simply for mines, bombs and the like.In fact, there are already sulfuric acid and other things these days. He has been messing around in Jiangning for more than a year. If it is there, if there is really some smokeless gunpowder, or the prototype of smokeless gunpowder, nitrocellulose, etc. Yes, but the initial smokeless gunpowder was indeed too dangerous, so it has been put on hold, and he is unwilling to hand over these crafts to others, otherwise Kang Xian will have a lot of people waiting to be killed.But at this time in Hangzhou, I just wanted to meet an emergency, so I couldn't do so much.

After all, the ancient economic system and social system are difficult to give Ning Yi enough sense of security. When a disaster occurs, the first thing to do is to stock up food, and the gunpowder is also just in case, not that something is going to happen.In the past few days, the Hangzhou government has initially controlled the situation in the city, but various unsettling things are still happening.

Because of the accident, some people in the rivers and lakes took risks, scrambled for property, and then various conflicts caused by the burning of corpses.The Fang on the side of Taiping Lane died during the earthquake, and the vice Fangzheng had no backbone. He also found Ning Yi in the past few days to discuss repairing the wall near Taiping Lane and organizing young and strong patrols.

In the city, there have been several incidents like people from one street beating people from another street, usually because of small disputes caused by individuals, or friction caused by everyone organizing to dig up the ruins, and then it quickly expanded. There are also beggars and thieves who have lost their homes, looking for money and belongings in the ruins at night.

Before it rained, everyone was given a buffer of one day, but a considerable number of people in the city still had no time to move out their food, money, and belongings.Big households like the Qian family have enough manpower, and the food storage in Hangzhou will not suffer too much loss on the whole, but due to the losses of small households, the price of food in the city has soared these days—even if there is a disaster After all, after the initial control, some people still took the opportunity to open a store, and took the opportunity to increase the price to make huge profits.

After seeing the situation of his own house in the heavy rain, Fu Fang Zheng came over after a while, pulling Ning Yi to visit the family members of some deceased in the alley, and Ning Yi followed him.At the end of the alley, the mother of a wealthy businessman surnamed Tang was crushed to death by the collapsed house, but his son was later rescued by Ning Yi. At this time, he simply set up a mourning hall, dressed in hemp and mourning, and held Ning Yi to express his gratitude while crying.The deputy Fangzheng probably wanted to recommend him to be in charge, and then mentioned various connections with the government, and he couldn't help talking about his status as a married woman. Dong Zhu, the driver of the incident, has also returned, taking off his coir raincoat, and then began to report what he saw and heard.

"I don't know why, although it's raining heavily, there seem to be more and more refugees coming from outside the city. The collapsed city wall is already being repaired, and the soldiers of the Wude Camp have sealed off the city. If it weren't for the post from my uncle, I would I’m afraid they won’t even be able to get in. Those refugees can’t come in, they’re making trouble outside. Although the people in the yamen are also releasing food to help the disaster, the people in Chengli can’t get enough to eat, and the refugees outside the city are similar..."

Let Dongzhu go out, mainly to observe the situation outside the city.Su Tan'er listened and sighed.

"There was a war going on in the west, and the refugees all ran to this side. Now that there is an earthquake, all the affected people from the ten miles and eight villages will come here."

Ning Yi thought for a while and said with a smile: "We used to be in Jiangning, and there was a little misfortune, and the people nearby also gathered in the city, right?"

What he said seemed to be affirmative, and also a bit like a test, after all, he didn't know exactly what the past situation was like.Su Tan'er glanced at him, and nodded after thinking for a while: "Yes, in fact, the city is always richer than the country, and the government is in charge. In order to reduce the number of people who starve to death, food is always released... Mr. What are you thinking?"

"The rice is about to ripen, at most one and a half months, and this season's rice will be harvested. Earthquakes are big things to say, but except for the people who were crushed to death after knocking down the house once, the rest can always be harvested." Find some surplus food to survive this period of time, why come so much at once..."

"Sanggong thinks there is a problem?"

Xing'er over there also widened her eyes: "Fang, Fang La? My uncle means..."

Ning Yi smiled and shook his head: "No, I should have thought too much. There are already a lot of refugees coming from the west. We have only been here for two months, and we don't know how many refugees there will be in the past. If there is no reference, just say It's irresponsible to be more. When I think about it now, it may be because we are not locals, so we feel sensitive no matter what we think. There is no shortage of powerful people here in Hangzhou Prefecture. There should be consideration and precautions for these things. But...it's a pity that the river collapsed, otherwise I would rather get a boat and return to Jiangning in a few days, anyway, I was prepared to go at the beginning anyway. If I want to go by land now, there is no need when the refugees are scattered. By the way, is there anything going on in town?"

Dong Zhu thought for a while: "Oh, Qian's, Mu's, and several others started selling grain this morning, and the price is three times as high as before, but it's much cheaper than others. Besides, it's raining It's been a few days, and Chengli has been digging and digging to say that the matter of burning the corpse is not as urgent as it was a few days ago. This morning, some people in the north of the city fought with the military master who dragged the corpse. The fight was really fierce. I heard that One was killed on the spot, and now they are going to the government office..."

Ning Yi frowned. The big landlords will start to equalize the price of food. This is predictable. Although most people regard merchants or landlords as heinous, such a chaotic city of Hangzhou is not in their interest at all.The best way is naturally to carry out a new round of mergers and embezzlement during the entire recovery process, but the matter of the corpse is...

"It's raining so much, it shouldn't matter if you bury it later." Su Tan'er smiled as she thought about it. Although she also knew the need to burn the corpse, as a person of this era, it is very important for people to die after death. There is always a certain repulsion to burning directly. Relatively speaking, this heavy rain gave everyone a chance to buffer.However, seeing Ning Yi frowning, she asked in a low voice, "Sir?"

Ning Yi smiled and didn't speak.

That night, the heavy rain seemed to be weakening. The couple stood by the window of the shed and looked out. The room was lit with candles. The room was simple, but for Su Tan'er, it was indeed a warm light. Occasionally there were people outside the house. Walking by, or the sound of trivial conversations.She was also tired all day. After taking a bath, she put on her unlined clothes and held Ning Yi's hand: "What is Xianggong thinking?"

"If the rain stops tomorrow, I want to go to the city gate to see what it looks like outside. Dongzhu said there are many people, but I don't know how many people there are."

Su Tan'er rested her chin on his shoulder: "Let's go together...do you still think this place is dangerous?"

"It's impossible to talk about." Ning Yi held her shoulders, "I would think that if I were Fang La, I would take the opportunity to attack Hangzhou. But the strength and deployment of the Wude Camp, the control of Hangzhou Mansion over here, and even I don't know the situation on Fang La's side at all. There is no basis for saying this. Intellectually speaking, the peasant army's command, speed, and combat effectiveness must be very problematic. It's not that there are no talents on the Hangzhou government. People are not idiots, they were able to block Fang La before, and they will definitely be more vigilant now, so from this point of view, I am more inclined that Hangzhou will not have an accident, it is just to see... Take a step back, if Fang La really If you are going to take it here, the reaction should not be so fast..."

Su Tan'er nodded, she was in a lazy mood at this time, and she didn't want to think about things beside Ning Yi, and then Ning Yi said: "It's a corpse, which is very problematic."

"what happened?"

"If I were Lu Tuizhi, I would arrest people for surgery today, and pull them out to kill a group. It was announced to the public that this group of people colluded with Fang La, deliberately left the corpse, provoke conflicts, and conspired to seize the city during the chaos. This matter After the announcement, everyone in the city will no longer have any objections to the handling of the corpse, and there will be less trouble in the future..."

"But there will be chaos in the city..."

"No chaos, no one believes that Fang La will not have the idea of ​​Hangzhou. With the power of this murder, it is justifiable to strengthen the control inside and outside Hangzhou, and make preparations for war. First, under this kind of chaos, the situation in the city can be brought to an end faster. Control it, and prevent it before it happens, and eliminate the possibility of real turmoil. In this situation, a high degree of centralization and vigorous and resolute action is the best policy..."

He then laughed again: "Of course, if we really want to do this, there will be a lot of troubles on the prefect's side, and there will be intrigues in the officialdom. This extreme way of restricting power will definitely encounter great resistance... I just thought about it casually." Just think about it."

The wife gave a "hmm" sound, and then said softly: "It's Xiaochan's matter that has been postponed again, and there is also the matter at the poetry meeting. Mr. Xianggong clearly wrote such a good poem, and the earthquake shook in a blink of an eye..."

Regarding this, this wife who loves her husband's reputation as a talented scholar has always been a little bit brooding.

******************

At the same night, at the other end of the city, there were people looking at the rain curtain in the dark. There was light on the other side of the rain curtain. Among the ruins, there was a hay shed of the mourning hall, but half of the mourning hall had collapsed.

There were two people speaking.

"The heavy rain seems to be about to stop. When the rain stops tomorrow, the Hangzhou government will no longer be able to ignore the corpses that have not been dug up... Haha, I'm afraid the stench will come out..."

"If it had been hot, the corpses would have been dug up in sevens and eighties by this time. The heavy rain right now has helped me and others. They were lucky if the rush was slow...but tomorrow will not stop, It should be another day."

"That's just right, we are more prepared. One more day, people like Foshuai, Xin Xingzong, and Liu Dabiao should also come. Stone cutters, you seem to have said something before, if God doesn't take it, you will be blamed instead, right? That’s what you’re talking about? Haha, in my opinion, this Hangzhou should have been given to us by God... It’s a pity, it’s shaken like this..."

"If God doesn't take it, you will be blamed; if the time is not right, you will suffer... We were about to go here, and it caused an earthquake. It must be God's will... Once we take this place, Brother Nang, Daoan Brother, they are responding everywhere, and the southeast matter should be settled."

"Haha, you are always well-educated. I said you are a stone cutter. You are so knowledgeable. Why did you always dig stones in the mountains before? It would be nice if you came out and became a schoolteacher."

"No way, float on the sea, I'd rather hide in the mountains and chisel my stones, than come out and teach a bunch of kids to read their books..."

"Learned, I don't understand. But it doesn't matter, I Shi Bao is a rough person, I will do whatever you say, and I will kill whoever you say. Haha, when the time comes... as you said, Dongnan has decided , Sheng Gong is the emperor, let him give you a prime minister, and I will be a general. When I go to the brothel, I can whoever whoever I want... Tsk, I heard that there are many beautiful girls here in Hangzhou, I hope they will Survive, I will not bully them, I will give money, hahahaha..."

The laughter went away a little arrogantly, and the black figure standing in front of the window looked at the rain curtain for a while, and then laughed: "Heh, if it wasn't for making more money by digging stones than teaching, who the hell would dig stones. Good question." ..." He sighed, and cast his eyes further away, shaking like raving in the rain.

"I've been waiting for this day..."

******************

The next day, it was still raining, just a little less.After breakfast, Ning Yi, Su Tan'er, and Chan'er still drove the carriage, left Taiping Lane, and headed towards the city gate, preparing to see the situation outside the city with their own eyes...

(End of this chapter)