Chapter 691: The whole country supports Qingzhou
Zhuge Liang's letter directly shattered Ma Su's idea of personally participating in disaster relief. The last sentence of Zhuge Liang's personal arrest made Ma Su behave himself.
Zhuge Liang obviously knew Ma Su. If he hadn't persuaded him, he would have really sneaked into the disaster area. With Ma Su's physical condition, it was uncertain whether he could come out after entering.
And with Ma Su's status, if something unexpected happened in there, the government would have to send extra people to find him. In this way, Ma Su would not only fail to serve as a role model, but also cause trouble for the government's disaster relief.
So Ma Su should stay aside for such things.
In the end, Ma Su was unable to personally provide disaster relief as he had thought. Instead, he continued to sit in the center and was personally responsible for adjusting the deployment for large-scale disaster relief.
Fortunately, as time went on, Ma Su found that the disaster was not as serious as he had imagined.
The total population of Pingyuan County and the northern part of Jinan County was not large, with a total of only about 100,000 people. The impact of such a large-scale disaster was not as great as imagined. And the scale of the victims was far less than he imagined.
In just one month, a large number of victims in the north of Jinan received relief. And under Ma Su's repeated emphasis, the relief tents everywhere paid attention to hygiene as much as possible.
The effect seems to be insignificant, and generally speaking, the plague did not break out.
The only problem is that a large area north of the Jishui River has since become a flood area. And Pingyuan County is mostly soaked in the Yellow River water.
This is just the beginning of the flood. If the gap in the Yellow River is not blocked in time, when the flood arrives, Pingyuan County will be completely ruined.
Ma Su has no good way to deal with this, so he can only plan how to block the gap in the Yellow River first.
While Ma Su tried his best to control the scope of the disaster, Zhuge Liang also sent the news to Chang'an. As soon as the news came out, the entire Ji Han court was shocked.
No one expected that Cao Wei would be so crazy. In order to stop the Han army from going north, the Yellow River was even dug up.
But after the shock, the Ji Han court also reacted quickly. After Liu Chan personally issued an edict for disaster relief, the Shangshutai passed it at the speed of light, and the decree for disaster relief was issued in just a few days.
Liu Chan even said that the whole country should support Qingzhou disaster relief!
All under heaven, it belongs to the king. They are all the people of the Han Dynasty, how can they give up at will?
At the same time, the Guandong counties were also mobilized in advance under the deployment of Zhuge Liang. Many of the materials that Zhuge Liang planned to use for the next attack on Cao Wei and Dongwu were requisitioned and transported up.
In a sense, Sima Shi's plan was still very successful. When the Yellow River stopped flowing, Ji Han really had no energy to care about it anymore, and even Zhang Yi, who was stationed in Baimadu, was transferred to assist in disaster relief.
Once the external pressure was gone, Sima Shi could fully operate the next plan. As for whether he would be hated by Xishu because of this... Ma Su had long been unwilling to let them go, so Sima Shi did not need to consider these things at all.
However, what Sima Shi did not expect was that his move also helped Ji Han. After he took the initiative to cut off the Yellow River and Guandong thought it had caused a natural disaster, he instantly sent the hearts of the people in Guandong to Ji Han's arms.
After all, compared to the taxes collected by Ji Han, safety is the priority of the Guandong nobles. When seeing Ji Han's efficient response speed to the disaster and his attitude towards disaster relief, most of the Guandong nobles were relieved.
This court is still reliable, and he can really help us when we are in trouble.
So, with Sima Shi's divine assistance, Ji Han solved the problem of Guandong people's hearts that had not been solved for a long time!
In December, Zhuge Liang finally arrived at the seat of Jinan County and took over the disaster relief work from Ma Su. Along with Zhuge Liang, there were also money and grain transferred from Xuzhou, and the disaster relief work gradually stabilized.
"Thank you for your hard work, Youchang. If it weren't for you, I'm afraid the disaster would have spread to Donglai..." Zhuge Liang looked at the disaster that was gradually stabilized by Ma Su, and couldn't help but let out a long sigh, shaking his feather fan to praise Ma Su.
"The reaction was really fast, and the means were decisive enough!"
"Prime Minister, you are too kind..." Ma Su shook his head and smiled bitterly.
"Under this disaster, I didn't do enough... It's a pity, if I had known that the pseudo-Wei was so crazy, I would have had a chance to prevent this tragedy."
Actively digging the Yellow River to defeat the enemy... Such a cruel method has only appeared a few times in two thousand years...
"Don't blame yourself too much, no one thought that they would have no moral principles at all... They are the shame of Confucianism!" Zhuge Liang's face also became gloomy, and he waved his hand gently.
"We will settle accounts with them in the future! This is not your problem. On the contrary, your disaster relief was indeed timely enough this time... So I won't bother you for leaving without permission."
"Tell me about the current situation. When the follow-up supplies are complete, we will find a way to restore the affected areas."
Faced with Zhuge Liang's inquiry, Ma Su immediately responded.
"Prime Minister, we don't know how large the area where the Yellow River is blocked is, but judging from the situation, it is obviously not small."
"Because the Wei army dug up the south bank of the Yellow River, a large amount of river water gushed out and spread to the entire Pingyuan County. The water flowed southward into the Jishui River, forming a large yellow flood area in this area..."
"In the current situation, if the gap in the Yellow River cannot be blocked in time, the disaster here will continue. As time goes by, Qingzhou will surely be filled with plague..."
Overall, Qingzhou is quite lucky this time. Because Jishui is still there, this river blocked the gushing water of the Yellow River and saved most of Qingzhou.
Moreover, in this era, even if the Wei army dug out the embankment of the Yellow River, it was not that big. It will not be like the masterpiece of a certain bald man in later generations, which allowed the water of the Yellow River to flow all the way into the Huaihe River.
But even so, the situation is very troublesome. Now the entire area between the Yellow River and Jishui has become a yellow flood zone. It is difficult for civilians to pass through it and find the location of the gap.
And if the gap cannot be plugged, the disaster will never be contained.
"Is it possible to pass through Yanzhou and go east along the Jishui narrow road?" Zhuge Liang raised his eyebrows and said after thinking for a while.
It is not that there is no road from Yanzhou to Shandong. There is still a narrow passage there. If we can't directly go north from the south bank of Jishui to plug the gap, we have to find another way.
"Maybe, but... that place is too close to Hebei. If we dispatch a large number of manpower from there, the Wei army can easily go south to harass." Ma Di scratched his head and asked
"If you personally sit at the key pass, I won't believe that the fake Wei Dynasty dares to go south!" Zhuge Liang was not worried and could only give a solution.
However, as soon as this plan was announced, Ma Su immediately asked subconsciously.
"Shall I go? Then who will take charge of blocking the gap in the Yellow River?"
"Huh? Do you still want to plug the gap in the Yellow River yourself?"
Zhuge Liang's eyes suddenly became dangerous.