Wang Mang's power is growing, but his mood is not bright. Because the weather was out of place for him: in the second year of the first year of Emperor Hanping (AD 2), a sudden drought swept most of the territory of the Western Han Dynasty, and for a time there was no food in the world, and hungry people were everywhere.
Wang Mang was a little confused. It's like that you have just enjoyed a delicious citrus, but immediately pick out half of the maggots from your teeth. He accepted the full face brought by the expansion of power, and looked up to the sky and asked, "What are you doing?"? Didn't you always praise me before? What happened this time? What did I do wrong?
In fact, God's temper is always as crazy as a drunkard, even if the cow is as fierce as Wang Mang, it is difficult to understand.
Blessings never come together, and disasters never come singly. The drought was followed by a plague of locusts. The swarms of locusts that block the sky and the sun roar past like fighter planes. Where they pass, they can gently wipe off all accessible objects like a blackboard eraser. From dry crops to half dead trees, even door frames and window frames, we will not let them go.
People are crawling on the ground or crouching in the corner, waiting patiently for the locusts to leave in fear like evading bombers.
Fortunately, grasshoppers are only herbivores, not carnivores or omnivores. Otherwise, it is estimated that even humans would not be spared.
When the locusts flew away and the sun shone on the earth again, people looked closely and found that they could not even eat the leaves and bark. There was no alternative but to flee to save the glimmer of hope for life.
The memorials reporting the disaster situation came one after another. Wang Mang was so worried that he actively arranged all counties to do their best to relieve the disaster.
But there were only a few grains in the national treasury, and they were distributed to the victims from one turnip to one pit. What did the emperor eat? What do government officials eat?
This is the case. Wang Mang is exposed to this situation. If he wants to help the victims to the greatest extent, he must open up a new path.
Fortunately, Wang Mang was smart enough to suddenly realize that the landlord must have some surplus food.
Therefore, in addition to the regular actions of the government, Wang Mang decided to mobilize the private forces to raise money for charity.
As the saying goes, when one side is in trouble, it is supported by all sides. Blood is thicker than water, and water is thicker than the Red Cross.
Wang Mang took the lead and announced that he would donate one million yuan and 30% of the land. And let the Grand Manager be responsible for the use of these donations.
After the announcement, he waited for the response. But after several hours, no one learned from him.
"Shit, a bunch of heartless misers," Wang Mang scolded in his heart.
It was no way to wait like this. He decided to use some means.
First, he went to talk with the three officials and nine ministers: "Is it necessary to pay more attention to the anti-corruption work recently?"
The ministers did not know why and did not dare to answer, but their fear was already written on their faces.
Wang Mang looked around and continued, "Oh, yes, this can be put aside for the time being. Disaster relief is the top priority. But there is no surplus in the national treasury. I just donated some yesterday."
The hectares looked at each other.
"Let's finish the meeting." Wang Mang stood up to see off the guests.
Half an hour later, the big minister came to the palace to report that so far, 230 ministers have donated money and goods, with a total of
Wang Mang smiled.
When the rich folk saw that all the officials had donated, they could not afford to be penniless. So they also donated money one after another.
In this way, charities were launched with great vigour. The money and goods were constantly gathered in the hands of the big Si Nong. Wang Mang personally supervised to ensure that every penny was spent on the victims.
Later, in view of the thorny situation of the influx of victims into Chang'an City, Wang Mang not only did not expel the victims foolishly, but also did not issue any seemingly clever restrictions. Instead, he did not refuse to come and fully respected the desire of the victims to visit Chang'an. Not only that, he also built more than 200 civilian houses for the victims to live in. This is probably the earliest affordable housing and low rent housing.
Not to mention that, Wang Mang also led his ministers to write to the Queen Mother, Wang Zhengjun, asking her to lower the level of clothes and meals to show her sympathy for the victims.
Wang Zhengjun readily agreed.
Wang Mang himself insisted on not eating meat to express his determination to share hardships with the people.
With the joint efforts of everyone, the Western Han Empire finally survived this natural disaster. What is worth writing about is that, even in the history books that I tried to discredit, I did not find any records on the number of people who died of hunger in this drought. This shows the success of the disaster relief.
However, Wang Mang has formed a habit since then. As long as there is any major disaster or minor disaster in the country, he will take vegetarian food for a period of time.