C2250 Suffering in China (1/2)
Xiao Letian fell into silence, and the eyes of everyone present fell onto him. Each of their expressions were anxious, as this was the heart of the problem, because no matter how plentiful your Chinese reasoning was, you would not be able to grasp Benjamin's position.
If this old man was completely shameless and acted shamelessly, ignoring all the principles of you Chinese, Xiao Letian, I want to ask, what do you think you should do?
After a full three to four minutes of silence, Xiao Letian sighed and turned his head, saying, ”Bring the map here, the one from East Asia …”
”Since you guys are here, let me give everyone a clear answer. Prime Minister Benjamin has always announced to the outside world that I am an ambitious person and a warlord. My ultimate goal is to overthrow the Great Qing Dynasty and claim the throne …”
”And the Chinese! ”The Prime Minister was also wearing a pair of tinted glasses to look at them, just like how the Chinese are like tides and fierce beasts, just like how the appearance of the Chinese would cause a bloodbath and cause an invasion of other countries …”
”Is the Chinese a collection of ambitious people, or is it the hope of East Asia's revival? ”I can't boast, I can only honestly tell everyone the truth …”
The map slowly opened up next to Xiao Letian, and the mountain and river landscape of East Asia slowly appeared before everyone's eyes.
Looking at the ancient and desolate East Asian land, Xiao Letian's face suddenly turned as gloomy as a shadow emperor's. Behind him, Wang Huaiyuan did not wait for the leader to speak as he handed over a document.
Xiao Letian raised the paper in his hand: ”Gentlemen, this is the latest report that I received from my subordinate before I left the Ryukyu.
”In March 1869, a severe drought occurred in the prefectures of Ruzhou and Nanyang in Henan. There was no rain in March, and the price of the wheat seedlings affected by the drought was over two million mu. In some areas, it was easy for the plants to be eaten …”
”Have you ever heard of eating something that's easy to eat? The despairing citizens really can't live on anymore. The two families can exchange for the young ones and eat them alive! ”
”Hiss …” The crowd gasped in surprise. Even though the difference between the rich and the poor in Europe was still extremely serious after the Industrial Revolution, the characteristic of the dark ages, the people who ate humans, had long disappeared.
In this era of Europe, although the people at the bottom were very poor, their basic survival was guaranteed. Extreme exceptions like the Irish Great Famine were recorded in history.
However, Qingguo was not like that. Traditional agricultural science and technology relied heavily on watching the sky and eating. Every year, there would be Great Famine s that crossed over to the prefecture, and the number of famines that affected hundreds of thousands or even millions of people was simply countless.
How many times had that happened? Basically, a famine of a hundred thousand people was not something the authorities would bother to report or even write about. A famine of more than a hundred thousand people would at most be casually brought over by the county or state officials.
Only the Special Great Famine Imperial Court, which had affected a province and had affected millions of people, took the matter seriously. Only the historical officials of the Beijing would make a record of this matter.
”Hur hur, it's easy to eat!” These were not the words from the ancient books, but the tragic events that had truly occurred in the Kingdom of Qing! In order to prevent such a tragedy from happening, at the time of the famine, our Chinese people had already mobilized 200,000 stones of food for emergency transportation …
”God knows how much of the food will be taken away. God knows if the people will be able to eat their fill …” ”But at least with these grains, eating human flesh should be much easier …”
Xiao Letian rubbed his bloodshot eyes. ”I really want to completely solve this famine, but I have the heart but I am powerless. Not only the Ru Province and the Nanyang Prefecture, in April, a storm struck the Fenhe River in Shanxi Province.