Chapter 400: Pingjindu Post-Disaster Reconstruction

Xiluozhou, Pingjindu, the temporary location of the Zhenfusi.

Although Shendao's plan was not accomplished last night, the entire Pingjindu city still suffered a lot of damage. Fortunately, there was no dragon causing trouble at this time, and the clouds and rain stopped. Tangzhou Prefecture, which had been prepared, began to mobilize food and grass through water transportation, appeased the people, and started reconstruction work. During this process, the Zhenfu Division also had to shoulder the task of investigating the cause of the incident.

Of course, the three third-rank Confucianists were also present. Yao Qin glanced silently at Deng Zhenquan next to him, and then looked at Sha Youcheng who was busy directing things in the main hall. They had been watching here for a whole day, and still hadn't figured out how to deal with it. It was difficult to catch Sha Youcheng before, and it would naturally be even more difficult to catch Sha Youcheng now.

Not to mention that others did not plot against Confucianism according to Zhou Tieyi's other intention, and had already done a big favor to Confucianism. Just the fact that other brothers filled the earth veins last night and maintained the stability of a town of 200,000 or 300,000 people, with this merit, vast luck and merit continued to fall. Anyone who has a little knowledge of qi knows that dealing with Sha Youcheng at this time is no different from going against God, and this does not count the situation where Zhou Tieyi is secretly doing bad things on the side.

Suddenly, a clerk came in and reported, "The flying roc that Zhou Hou was riding has arrived at Pingjin Ferry."

Sha Youcheng gave instructions for the official business at hand, then ignored the three Confucian scholars and walked out to greet them.

Deng Zhenquan and the other two looked a little embarrassed. Yao Qin looked at Deng Zhenquan and asked, "How should this matter be resolved?"

Deng Zhenquan has been thinking for a long time today, including the matter of Zhou Tieyi asking Sha Youcheng and Li Jianhu to enlighten him. He looked in the direction of Tianjing and said, "This is a different time. Perhaps Mr. Dong should reconsider the relationship between us and Zhou Tieyi."

Yao Qin and Lu Shanqing remained silent. The feud between Confucianism and Zhou Tieyi certainly did not start with the Lake Heart Academy case. Lake Heart Academy was just an extension. The feud between Confucianism and Zhou Tieyi started with the Emperor of Great Xia!

Confucianism wants to stop the Emperor of Great Xia from practicing Taoism, and Zhou Tieyi is the person designated by the Emperor of Great Xia to suppress Confucianism. The core conflict between Confucianism and Zhou Tieyi lies with the Emperor of Great Xia.

But that was in the past. Since the moon phase system began, the situation in the court has changed. One obvious sign is that Zhou Tieyi is no longer favored!
The Emperor of Great Xia has begun to be wary of Zhou Tieyi and even to suppress him, just like he suppressed Confucianism at that time. However, Zhou Tieyi's power is still small and things are developing too fast, so the Emperor of Great Xia has no time to get rid of him.

So from this point of view, Confucianism and Zhou Tieyi were both suppressed by the Emperor of Great Xia.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend. In politics, there are no eternal enemies or friends, only eternal interests.

Therefore, in the Pingjin Ferry incident, partly because of the lower-class people and partly because of the change in the emperor of Daxia, Zhou Tieyi did not choose to skin the Confucians, but gave the Confucians a step of easing, and this step of easing could influence Deng Zhenquan to the central government.

After Deng Zhenquan finished speaking, he went to the flower hall with Lu Shanqing and Yao Qin to wait.

Zhou Tieyi got off Feipeng and took a carriage to the temporary location of the Zhushen Division. It was already dark at this time, but lights were on everywhere and officials were still busy as post-disaster rescue is never an easy task.

"Zhou Hou."

Sha Youcheng bowed and said that he really wanted to ask about his brother Yuan Tong, because the battle report written by Tieyi last week clearly stated that Yuan Tong forcibly swallowed the dragon vein in order to prevent the ground from sinking, and used his body to repair the ground and reverse the situation.

Da Xia has also sent a third-grade Feng Shui master to check and confirmed the result, but Sha Youcheng and Yuan Tong have their own innate senses, so he can sense that his brothers are not dead yet. However, he dare not tell anyone about this conclusion and can only ask Zhou Tieyi alone.

Zhou Tieyi nodded calmly, "The magistrate of Pingjindu, the head of the Tangzhou Prefecture's Finance and Grain Bureau and others are all here, right?"

"Everyone has arrived."

Zhou Tieyi thought for a moment and continued, "Call the three Confucianists over so we can solve the problem together today."

After Deng Zhenquan and the other two had sat in the flower hall for a while, they saw a clerk coming to invite them. Without hesitation, the three of them walked to the meeting hall, where a huge map had been spread out. The map covered the entire Pingjin Ferry, with a large number of damaged houses marked on it.

Zhou Tieyi was talking to the person in charge of the Pingjin Ferry Construction Bureau next to him.

"The basic exploration work has been completed, and the ground subsidence has completely stopped, thanks to the filling of the land by Ape Lord and the suppression of the river bank by Zhou Hou's Five Finger Mountain. Although some houses are damaged now, the terrain will not change drastically, and the damaged ground veins are also slowly recovering."

Zhou Tieyi looked at the map, picked up a charcoal pencil, and marked several plots of land near the riverbank where a large number of houses were damaged. "The houses here are damaged. I don't think it's suitable for people to live there anymore. Why not demolish these plots of land and build a steel plant or shipyard here? The owners of the damaged houses can find jobs in the steel plant or shipyard. How about using work as relief?"

As soon as Zhou Tieyi said this, the entire busy meeting hall fell silent for a while, and all pairs of eyes looked at Zhou Tieyi.

Zhou Tieyi asked, "Why? No?"

It's close to the river bank, with developed water transportation and people living and working in peace and contentment. If you go there to demolish houses on a normal day, you don't know how many troubles will arise. Now you tell them that the soil is loose and the houses are damaged. The county government will directly buy the house and build a factory, and then recruit workers to provide labor instead of relief. The price and difficulty will be ten times easier than usual!
Moreover, as long as you have learned basic geography knowledge, you will know that places with convenient water transportation are extremely suitable for building factories. As long as the people in the factory are not hopelessly stupid, they will definitely make a lot of money in this society in the early stages of industrial development, and then they can just supply the local people.

The head of the Pingjin Ferry Construction Bureau coughed, thinking of the reforms Zhou Tieyi had implemented in Shantong Prefecture. Looking at the newspapers in Shantong Prefecture, apart from praising Zhou Tieyi to the utmost, the most boastful person was the head of the Shantong Prefecture Construction Bureau. That guy had already proposed to build Zhougong Buildings in every mine to allow millions of miners to live and work in peace and contentment.

The so-called Zhougong Building is the kind of house made of steel and soil proposed by Zhou Tieyi!
This is real political achievement. Which head of the local industrial and construction bureau would think it is too little?

He had been busy from last night to today, and he gave a shot of chicken blood to his tired face, "Okay, of course!" Without paying attention to the magistrate's look, the head of the Industrial Construction Bureau spoke directly, and began to analyze the soil strata and geology of this place from all aspects of professionalism to show how suitable it was to build a factory. With his eloquent speech, the three Confucian scholars who were listening in felt that it would be unjust not to build a factory here!

Zhou Tieyi thought for a moment and said, "You can use my name when promoting it. Just say that I am worried that the mud, wood and brick houses people live in are unsafe, so I proposed to use steel mixed with cement structures for the houses."

Needless to say, Zhou Tieyi's prestige in Pingjindu at this time was naturally high. He killed Kuanglong in front of 200,000 or 300,000 people and saved the people from dire straits. It was not an exaggeration for the people to say that he was well fed and well supplied, so his words now had practical significance.

Following Deng Zhenquan's gaze, the magistrate of Pingjindu hurriedly said, "The county government has suffered serious damage and needs a lot of money..."

Zhou Tieyi waved his hand and gave an answer, "I have already submitted a petition to Tianjing. In the name of suppressing the second-rank evil spirit, Tianjing will urgently allocate a sum of money and grain for initial construction."

The magistrate of Pingjindu's eyes turned red, and he bowed to Zhou Tieyi and said, "Thank you, Lord Zhou, for your righteousness."

The reason why he made it so grand was because only the local officials knew how difficult it was to get money from Tianjing. Even if it was a major disaster, Daxia had suffered a drought this year, and there were refugees in several provinces. There were too many places asking for money. If there was no one in Tianjing who had a say, the magistrate of Pingjindu would have to thank God if the money could be allocated next year.

Zhou Tieyi is such a person who has a say in Tianjing. Why do many local officials curry favor with officials in Beijing? It is because even if you are honest and want to benefit the local people, you have to have someone in the court, otherwise many things will be difficult to do!
Zhou Tieyi remained silent. He certainly knew that there were other disaster victims this year, but now he could only manage places that could promote industrial development. Convenient transportation and high basic quality of the people were necessary conditions for industrial development. It was ten times or a hundred times better to choose prefectures and counties with these advantages than remote villages. In the early stages of industrial development, he had to be eager for quick success. Only in this way could he achieve results! Let other local officials begin to imitate his theory.

Zhou Tieyi looked at Deng Zhenquan, "In the medium term, I plan to have the God-Slaying Division confiscate the local gentry families that were involved in this divine evil, and use the money to finance the restoration and construction of Pingjin Ferry. This can be considered a cause and effect."

After hearing what Zhou Tieyi said, Yao Qin and Lu Shanqing's expressions changed drastically!
Why did they come to Tangzhou Prefecture? Wasn’t it to overturn the Huxin Academy case?

By doing this, doesn’t it confirm a lot of things?

The officials present also paused slightly. If what Zhou Tieyi said before was good news, then it was undoubtedly bad news now, because no one was sure whether their in-laws were involved.

Everyone had their own thoughts. Zhou Tieyi coughed and said, "Of course I think that a large number of the gentry families in Tangzhou Prefecture are still good, but some are bad. Why not follow the previous case and kill the main culprits! Huxin Academy was just deceived. Dean Yao Qin went to the front line in person last night and severely damaged the evil spirit. This is enough to clear Dean Yao's stain."

Zhou Tieyi's words defined the Huxin Academy case. When the Huxin Academy case was being set up, the Ning Wang Mansion had already avoided most of the noble families that could truly influence the foundation of Tangzhou Prefecture when compiling the case file. The remaining people who were thrown out, on the one hand, were indeed using the method of deifying their ancestors and had wealthy families, and on the other hand, they wanted to point the blame to Huxin Academy, the leader of Confucianism in Tangzhou Prefecture!
Now Zhou Tieyi’s solution is to smooth things over.

This is also the most effective solution in politics from ancient times to the present.

It is confirmed that the local gentry written by Ning Wangfu are guilty, but their crimes end there. They support weakening the gentry group of Huxin Academy, but do not touch the leaders of Huxin Academy.

This method was not effective before, because before the parties could compete with each other, they would get deeper and deeper into a fight, eventually leading to a life-and-death struggle, or a fight in which both sides would be destroyed.

But it is useful now, because it has a righteous cause, to punish the evildoers of God!

The incident at Pingjin Ferry has proved that the evil gods in Tangzhou Prefecture really exist and can indeed endanger the safety of hundreds of thousands of people. Under this premise, punishing the evil gods is the main theme, and anyone who opposes is wrong. Zhou Tieyi is now willing to help the most important third-rank figure in Confucianism clear his suspicion, which is already the greatest "gift".

After Zhou Tieyi finished speaking, the expressions of many officials present in Pingjindu eased slightly. After the Huxin Academy case emerged, those gentry and officials related to Huxin Academy were either suspended from their posts or put on the bench, and Zhou Tieyi's meaning of not expanding the investigation was good news for them, at least acceptable.

Everyone was thinking about their own interests, but Yao Qin was unwilling to accept it, "Lord Zhou..."

Zhou Tieyi didn't wait for him to finish, he sneered and interrupted, "President Yao, the Huaihe and Qishui gods revived yesterday, I have some clues and I am investigating!"

As soon as Zhou Tieyi finished speaking, the faces of the officials around him changed. Yesterday, the gods of the Huai River and the Qi River resurrected. Everyone knew that there must be a river god hiding in Pingjin Ferry, and the thick fog rising from the river was proof of it.

A river god must have believers in Pingjindu and even in the surrounding prefectures and counties. It is unknown who will be found and who will be implicated by then.

Zhou Tieyi did have the "evidence". He usurped the will of the two gods, Huaihe and Qishui, and obtained the Taixu illusory side that sealed Baili. It was too easy for him to find his believers in Pingjindu and the surrounding areas through Baili. It would even be easy to take this opportunity to conduct a thorough investigation.

But his purpose was not to destroy Pingjindu and the surrounding county governments, nor to make everyone here panic and lose interest in production, but to help this place transform into an industrial one. Even the gods and evil spirits were just a means to this end, let alone other gentry.

Therefore, he needed the wealth accumulated by the lower-class gentry, but at the same time he had to use a reasonable "reason" to collect it, and divine evil was the best reason.

Yao Qin looked at Zhou Tieyi's confident and cold smile and felt like a rabbit being scrutinized by an eagle from the sky.

Deng Zhenquan sighed and said, "Let's do it this way. We can take from the people and give back to the people. This can also atone for some of their sins."

Only then did he understand the pressure Dong Xingshu was under when he was alone with Zhou Tieyi. He had misunderstood it from the very beginning. He thought that by spending a month weaving local interest relations and using interest relations to marginalize Sha Youcheng, the Huxin Academy case would develop in his direction. However, he did not expect Zhou Tieyi to "take advantage of the enemy". A real Shinto disaster in Pingjindu was enough to change the interest relations he had carefully woven for a month. At this time, no local family would fulfill their previous promises and would definitely hide as far away as possible. Zhou Tieyi's approach of only killing those involved in the case and not affecting others gave the local families peace of mind, even if it was a kind of peace of mind like covering one's ears and stealing a bell.

(End of this chapter)