Ancient rescue/disaster relief stories

Song Xiang Song Xiang is a diligent and honest official who loves the people. He organized government officials to go to various places to organize victims to help themselves. He moved the government office to the disaster area, personally supervised the victims and rebuilt their homes. Regardless of his age, he gets up early every day, eats a bucket of wild vegetables and miscellaneous grains porridge with the people, sleeps in a big straw house with the soldiers of the civilian workers, rolls up his sleeves and robes, and supervises the war on the construction site of the city. Song Xiang (1756— 1826), whose real name is Huan Xiang and whose real name is Wan Zhi, is from Hu Xiang Village, Baidu Town, Meixian County. In the fifty-seventh year of Qing Qianlong's reign (1792), he took the Guangdong Provincial Examination and won the first place in high school (Xie Yuan). In the fourth year of Jiaqing (1799), he won the top prize, and chose Jishi Shu from the Imperial Academy. In the 18th year of Jiaqing (18 13), Song Xiang was 57 years old. He gave up the comfortable life in Beijing and went to Qujing to work day and night. At that time, Qujing area suffered a once-in-a-century torrential rain. In just one day, the whole Qujing became Zeguo, the riverbank was destroyed and the houses collapsed. In the flood, houses, wooden boxes, drowned pigs, cows and corpses floated. Homeless refugees live in groups on several separated mountains, with no clothes and no food. The old man is crying in despair, and the hungry children are crying sadly ... Qujing City, which suffered from floods, has ushered in the new county magistrate Song Xiang, a bleak and dangerous scene. As soon as we entered the city, a large group of naked children came begging with broken bowls. Song Xiang's eyes were moist, so he quickly ordered his entourage to take out broken money and distribute it to beggars. After arriving at the magistrate, regardless of fatigue all the way, officials from the prefectures and counties were immediately called to understand the disaster. Song Xiang said: "At present, when a disaster occurs, the most important thing is to open the warehouse, release food and help the relief workers. Otherwise, there will be a tragic scene of' white bones are exposed in the wilderness, and there is no chicken crow in a thousand miles'. Therefore, it is necessary to immediately organize Qi Xin, a state official and citizen, to work together to resume production and reclaim the countryside to solve the urgent need ... "The next day, Song Xiang ate a bowl of gruel in a hurry and took his men to understand the disaster situation in urban and rural areas. He observed tears all the way and said bitterly, "Who can believe that the people are suffering like this if they didn't see it with their own eyes?" Reminiscent of the prosperity of Kyoto, he increasingly feels that officialdom and folk "have different joys and sorrows, but strange bedfellows." So he warned the officials who followed him: "Take the exam with the people." Then, Song Xiang wrote a report about his visit to the disaster area overnight, and sent someone to the provincial capital to call the capital. With the approval of Emperor Jiaqing, the national treasury allocated122,000 yuan for the relief of silver. After receiving this batch of relief money, Song Xiang immediately distributed it to all counties overnight according to the disaster situation and population, and declared: "This relief money is related to the sacred Hong En and human life. No one can deduct it and give it to the victim in full. " At the same time, county officials were ordered to open warehouses and run porridge factories to save the victims. One day, Song Xiang came to Nanmo County to inspect the disaster area and saw dead bodies and starving victims everywhere. So he rushed to the county government and ordered the county magistrate to open the official warehouse and open the warehouse to release grain. But the next day, before the food was distributed, Song Xiang became angry and shouted at the county magistrate, "This official ordered you to open a warehouse for disaster relief, but you didn't move. Why? " The county magistrate had no choice but to spit out the stolen goods at home and distribute a batch of food and property to the victims. Song Xiang still didn't feel revenge, and then severely punished corruption and perverting the law. To help the victims, Song Xiang took the lead in donating 3,000 taels of salary from Beijing. Under his leadership, officials from all walks of life paid tribute to gentlemen and businessmen, and donated 5000 pieces of rice grain, 10000 pieces of clothes and 22000 taels of silver to the victims. While providing disaster relief, Song Xiang organized government officials to organize victims to help themselves in production. He moved the government office to the disaster area, personally supervised the victims and rebuilt their homes. Regardless of his age, he gets up early every day, eats a bucket of wild vegetables and miscellaneous grains porridge with the people, sleeps in a big straw house with the soldiers of the civilian workers, rolls up his sleeves and robes, and supervises the war on the construction site of the city. In the 21st year of Jiaqing (18 16), Song Xiang was appointed as the magistrate of Guangnan. When I arrived in Guangnan Prefecture, I saw "the high water in the city is hard to drink". In order to change people's difficulty in drinking water, Song Xiang specially invited experts to travel across mountains and rivers to observe the terrain, and made a plan to build a reservoir to preserve the clear springs in the East and West Mountains to quench people's thirst.