Late Ming Dynasty: So what if Emperor Chongzhen was inactive?!

Chapter 325 Idealistic Time Traveler Gets a Severe Blow from Historical Reality
The Buddha in the world may be extinguished, but the Buddha in one's heart is hard to extinguish. Zhu Youjian was not at peace. Death is like a lamp going out, like morning dew; the days gone by are many, and why are the people of the world so foolish?

Like a defeated rooster, Zhu Youjian fled Henan in panic, heading east and south towards Zhili. Loyal soldiers accompanied him, yet he felt increasingly insignificant; he wanted to go home. No matter what, wasn't the Ming Dynasty ultimately the choice of its own people? What could he possibly change?
"The yin and yang, the four seasons—those who follow them prosper, those who defy them perish." Zhu Youjian felt that the more he wanted to do something, the more difficult it became; conversely, doing nothing brought him abundant joy. Perhaps, the nightly revelry in the Qianqing Palace was his ultimate destiny.

"Your Majesty, I think Your Majesty is too weak!" Zhu Xieyuan said with a frown.

"Wh-what?!" Zhu Youjian exclaimed in confusion.

"Your Majesty, the Lu vassal state possesses 40,000 hectares of fertile land. Why not seize this opportunity to abolish the vassal state, establish public land, and rent it out to the people? In this way, the people will gain land, the court will gain taxes, and the dilemma will be resolved!"

"There's nothing else to it, except that I fear the other vassal states will lose heart!"

"Does Your Majesty intend to govern the realm in harmony with the various vassal states?!"

"Otherwise what?! Do you expect me to share the empire with the scholar-officials?!" Zhu Youjian looked at the old man with an unfriendly expression.

“Look at you, so anxious. His Majesty is unwilling to make decisions unilaterally, yet he refuses to acknowledge governing the country with the help of the officials. Isn’t that just indecisiveness?! His Majesty is afraid that the feudal lords will be disheartened, afraid that the people will freeze and starve, and afraid of offending the officials. Isn’t he just like a young wife caught in the middle, suffering in silence?!” the old man said with a smile.

"What can I do!" Zhu Youjian was furious, tears streaming down his face. "Even you are bullying me! You tricked me by saying, 'If anyone in the world rebels, you will lead your troops to quell it,' but when I decided to move south, you rebelled against me first! When I went out, you chased after me in the middle of the night to stop me!"

"Your Majesty, I am only worried about Your Majesty's safety! Governing a large country is like steaming a small fish; Your Majesty's hasty actions will surely lead to some hardship," Zhu Xieyuan said awkwardly.

"Time waits for no one, what can I do?!"

"Then let us wait. When the time is right, Your Majesty's request will naturally come to fruition."

"Go away! Stop spouting such nonsense!" Zhu Youjian wiped away his tears, turned and left!
……

In June of the fifth year of the Chongzhen reign, Henan Province experienced severe flooding. Even the newly repaired dam by Prince Zhou could not withstand the onslaught, and the Yellow River breached its banks, submerging most of Kaifeng Prefecture. Chenzhou and Suizhou suffered severe flooding due to the overflowing of the Wo River and Huiji River. Qixian and Tongxu, located in low-lying areas, were unable to drain the accumulated water. In Yongcheng and Xiayi, eastern Guide Prefecture, the Tuo River and Hui River, tributaries of the Yellow River, overflowed. In Zhengzhou, Zhongmu, Yuanwu, parts of northern Henan, and Weihui Prefecture, the fiefdom of Prince Lu, the Wei River and Qi River swelled during the flood season, submerging the cities and towns.

May and June are the summer harvest season. Henan is an important grain-producing area in the north. Grain crops that have not been harvested in time are directly soaked and ruined, while harvested grain that has not been dried is washed into the river to feed the fish.

Reports of disasters and requests for relief from various prefectures and counties poured in. Zhu Youjian, who was stationed in Nanjing, felt a deep sense of powerlessness as he looked at these documents: he had long ago instructed the officials of the Henan Provincial Administration Commission to take precautions against disasters, but it was to no avail, and in the end, there was nothing he could do.

Given the Ming Dynasty's extremely weak mobilization capabilities, organizing the relocation of even a single county's population would be a struggle. The fact that Zhu Yuanzhang (Emperor Chongba) could relocate a million people to the border regions doesn't mean Zhu Youjian (Emperor Youjian) could do the same.
The reports from various prefectures and governments regarding the disaster were very vague: something like "the water level is three feet high, five cities are submerged, the disaster is very severe, and many women and men have drowned." They didn't specify how many drowned. It wasn't that they didn't want to say, but that they couldn't, because they didn't know exactly how many people had drowned.

Downstream Shandong prefectures reported that many floating corpses were found in the Yellow River. However, no identification could be found when they were pulled out, so they had to be burned and buried on the spot. The number of corpses has reached no less than a thousand!

In June, it began to rain in Beizhili; in August, there was another heavy rain, and the flood damaged Qingling Mausoleum. The Ministry of Works reported: "We know that Your Majesty is used to being frugal. You spend money lavishly when fighting wars, but you are stingy with your own people."

Ministers marry their eldest daughters and granddaughters to you in hopes of wealth and status, but when these concubines return to visit their families, they are like starving ghosts who have not eaten for eight hundred years, desperately scraping the ground at home, yet they are never seen bringing anything back from the palace.

"Now I'm asking you, do you want funds allocated to repair Qingling Mausoleum, or do you want your great-father's body left to rot in the wilderness just a few years after his burial?!"

Zhu Youjian was so angry he almost died, but he could only sign the document agreeing to repair Qingling with tears in his eyes. He couldn't very well let Zhu Changluo be washed into the river to feed the fish, could he?

Just when the north was frequently reporting floods, the south was suddenly hit by a drought – it was truly bizarre! The three prefectures of Hangzhou, Jiaxing, and Huzhou experienced seventy days of no rain from August to October, resulting in the complete ruin of the second crop of rice in the core grain-producing areas of the south!

The south is suffering from drought and the north from floods, and locust plagues are just emerging in various places without large-scale migration. As a result, grain production has decreased nationwide, and famine has begun in many areas.

Under these circumstances, the court had to devote all its energy to maintaining stability, and had already missed the opportunity to move the capital.

At the end of October, Zhu Youjian returned to the capital after a southern tour. Officials and people in the capital were overjoyed and spread the news with great excitement!
(End of this chapter)