It’s true that nearly a thousand disaster victims flocked to Hecheng County, but many were families with children. After a thorough investigation, it turned out that there were actually only a little more than three hundred households. With the fifty thousand taels from Wang Youbao, the County Magistrate of Hecheng County immediately hired workers and constructed refugee villages on three vacant lots in Hecheng County.
There were a little more than one hundred families in each location, and each family was provided with a very ordinary farmhouse with three rooms, costing about six taels of silver each. Moreover, a well was dug for each of the three refugee villages, totaling about two thousand taels of silver altogether.
By the time the houses in the refugee villages were completed, two months had passed, and all the disaster victims of Hecheng County had moved into their new homes. The County Magistrate then gave each household two taels of silver, a basket of potatoes, and thirty pounds of mixed grains, spending a total of three thousand taels of silver.
During these two months, the County Magistrate also had Government Officials buy rice, grains, potatoes, sweet potatoes, coarse cloth clothes, quilts, and other items from some shops and farmers to distribute to the disaster victims sleeping on the streets and alleys of Hecheng County to help them survive, spending nearly forty thousand taels of silver in total.
During this time, the able disaster victims also helped with the construction of the houses, as they were to be their new homes. Each was full of enthusiasm and motivation.
In the end, there were still a few thousand taels of silver left from the fifty thousand that Wang Youbao had contributed. The County Magistrate decided to use all the remaining silver to buy land from the government, allocating one acre to each household of the disaster victims.
From then on, the disaster victims from Jing Tian County who flooded into Hecheng County all had a place to settle down, ensuring that each and every household could survive at least for the next year.
Not a single one of the disaster victims who flooded into Hecheng County starved or froze to death. In fact, they even had a place to establish themselves. The Emperor, overjoyed by the compassion shown in his heart, rewarded the County Magistrate of Hecheng County and also personally inscribed the character ’Virtue’ as a gift to Wang’s Treasure.
The disaster victims who had flooded into other counties suffered much more, as no wealthy individual was willing to such a large sum of money for relief efforts. At best, they made a token contribution, leading to many disaster victims dying of starvation or cold. In the end, they had to wait for the silver and grain allocated from the national treasury to be distributed before those disaster victims could be settled.
When the wealthy in other counties and those in Hecheng County heard that Wang Youbao had been granted the character ’Virtue’ by the Emperor, they were filled with envy and regret.
A grand opportunity to honor and glorify their ancestors had been right before them, and they had let it slip away.
A month earlier in Jing Tian County, relief grain and silver had already been distributed, and the water situation had also been remedied. Still, quite a few people in Jing Tian County died from hunger and cold. However, many were reluctant to leave their homes and stayed in Jing Tian County, eventually working with the government to rebuild their homes in Jing Tian County.
But now, those homes were being built further away from the Shi River, fearing that if the river’s embankment broke again, it would destroy their homes and cause them to suffer hunger, cold, and death once more.
On the fifteenth of July, the County Magistrate delivered the ’Virtue’ insignia inscribed by the Emperor to the Wang Family.
Having been informed in advance, Wang Youbao ensured that his home was scrubbed clean inside and out. He had prepared an altar with incense, and before the County Magistrate and others arrived, he had already changed into his finest and most formal clothes, standing at the front door with all his family servants, waiting respectfully to receive them.
Wang Youbao’s relatives, except for Second Uncle Wang’s family, were all present, each wearing their best clothes, standing up straight and sharing in the glory.
In the past, because Wang Youbao was born out of wedlock, the Wang family actually looked down on him. But now that Wang Youbao had been graced with the character ’Virtue’ by the Emperor, a supreme honor that brought glory to the ancestors, the Wang family couldn’t curry favor with Wang Youbao fast enough, and naturally, no one in the clan looked down on him anymore.
Many onlookers gathered.
Among the onlookers were An Jing and Xiao Changyi.
"My lord, your move was brilliant," An Jing said in a low voice, smiling in praise of Changyi.