"Miss Wei has bought quite a number of fields in the Government City these past few days and has employed many of these newly appeared starving people." said Yuan Zhengqin.
"My sister Ruoruo mentioned this to me. Is there a problem?" asked Madam Yuan.
"There is no chaos that I've heard of. From the point of view of a Magistrate, Miss Wei did a good deed. These starving people just appeared recently. Although they are not many, they are a form of instability. I was worried how to settle them, but they were all taken by Miss Wei. With fields to plough and rice to eat, they naturally settled down. This is much better than my using silver to arrange their stay."
The government's involvement in arranging housing and distributing food is all short-term and cannot solve the long-term problems.
