Xinshun 1730

Chapter 161
In the 12th year of Taixing and 1731 AD, it arrived as promised.

Wendeng Southwest, Pingdu Prefecture.

In the fifth year of Chongzhen in the previous dynasty, Kong Youde rebelled in Dengzhou and Tu Pingdu; in the 15th year of Chongzhen, the Manchu Qing entered Shandong and robbed Pingdu...

Decades have passed, people who survived that year sprouted, people who moved from other places took root here, dead unowned land was redistributed, and several years of famine were mixed in between, but it was better than those hellish days of war at the end of Ming Dynasty better.

Just after the new year, there is still no snow. Many experienced farmers looked at the prematurely jointed wheat in the wheat field last winter, and they already knew it in their hearts.

The wise man didn't tell anyone, and after confirming that the grain in his home wouldn't last until autumn, he sold the land while the land price was still high and slipped away.

More and more people are counted, food prices are getting higher and higher, and more people are getting more and more counted.

As soon as it turned green, the wild vegetables, elm leaves, and young willow leaves in the field have been stripped away.

Everyone knows that they can eat elm money after waiting a while, but many people know that they may not be able to wait, and save a little food if they can.

We all know that a tree will die if it loses its bark. If the tree dies, it will not be able to regenerate leaves. The bark of the elm tree that may be eaten is still all stripped off.

Everyone feels that if he thinks that he can eat the leaves for a long time without peeling the bark, and if others don't want to peel the bark directly, then he will lose money.

It hadn't rained until the beginning of April, and the bark had been peeled off.

More people began to sell land, preparing to flee famine.

The land price dropped from [-] mu at the beginning to [-] mu before it rained in April.When a hot and dry wind blows in mid-April, they will be chopped up in half and exchanged for a few buckets of grain.

The wheat is ripe in May, but the wheat has dried up before it is ripe, and there is no harvest at all.

People fleeing famine from the west have already come here. I heard that Feicheng, Jinan Prefecture, and Mount Tai are also famines. There are so many dead people in Feicheng that there are no ones to carry their bodies.

The state shepherd of Pingdu Prefecture knew that something was wrong, put down his official airs, and personally begged the people not to flee the famine.

If they all escaped, the population would be greatly reduced, and they would not be able to collect taxes, the evaluation would be extremely poor.

Now those fleeing famine are all self-cultivated farmers, who sold their land to escape famine alive.If these people escape, how will the tax be collected next year?It is difficult for large households to reap, and the best reapers are still farmers.What if they ran away from famine?
He only said that the imperial court would provide relief, but the fleeing people knelt down and begged the state shepherd: "Even if the relief is seven or eight buckets, what will happen after eating? Please, sir, let us live."

Zhou Mu begged the people to stay with tears like rain, and the people also cried like rain and begged Zhou Mufang for a way out.

Even if there is a way out, there is nowhere to go.

Feicheng, Jinan, and Zichuan all began to experience large-scale failures.

People fleeing from famine are like headless flies. They don't know where to go, they just follow the crowd, and they go wherever they go.

Those who had land sold their land and saved up money to flee the famine.

Those who have no land have already run out of food. When they are green and yellow, they have to rely on some wild vegetables and leaves to survive. This year, they ate up all the bark early.

In May, when the wheat harvest is over, and there is no food to eat, where can they escape?
Those who fled the famine first were still self-cultivated farmers, and they could exchange some money for a little money to survive to a place where there was no famine.

Those who leave late and flee from famine have nowhere to go. Fleeing from famine is death, and staying at home is also death.

The Changping Warehouse began to provide disaster relief and sell cheap grain, but there was not much grain in the warehouse.

There is not much food released every day, and there is actually not much food left in the warehouse. Each person can buy a daily limit, and try to keep the price as cheap as possible.

However, what about the Changping warehouse in the prefecture and county, and the nearby villages?

Pingdu Prefecture, Renzhao.

Zhang Dadun was lying on the board, panting hard.

The mother lying next to her was swollen all over, and her legs had begun to fester.Blowflies buzzed around the yellow water oozing from the swollen cut in the leg.

Zhang Dadun wanted to reach out and wave his hand, but his mother said in a fluffy accent that was about to die: "Boss, save yourself the effort."

The younger brother Er Dun has a big hungry belly, like a bean sprout, curled up on the ground basking in the sun, only hating himself for not being a bean sprout, who can be full by basking in the sun.

There was a smell of corpses outside the door, and there was a loud bang from time to time, and I don't know whose dead people exploded.

I have listened to it a lot in the past few days, and I think the sound is very pleasant, at least there is some movement, and I know that I am still alive.

The dogs are long gone, eaten up.The tree had been peeled off and dried up to death, and even the cicadas didn't bother to call.The explosion of this kind of corpse is just a firecracker for his own funeral.

There was no rain in May, and the summer crops that had been planted soon dried up.It is now June, and it finally rained a few days ago, but it was too late.

Zhang Dadun has a total of eight brothers and sisters, five of whom did not live to be six years old. One younger brother died of starvation a few days ago, and his father also starved to death. Now there are only three people left in the family.

There was a sound of footsteps outside the door, and Zhang Dadun didn't bother to turn around to see who it was, so he could save a little effort.

"Auntie, my father is gone. Brother Da Dun, my father is dead. My sister and I can't lift it. You and Er Dun can help carry it."

A young man who was so weak that he needed to stand against the wall yelled into the room.It is called shouting, but it is actually not as loud as a normal person's voice.

Zhang Dadun's mother hummed weakly, and said: "Da Dun, Er Dun, go, let's go to the third uncle's house. Don't stink in the house. There is still some bran noodles in the tank, you shake it Let's eat there with Huzi and Dani at noon. When Huzi came, he didn't say anything about making a meal..."

Hungry like this, but still thinking about the most basic etiquette, always thinking that even if his nephew came, even if he got a leaf, it would be regarded as a treat.

Zhang Dadun supported the wall, stood up vigorously, and moved to the side of the tank, the inside had already bottomed out.

After digging for a long time, I made half a bowl of glutinous rice flour, and went to the third uncle's house with the bowl.

The people on the mat have already stiffened.

There was also a ten-year-old girl whose swollen legs were round and didn't cry. Seeing her cousins ​​coming, she tried to smile beside her father's body.

Zhang Dadun put the half bowl of bran on the stove.

"Danny, first go get some tree leaves to mix with the bran, and steam some dumplings. Otherwise, four people can't lift it."

"Hey."

The little girl staggered outside, and came back after more than an hour, holding a handful of messy grass, on top of which were a few shepherd's purses, like a crown embellished.

With the mucus of these vegetable leaves, the half bowl of bran was formed into balls the size of ten eggs.Four people ate eight of them, and left two made with shepherd's purse balls for Zhang Dadun's mother.

After eating this meal, he seemed to have gained some strength, so he walked up to the dead man who was already stiff, rolled up the mat, and tied it with a rope.

The seven-foot-tall man died with less than a hundred catties of hunger, but the four of them carried him out of the house staggeringly.

When I came outside the village, I didn't have the energy to dig a hole, so I dug a little soil and filled it on the mat.He knelt down and kowtowed again, and after kowtowing, the strength to stand up disappeared all of a sudden, and the four of them didn't stand up for a long time, they just gasped for breath.

Zhang Dadun touched the two nests in his arms, thinking that his mother was still starving at home, he grabbed an old vine beside him and stood up.

dong dong dong...

Just when he stood up, there was a sound of gongs and drums in the village, accompanied by shouts in local accents.

"We're recruiting! We're recruiting! Are there any survivors in the village? We're recruiting, we're recruiting! Eat imperial rations! Those who can breathe and walk, come to the entrance of the village! The dead at home are the priority."

dong dong dong...

The sound of drums and gongs was so noisy, Zhang Dadun heard the word "grain", and his legs suddenly developed strength, but he didn't care about the phrase "the priority of the family is to die."

Thinking about going to the army by myself, how can I not stutter for a month and support my younger brother and mother?Relying on the strength born in my heart, I moved towards home step by step.

"Mother! Mother! We have recruited soldiers, and we will not die of hunger."

He yelled twice, but there was no response. Looking at the room again, the flies had already settled all over him.

Zhang Dadun knelt down on the ground with a bang, and flicked away the flies all over his body, but he didn't cry.

He just silently took out a nest, broke off half of it and stuffed it into the mother's mouth.

He kowtowed three times to his dead mother and only asked one question.

"Mom, why don't you hold on for a while longer?"

"Mother, I'll go to serve as a soldier first, eat rations, and come to pick you up later."

After finishing speaking, he kowtowed again, flicked away the pile of blowflies for the last time in vain, and turned around and left the house without waiting for the flies to settle down again.

When he arrived at the third uncle's house, his cousin Zhang Hu shook his head without waiting for him to speak.

"Brother Da Dun, you go, I won't go. If I go, my sister will be finished."

Before he finished speaking, Zhang Dadun called his younger brother over, stuffed the one and a half nests into the hands of his second brother and cousin, and pulled Zhang Hu to go outside.

"That's also Er Dun's younger sister. Let us go to the army and let them stay at home. Go there to eat a meal first, and then come back with strength and bury my mother."

Dead people are already a very common thing. If you directly say that they are buried, they are already dead.

When the two wandered to the entrance of the village, they saw dozens of burly men with guns and several large pots cooking porridge.

Zhang Dadun didn't have much knowledge, but he also knew that he had to be sixteen or seventeen to be a soldier, but there were seven or eight-year-old dolls and even girls squatting on the ground drinking porridge behind him.

A possibility popped up in my mind, could it be that the soldiers and prostitutes were still recruiting, or that the bustard also came with these military masters?If the soldier left, it would be fine if he could give some food, but for the second brother and cousin, maybe it would be able to support the past.

If you don't give food...then just be a big girl, everyone talks about laughing at the poor and not laughing at prostitutes, even if they are prostitutes, they will die in the future, at least they will live now, right?

Thinking of this, I told my cousin.

However, just as he finished speaking, the cousin, who was so hungry that he was trembling while walking, slapped him on the face with strength from nowhere.

"Yeah beep!"

Zhang Dadun was already hungry and vain, but with this slap, his vision went dark, and he subconsciously grabbed his cousin by the neck, hugged him and fell to the ground together.

The two were so hungry that they didn't even have the energy to roll over. The two soldiers lifted them away like chickens and scolded: "What are you doing? You came here to fight? It seems that you are still not hungry. , this is still fighting spirit!"

After parting, a young man in a strange military uniform with tassels on his shoulders came over, without asking the reason for the fight, he first asked Zhang Dadun, "What's your name?"

"Zhang Dadun."

"How old?"

"eighteen."

"Who else is in the family?"

Subconsciously touched the slap on his face, smelled the aroma of cooked rice next to him, hesitated and said: "There are two younger brothers and one younger sister. The others are all starved to death."

Zhang Hu on the side heard it and shouted: "I'm going to fuck my mother, you're just a younger brother, where's the younger sister? Jun Ye, Jun Ye, don't listen to him, he's just a younger brother."

(End of this chapter)