When it prospers, the people suffer; when it dies, the people suffer.
What the people fear most is that the land will be filled with hunger and death, and the people will not be able to survive.
Famine is often the cause of this situation.
There have been severe droughts for many years, and this year is particularly serious. The people have long been out of business, and the roadsides are full of hungry people.
Although the court has already been doing its best to provide disaster relief, the original drought and the locust plague have resulted in almost no food harvest this year.
It was the autumn harvest season, but the people in Huguang were not happy at all. Because it's time to harvest crops, but the people don't know whether it is still necessary to harvest food?
The grain piles have been harvested by locusts once before. Now only straw can be seen on the grain piles, but there are almost no grains of grain on them. In some fields, even before the grain has grown, it has been completely eaten by those hated locusts.
The court has been doing its best to provide disaster relief. However, due to profiteers hoarding grain and too many hungry people, the court's relief is only a drop in the bucket and cannot solve the fundamental problem at all. However, it is better than nothing. There are still many people who may rely on this to survive this most terrible autumn harvest season.
The avenue is crowded with pedestrians, most of whom are refugees.
There are two figures who look particularly different among the refugees.
A woman, holding a sword, and an old beggar who looked like a hungry man.
The corners of this old beggar's mouth were blue, his complexion was strangely white, and he walked very slowly. It was obvious at a glance that he was seriously ill.
In this day and age, when hungry people are everywhere, no one will notice this old beggar. However, the woman holding the sword looked very different.
She was dressed in light blue clothes and looked very clean. The sword in his hand also looks like a ghost, with a hint of cold murderous aura.
Going further, we will reach Chizhou City.
They didn't want to go to the city, but they could only get food if they went to the city.
Because in the government, hungry people actually robbed shops when they saw them. Most of the hotels and inns were either moved away or temporarily closed to avoid the hungry people.
The woman and the old beggar had walked nearly a hundred miles, but they didn't find a decent tavern.
In these famine years, sometimes the most painful thing is not being able to buy food even if you have money. Because at this time, food is often more precious than silver.
The hungry people also went to Chizhou City, because the government had already set up porridge shops in the city to give free meals to the poor. Furthermore, after the hungry people drank the porridge, they could go to the city to beg. After all, there were still many wealthy squires in the city.
The two finally managed to enter the city, but they saw a tall and magnificent restaurant called Yijia Restaurant. It was very lively inside, and there were many big men guarding the door to prevent the hungry people from pouring into the city.
There are more and more hungry people in Chizhou City, and many weak restaurants and bars have also temporarily closed their doors. Those who have the strength will spend money to hire many servants to take care of the hospital, so as to ensure normal business.
If a woman is cleanly dressed, she can naturally enter, but if she sees an old beggar wearing rags and looking like an old beggar, she will naturally be stopped by the nursing home.
The woman had no choice but to give the nursing home some pure money, and then brought the old beggar in.
The two of them came upstairs and immediately ordered a lot of good wine and food. It seems that both of them are people in the world, so they are very generous. But they looked at the hungry people downstairs, but they couldn't do anything to help them, but they still couldn't be happy in their hearts. However, they were helpless in the face of this situation.
Because even if the woman had money, they had not eaten for almost two days.
The woman and the beggar were sitting by the window on the second floor. They originally just wanted to see more of the scenery in the city, because they would leave soon.
Unexpectedly, at a glance, the most numerous people on the street were actually victims of the disaster. Naturally, the two of them were in a worse mood.
At this time, the woman had no choice but to look in, and saw a place opposite them, against the inner wall. Sitting there was a young man and two children, who looked a little strange.
Of the two children, one covered his mouth. The older one was a young novice monk. The other one was slightly smaller, but his eyes were covered with a cloth. Since the faces of the two children were half covered by black cloth, the woman could not see clearly.
Only the young man looked familiar to the woman, and she always felt like she had seen him before.
"The eldest young master of the Tang clan?" The woman reacted immediately and exclaimed.
Jade Rakshasa has long heard that Tang Zhong, the eldest young master of the Tang clan, fell off a cliff and died. How could this place appear?
"I'm sorry, my surname is not Tang, but Yang!" the man replied calmly.
The woman holding the sword is none other than Jade Rakshasa Luo Chunmei. At this time, he saw that the woman spoke very normally, and her surname was not Tang. The most important thing was that he didn't look like a fool, so he had to think that he had recognized the wrong person.
However, the two of them were too similar, so Jade Rakshasa had to say: "I'm sorry, I saw that you and a friend of mine are friendly, so I mistakenly recognized the wrong person." Although Jade Rakshasa said this, he still had some doubts in his heart.
"It's okay." The woman replied.
"Dad! I want to drink water!" At this time, the younger child shouted. Because he was blindfolded, the man could only bring the water to his hand.
Jade Rakshasa finally no longer doubted this. This person actually has two such big children, so of course it cannot be Tang Zhong.
Jade Rakshasa then stopped thinking about it, and just then the food and wine were served. The Jade Rakshasa and the old beggar were already very hungry and started gobbling them down early.
The woman was also a sweetheart. After eating a few bites of the food, she picked up the wine jar and opened it, then poured it into the bowl and started drinking. The same goes for the old beggar. The two of them were about to drink. Suddenly there was a "boom" sound, as if something hit the wine jar.
Both the woman and the beggar had very good eyesight, and they immediately saw that the thing hit on the wine jar turned out to be a peanut, and the person who threw it was the young man opposite.
The two of them didn't understand what was going on, but they saw the man talking to them again. Although he was talking, there was no sound, and after only saying two words, the man immediately shut up again, as if nothing happened.
Jade Rakshasa didn't understand and was about to ask a question when the old beggar immediately said, "He said, 'Poisonous!'"
It seems that this old beggar is actually more experienced than Jade Rakshasa, and he has already guessed the man's lip language.
When Jade Rakshasa heard this, he just poured the wine on the ground. Sure enough, some green smoke immediately appeared on the ground, which was really poisonous.
"Let's go!" The female Rakshasa was about to say thank you, but she saw that the man had already pulled two children and quickly went downstairs.
Jade Rakshasa wanted to catch up, but a man on the side suddenly pulled out a weapon and attacked him.
