Chapter 771: Qi State's Chaotic Governance Spreads Sorrow, Xiazhou's Equal‑Land Reform Brings Spring Breeze

When Xiazhou City, nourished by that sky‑splitting wealth, was like a reawakened steel behemoth frantically reshaping its armaments, the scene abruptly shifted to the impoverished counties on the Qi State border where even the bark had been gnawed away.

Here the world bears no trace of the bustling aura of the Central Plains dynasties; a pungent stench of rotting corpses and interwoven despair pervades everywhere, a living, vivid tableau of Rensheng Jianyu.

Because the smuggling route at Fengshen Kou, which earned gold by the bushel each day, was forcibly severed by Chen Yan with thunderous methods, the Qi State's century‑old Great Clan, long accustomed to spending money like dirt, ripped off its last veneer of hypocrisy to cover the massive silver void within the families.

These blood‑sucking aristocrats secretly colluded with local officials, madly imposing an extremely brutal land annexation on the Qi State border, seizing every last barren plot that the common folk depended on for survival.

The Yecheng Court even, in this year of great disaster, dispatched those wolf‑like tax collectors, issuing a brutal decree demanding that the lower‑class citizens remit the next three years' taxes in advance.

When this indiscriminate, life‑denying policy took effect, countless Qi State families were instantly shattered; the tragedy of selling children for a few mouthfuls of coarse rice was visible in every alley, and the cannibalistic Gutou of kin in the cold wind ceased to be astonishing.

In a muddy narrow lane of a Qi State border town, a squad of border guards clad in heavy Leather Armor, faces swollen with flesh, brutally kicked open the rickety wooden door of a dilapidated dwelling.

Boom— the wooden door and its frame collapsed, raising a choking cloud of dust; the leading Qi army Captain of the Ten brandished a blood‑stained Horizontal Blade, swearing as he vaulted over the high threshold into the courtyard.

In a corner of the yard, a ragged, gaunt Qi State elder clutched a cracked ceramic jar with his frost‑numb, purple‑tinged, withered hands.

The jar held the meager coarse‑rice porridge, mixed with bark fragments, that his family had painstakingly scraped together all day in the ice‑bound Xuedi.

"General, this is the last morsel of sustenance my newborn grandson can use to stay alive; please have mercy and spare a way of survival for our whole family."

The elder's knees slammed onto the icy Mudi, his frost‑soaked forehead knocking with a hollow thud, while turbid tears streamed down his gouge‑like cheeks in a frantic rush.

The Qi army Captain of the Ten showed no trace of paternal compassion; he hurried forward, lifted his right foot encased in heavy leather boots, and hammered it hard into the elder's chest.

"You old, worthless thing, you dare hide at home and eat alone without paying imperial grain; you deserve to starve your whole family to death."

The Horizontal Blade in the Captain's hand spun in mid‑air, its heavy, cold back smashing the elder's skull, accompanied by a tooth‑aching crack; the elder let out a harrowing scream and collapsed into a pool of blood.

The Captain snatched the cracked jar, nonchalantly scooped a piece of bark‑laden porridge with his finger and shoved it into his mouth, chewing greedily; the credibility of the Qi State Court had at that moment rotted down to the very bone.

Just as the Qi State's lowest folk were being forced into an endless abyss of darkness that seemed never to see light, Gao Jiong pre‑emptively cast the Andi intelligence net that shrouded the Northern Border, and it began to churn silently and wildly in this soil of despair.

Hundreds of embroidered messengers who had endured the harsh brain‑washing of the Mingjing Si shed their murderous aura; they donned tattered cotton coats, smeared their faces with gray dust, and disguised themselves as itinerant merchants and destitute storytellers.

These ghost‑like Hidden Agents, under the cover of night, skillfully evaded the Qi army patrols' watchful eyes, slipping into the foul‑smelling Liuren shantytowns and refugee camps packed with citizens awaiting death.

Outside the city, in front of a wind‑sheltered ruined temple, a pile of burning dry branches Crack! in the cold wind, emitting a faint yet life‑saving warmth.

An Andi of the Mingjing Si, clad in a patchwork tattered coat, kept both hands inside his sleeves, squatted amid the gaunt, pallid‑cheeked Liuren, lowered his voice and loudly spread the meticulously crafted heretical myth.

"Fellow villagers, waiting here for death means you haven't found the right way to live; if we steel our hearts and cross the Boundary Monument in the north, we can run into the Great Zhou Xiazhou territory."

The Andi extended a finger, drawing a line of salvation on the icy ground; his eyes, flashing with incendiary light in the darkness, swept over the surrounding dead‑stared gazes.

"Chen Yan, Grand Pillar of State, now under Xiazhou governance, is implementing an unprecedented Equal‑Land System; any willing strong man can receive fertile fields enough to feed a family."

The Andi fished a half‑piece of dry, meat‑filled hu‑bing from his chest, waved it deliberately in the firelight, and the whiff of meat instantly provoked the Liuren around to gulp and make hungry swallowing sounds.

"The Xiazhou Prefecture office not only distributes for free to the Liuren a curved‑yoke plow that can make a Herd of Cattle turn the soil three feet, but the military office also shells out real gold and silver to provide wives and homes for the destitute refugees."

Hearing such unheard‑of, earth‑shaking offers, a Liuren woman cradling a skeletal child in a skin‑tight bundle trembled with excitement, crawled forward two steps, and clutched the Andi's greasy coat edge.

"Is this brother speaking the truth? Won't the Xiazhou officials not seize our food like the Qi army does?"

The Andi tore a chunk of hu‑bing with force, shoved it into the crying child's mouth, and a look of unwavering certainty flashed on the child's grime‑covered face.

"In our Xiazhou, even if you beg on the streets, as long as you work hard in the Workshop, the authorities guarantee you three meals a day of this meat‑filled coarse porridge; the military law there is as solid as a mountain, and anyone who dares touch a grain of a citizen's food will have the Grand Pillar of State behead them on the spot."

Such a paradisiacal, dimensional‑lowering temptation in chaotic times was like a scorching spark, landing precisely into this tinderbox packed with despair and gunpowder.

The Liuren's eyes, once filled with dead ash, were completely cleared by these words, replaced by a frenzied will to survive that ignited both jade and stone.

That night, deep in the wilderness sealed tightly by the Qi army, inside a draft‑leaking, finger‑less broken temple.

Over a dozen elderly Qi State village heads from nearby hamlets, all driven to desperation, risked the capital crime of beheading and covertly gathered beneath a ruined deity statue encrusted with spiderwebs.

The biting cold wind howled through the broken windows, scattering the lingering incense ash across the altar; in the eyes of those ten‑some elders, weathered by hardship, a terrifying pale‑green glow shone like a starving wolf pack.

An elderly village head with graying hair and knife‑etched wrinkles stood up, his eyes reddened.

He drew a rusted fire‑axe from the tattered belt at his waist, clenched the rough handle with both hands, and raised the blunt instrument—lacking even a blade—high.

The village head turned, aimed at the heavy Wooden Plaque—a chained lock standing in the temple corner, symbolizing the Qi State's official authority and Baozhi—and, with his remaining strength, swung a fierce strike.

With a crisp crack of splintering wood, the oppressive Wooden Plaque shattered into pieces under the fire‑axe, wood shavings scattering onto the shrine's offering table.

"Staying within Qi State's borders means starving to death or beheading—any path ends in death; better we take the whole village, young and old, and gamble with fate, heading to Xiazhou for a complete, end‑to‑end life."

The village head's suppressed roar, like a trapped beast breaking free, instantly ignited the rebellious fire in every elder's chest within the ruined temple.

The Liuren, faced with this life‑or‑death choice, erupted with astonishing resolve and ruthlessness.

They slipped back to their villages in darkness, using hoes and wooden sticks; before the few Qi army night patrols guarding the village entrance could react, they silently pounced from behind and slit the guards' throats.

Thousands of villagers abandoned the heavy, worthless junk, shouldered the lone broken iron pot and a few tattered winter clothes left at home, helped the old, weak, women and children, and resolutely set out on a perilous smuggling route.

This subtle butterfly effect, amplified by the schemers, completely spiraled out of control along the Qi State border in a single night.

Hundreds of thousands, even tens of thousands, of Liuren who had given up on Qi State swarmed like an unstoppable gray ant army, coalescing into a staggering undercurrent capable of toppling the Qi State's dynasty from its roots.

They trod over comrades' corpses in the snow, following an unknown wilderness trail, rushing madly toward the endless border of Great Zhou.