Chapter 18: Ruined

The memories in his mind made him immediately rule out the idea of fleeing, because outside lay a refugee life like purgatory.

In the ninth year of Chongzhen, Li You's parents contracted the plague, and with their old age and frail bodies, both passed away.

In the tenth year of Chongzhen, Wu Yicheng, who served as a horse groom in the Wang family's manor, suffered a recurrence of an old wound, could not survive, and also died.

This spring, the dried-up old grain had been eaten up, and the green seedlings in the fields could not grow; with such a gap between the old and new harvest, a vast number of people starved to death.

The terrifying event of "eating people" kept happening around them; the two had no choice but to finally join the fleeing refugees, becoming part of the vast throng of displaced people.

Rushing east and west, it was either war, or drought leaving a thousand li of barren land, or banditry; they had witnessed too many terrible sights along the way:

"In Chuzhou, the Yuan family had five brothers who, obeying their mother, fled with a crowd for safety; by nightfall with no food, the crowd chose the fattest one, killed and ate him; the five had already killed four of them, while the fifth son, obeying his mother, fled to another county and ultimately escaped this calamity." 【Note】

"Encountering over a dozen starving people who invited them on the road, seeing the crowd they dared not approach, they still shouted wildly: 'If you won't go, leave two people behind to be our grain and rice.'" 【Note】

If the two of them did not have sturdy bodies, plus more than ten years of martial arts foundation, they would have died many times over already.

In early September, they, following the refugees preparing to head south into Sichuan, arrived in Lueyang County.

Here, aside from there being slightly more elm bark, the situation had not improved much; the refugees were so hungry they all looked like green-faced ghosts; for those with children, a dou of millet was enough to pick and buy one; for those with wives, they were sold by the jin.

The widowed, elderly, and young mostly died in the corners of town walls, or in the wilderness where no one knew...

"Sigh..."

Li You sighed, got up, found a place to put the earthenware jar, and now prepared to go over to the wooden shed to take a look, wanting to stimulate himself, to see if he could trigger his junior high chemistry knowledge and invent something like aluminum alloy or titanium alloy.

Soon he arrived at the wooden shed on the west side again; under the watch of the mountain bandits, it was still dry and bustling with activity, only the shed next to Qian Chengzhi was relatively quiet.

His two apprentices, Qian Zhong and Qian Yong, were vigorously swinging iron hammers, and a boy of about twelve or thirteen was helping pull the bellows.

Qian Chengzhi had seen him long ago; their eyes met, and Li You naturally walked in.

"Who is this Li Xianggong?"

"I am ashamed, I am indeed the one!" Li You bowed to him with clasped hands.

Qian Chengzhi invited him to sit on a tree stump by the furnace, smiling as he spoke: "Where are you from?"

"I am... where are you from?" Li You suddenly realized and said: "Cantonese... are you from Guangdong?"

"No... I am from Funing Prefecture..."

"Funing Prefecture?"

Li You frowned and thought for a moment; he truly did not know this place, but Qian Chengzhi's accent was slightly different from standard Cantonese, though not much, so he must surely be from the Guangdong or Fujian area.

After chatting aimlessly with him for a while, Li You finally learned that Qian Chengzhi was actually a cannon artisan, not a blacksmith at all; a letter from a brother in the guild said the current Emperor valued the power of firearms, and the Bureau of Military Equipment was offering a heavy reward, calling him to go to the capital; Qian Chengzhi, who was already living a hard life, after much thought, decided to take his whole family to the capital...

Unfortunately, in this world, traveling far was almost like entering the Gate of Hell; Jiangbei, Huguang, Sichuan, Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan, Shandong, Hebei... half of China, nowhere was the disaster severe, nowhere was there no rebellion; large groups of tens of thousands, next smaller groups of thousands, and small groups of hundreds were everywhere.

South of the Yangtze, places like Hunan, Jiangxi, and Fujian also had disasters and disturbances; even the so-called land of fish and rice around Suzhou and Jiaxing encountered drought and locust plagues, grain prices soared, and constantly common people, in groups of hundreds or thousands, openly raided grain and caused trouble.

So was this ten thousand li journey easy?

First, the carriage they took was attacked by mountain bandits; then halfway they were captured by fleeing soldiers; afterwards, they wandered and detoured all the way, getting confused and scattered to Xiangyang, only to crash headlong into rebel bandits; they only ran west, arriving within the borders of Xixiang; this spring, they were forcibly taken to Longmen Fortress.

Fortunately, Qian Chengzhi was a crucial craftsman; the whole group survived intact, both apprentices stayed by his side, only his son was taken as a hostage.

Having basically understood all this, Li You was just about to discuss the iron-smelting process with Qian Chengzhi to gain a deeper understanding, when suddenly an uninvited guest rushed in...

"Qian Turtleneck, have you made me the waist knife yet?" The newcomer was Zhao Duyi; as soon as he entered, he did not see Li You sitting on the tree stump.

"Oh, Master Xu, I haven't had time to make it... these past few days, the Second Master has been pressing hard; every day we are hammering these iron ingots, truly no time to make a knife..."

Qian Chengzhi bent over, looking terrified and uneasy, saying: "These two days, I will definitely make one for Master Xu..."

"Go to your grandmother's hell!"

Zhao Duyi heard this and flew into a rage; he kicked Qian Chengzhi in the chest with one foot. Qian Chengzhi, thin as a hemp stalk, immediately flew out like a shrimp, crashing into a wooden post of the shed, curling up on the ground.

The incident happened too suddenly; Li You wanted to get up and stop it but was too late.

"Master, Master..."

The two apprentices dropped their tools; Qian Zhong quickly rushed over to support him, while Qian Yong "clanged" up the iron hammer, glaring angrily at Zhao Duyi, looking ready to fight.

"Oh, come, come, come, holding that broken hammer, what do you want to do? Come hit me!"

Zhao Duyi patted his head, laughing as he looked at Qian Yong; his arrogant voice made the whole wooden shed rattle.

Qian Yong's eyes were bloodshot red, tears streaming down, but he still did not dare to move...

"Pah!"

Zhao Duyi spat a mouthful of yellow phlegm directly onto Qian Yong's face, walked up, and slapped Qian Yong to the ground; he casually picked up the dropped iron hammer and was about to strike Qian Yong's legs...

Suddenly, a sharp scream erupted; it turned out the boy who had been stoking the furnace fire on the side rushed over and bit Zhao Duyi's thigh; instantly blood seeped out from his pants!

"Ah..."

In pain, Zhao Duyi dropped the iron hammer and grabbed the little boy by the legs, lifting him upside down; but the boy's mouth clamped on like a king's seal, and one lift failed to raise him; with a sudden burst of strength, he finally lifted him, but the boy already had a piece of flesh in his mouth.

"You little ****, you little ****, today Grandpa will send you to the afterlife!"

Zhao Duyi, furious and roaring, threw the little boy out; the direction of the fall was right into the furnace mouth, where fierce flames mixed with molten iron water... at least a thousand or eight hundred degrees!

Zhao Duyi's ferocious expression did not fade; he seemed to have already seen the little boy struggling in the furnace fire, screaming, and finally being roasted, but a figure flashed by, steadily catching the boy...

"Li... Li Xianggong!"

Zhao Duyi was startled; he truly had not seen Li You here from start to finish; the matter of Tian Si this morning was still vivid in his mind; seeing Li You now, his legs instantly went soft; he stammered and backed out of the shed, then ran away at full speed.

Li You stared at Zhao Duyi's figure for a long moment; this man was from Beizhai, likely a squad leader under Zhang Zhuanggen.

Suddenly he remembered Wa Qingyun had said that Nanshan was not entirely under Cao Er's control; apart from the drunken and dreamy Shi Dayong, every ten days, each leader would send a squad of men to rotate as guards, with the meaning of mutual supervision.

This ten-day period happened to be when Zhang Zhuang's men came over.

This Zhao Duyi was from Suizhou, a fellow townsman of Xu Lifang; in his youth he followed Xu Lifang, and had mixed with old soldiers in the army under Xu Lifang's clan uncle Xu Dingguo, serving in Liaodong, Shanxi, Henan, and other places.

In the eleventh year of Chongzhen, they got separated, drifted together to Mian County, were saved by the knife-wielding bandit Zhang Zhengxiong, and finally followed Cao Er up the mountain.

Li You went over to help check Qian Chengzhi's injuries, felt the bones, all were intact, and Qian Chengzhi was conscious, with no blood at the corner of his mouth.

This at least indicated it was likely an injury to muscles, tendons, and skin, but this did not mean the injury was unimportant; heavier injuries to tendons and bones often affect the liver, kidneys, and the circulation of Qi and blood.

Whether one could endure this living environment was entirely up to fate; Li You's heart instantly regretted why he had not spoken up sooner.

He actually had some foundation in medicine; in his past life as a child, he had often trailed behind his grandfather, a local doctor. Tomorrow, he could venture further up the mountain to gather some medicinal herbs.

Qian Zhong and Qian Yong carried Qian Chengzhi on their backs back to the stone cave on the north side. Some miners followed them, while the guard in charge, Cui Shan, urged Qian Zhong and Qian Yong to finish quickly and return to work.

The remaining two blacksmith households had intended to follow and see, but the whips cracked so fiercely that they could only stretch their necks like chickens, glancing a few more times.

Li You composed himself and was about to say a few more words to the young boy when suddenly the mine erupted in chaos. Li You walked out of the wooden shed and looked up; it turned out that mud and stones were rolling down the hill on the mine side, like a black waterfall, raising a towering cloud of black dust.

Instantly, screams and cries of alarm rang unceasingly in the air!

"It's bad... Wu Dading..."

【Note】: *Chronicles of Chongqing Prefecture*, Volume Twelve

【Note】: *Chaos in Shu*