Chapter 468: Is Great Zhou Finished?

The seventeenth year of the Yonghe era of Great Zhou, autumn.

This year, autumn arrived exceptionally early. Barely after the White Dew solar term, Jiangnan should have been a season of golden, drooping rice ears and the fragrance of osmanthus, yet as far as the eye could see, there was nothing but cracked fields and withered, yellow rice stalks.

For three whole months, not a single drop of rain fell. The riverbeds dried up to the bottom, revealing black, slimy silt; the carcasses of fish and shrimp were embedded in the cracked mud, emitting a stifling stench under the autumn sun.

An old farmer squatted on the ridge of the field, rubbing the withered rice ears with his rough palms; there were no tears in his turbid eyes—the tears had long since run dry, leaving only a numb despair.

These were the three prefectures of Jiangnan, known as the "Land of Fish and Rice"—Huzhou, Xiuzhou, and Mingzhou.

Since the founding of Great Zhou nearly a thousand years ago, the military provisions from north of the capital, the salt taxes from the southeastern coast, and the mineral resources from the southwestern mountains had all been the sinews and blood vessels of Great Zhou.

But if one were to ask where the most powerful pulse of this dynasty's heart beat, it was Jiangnan. Every year after the autumn harvest, thousands of grain boats would set sail, heading north along the Grand Canal to deliver snow-white rice to the Changping Granary in the capital.

Those boatloads of rice were the confidence behind the Imperial Court's operations, the warmth and sustenance for the soldiers at the borders, and the heaviest and most solid cornerstone of the Great Zhou dynasty's stability.

Now, this cornerstone had shattered.

When news of the great drought reached the capital, the Minister of Revenue knelt in the Taihe Hall for an hour, knocking his forehead until it bled.

He was not begging for forgiveness, but pleading—pleading for the Emperor to order the opening of the granaries, pleading for the lords in the court to bring out their private treasuries, pleading for heaven to send down a heavy rain.

But heaven would not rain, and there was no grain in the granaries. The ledgers of the Changping Granary recorded eight hundred thousand shi of grain in storage, but an actual audit revealed less than two hundred thousand.

The accounts had been cooked flawlessly; successive Transport Commissioners, Granary Supervisors, and Directors of Revenue had exploited the system at every level, each lining their own pockets.

The ledgers were full, but the granaries were empty; this bad debt had been on the books for who knows how many years, only to be exposed by chance this year.

And after it was exposed? No one could answer.

Even the Senior Grand Secretary Zhou Tingfang remained silent during the court session, his well-maintained face showing a look of helplessness for the first time.

With the granaries of Jiangnan empty, the price of rice in the capital went mad. In previous years, a shi of white rice cost no more than one tael and two mace of Silver; within a single month, it rose to four taels, then six, then eight. Every day, people queued in front of the rice shops, the lines stretching from morning until night, and from night until morning.

Some waited all day, only for the price to rise again by the time it was their turn, the bits of Silver clutched in their hands no longer enough to buy the half-dou of rice they had originally intended. Some would collapse while waiting in line, never to rise again.

The Governor of the Capital sent bailiffs to maintain order, but the bailiffs were queuing themselves—their salaries were paid in Silver, and when the price of rice went mad, Silver was no different from Shitou.

But compared to another matter, the price of rice was a minor affair.

The East. The Red Lotus Sect.

The name of this sect first appeared in the Imperial Court's gazette three years ago, a mere line of text: "There is an evil cult in Donghai called Red Lotus, deluding the ignorant populace; local authorities have been ordered to strictly investigate and suppress it." Three years ago, no one took this line seriously.

The Red Lotus Sect? Just a bunch of bumpkins playing at gods and ghosts, burning a few sticks of incense, chanting a few spells, and swindling a few copper coins.

Great Zhou had been established for nearly a thousand years; in which year did such grassroots sects not produce a few?

They sprouted with the spring breeze and vanished with the autumn wind.

But this time, everyone had misjudged.

The Red Lotus Sect began their uprising in mid-June. In the salt fields along the coast of Donghai, thousands of salt workers and laborers, their backs bent by salt taxes, raised their hoes, shoulder poles, and firewood axes simultaneously on a sweltering night.

Shouting the slogan "The Red Lotus descends to the world, slaying the greedy to aid the poor," they killed the salt field overseer and three tax officials in a single night, hanging their corpses from the door beams of the granary.

The next morning, while the local government was still scrambling to mobilize troops, the farmers in the two neighboring counties also rebelled.

They smashed the county offices, burned the land deeds, and opened the granaries to distribute grain.

By the time the Magistrate's request for help reached the Prefect's desk, the banners of the Red Lotus Sect were already planted across three counties.

A mere three months.

In three months, the Red Lotus Sect swelled from a few thousand to over a hundred thousand.

In three months, more than half of the county seats in the three eastern provinces of Great Zhou—Qing Province, Tongzhou, and Haizhou—fell into the hands of the Red Lotus Sect.

In three months, of the three suppression forces sent by the Imperial Court, one was routed, one was besieged, and one simply defected to the Red Lotus Sect.

No one could gather so many people in such a short time, unless countless people were waiting for this very moment.

And what made the Red Lotus Sect most chilling was not its military strength, but its methods.

Regarding the rout along the front lines, from the generals at the front to the staff officers in the rear, no one could say which specific battle had triggered the collapse.

It was not like a normal war, with clear offensives and retreats, or turning points of victory and defeat.

It was more like a plague, spreading silently, and by the time you noticed, it had already seeped into the marrow.

The first to have a problem was the deputy general of the Haizhou garrison commander, Cao Yuanlang.

This deputy general had followed Cao Yuanlang for twelve years, rising from a personal guard to a deputy general; he was Cao Yuanlang's most trusted right-hand man.

On the eve of the Red Lotus Sect's siege, he opened the west gate of Haizhou.

Subsequent investigations revealed that the Red Lotus Sect had obtained an old case file from ten years ago—he had once tampered with grain accounts, a small amount, but punishable by death under the law.

This matter had been suppressed by Cao Yuanlang, who had covered it up for him.

But the Red Lotus Sect had obtained the original ledgers from that year through some unknown channel, and even the torn-out pages, stained with aged ink, were delivered to him intact. He had no choice.

The second to have a problem was the Transport Commissioner of Qing Province. He was not coerced; he was lured by profit.

The Red Lotus Sect promised him that after they succeeded, he would remain the Transport Commissioner of Qing Province, only the Emperor above him would change, and his salary would triple.

This Transport Commissioner, who had worked diligently for eight years and was known for his integrity, personally changed the transport route for the military grain of Qing Province after receiving thirty thousand taels of Silver secretly sent by the Red Lotus Sect.

The three thousand shi of grain that should have been transported to the front lines were diverted to the area controlled by the Red Lotus Sect.

The soldiers at the front waited on empty stomachs for three days, and what they received was not grain, but the cavalry of the Red Lotus Sect.

Coercion, bribery, subversion, infiltration. These methods had existed since ancient times, and the generals of Great Zhou were not without defenses.

But the Red Lotus Sect executed everything so meticulously, so precisely, and so targetedly.

They seemed to understand the generals' weaknesses better than the generals themselves—giving money to the greedy, threatening the cowardly, smearing those who cared for their reputation, and holding the families of those who were sentimental hostage. Everyone's "seven inches" was precisely gripped.

Thus, the defensive lines were not broken; they were dismantled from within.

One day a garrison commander opened the city gates, the next a staff officer leaked secrets, and the day after that, a logistics team delivered military grain directly to the Red Lotus Sect's camp.

Those soldiers fighting bloody battles on the front lines found that their retreat routes were always inexplicably cut off, reinforcements always arrived late at the most critical moments, and grain was always in short supply at the most vital times.

They did not lose to the enemy; they had the ground beneath their feet dismantled brick by brick by their own people.

With the situation rotting to this extent, the Imperial Court could not produce any effective countermeasures.

The pro-war faction and the pro-peace faction argued in the Taihe Hall for three whole months, from midsummer to late autumn, from when grain was plentiful to when supplies were exhausted.

The pro-war faction says to recall the Southwest Border Army for reinforcements, while the pro-peace faction says the border troubles in the southwest are not yet settled, and moving troops would be inviting a wolf into the house.

The pro-war faction says to increase taxes to fund the military, while the pro-peace faction says the common people can no longer survive, and further taxation would be forcing the people to rebel.

Both sides have their reasons, and both sides refuse to yield an inch, so no decision can be made at all.

The attitude of Senior Grand Secretary Zhou Tingfang is bafflingly ambiguous.

This veteran official, who has struggled and climbed through the imperial court for thirty years, has always been known for his shrewdness and slickness, never easily taking a stance.

But regarding the matter of the Red Lotus Sect, his wavering attitude is exceptionally obvious.

Sometimes he argues passionately in the morning court for a military suppression, and other times he lightly mentions that "negotiating peace is not a bad strategy for pacifying the people."

No one knows what he is actually thinking, but rumors have vaguely leaked out from the back door of the Senior Grand Secretary's residence—people from the Red Lotus Sect have been to the capital.

When the news reached the front lines, morale collapsed almost overnight.

Those soldiers still gripping their blades on the city walls, hungry and enduring the autumn wind to defend the city, felt only a chilling despair upon hearing that the Senior Grand Secretary in the court was considering peace negotiations.

They are fighting for their lives here, yet the people in the rear are calculating how to sell them out in exchange for a decent surrender.

The rift between the front lines and the rear is widening at a speed visible to the naked eye.

And this very rift is the Red Lotus Sect's greatest chance of victory.

This is the autumn of the seventeenth year of Yonghe of the Great Zhou.

In Jiangnan, rice crops wither in the cracked fields, city after city in the east is planted with the flags of the Red Lotus, soldiers on the front lines are so hungry they cannot even hold their blades steady, and the court in the rear is still arguing endlessly.

The price of rice changes every day, and starving refugees surge from east to west like a tide, leaving behind a trail of corpses and wailing.

And above it all, that Red Lotus, grown from the mud of the Donghai, is spreading with an unstoppable momentum, as if it intends to uproot the entire Great Zhou dynasty.

The wind has risen.

The autumn wind blows from the east, sweeping over the scorched fields, sweeping over the empty Changping Granary, sweeping over the sallow and emaciated soldiers on the city walls, and blowing all the way to the glazed tile roofs of the capital.

No one knows where this wind will blow, and no one knows how many people will still be standing after this wind passes.

The situation of the Great Zhou is in peril.