Chapter 229: Common Folk

"Hurry it up, everyone—three more li and there'll be food to eat! Get there late and it'll all be gone!"

Following the hoarse shouts of the government runners, on the official road through Fangshan County in Shuntian Prefecture leading to Tianjin Garrison, several thousand craftsmen and their families gathered from Zezhou, Shuozhou, Xinzhou and other places in Shanxi pushed carts or carried shoulder poles, advancing slowly but steadily southward.

"Father of my children, haven't we come a thousand li or more from home? Why haven't we reached the place the magistrate said? Little girl and the wooden box can barely walk anymore!"

Li Erwa, carrying his pole as he walked, shot a sidelong glance at his wife who was muttering softly beside him, and snorted in dissatisfaction: "All you do is nag from morning to night! How many times have I told you—we're almost there! Haven't you seen what things are like along the way? If the government hadn't moved us out of our homes, our family couldn't even beg for food! We'd have starved to death and fed the wild dogs long ago!"

Li Erwa was a carpenter from Zuo Family Village in Zezhou, Shanxi. His craft had been passed down through several generations of his family, and his carpentry was renowned for dozens of li around—even the big households in the county seat would seek him out to make various wooden goods. His yearly income was considerable, and though his family of four owned no farmland, they lived a comfortable and contented life.

But all of that changed drastically starting in the eighth year of Chongzhen.

From the seventh year of Chongzhen onward, the whole of Zezhou saw scarce rain and snow. Crops in the fields suffered greatly reduced harvests, and grain prices began to climb by leaps and bounds. Li Erwa's family bought grain to get by day to day, and though their circumstances were still fairly well-off, they gradually began to feel the pressure.

In the eighth and ninth years of Chongzhen that followed, it wasn't just Zezhou Prefecture—nearly all of northwestern Shanxi saw no rain or snow at all. The crops in the fields failed completely year after year, grain prices rose to four taels of silver per shi, and the crowds of refugees fleeing famine grew by the day. Li Erwa's business suffered greatly as well; many of the big households cut back on daily expenses, hoarding their silver to stockpile grain against the famine years.

Li Erwa truly hoped the drought would pass quickly, gritting his teeth and using the family's savings to keep buying grain to put food on the table. Who would have thought that by the time the family's silver was spent clean, Heaven above still hadn't sent down a single drop of water.

Just as Li Erwa was in despair and preparing to lead his family out to flee the famine, the county's runners came knocking on his door and brought his whole family to the county office.

There in the square before the county office, Li Erwa and a hundred or so other craftsmen of various trades, each with their families in tow, listened to the County Magistrate's words of instruction, and then were led by the runners onto the road south.

The County Magistrate said a great deal, but Li Erwa barely understood any of it. He only caught the magistrate's final words—that the court had found everyone a fine place, warm all year round, where they wouldn't even need padded cotton clothes, where the fields were so fertile that sowing seeds would yield several shi of rice in just a few months. Their group was going to build houses and make various goods for the wealthy households there, and they'd earn far more than they ever had at home.

And so, filled with hope for the future, Li Erwa and the others followed the government runners onto the road in a daze.

When they reached the border region between Shanxi and the capital's environs, the various craftsman households that the Shanxi Governor's office had summoned from several prefectures near the capital gathered there. After each household was uniformly issued several black flour cakes and a small sack of pickled vegetables, the several-thousand-strong procession set off toward the southeast under the watch of government runners, in grand and imposing fashion.

After the Ministry of Revenue received Zhu Youjian's imperial edict, with assistance sent by Shuntian Prefecture, they set up a simple grain distribution point every thirty li along the official road. Long, crude thatched shelters were hastily erected on both sides of the road, and beneath them stood dozens of great cauldrons boiling thick rice porridge. These grains were life-saving provisions transported by the Zheng family's fleet of ships. These relief shelters would remain in place permanently, to provide food for the large waves of Shanxi famine refugees who would pass through thereafter.

Besides dispatching officials and runners to maintain order, Shuntian Prefecture also mobilized over a thousand sturdy women and strong laborers from the counties around the capital's outskirts to haul grain and cook the meals. Of course, at Zhu Youjian's insistence, these sturdy women and strong laborers were all hired with paid wages, rather than being forcibly conscripted through corvée labor as in the past.

To prevent government personnel from embezzling grain or mistreating the common people during relief distribution, Zhu Youjian dispatched large numbers of the Embroidered Uniform Guard to patrol back and forth along the route. From the moment the rice left the granary until it went into the cauldrons to be cooked, Embroidered Uniform Guard officers kept watch. Moreover, since the new salary-increase policy implemented in the ninth year of Chongzhen, officials and runners alike had enjoyed enormous benefits, and their enthusiasm for handling official business had markedly improved. There was no longer any need to skim benefits from such an obvious place, so the relief distribution proceeded with exceptional smoothness.

Having already enjoyed free meals many times along the way, the craftsman households were utterly obedient to the runners' shouts and urgings.

After traveling for a little under half an hour, Li Erwa spotted the familiar porridge shelter in the distance. Those at the front of the procession had already filled their various vessels with thick porridge and found spots to sit or squat while they ate.

Under the strict supervision of the Embroidered Uniform Guard, the relief porridge had been made to approach as closely as possible the consistency of cooked rice. The original standard for relief porridge—chopsticks standing without falling—meant that when a pair of chopsticks was inserted, they wouldn't topple within a few breaths; that still made the porridge somewhat thin. But Zhu Youjian stubbornly maintained that "chopsticks standing without falling" couldn't be measured by time—once the chopsticks were inserted, they must never fall at any moment. That was the true standard for relief distribution, and it was to be strictly enforced.

At such an extravagantly wasteful act by the Emperor, the officials of the Ministry of Revenue and Shuntian Prefecture all grumbled inwardly. Relief distribution was meant merely to keep famine victims breathing—the Emperor's order was practically feeding them to fullness. These refugees didn't engage in production anyway; giving them something to eat was already generous. Why waste vast quantities of grain to fill their bellies? But since it was the imperial will, they could only comply.

Li Erwa watched his two young children eating the sweet, thick porridge in big mouthfuls from their wooden bowls, with pickled vegetables on the side, and felt both comforted and guilty: The great lords of the court are truly kind-hearted people. We haven't done any work at all, yet they still provide us such fine food—I always feel we owe them a debt. The runner said this thick porridge was issued by imperial decree from the Emperor himself. When we reach our destination, I must carve a statue of the Emperor and enshrine it in our home, and have my whole family kowtow before it every day, never forgetting the Emperor's life-saving grace for all eternity.

Seeing Li Erwa standing there in a daze holding his empty bowl, his wife scooted closer to her husband and poured more than half of her bowl's porridge into his: "Father of my children, I can't eat any more. Without working, eating this much makes me feel stuffed—help me finish it!"

Coming back to his senses, Li Erwa looked at the half bowl of porridge in his own bowl, then at his wife's tender gaze, and warmth welled up in his heart. He knew his wife wasn't really stuffed—she was afraid he wouldn't get enough to eat, so she gave him her food. The government had rules: adults got two bowls of thick porridge per meal, children one. His wife knew he had a huge appetite, that two bowls each time only took the edge off his hunger, so she always found excuses to give him her portion.

Holding his wooden bowl in one hand, Li Erwa reached out and gently plucked a stray straw from his wife's hair, gazing into her eyes with a look full of love.

His wife's face flushed red with shyness all at once, and she lowered her head with a soft rebuke: "All these people are watching~"