Chapter 532: Showing Kindness Also Requires Method

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Wang Silang was a small peddler on Niuma Street in the eastern part of Kaifeng Prefecture, the eastern capital, and could be counted as an old hand of the eastern capital.

Back when the Great Tang loyal minister Zhu Quanzhong destroyed Luoyang and moved the capital to Daliang, his family had moved here from Luoyang.

Wang Silang made excellent sesame flatbread, and his preparation of badger meat was also superb; his family had done this for generations.

In the past, he sold sesame flatbread in the morning and badger meat in the afternoon. Though he could not be called wealthy, his family lived above the subsistence line.

But the times had grown more and more unstable in recent years. Wang Silang had gradually gone from selling several ovens of sesame flatbread a day, to selling only one oven, to one oven every few days, and now he could no longer even fire up the oven.

The biggest reason was that Kaifeng Prefecture, the eastern capital, was facing an unprecedented grain shortage.

Coarse grains such as millet, broomcorn millet, and black broomcorn millet were all in severe shortage, let alone refined rice and white flour.

Even if Wang Silang had the cooking skill of an immortal, without white flour he could not conjure sesame flatbread out of thin air.

This year's winter was unusually cold, as if the high heavens above did not want to give the poor any way to survive.

Wang Silang held two small catfish in his hands, his lower body nearly soaked through.

Before he even entered the door, he heard a few faint, kitten-like cries.

His wife sat on the earthen kang, desperately squeezing her shriveled breast with her hand. Turbid tears streamed down her slightly swollen face, and through her haggard look showed deep self-reproach.

On the earthen kang, two little babies, hardly bigger than kittens, were crying weakly, one sound at a time, their cries so feeble from extreme hunger.

In times when even adults lacked food, the hardest hit were the infants of common families.

Because of poor nutrition, many mothers simply could not produce milk. The only source of food for the infants was millet boiled and boiled again until a thin layer of rice oil formed on top.

But millet was not cheap in the present Kaifeng Prefecture, the eastern capital, and its nutrition could not compare at all with breast milk. So in the entire eastern capital, the first to fall into hunger were these infants.

Wang Silang looked at his children, whose cries had nearly died out from hunger, and two cold tears instantly rolled from his eyes.

He did not even have time to take off his trousers, soaked through by the river water, before he started a fire to stew the two small catfish in his hands, hoping it would help his wife produce a little milk.

Though in his heart he understood that his twin children most likely would not survive this winter.

Yet the instinct of a parent drove Wang Silang to pour all his energy into this.

What father could bear to give up on his children?

The fish soup was soon ready. The children, who had already cried themselves unconscious from hunger, suddenly woke at the smell of fish, and then wailed with all the strength they had.

But this could not be given to them. An infant's stomach could not yet withstand the shock of meat and fish; it might well give them diarrhea. Moreover, the fish soup still could not compare to breast milk for staving off hunger.

His wife held the fish soup and wolfed it down, while Wang Silang stared blankly at his wife's chest. If by evening there could be some milk, that would be good. Otherwise...

The creaking sound of the courtyard gate opening rang out, followed by the gong-like voice of the ward elder. Wang Silang hurriedly opened the inner door, wanting to go and receive him.

A somewhat glaring shaft of sunlight shone in. Wang Silang narrowed his eyes, shielding his brow with his right hand, and vaguely made out the short ward elder and a man wearing a white round-collared robe with interlocking lotus patterns. This was clearly a nobleman.

"Silang, come quickly and pay your respects to the noble lord!" The ward elder, seeing Wang Silang open the door, hastily beckoned him over.

Wang Silang's heart was extremely heavy. He looked back reluctantly at his terrified wife inside the room, then did not dare delay, and could only drag his leaden legs over quickly.

Generally, when a nobleman came calling on a commoner, it was most likely that nothing good would come of it.

"So you are Wang Silang? I am a retainer of the Yongxun Palace. I heard you recently had twin sons, and have come by special order of the Sage to offer congratulations."

As he spoke, the white-robed man who called himself a retainer of the Yongxun Palace placed a clay jar on the ground.

Wang Silang was still somewhat dazed, not understanding what the visitor meant, when a figure beside him suddenly leaped up and slapped Wang Silang hard on the head with a palm like a cattail-leaf fan.

The ward elder roared at Wang Silang, "What are you standing there for? Kowtow and thank the Sage for his grace! Look at what's inside!"

Wang Silang stupidly opened the lid, and at once a rich fragrance wafted out. As a cook, Wang Silang recognized it immediately: this was goat's milk. The clay jar contained goat's milk!

The ward elder beside him was choked with emotion. "Your two boys are truly blessed. The Sage heard your wife could not produce milk and the children were crying from hunger, so he specially set aside his own morning meal and sent this goat's milk to save your sons' lives!"

The white-robed retainer also nodded toward Wang Silang. "From now on, every two days, go and wait outside the Daning Palace, give your name, and goat's milk or human milk will be bestowed upon you."

It was as if a thunderbolt had struck from the highest heavens into Wang Silang's heart. He had never imagined that the one who could save his children's lives, the one who would set aside his own morning meal to relieve the common people, would actually be that Sage deep within the palace.

Hearing there was goat's milk, Wang Silang's wife, desperate to save her children, had already run out holding the two babies. She did not care what had happened; as long as there was goat's milk to save her children's lives, that was enough.

In the biting cold wind, the kitten-sized infants stopped crying and gulped down the goat's milk with reddened faces, their greedy manner enough to bring tears to one's eyes.

Wang Silang let out a grateful cry that he had tried desperately to suppress, knelt in the direction of the Daning Palace, and kowtowed frantically with all his heart.

"This commoner Wang Silang kowtows to the Sage!"

Just then, the wailing of the neighbor Zhou Sanluzi drifted over as well. His family also had a crying infant waiting to be fed.

But for Zhang Zhao, sending out goat's milk was far from enough, because nanny goats that still produced milk in the depths of winter were already the kind that defied heaven.

For although goats' lactation periods rotated continuously, in theory allowing year-round milk production, most common practice was still to let nanny goats become pregnant in winter.

During pregnancy there was no milk. To get milk, the nanny goat had to carry her young through the winter, so there would inevitably not be many.

"In the entire eastern capital there are about two thousand three hundred infants, of whom one thousand eight hundred lack milk. The most severe three hundred or so are already struggling on the edge of death, and our goat's milk is at most enough for forty infants."

As the secret service department established by Zhang Zhao, the Brocade Robe Envoys had now also become collectors of conditions among the common people. The one reporting to Zhang Zhao was Zhang Liecheng.

Zhang Zhao nodded. He had long had a plan. "Notify Cao Wantong of the Hexi Trading Company and your father-in-law Kang Jinshan to transport one thousand jin of our reserve sugar to the eastern capital.

Then have Cao Yuanzhong, the defender of Chang'an, send more soybeans and less millet. Prepare to grind soybean milk!"

Without enough goat's milk, they would use sweetened soybean milk as a substitute. Moreover, the soybean dregs left from grinding could be given to those pregnant women. As long as they were fed their fill, many should still be able to produce milk.

"Yes! Your child will go at once!" Zhang Liecheng clasped his hands and acknowledged the order. Just as he was about to leave, Zhang Zhao called him back.

"I hear Erniang has borne you another daughter? Find a time to bring her into the palace so I can see this little granddaughter."

A delighted look appeared on Zhang Liecheng's face. As an orphan Zhang Zhao had picked up from the Karakum Desert, from the day he began following Zhang Zhao, he had truly regarded Zhang Zhao as his own father.

And because he had enjoyed little warmth from a father in his childhood, he especially treasured Zhang Zhao's affection toward him.

"Once Mother arrives in the eastern capital, your child will have Erniang bring the children into the palace to pay their respects."

As he spoke, a faint trace of disappointment appeared in Zhang Liecheng. "It is only a pity that Erniang's three births have all been daughters, and she has not been able to give Father a grandson."

Zhang Zhao smiled faintly. He knew Zhang Liecheng had always wanted a son, but strangely enough, though he had married one wife and two concubines and fathered five children, all were daughters. He simply could not produce a son, and this had nearly become an obsession for Zhang Liecheng.

Zhang Zhao stroked his chin thoughtfully for a moment, then said to Zhang Liecheng.

"Perhaps it's simply that you and a Hexi woman cannot produce a son. Well then — recently the King of Nanping, Gao Conghui, has offended me. I have heard that the daughters of the Gao family are gentle and virtuous. Let Gao Conghui send a niece to be your concubine. Perhaps with a change of soil, you will get a son."

Hearing that Zhang Zhao cared so much about him, and that he would even gain a daughter of the Gao clan, Zhang Liecheng could not help but be overjoyed.

That was just the sort of man he was — because his origins were low, he placed particular value on family status.

The Gao family of Nanping were rulers of a state; even a niece could rightly be called a noblewoman, which suited Zhang Liecheng's taste exactly.

At once he bowed to the ground and loudly gave thanks: "Your child bows in gratitude for Father's gracious gift."

"Get up! Get up at once!" Zhang Zhao put on a look of distaste and pulled Zhang Liecheng to his feet, then asked with an air of utter unconcern.

"I hear that Second Lady has a rather abundant supply of milk this time? The child cannot even finish it."

Zhang Liecheng was stunned for a second or two, then instantly grasped what Zhang Zhao meant.

"Your child also feels it is rather a waste. Besides, the wives of two servants in the household also have more milk than their children can finish. Your child will go back at once and order it to be collected and distributed to the children of the common people in the Eastern Capital."

Zhang Zhao nodded with satisfaction and patted Zhang Liecheng on the shoulder.

"Father will not lecture you with grand principles. You have always been kind-hearted, and you understand these things.

Let us speak only of the small side of it. The human heart is made of flesh. In a year of disaster, every life saved means one more loyal subject and righteous man for my Great Zhou in days to come."

Zhang Liecheng thought for a moment. "In that case, there are several hundred noble and wealthy households in this Eastern Capital. Why not let your child take the lead in submitting a memorial, asking each household to set aside some milk and send it to the palace, to be distributed daily to those infants who lack it?"

Zhang Zhao looked at Zhang Liecheng with warm approval. "My son bears good will in his heart. One day he will surely be like Fenyang Wang of the great dynasty, with seven sons and eight sons-in-law, his bed covered in court tablets!"

These words made Zhang Liecheng even more elated. Fenyang Wang, Guo Ziyi, had rendered great service to the state yet was never suspected by his sovereign, and in the end was surrounded by children and grandchildren, all high officials of the court. To call that the highest aspiration of a subject was no exaggeration at all.

A few sentences, and Zhang Liecheng felt as though he were walking on cotton. He immediately went out to contact the noble and wealthy households of the Eastern Capital, to contribute milk for the infants of the common people.

A few traces of a smile appeared on Zhang Zhao's face as well, and then he bent over his desk once more to write a letter to Cao Shijiu Niang, Yanxi.

Besides the infants who needed relief, there were also a great number of women in the Eastern Capital who needed relief.

These women had basically all been carried off when the Khitan entered the Central Plains. Some were natives of Kaifeng Prefecture in the Eastern Capital, and some were from the various prefectures and counties of Henan and Hebei.

Many of them had already lost their families to violence and had nowhere to go at all. Even those who still had families often found it impossible to return home.

Because all these women who had been seized had been violated, and many of them were pregnant.

Although chastity was not yet regarded with extreme strictness at this time, a woman who had been violated by the Khitan and was carrying a cursed seed was still very difficult for her family to accept.

Even setting aside all else — even if their families could accept them, they themselves, and those around them, could hardly accept the cursed seed in their bellies.

At this time there were no abortion procedures. In order to return to their families, some of these women, three or four months pregnant, would risk smashing their bellies against the corners of stoves and sharp edges of furniture to abort, and many died on the spot, two lives lost at once.

As for abandoned infants, children strangled at birth, or women with no way out who froze or starved to death in various places — there were even more.

A conservative estimate put the number of such women at five or six thousand or more. Zhang Zhao prepared to establish a special Consolation Bureau to take them in and help them through this difficult time.

For those who could return to their families and normal society after giving birth, the children would be raised by the Consolation Bureau.

For those who could not return to their families, they could do some work in the Consolation Bureau, and later be arranged to marry or to take up posts in the palace, or something of the sort.

But Zhang Zhao was so busy every day that he could not possibly devote too much energy to this matter. So he could only hope that Cao Yanxi would come quickly. These were matters that ought to be handled by the empress, she who serves as a mother to all under heaven.

By the time he finished the letter to Cao Yanxi, it was already the first watch of the night. Zhang Zhao walked out past the palace gate and looked at the pitch-dark Eastern Capital beyond.

He still had a great many things to do. Liu Zhiyuan was steadily growing in strength and was even trying to seize the two prefectures of Fu and Lin from him. Li Jing of the Southern Tang was even more brazen, utterly insolent.

His Great Zhou, at present occupying only the Yellow River region from Guanzhong to Baima Ford in Huazhou, had somehow become the primary target for every side to strike at.

He had wanted to cut through the tangle with a swift blade and crush the enemy, but reality forced Zhang Zhao to adopt policies of pacifying the people instead.

Li Xiaojie came over to Zhang Zhao's side trailing a long robe. Zhang Zhao waved his hand, signaling that it was not needed.

"Our next step can begin."

What Zhang Zhao called the second step of the plan was this: after bestowing goat's milk, human milk, and sweetened soybean milk, he would bestow bean dregs and the entrails of pigs, sheep, chickens, and ducks upon the mothers of infants, to help them produce milk.

As for the fact that the taste was truly nothing to speak of — that was outside the scope of Zhang Zhao's consideration.

The common people of the Eastern Capital cared even less. When people are on the verge of starving to death, who has the leisure to care whether something tastes good or not?

Of course, this continued bestowal of goods, aside from wanting to solve the problem of nursing women's milk shortage at the root, was also meant to make others feel the unfairness of it, and thereby amplify their gratitude.

The human heart has always been most averse not to scarcity but to inequality. Cases of a pint of rice earning gratitude and a bushel of rice earning enmity are by no means rare.

Examples of bestowing kindness without attention to method and strategy, only to achieve the opposite result, are not few.

Sure enough, after Zhang Zhao bestowed milk and food upon the nursing women, strange voices began to rise among the people.

In a famine year, no household had it easy. This family had no nursing infant, but it had no shortage of children a few years old, and they ate even more and were a heavier burden on the household.

Now the infants had something and the older children did not. Some commoners did not dare speak loudly, but there was no shortage of private grumbling.

Talk arose of how the Sage was partial, caring only for infants and ignoring everyone else, and how there must be treacherous ministers deceiving the Sage, and so on.

Wang Silang held a bowl of milk. His eyes brimmed with tears as he watched his son swallow mouthful after mouthful, and he said to his wife with the utmost gratitude.

"This was sent over from the Zhang residence north of the city. This is food from the mouth of the Sage's own granddaughter, saved and given to the children of us common folk to drink."

His wife nodded with equal gratitude. "Having drunk food from the mouth of the Sage's granddaughter, their lives belong to the Sage. When they grow up, they won't learn to make sesame cakes — they'll train with spear and staff to kill the Sage's enemies."

Wang Silang was just about to nod in agreement when, from beyond the narrow fence, a sneering voice rang out.

"Hmph! Your son still wets his pants. By the time he can kill enemies for the Sage, the daylilies will have gone cold. My Hutou is nine years old — in a few years he'll be able to take up spear and staff.

What a pity! The Sage is partial, caring only for the little ones and ignoring the older ones. Back in my home village, if any family's old ancestor acted like this, he could be sure no one would be there to send him off at his death."

Wang Silang was at the very height of his gratitude toward Zhang Zhao, and could not bear such words. Besides, this neighbor Zhao Jiulang had been making such sneering remarks for more than a day or two.

In the past, the short and slight Wang Silang would never have dared to clash with Zhao Jiulang. But at this moment, Wang Silang would not allow anyone to slander the Sage in the slightest.

With a roar, Wang Silang burst through the fence and charged straight into Zhao Jiulang's house, and the two fell to fighting.

However, Zhao Jiulang was a helper at a butcher's shop, and on ordinary days he ate pig offal and sheep offal day in and day out, so he was strong and sturdy, a full size larger than Wang Silang.

Zhao Jiulang's household was also nearly out of food, and his child was a bit older and had received no reward, so he had a bellyful of pent-up fire.

Once the two began to fight, although Wang Silang howled and resisted with all his might, he was quickly pinned to the ground and took several solid blows.

"Fuck your mother, Zhao Jiulang! You dare speak ill of the Sage — I'll beat you to death too!"

At that moment, with a roar, Zhou Sanluzi, who also had an infant at home, came running over to lend a hand.

Although Zhou Sanluzi was also quite thin and small, two against one immediately turned the situation around. Zhao Jiulang could only struggle to fend them off, and he too took several blows.

Once the men started fighting, the women naturally weren't going to just stand by and watch.

Wang Silang's wife, still nursing a baby, ran over all the same, so while the three men fought, the three women also battled it out in a tangle.

Only the situation on the women's side wasn't the same as the men's — Zhao Jiulang's wife was a heavyweight famous far and wide.

And "heavy" here meant heavy in the most literal sense.

This woman was about the same build as Zhao Jiulang and notoriously not to be trifled with. The two of them, Wang's wife and Zhou's wife, went at her together and still got beaten until they howled like ghosts and wailed like wolves.

With this side brawling in a knot, the neighbors were quickly alarmed. Once they heard what had happened, the crowd swiftly split into factions, and the clamor grew even louder.

Just then, the ward elder came clattering over at a run. The moment he saw the fight underway, he was thoroughly angered.

But seeing that the battle had already reached white heat, the ward elder didn't notify the watch officers. With his old bones, he truly didn't dare rush up to intervene.

Moreover, the ward elder could plainly see that the mood of the surrounding neighbors was off, and he knew at once what it was about — all stirred up by that imperial bounty. But now he had a great weapon.

The ward elder pulled out a strip of silk cloth covered in writing and, with some effort but in an unusually ringing voice, read it aloud.

"... In the space of ten years, the Eastern Capital has been breached four times; devastation stretches as far as the eye can see, and the people's livelihood is hard.... Yet under Heaven, no land is not the king's; scholars and commoners alike are all Our children. We now specially allocate one thousand shi of millet and various fruits, to be bestowed upon children from the age of one full year to ten years..."

The ward elder stammered through the reading. The surrounding neighbors, and the six people locked in battle, all froze.

At that moment, Wednesday Donkey was still gripping Zhao Jiulang's hair, Wang Silang was hugging Zhao Jiulang's thigh about to bite it, and Zhao Jiulang's fist had already smashed into Wang Silang's face.

Abruptly, Zhao Jiulang shoved the two men away. On his swollen face bloomed a look of pure delight, and he stared at the ward elder and asked in joyful surprise.

"The great family has not forgotten us! My Huzi can also receive food bestowed by the great family?"

In truth, Zhao Jiulang's household grain could still barely hold out, only they ate a bit worse — just enough to stay half full.

What he cared about most, in fact, was that his son had not gotten to share in the glory of the imperially bestowed goods.

The ward elder snorted, white breath puffing from his nose. Without caring whether Zhao Jiulang could read or not, he pointed at one passage and showed it to him.

"You stupid beast, look here. Do you know what 'scholars and commoners alike are all Our children' means? It means the Sage is the father of all of us, and a father does not favor one child over another."

Zhao Jiulang couldn't read, yet it was as if he understood perfectly. On that round face of his, a look of pure joy rose once again.

Quick as lightning, he reached out and snatched up his son Huzi, then flew off in the direction of Daning Palace.

Huzi had just knocked down Wednesday Donkey's eldest son and was still panting when his own father seized him by the hand. Like a kite, he went drifting and bobbing away, vanishing from the neighbors' sight.

A thousand shi of millet sounded like a lot, but once divided up, it surely wouldn't amount to much.

If not for the goading from Wang Silang's and Wednesday Donkey's families earlier, Zhao Jiulang wouldn't have cared much about this bit of bounty.

But now, he was as happy as if Zhang Zhao had bestowed a thousand shi of millet on his family alone.

Infants received the imperially bestowed food, and children under ten received it too. The restlessness of the Eastern Capital's people was calmed in an instant.

But everyone was waiting, waiting for the Sage in Daning Palace. They felt that more good things were surely still to come.

Sure enough, on the third day, a piece of super-heavyweight news spread through the entire Eastern Capital.

The Son of Heaven had mobilized one hundred fifty thousand shi of military grain and permitted the people of the Eastern Capital to buy military grain at the grain price of the previous bumper year to get through the hard times. If merchants were willing to sell, the difference in price would be subsidized out of the Son of Heaven's own pocket.

One must understand that grain prices at this time were nearly five times what they had been in a bumper year. To be able to buy at bumper-year prices would without doubt enormously strengthen ordinary people's ability to weather a famine year.

The moment this decree came out, the Eastern Capital rang with cheers, and everyone praised the Sage's benevolence.

Word spread further, saying the Sage had declared that he would absolutely not let a single person in the Eastern Capital starve to death.

Yet even having accomplished all this, Zhang Zhao didn't have so much as a moment to breathe easy. Everything still depended on how the next few days unfolded, because in reality he did not have one hundred fifty thousand shi of surplus military grain to use at all.

Even if he did, he wouldn't dare use it recklessly. If the army fell into chaos, then it would truly all be over.

Only, he didn't have one hundred fifty thousand shi of grain — but other people did.

Those were the great rural clans who had seized more than sixty percent of the land in the entire Henan region, including the Eastern Capital of Kaifeng Prefecture, and who were building fortified manors and training local militia to protect themselves.

These past two years were famine years, but at the same time there was a saying in the countryside: "Three years of great drought, and you eat your fill."

This did not mean that after three years of drought the crops would still grow well; it meant that after three years of drought, the people were nearly all dead, and those who remained could eat their fill.

That was exactly the situation now. After three years of natural and man-made disasters, those in the countryside who could die had mostly died.

The common people who survived and made it into the fortified manors could still squeeze out some grain, only they didn't dare transport it out.

This was another important reason Zhang Zhao did not dare open the military granaries for famine relief in the Eastern Capital.

If you opened the military granaries, grain prices would fall, and then the grain from the surrounding countryside would be even less likely to enter the Eastern Capital. That way, unless you could keep propping things up with military grain indefinitely, grain prices would inevitably rebound with a vengeance.

And now, with this single edict, Zhang Zhao was, first, showing that he had plenty of grain, and second, tacitly acknowledging the current grain price — the people buy at fair price, and the government subsidizes.

In the past, some would surely not have believed it, but after two rounds of benevolent decrees, his reputation had been built up somewhat, and grain from the countryside might now dare to enter cities like the Eastern Capital.

Still, Zhang Zhao felt it wasn't safe enough. So the final move — returning the people's gold, silver, and jewelry — had to be put on the agenda immediately.

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