Chapter 922: Adding Frost to Snow in Shandong

Seeing that they had thought it through so clearly, Zhao Jin did not say anything more, merely remarking, "Zhuang Liu, you mull it over a bit more — how exactly to go about it so that this Prosperity Dragon Society can unite more people and bring the greatest benefit to the Zhao Character Camp. If you need any help, just come straight to me."

From the beginning of the conversation until now, having gone from initial terror to wild joy, Zhuang Liu had calmed down faster than his companions. A realization suddenly struck him — Master Jin valued this Prosperity Dragon Society greatly. At this thought, Zhuang Liu felt another surge of excitement.

"Don't go blabbing to others. Everyone knows the rule about keeping secrets. And don't let irrelevant people know about this Prosperity Dragon Society either... With me here, you can't speak freely or eat comfortably, so rest well!" After giving these few more instructions, Zhao Jin left the circle, and the group rose to see him off.

Zhao Jin's departure was very quiet. He had only walked a few steps when he heard excited, hushed whispers behind him — the things they had done on their own had been acknowledged by Zhao Jin.

"Is Big Brother not going to visit the other circles?" When he returned to where Ji Xiang and Shi Manqiang were, Ji Xiang asked tentatively. They had thought Zhao Jin was going to console the family retainers.

Zhao Jin smiled and nodded, saying, "I'm going. Let's all go together."

After saying this, Zhao Jin swept his gaze over the groups of family retainers gathered around the campfires and couldn't help but sigh with emotion, "Don't think we're the smartest people. Clever people are everywhere."

Shi Manqiang and Ji Xiang were both somewhat confused by Zhao Jin's words. Just as they were about to ask a couple of questions, suddenly and without any warning, the oxen and horses all began to neigh and bray. In the distant village stockade, dogs could be heard barking wildly. Among the wild grass thickets in the fields, flocks of birds were startled into flight, chirping noisily as they soared into the sky. The roars of unknown animals could also be heard.

This plain of farmland on the wild grass flats had originally been exceptionally quiet. Suddenly it became this clamorous, which seemed very eerie. Many family retainers also stood up, weapons in hand, while the company and squad leaders were shouting to assemble the ranks. The Zhao Character Camp's combat strength could only be fully realized after forming battle formations.

Ji Xiang was somewhat panicked. Shi Manqiang remained relatively normal. Seeing Zhao Jin calm and composed, Ji Xiang also settled down. However, this eerie phenomenon lasted only a very short time, and everything quickly returned to normal.

"Strange. The same thing happened last time during the Shandong earthquake," Shi Manqiang spoke up. No wonder he hadn't been very alarmed just now.

"Could it be that an earthquake is about to happen here?" Ji Xiang was truly a bit panicked this time.

Zhao Jin shook his head. It was true that there were all sorts of omens before an earthquake, but there was ultimately no way to summarize any pattern or draw any conclusions from them. As for the disturbance just now, Zhao Jin recalled other examples from his memory. Sometimes when a great wind howled at sea, or a coal mine collapsed somewhere, it would cause such a commotion. People saw no pattern, but in reality, it was because they didn't know what had happened farther away and couldn't connect the events.

"Don't let your imagination run wild. We're camping out in the open — can a tent crush you to death?" Zhao Jin joked with a laugh, and Ji Xiang immediately relaxed considerably.

They made camp on the spot for the night. That night passed without anything out of the ordinary. The next day, they headed north to the Zhao Family Town, the central area of the refugee villages, and everything was also completely normal.

Whenever they passed a village, Zhao Jin would always go in to take a look and also inspect the militia training. As it turned out, in one of the villages that traded in homespun cloth, a manager there had gotten dead drunk in broad daylight and still reeked of alcohol when he met Zhao Jin.

"If there's surplus grain, at most they'd brew rice wine. Where did this distilled liquor come from? The clothes he's wearing are more respectable than everyone else's — how did that come about? Has he been monopolizing the homespun cloth trade in the village and skimming his own benefits from it?" Zhao Jin posed a few questions. The village bookkeeper immediately dropped to his knees, and the militia squad leader was also trembling with fear. Shi Manqiang, standing to the side, was red-faced with shame, clearly having never expected such a situation.

The manager was dismissed on the spot. Getting dead drunk in broad daylight meant he certainly couldn't do or manage anything at all. The main group would take him to Zhao Family Town, where the Yunshan Branch would send people to question him and audit the accounts. If it was merely a fondness for drink, then he would only be stripped of his manager's position and made a village householder again. But if there were other offenses, what awaited him would be severe punishment.

From the brothers' reunion until now, Zhao Jin had been full of praise for Shi Manqiang, and Shi Manqiang had been in high spirits the whole time. Now, however, it felt like a blow to the head.

"Shitou, you have to keep an eye on everything here. The family retainers and the militia must be kept sharp, and you can't slack off on these civil village matters either. If you watch these managers and bookkeepers closely, they won't dare to slack off. If you relax, they'll grow negligent too," Zhao Jin admonished.

Shi Manqiang agreed sullenly and said, "From now on, I'll have family retainers and Yunshan Trading Company people patrol the various villages regularly. When Big Brother comes here again, he definitely won't see this sort of thing."

Zhao Jin did not want to investigate this matter deeply, so it was left at that. The village structure was very simple and not difficult to manage. As long as there were regular inspections and supervision, leaving those below no opportunity to exploit loopholes, that was sufficient.

All along the road, what they saw were well-ordered villages and fields. Spring plowing had already begun in many places, with tender green visible in the fields. The planted trees had also sprouted, making for a very pleasing sight. Zhao Family Town, however, was different — it appeared very noisy and filthy.

Zhao Family Town vaguely resembled a smaller version of He Family Village. It was a market town that had developed around the Second Regiment's encampment as its center. Overland private salt coming from Haizhou, salt merchants arriving from various places, the village retainers who served them, and the merchants from Yutou Town who had come seeing business opportunities — all of these made the place bustling and clamorous.

The filth, however, was mainly related to coal. The dry grass of the wild grass flats was not nearly enough to support such a large number of refugees. It was far from sufficient for cooking and heating. The solution was to use coal. The Jingshan coal and iron mines had enormous output. The Xu family's coal was loaded onto boats along the Yellow River, then transported via waterways into Luoma Lake, unloaded on the eastern shore, and supplied to the various villages near the eastern shore. The payment was the grain from this area, which was used to supply the Xu family's coal and iron craftsmen and laborers. As for the coal sent to the salt fields, it traveled via the canal out to sea, or went north via the Salt Transport River at places near the estuary.

With so much coal around, it naturally couldn't be kept clean. Coal slag and ash were scattered everywhere. It hadn't been long since the last snowfall either, and the winter stores had just been used up, so the traces were still very heavy.

Shi Manqiang was very nervous about this, but Zhao Jin didn't mind at all. This was truly a minor detail. Upon entering Zhao Family Town, Zhao Jin merely said, "Now there are gambling dens here, and unlicensed brothels. I've heard that desperate fugitives have also fled here. It can already be considered a small underworld. How have you been managing it?"

"They are not permitted to break our rules. If they do, kill without mercy!" Shi Manqiang answered crisply and decisively. This answer satisfied Zhao Jin.

Compared to the filth of the market town, the inside of the military camp was orderly and clean. Zhao Jin had also come this time with the intention of conducting an inspection. Shi Manqiang had long since made preparations. The Second Regiment had ten companies, each with one hundred men. But in reality, the Second Regiment's strength had long exceeded a thousand men. To maintain contact among the various refugee villages on the wild grass flats and ensure the fastest possible response to any incident, a mounted unit for mobility was essential. This area also had the largest number of Xuzhou Volunteers, a full three hundred men.

Although these three hundred men were said to be the sons of local gentry and great households from various places in the Xu family domain, here merely to "lend assistance," in reality, in such a semi-isolated region, the most effective command was necessary to make use of them. So as time went on, these three hundred men were actually used as family retainer militia, effectively becoming three hundred mounted family retainers.

Furthermore, the various villages could not be maintained by militia alone. Looking at the bigger picture, over ninety percent of the refugee village households on the eastern shore of Luoma Lake came from Shandong. Relying on them to maintain themselves would certainly carry risks. Because of this, Shi Manqiang had dispersed four companies of family retainers among the various locations, mixing them together with the local militia. Only in this way could effective control be achieved.

But a standing superior force still had to be maintained, so an equal number of militia had been drawn and assembled for regular training within the encampment. These militia were now fully equivalent to family retainers.

All told, if one also counted the militia Shi Manqiang could mobilize, in a short time he could field a force several times larger than what was available in Xuzhou — possibly even more. After all, all the village male householders had to undergo basic militia training, and their daily lives were conducted under military law, making them the most suitable source of soldiers.

Precisely because of this, this place could only be entrusted to Shi Manqiang to garrison. Moreover, the Yunshan Trading Company had a very large say in local affairs. However, these were not things that could be spoken of to outsiders; they could only be a tacit understanding among the brothers themselves.

Only after arriving at the Second Regiment's encampment did Zhao Jin's escort unit breathe a sigh of relief. The journey of camping and marching had left everyone very exhausted. Arriving at the familiar surroundings of the encampment was naturally the best.

Zhao Jin had just settled in and hadn't yet had time to go take a careful look at Zhao Family Town when an urgent letter from Xuzhou arrived. The messenger had estimated the route and come accordingly; if he hadn't encountered them here, he would have had to continue pursuing them along the road.

The urgent report was about Shandong. Just three days ago — the very day of that sudden commotion in the middle of the night — on the seventh day of the third month of the second year of the Tianqi reign, another great earthquake struck the prefectures of Jinan, Dongchang, and Yanzhou in Shandong.

This great earthquake was much smaller than the one in the second month. The damage was also lighter. The reason was simple: many people were now living in sheds or had no place to live at all. With no houses to occupy, naturally there were no collapses to injure people.

But the current situation was already hellish. For another earthquake to strike was adding frost to snow. Moreover, this time the aftershocks continued without cease.

The epicenter of the last great quake had been around Yuncheng in Yanzhou Prefecture. This time, however, most of the cities and towns in Jinan Prefecture and Dongchang Prefecture were affected. Countless civilian houses collapsed. Originally, after the great disaster in Yanzhou Prefecture, there had been virtually no relief. It was the local gentry who, following custom, had scraped together meager supplies in preparation for disaster relief. The Three Eastern Prefectures had poor transportation and were impoverished, so most of these supplies had been gathered from Jinan Prefecture, Dongchang Prefecture, and the parts of Yanzhou Prefecture that hadn't suffered disaster.

Misfortunes never come singly. This earthquake completely cut off all disaster relief. Everyone could only tend to their own native soil, with no energy to spare for other places.

Compared to the Three Eastern Prefectures, which suffered natural disasters year after year, Jinan Prefecture and Dongchang Prefecture had always been relatively well-off. But the Liao tax had severely drained the vitality of the region, and this earthquake was yet another heavy blow. Even the rural commoners, and even the landlord and wealthy households, could no longer hold on and had no choice but to flee and become refugees. The number of refugees in Shandong swelled dramatically, and the region grew increasingly chaotic.

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