Chapter 932: Snowballing

Ever since the earthquake in the third month, Jiaxiang County had been a constant flurry of activity — carrying loads on shoulders and hauling carts, they transported the rubble, garbage, and corpses out of the city, then brought all manner of building materials in.

But now, the gates of Jiaxiang County were tightly shut, and the walls were lined with armed militia and village braves standing tense guard, because a massive horde of refugees had suddenly appeared outside the city.

The county magistrate and the local gentry had also ascended the walls. Gazing at the dense sea of heads outside the city, every one of them was pale-faced and drenched in cold sweat.

"These... these refugees... refugee bandits, how did they end up here..." the magistrate murmured.

No one had imagined such a vast horde of refugees would come. Never mind that the earthquake had severed the roads, making travel difficult everywhere — even in past years when great disasters struck, refugees always headed for a few prosperous and peaceful places, like the various prefectural seats, or Jining and Linqing, or Qufu where the Duke of Yansheng resided.

As for this Jiaxiang County, it wasn't that they'd never seen refugees before, but they'd always just been passing through. Shut the gates tight and mount a strict defense, and they'd weather it. Who could have guessed they'd lay siege right here beneath these walls?

"Everyone, keep your spirits up! White rice and white flour for all of you, eat your fill! Tonight we'll slaughter pigs and sheep too! Everyone on the wall today gets a reward — one tael of silver each!" bellowed Squire Liu, the local magnate, his voice hoarse. Compared to the magistrate who'd be gone after a few years, he, having moved his entire family fortune into the county seat, was far more anxious.

"Thank you, Master Liu, for the reward!"

"Everyone, grip your weapons tight!"

Shouts rang out, and the atmosphere on the wall suddenly heated up considerably. These days, just getting their fill of coarse grain and wild greens each day was reason enough to thank heaven and earth. Hearing there'd be fine grain and meat, everyone grew excited and stirred, loudly shouting their thanks for the reward.

Squire Liu's face was ashen. He'd made a good deal of money from trade on the canal. The two earthquakes hadn't cost him much, but he had foreseen that chaos would erupt on the ground, so he'd moved his family holdings into the city first, planning to go back out once peace returned. By past experience, no matter how chaotic things got, it never reached inside the city walls. Even if a truly large horde of refugees or bandits kicked up trouble, they wouldn't storm a walled city — or rather, they wouldn't storm this Jiaxiang County seat.

Who could have imagined that a huge horde of refugees would actually come, and just surround the city like this? Squire Liu cursed inwardly. Had he known, he'd have moved into Jining. The defenses there were tight, and there were government troops garrisoned. Not like this Jiaxiang County, where if you wanted troops you had to go shout for them in Jining, and by the time they arrived, it would all be too late.

"... Listening to those refugee bandits down there shouting, they're saying there's some treasure given by an immortal inside the city..." someone nearby muttered quietly, probably having just heard the shouts from outside the walls.

"Don't talk nonsense!" Squire Liu snapped angrily, then instinctively looked down. The refugees below were all staring upward. Though they were far away, Squire Liu felt as if hundreds, thousands, tens of thousands of eyes were fixed on him, and a chill ran through his entire body. He could barely stand steady.

Looking at the gaunt, emaciated disaster victims and refugees in their tattered rags below, looking as if a gust of wind could knock them over, yet with a certain glint flickering in their eyes — Squire Liu found that glint very familiar. As a child, he'd seen the wild dogs outside the city; they'd had that same glint in their eyes. It was said to come from hunger. It was said that when hunger reached that point, they'd even eat corpses.

At that thought, Squire Liu couldn't suppress a shiver. He waved his arms and shouted from the top of the wall: "Fellow countrymen, we absolutely cannot let these refugee bandits into the city! If they get in, we're all finished!"

In response to the fine grain and meat he'd just promised as reward, the people around him all answered loudly and heartily. Yet someone also muttered quietly: "What's there to be scared of? Walls several zhang high, a moat this wide and this deep — how are these penniless wretches supposed to charge up..."

But halfway through the sentence, it was suddenly cut off by shouts from below the wall. Thousands upon tens of thousands of voices shouting a few words in unison — the sound truly boomed like thunder, startling everyone on the wall.

"Maitreya descends to the world, the Western Heaven Divine Kingdom!"

After the shouting ended, to cover their own lingering shock, quite a few on the wall began to joke and jest: "So it's the Western Heaven Divine Kingdom now. I thought it was something about the True Void Homeland and the Eternal Unborn Mother?"

"You believe in that stuff too!"

"The incense-burners in the city are so..."

Before the jesting could finish, chaos erupted inside the city. At first, those on the wall thought it was just the noise from outside, but they quickly realized the chaos was within the city — and right at the city gates.

"What in the world is happening?" someone cried out in alarm.

But at that very moment, the refugees below, who had made no move until now, suddenly surged forward with a roar. Every one of them carried a bundle of earth. Some used baskets or earth-carrying crates; some simply used the clothes off their backs. Reaching the moat at the foot of the wall, they threw in the earth they carried, then took the bundles passed forward from behind and kept filling it in.

With so many people charging forward all at once, pushing and shoving from front to back, those in the front ranks stopped in their tracks while those behind couldn't halt in time. Pushed and jostled forward like this, many refugees in the front were shoved straight into the moat. But who cared about them? Though they scrambled and cried for help from within the moat, the earth bundles kept raining down, and they were quickly buried.

The ghastly, harrowing sight below the wall left everyone atop it staring dumbstruck — but then they immediately had no attention to spare, because chaos had also erupted inside the city at the gates.

The refugees had come far too suddenly. Jiaxiang County hadn't had time to make many preparations. The gates on all four sides had merely been barred, not yet sealed shut with sandbags and earth bundles. Only when they saw the dense, dark mass of refugees gathering outside the walls did they realize the danger and order the militia to hurry and seal them. They hadn't made much progress yet.

"Master, those men sealing the gates have all turned traitor..." The voice of the man who'd come up to report was trembling uncontrollably.

The moment this man spoke, who could still care about the madness below the wall? Squire Liu, with his family property and business at stake, was far more zealous than even the magistrate. He simply stood there waving his arms and shouting: "Everyone, get down there and block the gates! If those gates open, we're all finished, and our families will suffer too..."

When militia and village braves are defending their homeland and their families' safety is at stake, at times like this they often fight harder than government troops. As Squire Liu shouted repeatedly, a spear-and-staff instructor immediately began leading a group of militia, preparing to descend and reinforce the gates.

But before they could even leave the wall, chaos broke out on the wall itself. Some militiamen suddenly raised their weapons and began hacking and slashing wildly at those around them, shouting the same slogans as the people below. Instantly, pandemonium erupted everywhere on the wall. No one had imagined the person beside them would suddenly attack. Some tried to block, some tried to flee, and some, panicking so badly they lost all sense of direction, simply jumped off the wall. Whether they landed inside or outside the city, they were either killed or gravely injured.

Yet with this chaos, the reinforcements were blocked. Removing the earth bundles and sandbags from inside the gate tunnel couldn't be done quickly, so for the moment the situation hadn't completely collapsed. But below the wall, the shouting boomed like thunder, the moat was being filled in without pause, on the wall madmen were hacking and slashing wildly, and at the gates there was chaos as well.

Even if the situation wasn't that dire yet, people's hearts could no longer hold. Especially since this Jiaxiang County had never experienced such great chaos and crisis. Pressed from these three sides, some had already panicked and lost their wits, forgetting that keeping the refugees outside was their only path to survival. These panic-stricken people threw down their weapons and fled down from the wall without a care, abandoning all defense, thinking only of leaving this killing ground around the wall and hiding at home.

Under these circumstances, the top of the wall descended into utter chaos, the progress of removing the earth bundles and sandbags from the gate tunnel grew faster and faster, and the filling of the moat below the wall grew faster and faster.

The magistrate and the county's prominent families were all in a panic. Some fled frantically, supported by servants. Some shouted hoarsely, trying to maintain order. Others simply stood there, frozen and at a loss.

"It's over... it's over..." Squire Liu stood atop the wall, muttering to himself, his face deathly pale.

"Open! It's open!" A frenzied cheer rose from below the wall. The city gates had been opened. Countless refugees came pouring into Jiaxiang County.

The refugees who had left their native lands all followed the scripture-preachers and incense-heads. Order was maintained by the core sect members and faithful. They only knew they were heading somewhere toward Yuncheng, to the "Western Heaven Divine Kingdom," but they didn't know the way. They simply followed passively — or even if they did know, they wouldn't dare go against the movement of the great host. They just followed in a daze. Some sensed something was wrong and slipped away, but many more, even sensing something was wrong, still followed the host, because they had nowhere else to go...

The refugees who had emerged from Juye County did not head northwest — that was the direction toward Yuncheng County. They simply traveled straight east.

Only after crossing the county border did the Juye County refugees discover they were not alone. From Caozhou, Dingtao County, Chengwu County, Cao County, Jinxiang County — from every direction, great hosts of refugees were coming. They were all heading toward the same destination. Without much interval between them, they all converged beneath the walls of Jiaxiang County.

The earthen forts and wooden stockades around Jiaxiang County were quickly overrun. The grain inside was looted clean. But for tens of thousands of common folk, this was a mere drop in the bucket. What's more, in the wake of this sweep, the people living outside Jiaxiang's walls also became part of the refugee horde. And besides, the grain and money looted did not all end up in the hands of the starving victims.

The scripture-preachers and incense-heads began saying that inside Jiaxiang County was a treasure of the Eternal Unborn Mother. As long as they could seize it, everyone would be free from worry about food and clothing. As for what treasure it was, people were skeptical. But everyone knew that if they didn't break this Jiaxiang County seat, they would all starve to death.

Moreover, ever since arriving beneath the walls of Jiaxiang, the crowd was no longer just starving commoners with no way to survive. There were also figures in tattered clothes but sturdy and fierce, who carried weapons in their hands. With blades at their backs, who would dare show any reluctance?

Jiaxiang County was breached. The county magistrate hanged himself from a beam in the yamen. The several prominent families who had taken refuge inside the city — whether they opened their gates and surrendered or rallied their households to resist — all met the same end: their families destroyed and wiped out.

The county seat, which had just begun to recover, was looted clean by the refugees. All money and grain were stripped bare. When the refugees surged into the city, countless families were shattered and lives lost. Those who remained had nowhere to go and could only follow the great host as it continued its rampage, swept up into the refugee tide themselves. For them, perhaps having their families destroyed and lives lost would have been the kinder fate.

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