Weird Three Kingdoms

Chapter 3800 The Cage Burns Out
The people living in the southern part of Ye City were much more fortunate and well-off than those in other parts of Shandong during the Han Dynasty.

After all, it was under the prime minister's jurisdiction, and had benefited from the policies of two generations.

The first generation was Yuan Shao.

When the large-scale construction of Ye City first began, a considerable amount of gold and silver was transferred from other counties and prefectures.

One generation is Cao Cao.

When Cao Cao rebuilt the Three Terraces, the resources in this area became relatively abundant.

But now, under the siege of the Flying Cavalry and the strict control of the Cao family, the southern part of Ye City is gradually turning into a huge cage, where people are being tortured from the inside out, and a series of suffocating survival scenes are unfolding.

Hunger gnawed at every corner of the southern city, starkly exposing the most primal desires and deepest sorrows of human nature.

In this city permeated with despair, some died in silence, while others tried to break free from this despair, but...

In the most dilapidated corner of the south of the city, the old widower Sun the Cripple huddled in that drafty mud-brick house.

His life seemed to be on a countdown, and even breathing became weak and labored.

He was once a strong farmer, toiling on the land to support his family.

However, years of war and heavy taxes took away his son and wife one after another, and finally even his meager land was seized by powerful clansmen. Now, he is like a withered tree, abandoned in a corner of this lonely city.

The feeling of hunger had long since changed from a sharp pain to a persistent numbness.

His world shrank to this dilapidated house, to the obsessive thought of finding his next bite of food.

He did hear the unusual noises coming from the Wang family next door last night, but so what?
The wailing no longer moved anyone.

In such an environment, pity and compassion are undoubtedly a luxury.

Sun the Cripple's entire understanding was confined to the word "living".

Loyalty to the emperor and patriotism, the changing of dynasties—none of these things mattered to him as much as the nest of ants in the corner that had just been discovered, which he caught and swallowed with trembling hands.

The taste of ants is indescribable.

Mixed with dust, the formic acid and earthy smell are even more nauseating.

But Sun the Cripple ate with great pleasure, even very carefully, picking up the ants bit by bit before putting them in his mouth...

The chaos outside had nothing to do with him now; all he could see was this nest of ants.

Oh, and some ant eggs too.

It's so sour...

It's sour and painful.

Then he can feel that he is still alive.

Occasionally, he would recall the little tunes he used to hum on the ridges of the fields when he was young, the image of his wife busy at the stove before she passed away, and the unsteady way his son looked when he first learned to walk. But these memories have gradually become blurred, and he doesn't know how much longer he can remember them.

It seemed someone was knocking on his door, but Sun the Cripple did not answer.

He's alive...

To live, simply to live.

The one knocking on Sun the Cripple's door was Heiwa, a former apprentice at the blacksmith's shop.

This young man in his early twenties has inexhaustible energy and boundless aspirations for the future.

He used to toil away in the blacksmith's shop, dreaming of one day opening his own shop, marrying a virtuous wife, and having several chubby babies. However, the shadow of war loomed over everything. The blacksmith's shop closed, the blacksmith was arrested and disappeared without a trace, and he was conscripted to build fortifications. After a day's work, all he got in return was two pieces of wheat bran cake.

Younger bodies are more acutely and painfully sensitive to hunger.

When the scraps of paper with the word "Survival" written on them were secretly passed around among a few daring young men, Heiwa was the most excited of them all. Those simple drawings and straightforward words were like a lightning bolt, cleaving through the darkness that had long been suppressed in his heart.

"Rather than starve to death here, let's fight to the death!" Heiwa growled in a low voice among his close companions, his eyes bloodshot with hunger and excitement. "The ward head must still have some food stored up. If we rob him, we can open the ward gate and find a way to survive!"

Fangmen?

That's right. I don't know if Zhou Zhang's drawing wasn't clear enough, or if Heiwa's field of vision was limited to the gate of the neighborhood, but Heiwa felt that the "way out" was to smash the door of the neighborhood head's family.

This was a mistake, but Heiwa and the others thought it was correct.

They broke down the door of the magistrate's house and started stealing food!

food!

Heiwa, whose eyes were practically glowing with hunger, thought the plan was brilliant!
As for how to distribute the seized grain, how to deal with the counterattack of the government troops after opening the gates, and whether the Flying Cavalry would accept them, these more complex issues were not within his consideration at all.

It's not that Heiwa doesn't want to consider it, but rather that he doesn't know how to think about it.

His specialty used to be swinging a sledgehammer.

Now, it's just a matter of changing the direction of the hammer.

"Sun the Cripple isn't here..." Heiwa said to his companion when he heard no response from inside the house, "He's probably dead..."

The companion didn't say much, just an "oh," and then asked, "Who's next?"

Their instinctive act of contacting each other wasn't because they knew the principle of "strength in numbers," but rather to bolster their courage.

"Let's go, let's go," Heiwa said, waving his hand, "Let's go forward... wait, let's go around, we can't call this place... let's go around..."

The three or five people walked around a relatively "decent" courtyard ahead.

In the southern part of the city, it is rare to find such a relatively "decent" courtyard.

In this courtyard, the village head, Zhao Dezhu, still tries his best to maintain his "dignity".

He was once the lowest-level representative of the Cao regime, responsible for collecting taxes and conveying government orders, and called himself "a man of the court".

Even though he is now trapped in a city of sorrow and his family's food supplies have long been exhausted, he still stubbornly wears that long gown that symbolizes his status, and if he encounters a neighbor who is dissatisfied with the current situation, he will shout at them.

"Stop talking nonsense! The Crown Prince and Lord Chen have their own plans!"

"We are deeply grateful for the nation's favor; we shall live and die with Ye City!"

"The cavalry are brutal and inhumane. If the city falls, we will all die without a burial place!"

Zhao Lizheng shouted himself hoarse.

The "loyalty" he displayed was not a pretense, but rather a path dependence and identity formed from his long-term role as a grassroots representative of the old order.

He couldn't imagine life outside of this system, and he had grown accustomed to it.

He would rather guard the facade of "loyalty and righteousness" on this sinking ship than jump into the unknown, potentially risky, or at least what he perceived as such a torrent.

His behavior was to maintain the "order" he perceived, to preserve his remaining social identity and sense of psychological superiority, even though he knew it was somewhat wrong.

His son, Zhao Xiaozhu, a sixteen or seventeen-year-old boy, had long since reached his breaking point. "Father! Open your eyes and look! The gentlemen of the North City are reveling in peace and prosperity, while we here are starving. Is this the 'national favor' you speak of?"

The boy retorted excitedly, but was slapped across the face by Village Chief Zhao.

"You unfilial son! What do you know?!" Village Chief Zhao trembled with rage. "Without rules, there can be no order! If everyone thought like you, wouldn't the world descend into chaos?!"

The boy angrily slammed the door and stormed out.

"Get out! Don't come back!" Village Chief Zhao shouted, jumping up and down.

"Fine, I'll get out!" the young man huffed, vowing never to turn back.

But after rushing out of the courtyard and onto the street, the young man began to sense that something was wrong.

The young man used to often stroll around the streets, but he noticed that the streets were now...

It seems completely different from before.

The young man instinctively wanted to turn back, but he couldn't let go of his "dignity" and felt that going back like this would be a huge loss of face, so he gritted his teeth and kept walking forward.

As he walked and stopped, and turned the corner of the alley, the young man suddenly saw several people squatting together in the alley, muttering something to each other. When they saw him walking over, they all stared at him!

What is that look? !

The young man suddenly felt a little flustered, as if he were being stared at by a wolf, and his heart started pounding.

"Grab him!"

Just as the young man was about to shrink back, someone shouted.

The young man tried to run away, but he couldn't escape. He hadn't run far when he was tackled to the ground by someone who pounced out of the alley!
"Hehe...this meat is so tender..."

"Let me go! What are you doing?!"

The boy struggled, and then he heard people arguing nearby.

Why arrest him?

"Didn't you say you were going to smash up the village head's door? This is the village head's kid! With him here, are you afraid the village head won't open the door?" "Not the village head, the neighborhood head!"

"Huh? They're all the same, they're all positive! Which positive isn't positive?"

How can these be the same?

"Alright! We've already arrested them all! First, smash the village head, then the neighborhood head! Smash them all!"

A group of people roared, "Yes! Smash it all! Smash it! Loot the food! Loot the grain!"

As the shouts rang out, groups of three or five people gathered. Although most of them were thin and pale, the burning light in their eyes seemed to ignite something...

However, this seemingly surging crowd was actually a disorganized mess.

Heiwa and his initial companions had a relatively clear goal—

The small storage warehouse that Impact Workshop is managing.

But as more people joined, they no longer cared about any "goals".

Seeing the soldiers and wardens being beaten down, and the usually high-ranking officials fleeing in panic, their long-suppressed destructive desires and plundering instincts were instantly unleashed.

"Grab it! The magistrate's family has grain!"

"The village head's family must have food!"

"The shop door over there has been smashed open! Everyone, hurry!"

A cacophony of chaotic and contradictory shouts rose and fell.

The crowd dispersed instantly, like headless flies.

Some followed Heiwa and rushed toward the small storeroom of Fangzheng's family, while others smashed open any nearby houses or shops that they thought might contain food or valuables.

In this chaos, different people exhibited completely different behavioral patterns.

Old Zhang, an honest and simple tenant farmer, had followed the crowd out simply to find something to eat. But seeing the chaotic scene of robbery before him, he was so frightened that he huddled in a corner, too afraid to move. He had lived a law-abiding life, never daring to take even a single grain of rice from someone else's field, and now, witnessing this blatant robbery, his heart was filled with fear and inner conflict.

"This...this is a terrible tragedy..."

He muttered to himself, neither daring to participate in the robbery nor to go home, just staring blankly at everything before him.

A group of thugs seized the opportunity to rush into a long-closed grocery store, not to find food, but to steal anything that seemed valuable. They clashed with other people who had also come in looking for food, and the store was quickly left in a mess.

"Get out of my way! I saw this first!" a thug shouted viciously, waving a wooden stick in his hand.

A middle-aged man snatched half a bag of unidentified beans, clutched it tightly to his chest, and ran home without a second thought. He had only one thought in his mind: to quickly hide them and feed his crying, hungry child.

The notions of opening the gates and welcoming the royal army had long been forgotten.

Faced with the instinct for survival, any lofty goal seems so pale and powerless.

Heiwa and his men finally managed to break down the door of Fangzheng's granary. When someone saw the grain inside, a fight broke out instantly, even more intense and ugly than before.

"Don't fight! Divide it by the head! We need to save our strength to open the gate!"

Heiwa tried to maintain order, shouting at the top of his lungs. But his voice was quickly drowned out by the frenzied scrambling.

Some people were pushed to the ground and trampled on in an attempt to grab an extra handful of rice.

Someone had just managed to grab a little when they were surrounded and scrambled to grab more...

Some people laughed wildly, while others wailed in despair.

This chaotic and aimless unrest was doomed to failure from the very beginning.

Chen Qun, who had been closely monitoring the situation in Nancheng, showed no surprise upon receiving the definite report, only a cold indifference of "I knew it." He knew these "fools" in his eyes all too well.

In his political wisdom, such riots were nothing to fear, because an unorganized mob could never amount to anything.

"Issue the order," Chen Qun's command was clear and ruthless, "Deploy the North City Garrison Team A to block the passage between the North and South City! Teams B and C will enter the rioting wards in two separate groups to disperse the crowds—no mercy! Archers will occupy the high points on the ward walls and shoot anyone who attacks the military formation or attempts to climb the walls! All ward heads and village chiefs are to immediately lead their ward guards to suppress the unrest in their respective wards! Any disturbance will be met with death!"

Chen Qun didn't need to be an enemy of the entire population of Nancheng; he only needed to deal with a few slightly more prominent and chaotic groups within that disorganized group.

Under Chen Qun's command, Cao Jun's soldiers, with clear objectives, formed ranks and, like a red-hot knife cutting into solidified lard, easily separated the chaotic crowd.

The suppression process demonstrated astonishing efficiency.

They were at least much stronger than Cao Cao's soldiers against the Flying Cavalry...

Cao Jun ignored the majority of the civilians who were only focused on looting or fleeing in panic, and instead precisely targeted those who were still trying to organize resistance and the areas where the looting was most chaotic.

Heiwa brandished the door bar, trying to rally others to resist, when a crossbow bolt pierced his thigh. He screamed and fell to the ground, where he was immediately pinned down and bound by the fierce soldiers.

Several thugs, blinded by greed, were utterly powerless against Cao Jun's blades and were instantly cut down.

Without Heiwa, a leader who didn't really act like a leader, the crowd became even more chaotic, scattering and trampling each other like frightened sheep.

In the chaos, Zhang Laoguan was pushed to the ground, and several feet stepped on him. He curled up in pain, covering his head and huddled in the corner of the alley. Only when the shouts of Cao's soldiers faded into the distance did he dare to slowly get up and limp home.

In less than an hour, the "resistance" on the main streets was extinguished.

Heiwa and more than a dozen others identified as the "chief culprits" were beheaded on the spot, and their heads were hung on the gate of the neighborhood.

Dozens of people who took advantage of the chaos to loot were executed or arrested on the spot.

Most of the people who participated in the riot fled back to their homes in panic, locking their doors and trembling, leaving behind only a mess and corpses lying everywhere.

Chen Qun didn't even carry out a large-scale bloodbath because he knew it was unnecessary.

These people at the bottom of society lack the will and ability to resist for a long time. A decisive and cruel blow is enough to make them retreat back into their shells of fear.

The riots were suppressed, and the southern city returned to its deathly silence of 'order'.

However, some things have quietly changed.

Sun the Cripple was still huddled in the corner, but in his delirium from hunger, he seemed to hear the insane Wang family next door howling in the dead of night.

The cries were shrill and desperate.

Old Zhang returned home and, seeing the empty rice jar and his grandson, who was starving and on the verge of death, tears streamed down his face. His lifelong belief in "being law-abiding" seemed so pale and powerless at that moment. For the first time, he began to doubt what such obedience could truly bring him.

In a dark corner, a piece of mulberry paper stained with Heiwa's blood and bearing the words "Way to Survive" was secretly hidden on the person of a laborer who was silently collecting corpses.

Despite being stained with blood and mud, the blurred writing was still faintly discernible.

The spark is still burning, but what will happen next?

Will this failure make them even more desperate and violent?

Will they learn from their mistakes and develop new, more organized forces?

Nobody knows.

This is a tragedy.

Even when mentioned in historical records, it is only a few words, a single line of black ink.

For example, "Shen Tusheng and 180 others, officials of the Yingchuan Ironworks, killed local officials, stole weapons from the treasury, and proclaimed themselves generals, traversing nine prefectures. The Prime Minister's Chief Clerk and the Imperial Censor were dispatched to pursue and capture them, but due to military involvement, they were all found guilty."

For example, "Zhang Bu and other bandits from Qing and Xu provinces held fast to their former territories, and the emperor dispatched General Geng Yan to subdue them."

During the three to four hundred years of the Han Dynasty, there were more than a hundred large and small uprisings recorded in historical books.

During the reign of Emperor Ling of Han, in the third year of Jianning, a peasant uprising broke out in Jinan.

In the first year of the Xiping era, Xu Sheng of Kuaiji launched a rebellion.

In the third year of the Guanghe era, peasant uprisings broke out in Cangwu and Guiyang.

Finally, in the first year of the Zhongping era, Zhang Jiao of Julu led the Yellow Turban Rebellion...

Did they care before the outbreak?

After the outbreak, did they care?

Why is this again?
Was the suffering faced by the southern city of Ye merely hunger and death?

Which history book would specifically address the collective powerlessness and disunity of the lower classes under the feudal system, caused by their long-term deprivation of knowledge, rigid social class structure, and fragmented management?
They can be driven to the brink of despair and unleash tremendous destructive energy, but it is difficult for them to channel that energy into a torrent that changes their destiny.

Their resistance often ends in self-destruction and failure, while the oppressors repeatedly exploit these weaknesses to maintain their crumbling rule.

Night fell again, and the southern city fell into a deathly silence.

Only the occasional footsteps of night patrolmen and the suppressed sobs from certain corners reminded people that life still existed here.

Beneath this surface calm, despair is spreading, hatred is growing, and the smoldering embers are waiting for the next opportune moment.

However, no one knows whether the next eruption will be an orderly surge or a chaotic spray.