Miss Fortune: Is the regent ready for today?

Chapter 127 Unrest after Drought
At that time, the War of the Three Kings had just come to an end. Emperor Chongwen had only been on the throne for a short period of time. He had no support from officials and it was difficult to mobilize people. He issued a decree to reduce rents and taxes. Although it alleviated the pressure on many drought-stricken areas, But it failed to solve the fundamental problem.The northwest is far away from the south of the Yangtze River, and it is impossible to move across the river. The political battles in Daliang have consumed a lot of the national treasury, and it is somewhat unable to open the national treasury to release surplus grain.

In the dilemma, Emperor Chongwen had no choice but to order grain from the south to be distributed to the north. However, the people in Lingzhou City never received a grain of rice distributed by the court.Some people say it’s because Lingzhou is located in a remote location and the court’s carriages carrying grain cannot cross the mountains. Others say it’s because the people in Lingzhou City are useless to the court, and there is no need to rescue the old, weak, women and children. It is better to send all the food to other cities to feed the young men and facilitate the expansion of the Liang army. Some people say that it is because the imperial edict issued by Emperor Chongwen of Nanliangbeiji was fake and was just for appeasement. People's hearts.These rumors circulated in the arid mountain city. Over time, the people of Lingzhou lost their only hope and trust in the Daliang court and began to seek their own way out.

How to find a way to survive?The food they had saved at home was used up as early as the end of summer. The imperial tax was very high, so they could only keep a little surplus food every year. They could just plant it again in the next spring and wait for the autumn harvest. This sudden drought was a real threat. with their lives.If a person is extremely hungry and just wants to survive, how can he care about the benevolence, righteousness and neighborliness that were valued in the prosperous days?

Lingzhou City was in complete chaos.The people formed gangs with each other, and some evil people took the lead in fighting for other people's food, and then divided it with their accomplices. During that period, thefts occurred frequently in the city, but no one took care of them. The people gradually got used to it and behaved ferociously. More and more, they abandoned their inherent conscience and just fought hard to survive. They robbed all the people in the city, and then robbed the villages in the mountains outside the city. They robbed and robbed, and the last of the food from previous years was gone.

Those who lost the battle and starved to death were thrown into the mountains of Lingzhou. Their corpses rotted into withered bones under the scorching sun. Some even threw their elderly parents into the mountains. Withered graves, leaving them to starve to death.

They were so hungry that they just wanted to have one less mouth to eat, and the remaining people would have more life.

Such days lasted for two seasons. Just when they had eaten all the food they could eat and were about to eat people, winter came to an end and the wind and snow came. The severe drought was finally overcome, and the people finally saw a glimmer of hope. If you have water, you can survive... But according to the ten-year history of Daliang, the drought deprived hundreds of families in Lingzhou City of their lives. There were thousands of corpses in the mountains of Lingzhou, like a mass grave.

At the end of winter, after the drought, Emperor Chongwen sent an official named Fang to the north to take up a post in Lingzhou to manage Lingzhou, saying that he would benefit the people.

In the summer of the following year, a pharmacist who accompanied an official named Fang to Lingzhou City went up the mountain to collect medicine. He accidentally dug out a piece of coal. The people in the city were overjoyed when they got the news and went up the mountain one after another to dig for the coal, which was as valuable as gold and silver in Daliang at that time. Coal, however, was stopped by an official named Fang, who said that Lingzhou coal should be reported to the national treasury for exploration and mining. In the following years, the strong men of Lingzhou worked as coolies to mine coal all year round and handed it over to the Daliang national treasury.

Since then, the people have had second thoughts, thinking that Emperor Chongwen ignored Lingzhou during the drought, but now when it is profitable, he rushes to the front to tell them, so the coal in Lingzhou City should belong to the national treasury?Are they, the local residents, supposed to work as hard laborers all their lives to earn their hard money?Why did the official named Fang escape the drought and come here?Why do officials named Fang live in fine clothes and fine food as soon as they arrive in Lingzhou, while they live in poverty and poverty?Why?Just because they come from humble backgrounds?Just because they are weak and can be bullied?Just because officials named Fang control Lingzhou?They are the masters of Lingzhou!

Is the imperial court nothing?Did the court take care of them when they were in trouble?Where was the court when they had no choice but to throw their parents into the mountains to die?While they were dizzy with hunger and eating bitter grass roots, what was the court eating?
Mixed with soaring resentment and anger, the people of Lingzhou revolted violently. They killed the official Fang's family and threw them into the mountains where the bodies had been abandoned.This was the first time the people of Lingzhou were in turmoil.

In the autumn of this year, Emperor Chongwen sent another military attache surnamed Zhou to Lingzhou. The military attache was highly skilled in martial arts, so the people did not dare to make any mistakes for a while, so they became stable for several years.

But in recent days, I don’t know how instigated they were, and they launched a second mob riot.

It was still in early March when Zhou Attaché returned the news to Beijing. Now that April is coming to an end, the turmoil is still not over.

Yin Luo looked at the note sent back by Jingzhu Yunying in his hand, frowned and looked cautious. The letter was sent by Mei Chengting. He said that he did not see Ming Fanlan who went to Lingzhou to quell the chaos. Mei Chengting I even asked Military Attaché Zhou and his family in person, but still didn't get any news about her.The Antaishi envoys brought from Shangjing suffered a lot of casualties. There were many people with strong martial arts skills among the turbulent mobs, and it was difficult for him to deal with them.The terrain in Lingzhou City is complicated, and there are unidentified people on the hills who intercept the carrier pigeons flying out of Lingzhou City day and night. Mei Chengting could not send a message back to the court to move reinforcements, so he tried to find a way to attract Gao Fei, who could not be shot down. Zhu Yunying wants to invite Yin Luo and others to help Lingzhou and find the missing Ming Fanlan together.

Yu Ruyi took the note from her hand and looked at it, her brows furrowed into a small mound for a moment, "Lingzhou..." He looked unnatural, "Aunt Fanlan, nothing will happen to that place, right?" He looked towards Yin Luo asked: "Sister, do we really want to go?"

Yu Ruyi's expression was very hesitant, and she was obviously somewhat resistant to that place.

Chi Ye, who was sitting at the table and drinking tea calmly, glanced at the letter and asked quietly: "Is this really a letter from the envoy of An Tai? Don't be like the last time you went back to Jingzhuang, where you were seduced by someone who had already prepared the plan. Let's go." He has always been suspicious of things, and the note coming from Lingzhou may not really be written by Mei Chengting.The six killer spies who were following him yesterday afternoon also reported to him that there had been no trace of Antaishi since he arrived in Lingzhou. Wan Ruotan wandered into the mountains of Lingzhou leisurely and has not come out yet.Thinking about the previous disasters in the rivers and lakes, Chi Ye couldn't help but think of the king's order on the bronze tiger head. Lingzhou was a very isolated place, and it was a long time ago for the people to disobey the discipline. There were so many reckless things in the mountains. The bandits have taken root, and the barbarian spirit is very strong. If they are lured, it will be difficult to escape. When there is a fierce fight, Yin Luo's scheming tailor will definitely push him out to fight...

(End of this chapter)