The Qing Dynasty is about to end

Chapter 37 is coming, they are coming! (Come and read, and vote for the monthly ticket!)

It turns out that selling children is not the worst thing. The worst thing is that you can’t sell them at all and have to starve to death!

These days, there are at least 300 to 400 million poor people in the world. Who is short of people? Even if some people want to buy a son to inherit the family line or buy a child bride to help their son get married, they can't absorb such a surplus of population!
For many poor adults, “having nothing but chains” is not the most despairing thing. The most despairing thing is that they don’t even have chains and no one wants to lock them up and exploit them harshly.

In fact, the most unsolvable problem facing the Qing Dynasty at that time was that the population was too large, which had exceeded the agricultural support capacity of the 18 Han provinces, and there was no industrialization or colonies to absorb these people.

The conflicts between people and land in the Qing Dynasty were so intensified that they were about to explode!

Oh, maybe it exploded!
It's just that the flames from the explosion haven't ignited the majority of the poor people who are in despair and will explode at the slightest touch.
Wang Huoxiu, a former tenant farmer who had lived in a village near Etang Town for generations, was such a poor Korean who had nothing and had lost even his chain of business!

The reason why he was a "former tenant" was because the two mu of irrigated land he rented from Mr. Huang was flooded last summer, and he had no harvest. Naturally, he could not pay the rent, nor could he repay the loan sharks, and even the food for his family became a problem. In order to keep his family alive, he was cruel enough to pawn his 13-year-old sister, Wang Xier, to Mr. Huang as a maid.

But unexpectedly, the reason why Mr. Huang didn't want it was not because he read the books of sages and had high morals, but because the flood last year not only flooded the land rented by Wang Huoxiu, but also flooded a large area on both sides of the Xiaoshui River!

There were too many tenants and poor peasants who wanted to pawn their daughters or sisters to Mr. Huang! Even if Mr. Huang wanted to help, his body wouldn't allow it!

However, Mr. Huang was kind-hearted and did not make things too difficult for Wang Huoxiu. He just asked him to give up the land and did not force him to pay the rent. He also forgave the debt he owed to the king of hell and even returned half of the deposit he had paid when he rented the land.
Huang Shijie was able to achieve this, which can be said to have surpassed 99% of the landlords in the Qing Dynasty. He was definitely a great philanthropist among the landlord class.

But how?
Relying on the half of the deposit they got back when they gave up the lease, Wang Huoxiu's family struggled to survive for a few more months by eating frugally, but now they are still out of food - there is really nothing they can do!
He wanted to rent a piece of land but couldn't pay the deposit. He wanted to borrow money but couldn't. He wanted to work as a boatman but the water transport on Xiangjiang River and Xiaoshui River was in a state of depression and no new people were hired. He even wanted to go to Daozhou to mine, but people there despised him because he was so skinny and weak and he wasn't even a disciple of Tiandihui. They didn't want him at all!

Seeing that his family was about to starve to death, Wang Huoxiu had no choice but to take his sister, who was already starving and emaciated, to the dike street to sell things and beg for food.

His "firewood girl"'s eyes lit up when she saw the tall and handsome Mr. Huang, who was patrolling the streets on a sled. She kept approaching him and begged, "Mr. Huang, please buy me. Please be kind. I'm a good boy."

If Mr. Huang buys it, you will have food to eat!
But Huang Shijie really refused to buy anyone, because his family was rapidly becoming poorer, getting poorer every year!

So he has to spend frugally, otherwise he will sooner or later become the Jia family in "Dream of Red Mansions".

But Mr. Huang was kind after all. He sighed and said to his old butler, "Huang Fu, bring me the purse!"

"Yes, sir!"

Butler Huang agreed, and took a heavy bag from a servant beside him and brought it to Mr. Huang. Huang Shijie stretched out his hand to untie the rope that tied the bag, and then opened the bag to reveal the golden copper coins.

During this period, Huang Shijie would patrol the beggar-filled streets with fully armed militiamen every day to intimidate the hungry poor people, and then give out a bag of copper coins - in fact, not much, only one or two thousand coins, which could not help the emergency or the poor, but just to show a gesture. By the way, it gave everyone a glimmer of hope to survive!
"Give one to each person, and forget about it after they're all gone," Huang Shijie ordered. "And ask someone to open a porridge factory on Di Street, cooking two stone of brown rice a day."

Butler Huang reminded in a low voice: "Master, there are a lot of beggars today. I'm afraid two stone of brown rice is not enough."

Huang Shijie sighed: "Life is long, I can't afford any more, so let it be!

In addition, pick some strong poor people, give them a few extra coins, and let them pick up the starving corpses and bury them in the wasteland outside the town. Alas, I don’t know how many more people will starve to death today? It’s really a sin! ”

Huang Shijie and Huang Guanjia actually knew in their hearts that the porridge factory was not for the sake of survival, but to let the poor Koreans who had no food to eat starve to death slowly instead of all at once! If they were still strong today, but starved to death tomorrow, they would rebel immediately!

There is a process involved. First you become thin and weak due to hunger. When you have no strength left, you will naturally become a starving corpse.

It is very important to open a porridge factory so that the strong poor Koreans can grab a mouthful of porridge that can help them "lose weight" and survive.

This is one of the means used by great philanthropists to maintain local rule. Of course, Mr. Huang had no other choice.

"Yes, sir." Butler Huang agreed, and then raised his voice and said, "Mr. Huang, the great philanthropist, has released relief! Mr. Huang wants to hire ten strong men to bury the starving people. Ten cents for each man!"

As soon as he finished shouting, there was a chorus of grateful voices from the audience. "Thank you, Mr. Huang, for saving my life!"

"Mr. Huang, you are such a kind man!"

"Master Huang, you will be a noble for generations to come!"

"One more day to live"

"Master Huang, I still have strength!"

“I, I can still work.”

Listening to the poor people on the street thanking him and asking for jobs, Mr. Huang Shijie felt very disappointed.

When he was young, he read history books. Every time he read about the end of the world and saw descriptions of the rich living in luxury while people froze to death on the streets, he always hated the stupidity of the rich - why couldn't they take out a little of their property to help the victims, so that everyone could survive?

But he didn't expect that when this "rich family" encountered the end of the world, he found that there was no rotten wine and meat in his house!
Even if this "rich family" of his gave away all his wealth, he could not save the people of Etang Town, Lingjiao Town, Shuangpai Town and the seven or eight surrounding townships from poverty!
But if he is stingy and doesn't pretend to be a good man, sooner or later he will be torn to pieces by the poor people around him. This is probably the end of the world, right?

When Mr. Huang was looking at a group of "grateful" poor Koreans and sighing to himself, suddenly a series of "ding-dong" bells and the "pat-pat-pat" sound of horse hooves came over.

This is not unusual!

In Yongzhou Prefecture, apart from the Green Camp soldiers in Yongzhou Town, no one raises horses!

There were no Green Camp soldiers stationed in Etang Town, but there was a Green Camp stationed in Lingtang Town to the north. He had a good relationship with Zhang Dingxiang, the captain of Lingtang Station.

Could it be that the long-haired thieves have arrived in Lingtang Town, and Captain Zhang has sent someone to report the emergency?

Just as Mr. Huang was thinking this, he heard the voice of Captain Zhang from afar: "Ziying, Brother Ziying, it's bad, the Taiping rebels are coming!"

When Huang Shijie heard that "the Taiping rebels are coming", a fear that is difficult to describe in words surged towards him from all directions!

Wang Huoxiu, who had just received a few coins from Butler Huang and was about to help bury the starving people, heard the words "The Taiping Army is coming!" Suddenly, he saw the Taiping Army coming! They came to kill the rich and help the poor, to save a poor man like him who was about to starve to death!

It doesn’t matter whether they have “God” to protect them or not, as long as Wang Huoxiu can have a few more good meals before he dies, it will be worth it!

I can’t even remember the feeling of having a full meal!
The poor are looking forward to rebellion!
Wang Huoxiu is definitely not the only one who has this idea!
The dike street, which was full of voices of thanksgiving just now, suddenly became much quieter.

The grateful look in the eyes of the poor Koreans gradually disappeared. Light appeared in their eyes! Fire appeared!

In this strange atmosphere, a strong man with a beard and wearing the uniform of a Green Camp officer rode up to Huang Shijie and cried out in a mournful voice, "Ziying, the Taiping rebels are coming."

Huang Shijie asked in a trembling voice: "Fight, where did you fight?"

The sturdy man pointed behind him and said, "Ziying, listen..."

Huang Shijie, Wang Huoxiu, and others all pricked up their ears, and then they heard a female voice like the sound of the sea waves: "Kill the Qing monsters! Go to heaven!"

(End of this chapter)