Red Mansion: Seizing Jiangdong, starting with pirates

Chapter 146: Storm is Coming (Part )
After walking thousands of miles, I finally saw hope.

The savage carried his mother on his back and slowly came to the yard of Wang Cheng's house and knocked gently on the door.

Unlike his previous domineering behavior, the hard experiences of the past year have taught him to be humble enough.

"Who?"

Wang Cheng opened the door and saw a tall and thin savage. He was skin and bones, with sunken eye sockets, unkempt hair and dirty face. His body was covered with black wrinkles. He was half-naked, with only rags and hay hanging on his body. He was wearing a pair of awkward straw sandals on his feet. Behind him was another savage who looked similar!
Wang Cheng was startled and quickly closed the door.

The savage was not surprised; he had long been accustomed to it.

He did not do anything out of the ordinary. He just begged in a low voice outside, saying that he was from Jinling and had fled here. He wanted to take his mother to the capital to find his old relatives. He was passing through your place and did not ask for anything else but a bowl of cold rice to fill his stomach.

Wang Cheng in the yard heard this and was skeptical, so he didn't dare to open the door.

At this time, Wang Cheng's mother-in-law came out. She was an old woman named Liu Laolao.

Granny Liu asked Wang Cheng who was outside?

Wang Cheng and Granny Liu briefly explained the reason.

After hearing this, Granny Liu peeked through the crack in the door and saw the savage kneeling outside.

"Old mother, please give us mother and son some alms, just give us something to eat!"

The Savage begged.

As Granny Liu gets older, she meets many people.

Looking at the savage's begging eyes, which really didn't sound fake, he agreed to give him some cold rice.

But you are only allowed to eat outside, not inside.

The savage understood the other party's defense and was grateful.

Granny Liu took out some cold sorghum rice, bran porridge, and some leftover vegetable soup, poured it on top, and carefully handed it to the savage.

The savage fed a quarter of the meat to the half-conscious mother who was already starving, and swallowed the rest.

Then he carried his mother on his back, thanked her again and was about to leave.

When Granny Liu saw that the other person was indeed not a bad person, she called him back.

He took out two pieces of tattered clothes from the room.

Wang Cheng was a little reluctant when he saw this.

Not only did they give me two mouthfuls of cold rice, they also gave me clothes.

Nowadays, even a piece of rag is valuable.

Granny Liu advised him, "Doing some good deeds is also a way to accumulate virtue. What if the other party is really going to the capital to look for relatives? It's nothing more than two tattered clothes. Why not do the good deed to the end?"

Wang Cheng thought about it, felt it made sense, and said nothing more.

Granny Liu handed the clothes to the wild man and said:
"You are going to the capital to look for your relatives, but you must be respectful. Otherwise, you may be captured as refugees by the soldiers."

After hearing this, the savage knelt down and kowtowed repeatedly to express his gratitude again.

In the blink of an eye, we arrived in the capital.

The savage and his mother changed into the clothes given by Granny Liu and walked towards the city gate.

The soldiers at the city gate took a quick look and saw that the two men were skinny and extremely dirty, so they stopped them and questioned their identities.

The experiences along the way made the savage realize that no one would believe him even if he told his true identity, so he lied and said he was from Wangjiazhuang outside the capital, named Wang Pan, and he was going to the capital with his mother to find his relatives.

The officers and soldiers naturally didn't believe it.

Wang Pan was dirty and black, and wore torn straw sandals. He didn't look like an honest citizen of the capital at all!
This person is most likely a refugee, and he might have come to the capital to file a complaint with the emperor!
The higher-ups have repeatedly ordered that refugees must not be allowed into Beijing.

"Someone, arrest this man!"

Upon seeing this, Wang Pan carried his mother on his back and ran away.

However, they were soon caught up by soldiers and the mother and son were pinned to the ground.

Wang Pan was about to be captured, so he could only shout, "I am Xue Pan from the Xue family in Jinling, and I am the nephew of Wang Ziteng, the governor of the Beijing Camp!"

The officers and soldiers sneered disdainfully, "Nephew? Why don't you say he's a son!" Soon, Xue Pan and his mother were arrested and thrown into jail.

In prison, Xue Pan accidentally met a man named Song Yun who was in the same cell with him.

Song Yun was from Huaizhou. He was indignant about the shady dealings in the local imperial examinations, so he sold his ancestral home in exchange for travel expenses to the capital.

Like Xue Pan, Song Yun was arrested by soldiers as soon as he entered the city gate.

However, unlike Song Yun and Xue Pan, he was not arrested as a refugee.

The reason Song Yun was arrested was because he had an authentic Huaizhou accent.

The soldiers guarding the city asked Song Yun for a bribe, but Song Yun refused to give it.

Song Yun acted honestly and did not violate the laws of Daxi. Why should he be asked for a bribe?
Then he was arrested as a Huaiyin thief and spy.

Originally, people like Song Yun would be executed directly for their political achievements.

However, he happened to arrive just as the court and Fang Yong were completing peace talks, so Song Yun was temporarily spared the death penalty and was imprisoned indefinitely.

Xue Pan and Song Yun hit it off when they met in prison and felt sorry for each other.

In June, the rice in Huaizhou will be ripe.

Along with the rice, there are also fat ducks that mature.

Thanks to the general's blessing, the ducks raised by the farmers did not get sick at all. Except for a few that were eaten by wild beasts, the rest survived.

If these ducks are well fed, they can lay two eggs a day, which can be sold to the military government as additional income.

It was raining heavily that day, and a man from a farmer's family ran back from outside in the rain.

"Boss, it's raining, what are you doing?"

The man took off the backpack on his back and handed it to his wife.

"look."

The wife was shocked.

"Where do all these fish come from?"

The man said, "I picked it up from the river. I don't know why, but there were so many dead fish floating up."

Dead fish can’t be eaten, but you can feed them to ducks…

In recent days, a large number of fish deaths have occurred in rivers around Huaizhou and Xuzhou.

The officials immediately reported the news.

Fang Yong went to the scene to watch in person, but after understanding the situation, he still could not determine the reason.

“Is there going to be an earthquake?”

Among the talents under his command, there were not many who understood this kind of astronomical phenomenon. After discussing it, they could not come to an accurate judgment, but just thought it might be an earthquake or a flood.

However, it is impossible to determine the exact location and scale of the earthquake or flood.

Fang Yong could only use a stupid method, prepare a large amount of supplies, dispatch a large number of troops to provide indiscriminate support, and order all counties and towns in the area from Huaizhou to Xuzhou to be prepared for disaster prevention at all times.

At the same time, some rice that may be affected will be harvested in advance, and the losses will be compensated directly by the government.

Fang Yong used this as an excuse to implement the policy previously proposed by Du Mai on a small scale.

That is, the military government will establish a stable minimum food price to protect the rights and interests of the people.

After repeated discussions, Fang Yong fixed the price of rice at six cents per catty. If the price was lower than this, the people could sell the rice directly to the military government, and the government would purchase it indefinitely at this price.

At present, the price of grain in Huaizhou is around 8 wen, and old rice sells for wen, so this minimum grain price is not needed for the time being.

But the policy makes sense.

Because of this policy, grain merchants can no longer exploit the people's grain prices without any bottom line. Once the price offered by the grain merchants is lower than six cents, the people can sell their grain directly to Fang Yong.

At present, the largest grain merchant in Huaizhou is Xue's Shop...

(End of this chapter)