The Emperor ordered Zhao Tang

Chapter 263 Water and Epidemic

Have you ever suffered?

No, have you ever suffered a disaster?

Do you know how many times a person will suffer a disaster in his lifetime? On average, one every three years.

Looking across the country, various disasters occurred every year during the Tang Dynasty, but the regions and degrees varied. Minor disasters were selectively forgotten, while serious and bizarre disasters were recorded in history books.

For example, in the fourth year of the Dali period, it started raining in Guanzhong from April to September, and in the tenth year of the Dazhong period, it rained for five consecutive months.

During the reign of Emperor Gaozong, thousands of rats passed through Hanzhong. In the second year of Kaiyuan, rats in Lingnan numbered in the tens of millions. In the fourth year of Kaicheng, rats passed through Jiangxi. In the third year of Qianfu, rats ravaged Hedong and left in March.

In the second year of Tianfu, tens of thousands of crows gathered in Fengxiang.

In the second year of Qianfu, locusts “came from east to west, covering the sky.” In the first year of Guangqi, they came again, “flying in swarms, covering the sky,” causing people to eat each other.

In the second year of Yonglong's reign, there were severe floods in Henan and Hebei, which destroyed more than 100,000 households and caused the deaths of 180,000 war horses on the northern ranches.

In the third year of Qianning, the Yellow River overflowed in Huazhou. Zhu Wen then ordered the artificial breach of the dike to "release the flood", causing the Yellow River to flood for thousands of miles, becoming the first Chang Kaishen.

For example, in the fourth year of Zhonghe, there was a severe drought in the entire area south of the Yangtze River, and people were eating each other.

For example, from Daizong to Xianzong, there were more than twenty consecutive earthquakes.

The history of the Tang Dynasty can be said to be a history of disasters, natural disasters and man-made disasters. Why is this idiom known to everyone, not man-made disasters or natural disasters?
If you count life by the number of disasters, how much do you have left?

And I only have a few days and hours left.

Fu Bao, a U.S. official, covered his bleeding mouth and nose with mugwort and, twitching, stumbled through the mud, bypassing the corpses on the ground, casting his empty eyes toward the hills behind him that had become a den of ghosts.

Three months ago, Fu Bao was violently collecting taxes in the countryside. Jingzhao Yin Sun Weisheng issued an order to be cautious about floods and epidemics. Don't mention how much he complained at the time. His salary would not increase, there was no official career, and the work arrangements were endless.

But the US is right outside our borders, so we still have to do the work. But there are different ways to do it.

Fu Bao often says: "There are five things I don't do. I don't do things I can do. If I can do it, why should I do it myself? I don't do things that are not beneficial. Why should I do them if they are not beneficial? Third, I don't do things I don't know how to do. How can I do things if I don't know how to do them? Fourth, I don't do things that are urgent. Hey, it's easy to make mistakes! Fifth, I don't do things that are precedents. What's the point of doing things if there are precedents? Just do them for show to deal with the superiors."

Drought prevention and epidemic prevention, which is something that happens every year, is a practice that Fu Bao has always followed. Therefore, he issued a notice and took a group of his subordinates to each village to publicize it. Then, under the leadership of Wei Meiyuan, he made simple preparations in all aspects based on the existing situation. After the flood arrived as expected in mid-August, he carried out flood control as usual.

When the rain fell in September, Fu Bao felt ominous, realizing that he might encounter a rare super-rain. This kind of wrath from heaven could not be prevented even if we prepared for it half a year in advance, and it was simply beyond human power to resist. So he hurriedly urged the Meiyuan lieutenant to go to Beijing for help. But all places were already in distress. They were delayed in Chang'an for more than ten days before a batch of things were sent away. On the way back to Meiyuan with a carriage and horses, Fu Bao had never expected that Meiyuan would become his death place.

In fact, Fu Bao had already died once.

At first, the floods became more severe, with landslides and collapsing houses everywhere, not to mention the rivers and the Yellow River flooding that destroyed countless houses.

In short, there are casualties of people and animals every day and night.

Some people were drowned, and the entire village was swept away by a wave of flood in the middle of the night.

Some people died in the collapse. At dawn, the mudslide buried half of the village in the yellow mud. From the holes in the trees, one could hear the sound of wailing and the faint cry of children. The remaining half of the slope and the people living on it were leaning against the wall and were about to fall. The people on top did not dare to come down, and the people below did not dare to go up to rescue.

Some of them died of freezing, or of colds or plague. Anyway, we couldn't figure it out, we just knew they were gone.

Some died of starvation. Some escaped the disaster but lost their homes and food.

Some died of crying. They cried themselves to death after watching their husbands and children struggling in the water and being washed away.

Many places turned directly into swamps, and there were also landslides and barrier lakes formed by debris. The plains were mostly a yellow pond with mist and fog. Apart from waves of yellow water, there were only densely packed people, animals, grass, clothes, and trees floating on it.

In short, the US economy has been completely paralyzed, and most of the people, regardless of their status, have been displaced.

Seeing the victims gathering, Meiyuan Ling was extremely panicked.

In the past few years, many immigrants and refugees from Guandong have been settled in the Guannei area, and there are also many in Meiyuan. Meiyuan County does not trust these people, especially those from the Central Plains, who have a long tradition! At the same time, in order to avoid the water, they hurriedly moved the food and goods to a mountain, and Fu Bao also joined in the defense. Under the organization of Ling Chengwei, hundreds of them, a mess of officials and soldiers, took their only weapons, cut wood into soldiers, took advantage of the occasional break in the weather to do disaster relief work, and strictly prevented riots.

As a result, the expected civil uprising did not happen, but a rat demon appeared.

I don’t know where it came from, maybe from Hezhong, or maybe from Shangjun, or Xinqin.

They are lined up in rows, shoulder to shoulder, chirping and running everywhere in the mountains and fields, like a refugee army in the animal world, gnawing on everything edible on the road, sweeping in all directions with ferocious rage.

To Meiyuan County, rat demons and rebel civilians are all the same, they are all thieves who want to rob.

"The rat demon is coming!" Fu Bao held a nail bat and killed all the Buddhas who stood in his way on the mountain road. The "exiled county government" had hoarded a large amount of disaster relief supplies and autumn tax goods that had not yet been unloaded. In order to protect these and to curb the plague, hundreds of people in Meiyuan County and nearby residents racked their brains to wrestle with tens of thousands of shiny, big-tailed rats that were vying for the first place.

Chop, cut, chop, fire isolation belt, boiling water ditch, dig trenches to collect rainwater, dig cellars to store food, release dogs and cats, poison...

But all these methods are nothing compared to the terrifying rodents that make up the legion.

The rat demons leveled the water and fire lines effortlessly, leaving behind piles of broken flesh and corpses on the mountain roads before attacking the top of the mountain. They crossed streams and floods, climbed up walls, dug up graves, and dug holes in the ground... like a group of omnipresent screaming evil spirits, they infiltrated huts, warehouses, and toilets, spreading the filth, resentment, and insects they carried on their bodies to people and animals.

The massacre began immediately. In just half a month, the Meiyuan magistrate, the chief clerk, the chief justice, the warden, the thief leader... except for a few who disappeared or escaped, all the leading personnel were killed, and the number of other officials and commoners killed and injured was countless, and the exiled county government was shut down.

Little Fu Bao was also sent at this time. He died in agony, coughing and spitting blood, his body covered with blood spots and ulcers. The rats that were killed that day became soft like noodles in a pot, and melted into the pile of corpses, just like the cats and mice, scholars, and farmers who died in front of them. They were all a pile of rotten meat sleeping in the heavy rain, washed by the rain, and covered in their noses and faces by rats, ants, and insects, gnawing until they were bloody.

Bury the body? Who will bury it?

It is not uncommon for the Holy Tang Dynasty to be killed by plagues, rat demons, and millions of people from all walks of life. The Guangde epidemic directly wiped out half of the population in the south. Observers, town commanders, fishermen, scholars, men and women... ghost villages, ghost towns, ghost states... How could they all be buried in peace? After a period of erosion by wind and rain, they will return to nature and leave no trace.

Fu Bao is considered lucky.

He wasn't the last to die.

A few of the friends who were still able to move carried him to a dry place to shelter from the rain and planned to bury him. Unfortunately, after only a dozen hoes, two more people died after stumbling against the wall. The remaining three could only hastily drag Fu Bao and the two newly dead people into the shallow grave, and dug a few hoes of soil to barely cover the bodies.

On the afternoon of the second day after his death, Fu Bao crawled out of the grave.

It's not resurrection, it's called not completely dead, so there is a custom of leaving the dead body on a board for observation for a few days before putting it in the coffin.

Fu Bao's whole body was still twitching and coughing, but he was still tenaciously alive. Without a moment's time to be angry and sad about the disaster, Fu Bao, holding the lacquered stick that was standard for evil officials, walked out of the quiet "Meiyuan County" where only mice were squeaking, and became the only survivor.

Looking back at the hills behind him that had become a den of ghosts, Fu Bao covered his mouth and nose with the wormwood he had picked up, and spurted blood while mumbling: "Hey... I have four things that are immortal. I can't be killed by the rebels, I can't be killed by my superiors, I can't be killed by the heavenly disasters... the plague..."

Looking down the mountain.

The vast ocean in the distance is swaying yellow under the setting sun, half of the river is rustling and half of the river is red, still raging wildly.

Countless leaves and debris floated up and down. Several huge cypress trees tangled together were spinning and dancing on the water, with two lonely dogs squatting on them, constantly looking around, hoping to be rescued.

"boom!"

Amid the thunderous sound of the waves, there was another deafening noise in my ears.

A corner of the mountain collapsed, and a large number of old trees with twisted roots pulled the soil and slowly fell into the flood.

Overlooking the nearby area.

A series of triangular thatched huts and mobile wooden houses are connected together under the blood-red afterglow.

Wisps of smoke and thick fog from burning mugwort, realgar, honeysuckle and dandelions rose in the air.

A strong, bitter medicinal aroma filled the air.

Sometimes there were cries and shouts, and sometimes there was complete silence.

Pigs and sheep are running around, dogs are barking, chickens and ducks are leisurely, and cows are silent.

The men and women who hunted rats and carried out the bodies to bury had bloodshot eyes, coughed loudly, and pursed their purple lips with dry tongues. They walked in the fields facing the sunset, quietly digging pits around to bury children, parents, and couples.

I'm afraid the disaster has not yet reached its worst.

Fu Bao's heart was confused and empty.

People are numb.

Why is Guanzhong so plagued by disasters?

Why didn't the imperial court come to help? Was it too busy or didn't want to help?

"Wu!" A sudden shout.

The men and women at the foot of the hill heard the crisp sound of horse hooves, one after another.

Following the sound, I saw expressions on the numb and strange faces.

Under the setting sun, a man and a horse, stepping on the shallow "river water", came towards them with their backs to the gradually dissipating clouds.

To his left and right, two clumps of low bushes emerged from the water.

Further to the left and right, dense crowds of cavalry and war horses stepped on the accumulated water, rumbling in a line like the tide of the Qiantang River.

He faced the crowd, coming against the light, and his face was not clearly visible, and he did not speak. But everyone subconsciously thought of that person. Perhaps the sense of security, hope, and courage in the subconscious mind were all in that person. A young woman holding a child rubbed her eyes, stood up first, and said in a trembling voice: "Great Sage?"

The voice was as gentle and powerful as ever, giving people confidence: "It's me."

Everyone stood up.

"Whoa~" The saint reined in his horse two hundred steps away. The only remaining afterglow of the setting sun fell on him. He was wearing a bamboo hat and a mask, and his head was wrapped tightly, leaving only a pair of eyes exposed, watching the disaster here.

“Wow…” Several children burst into tears, as if they had found their parents. They tried to rush over, but were stopped by their parents.

(End of this chapter)