The pork butcher is smoother than a pig butcher!

Chapter 104 The Decline of the Land of Rising Dragons

I spent a few days in Tongguan City.

The two leaders established a certain level of rapport with Guan Jun's leader.

They also struck while the iron was hot, inquiring about the situation of displaced people in the Shaanxi region.

You wouldn't know unless you asked.

Upon inquiring, they were all so worried that they couldn't sleep at night.

I thought the refugees in Nanhe Prefecture were already quite a handful.

Who knew that the land of Shaanxi was the real trump card?

The refugees in this area have been causing trouble for over a decade!
However, these troublemaking refugees and their information were controlled by human intervention, preventing them from spreading beyond Guanzhong.

Unfortunately, with limited time remaining on their journey and a daunting task ahead, they had no choice but to grit their teeth and continue westward.

The leader surnamed Huang lamented to his fellow sufferer, the leader surnamed Mao:
"Before, I thought the exiled troops would burn their wooden guns as firewood after entering the pass. Now, if the regulations allowed, I'd like to equip every man, woman, and child with a real sword or gun!"

The Mao family leader felt a pang of sympathy:
"Who says otherwise? In a critical moment, we might even need the scholar's wife to save our lives! Her knife skills are truly remarkable! She can slaughter pigs, wolves, and people, and she can also sharpen wood into weapons."

They were completely convinced.

They also added this woman and her family to a list of people they wanted to befriend but couldn't afford to offend.

They turned a blind eye to her requests to wander around Tongguan City and buy some food, and accommodating her.

For this reason, Gan Minglan secretly packed two hundred roujiamo (Chinese hamburger) and over a thousand baijimo (Chinese flatbread).

Although the flavor of roujiamo (Chinese hamburger) is greatly diminished when it is frozen and then reheated, it is still a luxurious meal compared to the bland and watery food eaten at the inn.

She prefers Baiji buns.

It tastes delicious even just like this, and you can stuff any kind of meat into it!
Three days later, the group left the city for Xijing.

Passing through Tongguan County.

I thought the county seat of Tongguan County and Tongguan City would be similar.

What they saw left everyone speechless with amazement.

Because the entire county town was filled with collapsed walls, dilapidated and desolate.

The bluestone path was covered with moss and overgrown with weeds.

Si Shi (9:0 AM).

It was breakfast time for people in Guanzhong, and only a few wisps of smoke rose from the chimneys.

Unlike the ancient city of Tongguan, which had sturdy walls built by layering clay and glutinous rice paste, this place is much more robust.

Judging from the current situation, it is clearly a small county town that was not rebuilt after the earthquake.

The county town's population has dwindled to less than one-tenth, and it is in a state of decline.

As they walked along the country road, everyone fell silent when they saw the yellow earth of the Guanzhong Plain.

For a long time.

The official surnamed Mao, who was leading the way, slowly read aloud the relevant information he had copied down:
"In the ninth month of the fourth year of Wanchang, heavy snow fell in Xingyuan Prefecture, several feet deep, freezing all the crops to death, and causing famine in Xingyuan Prefecture."

In the eighth year of Wanchang, the Zhuohe River flooded and changed its course, destroying countless houses along its banks.

In the tenth year of the Wanchang era, Anxi Prefecture and Yanzhou Prefecture suffered a severe drought, resulting in a complete crop failure in the autumn.

In April of the eleventh year of the Wanchang era, torrential rains caused the Han River to rise in Xingyuan Prefecture, resulting in the drowning of 5000 people in Xingyuan Prefecture and Jinzhou.

In the thirteenth year of Wanchang, Qizhou suffered a severe drought. All the crops withered and died in the fields, and the edible grass roots and tree bark within Qizhou were all eaten up by the starving people.

In the fourteenth year of the Wanchang era, the entire territory of the Sanqin Provincial Administration Commission suffered a severe drought, resulting in another crop failure. That winter, an earthquake struck Chengcheng in Anxi Prefecture, causing tens of thousands of casualties.

In the fifteenth year of Wanchang, Anxi Prefecture suffered a severe drought, and tens of thousands of refugees gathered at the Anxi Prefecture government office.

In the nineteenth year of the Wanchang reign, frost fell in both Yulin and Yansui garrisons in August, freezing all the nearly ripe crops to death, resulting in a complete crop failure. More than 70% of the military households in the two garrisons starved to death or fled. In the twenty-third year of the Wanchang reign, an earthquake struck Huaxian County, killing and injuring hundreds of thousands. It is said that on the day of the earthquake, lightning as large as a bushel struck the ground violently.

In the twenty-fifth year of Wanchang, a strange wind appeared in Yulinwei. The wind uprooted large trees and blew people away for miles, causing damage to crops.

In the thirtieth year of Wanchang, an earthquake struck Anxi Prefecture.

In December of the thirty-fourth year of the Wanchang reign, numerous earthquakes struck various parts of the Sanqin Provincial Administration Commission. The number of victims was as follows: seven out of ten died in Tong and Pu; six out of ten died in Tong and Hua; five out of ten died in Weinan; four out of ten died in Lintong; and three out of ten died in the provincial capital.

Wanchang was the reign title of Emperor Beiwen.

This year marks the 37th year of Wanchang!
In other words, the entire Shaanxi region experienced three major earthquakes within fifteen years, along with dozens of aftershocks.

Among them, the earthquake that occurred three years ago, which covered the entire province, was the largest and had the highest death toll!
Everyone was stunned by the frequency of natural disasters on this land.

Several elders of the Zuo clan were quite puzzled:
"Isn't the land of Shaanxi said to be the place where dragons rise? Why is it that the weather is favorable and the land is fertile for hundreds of miles?"

"The plains are all great plains, but I've managed farms all my life and I just can't see how fertile this loess is. I only feel that the rice paddies are severely cracked and the rice ears are not big or full enough."

"As early as the end of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Xijingdu was no longer the capital! The dragon aura was gone, so what kind of place is it called the place where the dragon rose?"

Upon hearing this, the officials quickly interrupted their conversation, shouting, "Silence! Silent!"

Even if we forbid them from discussing it, the people of Shaanxi all think the same way.

At noon.

They passed through a village with about twenty households and chatted with the village elder while replenishing their water supply.

The old man clearly had a lot of complaints, and he was one to speak his mind:

"The dragon energy of the Guanzhong Plain disappeared long ago with the fall of the Tang Dynasty!"

The Guanzhong region, with Anxi Prefecture at its core, suffered a sharp decline in arable land due to wars during dynastic changes, rampant deforestation, and frequent disasters.

Nowadays, it is no longer the fertile Qin Chuan region that once stretched for eight hundred miles.

Of the several hundred miles of farmland right now, the direct, indirect, and collateral branches of the Longxi Li family alone account for one-third.

The remaining one-fifth consisted of members of the Li family and their in-laws who were dependent on the Li family.

It's not common for small landowners outside the family to be able to buy more than 100 acres of land, and those who own thousands of acres are even rarer.

We, the common people, toil in the fields from dawn till dusk, and our lives are miserable. Even building a mud house is a struggle because it is destroyed year after year, and the land we rent from landlords always yields poor harvests.

Those who couldn't make ends meet had no choice but to sell their children or join an uprising.

It is indeed as the old man said.

People have no way to survive.

If someone could give them a bowl of noodle soup, they would be willing to risk their lives for it!
However, in his reflections, he also noted that the Li family of Longxi was quite capable.

They are quite experienced in dealing with these refugees.

They cause trouble every year, and they are suppressed every year!

If it weren't for the fact that the military forces behind the Li family were quite capable...

The refugees from this area had long since rushed out of Tongguanwei and happily reunited with the righteous army of Nanhe Prefecture.

It only took the officials a little over a month to go from questioning the refugees to understanding them.

However, their identities create a natural barrier between them and the displaced people.

No matter what, they could never become vagrants.

Even the exiled convicts from noble families.

They would rather go to the border town to eat sand than associate with the refugees.

(End of this chapter)