Am I the old man who's always by my apprentices' side?

Chapter 392 The Rebellion of the Southern Chu Kingdom
After a long while, when He Yu opened his eyes again, his face was indeed filled with joy.

"Fellow Daoist Zhang! Fellow Daoist Tang is indeed alright!"

He Yu excitedly said, "As soon as I saw how Tang Yu was killed, I knew he was definitely alright! This guy only refined Tang Yu's physical body; his primordial spirit and soul are still there, but we don't know where they went. It's a pity we can't find any trace of them in his memories..."

At this point, He Yu sighed, but then he smiled and said, "As long as I know he's alright, that's good. At worst, when I find him, he'll just become a ghost cultivator like me!"

"Yes, as long as nothing happens, that's good."

Zhang Chengdao nodded, then added, "Fellow Daoist, you might as well keep a close eye out. If you can find it, when I have the opportunity to go to the real White Stone Realm in the future, I might be able to rescue you two ahead of time!"

He Yu was taken aback upon hearing this, then bowed deeply in gratitude, saying, "I am deeply grateful for your great kindness, fellow Daoist!"

Zhang Chengdao smiled and said, "Fellow Daoist He, why be so polite? Even if we were strangers in another White Stone Realm, we would eventually become friends, wouldn't we?"

He Yu burst into laughter: "Hahaha! Fellow Daoist Zhang is absolutely right!"

Considering that He Yu understood souls better, and that Tang Mingming had intricate connections with Tang Yu, Zhang Chengdao left Tang Mingming's remnant soul in the underworld. After bidding farewell to He Yu, he returned to the White Stone Immortal Sect alone.

In fact, the Immortal Alliance had been discussing and preparing to hold its first Immortal Alliance Grand Competition since before the Lunar New Year. However, it was postponed to February because the Immortal Affinity Conference of the White Stone Immortal Sect was also very important.

This time is not yet the time for sowing, nor is it the busy farming season. It is the result of joint discussions among various immortal sects and forces.

After all, even if everyone has switched to cultivating immortality, their disciples still need to eat grains before they can draw qi into their bodies. Moreover, spiritual grains such as spiritual wheat and spiritual rice can gradually be cultivated, and long-term consumption is even more helpful for cultivation. Therefore, almost all immortal sects and forces have unanimously opened up fields on a large scale and recruited people to cultivate them.

These spirit wheat and spirit rice are highly nutritious and have extremely high yields. Their ripening period is also much shorter than that of ordinary grains. Even in the not-too-cold northern regions, they can be grown twice a year. In less than a year, in many places where they can be grown, these spirit-infused grains have gradually replaced ordinary crops.

This was originally a good thing, but unfortunately, feudal slave owners could always extract profits from the already pitiful lower classes. Many large landowners who hoarded too much grain first used the appearance of spirit food to drive down the price of ordinary grain for their own benefit. Then, they used various means to spread the idea that "cheap grain hurts farmers," directly or indirectly creating many tragic cases where farmers starved to death because they couldn't sell the grain they grew. This forced the ruling class to suppress the promotion and planting of spirit food, thus allowing them to calmly sell off and replace the ordinary grain in their hands.

With Murong Zhen in charge of the Northern Xiao Kingdom, he massacred many Mohe nobles and took the opportunity to consolidate some power. He also took advantage of the fact that the area was close to the White Stone Immortal Sect and had a much higher concentration of spiritual energy, so he successfully promoted the cultivation of spiritual grain seeds.

Besides spirit wheat and spirit rice, Murong Zhen bought up all the corn, pumpkins, potatoes, winter melons, and other crops that the White Stone Immortal Sect had and was willing to sell. He then forcibly assigned them to be planted in the name of the government, and even personally inspected the fields, killing many people. This made many officials who wanted to do something sneaky feel insecure, and the implementation of the decree went quite smoothly.

But the Southern Chu Kingdom was not an option.

In this country, which was still in the period of "scholars and officials jointly governing the country with the emperor," memorials promoting the cultivation of spiritual crops could not even reach the emperor's desk.

What if those powerful and wealthy families want to eat it themselves?
Buy it!

Didn't the North cultivate so much? And didn't the White Stone Immortal Sect sell it out too? Just buy it directly! Anyway, these powerful families in the Southern Chu Kingdom have plenty of money!
As for whether they were actually planted on the estates and fields of the various powerful families in private, no one knew.

However, this "clever" approach soon brought about disastrous consequences.

The new year had just passed, and the Immortal Affinity Gathering had only ended a few days prior. In the still chilly spring air, during this most inauspicious month, devastating news finally arrived from the Southern Chu Kingdom—

Thirteen counties in the Southern Chu Kingdom "revolted," and twelve county magistrates died at the hands of the rebels. The reason for these rebels' uprising was very simple: they were starving.

Indeed, in another world, the main economic, cultural, and agricultural spheres of the Southern Chu Kingdom, which were once known for their abundance ("When Hubei and Hunan are prosperous, the whole country is well-fed"), experienced a large-scale famine in this era.

Even an unprecedented famine caused by the absence of natural disasters.

In other words, it was a man-made disaster.

Last year, a large amount of fertile land was converted by powerful families, either openly or covertly, to grow spiritual grains, resulting in a significant reduction in the area planted with ordinary grains.

Originally, the spiritual grains grown on the fertile fields of these aristocratic families were enough to feed the entire Southern Chu Kingdom. However, this place was too far from the White Stone Immortal Sect, and the concentration of spiritual energy was insufficient for so many spiritual crops to grow, which led to the large-scale withering and death of these spiritual crops.

Of course, some fields also yielded a successful harvest.

After all, even if the concentration of spiritual energy in the eastern and southern parts of the Southern Chu Kingdom is low, it is still several times stronger than before, and some crops with spiritual energy can still be grown.

But that amount of production wasn't even enough to break even for the powerful families, so how could they possibly distribute it to the farmers?

Or to put it more bluntly, how can these lowly people be worthy of enjoying food from a living being?

Ordinary grain production plummeted. While there was enough grain for the spirits to eat, it never reached the common people; it all ended up in the granaries of powerful clans. Furthermore, many even more inhumane clans, sensing the economic benefits, deliberately bought up large quantities of grain at low prices before the famine to hoard it, further exacerbating the scarcity of grain on the market.

After the New Year, when food was scarce and reserves were scarce, and the official granaries in various places had long been emptied by layers of exploitation, a famine that swept across most of the southern Chu territory finally broke out.

Initially, the turmoil caused by this famine was not mentioned in the imperial court.

Rebellion? What's so novel about that? It's all too common. The Southern Chu Kingdom is vast and rich in resources, and its common people are cunning. Every year there's a rebellion.
It's nothing more than a bunch of muddle-headed bastards causing trouble. The local authorities just need to suppress them. It's really not worth mentioning.

Naturally, there were many insightful people in the court who clearly knew that the Southern Chu Kingdom had now become an empty shell, and some with a keen sense of smell even compared the number of rebellions that occurred every year in previous dynasties...

The Southern Chu Kingdom was the largest in thousands of years.

But so what?
The Southern Chu court is not ruled by the emperor alone. Even if the emperor were in charge, these matters would not reach his ears, so what could he do?
As a result, in just half a month, the starving people began to spread, like a wave carrying pebbles, rushing to various prefectures and cities.

Begging and looting incidents occurred frequently, and local officials were unable to suppress them. From the initial thirteen counties, by the end of January, twenty-one counties and two prefectures had fallen.

To make matters worse, after hearing the news, the Northern Xiao Kingdom began to strictly control the outflow of grain—including ordinary grain that was about to rot in the granaries.

It was only at this point that the matter of the "rebellion" was finally brought up at the court meeting of the Southern Chu Kingdom.

(End of this chapter)