Taiheiki

Chapter 315 Wind Disaster
"That's why I said the General really isn't short of money. Look at this market? The port? And the nearby manors and villages! They're all managed extremely well!" Xia Yu said, "No wonder everyone says that the Jiaozhou soldiers are well-equipped, armed, and have excellent bows and crossbows, unmatched in the world!"

"However, their horses are too few and too short, only slightly better than donkeys, and cannot compare with our Liangzhou Iron Horses!" Duan Wei laughed.

"That's true! Hahaha!" Xia Yu laughed, "However, the land in the south is rugged, with many rivers and lakes, so there aren't many places where cavalry can gallop freely!"

"My two young masters!"

As the two were chatting and laughing, the shopkeeper came over and said with a wry smile, "I'm sorry, our shop is closing soon. Please leave!"

"What do you mean?" Xia Yu's mood was interrupted, and his face turned somewhat unpleasant: "It's still so early, why are you closing up?"

"Young master, look at the sky outside!" The shopkeeper pointed to the door: "A hurricane is coming. If we don't close the door, all our belongings will be blown away. You two should go back early, or something bad might happen on the way!"

Xia and Duan looked outside and noticed that the azure sky had turned into a color between a pale white and a dusky yellow. The air seemed to have solidified, becoming unusually hot and humid, making it hard to breathe.

"You two aren't locals, are you?" The shopkeeper pointed to the sky and said, "Look at those clumps of clouds that look like tangled wisps of gauze. Whenever these appear, there's always a big storm coming. You'd better hurry up and leave, or it'll be too late!"

"Thank you, innkeeper!" Duan Wei stood up, took out a few five-zhu coins and threw them on the table, then went out with Xia Yu and headed towards their lodgings. They crossed a causeway near the sea and saw waves surging in from afar, their rhythmic flow gone, crashing heavily against the rocks on the shore with a deep roar, as if striking their hearts.

"It seems there really is a strong wind!" Duan Wei said in a low voice, "Shall we hurry up and go?"

"Hmm!" Xia Yu didn't say anything more and quickened his pace. The two returned to their lodgings, and the servants hurriedly closed the doors and windows and secured them with ropes. The previously calm, almost frozen air was replaced by a wind. Unlike the wind they had ever seen before, this wind wasn't in gusts, but a continuous, deafening roar that drowned out all other sounds. The two could even feel the house trembling slightly in the wind, and through the cracks in the doors and windows, they could see thick branches and debris flying through the air.

"Thank goodness we're back. If we had encountered such strong winds outside, we probably would have been blown away!" Xia Yu exclaimed.

"Yes! The wind is so strong, even the strongest winds on the vast ocean can't compare! It's really terrifying!"

A white light ripped across the sky, illuminating the previously dim sky as if it were daytime. The next instant, a rumble of thunder sounded, and Duan and Xia's expressions changed drastically. Rain poured down like a torrential downpour, and everything outside the window was instantly shrouded in white. Nothing could be seen more than twenty or thirty meters away, and the streets were flooded with water, like rivers.

"The power of heaven and earth is such!" Duan Wei sighed.

"Yes!" Before Xia Yu could respond, a loud noise was heard. A window of the adjacent room had been blown apart by the strong wind. The wind, mixed with rain, rushed in through the broken window, and the furniture and decorations inside the room were immediately knocked over and thrown into disarray. The servants exclaimed in alarm.

"Quick, come help!" Duan Wei rushed into the neighboring room, pushed the cabinet against the wall to block the broken window, then told the servants to nail in replacement planks and seal the gaps with dry grass. The house continued to be damaged by the strong wind, and the two of them kept repairing and blocking the gaps. They worked like this all night long, until noon the next day when the wind finally subsided. Exhausted, the two finally found a place to lie down and fall into a deep sleep.

When Duan Wei woke up again, it was already evening. He felt extremely hungry, so he got up to find food. The inn was a mess, and several servants were busy cleaning and repairing the building. Although the wind had subsided a lot outside, it was still raining, so he woke Xia Yu: "With such a strong wind and rain last night, I wonder how my brother is doing. Let's go and visit him!"

"Alright!"

The two put on raincoats and went out together toward the prefect's mansion. Along the way, they saw that the trees that had once stood neatly on both sides of the road had been almost completely destroyed. Some had been uprooted, their huge roots and soil exposed in the air; some had been broken in half, revealing pale wood that looked like bones; and the rest had been almost stripped of their leaves, leaving only bare branches, like countless desperate arms reaching to the sky for mercy.

The streets had become a mixture of rivers and garbage dumps, with water reaching thigh-deep. Floating on the surface were pieces of wood, rags, branches, furniture, and the carcasses of small animals. Buildings on both sides of the road were damaged to varying degrees, some even completely collapsed. One body, seemingly submerged in water, bore charred marks, likely killed by lightning the previous night. The two carefully walked around the corpses and continued forward.

Upon arriving at the prefect's residence, the two men showed their identification badges and went to the place where Duan Jiong was recuperating. Duan Jiong was being fed medicine by a maid. Seeing the two men enter, he pushed the bowl away and asked, "Is it raining heavily outside?"

"The rain wasn't too bad! It's just that the water is quite deep!" Duan Wei said with a wry smile, pointing to his lower garment, which was already soaked in a large area. "In the shallow parts, it's above my knees, and in the deep parts, it's almost up to my waist!"

"What a terrible storm!" Duan Jiong's face was also very grim. "If the terrain inside the city is this bad, the fields outside the city must be even more severely flooded. This storm will reduce the harvest by at least 30 to 40 percent! The southern expedition will have to be postponed for now!"

Duan Wei and Xia Yu also looked rather grim. Agriculture is the foundation of all industries; food and clothing all come from farming. The economic foundation of ancient societies was extremely weak. No matter how magnificent a city, palace, or civilization was, if the agricultural foundation collapsed, the demise of that civilization was only a matter of time. The damage this great storm caused to Panyu and its surrounding areas was so immense that the matter of the southern expedition was naturally out of the question.

“This may not be a bad thing for you, brother!” Duan Wei said. “At least you can focus on recovering now! Judging from the state of Panyu this time, it won’t be able to recover in less than six months to a year!”

“Yes!” Xia Yu nodded: “I’ve only heard of the miasma that kills people in Jiaozhou in the north, but I never imagined there would be such strong winds. Compared to this, the north wind is nothing!”

"Yes!" Duan Jiong nodded. "This has been quite an eye-opener. By the way, both of you are soaked. Someone, bring me two of my clothes so they can change!"

"Thank you very much, elder brother (Chief Secretary)!"

Duan Wei and Xia Yu changed into dry clothes, feeling much more comfortable, and sat down beside Duan Jiong to talk. At this moment, Kong Gui came from the outer room, and the three of them hurriedly got up to greet him. Duan Jiong said, "Lord Kong must be very busy today, why bother to come and keep an ailing man like me company!"

"Chief Clerk Duan is joking!" Kong Gui laughed. "Wind disasters happen every year. There are established rules about who should do what and where to draw money and provisions. It doesn't matter whether I, an old man, am here or not. But Chief Clerk Duan is the military commander of Jiaozhou and the chief clerk by the General's side. How can we be negligent?"

“Every year?” Duan Jiong was secretly surprised. “This wind disaster is terrifying. Jiaozhou suffers so many disasters. No wonder it’s such a desolate place!”

"Hahaha!" Kong Gui laughed: "What Chief Secretary Duan said is similar to what I said back then, but the General has a different perspective!"

“Another perspective? What do you mean?” “This is what the General said back then! Although the wind disaster caused a lot of damage, it also had benefits. For example, wherever the wind passed, there was heavy rain. As a result, the south, which is usually dry and rainless in summer, could be relieved for more than a month after each wind. Secondly, the wind stirred up the seawater, causing the bottom to rise to the surface, which harmonized the yin and yang, and attracted fish and shrimp, which was very beneficial to the fishing industry.”

"The first one seems to make some sense!" Duan Jiong nodded. "But I've never heard of the second one!"

"Hehe, what's so difficult about that? The wind should calm down in a day or two at most, and then the fishermen will naturally go out to sea to fish, and we'll know how much they catch at a glance!" Kong Gui laughed.

Duan Jiong glanced at Kong Gui and said, "Kong Gong has encountered such a great calamity, yet he remains calm and composed, which is truly admirable!"

"I wouldn't dare!" Kong Gui laughed. "When I first came to serve as the Prefect of Panyu, I had no interest in government affairs. I spent my days composing poems with the local scholars and lecturing on the classics, only thinking that I would return to the Central Plains after my term was over. But now I have no such thought anymore. I guess this old body of mine will be buried here in Panyu!"

"Oh? Why do you say that?" Duan Jiong asked.

"Back then, I also asked the general, Jiaozhou is a terrible place, with strong winds and epidemics in the summer, and it is also a salty and alkaline place near the sea. Why did he choose this place as his base? Do you know what he said?"

"How did the General answer?"

He said that for every advantage, there is a disadvantage. For example, coastal areas have saline-alkali soil, which is not conducive to farming, but if managed well, salt production, shipping, and fishing can be very profitable, far exceeding the benefits of farming. Rugged mountainous areas are not conducive to farming, but they are rich in mineral deposits and forests. Now everyone thinks that the Central Plains is the best land, but in ancient times, the Central Plains were full of rivers and swamps, and people could only live on high ground. Whenever there was heavy rain, they would become food for fish and turtles. It was Yu the Great who dredged the rivers and divided the land into nine provinces, connecting the canals directly to the sea. After thousands of years of cultivation by our ancestors, the Central Plains has become what it is today. So it is said that everything depends on human effort. If we can promote the advantages and eliminate the disadvantages, we can have the best land. If we do not manage it, even the best land will eventually become barren.

Jiaozhou surpasses the Central Plains in several ways: First, its coastal location provides advantages for fishing, salt production, and shipping; second, its numerous rivers and abundant rainfall mean that with minimal cultivation, arable land can be created; third, its hot climate allows for three harvests a year, with one acre yielding the equivalent of two acres in the north; moreover, it boasts many rare and exotic fruits and varieties, such as oil palm and kapok, making it a bountiful region with favorable trade conditions. With proper management, it could be the foundation of a nation, no less than the Central Plains!

After hearing Kong Gui's words, Duan Jiong remained silent for a long time before finally saying, "If what General Wei says is true, wouldn't a king rise in Jiaozhou several hundred years from now, just like the small state of Zhou attacking the large city of Shang—"

"Hahaha!" Kong Gui laughed, "By then, you and I would already be nothing but piles of bones, so what does it matter?"

------------------

A single lamp, dimly lit, illuminated most of the room. Duan Jiong lay on the couch, his eyes half-closed, but he couldn't fall asleep. After a while, he suddenly sat up, startling Duan Wei, who rushed forward to help him: "Brother, do you need to urinate? Quickly bring the chamber pot!"

"Who needs to pee?" Duan Jiong said, looking annoyed. "Help me to go for a walk in the yard!"

"Want to take a walk in the courtyard? But it's raining outside!" Duan Wei said.

"Then let's walk around in the hallway! I'm really upset!"

Duan Wei had no choice but to help his brother put on his shoes and support him as they went out the door. Standing in the corridor, it was pitch black, with only the wind and rain splashing around them. In no time, Duan Wei's clothes were quite wet. He was really thinking about how to persuade his brother to go inside when he heard Duan Jiong let out a long sigh.

"Brother, what's wrong? Should we call a doctor?"

"I'm physically fine, but something's on my mind!" Duan Jiong sighed. "You heard what Kong Gui said today, right?"

"I wonder which sentence you are referring to, brother?"

"That means Jiaozhou is the foundation of the nation; if managed well, it will be no less powerful than the Central Plains!"

"That sentence! There's nothing wrong with that sentence, is there?" Duan Wei replied cautiously, "Kong Gui is going to bury himself in Panyu, so naturally he'd say a few good words. Besides, Panyu is indeed a good place! It's quite wealthy!"

"But have you ever considered that if Jiaozhou really becomes like the Central Plains, as Kong Gui said, then one day a large army might march north and conquer Luoyang, just like King Wu of Zhou conquered King Zhou of Shang thousands of years ago!"

Duan Wei hesitated for a moment: "Brother, there's no need to wait a thousand years. Didn't Wei Cong already lead the Jiaozhou troops into Luoyang? Otherwise, how could he have become a general!"

"This—" Duan Jiong was stunned. After thinking for a moment, he replied, "This is still different. Wei Cong did indeed enter Luoyang, but he was still the great general of the Han Dynasty. After King Wu of Zhou conquered the Shang Dynasty, he did not continue to be a subject of the Shang. He returned to Zongzhou and became the King of Zhou. Moreover, the Duke of Zhou relocated the Shang people to other places, and Chaoge was reduced to ruins."

"But Wei Cong didn't go back to Jiaozhou either! What are you worried about?" Duan Wei asked, puzzled.

“What am I worried about?” Duan Jiong frowned. “I’m worried that after I expand our territory by thousands of miles as Wei Cong suggested, Jiaozhou will become increasingly powerful, and one day it will turn around and annex the Central Plains. At that time—”

“Brother, you’re worrying unnecessarily!” Duan Wei said anxiously, “Not to mention that this strong wind will prevent you from sending troops this year, even if you do manage to conquer thousands of miles of land, it will be vast wilderness. How many years will it take to rebuild it? By then, you and I will have been dead for hundreds of years. Is this something we need to worry about?”

"You also think this isn't something we need to worry about?" Duan Jiong asked.

"Of course!" Duan Wei said, "What you should do now is get well soon. As for what happens hundreds of years from now, let people hundreds of years from now worry about it! Hurry up and go inside, or I'll get sick from this rain too!"

(End of this chapter)