Qing Yao

Chapter 288 Has Your Excellency Lost Your Decency?
The situation near Dingyuan County was not much better. There was no smoke from cooking fires in the countryside. Many villagers had not eaten a single grain of food for more than a month. The better-off ones relied on sweet potatoes buried in cellars last year to survive the famine. Most villagers relied on wild vegetables, tree bark, or even goose droppings to fill their stomachs, but eventually even those could not be found.

The mountains near the settlements have all been cut down into barren hills, and wild animals no longer exist, so where can one hunt for food?

Without food, mass deaths are inevitable.

Many villages have become de facto no-man's-land, and conservative estimates put the death toll in Dingyuan County alone at around 100,000.

More than forty counties in Anhui Province were severely affected by the disaster.

The thought of the disaster that has already caused the loss of millions of lives makes Zhao An's scalp tingle. He also sees many "corpses" on the road, all of whom are starving people who suddenly collapsed while walking and could not get up again. No one is dealing with these "corpses", and in the hot weather, maggots swarm around them, and the stench of the corpses is unbearable.

Including Zhao An, half of the entourage was made to vomit by the "corpses" along the way, and many of them even vomited green bile.

Even so, she continued to dry heave, even though there was nothing in her stomach.

Forget about eating, even drinking water makes me vomit involuntarily.

One of the more timid members of the entourage was terrified. This man was a clerk in the grain transport office who had spent half his life studying the principles of "benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom, and trustworthiness, and the relationship between heaven, earth, ruler, parents, and teacher." He had always believed that he was living in a prosperous era, but the sight of several highly decomposed corpses completely shattered his mind and worldview.

As night fell, the wind howled like a ghost, the pale moon hung overhead, and the spirit went mad, roaring everywhere.

Left with no other choice, Zhao An ordered that the clerk be sent back to Jiangning.

If he can regain his senses, he will continue to be employed; otherwise, he will be sent home, since he "went mad on duty." The grain transport office will be instructed to give him a monthly living allowance so that he will not be destitute.

This unexpected event caused Zhao An to be delayed by half a day on his journey. When he set off again, the number of "corpses" along the way had increased significantly, and no one was cleaning them up, leaving them to be exposed to the scorching sun.

The surviving starving people continued to walk towards the county town like zombies. Zhao An and his party walked among them, and apart from the sound of the cart wheels turning, there was no other sound.

The starving people ignored Zhao An and his group, not because they didn't want to come over and beg for some food to survive, but because they were too weak to chase after the carriage.

There were so many starving people that Zhao An dared not order the car to stop and distribute the food he was carrying.

Not enough, not nearly enough.

A drop in the bucket.

All he can do now is get to Dingyuan County as soon as possible and order the county to immediately increase relief efforts so that the starving people who have come from all directions to the county to seek survival can have a bowl of porridge.

Even if the porridge is as thin as water.

The reason there hasn't been a large-scale plague is simply because of the hot weather; if the temperature drops, epidemic prevention will likely become the primary responsibility of local governments.

Previously in Jiangning, Zhao An knew that a severe drought had occurred in Anhui, and the people were living in dire straits. But to be honest, his impression of the disaster was still limited to what he read on paper: "hundreds of miles without people" and "cannibalism through exchanging children." He had never actually seen these terrifying scenes that made his scalp tingle and would wake him up in the middle of the night.

Only after truly venturing into the disaster area did he realize how insignificant his understanding of the disaster was, and how the horrific scenes the victims were experiencing were beyond his comprehension, no matter how many history books he read.

That was a fear that went deep into your bones!

Zhao An was so terrified that his hands trembled unconsciously. No matter how he squeezed and pressed them or how he forced himself to calm down, he could not stop the trembling.

Of the more than one hundred people in the team, only a handful remained calm and composed.

Among them was Baili Yunlong, Zhao An's bodyguard captain.

This person was actually carrying the burden of a family massacre.

To avenge his father, he endured for fifteen years without making a move. When he finally struck, he spared no one, killing all sixteen members of his enemy's family. He then fled to another place and joined the Canal Gang, where he distinguished himself in a fierce battle with the Jiao family. This caught the attention of Zhao An, who took him under his wing and cultivated his talents, intending to appoint him as a general and put him in charge of the Anhui militia.

Two of the others were constables from the grain transport office, and the others were constables sent by Chuzhou to protect the provincial governor.

They had all seen corpses, and even worse ones, otherwise they wouldn't have been so calm.

Zhao An recorded all the horrifying scenes he witnessed along the way in his diary, and he had to truthfully report the terrible sights in the disaster area to his grandfather.

This is both his responsibility and his obligation.

Regarding the severity of the disaster in Anhui, only one report has been submitted to the court by Sun Shiyi, the Governor-General of Liangjiang. However, the original intention of this report was Sun Shiyi's strategy of "relieving the siege of Wei by attacking Zhao," so it only covers the surface and describes only one-tenth of the actual disaster situation.

The governor of Anhui, Zhu Gui, had been concealing the fact that Anhui was suffering from a severe drought. Although his memorials to the court mentioned the drought, he claimed that the situation was under control.

Zhao An didn't understand why Zhu Gui wanted to conceal the truth. Wouldn't it have been better to honestly report and request support from all sides?

On the way, after carefully analyzing Zhu Gui's motives for concealing the truth, several factors were identified.

First, Zhu Gui was probably afraid of being held accountable by the court, which is also the mentality of most officials who concealed information.

During the reign of Emperor Yongzheng, the governor of Shanxi, Deyin, deliberately concealed the drought because he was worried that reporting the truth would expose his responsibility for the previous neglect of water conservancy.

The drought in Anhui showed signs last year, but it has developed into a severe disaster. As the governor, Zhu Gui is certainly to blame. With such a high death toll, if the old master is angered, even though Zhu Gui is a key minister he left to his son, he will probably be dismissed and investigated.

The second possibility is that Zhu Gui was also misled by his subordinates. After all, as the governor, Zhu Gui could not possibly go around to inspect the disaster situation on the ground. His judgment was based on local reports and the reports of his subordinate technical officials. It is normal for him to make a mistake in judgment.

Former Yunnan governor Yang Yingju misjudged the severe drought as a "localized crop failure," instead reporting it as an auspicious sign of a "bumper harvest." It wasn't until the famine struck and hundreds of thousands of people died in Yunnan that the true extent of the disaster was realized.

The reason Yang Yingju made a misjudgment was that the officials below him were all lying.

They claim reduced production as increased production, they claim severe drought as favorable weather, and they claim the region is peaceful despite countless people starving to death.
One false report after another reached the hands of the governor who controlled the province, and the result was naturally a combination of natural disaster and man-made calamity.

Unfortunately, this era lacked scientific disaster assessment methods, and even the most honest officials had to rely on reports from clerks. Without reports, the governor, who worked in the provincial capital all day, naturally wouldn't know.

Moreover, the subordinates deliberately concealed or lied about the situation.

Even though Zhu Gui and he were at odds, Zhao An did not assume Zhu Gui was malicious, believing that Zhu Gui's concealment was due to being misled.

The third factor is that reporting disasters can affect officials' performance records.

The Qing Dynasty had a strange system: if an official truthfully reported a disaster, the court would grant him a tax exemption. However, if the official was exempted from taxes due to the disaster, he would be judged as having failed to complete his tax collection task, and his performance evaluation by the Ministry of Personnel would be downgraded, essentially ending his career.

It's a rather absurd system.

If you report truthfully, you will be classified as inferior; if you fail to report truthfully and engage in extortionate practices to complete collection tasks, you will be classified as superior.

Comparing the two, it's clear that the report wasn't submitted honestly.

After Tian Wenjing exposed the cover-up of the disaster in Shanxi during the Yongzheng Emperor's reign, the province's officials were collectively demoted, demonstrating the significant impact this absurd system had on officials.

Otherwise, why would officials in an entire province be covering up the truth?

Whether Zhu Gui deliberately concealed the truth or was misled by his subordinates, the most important thing right now is to carry out disaster relief. Zhao An will not engage in a power struggle with Zhu Gui at this critical juncture. Fighting is possible at any time, but not now.

Zhu Gui is currently in Yingzhou directing disaster relief efforts. When Zhao An drafted the disaster relief regulations, he instructed officials in Anqing, Huizhou, and other places that when they received official documents from the governor's office requesting the allocation of money and grain, they did not need to request his approval as the provincial governor beforehand.

In this way, the time spent on official requests and reports is reduced.

Disaster relief is like fighting a fire; there's no room for wasting time with endless official documents.

The convoy suddenly stopped about twenty miles from Dingyuan County. The patrol inspector leading the way, Zheng Ding, was sent by Yan Kun, the prefect of Chuzhou, to protect the provincial governor.

"What's the matter?"

Zhao An poked half his head out of the car window and asked Zheng Ding, who looked terrified.

Zheng Ding swallowed hard, looking alarmed: "Sir, there are corpses blocking the road ahead."

Zhao An sighed softly and instructed Zheng Ding to send men to carry the body to the roadside and bury it.

Zheng Ding hesitated for a moment, then whispered, "Sir, why don't you go and take a look yourself?"

"Oh?"

Zhao An realized that there must be something strange about the "corpse dumping," otherwise Zheng Ding, the inspector, wouldn't be acting this way.

He immediately got out of the car and, surrounded by bodyguards including Baili Yunlong, came to the front of the convoy.

Several patrolmen and local militiamen under Zheng Ding were whispering among themselves around two corpses. When they saw the governor approaching, the patrolmen quickly stepped aside. What came into Zhao An's view were two corpses with their thighs and buttocks gouged out and covered in blood.

Not far away, a group of starving people, reduced to skin and bones, starved and starved, stared blankly at the scene.

The two corpses, a man and a woman, appeared to be in their early twenties. There was no stench of decay in the air, and the two corpses did not look like they had been dead for a long time. Furthermore, the bloodstains on the corpses were clearly fresh, indicating that they had been dead for no more than a few hours.

Everyone present knew perfectly well where the flesh that had been cut away went, but no one dared to say the answer.

Because it is too terrifying and too heavy.

"Bury it."

Zhao An sighed softly. When hunger overwhelms everything, human ethics and shame will inevitably be thrown to the back of one's mind.

At this moment, the three words "people eating each other" in history books were no longer legends or cold words, but a real and terrifying event happening before Zhao An's eyes.

But the even more horrific human tragedies of cannibalism, fratricide, and grandmothers cooking their young grandchildren are hidden among these mountains.

With heavy hearts, the team arrived in Dingyuan County.

However, Zhao An did not go directly to the county government office, but instead led his men to the disaster relief camp set up outside the city.

I went in casual clothes.

The disaster relief camp was bustling with people coming and going. Without any need for a secret investigation, it was clear that what the old man in the mountains had said was true: this disaster relief camp, run by the Dingyuan County government, was actually a human trafficking market.

Young and attractive women were priced at two taels of silver each, while children cost less than one hundred copper coins.

Those who came to select and purchase included not only local gentry and wealthy people, but also merchants speaking with accents from other places.

Zhao An then heard the familiar Yangzhou dialect.

These vendors, who spoke the Yangzhou dialect, had no interest in adult women, only in young girls.

No one stopped them; even the relief camp staff were enthusiastically recommending "goods" to the merchants.

The women and children being sold sat numbly on the ground, waiting for customers to choose them, while their relatives watched anxiously from a short distance away.

Once the deal was made and the rice and flour were received, tears involuntarily streamed down their faces, and the scene of them crying and wailing as they parted from their loved ones was heartbreaking to watch.

At times like these, the staff would always come out and comfort the parents who were selling their children: "If the child goes to another place, it's a way to survive; if they stay with you, they're doomed!"

A staff member who looked like an office clerk mistook Zhao An and his group for businessmen buying people and took the initiative to act as a "guide" to introduce the high-quality goods he had.

A middle-aged man, also a staff member, passed by carrying a money bag. Seeing his colleague, he couldn't help but laugh and say, "We just sold four and got eight taels of silver. We gave five taels to the county magistrate, and we only got three taels in net profit."

In the distance, several carriages were parked there. Four young women who had just been sold were forced into the carriages by their buyers after tearfully bidding farewell to their relatives. Their destination was only one place—a brothel.

The carriage was completely sealed off, with no windows at all; being inside felt like sitting in a coffin.

"grown ups!"

Baili Yunlong couldn't stand it any longer and gestured to ask if they should reveal their identities to stop the sale.

Zhao An nodded. He couldn't save the starving people who were about to become "corpses" on his way here because he couldn't save them all, but he could stop the separation of husband and wife and the farewell between father and daughter in front of him.

Soon, the entire disaster relief camp was ordered to cease operations. When the staff member acting as the "guide" learned that the young man in front of him was not a customer who came to buy women, but a newly appointed provincial governor, his legs went weak and he knelt down on the spot.

When Chen Zhiyuan, the magistrate of Dingyuan County, rushed to the disaster relief camp, he was met by the provincial governor, who was dressed in a yellow jacket and had an icy expression.

"This humble official was unaware of your arrival and was unable to greet you. Please forgive me!"

Chen Zhiyuan kowtowed three times, as if he, like the other staff members, knew that this day was going to be a big problem.

After scrutinizing the county magistrate who had turned the government-run relief camp into a human market, Zhao An did not question him about the relief camp. Instead, he approached him and asked in a deep voice, "Magistrate Chen, are you aware that there are people in your Dingyuan County who are eating each other?"

"This"

Chen Zhiyuan hesitated for a moment, then slowly raised his head and said, "My lord, you are unaware that the disaster in our county is so severe that if those who eat people do not eat people, they will be in constant danger of being eaten by others."

Zhao An was stunned, then flew into a rage: "You scoundrel, how dare you, a dignified county magistrate, say such things!"

"Your Excellency may not know this, but since the disaster struck, such things have become commonplace in this county. As far as I know, there are clan chiefs who personally weigh and sell their clansmen by weight, turning ancestral halls into butcher shops. There are also parents who strangled their daughters to keep their sons alive, and then sold their corpses as mule meat."

Before Chen Zhiyuan could finish speaking, Zhao An angrily stepped forward and slapped him across the face: "Your territory has fallen to this state, what kind of county magistrate are you!"

"I have tortured myself to show my sincerity in praying for rain, walking a hundred miles under the scorching sun to pray at the shrine. But heaven and earth are not in harmony, yin and yang are not in balance, and heaven has no rain to send. What else can I do but pray for the emperor's grace?"

Magistrate Chen, who had been beaten, looked aggrieved. "Your Excellency beats your subordinate without asking any questions. Is this not a breach of the rules of the imperial court?"

(End of this chapter)