Great Song Dynasty Writer

Chapter 125 Come forward
"Everyone, get up and fetch water!"

There was a knock on the door, and the teaching assistant's urgent shouts came through again.

"Is this never going to end?" Zhou Mingyuan said, somewhat annoyed.

Lu Beigu opened his eyes and looked out the window.

The heavy rain had been falling for four or five days in a row, and the sound of the rain outside the window was no longer the monotonous tapping that it was when the two of them first moved in, but had evolved into a continuous roar.

"Get up and fetch water, or the school buildings might be flooded."

Lu Beigu offered a word of advice, and Zhou Mingyuan reluctantly got out of bed.

After putting on their wooden clogs, the two helped each other put on their raincoats and tied them tightly before daring to go out.

As soon as Lu Beigu opened the door, he looked down and saw that the murky rainwater had almost overflowed the threshold of the school building, forming deep, unsettling puddles in the courtyard.

Looking up, I felt as if the boundless rain curtain was about to completely engulf the entire city of Luchuan.

Through the rain, many figures could be seen moving about in the courtyard of the Zhongshe School.

Just like yesterday and the day before, the state students were in pairs, filling wooden basins and buckets with water, and then pouring it out of the school building towards the lower ground.

"Hey."

Lu Beigu sighed: "Let's begin."

He and Zhou Mingyuan worked together, just like everyone else, to scoop the water out of the school dormitory.

However, human power appears so insignificant in the face of nature's fury.

They had just cleared a section and hadn't had a chance to rest when the torrential rain caused the water level to rise again, forcing them to start all over again.

After standing in the rain for a long time, Lu Beigu moved around numbly from the cold.

His wooden clogs made a sticky "splatter" sound as he stepped into the mud, each step kicking up heavy mud, while icy rainwater seeped into his neck through the gaps in his raincoat, bringing a hateful chill that made him instinctively shrink back.

"I heard there's already a long queue at the grain store!"

Two classmates passing by were talking loudly in the rain.

"How much are grain prices now?" The other person's voice was somewhat muffled by the sound of the rain.

"I don't know, but I've heard it changes three times a day!"

Zhou Mingyuan had obviously heard it too, and his voice was filled with worry: "If this continues, I'm afraid there will be big trouble. I don't know if the prefectural government can handle it well. If they can't handle it well, I'm afraid many people will starve to death."

Lu Beigu's heart sank.

Although Luchuan County, as the seat of Luzhou Prefecture, has the advantage of water transport via the Tuojiang and Yangtze Rivers, navigation is severely hampered by torrential rains, and few fleets dare to risk capsizing at any time to transport grain.

Although Luchuan County is strategically located, its terrain is mostly mountainous and hilly, resulting in very limited grain production. If the grain supply from the upstream Sichuan Basin is cut off and the torrential rains continue, how many days can the local grain reserves last?
In the face of panic, hoarding and speculation are almost inevitable.

Moreover, if the flooding situation in the higher-lying state school is this bad, one can only imagine the situation in the lower-lying city of Luchuan. Yesterday, I heard from a classmate in Luchuan County that the streets and alleys have long since turned into streams, and houses in low-lying areas have been completely submerged.

Lu Beigu's thoughts drifted. He recalled the scattered records in historical books about the early years of the Jiayou era. This continuous rainstorm was not an isolated event, but rather the result of widespread flooding in the north, after which the precipitation began to move south.

In fact, during the later years of Emperor Renzong's reign, natural disasters occurred frequently, with floods, droughts, locusts, and hailstorms occurring one after another. The national treasury was already stretched thin. Zhang Fangping was reinstated as the Minister of the Three Departments precisely because he was appointed at a time of crisis and was trying to turn the tide.

The current predicament of Luchuan County is merely the tip of the iceberg of the overall financial difficulties and hardships faced by the people of the Song Dynasty. "Stealing cattle from the fields."

Lu Beigu's mind flashed back to Ouyang Xiu's scathing comments.

In the halls of power, officials will seize any straw to attack their opponents in their quest for power and position.

Compared to the state school, where at least they could get a bite to eat, the people in this flood-besieged city were truly suffering, anxiously worrying about their survival.

"What are you thinking about? Hurry up and pour some water!" The teaching assistant's urging interrupted Lu Beigu's thoughts.

He snapped out of his daze and forcefully splashed a basin of murky rainwater into the already saturated ditch outside the schoolhouse. The water splashed everywhere, only to be swallowed up by the even larger curtain of rain.

After working for an unknown amount of time, seeing that the students in the dormitory were almost exhausted and the threat of the floodwaters was not so great for the time being, the teaching assistant told everyone to hurry up and go eat.

The quantity and quality of food in the dining hall have decreased significantly compared to a few days ago, indicating that the food reserves in the state academy are also running low.

After eating a bite of food that wasn't very hot, Lu Beigu walked out of the dining hall.

The rain continued to fall violently, showing no signs of stopping.

A chill colder than rainwater crept into Lu Beigu's heart, and the heavy feeling brought by the unique "prophetic" ability of a transmigrator became increasingly clear.

He knew the general course of history, the undercurrents in the imperial court, and even the turning points in the fates of certain key figures.

But the torrential rain and soaring grain prices struck his nerves more realistically and urgently than any historical record.

He had to do something.

Back in the dormitory, Lu Beigu found the teaching assistant.

“Assistant, Judge Li asked me to see him today, so I need to go to the prefectural government office from the prefectural school.”

"Judge Li?"

The teaching assistant in the middle dormitory wasn't exactly easy to talk to. If he hadn't known that Lu Beigu wasn't from Luchuan County, he would have almost thought that Lu Beigu was asking for leave to go home and help out like the locals.

"Yes, Judge Li, he left me a jade pendant as a token."

Seeing the teaching assistant's skepticism, Lu Beigu showed him the jade pendant that Li Pan had given him, which indeed had Li Pan's name engraved on it, and the teaching assistant had to believe it to some extent.

"Okay, go and come back quickly, don't cause me any trouble," the teaching assistant instructed after Lu Beigu signed the note.

He couldn't verify this matter right now, but since it was likely true, he didn't want to offend the judge. As for whether there was one more or one less person scooping water in the state school, it didn't really matter.

After leaving the state school, Lu Beigu, wearing a straw raincoat, walked on the streets of Luchuan County.

Coming down from the higher ground of the state school, after walking two streets, the so-called "streets" no longer existed; it was more like a "river." Muddy rainwater, carrying mud, sand, withered branches and leaves, and even broken pottery jars, rushed downstream.

Everywhere you look, there is a mess.

The houses in the low-lying areas were submerged, and the mud walls looked shaky and precarious after being soaked by the rain. Some had even collapsed, revealing the simple household items inside, which were also flooded.

The thatched roof was whipped up by the strong wind and swirled in the rain before falling into the water.

At the thresholds of several houses, one could vaguely see figures inside futilely scooping water out with broken ladles and wooden basins, each movement seeming so desperate.

(End of this chapter)