Great Song Dynasty Writer

Chapter 126 Lu Beigu's Thoughts
The water in the street was deep enough to reach above an adult's calves.

Lu Beigu trudged along, his feet sinking into the water, a bone-chilling cold rising from his toes to his head, not only from the icy water but also from everything he saw and heard along the way.

"My grain! Damn rain!"

A piercing wail pierced through the rain.

Not far away, under a newly collapsed mud house, an old man sat slumped in the mud and water, futilely scooping up the inedible grains with his hands, his turbid tears mingling with the rain.

The old woman beside her clutched the two remaining bags of grain tightly, staring blankly at everything, seemingly too exhausted even to cry.

He also saw several ragged children on the street corner, staring longingly at a muddy steamed bun that had fallen into the muddy water, their eyes filled with desire for food.

One of the older children couldn't resist and lunged forward, grabbing the clump of mud and stuffing it into his mouth.
Unlike Lu Beigu, who was traveling from north to south, more and more people whose houses had been destroyed by the torrential rain were carrying or supporting their last remaining belongings as they struggled to trek from the lower-lying city center toward the slightly higher-lying north and east of the city.

Against the flow of the crowd, Lu Beigu could see very clearly.

The children were carried on the backs or held in the arms of adults, their little faces blue from the cold, their cries drowned out by the sound of rain and the noise of people.

The elderly people, leaning on canes or supported by their children, took each step with trembling steps, as if they might be swept away by the current at any moment.

"excuse me!"

On the road, another family, with ropes tied around their waists, was struggling to push a wheelbarrow that was almost submerged in water. The wheelbarrow was loaded with wet bedding, pots and pans, and they were obviously moving their belongings.

The wheels struggled to roll through the mud, each step an extremely difficult task.

The boy in the family slipped and almost fell over, along with his bike, prompting his parents to call out anxiously.

The faces of these pedestrians were filled with exhaustion, fear, and confusion.

After passing this section of the road, the situation seemed to improve slightly. The area ahead consisted mostly of brick and tile houses, and the families living in this area were considered to be of average means in Luchuan County.

"Grain prices have gone up again!"

A man, soaking wet and having just squeezed his way in from one direction, hoarsely shouted to his companions, "The 'Fengyu' shop on West Street is charging three hundred coins for a bushel of coarse rice! Yesterday it was only two hundred and twenty! How are people supposed to live like this?!"

"Three hundred coins?!" The person next to him was dumbfounded. "This...this is forcing people to their deaths! The family's food reserves are only enough for two days..."

"Isn't the prefectural government doing anything? Won't the granaries be opened?"

"We don't meet the standards for opening the granary right now, and besides, who knows how much grain is still inside?"

As Lu Beigu listened to these conversations, his heart sank to the bottom.

He could almost see grain merchants behind the tightly closed doors of the grand mansions in the city, their abacuses clicking away, eager to reap huge profits, while ordinary people, clutching their increasingly worthless copper coins, stood in long, desperate queues in the mud.

Lu Beigu quickened his pace and struggled toward the prefectural government office. The road beneath his feet was exceptionally difficult, each step feeling like a battle against an invisible quagmire. Rain blurred his vision, and his raincoat dragged heavily over his body, but the thought that "something must be done" was clearer than ever before in his mind.

Finally, the relatively taller walls of the prefectural government office appeared faintly in the rain.

However, the situation in front of the state government office was equally dire. The yamen runners, wearing straw sandals or barefoot, were building a makeshift embankment at the entrance of the government office using sandbags and wooden planks.

A clerk-like man stood under a makeshift awning in front of the government office, speaking loudly to several well-dressed people, his face full of anxiety and impatience. More people who had heard the news gathered in the water a little further away, staring longingly at the tightly closed gates of the government office, their eyes filled with a last glimmer of hope.

Lu Beigu watched this scene unfold.

Taking the prefectural exams, qualifying for the provincial exams, and then going to the capital to take the provincial exams—all these grand ambitions concerning one's future seem distant and insignificant in the face of this torrential rain and the surging public sentiment.

For the first time, he truly felt that the so-called "high halls of power" and "far from the court" were not clearly distinct. No matter how high the halls of power were, their foundations lay in the millions of ordinary people in front of him, who were getting wet in the cold rain and worrying about their food.

“I am Lu Beigu, a student from the lower prefecture. I came here after being summoned by Judge Li.”

Lu Beigu didn't say that he was looking for Li Pan, but that Li Pan was looking for him. The guards at the gate were unsure after seeing the token, so they didn't dare let Lu Beigu in directly and told him to wait there first.

Before long, the returning constable gestured for Lu Beigu to follow him inside.

The floodwaters inside the prefectural government office were not much, and most of the people coming and going were in a hurry, all with worried expressions.

Soon, Lu Beigu met Li Pan in a house.

There were many official documents piled on the desk in front of Li Pan. When he saw Lu Beigu, he didn't look up, but asked, "Are you in trouble? Is the state school out of food?"

"There's also food," Lu Beigu said bluntly. "We came because of this rainstorm."

"Oh?"

Li Pan put down his pen and looked up at him.

"Seeing the severe flooding in the city, the students had an idea that might help alleviate the drainage problem."

"What do you think."

"When I accompanied you on your westward journey last time, we passed through Luchuan City. Although we didn't enter the city, we traveled from the south bank to the north bank and around the city. We saw that Luchuan City had many water gates. Is it because the water gates can no longer drain the water from the city into the Tuojiang River, which is why the flooding is so severe now?"

“That’s right.” Li Pan nodded. “The rain has been so heavy for so many days that water from the upper reaches of the Tuo River has flowed in, causing the water level of the Tuo River to rise sharply. The city’s sluice gates dare not release water, for fear that if they are opened, not only will the water in the city not be drained, but the Tuo River water will flow back into the city.”

Lu Beigu thought to himself, "Just as I thought."

Along his journey, he discovered that the flooding situation in Luchuan County was clearly abnormal. As a city adjacent to the Tuojiang and Yangtze Rivers, under normal circumstances, the floodwater in the city should be able to drain into the rivers.

The reason why water isn't being discharged into the river right now is most likely because the sluice gates leading to the Tuojiang River are not open. As an aside, Luchuan City doesn't have any sluice gates facing the Yangtze River, and no small city would dare to build one.

The Tuojiang River is a major river that runs from northwest to southeast. It originates in the high mountains of western Sichuan, runs through the entire western Sichuan Basin, and joins the Yangtze River in Luzhou. Although its water volume and flow rate cannot be compared with the Yangtze River, it is still not to be underestimated.

Therefore, even though the city was flooded, the officials in Luzhou dared not risk opening the sluice gates to drain the water.

The former causes at most significant property damage and does not pose a immediate threat to the lives of the city's inhabitants, while the latter has the potential to flood the entire city and cause numerous casualties.

"A student has an idea that can solve this problem."

(End of this chapter)