Ming East India Company

In the thirty-sixth year of the Wanli reign (1598), the year of Wushen, there was no summer in Jiangnan.

Since April, the entire southern Zhili region has been plagued by continuous, incessant rain, day and night. The rain initially fell like a dense net, then turned into a torrential downpour, pouring down day after day without a moment of sunshine.

The waters of Taihu Lake, Qinhuai River, and Danyang River all swelled simultaneously, breaching dikes and flooding the fields.

Chenjia Village was originally a small, ordinary water village in Yixing County, Changzhou Prefecture. It was built along the river and had more than 100 households who made a living by farming and weaving for generations.

But that year, fate completely withdrew all its favors from Jiangnan.

The rains since the beginning of summer are no longer the usual plum rains. Lead-gray clouds hang heavily in the low sky, lingering all day long.

The cold rain, carrying a biting chill, beat against the thatched roof and tiled roof day and night.

At first, the villagers stayed indoors to avoid the rain, hoping that the rainy season was just getting longer and that they could replant the late rice when the weather cleared up.

But ten or twenty days passed, and the rain showed no sign of stopping. The riverbed rose day by day, and the river water rose inch by inch until it finally broke through the old, sturdy dike at the entrance of the village.

The wind and rain are fiercest in the middle of the night in June.

The gale-force winds and torrential rains tore at the thatched huts, and the bamboo and wooden beams creaked and groaned under the strain, like the sobs of a dying man.

The sleeping villagers were awakened by the loud bang.

"The dike has breached! The floodwaters are coming!"

People threw on their clothes and ran barefoot out of the house, only to be met with murky yellow water carrying mud, sand, withered grass, and broken branches. The water was icy cold and quickly rose up to their ankles, then up to their knees and waists.

A massive flood rushed in from the west, sweeping away everything in its path.

The mulberry groves, bamboo groves, and vegetable plots outside the village were swallowed up by the flood in an instant.

Immediately afterwards, the low thatched huts collapsed first. The earthen walls softened and crumbled when they came into contact with water, and the bamboo and wooden frames were swept away by the flood and overturned with a roar. The pots, pans, bedding, farm tools and household items inside were all swept into the muddy waves and disappeared without a trace.

In just half an hour, half the village was submerged in deep water.

As dawn broke, the rain subsided slightly, but the world was no longer the same as it used to be.

As far as the eye can see, the vast expanse of yellow water stretches to the horizon. The once winding riverbed, the flat fields, and the stone-paved roads connecting the villages have all been flattened by the flood.

Floating on the water are broken beams and logs, shattered bamboo mats, overturned wooden buckets, as well as tattered clothes and scattered farm tools washed away by the flood, drifting with the current.

The remaining houses were all half-submerged in water, the earthen walls were soaked with mud and water, mottled and cracked, and large pieces of plaster were peeling off.

The gates and windowsills of every household were blackened and swollen from being soaked in water. Muddy water seeped into the houses through the cracks, and the ground was covered with murky muddy water, mixed with soil and filth, and a fishy and damp smell permeated the whole area.

Only a few brick and tile houses on slightly higher ground in the east of the village remain, with only half of their walls showing, becoming the only place to live in this desperate situation.

More than a hundred villagers, with their families and in a sorry state, crammed together on this small piece of high ground, with nowhere else to go.

The flooding did not stop there. Continuous torrential rains caused the water level of Taihu Lake to rise rapidly, with water from outside flowing back in layer by layer, and the water level rising day by day.

The water, which was relatively calm during the day, turned into a raging undercurrent at night, continuously eroding the remaining foundations of the houses. Every morning when people woke up, the first thing they did was to check the water level in terror, and they would always find that the waterline had risen a few inches higher, getting closer to the roof, and their despair would deepen with each passing day.

The first thing to run out of food was the stored grain.

People in the water towns of Jiangnan have never stored grain for the following year, relying entirely on a season of summer rice and a season of autumn rice to make a living.

This year, however, the summer grain harvest failed completely, with all the seedlings rotting in the water and not a single blade of grass growing in the fields. When the flood first arrived, each household could still find a few remnants of old rice and damp grains in the corners of their houses, carefully wash them clean, and boil them into a thin rice porridge to keep them alive.

But in just three to five days, this meager stockpile was completely exhausted.

Famine, accompanied by a damp and hopeless despair, completely enveloped this marshland.

Children and the elderly are the first to suffer.

The children who used to have three meals a day were now all sallow-faced, with sunken eyes and gaunt cheeks. They no longer cried or laughed, but huddled in the damp corners all day long, too weak to even open their eyes, their small bodies reduced to nothing but bones.

The elderly men with white hair were already weak. After being soaked in damp cold for days and not having enough to eat, their energy and blood were exhausted. They lay paralyzed on the ground, barely breathing, and even the strength to groan gradually dissipated.

The villagers, facing famine, began searching for food everywhere.

At first, they could gather aquatic plants, duckweed, and tender roots of moss from the water's edge, wash them, boil them until tender, and fill their stomachs.

However, in the vast expanse of water, there are very few clean aquatic plants, and most of them are mixed with mud, sand, and filth, making them fishy, ​​astringent, and difficult to swallow.

Within a few days, all the aquatic plants, moss, and wild vegetable roots visible on the water's surface were picked clean, leaving nothing edible.

When the aquatic plants were exhausted, people began rummaging through the trash. Old dried bamboo shoots soaking in water, moldy soybean cakes, and damp bran, even if they were already covered in mold, became lifesavers at this moment.

Ignoring the stench, the people fished it out, rinsed it briefly, boiled it haphazardly, and swallowed it. The bitter, musty taste filled their stomachs.

By July, there was absolutely no food to be found within a hundred miles, and the famine had reached its peak.

Fields were flooded, vegetable gardens were destroyed, and poultry died. The land and water that once sustained them had become a desolate wasteland that swallowed everything.

The bark of the trees in the village was stripped off, the roots of the grass were dug up, and not a single blade of grass remained. Hunger had completely eroded people's dignity and self-respect. The smoke from the chimneys of every household was thin and weak, and what they cooked was no longer grains and cereals, but rotten cotton and moldy soil.

Every day, the weak fall silently.

First, there were the elderly who had been bedridden for many days. Although the Jiangnan water towns valued filial piety, no one cared about family ties during such a great disaster. Many elderly people were abandoned in the wilderness and quietly passed away.

Next came the infants still in swaddling clothes. The women had no more milk to feed them and could only give them small amounts of boiled water plants and mud. Many infants, only a few months old, could only be watched as their breaths gradually weakened and they eventually died silently.

The body could not be buried. The ground was covered with deep mud and silt, with not an inch of soil to dig a grave.

People could only place the bodies in a corner of the high ground and hastily cover them with a layer of damp thatch.

Even worse, many corpses were thrown directly into the puddles and left to drift away with the current.

After a flood, a major epidemic is sure to follow.

The stagnant, hot water allowed rotting corpses, decaying grass, and filth to soak and ferment day and night, eventually leading to a rampant outbreak of disease.

The once clean drinking water was completely contaminated. The villagers, already suffering from famine, had weak resistance and were plagued by hunger. As a result, an epidemic broke out and quickly spread throughout the village.

At first, only a few people had fever, cough, wheezing, vomiting, diarrhea, and general weakness.

Within three days, the epidemic swept through all the survivors.

Those infected suffer from persistent high fever, abdominal pain, vomiting, and diarrhea. Within a single day, they become emaciated and barely breathing.

There were no doctors or medicines in the village. Even the few elderly people who knew a little about herbal medicine could not find clean herbs and could only watch helplessly as villagers and neighbors fell ill one after another.

Death has become the most common sight in this water town.

Natural disasters have not yet subsided, and now man-made calamities have struck.

With floods raging and roads cut off, local officials were already overwhelmed with their own problems. The yamen runners who used to post notices and patrol the villages had all vanished without a trace.

Occasionally, some towns in neighboring counties were lucky enough to escape complete flooding and had a small amount of surplus grain, but this was controlled and hoarded by the government at every level.

Rice prices have been rising several times a day, with the price continuing to soar.

In a good year, a dou (a unit of dry measure) of rice costs no more than thirty wen (a unit of currency). But now, with famine raging and no harvest, the price of rice has soared to one hundred or two hundred wen, and eventually, it is so expensive that it is impossible to buy even with a thousand pieces of gold.

Ordinary disaster victims were already destitute and penniless; even if they had some silver or copper coins, they couldn't buy a single grain of food to save their lives.

The government nominally issued orders to open granaries and distribute grain to disaster victims, but in reality, it embezzled funds at every level and lined its own pockets.

The relief grain and fodder were distributed from the prefectural and county seats, but after being intercepted and embezzled by officials, gentry, and village heads at each level, less than 10% actually reached the disaster victims.

Occasionally, a few bowls of porridge would be distributed, but it was mostly just clear broth with very little water, barely enough to reflect a person's image, and containing very few grains of rice, which was far from enough to fill an empty stomach and sustain life.

Meanwhile, the powerful local gentry and unscrupulous people common in Jiangnan took advantage of the disaster to hoard goods and speculate, plundering the remaining property of the disaster victims at low prices and selling moldy and rotten grains at high prices, making a fortune from the national crisis.

In times of chaos, social norms and order are relaxed and collapse. Villages that were once harmonious with their neighbors are utterly torn apart by hunger and despair.

At first, people helped and supported each other, but when hunger reached its extreme, kinship and hometown ties faded away.

For half a moldy cake or a handful of grass roots, normally kind neighbors would quarrel, shove, and even kill each other. Everyone was too busy taking care of themselves to have any energy left to pity others.

The flow of refugees began to drift arduously through the watery and marshy land.

The surviving villagers abandoned their ancestral homes, now a vast expanse of ruins, and, with the elderly and children in tow, slowly drifted on the boundless Yellow River in broken wooden basins, simple bamboo rafts, and leaky boats, making their way towards the higher mountains.

……

"Master, it seems we won't be able to complete our silk harvesting plan this year."

On a hillside in eastern Zhejiang, a servant spoke cautiously with his master.

This person was none other than Bai Wencheng, the head of the Bai family within the Ming Dynasty.

Bai Wencheng originally came to inspect the growth of silkworms this year, but unexpectedly encountered a major disaster.

On the water, displaced disaster victims could be seen everywhere. Dilapidated boats floated densely on the murky water, and the people on board were all emaciated, ragged, soaked to the bone, and shivering.

The elderly, women, and children huddled in the boat, while the young and strong held wooden oars, numbly paddling through the puddles, unaware of where they were going or where they could find shelter.

Along the way, corpses floated on the water. There were villagers who had drowned, refugees who had starved to death, and children who had died young. Their bodies were swept up by the turbid waves, bobbing up and down.

Some bodies were swollen and unrecognizable, others were dressed in tattered clothes and exposed ashes, a scene of utter devastation and unbearable horror. Occasionally, a corpse would approach the escape boats, but the people were already numb; no one dared to look, no one dared to retrieve it, they could only silently row away, keeping their distance, their hearts filled with endless sorrow.

Seeing this scene, Bai Wencheng knew that his raw silk business for the year was doomed.

Although the Bai family now controls the Silver Silk Road and can make a fortune by collecting taxes, Bai Ye still insists on doing both things well.

Every year, they still send people to Jiangsu and Zhejiang to purchase raw silk, which is then resold to Yuegang for export.

After all, any business that is out of touch with the market for too long will eventually be sidelined. The Bai family is able to set appropriate tax rates by relying on their control over the business situation, so that they can generate income without over-exploiting maritime merchants.

"Well, things have come to this. Let's report to the Ryukyu authorities as soon as possible and have them prepare accordingly."

In late June, the rain gradually stopped, the clouds slowly dispersed, and the long-awaited sunlight finally shone on the land of Jiangnan.

But as dawn broke, what was revealed was not a revival of life, but a scene of utter desolation and widespread devastation.

The floodwaters still lingered in the fields, refusing to recede. The fertile land was completely submerged, the soil washed away by the flood, leaving only muddy silt, making it impossible to cultivate the land next year.

The entire village was destroyed, more than half of the houses collapsed, and the remaining houses were cracked and their foundations were loose, making them dilapidated and uninhabitable.

Those who survived by sheer luck remained trapped in dire straits.

Just then, Bai Wencheng received a letter from Bai Ye.

There is only one short command above:

"Take advantage of the disaster to provide full relief to the victims and emigrate them overseas."

Bai Wencheng faithfully carried out Bai Ye's orders.

Under his orders, the entire Tonghai Chamber of Commerce mobilized.

Merchants of all sizes received funds from Bai Wencheng and formed a fleet to sail north.

Soon, dozens of well-built and sturdy ocean-going ships sailed upstream from Wusongkou into the inland waterways of Jiangnan, following the remaining waterways deep into the severely affected counties and prefectures such as Changzhou, Songjiang, and Yixing.

The ship is tall and majestic, with a very deep draft. Its black planks have been washed by the waves for a long time and carry the salty smell of the sea breeze.

Bai Wencheng knew that transporting disaster victims by land was very risky, so he instructed the victims to be transported directly by water.

In any case, the government is currently overwhelmed by the floods and has no time to deal with the unfounded accusations of people taking advantage of the situation to "buy people's hearts".

The ship anchored in the deep waters of the un-silted river channel, without forcibly docking. Instead, it launched dozens of light and fast boats, carrying managers dressed in plain clothes and with capable expressions, to shuttle between the various highland villages where disaster victims gathered.

The world was in chaos, and the laws and regulations collapsed.

In ordinary years of plenty, the laws of the Ming Dynasty strictly prohibited the sale of good people and the private keeping of slaves. There were regulations in both the city and the countryside, and no one dared to overstep them.

But when disaster struck, after the dikes collapsed and refugees fled everywhere, the local prefectures and counties were already paralyzed. Officials were too busy covering up the disaster and appeasing their superiors to restrain the private actions of the local gentry; the lives of the people were as worthless as grass, and they lived in constant fear, with more than a hundred people starving to death every day.

Who cares about national laws anymore?

The county and prefectural government offices were filled with registers of displaced people, all of whom had lost their land, were unregistered and jobless, and were starving. In the eyes of the officials, these people were no longer citizens of the Ming Dynasty, but rather a burdensome source of trouble that consumed grain, caused unrest, and spread disease.

Years of famine left granaries empty, leaving the government unable to support the displaced people, yet unwilling to allow them to riot and plunder local gentry, and even less able to provide for their aftermath.

The steward secretly entered into a private contract with the government: the government would sell off all the destitute people, the widowed and dying, the elderly, women and children who were starving and waiting to die, and the young and strong who had no land or property.

Each able-bodied man and woman was priced at half a tael to one tael of silver, while children and the elderly were priced at half a tael. The items were packaged in bulk and the total amount was settled upon delivery.

The government was happy to have some peace and quiet, as it was free from the burden of maintaining stability and the risk of disease, and it also gained a huge sum of money out of thin air, which officials could use to divide among themselves and to cover up disaster reports to their superiors.