Chapter 965 - Yizhou
The floodwaters had already receded. The muddy ground steamed beneath the summer sun. Everywhere lay black silt, branches, weeds, and driftwood. Crops destroyed by the flood rotted in the mire. Decomposing animal carcasses—chickens, dogs, pigs, sheep, and occasionally humans—lay scattered throughout, bellies uniformly bloated, emitting nauseating stench.
Green-headed flies had arrived first. Wherever flies swarmed, there lay corpses of humans and livestock.
In the villages and towns the floodwaters had swept through, buildings that hadn't collapsed when the water rose were now crumbling as it receded. But their owners no longer needed them—they had either died or fled.
This was the great Yizhou flood of 1631. Once again, floodwaters had swept across land already made desolate by frequent natural and man-made disasters, driving out the people barely struggling to survive there. Since the Tianqi reign, Yizhou and the nearby counties of southern Shandong and northern Southern Zhili had suffered flooding nearly every two or three years.
Refugees trudged along the roads in droves, leaving corpses in their wake. They moved blindly toward county seats, prefectural cities, or any urban area—the refugees knew that only by reaching a city was there even a sliver of hope. Otherwise, even if they didn't starve, great disasters were always followed by great plagues, and the god of pestilence would reap lives more fiercely than any flood. If local cities couldn't take them in, they had no choice but to leave their homes entirely and flee to counties that hadn't suffered disaster.
Driven by hunger, forced to survive, the streams of refugees flowed slowly along the major roads of southern Shandong. Every day people died; every day others joined the wretched procession. Wherever they passed, they consumed everything—tree bark, grass roots, even animal carcasses rotting in the fields—nothing was spared.
Major landowners in the towns along the way had already fled—either to prefectural or provincial capitals, or even further to the more stable Jiangnan region. Since the White Lotus Sect troubles in southern Shandong, this area had become exceedingly dangerous. Anyone with assets had fled to provincial capitals or Jiangnan to "escape the turmoil."
Some villages and towns had built palisade walls and organized militia. Hands that had once gripped hoe handles now clutched cudgels and wooden spears, watchfully observing refugees passing near their settlements. Refugees driven to desperation all harbored the resolve to "die on a full stomach." The meager grain stored in the villages was for their own families! Hearts had grown cold and hard as iron.
Landlords who hadn't fled stood on the palisade walls alongside their retainers and farmhands, holding bows, arrows, and broadswords. They supervised the militia while also appearing to "lead from the front"—after all, they were the wealthiest within the compound. Bodies that had worn silk and satin were now wrapped in hastily made cotton armor. Though it was summer, not a drop of sweat showed on their faces. Their eyes saw the dark masses of refugees; their minds dwelt on news from days before—which village or compound had been "eaten" by refugees, whose family had been robbed, whose entire household had been slaughtered. The horrors of the White Lotus Sect rising just ten years ago seemed to appear before their eyes again. The head of the household watched the militia hunching their shoulders with worried expressions, then stomped his foot and bellowed:
"Keep sharp! There's a feast tonight—pork and vegetable dumplings, eat all you want!"
A confused chorus of "Thank you, Master, for your generosity!" arose, sounding almost like opera. Then someone began chanting in an affected voice:
"Hold your weapons tight!"
"Hold them tight!"
"Guard the compound well!"
"Guard it well!"
...
Scenes like this repeated several times daily. White flour and pork—too precious to give to farmhands or even for the landlords themselves to eat in ordinary times—were now brought out as rewards to purchase loyalty.
Yet even as they felt heartache, fear, and worry, they also felt secret glee. The flood had washed away boundary markers and swept away title deeds, rendering much land ownerless. Even land that still had owners—in famine years, owners would have to sell to survive. For some, this was an excellent opportunity to expand their estates. As for the farmers to work the land—the peasantry never died out completely. After the waters receded, come next spring, those who hadn't starved would return.
The premise, of course, was that they themselves weren't "eaten" by the refugees first, or killed in the coming unrest.
Whether in county seats or prefectural cities, the usually swaggering officials proved unwilling to interfere with the refugees' movements. The refugees hadn't rebelled, hadn't besieged county seats. They had merely robbed a few landlords and killed a few people—nothing of major consequence. If the major landowners wanted to protect their lives and property, they had to organize their own forces.
Inside the city walls, though gates hadn't been closed to bar refugees, militia had already been organized. Able-bodied men from the outer city and nearby villages stood ready at any moment to "suppress" unrest. At the city gates hung several heads as a warning—always fresh and bloody. Outside the city stood hastily erected sheds, where pots of thin, moldy-smelling "gruel"—clear enough to see the bottom—were being cooked. Even this meager gruel couldn't be obtained by every refugee gathered nearby. A fixed number of bamboo tokens were distributed each day; those who couldn't get one simply had to go hungry.
Near the gruel sheds operated another feeding ground—for a different kind of fly. Human traffickers from Jinan Prefecture, even from as far as Shuntian and Jiangnan, hid in sedan chairs and mule carts, carefully calculating how many "catches" they could obtain and how much to pay local colleagues. Some prowled through the crowds, searching for possible purchases. Young boys and girls were their primary targets, followed by young women. People with grass markers stuck on their heads—the traditional sign of being for sale—were continuously loaded onto mule carts and shipped off to Linqing and Xuzhou, where they would board boats to be sold in various locations.
Zhang Yingchen, wearing a Daoist robe of his own design, moved through the crowd. From time to time he nodded greetings to people around him. Having practiced medicine and helped people here, he had already earned the reputation of a "living immortal." Not only refugees but even the runners and militia maintaining order at the gruel stations—many of whom had received his treatment—revered him as divine.
"Father Fu, the medicine you gave my child did indeed stop the diarrhea. You truly are a living immortal—" A ragged woman blocked his path. "Please take another look..."
"Oh? If the diarrhea has stopped, his life is not in danger." Zhang Yingchen smiled. "This poor Daoist now has to see another patient. When I return, I'll examine your child again. First give him this packet of medicine."
He moved on amid the woman's profuse thanks. Such encounters occurred almost too frequently to handle along his entire route. Even when the magistrate's deputy or the county militia commander came occasionally to the gruel station, they would exchange pleasantries with him.
He knew the officials and gentry in the city had originally been very wary of him. Monks and Daoists appearing after major disasters, especially those practicing medicine and preaching, almost certainly harbored "subversive intentions." The ruling class had accumulated sufficient experience over millennia of governance to recognize the pattern.
Appearing at the gruel station around the same time as Zhang Yingchen were several other so-called "Daoists" or "Buddhist monks," as well as "spirit mediums and shamans" without religious garb. They quickly drew the attention of local authorities. These people had neither official ordination certificates, nor were their medicines and treatments nearly as effective as Zhang Yingchen's. They were soon completely silenced under the crackdown by local officials and gentry.
Zhang Yingchen had prevailed in this competition firstly because of his superior medical skills and even more superior medicines; secondly, he possessed an official Daoist ordination certificate and calling cards he had obtained from a certain Hangzhou gentry family—both of which proved crucial for his safety. In this timeline, authorities had no concept of human rights. Seizing suspicious persons and beating them first was standard practice. Especially now, in extraordinary times, many people had been beheaded or beaten to death in the yamen simply for suspicious words or behavior; others had died in jail or in the standing cages at the yamen gate.
He was extremely careful when practicing medicine, speaking only of ordinary matters like doing good and accumulating virtue during treatments, without excessively promoting doctrine. Though occasionally he would preach to refugees, the content was drawn entirely from the official Daoist Canon—proper and presentable anywhere.
I wonder how Old Zhao is doing in Shandong? He often thought this while occupied with these matters. With his current influence, inciting refugees to go to Dengzhou-Laizhou to join Zhao Yingong would be straightforward enough.
He and Zhao Yingong had left Hangzhou at the same time, but after reaching Yizhou he had stayed to begin operations locally.
In ancient Chinese society, natural disasters were always excellent opportunities for heterodox sects to spread propaganda. One of Zhang Yingchen's main purposes in penetrating Yizhou was to investigate the activity levels and agitation capabilities of local White Lotus Sect, Luo Sect, Wenxiang Sect, and similar organizations.
From what he could observe, these organizations were indeed active, but authorities remained highly vigilant—the White Lotus Sect rebellion had been less than ten years ago, and local alertness persisted. Using religious means to incite the populace wouldn't be easy.
After his inspection tour, when he returned, he discovered that a boy he had cured a few days earlier had been purchased by a trafficker from Jiangnan. He couldn't help feeling secret regret. This boy had been clever, with handsome features—originally a prime candidate for "Daoist apprentice" that he had set his eye on. Now someone else had beaten him to the prize.
This had already happened several times, each time leaving him heartbroken—watching good prospects slip away while powerless to act was truly painful.
But he had already taken in two children as apprentices, and there was also Mingqing who had come from Hangzhou. Taking in more boys around him would be too conspicuous.
I need to send Old Zhao a letter quickly, or all the best resources will be taken by these traffickers. He calculated silently as he returned to a ruined Daoist temple in the outer city.
It was called a temple, but no real Daoists remained—only a fire-dwelling lay Daoist lived there, barely scraping by. Zhao Yingong had paid a few coppers to rent the building as his base of operations in Yizhou.
(End of Chapter)