sbdcsierra Chapter 158 'Selling Children for Food'
Chapter 158 'Selling Children for Food'
“Although I have also experienced years of famine, but…” Gongsun Pu felt chilled as he looked at the scene before him.
Natural disasters are irreversible, but the situation in Qing Kingdom was not caused by natural disasters, but man-made disasters!
Sha Haoqian was unwilling to fight under such national conditions. The main reason was that he had been stationed in Luoshang Pass for many years. At the beginning, Sha Haoqian had no soldiers and was taken care of by the people of Luoshang Pass. Today, he was determined to maintain peace and even sneaked out to rob food and share some with the people.
That is why he was able to maintain peace inside and outside Luoshang Pass, but not all generals in the world are able to guard the pass like this.
Lu Ruiguang, the commander guarding Yao'an Pass, had a completely different way of governing. Although he did not exploit the people below, he always responded to the taxation and grain collection policies issued by the imperial court.
No matter how much the people inside the pass begged, he remained indifferent. He kept most of the collected grain for himself and only sent a small amount to the upper reaches.
His principle is very simple, that is to protect himself; the life and death of others has nothing to do with him.
This led to frequent chaos in the city. The powerful were able to grab more food, while the common people had nothing. The serious polarization caused unrest. Lu Ruiguang sent troops to suppress it several times, killing some people and intimidating the people, who thought that everything was peaceful.
The desperate people inside the pass had nowhere to go, so they dug up all the green grass in the fields and ate it all, and finally starved to death on the roadside...
The situation inside Yao'an Pass was still relatively good, but the surrounding villages had completely lost their livelihood. There were starving people everywhere, and people were exchanging their own children for food.
Zong Yanli led his troops to the scene, and the massive enemy army invaded their territory, but the people watched with dull and turbid eyes. The air seemed to be filled with death. They had no way to survive, so how could they be afraid of the enemy?
"Let's take a detour." Zong Yanli lowered his eyes, his tone a little heavy.
They bypassed the village and continued walking forward. The land they saw along the way was almost completely barren. Even if they planted wheat, there was not enough manpower and financial resources to grow it. In the end, the wheat seedlings died in the fields. Where could they get food in such an area?
After passing several villages in succession, the scenes they saw were almost the same, and the look in Zong Yanli's eyes became increasingly heavy.
There is a small town further ahead, but they don’t feel that there are more people here.
Zong Yanli led the army in the front and rode into the town on horseback. The people in the town were still afraid of the enemy's arrival and huddled in corners or hid. Those who had a little strength ran away early.
The only thing that caught Zong Yanli's attention was that the woman was kneeling on the street with disheveled hair and a dirty face. She was so thin that she looked like a human being. She was holding a child in her arms, and the posture of holding the child looked weird and twisted.
Zong Yanli couldn't help but stop beside her, and only then did she see a few crooked words written on the ground in front of her.
"She wants to exchange the child for food." Pei Liang, who was standing next to Zong Yanli, said with a strange look on his face.
"That's a madman..." An old man lying next to the firewood pile spoke softly. When the old man spoke, Monk was so scared that he trembled.
It was not because of anything else, but because the lower half of the old man's legs were all white bones, and it looked like someone had cut off the flesh...
When they walked over, they naturally thought it was a corpse, but who knew it suddenly started talking!
Monk swallowed his saliva, stared at the old man with wide eyes, and heard him say in a low voice: "General, you won't get anything good here, go fight somewhere else..."
The old man's eyes seemed a little blurry. He tilted his head and looked at the line of enemy troops in front of him. He did not show any fear, and there was even a hint of relief in his tone.
"Go get a bag of food." Zong Yanli turned and said to Gao Feilin.
"..." Everyone opened their mouths when they saw this scene, with complicated expressions in their eyes.
Zong Yanli approached the woman with a bag of food in his hand, then squatted in front of her and stretched out his hand and said, "I have food."
The dishevelled woman raised her head mechanically, and Zong Yanli was shocked to find that her eyes were empty blood holes. Her eyes had been dug out long ago. Not only were her lips chapped, but the child in her arms was rotten and smelly...
I don’t know how long he has been dead.
Zong Yanli almost lost control, but he saw the woman stretched out her withered hand, like a claw, and touched the food that Zong Yanli handed over.
"Help me, help me to feed him..." The woman's voice was very hoarse, and she seemed to be pulling the corners of her mouth to reveal a smile.
She was so solemn and careful as she placed the child, who had been in her arms for who knows how long, into Zong Yanli's hands.
He stuffed the bag of food that Zong Yanli handed over to him and said, "Eat your fill, eat your fill..."
She tilted her head up to face Zong Yanli. Her blood-hole-like eyes clearly showed that she couldn't see what the person in front of her looked like, but she acted relieved, at ease, and unhesitatingly entrusted him, then turned around and staggered away.
As a mother, what she wanted was not to sell her child for food. All she wanted was someone who could feed her child.
The eight-foot-tall men behind Zong Yanli witnessed this scene with their own eyes and couldn't help but suddenly have tears in their eyes.
"Find a good place for this child, burn him and then bury him." Zong Yanli took a deep breath and suppressed the excitement in his heart.
Watching the woman staggering away, she couldn't imagine what kind of torture such a weak woman had to endure in order to protect her child from being snatched away and eaten by others.
She knew very well that if she buried the child like this, someone might dig it up and eat it...
Zong Yanli's Adam's apple rolled as he finally made the decision, hoping that the child could be reborn soon.
"General, you are so kind-hearted, can you help me?" The old man who was leaning on the side witnessed the scene with his own eyes. His eyes seemed to light up, and he tried hard to prop himself up and sit up and said, "Give me a quick death..."
Zong Yanli turned his head and looked at the old man in front of him for a long time.
Finally, he walked over, pulled out a dagger from his waist and placed it beside him, saying: "I came here to fight against the tyrant, and I have no intention of hurting any civilians."
"This place is like hell on earth. The old man has endured for so long, so he must have some unfulfilled wishes in his heart." She nodded slightly and said, "Why not wait a little longer?"
Zong Yanli put down the dagger. He had never suffered such pain before, so she did not dare to dissuade him. She just said that this was all, leaving the dagger to him to decide whether to live or die.
Zong Yanli toured the city and left without leaving any food behind, because she knew very well that the difficulties faced by the people here could not be solved by a bag of food. If she left food behind today, she would not be saving them, but harming them.