Today is the day to go to the county town.
Jiang Chun, as usual, got up at yin chu (寅初, 3:00 AM), helped Jiang He slaughter a pig, cooked porridge for Song Shi’an as breakfast, then harnessed the cart, driving their newly bought mule cart to head out.
Having enjoyed Song Shi’an’s service last night, she was in an excellent mood today, walking with the wind, eyebrows and eyes all full of ease.
This trip into town also went quite smoothly.
She first went to the shop to sell the books that Song Shi’an had copied, getting 150 wen, then went to Gou Family’s blacksmith shop to pay the remaining two liang and 250 wen balance to take away the heating stove.
Then she went to the medicine shop to get one month’s worth of medicine for Song Shi’an; because she brought her own ginseng slices, she only spent two liang silver. After that, she went to the jewelry shop and spent three liang and six qian to buy him a delicate silver hairpin.
Lastly, she turned to the clothing shop and spent six liang and two qian silver to buy herself a pair of deerskin boots.
No wonder Lady Feng of Hongye Town’s shop doesn’t stock deerskin boots, the price is indeed too expensive; the townspeople can’t bear to buy them.
Finally, she detoured to the Xinhuo Shop, using the old price of 1,350 wen to buy 1,000 jin of coal.
Of course, during this process, she didn’t forget to clock in and check in at the entrance of various types of shops to receive rewards.
[Ding! Check-in at 【Hongye County Bookshop】 successful, obtained 4 stacks of silkworm cocoon paper, 3 stacks of sprinkled-gold red paper.]
[Ding! Check-in at 【Hongye County Blacksmith Shop】 successful, obtained 1 iron sieve.]
[Ding! Check-in at 【Hongye County Medical Hall】 successful, obtained 5 liang of bird’s nest, 8 liang of star anise.]
[Ding! Check-in at 【Hongye County Pharmacy】 successful, obtained 6 liang of cinnamon bark, 6 liang of dried tangerine peel.]
[Ding! Check-in at 【Hongye County Jewelry Shop】 successful, obtained 1 silver choker, a pair of layered gauze flowers.]
[Ding! Check-in at 【Hongye County Cloth Shop】 successful, obtained 3 bolts of silk, 20 jade buttons.]
[Ding! Check-in at 【Hongye County Pawn Shop】 successful, obtained 1 red sandalwood Luohan bed.]
[Ding! Check-in at 【Hongye County Money House】 successful, obtained 210 wen copper coins.]
This time’s rewards were not as abundant as last time, but that’s not important—what’s important is that her check-in system finally leveled up to Level 3.
After reaching Level 3, not only would the daily system points that automatically increase at midnight change from 2 points to 3 points, but also when checking in at shops, there’s a chance to receive three items.
It’s a pity that the shops she wanted to check in at were all on cooldown; otherwise, she would have tried it for sure.
Because she bought quite a lot of things today, including the valuable and urgently needed heating stove, and was afraid of people sneakily taking things, Jiang Chun didn’t go to the pawn shop to pawn anything.
Anyway, the silver money in hand is still enough for now. She’ll just go to the pawn shop next time she comes back to the county.
So, after Boss Yang of the Xinhuo Shop led his son and workers to load the coal into burlap sacks and moved them onto the mule cart’s back compartment, she directly drove the mule cart out of town.
After walking for about three quarters of an hour, Jiang Chun was idly counting on her fingers, calculating today’s expenses, when suddenly, a group of people holding clubs jumped out in front of her.
A robbery?
Jiang Chun instantly became spirited.
Thinking that in the three months since she arrived in ancient times, she’s been driving the cart or mule cart into town once every few days, and each time she’s passed without hindrance—this is the first time she’s encountered a robbery.
Where did these blockheads come from?
It’s not that she was bragging, but in the territory of Hongye County, there probably wasn’t anyone who was so stupid as to come out in broad daylight on the road to rob her, Jiang Chun.
Even if there really were people who had gone crazy from poverty, coveting that bit of property the Jiang family had, they would only choose to break into the house when no one was home.
After all, they just wanted to get a little silver and money to spend, and they didn’t want to lose their lives.
From among this group of people, a strong and sturdy man walked out.
He stood in the middle of the road, using the stick in his hand to point at Jiang Chun: “Stop the cart, stop the cart. We’re only here to rob money, not people. Leave behind the things on the mule cart, along with the mule cart itself, then hurry up and get lost.”
He thought it was simple. The one driving the mule cart was a young little lady, who definitely hadn’t experienced being robbed before. Just scare her a little and it’d be a done deal.
Looking at how there were over ten burlap sacks piled in her cart’s back compartment, bulging full, they probably contained grain.
And for this group of refugees, what they lacked most was grain.
Who would have thought that while this little lady did stop the cart, what she said next shocked them all: “Only rob money, not people? You lot are actually quite conscientious, huh. Are you sure you won’t rob people? I look this pretty, don’t I count as more valuable than this mule cart and the things in the cart’s back compartment?”
This little lady, could it be her brain was broken? Instead of taking the chance to leave, she was actually insisting on being robbed?
The strong man waved the wooden stick in his hand, fierce-looking as he said: “Cut the crap, get down from the cart and leave, or else we won’t be polite with you!”
“Oh? You won’t be polite with me? Well, I won’t be polite with you either.”
Jiang Chun cheerfully threw out this line, then reached behind into the basket and pulled out a large machete.
Today the weather was clear and fine, the sunlight shining onto the large machete, making these people involuntarily squint their eyes, and then as a group, they took a few steps back.
Even the leading strong man was no exception.
After coming back to his senses, he immediately took a few steps forward again, bluffing loudly: “Little lady, don’t think that just because you’ve got a machete in your hand, we’ll be scared of you. That machete is big and heavy, you probably won’t even manage to hurt us a bit, and instead will end up cutting your own legs and feet.”
Jiang Chun jumped down from the cart shaft, twirling the blade in a flashy “sword flower” move, then coldly snorted: “Don’t worry, I’ll only cut up your legs and feet.”
The whole group was intimidated by her aura, whispering among themselves, looking as if they were about to back down.
The strong man shouted loudly: “Damn it, no one’s allowed to chicken out! We’re all about to starve to death, are we still going to be afraid of a little lady? All of you, get her!”
As he spoke, he waved the wooden stick and charged at Jiang Chun first.
The others, seeing the boss leading the charge, had no choice but to raise their sticks and rush forward.
The outcome, of course, was without suspense.
This group of people didn’t know a single bit of martial arts, not even as good as the servants sent by Liu Qitan’s family, only relying on brute strength.
And Jiang Chun had a handy iron weapon in her hands—within less than half a quarter of an hour, she had knocked them all to the ground.
She walked slowly over to the leader, placed the large machete across his neck, and sneered: “I’ll ask you questions, and you answer properly. If you dare to lie or trick me, I’ll chop off your head and feed it to the wild dogs!”
Don’t ask how dogs eat human heads—threatening words didn’t need to follow logic.
The strong man, with the gleaming machete at his neck, was angry but didn’t dare to speak up, muffling his voice as he said: “Today, us brothers ran into a tough one, we admit our loss. If little lady wants to ask something, just go ahead and ask.”
Jiang Chun bluntly launched a three-in-a-row question: “Who are you people? Why have you come to the Hongye County territory? Why are you doing robbery work?”
The strong man obediently replied: “We are villagers from Qiuye County, Yanzhou Prefecture, Qianzhao Town, Qianqiligou Village. This summer, during the wheat harvest, there was suddenly a locust plague, and the fields had no harvest at all.”
Fortunately, last year’s harvest was good, and every household had some grain stored away—eating sparingly, they could just barely survive.
It was not easy to hold on until the beans matured, thinking they could catch up in the next season, but who would have thought those damn locusts came again…
The villagers had no way out, and could only band together to flee to Qizhou Prefecture to escape famine.
“We first arrived at the prefecture city, but the prefecture city wouldn’t allow refugees to enter. The Prefect didn’t care whether we lived or died. We squatted by the city gates for several days. Seeing more and more people gathering to escape, we thought of going to the county towns below to find a way to survive.”
“But the county towns were all the same—they wouldn’t let us in to beg for food, nor would they provide disaster relief or porridge.”
“Along the way, we could only survive by eating tree bark and wild vegetables. After reaching Hongye County’s territory, the elderly and children from the village really couldn’t hold on any longer, so we had no choice but to imitate bandits and rob on the road, to see if we could get some silver and buy a little rice for them to eat.”
“Never thought, the first time coming down from the mountains, we’d run into a high-level person like little lady…”
As Jiang Chun listened, she suddenly had a moment of realization.
She, this author, had actually completely forgotten about the matter of the famine.
But she couldn’t really blame herself—back when she was trying to highlight Song Shi’an’s character as a “beautiful, strong, tragic” male supporting character, she had only briefly mentioned the matter of famine in a flashback.
【He couldn’t eat dishes made with lard, only able to eat coarse black flour mantou with mustard greens and pickled vegetables. And on top of that, it was a time of famine—he could only eat half a black mantou…】
Qizhou Prefecture had experienced favorable weather in recent years; the villagers’ wheat and soybeans had both produced a few more dou (斗, a dry measure of \~10 liters) in harvests, so she hadn’t thought much about this at all.
Turns out, this famine wasn’t because of Qizhou Prefecture itself, but due to the ripple effect from Yanzhou Prefecture.
Yanzhou Prefecture lacked grain, so the grain merchants would inevitably come to Qizhou Prefecture to buy grain, causing Qizhou Prefecture’s grain prices to keep rising.
Add to that the influx of many refugees into Qizhou Prefecture—these people weren’t all like the villagers in front of her, destitute and penniless. Many of them had set out with their family fortunes in tow.
These people bought grain and lived in Qizhou Prefecture, which would further worsen Qizhou Prefecture’s grain crisis.
For the common people of Qizhou Prefecture, if they didn’t have enough grain stored at home or sufficient savings, their situation wouldn’t be much better than the refugees in Qizhou Prefecture—just the same, without food to fill their stomachs.
Jiang Chun retracted the large machete, gave a cold snort: “You lot are pitiful, but the people you rob—aren’t they pitiful too? Stop doing these heaven-defying, reasonless deeds. Our county magistrate is a capable man—you lot wait outside the city for a few days, maybe he’ll come up with a way to provide disaster relief and porridge. If, after waiting a few days, there’s still no disaster relief or porridge, then go to the next county town to seek a way to survive—it won’t be too late.”
She reached into her money pouch, pulled out a string of coins, and threw it in front of the strong man, saying: “This hundred wen, take it to buy rice. It’s enough to keep those elderly and children going for a few days. As for the rest of you, all grown men and tall-bodied—go to the nearby villages and towns to find work, or go dig up wild vegetables. It’s not like you’ll starve to death.”