After her rebirth, the empress received a tragic and beautiful script.

Chapter 242 Purgatory

"What's going on?" Lu Yanchen asked the city gate soldier who was leading them.

"There was a drought last year and that's what caused it to become like this," the other party answered him briefly.

Seeing that the other party was unwilling to say more, Lu Yanchen turned to Cao Qing again: "Old Cao, why is Qing County like this?"

Cao Qing looked at the scene in front of him, his eyes seemed to be filled with shock and anger, and he said: "General, I don't know either. I have been gone for more than half a year. Although life was hard when I left, it was not this miserable."

Seeing Lu Yanchen and his group of soldiers wearing light armor and carrying swords, the beggars silently made way for them.

Lu Yanchen saw fear in their eyes, and the hatred buried beneath the fear.

He was startled and felt a chill in his heart. Without saying much, he silently followed the soldiers at the city gate towards the granary.

They walked silently and laboriously among the crowd of beggars. After walking for a while, Lu Yanchen suddenly smelled a pungent odor.

He immediately frowned.

That's the smell of death.

Then, turning the corner, he saw a mountain of corpses piled up under a corner of the city wall.

The bodies were all dressed in rags, wearing worn-out straw sandals, and most of them were skinny and bony. They were piled up randomly, more than a floor high. Fortunately, the weather was cold, so the bodies did not rot quickly.

What shocked Lu Yanchen even more was that on this stinking pile of corpses, there were many children only half a person's height climbing and playing. Some were rummaging through the corpses, and some starving children were picking up unknown meat from the ground and eating it.

Not only Lu Yanchen, the whole team was shocked by the scene before them.

Only the gate soldier leading the way walked by expressionlessly, without even looking up, as if he was already accustomed to such scenes.

After walking for a while, the scene on the street gradually returned to normal. There were no beggars on the street, the road was wider, and the buildings on the roadside were much more prosperous. It was obvious that we had left the slums and entered the main city streets.

After walking two more streets, the city gate guard stopped and said, "General, turn right at the next street and you will see the granary gate."

After saying this, he bowed, turned around and was about to leave.

Lu Yanchen stopped him and said, "Why are you taking us on a detour?"

When he was halfway there, he discovered that the gate guards leading the way had taken them around the city. Otherwise, they would not have had to pass through the lower city area, which was like hell on earth.

"I have a bad memory and took the wrong road, wasting your time. Please forgive me, General."

Lu Yanchen looked him up and down for a moment and asked, "Are you from Qing County?"

"Yes. My grandfather's generation moved from Cangtai, Yunzhou to Qing County, and has lived in Qing County ever since."

"Qing County is only ten miles in radius. Since you are a local, how could you have taken the wrong road?" Lu Yanchen said.

The gate soldier, who looked to be in his thirties, was silent for a moment, then suddenly knelt down with tears in his eyes: "General, please save the people of Qing County!"

Lu Yanchen hated to see this the most. He immediately stepped forward and half-knelt on the ground, holding the other party's shoulders, and said: "I belong to the Northern Expedition Army and have no jurisdiction in Yingzhou. I cannot directly interfere in the affairs of Qing County. But don't worry, I will report everything I saw and heard today to your majesty. Your majesty loves the people like his own children, and he will not sit idly by and watch the people of Qing County live in such a purgatory." A line of tears ran down the cheek of the city gate soldier. He kowtowed heavily to the ground and said: "Thank you, General!"

Lu Yanchen helped him up and said, "Go back. Don't tell anyone about what happened today."

The other party looked at Lu Yanchen, nodded, then saluted solemnly, turned and left.

Watching his figure disappear, Lu Yanchen sighed.

It seems that there is a reason why bandits are rampant in Yingzhou.

But when he and his men turned the corner and saw the Qing County granary, he realized that the situation was more serious than he had imagined.

The granary door was tightly closed, and the street outside was densely packed with soldiers in the uniforms of the local garrison, who were using a simple hook-type battering ram to ram the door. On the stone-paved road, you could still see scattered flour and bloodstains, which were run over by wheels and shoes, leaving messy marks. Ten or so steps away from the soldiers in formation, there were three layers of people watching the excitement but not daring to get close.

The streets were crowded with people and the situation was extremely chaotic.

Obviously, under such circumstances, Lu Yanchen could not replenish food and grass as usual.

In fact, he couldn't even get close to the granary. With the grain cart, he couldn't get through the crowd of onlookers.

Fortunately, he was tall and could see what was happening ahead over the crowd.

The local defenders failed to capture the city after a long siege, and it was obvious that the gate was not easy to break through.

Since Qing County Granary is the most important grain storage place in the entire Yingzhou, the gate is made of old elm wood as thick as an arm and coated with thick fire-retardant paint on the outside. It is made of the same material and hardness as the city gate of the provincial capital, and ordinary equipment cannot attack it at all.

Despite this, the defenders were not discouraged.

Lu Yanchen couldn't help but feel surprised.

The local defenders were attacking their own granaries, which was an unheard-of event.

Since he couldn't make his way through the crowd, Lu Yanchen asked the people around who were watching the excitement about the situation.

But when the common people saw the military uniform he was wearing, they all retreated away. Although he repeatedly explained that he was a passing soldier from another place and not a reinforcement for the local garrison, he was unable to make these people let down their guard.

Finally, he found a blind old man begging on the street corner far away from the crowd, and finally he found out the situation.

"Foreigners, let me tell you, the people of Qing County really can't survive. Last year, Yingzhou was hit by a drought, the canals were dry, and the wheat harvest was only 60% to 70% of previous years. Not only did the government not open its warehouses to provide disaster relief, but it also asked us to double our grain tax, saying it was because the court was going to fight the Northern Di."

"I thought we could just get through the winter and wait for the Northern Di to withdraw their troops, but I didn't expect that just after the New Year, they announced a new policy for the whole country. The army wanted to confiscate our land for military farming. Basically, each family had to give up 10% to 30% of the land. If we refused to give up the land, we had to pay more grain."

"This is a cold winter, and many people didn't make it. Brother, go outside the county and you'll often see starving people on the edge of the fields. Our Qing County is obviously the most fertile land in Yingzhou. Our ancestors said that it was a place where God fed us, but it's a pity that now only the government's granaries are filled, and we ordinary people can't get enough food."

When Lu Yanchen heard this, he frowned slightly.

He did see people starving to death on the roadside. Many of the bandits he had suppressed became bandits because they could not afford to eat at home. Even the people in Qing County, who he was concerned about now, were mostly skinny and bony, without any trace of being a wealthy place.