Late Ming Dynasty: Oops, I am surrounded by the Donglin Party

Yongping Prefecture, a village near Luanzhou.

The wind was howling, thunder and lightning were flashing, and the rain was pouring down like a waterfall. The sky seemed to be dark just after noon.

"Dad, Mom, I'm scared." In a house with leaks everywhere, a boy of four or five years old was curled up on the table.

The boy was holding a carved wooden plaque in his arms, which looked like a memorial tablet.

The accumulated water in the house has already reached an adult's waist, and floodwaters are still pouring in from outside the windows with the waves.

The baby's father is Li Zhong, a man in his twenties. He is desperately pouring water out with a bucket. The baby's mother is trying to block the hole where the water is coming in with old bedding and anything else she can use.

It's all in vain.

Even the couple knew it.

But what can they do?

The village had already been flooded, and his neighbor Zhou Erxi's family were all washed away by the flood.

The foundation of his house was very solid, which is why it has been able to last until now.

But seeing that the rain continued and the flood outside became more and more severe, Li Zhong was filled with despair.

In order to resist this despair, he could only pour water out of the wooden bucket continuously. Only in this way could he avoid waiting for death in silence, even though he knew it was futile.

"Don't be afraid, Qing'er. You just need to stay on the table and don't move around." The baby's mother said to her son while she was busy blocking the hole.

But she herself seemed to be very scared. She tried to block the hole for a long time but couldn't, and her body kept shaking.

"It's so hard to finally have some hope, so hard..." Li Zhong muttered to himself.

A few years ago, there were famines and wars, and his parents could not survive. Half of the people in the village were gone. At that time, they just wanted to live one day at a time.

If you don’t have any thoughts in life, you naturally won’t be afraid of death.

But two or three years ago, the imperial army suddenly executed the county magistrate, and most of the gentry in the county were also executed along with their entire families.

Then the new county magistrate began to distribute land to them, as if it were a dream.

Later, corvee labor was abolished, and the county said that there would be no additional taxes. Not only that, families no longer had to bear the additional head tax when new members were born, and land tax could be converted into copper coins.

In just two years, good news spread throughout the village one after another.

It gave hope back to those who survived.

In the hardest of times, hope is a luxury.

But precisely because of this, it is as precious as gold.

Later, Li Zhong found out that a good official had emerged in the court.

His name was Zhang Shikang. It was this good official who killed the corrupt officials and returned the land that had been occupied by the gentry to them.

Last year, the county sent people over and distributed some seeds he had never seen before.

He originally didn't plan to plant it, after all, he didn't know whether it would succeed, but he heard from that person that it was recommended by a good official named Zhang Shikang.

Li Zhong said nothing and planted potatoes, sweet potatoes and corn on half of his family's land.

Since the end of last year, their family has never gone hungry again.

This has never happened before, for generations to come, even for hundreds of years.

Li Zhong was very grateful to this upright and honest man, so he asked someone to carve a longevity tablet for him. He would kowtow to it during festivals and pray for this upright and honest man.

He had originally thought that after selling this season's summer grain and earning some money, he would send his child to school. This was something Li Zhong would never have dared to think about a few years ago.

But all of this finally disappeared because of a sudden disaster.

He was so fragile in the face of natural disasters. He clearly had endless energy and could take good care of the seedlings in the fields, and his wife was also very capable.

But God didn't want to give him a chance, and he was unwilling to accept it.

"Boss, the door... the door is about to collapse. I'll go block it."

Li Zhong's wife was about to hold the door open when a wave came crashing down. The already weakened wooden door was suddenly smashed open, and the floodwaters rushed in.

"Xiu Lian!"

Li Zhong tried frantically to hold on to his wife, but in just a moment, she was washed away by the flood.

Li Zhong only had time to pick up the child before tiles kept falling from the house, and he realized that the house was about to collapse.

The floodwaters had reached his chest, and he had to carry the baby on his shoulders.

But the water was flowing so fast that he couldn't stand still.

Li Zhong gritted his teeth, and the unwillingness in his heart burst out completely. He knew that if they were washed away by the flood, both he and his son would die.

He held the baby to his chest with one arm, and the baby could only barely open his mouth to breathe, while his other arm was tightly holding onto the pillar.

As the house collapsed, tiles and rafters kept hitting his head, shoulders and back, causing his head to bleed and blood to ooze from his mouth.

But even so, he didn't let go.

Half an hour later, the house had disappeared, leaving only two pillars standing in the flood.

The entire village was washed away. Occasionally, young people around fifteen or sixteen years old could be seen relying on their physical strength to climb up a few big trees to avoid the flood.

Another hour passed, and Li Zhong's body had lost consciousness, but his muscles were still tense, firmly fixing himself and the baby to the pillar of the house.

Fortunately, the rain finally stopped. The flood came and went quickly, and the accumulated water had receded from the neck to the waist and abdomen.

"Dad, my hands are weak, I'm going to throw this sign away."

How could the young boy have any idea what he was going through? He only knew that his father asked him to hold the tablet, but the tablet was very heavy.

"Don't throw it!" Li Zhong shouted.

He rarely gets angry at his children, but it's almost subconscious.

The child was frightened and started crying, but Li Zhong did not respond.

When the child finally stopped crying, Li Zhong said in a low voice:

"Without this sign, there would be no you."

The child didn't understand at all and just said:

"Dad, where is my mom? Where did she go?"

Li Zhong said nothing, but this time the child immediately realized something and started crying again.

Another hour passed, and it was about to get dark. There were mournful cries everywhere, mixed with the croaking of frogs. Apart from that, there was nothing but dead silence.

His home was gone, the corn seedlings in the fields were gone, and his wife was washed away without a trace.

Li Zhong didn't know what to do next. He survived, but it would be worse than death.

He wiped the child's tears with his rough hands, but his own tears couldn't help but flow out.

Men don't shed tears easily, but they will until they reach despair.

Before the last blush in the west disappeared, a lot of people seemed to appear in the distance, and after a moment, it became a huge crowd.

Li Zhong was puzzled as to why so many people suddenly came to the village.

But when he got closer, he was shocked.

Those people were actually wearing military uniforms and carrying swords. They were officers and soldiers!

"I am Fang Wen, the commander of the Infantry Battalion of the Imperial Guards of the Ming Dynasty.

The Marshal sent me to Lijia Village to provide disaster relief. Is there anyone alive here? Squeak! "

……

PS: Those who have read this far probably recognize this book. Please write a review for it. It is very important for the book's performance.

The story is almost one-third done, and the outline for the rest is almost done. I am now looking forward to the next part of the Great Voyage. The male protagonist is also a man who wants to be the Pirate King, haha