Chapter 654: Chapter 223: Journey_4
Magistrate Li Wenhu stood below the city wall, muttering a curse under his breath.
"Cai Fang," he asked the person beside him, "it’s this late, surely they won’t fail to come?"
The middle-aged man standing next to him was clad in a crumpled long robe, his face turned blue with cold, persistently stamping his feet and rubbing his hands, yet his expression remained determined: "Wait a bit longer. They should arrive today no matter what."
Li Wenhu looked towards the deserted city gates in the distance.
An infestation of locusts had struck Su Nan County.
The locust disaster destroyed the crops, and without food, famine soon ensued.
The disaster relief grain and money trickle down from the court still hadn’t arrived, and the epidemic in Su Nan struck first.
This epidemic was fierce, in just a few months, more than half of the city’s population had died.
The prefecture’s governor said they would send help for the epidemic, but for reasons unknown, it was delayed, and the death toll continued to rise. The County Office was not spared either, and eventually, one night, the Magistrate slipped out of the city with his family and never returned. Only the Deputy Magistrate Cai Fang and County Commander Li Wenhu were left to look at each other in dismay.
As if a leaking roof wasn’t bad enough, it rained night after night. This year, Su Nan was particularly cold, and continuous gloomy rain made it impossible to burn the accumulating corpses. The number of paupers who died of cold and hunger increased further. The stocks of medicine at Su Nan Medical Practice had run out, and doctors were falling ill one after another. At this rate, it wouldn’t be long before the entirety of Su Nan City would turn into a ghost town.
"I think they won’t come." Li Wenhu, whose sturdy body had significantly thinned after days of running around, noticed his belt had visibly loosened, "If the Court cared about us, why would they delay until now? They said months ago that they would send help for the epidemic, but not a ghost has been seen. I think they want us to be left to our own devices!"
He glanced again at the buns in Cai Fang’s hands and grew even angrier: "So many people starve to death in the city every day, and you still prepare buns for them. Perhaps the nobles in Shengjing wouldn’t even deign to look at this cornbread, so why the hell go through all this trouble!"
Cai Fang, rubbing his hands, replied: "Just keep it down a bit!"
"What, I’m not allowed to speak now?"
Li Wenhu disliked the officials from Shengjing.
As soon as the epidemic emerged in Su Nan, the Magistrate sought aid from the Court immediately, and the matter was reported up the chain, from the prefectural judge to the prefectural governor, all the way to Shengjing, which took many days. The officials in Shengjing were busy with matters of state and had no time to care for the life and death of a small county.
There had been a few visitors from Shengjing, the so-called "high officials" to manage the locust disaster, who stayed in Su Nan for a few days before leaving, having eaten half a month’s worth of the County Office’s food supply and pompously produced a "locust treatment paper."
The County Office treated it like a treasure and followed its instructions to no avail.
With the past experience in mind, Li Wenhu was particularly disdainful of the medical officers from the Shengjing Hanlin Medical Officer Academy; those officers had studied at the Imperial Physician from a young age and were mostly from good families. How could such people feel at ease allowing their children to venture into a land plagued by an epidemic? The medical officers dispatched this time were either coerced and reluctant or the incompetents with subpar medical skills, the rejects of the Medical Officer Institute, helpless incompetents rounded up for a hopeless task, just like those before them.
"If you want to wait, wait by yourself," Li Wenhu gave up, "I’m going back to move bodies, the execution ground is almost full with the corpses from yesterday!"
He turned to leave, but after taking only two steps, he heard Cai Fang shouting behind him: "They’re here!"
Here?
Li Wenhu turned around.
In the distance, several hundred steps outside the city gates, a convoy of carriages and horses was slowly making its way.
The carriages didn’t move swiftly, but to Su Nan City, which had not seen a soul for months, they were like the first glimmers of sunlight piercing through a prolonged gloom, instantly brightening the eyes of the two men standing before the city gates.
The carriages "rumble rumble" approached, stopping before the city gates.
A middle-aged man dressed in a cotton robe, wearing a cotton hat, leapt down from the carriage.
"You all..." Cai Fang advanced eagerly.
The man bowed to Cai Fang with a polite and courteous voice.
"I am Chief Physician Chang Jin from the Hanlin Medical Officer Academy, ordered by the Court to lead the accompanying medical officers from the Medical Officer Institute to Su Nan to treat the epidemic."