Chapter 26: Misfortunes Continue
◎Jinjiang exclusive◎
Because of the division of the family and the protection of Song Yayi, a big shot in the exile team, Zhou Jin's family lived a good life afterwards.
But compared to their family, most families in the exile team were not so relaxed. They were already hungry, and were severely soaked by a sudden heavy rain. That night after the rain, many people developed fever.
Although Zhou Jin's family had oilcloth, it was barely enough to cover the supplies on the wheelbarrow and the two children. Zhou Jin's siblings and Zheng could only each cover themselves with a straw mat to shelter from the rain. However, because the rain was too heavy, having a straw mat was almost the same as not having one. The three of them were soaked through, and when the wind blew, they all started sneezing.
Fortunately, Zhou Jin brought back a lot of herbal medicines for treating colds and fevers last time. Zheng did not dare to be careless and cooked a few prescriptions that night. Each family member drank a bowl, covered themselves with quilts and slept. They felt better when they woke up the next day.
But many people were not as lucky as them. The cold quickly swept through the entire exile team, and in just seven days, more than 30 elderly and weak people in the team were killed, including Yang Yi Niang and her daughter from the eldest house of the Zhou family. The mother and daughter had never had much presence in the Zhou family, and even their death had no sense of presence.
In fact, Grandpa Zhou's family also has medicinal herbs, and more than Zhou Jin's family. The last time Zhou Jin bought some herbs, he gave most of them to their family. If they had given a few doses to Yang's mother and daughter in the early stages of the illness, they might not have died.
But how could Feng use the herbs on her concubines and daughters? She had to give them to her sons and grandsons! Although Zheng heard about it later and hurriedly sent two sets of herbs, Yang and her daughter were already seriously ill and did not survive.
So, after a cold, Zhou Wangzu and his men, who were beaten to pieces by Song's yamen runners, survived tenaciously, while Yang's mother and daughter died miserably.
However, no one thought of blaming the Feng family. This was the way it was in that era. Even if other families encountered such a disaster of confiscation of property and exile, they would choose to give up their unvalued concubines, illegitimate daughters, and even legitimate daughters, and make every effort to ensure the survival rate of legitimate sons and grandsons, and even illegitimate sons and grandsons.
If the death of Yang's mother and daughter made Zhou Yu realize more clearly that although the so-called Great Yan Dynasty was much more enlightened than the Ming and Qing dynasties she was familiar with in her previous life, it was also extremely unfair to women, then what happened next made the brother and sister understand even more the cruelty of this ancient feudal dynasty.
Typhoid fever after a heavy rain killed one-third of the people in the exile team. Even seven or eight of the escorting yamen runners were sick and could not get up. Because there were too many patients, Yamen Runner Song had to stop the journey and discussed with Zhou Ge Lao and others to send people to nearby towns to buy more herbs.
However, misfortunes never come singly. Several galloping horses interrupted the conversation of Song and his servants.
Several people looked in surprise at the imperial envoy who came down on horseback holding the imperial edict. Only Song, the yamen runner, saw at a glance the officers and soldiers following the imperial envoy and the wooden box in their hands.
I couldn't help but feel a pang in my heart.
When he had no escort missions, he had followed the imperial envoys to deliver imperial decrees. If he was not mistaken, the items in the wooden box should be those used for death: white silk, poisoned wine, and a dagger.
It all started seven days ago...
Seven days ago, a major event occurred in Kyoto! The current crown prince, who had been groomed by Emperor Chengqian as his successor, suddenly passed away, also due to a heavy rain.
It turned out that not only they had experienced heavy rain these days, but the rain in Kyoto was even heavier, and it lasted for more than ten days. As a result, several counties near Kyoto suffered from the disaster, and the people were displaced and suffered terribly.
His Royal Highness the Crown Prince ignored all dissuasion and insisted on personally inspecting the disaster situation below. As a result, he contracted an epidemic and had a high fever after returning. Although the entire Imperial Hospital tried its best to treat him, it was still impossible to save him and he unfortunately passed away!
Emperor Cheng Qian and the prince had a deep father-son relationship. He was furious out of great grief and not only killed all the slaves and concubines who served the prince in the prince's mansion to vent his anger, but also killed the imperial doctors who had treated the prince, the prince's former staff and officials. In some cases, he was sentenced to death, and in some cases, he was beheaded. It seemed that he wanted all of them to be buried with the prince.
For some reason during this period, Emperor Cheng Qian suddenly thought of the former Prince's Junior Tutor Zhou Ge Lao who was already on his way to exile. At the same time, he thought of how the Prince had been angry with him for three days because of this old scholar, and even threatened to die to save the old scholar's life.
Emperor Cheng Qian didn't kill Lord Zhou at that time just for the sake of the crown prince. Now that the crown prince is dead, Emperor Cheng Qian thought, since you have such a good relationship as teacher and student, then you, as a teacher, should go and accompany my son on my behalf!
Of course, these are not the original words in the imperial edict. The imperial edict that came with the three pieces of death penalty said a lot of things, and these are the meanings summarized by Zhou Jin himself in plain language.
Lord Zhou never imagined that he had cursed Emperor Chengqian for his murder, and was able to save his life because of the crown prince's efforts. After going through so many twists and turns, today he was faced with an imperial decree of death because of the crown prince's sudden death.
His death is nothing to be feared, but why is God so unfair, allowing the benevolent and wise Crown Prince to die young? !
The crown prince has passed away, what will happen to his fifth prince?
"Hahaha, oh my God! Why? Why? His Royal Highness the Crown Prince is such a loving, filial, kind and benevolent person, why didn't God give him a longer life?..."
From the moment he received the imperial edict, Lord Zhou acted like a madman, crying and laughing, pointing at the sky and cursing non-stop. In the end, he ignored the imperial envoy who was holding a white silk and urging him to set off quickly with a bitter face. He just hugged his most beloved grandson Zhou Luo, looked at his eldest son apologetically, and then bumped into the rocks on the side of the road.
Blood and brain matter splattered everywhere, and a great scholar died!
"Father!"
Zhou Zelin, who was standing by, couldn't stop him and could only hug his little son tightly as he tried to run over crying. He watched helplessly as his father hit the rock and died. He was so heartbroken that he spat out a mouthful of blood and fainted immediately!
This caused the already chaotic situation in the Grand Council even more chaos, made the rest of the Zhou family more frightened and uneasy, and also gave Zhou Jin and his sister a clearer understanding of the imperial power of this era.
As the saying goes, if the King of Hell tells you to die at three o'clock in the morning, who dares to keep you alive until five o'clock? The emperor's golden words are no less powerful than the King of Hell's, who orders people to die at any time.
Because of the sudden imperial edict, the exile team stopped again. After the imperial envoy who came to sentence Zhou to death verified his identity and returned to report, the crowd became chaotic again.
Some sighed and went forward to comfort the weeping people in the Mansion, some helped to treat the unconscious Zhou Zelin, but most people were worried about themselves, deeply afraid of being implicated by the Mansion again. What if the emperor heard the news of the death of the old man and was still angry, and ordered the death of them as well?
In fear, he hated Zhou Ge Lao more and more for repeatedly causing trouble for his family, especially the side branches who were not affected by Guang but were implicated and exiled with him.
But Lord Zhou was already dead, and they couldn't kill him again. Everyone had no place to vent their anger, so it was directed at Zhou Zelin, his sons, brothers, and several direct descendants of the Zhou family. If it weren't for Song the yamen runner, some people would have stepped forward and started tearing them apart.
The anger of the side branches was so great that the direct branches of the Zhou family also became cautious, fearing that they would be implicated. Except for the family of Zhou Ruiquan, the brother of Lord Zhou, no one else dared to step forward, let alone handle Lord Zhou's funeral.
But Lord Zhou was a great scholar after all. We couldn't just let him be buried like others, rolled up on a mat, right?
If that were the case, Song Yayi was afraid that the scholars would eat him up in the future! But he didn't dare to ask Lord Zhou to do it, for fear of losing his head. So he worried his hair almost turned white, but he couldn't come up with a solution.
Later, Zhou Zelin woke up. With the help of his uncle Zhou Ruiquan, he struggled to make a thin coffin with his sick body. They found a tidy place in the wilderness and buried Zhou Ge Lao hastily.
Zhou Ruiquan also marked the grave, thinking that if the Zhou family could rise again one day, they would be able to find this place and move Lord Zhou's grave to their ancestral home.
After finishing the funeral of Lord Zhou, the team rested for another night and set off again early the next morning.
Song, the yamen runner, was now confused about the attitude of his superiors towards the Zhou family. He only knew that the current emperor was probably completely disgusted with the Zhou family, so he no longer dared to let the Zhou family go out to make purchases, for fear that he would be implicated if the superiors investigated. He did not care whether the people in the exile team were sick or not, and did not dare to delay the journey any longer. He just wanted to get to Liaodong as soon as possible and hand over these time bombs as soon as possible.
The people in the exile team were even more frightened, fearing that a few more fast horses would come in a moment and bring news that they would commit suicide as well. Among them was an elderly couple who could not bear the tremendous psychological pressure, and one night they both hanged themselves in the woods.
At this point, including those who died of illness during this period, those who died of illness at the beginning, those who were robbed by bandits, and those who were killed, there were only 296 people left in the exile team of 392 people when they set out.
In this way, the exile team walked for more than half a month at the urging of the yamen runners. During this period, people died of starvation and disease almost every day. Zhou Jin and his sister were better off, as they had already seen life and death since the end of the world. Zheng was soft-hearted because she had food at home. When acquaintances came to beg for mercy, she felt sorry for them and couldn't help but secretly give them some food.
Zhou Jin's siblings tried to dissuade her, but Zheng couldn't help herself, saying they were all familiar relatives and had once called her aunt. She couldn't just watch them starve to death, could she?! She was the typical person who, despite living a miserable life herself, couldn't bear to see the suffering of others!
"Oh! Forget it! Don't talk about our mother. Sometimes I can't stand this either!" Seeing that she couldn't persuade her mother, Zhou Yu turned to persuade her brother.
"Well, let her be. She has been frightened these days. Doing some good things can distract her attention! But we have to be careful. If we meet someone with a greedy heart, we must let them know that we are not easy to mess with!" Zhou Jinyi nodded.
These days, her mother, like other members of the tribe, has been afraid that another death decree will be issued from above.
Zhou Jin and his sister were not afraid of this. They had already discussed that if there really came a day when the emperor ordered their entire family to die, they would drag Zheng and the others to the RV space.
Although doing so would let the Zheng family know their secret, and they wouldn't know how the family would live after escaping death, it was still better than losing their lives right then and there!
Anyway, it is impossible for the brother and sister to allow themselves to be killed. If they die, they will lose everything. At least they can find a way out if they are alive. At worst, the whole family can live in seclusion in the RV. After all, they have space in the RV and are not afraid of being caught.
For this reason, Zhou Jin took little Zhou Ying to the RV space after Zheng and the others fell asleep, to confirm that the RV space was not only for them, but also for outsiders.
However, they would not do this unless it was absolutely necessary, because if they did so, their entire family would become complete illegals in this world and would no longer be able to appear in public openly!
Fortunately, after half of the journey, nothing happened and no imperial decree came. Zheng and everyone else gradually calmed down.
The author has something to say:
Mr. Zhou has gone offline. As a sign of respect, let us all observe a second of silence!!
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