But will those people outside the city who are marching across the country with swords and spears satisfied?
The weather in Tokyo was getting colder and colder. Firewood and charcoal were no longer enough for the people in the capital, and the heavy rain and snow had not stopped. The stagnant air was cold and stagnant, and the coldness penetrated into the bone marrow with a suffocating feeling. Tokyo, once a soft and fragrant land, was now in a state of depression. Shops in all the streets and alleys closed down. The hungry and cold people could not find firewood and rice. Countless houses were left with only stone walls and mud tiles, and the wooden doors and fences had long been taken away to make fires for warmth. Corpses were piled up on the streets, and the stench and maggots were infested, but no one cared.
Just drive the Jin soldiers away, everyone said so. There has been no news of famine or chaos in other provinces this year. As long as the Jin soldiers retreat, a steady supply of rice will be delivered to the capital, and everyone will be able to eat. If things go on like this, I guess the officials won't be able to bear it, right? This is the capital!
The emperor really couldn't stand it any longer. So on the 30th day of the intercalary eleventh month, the emperor led his officials out of the city to the Jin camp.
Three days later, the emperor returned to the city, cried with his ministers and people at Nanxun Gate, and then returned to the palace, where he offered horses and money as the Jin people requested with great fear and trepidation.
The neighbor to the east could not bear the hunger, and after eating the dead person at the door, his entire family died of illness; the neighbor to the west had always been poor, and he died of hunger and starvation when the Jin soldiers besieged the city for a few days; the uncle of the neighbor to the south was an official in the court, and after returning from the Jin camp, he burned down his house to commit suicide as he did not want to see the city being destroyed and the country being mourned; the neighbor to the north was only an old woman, who hanged herself after hearing that her son had died in the battle.
The situation in Tokyo from the end of the first year of the Jingkang reign to the beginning of the second year was not recorded in history books, including the words "the people's savings were gone, and nine out of ten houses were empty." Compared with the long lists of outrageous acts of officials, there was only a brief mention of the extortion of gold and silk.
The elder brother was getting more and more used to watching his weak younger brother in silence for a long time. Song Wanru knew what the elder brother was thinking. Tokyo was full of bones and the whole city was crying. There was no room for a tender baby. But they had no choice. The younger brother was born on the day when the mother died. The mother suffered for so many days because of the thought of the younger brother. The father used to bow and kowtow, staring at the mother's bulging belly with hope and worry, and nagging him to respect his mother and be friendly to his brothers and sisters in the future.
The voices and faces of their parents are still in front of them, but their belongings have been confiscated by the government. Their younger brother is the only thing they can keep!
The mournful voices were replaced by the music, the mourning clothes were used as new clothes, and the armor was used as fireworks. The officials were forced to go to the Jin camp again. The people of Bianjing spent New Year's Eve and Lantern Festival, and the Jin people wanted to exchange gold, silver and women for the officials. The great official became the grandfather of the Jin people, and went door to door with the official of Kaifeng Prefecture to find women. Song Wanru was so hungry that she lost her shape. She wiped her face with dust and fell to the ground, pretending to be dead. She squinted her eyes and watched her brother drive away the bandit-like soldiers with the only blunt knife in the family, and then welcomed the Jin army into the city.
——My brother finally exchanged his life for another’s. It was the first and last time he killed someone as a young scholar.
Song Wanru did not cry. She was afraid that her voice would make her brother cry again and provoke the Jin soldiers, and she was also afraid that she would be too tired to cry. She lay beside the corpse, just stroking her brother to prevent him from making any sound. She stood up when it was dark, put her brother in a basket that had not been used for who knows how long, and then found her brother by the moonlight.
She wanted to find a place to bury her brother.
Daddy would hold Song Wanru in his arms every time there was thunder. She wasn't really afraid of thunder, but Daddy would tell her so many stories that she wouldn't tell him things she wasn't afraid of. Song Wanru was afraid of darkness. She didn't like chaos or the unknown. She always suspected that something was watching her from behind. The pitch-black darkness was a desperate situation. She couldn't see the light. She was never afraid of those illusory demons.
But compared to the tragic daytime, the night now brings Song Wanru only infinite peace.
Song Wanru dragged her brother and was not heavy. No one in Tokyo was not starving. The Jin people used rice in the outer city to exchange for the people's gold and silver. Only a few wealthy families could afford to exchange, but they were just struggling to survive. When the nest is overturned, no egg is left intact. The rich and the poor were more fair than ever before when the capital was lost.
The Jin people's guards were not strict, and it was unclear whether it was out of disdain or something else. Song Wanru left the city carefully, but she did not see any interception along the way. The suburbs of the city used to be a good place for the ladies of the capital to go for an outing, but now there was a foul stench. Song Wanru could not smell it, as she had been immersed in this stench for a long time. The thick branches for digging the soil were not handy, but she was reluctant to use the white jade hairpin hidden in her clothes. It was the dowry of her mother-in-law (grandmother). Her father had personally inserted it into her mother's hair and said that he would give it to his brother's sister-in-law in the future. Song Wanru pawned a lot of things, and many things were robbed by the government. Even the last blunt knife was taken away by the Jin people. This was the only thing she kept. When a person is alive, the hairpin is there, and when a person dies, the hairpin is gone. The sharp tip of the hairpin is the blade she prepared to bury with her before her death.
In such a chaotic time, how could an orphan girl and a weak brother bear to let the blade of their only sword become dull?
The Jin people came and went, and the city of Dongjing almost became an empty ghost town. Song Wanru had nowhere to go. The capital was destroyed, so where else could she find peace? In the chaotic world of war and rampant bandits, what was the difference between her and her brother's long journey and staying in the ruins of the capital? Song Wanru just lived in a daze, digging grass, stealing, and even picking up corpses. She also surprisingly found that she was quite good at picking up leaks, picking up leaks buried under the mansions of former princes and nobles that could not be picked up, and exchanging them for a bite of food to barely fill her and her brother's stomachs. She even looked forward to the Jin people coming again indifferently, so that she would have a reason to die.
The Jin people did not come, but Zong Liushou came.
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