The howling north wind, carrying the yellow sand unique to Longxi that seems to never be cleaned up, violently beat against the dilapidated window frames.
The window paper was already riddled with holes, and the howling wind became the only constant background noise in this humble room.
Li Ru put down the bamboo slips—the Zuo Zhuan—that he had been caressing until they shone, rubbed his dry, swollen eyes, and involuntarily turned his gaze to the window.
As far as the eye could see, there was a desolate and suffocating landscape on the outskirts of Didao County, Longxi Prefecture.
A low, earthen-yellow wall encloses a few equally earthen-yellow thatched huts, with undulating, sparsely vegetated barren mountains in the distance.
It was early spring, a time when all things should be sprouting and growing, but the land here remained hardened, cracked, and lifeless.
Several old, crooked trees stubbornly stretched out their withered branches in the wind and sand, like desperate arms reaching out to the sky in supplication.
Closer still, several corpses, barely covered by tattered straw mats, were carelessly discarded beside a pit not far from the Li family's house.
Those were refugees who had frozen and starved to death last night; no one buried them, or rather, no one had the strength to bury them. A few emaciated wild dogs lurked not far away, their green eyes gleaming in the dim light, patiently waiting for an opportunity to tear them apart.
"Cough cough..."
He heard his mother's violent, suppressed coughing coming from next door. She had been suffering from a cold for over a month, and they couldn't afford a good doctor, so they could only rely on folk remedies to keep her afloat. The coughing sound was like a dull knife, cutting into his heart again and again.
Li Ru withdrew his gaze and looked down at the linen robe he was wearing, which was faded from washing and patched in several places.
The cuffs were badly worn, and the fingertips were rough from years of reading bamboo slips and frostbite in winter. On the table, besides the few bamboo slips that he regarded as treasures, there was only half a bowl of millet porridge that had long since cooled and was so thin that you could see your reflection in it.
"The Great Han..."
Li Ru murmured softly, his voice hoarse, carrying a heaviness beyond his years.
He had just turned nineteen this year. His face was thin, but his brows were filled with a deep and unyielding worry: "It shouldn't be like this."
He was born and raised here, and he knows all too well the suffering on this land.
Liangzhou, the northwestern frontier of the Han Dynasty, has been a harsh and cold land since ancient times, inhabited by Qiang and Hu peoples.
However, what broke the people's spirits was far more than just the harsh weather and the fierce foreign tribes.
The Qiang people suffer from a plague like a carbuncle, harassing the border year after year.
Those tribal cavalrymen from the plateau, like greedy locust swarms, would swoop down every autumn when the horses were fat or when there was a lean season, plundering villages, burning houses, and kidnapping people and livestock.
As for the imperial court's border troops?
They were either an exhausted army with outdated equipment and low morale, or corrupt officials who colluded with local powerful families and even secretly traded weapons and provisions with the Qiang and Hu tribes.
Protecting the borders and ensuring the safety of the people? Often, it's just a pretty phrase written in official documents.
Officials were corrupt and clerks were cruel, exploiting people to the bone. Most of the prefectural and county officials had bought their positions with money.
They went to their posts not to serve the herdsmen, but only to make a profit.
Taxes were increased at each level, and various kinds of "donations" and "fees" emerged one after another. The petty officials and yamen runners were like wolves and tigers, going to the countryside to collect taxes and often whipping and locking people up.
Last year, a minor hailstorm occurred, but the county magistrate, under the guise of "disaster relief," imposed an extra round of taxes and levies, forcing many families to be ruined and people to die.
Powerful lords annexed land and treated the common people like dirt...
This is the heaviest mountain weighing on the people of Liangzhou, especially on poor families like Li Ru.
The Feng family of Didao were the local tyrants. They controlled seven or eight tenths of the fertile land. The tenant farmers who depended on them toiled for a year, but their earnings were barely enough to make ends meet. In years of disaster, they had no choice but to sell their children or even enslave their entire families.
The Feng family kept hundreds of private soldiers and servants, who ran rampant in the countryside, and often framed innocent people under the pretext of "colluding with the Qiang" to seize their meager remaining property.
As for the government?
He was merely a guest of honor in the Feng family; the law? It was nothing more than another whip in the hands of the powerful to lash out at the poor.
Li Ru's father was also a small landlord who had some education and knowledge.
Ten years ago, a rebellion broke out in Qiang territory, burning down their home and seizing their land from neighboring powerful families.
Overwhelmed with grief and indignation, the father fell ill and eventually passed away, leaving behind only this dilapidated house and a few books for his orphaned mother and children.
Li Ru's mother barely managed to raise him by doing sewing and laundry for others.
He knew that if his mother hadn't gritted her teeth and insisted on letting him attend a village school for several years, learn to read and write, and study the classics, his fate would probably be no different from the corpses by the pit outside his window.
He loved reading, especially history books and military strategies. In those yellowed bamboo slips, he saw the glorious past of the Han Dynasty: the prosperous treasury during the reigns of Emperors Wen and Jing; Emperor Wu's northward expulsion of the Xiongnu and his sealing of the Wolf Mountain; Emperor Guangwu's restoration of the Han Dynasty and the rebuilding of the empire... That was the image of the "Han Dynasty" in his heart! But what was the reality before him?
Eunuchs seize power!
Those malignant tumors entrenched deep within the Luoyang Imperial Palace sold official positions and engaged in bribery, even openly pricing the positions of the Three Dukes and Nine Ministers!
How many greedy and incompetent people have transformed themselves into powerful regional officials and prefectural governors by bribing eunuchs? They came here only to plunder, never caring about the suffering of the people.
"Maternal relatives and aristocratic families..."
A bitter, cold smile appeared on his lips.
General Dou Wu? Grand Tutor Chen Fan? And those powerful and influential families with deep-rooted connections and countless disciples and former officials—the Yang family of Hongnong, the Yuan family of Runan…
These people certainly hated eunuchs, but what they cared about more was the interests of their families and social standing, their monopoly on the official careers of the elite, and their complete exclusion of people from the core of power!
In their eyes, the suffering in Liangzhou was nothing more than an insignificant ailment in a remote border region. As for the poor and poor? They would probably have to carefully consider whether they even deserved to be their lackeys.
The wind outside the window grew stronger, whipping up sand and dust that lashed against the windowpane with a rustling sound. My mother's intermittent coughing came again, carrying a heartbreaking weakness.
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