"Chun'er, Chun'er! Chun'er! You can't die!" Suddenly a young woman burst into tears. She was holding a child of six or seven years old in her arms, and the child's body had already drooped limply.
This kind of thing is commonplace to everyone, and these starving people have long been accustomed to this kind of life and death. No one can show mercy to anyone else, and you might be the next to fall.
Li Haoran was shocked and rushed forward. He took the child's pulse and found that his heart was already dead.
"Ah!" Li Haoran raised his head to the sky and screamed, his voice tragic and heroic: "Oh my God! Why!"
Everyone was stunned by his loud shout, and it was obvious that the county magistrate was indeed helpless.
Li Haoran hugged the dead child and burst into tears. Langya County had become hell.
People stopped shouting, "Kill the magistrate!" and calling him a "dog official." This was because Li Haoran, holding the child, walked to the front of the yamen gate.
He held the starving child in his arms. He was so young. The child was already skin and bones. He should not have endured such hellish suffering at such a young age.
Tears dripped onto the child's pale face. Li Haoran felt deeply guilty. He felt that it was his incompetence that killed these innocent victims.
When Li Haoran raised his head, his eyes were no longer helpless and desperate, but cold and angry.
"I will help you find food! I will help you survive!"
With a "whoosh", the victims knelt on the ground and cried, expressing their gratitude in the only way they could.
Lu Asan and Gao Er were extremely panicked. They knew clearly that the county magistrate did not have even a grain of food. So how could he lead so many disaster victims to find food?
"Sir, where can we get food?" Lu Asan couldn't help asking.
Li Haoran didn't answer, still holding the dead child. The victims stared at him blankly. Li Haoran walked forward step by step, holding the child's body, and the victims made way for him.
The child was buried at the gate of the government office, and Li Haoran buried him with his own hands. This was a satire on the imperial court and a cry for this era.
Mr. Zhang's house was broken open and the victims rushed in. They ran for the food in the warehouse, but there was not as much food as Mr. Zhang said, only a dozen bags, enough for them to eat for only a month.
In fact, there are still nearly 100 stone of grain in Mr. Zhang's house. This is the true face of unscrupulous businessmen.
The victims cheered, they would finally not starve to death, but this amount of food was only enough for tens of thousands of victims to eat for a few days.
Mr. Zhang's face turned pale. He looked at Li Haoran angrily and almost fainted. "You, you. I'm going to the county government to sue you!"
Yes, Mr. Zhang was not wrong. The food was his own, and he had provided porridge and relief to disaster victims before. No one is a saint, and it is impossible to give away all their wealth.
Li Haoran bowed deeply and said, "Mr. Zhang, if I hadn't done this, these people would have surely died. Consider this grain a loan from the court, and the court will return it to you one day."
As he spoke, Li Haoran sent over an IOU, which was written in the name of the government office. As for whether it would be effective in the future, that was unknown.
Zhang Yuanwai was furious, and even if he wanted to kill Li Haoran, it would not satisfy his hatred. But now he was helpless and could only watch as the disaster victims carried away his family's food bags.
Li Haoran did leave some food for Mr. Zhang's family, but it was only two bags of rice. In other words, as Mr. Zhang said, his family only had enough food to last for one month.
Li Haoran led the disaster victims to rob along the way. In the entire Langya County, more than a dozen wealthy families were looted.
But there was still not enough food. This little food was just a drop in the bucket for the disaster victims who continued to pour into Langya County.
Every day, truckloads of dead disaster victims were taken outside the city for burial in Langya County, because storing the bodies for too long could easily lead to plague.
Famine is often accompanied by plague, which is inevitable. However, Li Haoran has also gained the trust of the victims. He has now become a god in the hearts of the victims, a living Bodhisattva in Langya County.
The relief food for Haizhou finally arrived, but the prefect Han Tiexin was reluctant to distribute it, arguing that the victims in Haizhou had not yet starved to death.
Disaster relief grain for Langya County, the hardest-hit area, remained undelivered, and the prefect of Haizhou, who had promised grain would arrive in three days, had yet to receive it. Forty thousand dan of grain, shipped from Bianjing, arrived in Langya County without a single grain.
Li Haoran was furious. He slammed the table in the government office and said, "Han Tiexin's crimes are unforgivable! People in Langya County are already cannibalizing each other, and he still dares to withhold grain and refuse to distribute it. What does he want to do?"
After robbing more than a dozen wealthy families of their food, the yamen runners returned to continue their duties. Rather than calling Li Haoran a county magistrate, it would be more accurate to say he was a bandit.
"Sir, the victims from outside the city are pouring in continuously, and we only have enough food to support them for two days. What should we do after two days? I'm afraid that by then there won't be a single grain of rice to be found in the entire Langya County." Gao Er followed up.
Li Haoran slammed the table and said, "Take the disaster victims to Haizhou! Grab food!"
Gao Er was horrified. He advised, "This is treason, sir. If we go to Haizhou to steal food, the imperial court will definitely charge us with treason."
Li Haoran sneered, "Without food, these disaster victims will rebel sooner or later. They might as well rob them under the banner of this official!"
Outside the Langya County government office, Li Haoran rolled up his sleeves and shouted, "Fellow villagers! The Haizhou governor refuses to allocate grain to us. Are we going to starve to death here or go and rob them of their food?!"
The enthusiasm of the masses needs to be fanned. For the victims, especially in terms of food, this statement really received a lot of response.
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