SWDnovel Chapter 6 The Great Han Powder Keg
Chapter 6 The Great Han Powder Keg
The early spring rain in Xiapi came suddenly and went quickly; in less than a day, the clouds had cleared and the sky was sunny.
Li Sheng's eyelids twitched slightly when he heard a joyful yet restrained voice beside him.
"Sheng-ge? You're finally awake!"
"Cough! I..."
Just as Li Sheng was about to speak, he felt a dry pain in his throat, followed by a soreness in all the muscles throughout his body from what felt like a tear.
"Hiss~"
Li Sheng gasped in pain.
It seems that his body is still just a mortal, and has not become a non-human being because of "transmigration". At most, his physical qualities such as muscles and memory are a little stronger, and he can briefly unleash power beyond the limits of the human body. Otherwise, he is almost no different from a normal person. He still needs to drink water when he is thirsty and eat when he is hungry.
Seeing Li Sheng like this, Li Feng, who was guarding Li Sheng, quickly filled a bowl with warm water and handed it to him.
"Brother Sheng, have some water and calm down first."
Li Sheng took the bowl of water and slowly drank it.
While drinking water, memories began to surface in my mind.
He recalled that in the more than sixty years from Emperor An of Han to Emperor Ling of Han, there were more than three hundred recorded natural disasters, including floods, droughts, locust plagues, and earthquakes, which occurred one after another.
In the fifth year of the Guanghe era, which was two years ago, a severe drought struck the entire country, with the four prefectures of Qing, Xu, Yan, and Yu suffering the most, resulting in a complete crop failure. The imperial court issued an edict of self-reproach and dismissed the three highest officials, but the disaster victims did not receive a single extra grain of rice.
Moreover, last year was marked by a severe drought and a major epidemic, and his parents died during the epidemic. What did the government do?
The government's taxes were not reduced; the household registration tax and land rent were still the same.
But they couldn't even harvest a single grain of wheat from the fields, so what could they use to pay the debts? Some sold their children, some fled to other places with their families, and some, like Li Sheng, were taken in by the talisman masters of the Taiping Dao and survived by relying on talisman water.
The common people at the bottom of society are too weak to withstand unexpected events. In the event of natural disasters, the powerful clans are barely affected, and in fact, their land even increases in years of drought.
They have wells and reservoirs, but the government's water conservancy projects only extend to the edge of their fields.
The small family's dry land was cracked like a tortoise shell, yet their crops were still green.
More importantly, they have money and food, while the disaster victims can't afford to eat and have to sell their land.
An acre of fertile land is worth two or three thousand coins on a normal day, but in a year of famine, it can only be exchanged for a few bushels of rice.
The powerful clans seized the opportunity to annex land, acquiring it here and there. By the time the famine was over, half the land in the county had changed hands. It is no exaggeration to say that the Chen family occupied more than half of the land in the entire Xiapi County, and it would not be an exaggeration to call them "Chen Half-City".
However, taxes did not decrease at all. After all, even a great emperor had to resort to selling official positions to make money, so why would he reduce taxes for the common people by even a fraction?
The landless farmers became tenants, paying nearly 70% of their rent to the powerful clans and also performing "private labor" for them.
As for the government's taxes? The powerful clans had their own ways of passing them down to the rent, making the tenant farmers bear the burden.
The government and the powerful clans were essentially one entity.
The officials in counties and prefectures were either from powerful clans themselves, or relied on powerful clans to maintain local order. Even if there were any short-sighted officials who wanted to stand up for the common people, they could not withstand the manipulation of powerful clans.
"The powerful and wealthy are favored and oppressed, while the weak and vulnerable are exploited." This is a common problem in more than a hundred counties and prefectures across the country, not just in Xiapi County.
Faced with such a crisis, the government officials and powerful families stood idly by, waiting to feast on the "corpses" of the common people.
Of course, both the imperial court and the powerful clans were clever people, and their methods were all gentle and considerate.
The Taiping Dao talisman masters who distributed talisman water and medicinal soup saw it as a good way to "ease tensions" by turning a blind eye to some problems.
Otherwise, if we don't use the Taiping Dao to appease the people, are we going to expect them to cede their own interests to ordinary citizens?
And so the Way of Peace grew stronger year by year.
From Jizhou to Xuzhou, from Qingzhou to Jingzhou, across thirty-six regions, hundreds of thousands of believers spread silently like an underground fire.
Ultimately, the people reached a point where they could no longer survive, and they rose up in rebellion, marking the end of the Han Dynasty.
After sorting everything out, Li Sheng sighed inwardly.
The entire Eastern Han Dynasty had degenerated to such an extent that it's no wonder the great virtuous teacher Zhang Jiao proclaimed, "The Blue Heaven is dead, the Yellow Heaven shall rise."
Seeing that Li Sheng had finished his water, Li Feng and the others asked eagerly, "Brother Sheng, how is it? Do you want some more soup?"
"That's enough."
Li Sheng waved his hand.
"What time is it now? How long have I been asleep? Is something wrong?"
"Brother Sheng, it's already late afternoon on the second day. You've slept for a full twelve hours. If you don't wake up soon, the brothers will all be calling for a doctor."
Did you sleep all day?
Li Sheng felt sore all over his body; it seemed that yesterday's outburst had come at a price.
Seeing that Li Sheng didn't speak, another person added, "By the way, Brother Sheng, the government didn't send anyone to search us. Instead, they issued a recruitment notice, saying they're going to launch an expedition to punish our Taiping Dao and its followers!"
"I've heard that the Taiping Dao brothers in other counties have also risen up. Why don't we respond to the call and overthrow this government?"
Seeing his fellow villagers' outrage, Li Sheng remained remarkably calm.
"The uprising has already broken out? It seems the news has reached us."
After pondering for a moment, Li Sheng voiced his thoughts.
"We cannot start an uprising now!"
Li Sheng's voice wasn't loud, but it instantly interrupted everyone's discussion.
"what?"
"Why is that, Sheng-ge?"
"Yes. Now that everyone is rising up together, if we are a step behind, we will fall behind step by step. I have heard that the local governments have been caught off guard by our Taiping Dao. If we do not act now, wouldn't we be missing a great opportunity?"
"Alright, everyone, stop arguing and let's hear what Sheng-ge has to say."
At this moment, Li Feng brought in a bowl of wheat porridge from outside, stopping the discussion.
He brought his rice bowl to Li Sheng.
"Brother Sheng, you haven't eaten all day. Eat first, and then we can discuss it with the brothers."
Seeing Li Feng's behavior, everyone realized that Li Sheng had not eaten for a long time.
They quickly apologized.
Li Sheng waved his hand: "There's no need for such formalities between brothers! Has everyone eaten?"
The others said apologetically, "We've all eaten, Sheng-ge, you go ahead and eat."
They were all men who only needed to feed themselves and had no family to worry about. They made a living by working as hired laborers for powerful families, so they had long since solved their food problems.
This is also why they were able to come together.
There were countless bankrupt peasants like them, most of whom were forced to live in the manors of powerful landlords, and even formed a highly self-sufficient "manor economy" during the Wei and Jin Dynasties.
The Eastern Han Dynasty was rotten to the core.
Emperor Guangwu Liu Xiu relied on powerful clans to continue the Han Dynasty, which meant he was destined to be unable to stop the powerful clans from growing stronger and annexing land.
The Eastern Han Dynasty, which lived for another two hundred years on the "corpse" of the Western Han, could only be rotten soil for cultivating powerful clans.