Chapter 376: Chapter 365: Mending the Pen After the Sheep are Lost
Xie Xun stood against the light, a smile that wasn’t quite a smile creeping onto his face, haunting like a ghost. Li Yong was so frightened he lost his voice, unable to move or utter a single word. Cold sweat dripped instantly from his temples as he moved the sword tip away with two fingers, trying his best to smile obsequiously, "Zhixu, let’s talk this through calmly. Using swords and blades will only harm our relationship."
Fengyu hadn’t expected Xie Xun to know Li Yong.
Fang Lingjun quietly explained to her, "Years ago, before the Noble Consort entered the palace, her engagement was to the eldest son of the Li Family. Li Yong is his younger brother. The three young scions of the Xie Family all greatly admired their soon-to-be brother-in-law. Though the Li Family later moved out of the Capital City, they still held office in the wealthy Yangzhou, protected in secret by the Marquis Zhenbei Mansion."
"If you want to live, Yangzhou must follow my orders from now on. Withdraw all your troops immediately and stop needless killing in the streets. Guard the city gates and docks without letting anyone leave or enter Yangzhou, not even Marshal Fang if he comes. Your indiscriminate killing in the streets will only worsen the conflict. Right now, the urgent priority is stabilizing the disaster victims and the citizens—separate the healthy from those infected with the plague. Treat the sick and halt the spread of the epidemic. In this chaotic situation, if you don’t deploy troops to maintain order and instead escalate tensions, has your brain turned to water after all these years of holding office in Yangzhou?" Xie Xun slapped the top of his head, knocking his official hat to the ground.
Li Yong had already been on tenterhooks, and now was utterly panicked and paralyzed. "But if you... If you take over managing Yangzhou, I wouldn’t have enough lives to pay for it!"
"Even if I didn’t come, with Yangzhou in its current state, would Yuwen Jing spare you? Would the Cabinet spare you? Yangzhou’s disaster is entirely your fault, and the crime of implicating nine generations of your family already looms overhead. Your only option now is to follow my lead—it’s not too late for damage control!" Xie Xun dragged him up from where he had collapsed on the ground. "Pull everyone back immediately!"
Li Yong was far from capable in governance—his foothold in Yangzhou had relied heavily on its bustling commerce and the docility of its citizens. Once the influx of refugees led to tragedy, Li Yong became wholly unhinged, realizing that he had created a catastrophe. The protection of the Marquis Zhenbei had granted the Li Family smooth sailing for years, but now the good days had come to an end.
Whether he stretched his neck forward or retracted it, the blade awaited. All his life, Li Yong had lived under the shelter of others, and now he could only cling tightly to Xie Xun’s leg. "Zhixu, you have to save me, save my entire family!"
"Then get up and start doing something useful!" Xie Xun delivered a solid kick to him.
Li Yong scrambled to put his official hat back on, hurriedly summoned his staff, and temporarily pulled back the troops stationed in the streets, leaving Yangzhou under Xie Xun’s control. With Yangzhou in such disorder, whether Xie Xun was a rebel or a traitor had become irrelevant—all of Yangzhou’s citizens were desperate for someone to save them from the inferno they were trapped in.
The chaos in Yangzhou spread quickly—both banks of the Liujiang were disaster-stricken and in no condition to intervene, leaving Yangzhou to fend for itself. The military camps of Zhongzhou and Jiangnan also received the news.
Zhongzhou, fearing the plague’s spread, bolted its city gates tightly, refusing any boats coming from Yangzhou. General Chen Ming was stockpiling medicine and educating soldiers about epidemic protocols, preparing for a large-scale outbreak.
The Jiangnan garrison was even more immobilized. With Sannan’s situation unstable, a mass epidemic could cripple their forces if just one soldier fell ill. That would devastate the army’s combat readiness—even without Sannan raising troops, they’d crumble on their own. Marshal Fang was frantic, having sent three urgent memorials to the court, requesting that the Imperial Physician be dispatched to Jiangnan to study the epidemic.
Marshal Fang could only allocate grain and medicine to be sent to Yangzhou, knowing full well that Fang Lingjun was in Yangzhou, yet he couldn’t rashly dispatch troops. While it was feasible for him to go to Yangzhou personally, sending the whole army was not an option.
Communication had now been severed—Yangzhou’s gates were shut tight, and no information could get out. The dire straits in Yangzhou were well-known throughout Liangjiang, and disaster victims were no longer migrating toward Yangzhou—a development that somewhat alleviated the pressure on the city.
The plague... What could be done about the plague?
Plagues, as history showed, often ravaged for one or two years, leaving people destitute and desperate. Yet Yangzhou had never seen chaos on this scale before. Marshal Fang wrung his hands in anxiety, praying the Capital City would find a way to resolve the crisis.
The Capital City was the first to receive news of the disaster in Liangjiang. Lin Helin quickly convened the Cabinet and the Ministry of Revenue to discuss countermeasures. The national treasury was empty and grain resources were critically low. Minister Gong of the Ministry of Revenue routinely lamented their poverty. Even with funds now, they couldn’t conjure grain out of thin air—the Ministry was already short on silver coins, Zhongzhou still awaited solutions for problems in the twelve provinces, and they couldn’t touch the money reserved for spring planting next year. Every year, the funds for spring and autumn farming were untouchable.
At a time like this, with natural disasters striking, Minister Gong felt like swearing profusely. Jiangnan had passed through its rainy season safely earlier this year, and everyone assumed there wouldn’t be flooding—the water levels being slightly high were deemed normal, even helpful for crop irrigation in spring. Who could have anticipated winter flooding? The disaster in Liangjiang was severe, and Lin Helin was scouring the Capital for grain, ordering supplies to be sent to Jiangnan, a large portion of which was being forcibly requisitioned from clan estates.