New Policies in Sichuan

Chapter 15 Military Household Village

The next morning, the wind in Qingcheng County was even cooler than at night.

The nighttime audits, arrests, and sealing of documents kept the entire county government office awake. Zhou Ling'an's face was ashen, as if he'd been smeared with soot, Gu Chengyan's eyes were dark and blue, and Gao Chengli yawned while trying to maintain his composure, looking like a court ox forced to attend court, leave court, and go on business trips all night.

Only Cao Lie is still in good spirits.

Or rather, it wasn't his spirit, but the sheer weight that settled down around him whenever Junhu Village was mentioned, which instantly banished any drowsiness.

"Your Highness," he cupped his hands in greeting, "Junhu Village is behind the West Camp, a little over a mile north. The road isn't far, but... it's not very scenic."

Meng Xuanzhe mounted his horse and glanced at him upon hearing this: "You're a man of your word."

Cao Lie twitched the corner of his mouth: "This humble subject is clumsy with words and can't say anything nice. If it's not good-looking, it's not good-looking. Your Highness will know when you go there."

Gao Chengli, riding on his horse, subtly shrank back upon hearing this.

He is now very afraid of hearing such words.

Because along the way, whenever someone said beforehand that something was "not very good-looking," "not very peaceful," or "has some minor drawbacks," once they arrived at the destination, they would almost always tear the words "slightly" and "minor" to shreds.

Starting from the county government office, passing through Xiying, and then crossing a low earthen slope, the village of military households gradually comes into view.

It's called a village, but it's more like an old patch forgotten on the outskirts of the county town.

There are many houses, but only a few are in good condition. The mud walls are patched up here and there, and the roofs are covered with a jumble of stones and old tiles. It looks like if the wind were to pick up any stronger, it could randomly snatch away the roofs of two or three of these houses to meet their ancestors.

There were chickens and dogs at the gate, but the chickens were thin and the dogs were even thinner, and even their barking sounded like a perfunctory attitude that said, "This is probably how my life will be."

Several broken water vats stood by the roadside, their rims cracked, with piles of half-damp firewood beside them. Further inside, almost every house had something hanging in front of its door—an old scabbard, a broken bowstring, pieces of armor, a soldier's badge, or simply a crude wooden plaque with a name on it.

very ugly.

It's also very straightforward.

This is not an ordinary poor village.

This is a place where "fought a war" and "did not have a good ending" are both displayed at the entrance.

Meng Xuanzhe dismounted and stood at the village entrance for a couple of moments. The fire in his heart, which had been relatively stable, suddenly sank.

In his past life, he had seen poor places and people who had a hard time after leaving the army.

But the poverty we are facing is not just a lack of money and food.

It was used by the state once and then casually forgotten in some corner.

Yesterday's military roster stated respectably: casualties pending verification, compensation temporarily suspended, and supplementary payments to be made as usual.

But the way these people live their lives is uglier than any official approval or record.

Cao Lie whispered from the side, "Most of the people living here are the families of soldiers who were registered as garrison soldiers. The living, the wounded, the dead, and those who were not deregistered are all mixed together. The few military tokens Your Highness saw last night were only the ones that could be found. Many families couldn't even find all of their tokens."

Meng Xuanzhe nodded without saying a word and walked straight inside.

As soon as he moved, everyone in the village saw it.

First, several elderly people who were squatting by the wall sunbathing looked up, their eyes full of wariness; then several women holding children also stopped what they were doing and watched the group from a distance, neither daring to approach nor willing to leave.

They all knew Cao Lie.

It is precisely because of this acquaintance that I am even more surprised.

Cao Lie, who usually returns to his village, is at most an old soldier who hasn't quite died yet. Who would have thought that one day he would bring the Crown Prince and the people from the Eastern Palace here?

This story is so novel that even if you brought out all the ancestral tablets of the Later Shu dynasty, let alone Junhu Village in Qingcheng County, you would probably find it quite interesting.

An elderly woman wrapped in a worn-out coat spoke first, her voice trembling: "Cao Lie, who...who have you brought with you?"

Cao Lie turned and glanced at Meng Xuanzhe, a rare moment of seriousness in his eyes.

"Your Highness, the Crown Prince of the Eastern Palace."

The old woman's legs went weak, and she almost sat down on the ground.

Several women nearby were also frightened and took a half step back. Only one young woman holding a child was so small that she didn't know how important the "Prince" was. She just clutched her clothes and stared with her slightly yellowish eyes.

The village was quiet for a moment, and then someone hurriedly tried to kneel down.

Meng Xuanzhe raised his hand to stop him.

"Stop making a fuss." He looked at the people in front of him. "I'm not here to put on airs today."

That's a very practical statement.

So much so that everyone was at a loss for words.

Because when they usually met an official, even a minor county clerk, they had to bow down first. But now the Crown Prince had come, and his first words were not "How dare you be so rude?" but "Stop making a fuss."

This feels really strange.

Strangely enough, the group of people dared not actually kneel, nor dared to kneel too quickly, making the scene seem unusually restrained.

Gao Chengli watched from behind with mixed feelings.

His Highness is becoming increasingly adept at going to the countryside—no, to the villages.

Last night they apprehended people in front of the fire, and this morning they collected gifts in front of the military village. Even their tone was just right, maintaining control without making people so nervous that they dared not say anything.

This is no longer simply "kindness".

This shows that they know how to get things done.

Meng Xuanzhe had already walked up to the young woman, his gaze falling on the child in her arms.

The child was thin, with a sallow face, but the tip of his nose was red from the cold, and there were still some unwashed medicine stains on his sleeves.

"Are you sick?" Meng Xuanzhe asked.

The woman panicked and quickly hugged the child tightly, stammering, "Your Highness, I caught a cold a while ago, the fever has subsided, but... but I haven't fully recovered yet."

"Did you take your medicine?"

The woman's eyes flickered, and her voice became even softer: "I've eaten two servings."

That answer sounds untrue.

Children from families who can afford medicine won't grow up to be so fragile that a gust of wind could blow them away.

Liu Qinghe stepped forward, gently supported the child's wrist, glanced at it, and whispered, "It's not a serious illness, just long-term weakness. The medicine isn't working, and the food isn't coming in."

As soon as she said this, the woman's eyes immediately welled up with tears.

Meng Xuanzhe's heart sank.

really.

The most hurtful thing about these words is not the "serious illness," but the fact that the person "doesn't even have enough to eat."

Being seriously ill can be attributed to bad luck, but not being able to eat enough only means one thing—that one truly cannot survive.

"Where is the man?" Meng Xuanzhe asked.

The woman bit her lip: "It's...it's in the register."

Meng Xuanzhe was taken aback.

Gao Chengli, who was standing to the side, was also taken aback for a moment.

Is it on the register?

What kind of crazy answer is this?

Seeing the expressions on everyone's faces, the woman quickly added, her voice already trembling slightly, "The person... passed away the winter before last. But the register said it was still pending verification, so... our family is still considered a military household, but we haven't received our rations, and the pension hasn't been issued either..."

That's good.

This is very much like the Later Shu dynasty.

The person is gone, the husband is gone, the pillar of the family is gone, but the person "on the register" is still alive.

He lived a very official life, but died a very real one.

Meng Xuanzhe was silent for a moment, then looked down at the child.

The child looked at him too, his eyes unafraid, but hunger and illness had suppressed the child's natural vitality, leaving behind a quietness that shouldn't belong to someone his age.

Meng Xuanzhe suddenly felt a lump in his throat.

The words "pending verification," "as usual," and "temporarily suspended" on the troop register seemed like cold, lifeless words to me last night.

Today, when it comes down to it, you immediately know what it means for a single sentence to oppress an entire family for two years.

Cao Lie whispered from the side, "There's more than one like this. Your Highness, just walk a little further in and you'll see them all."

Meng Xuanzhe nodded and continued forward.

The further you go in, the uglier it gets.

There was a broken piece of armor hanging outside a house, and inside lay an old soldier who was missing half a leg. His eye sockets were frighteningly deep. When he saw someone coming, he instinctively tried to get up, but he couldn't. Instead, he knocked over the small wooden cane next to him.

"Don't move." Meng Xuanzhe stepped forward and pressed him down.

The veteran was stunned for a moment, glanced at Cao Lie, and then realized who the person in front of him was. His lips trembled as he stammered, "Your Highness..."

Meng Xuanzhe glanced into the room.

It was even emptier than he had imagined.

A broken bed, a wooden cabinet, and a pot with a bottom so thin it was almost translucent. Beside the bed sat a small earthenware jar, not filled with medicine, but with a thin porridge mixed with bran, so thin it seemed one could see the fate of the Later Shu kingdom reflected in it.

"How did you get this injury?" Meng Xuanzhe asked.

The veteran's voice was a little hoarse: "When I was guarding the western route, I was shot in the leg with an arrow. After I returned, the county said to put the old records on the register first, and then remove them after the pension was issued. As a result, they were on the register for three years."

Are you collecting your rations now?

The old soldier smiled, a smile that made people uncomfortable.

"Receive it from the account."

Upon hearing those three words, Gao Chengli felt like cursing.

Collect from the account.

It was collected from the account again.

It seems that these poor people under Later Shu, lacking other skills, are almost forced to become the gods depicted in the account books.

The living received no grain, yet the ration books were filled with it. The dead received no compensation, yet their names were still recorded as alive. Wounded soldiers lay on their beds drinking bran soup, yet the ration books still recorded "as usual."

Meng Xuanzhe stood there, suddenly not wanting to say a word.

Sometimes even scolding isn't enough.

Because when you look at someone like this, you clearly realize: he is not an isolated case. He is the final stone that weighs down the whole chain.

On the stone lay the county government offices, granary offices, military registers, powerful local families, grain merchants, old precedents, fake accounts, and a bunch of officials who could speak eloquently.

And beneath that rock lay the fate of his entire family.

Looking at the next few households, the situation was much the same.

Some women have lost their husbands, their military badges are still on, but they can't be found in the pension register; some women have their sons added to the roster as "living soldiers," but they themselves are paralyzed in bed and unable to get up; and there is an even more tragic family, with two brothers, one who died in battle three years ago and the other who fled two years ago, but now both of them are alive and well on the ration register, while their elderly mother is starving to death in their own home.

The more Gu Chengyan memorized, the darker his expression became.

He used to work in the Eastern Palace, where he only knew that the numbers didn't match; now that he's in the military village, he truly understands what the word "incorrect" really means.

It's not simply a matter of the booklet being wrong.

It was people who should have received food and pensions who had their places taken by those "still alive" dead people.

He suddenly whispered, "Your Highness, this isn't the military manual deceiving people; it's the military manual devouring people."

These words were spoken softly, yet they stung Gao Chengli's eyelids like a needle, making him twitch.

Meng Xuanzhe glanced back at Gu Chengyan, said nothing, and continued walking forward.

At the end of the village, there was a broken well, and several children were gathered around it.

Upon seeing them, they didn't speak, but simply looked up at each of them.

That gaze was neither fearless nor curious; it was merely a precocious scrutiny.

It's like watching: Are these well-dressed, fast-riding people here to give something, or to take something else away?

Meng Xuanzhe had seen that look in his eyes before in his previous life.

In some extremely poor places, the way children look at strangers is never innocent.

The first thing to consider is whether one will suffer a loss.

He stopped and suddenly asked, "If the village really wanted to drag people out, how many could they possibly take?"

Cao Lie was taken aback for a moment, then realized that he was asking about the soldiers who could step forward.

He paused for a moment, then glanced back at the village.

Inside and outside those doors, there were wounded soldiers, old soldiers, younger men who were so thin they were practically skin and bones, and a few men who should have been in their prime but whose wounds were obvious at a glance.

Cao Lie gave a wry smile.

"If we really use wartime standards, even thirty would be difficult to find."

Gao Chengli gasped.

Last night, Gu Chengyan said he was under sixty; now Cao Lie has cut his number to thirty.

This is no longer a question of whether a squad of soldiers is bad or not.

This is the question of whether Qingcheng County can muster a decent goalkeeping team should an emergency arise.

The answer, however, is clearly not optimistic.

Meng Xuanzhe didn't speak immediately, but slowly squatted down and picked up an old military badge that was broken in half by the well.

The words on the sign were worn away and blurred, but a name could still be vaguely made out.

In military records, this thing is probably still considered a "lifeline" for sustenance; but in the wells of military households, it's so uncomfortable that even children find it too rough to play with.

Cao Lie looked at the old cards in his hand and suddenly whispered, "Your Highness, I wanted to say this last night."

"Your inspection of the warehouses and the grain is correct."

"But if you really want to bring this county back, checking only the granaries and grain is not enough. The soldiers are the backbone."

"If the bones are rotten, even if there's rice in the pot, it won't hold up. No matter how well the accounts are written, it's useless. When something really happens, it won't be the granary that collapses first, it will be the people."

Meng Xuanzhe examined the military token from different angles, then slowly nodded.

"I know."

When he said those three words, the feeling in his heart finally came to a complete end.

He already knew that soldiers were important.

But "knowing" and "seeing" are ultimately not the same thing.

Last night at the county government office, he saw a fake register. This morning in Junhu Village, he saw living people.

But living people are crueler than ledgers.

Because the accounts can be made up, and living people won't speak nicely for the court themselves.

Gu Chengyan quickly caught up, holding the list he had written down along the way, his voice hoarse:

"Your Highness... if we match these households with the old plaques from last night, and add those pending verification in the pension register—"

He quickly calculated it with his head down, and his expression suddenly changed.

"What?" Meng Xuanzhe asked.

Gu Chengyan raised his head, his voice tense.

"The soldiers on the official payroll of this county..."

He paused, as if even he himself thought the number sounded excessively unpleasant.

"There are at least 30% more soldiers than those who are alive and able to stand up."

A gust of wind blew in from the village entrance, and the old wooden plaques by the well gently bumped together, making a soft "clattering" sound.

Not big.

Yet it inexplicably made one feel heavy-hearted.

After listening, Gao Chengli fell silent.

He had heard about empty quotas in the army and false reporting in local areas before when he was in the palace, but those were just words, whispered rumors among others.

Only today did he truly understand for the first time: the so-called "30% more" was not just a few more strokes on paper. It meant that the grain that should have been used to feed the living was being used to feed the dead; and the soldiers who should have been guarding the city, the roads, and the people were being turned into names on a tent that only ate grain.

This 30% is not just empty.

They risked their lives to do it.

Meng Xuanzhe slowly placed the old soldier's token back by the well, stood up, and looked at the crooked doors, dilapidated houses, and people who could barely stand upright in the military household village.

After a long pause, he finally spoke.

"Return to the county government office."

Gu Chengyan was taken aback: "Your Highness?"

Meng Xuanzhe's gaze was calm, yet more somber than at any time yesterday.

I only read half of the military manual last night, and I finally understood it today.

"Now, it's time for roll call."

Cao Lie's eyes suddenly lit up.

Gao Chengli shuddered involuntarily.

Roll call.

As soon as those two words were uttered, he knew that the "team of soldiers" in Qingcheng County was about to be thrown into chaos.

Because once the audit has reached this point, it's no longer a matter of "whether you have a problem or not".

It's about "how many of you are still standing."

For many people who make a living off the dead and empty reputations, this is even more deadly than the confiscation of their warehouses and the closure of their markets.

Meng Xuanzhe took one last look at Junhu Village, then mounted his horse.

He had only one thought in his mind: the military register was fake, but the military households were real, so let the soldiers step forward and see who was still alive.

Horse hooves trod across the yellow earth at the village entrance, kicking up a fine dust.

The women, veterans, and children in the village who had previously only dared to watch from afar now looked at the prince as he turned and left with something else in their eyes for the first time.

It's not a letter.

It's not even news yet.

But it's no longer just numbness and wariness.

It was as if someone had suddenly opened a crack in the door for them in a room that had been frozen for too long.

The wind is still cold.

The door was indeed opened a little.

After returning from Junhu Village, Niu Dahu did not curse the Crown Prince in the wine shed for the first time.

He saw from afar that a widow of a military household received a liter of rations and half an old pay slip to make up for her deceased husband's mistake. Her face looked as if she had been pulled out of the mud.

Standing at the alley entrance, Niu Dahu suddenly felt that the word "brother" he had been calling out all these years was like an empty bowl—it ​​made a loud noise, but it had never contained more than a few grains of rice.