Chapter 156 Grandma Zhou

After leaving the Zhao family, Li Daoxuan sat in a carriage and swayed along the official road towards Lijia Village.

From west to east, the journey is smooth.

Occasionally, we encounter disaster victims, who are all hard-working farmers working with their backs to the earth and their faces to the sky.

When they saw that Li Daoxuan was dressed in fine clothes and had a fair complexion, they knew that he was the son of a wealthy family. Some of them approached him to beg for something, while others moved aside to make way for him so as not to bring themselves into unnecessary trouble.

These refugees who fled to the vicinity of Jiangning Prefecture were not unruly people, and many of them were honest people. However, there was drought in the northern areas, the land was cracked, and there was no harvest of food. Many people could not survive and had to leave their homes. Some sold their children or daughters along the way, and some even sold their wives.

Even Li Yanming, who was following Li Daoxuan, was a little panicked and at a loss.

Seeing more and more victims, the driver did not dare to move forward. Li Daoxuan did not force him, and he got off the carriage with Li Yanming. He let the driver turn back, and he continued on foot.

"Young Master, what happened?" Li Yanming asked curiously.

Li Daoxuan frowned slightly, feeling unhappy as he watched the disaster victims walking blindly on both sides of the official road.

He had observed the celestial phenomena at night and knew that there would be a disaster in the world. He also heard about droughts in Henan, Shanxi and other places when he went to Wang's house last time. However, he never thought that the drought was so serious that it had affected Jiangning Prefecture.

Compared with the disaster victims we encountered during the Chinese New Year, the current situation is more serious.

The official road was lined with people wearing heavy clothes and carrying huge packages on their backs. They were ragged and looked extremely miserable.

Some hungry people stared at Li Daoxuan closely, looking at the package he was carrying. It was obvious that these people had bad intentions, and seeing that Li Daoxuan and the other two looked like children, they became greedy for the things Li Daoxuan was carrying.

Li Daoxuan and Li Yanming walked among the endless stream of disaster victims, like sheep among a pack of wolves, standing out particularly well.

He quietly hid Gong Youwei in his arms, took out the iron sword and held it in his hand. Under the watchful eyes of everyone, he quickened his pace.

Fortunately, the victims seemed to be moving forward with a purpose and had not yet reached the point of being extremely vicious. They also saw that although Li Daoxuan was a child, he had a sword in his hand, so they hesitated to take action. After all, whether it was to Nanjing or Zhenjiang Prefecture, the journey was relatively short and on the official road. There was no need to do stupid things for a little food, which would only put themselves at a disadvantage in the end.

So there were many people who were eyeing Li Daoxuan along the way, but no one actually took action.

Occasionally, one or two hungry ones would rush over, but they would be sent away by Li Daoxuan with his iron sword.

"These are the disaster victims from the north. They came here to seek refuge." Li Daoxuan sighed.

He didn't know how serious the disaster in the north was, but seeing so many people affected, he knew that the disaster must be serious.

Perhaps when I go north to the capital, I will be able to see how serious the disaster in the north is.

"Are they short of food?" Li Yanming asked again.

Although Li Yanming was not from a wealthy family, as a farmer in Lijia Village, and in the Jiangnan region where there were almost no natural disasters, he had never gone hungry since he was a child.

"Yes, they fled here because of the drought and hunger." Li Daoxuan nodded in response.

He walked through the crowd, and the victims passing by were going in the opposite direction of him.

Suddenly, an old woman fell to the ground in the crowd, and the victims around her stepped over her without a care.

The old woman was like a weed on the roadside, no one cared whether she lived or died.

Seeing this, Li Daoxuan stopped and looked at the old man for a moment, then sighed and walked towards him.

He came to the old man, reached out to help him up, checked his pulse, but found that he was extremely weak.

I guess it's because I've been on the road these days and haven't eaten anything, so I fainted from hunger.

"Young Master." Li Yanming said softly.

"Give me a candy." Li Daoxuan stretched out his hand to him. Li Yanming turned around, blocked the view of others with his body, and flipped the package behind him as quietly as possible. After a while, he took out a fist-sized paper bag.

This paper package looks like a steamed bun and is neatly folded.

Li Daoxuan opened it and saw a piece of yellow and white sugar lying inside.

This is da candy. At the corners of ordinary alleys, there are vendors selling it, also called "knocking candy". They usually carry a load on their shoulders, shouting while walking, and sometimes knocking on a board. On the load is a large piece of da candy covered with a piece of cloth. When selling, they knock a few pieces off the large piece with an iron lump, which is enough for ordinary children to eat for a long time. The "yi" in "yi mi jian ye" refers to this.

This kind of candy is soft and sticky. If you eat too much, it will stick everywhere.

Li Daoxuan remembered that when he was a child in his previous life, there would occasionally be vendors pushing bicycles selling candy at the gate of his elementary school. At that time, this candy was called "maltose". But after he grew up, he rarely saw this old-fashioned candy again.

When leaving Dingjiao Town, Li Daoxuan saw a vendor selling this, so he took some with him and prepared to eat it on the road.

Now, it is very convenient to use it to supplement sugar for the elderly.

He crushed a piece of sugar into powder and slowly stuffed it into the old man's mouth. He also fed him some water. When the old man opened his eyes in a daze, Li Daoxuan breathed a sigh of relief.

"Thank you very much for saving my life, young master." The old man stammered.

Li Daoxuan didn't say anything. He slowly helped the old man up and moved him under a tree to rest. Then he handed him the water bag and let the old man drink his fill.

From the old man's thanks, he began to understand the old man's background.

It turned out that the old woman had fled here from Henan, but when she passed through Anhui, she was separated from her family for various reasons, and finally had to follow the large group here.

"My surname is Zhou, and I'm from Henan." As Grandma Zhou talked about her origins, some light gradually returned to her eyes. The candy just now replenished the sugar in her body, giving her the strength to speak.

A smile appeared on that dry and skinny face, and he looked at Li Daoxuan with kind eyes.

"If it weren't for the young master saving my life, I would have died here." Grandma Zhou sighed.

Li Daoxuan comforted her for a while, then asked, "Where are you planning to go?"

"I don't know either. I just followed everyone." Granny Zhou took a breath and continued, "We have all been fleeing from famine. We stopped wherever we could find a way to survive. I was originally with my family, but now we are separated. And how can I, a useless old woman, find a way to make a living?"

Li Daoxuan looked up at the waves of refugees going away. Dingjiao Town was too small. The nearest town that could be considered prosperous was Danyang County, but it was still some distance away.

Grandma Zhou is already weak. If she continues to wander along the way, let alone find a living, she would probably die before she even reaches Danyang County.

"The nearest place is Danyang County, but it takes a day or two on foot. Instead of going to Danyang to get a result, why don't you follow me to Lijia Village? Maybe I can arrange some livelihood for you."

Granny Zhou naturally agreed when she heard this. She knew that she had come here to escape famine and it was a blessing to be alive, so she followed Li Daoxuan on the journey.

She was supported by Li Yanming along the way, and the three of them chatted as they walked.

Granny Zhou said that she is already seventy-three years old. Although she is in good health, she is at the age where she gets sick easily.

Li Daoxuan was a little surprised. Nowadays, people who could live to be seventy-three were rare.

Along the way, in addition to the refugees, there were also many horse-drawn carriages whizzing past.

Li Daoxuan narrowed his eyes and looked at one of the carriages with a puzzled look.

Only when the carriage sped past did he come to his senses.

"Young Master, what's wrong?" Li Yanming asked.

"Nothing, I just seemed to see something familiar." Li Daoxuan shook his head.

The three of them continued to move forward and headed towards Lijia Village. The presence of Grandma Zhou slowed down Li Daoxuan and Li Yanming's pace a lot, but as they walked, they saw a number of villages that were neither big nor small.

There are militiamen standing at the gate of each of these villages. They are holding spears, and some even carry muskets on their backs. They patrol around the villages to prevent refugees from fleeing into the villages.

The same is true for Lijia Village.

When Li Daoxuan saw Lijia Village, his identity was checked by the patrolling militia.

The world is becoming more and more chaotic, with refugees always pouring in from outside.

Faced with this situation, the landlords of Lijia Village had to find ways to deal with it.

(End of this chapter)