Chapter 26: Li Zicheng: I Have Great Patience

Ultimately, it was Huang Liji who set down his teacup and spoke:

"Enough! Our Great Ming has reigned for over two hundred years; mere arguments in the imperial court are of little consequence. Any hardship shall pass."

Hearing this, the other three men in the Cabinet office nodded slowly. The Emperor had only just ascended the throne. Years ago, the Wuzong Emperor had spent sixteen years stirring up trouble, yet in the end, did he not obediently meet his fate in the water? They would simply lie low and wait for their chance.

...

While the various factions within the Imperial City were busy calculating their own interests, the eunuchs secretly dispatched by Zhu Youjian to Shaanxi had finally reached their destination after days of traveling under the stars: Yan'an Prefecture, the area hit hardest by the famine.

In truth, they had grasped the sheer horror of the situation the moment they crossed into Shaanxi. At first, they still encountered refugees fleeing with their entire families. Gradually, the number of refugees dwindled, replaced by gaunt, wretched souls scouring the earth for anything to eat.

In the beginning, the starving wretches would attempt to beg for food at local government offices. Some officials would grudgingly dispense thin, watery gruel, though rarely for more than a meal or two. Others would simply drive the refugees away with force. Consequently, they witnessed people consuming tree bark, Guanyin clay, and every manner of insect, snake, or rodent—anything that could be forced down the throat.

By the time they reached Yan'an Prefecture, they were beyond shock. The entire prefecture’s farmland lay parched under the scorching sun, scarred by vast, gaping fissures; to call it a land of scorched earth for a thousand miles was no exaggeration.

A gruesome phenomenon had also emerged in Yan'an. Large groups of starving people, their cheeks sunken and their bodies reduced to skin and bone, would lie in wait along the busiest sections of the main roads. If any among them collapsed from hunger, the others would swarm upon the fallen to devour them.

When they first witnessed such a scene, the eunuchs nearly vomited, but they soon grew accustomed to it. Such sights were simply too frequent. They visited several counties within the prefecture, and on one occasion, they were nearly seized and eaten alive by a mob of starving people. Had those wretches not been too weak to give chase, the eunuchs would never have had the chance to return to the capital to report their findings.

They had originally planned to return immediately upon gathering this information, but considering that the new Emperor was just beginning his reign and was eager to govern effectively, they realized that providing further service now would improve their prospects for a meteoric rise later. After some deliberation, they decided to visit the local prefectural and county towns once more.

In the most prosperous streets of the county town, they witnessed a different scene. Grain merchants displayed stocks of food, but the prices had been hiked dozens, if not hundreds, of times. After flashing a sufficient amount of gold ingots to the shopkeepers, the eunuchs were granted access to warehouses stacked high with rice and flour.

The truth became immediately clear. Merchants have always been driven by profit, and hoarding for leverage is an age-old practice. But the question remained: without the secret support of the local authorities, how could these merchants dare to do such a thing? To say nothing else, the starving masses would have surely looted the place dry, yet these merchants were brazenly reaping massive profits.

The eunuchs did not confront the local officials; their mission was one of secret investigation. Besides, they were not fools. To act rashly in such a situation would mean being killed on the spot. Having grasped the situation in Shaanxi, they wasted no time and immediately set out on the return journey to the capital. Everything they had seen had to be reported to the Emperor as soon as possible. Every day of delay only increased the likelihood of a massive, region-wide uprising.

...

Meanwhile, at the Yinchuan Post Station in Mizhi County, Yan'an Prefecture, Li Zicheng had once again failed to collect his wages.

Having failed in his plea for pay, Li Zicheng had no choice but to drop his sycophantic smile and return home, dejected. There was no help for it; the entire Yan'an Prefecture was suffering from a great drought, and he was not the only one at the post station whose pay was in arrears. Life was hard, but by borrowing here and there, he could at least scrape by. Compared to the ordinary refugees, he was much better off. After all, he was still a member of the imperial establishment, and with the new Emperor on the throne, perhaps things would improve before long.

In his frustration, Li Zicheng could only comfort himself with such thoughts. But his worries were not limited to unpaid wages. Recently, a local matchmaker had proposed a marriage to him. After making a few inquiries, he realized that having someone offer to marry a bachelor like him was not exactly a cause for celebration. The problem lay with the woman in question.

The woman was named Han Jin'er, the daughter of a wealthy gentry family in Mizhi County, from a well-to-do background. However, this Han Jin'er was a notorious, loose woman. She had been caught in two adulterous affairs; only because her maternal family held such great influence had she escaped being drowned in a pig cage, though her husband had divorced her. These were only the times she had been caught. Who knew how many men she had been intimate with in secret?

To be matched with such a woman—was this not simply asking him to wear someone else’s tattered, worn-out shoes? At first, Li Zicheng was furious. But after returning home and reflecting for a time, he slowly calmed down. Never mind. Given his current circumstances—a penniless, powerless bachelor—finding a wife was indeed difficult. The greatest of the three unfilial acts is to have no descendants. He had to consider the continuation of his lineage. For the sake of this primary duty, he would have to endure it. He had endured so much else all these years. And perhaps, after marrying him, that woman named Han Jin'er would... mend her ways. Perhaps.

"What a godforsaken world," Li Zicheng sighed as he sat on the threshold of his dilapidated home.

A few days ago, he had felt a sudden, inexplicable tremor in his soul. At the time, he had thought his luck was about to turn. Instead, he found that collecting his wages this month had been even harder. It made his impractical fantasies seem laughable.

In truth, when he was in his teens, Li Zicheng had harbored dreams of achieving great things. He had fantasized about gaining the Emperor's favor through some magical turn of fate, then changing his destiny to become a heroic general charging at the vanguard of the Emperor's army—how magnificent that would be!

Yet now, just past twenty, he had been utterly crushed by a miserable life of toil and hunger. Li Zicheng sat on the threshold, staring blankly at the cracked, sun-baked earth in the distance, lost in his own thoughts.