Chapter Twelve: Journey Two
My current title is General-in-Chief of the Imperial Guard, in charge of all military deployments. My subordinates simply call me "General-in-Command". It sounds quite impressive. But in reality, most of my time is spent as a part-time nanny for the royal family.
During this time, it was miserable for Wei Tiao, the deputy who took care of everything for me. Thinking about the team's organization, the distribution of food and grass, being busy all day, and still having to deal with a group of high-ranking officials from the imperial court demanding food, supplies, and people, I would rather ignore their pitiful expressions and spend time with Xiao Yatou instead. However, most of the time, accompanying her became my main task.
Due to the hasty escape from Chang'an, all the way down, even the ceremonial carriages were lost, and it was a difficult journey. The city was determined not to stay, and it was hard to find a few inns by the road, which were temporarily used as a palace, but only the empress, princes, and princesses could rest there. Other officials, nobles, and ministers had to sleep with rough-handed soldiers, experiencing the hardships of wind and rain. After several days, many people were exhausted, and after a light rain, many people fell ill. I couldn't bear it, so I took hundreds of coarse cloth collected along the way, brushed them with oil, cut branches as poles, and hastily made many simple tents to block the wind and rain. Although they were very crude and smelled bad, for those who had been sleeping in the wild for days, exposed to wind and rain, hot during the day and cold at night, and could only sleep by huddling together with soldiers, this was a rare comfort.
Looking at those former high-ranking officials who used to live in luxury, with their hair disheveled and clothes dirty, sitting on the filthy ground without any care, gnawing on dry bread and greenish vegetable soup, slurping loudly, with a look of satisfaction and contentment. I felt deeply moved. This was still relatively good, outside were even more people staring with envy and waiting to grab leftover food, hungry refugees. In secret, ugly things happened every day for the sake of survival.
It's clear that everyone thinks there's nothing safer than being with an army at the moment, even if it is a fleeing one. As a result, the refugees following us are increasing in number, a sea of black heads as far as the eye can see. I now understand why Liu Bei let civilians follow him when he escaped from Xinye - this pile of human flesh serves as a shield to block the pursuing enemy. The strategy our army is executing sounds good when called "clearing the fields and fortifying the walls", but it's actually more like locust tactics, emptying the granaries and armories of every province we pass through to replenish our strength while creating even more refugees. Many people have no destination or preparation for a long escape, especially those who fled Chang'an earliest, so hunger is inevitable.
The problem of hunger cannot be solved, and every day there are people who drop out, while more people join in. Every day when the large team sets out, there will always be some people who can't survive the long night and never wake up again, leaving them forever in a place filled with wailing cries. The same thing, the same scene is repeated every day. Although it has not yet developed to the point of openly selling one's own children for food, it has become very common for people to openly sell their own flesh and blood for one or two pieces of bread, while in secret, even more heinous things are happening for a little food, which is undoubtedly an unforgettable and terrifying experience for those who were once accustomed to a life of luxury.
Someone had once been kind enough to try to distribute their own rations to the children of refugees, but in the chaos that ensued as people rushed forward, several young children were trampled to death and dozens more were injured. The scene was so chaotic that soldiers had to be deployed to rescue the well-meaning individual, who was so traumatized by the experience that they fell ill afterwards. After this incident, no one dared to try such a thing again.
