NOVEL SIMPLE Chapter 256.1
A piercing cold air moved southward, the temperature plummeted, and snowflakes danced in the air – winter had finally arrived.
However, this winter was like any other winter for the common people of Great Xia. Although it was considerably colder, they could get by just wearing a cotton-padded jacket.
The key was that there was no strong wind, no snowfall, and the air wasn’t dry.
As a result, everyone could go about their daily activities, work, study, and learn without much change.
Life went on, and it kept getting better.
The people of Great Xia living south of the Hengduan Mountain Range, who had just become part of Great Xia were initially anxious, thinking they would face hardship and struggle to survive the winter.
But when the officials of Great Xia arrived, they provided them with jobs, food, cotton-padded clothes, coal for the winter, and even sturdy concrete houses…
In this not-so-cold winter, they felt the warmth of spring.
They found that being citizens of Great Xia was actually quite good!
But further south, the situation was completely different.There, fierce winds howled, snow swirled, the earth was frozen, and every household kept their doors shut, unwilling to venture out.
……
At this time, in a border town of the Great Hong Dynasty.
The door of a somewhat dilapidated house opened, and a man with a black face wrapped tightly in mink fur walked out.
Looking at the snow falling from the sky, he sighed, “Ah… When will this snow stop? With this weather… could it be another Ice Disaster that occurs once every fifty years? This is really cursed!”
He is Old Zhao, and he made a living by chopping wood in the mountains.
He also doubled as a hunter, selling the animals he caught in the mountains for money.
But now, he had no income.
The road to the mountains was covered in nearly two feet of snow, making it extremely difficult to walk, so he couldn’t go up the mountain to chop wood.
Moreover, it was very dangerous to chop wood in the mountains at this time.
The heavy snowfall made it easy to slip and fall, and the icy terrain was treacherous. A single misstep could lead to falling into a pit with no one to hear your cries for help. If you encountered a hungry wild beast looking for food, you might not make it back.
So, for his own safety and for the sake of his family, he could only stay at home for the time being and wait for the snow to stop.
He closed the door with a bang and returned to warm himself by the charcoal stove.
On the kang bed (traditional Chinese heated bed), there was a stout woman, also dressed in a thick cotton-padded jacket, sewing a quilt stitch by stitch. Beside her, two children were sleeping soundly on the kang.
At that moment, the woman bit off the thread with her teeth and glanced over, “You couldn’t go out again today?”
“I could go out, but going up the mountain to chop wood is not good!”
Old Zhao sighed, half-jokingly, “It’s freezing cold, and chopping wood in the mountains is very dangerous. You wouldn’t want the house to be short of a man, would you?”
“Bah… What nonsense are you talking about? That’s an unlucky thing to say. Don’t talk like that again, you hear?” the woman glared at him.
“Alright, alright… I won’t say it again!”
Old Zhao pulled his hands out of his pockets and held them over the fire to warm them, saying with a hint of pride, “Luckily, we have plenty of firewood at home. Otherwise, this winter would be tough!”
He was a woodcutter, so of course, he supplied his own home first.
His home didn’t have much, but it had plenty of firewood filling the yard.
Back in the day, it was with a yard full of firewood that he had won over his wife and had two children.
“We have plenty of firewood, but we’re running out of food!”
The woman sighed, “Look at our family of four, we’ve never lacked food or clothing! I don’t know what’s going on this winter, but there are so many rats and cockroaches that they’ve damaged our food stash! Even wild beasts know to hide for the winter, but these pests become more active…”
As she spoke, she suddenly squashed a cockroach with a slap.
Then, there was some noise from the beams above, and several large rats scurried out, their tails wagging arrogantly.
The woman immediately shouted, “Do something! They’re stealing our rice again, don’t let them get away!”
Old Zhao said indifferently, “Stop making a fuss! These rats are quick and cunning like ghosts! Let’s save our energy! Otherwise, we won’t be tormented to death by the mice, but we’ll starve ourselves!”
The woman thought for a moment, sighed, and dropped the shoe in her hand.
Before, they had tried to deal with the problem, but it had always ended in failure.
There were too many rats; killing one meant there was still a nest left, and killing a nest meant there were several more nests. They simply couldn’t get rid of them all.
They couldn’t understand why there were so many rats in the dead of winter.
They would have all hidden away in previous years, but this year they were particularly brazen.
“But we really have no food left. You’re the man of the house, so you have to think of something! We adults can go hungry, but we can’t let the children starve, can we?”
Old Zhao muttered, “I’ll take some firewood later to the neighbors and exchange it for some food!”
“Their food supply isn’t much either. A lot of it has been eaten by rats, so they can’t spare much!”
The woman sighed again, “This winter is so hard to endure, I don’t know when it will be over!”
Old Zhao hung his head in silence, feeling the greatest pressure as the man providing for the family.
But what else could he do to earn money besides chopping wood and hunting?
At this time, even if he wanted to go out and earn some money doing hard labor, no one would give him the chance.
Meanwhile, the woman continued sewing and said, “By the way, have you heard? The kid from next door ran off to the Great Xia Empire! Do you know about the Great Xia Empire? I heard it’s a powerful country across from the Hengduan Mountain Range. They say it spans 8 million square li and has a population of over 70 million, much more formidable than our Great Hong!”
“Moreover, I’ve also heard that the common people in Great Xia are very happy! Everyone has a job, everyone has food to eat, everyone has clothes to wear, everyone has a house to live in, and the whole nation is free from hunger. It’s amazing! I really want to see what kind of country it is!”
As she talked, her eyes were filled with longing.
Old Zhao, annoyed, said, “What does the Great Xia Empire have to do with us? You’re a woman, so why worry yourself about these things? Just take care of the children!”
“It didn’t matter before, but now it does!”
The woman replied, “I heard that they have strong soldiers and horses, and they’ve crossed the Hengduan Mountain Range, coming all the way here, less than 300 li away from us!”
“I heard that it doesn’t snow over there, and the weather isn’t super cold. The government officials are organizing everyone to work. If you work well, you get food to eat and even money to take home. At least 200 wen a month!”
The woman leaned in, nudging Old Zhao with her elbow, and said, “Why don’t you give it a try? Since you can’t work this winter anyway, why not go there and find some work instead of staying at home? For one thing, it would save us some food, and for another, you could earn some money to bring back. Why not?”
Old Zhao frowned and said, “Don’t believe what outsiders say. Where in the world can you find such a good deal?”
The woman became anxious: “Hey! It might be a lie if one person says it, but how can it be a lie when so many people are saying it? Are you going or not? Don’t wait until everyone else gets rich while we still live a miserable life!”
“Let me think about it, I’ll give you an answer after I’ve thought it through!”
Although Old Zhao didn’t believe his wife’s words, he still took them to heart.
So, he had been going out to inquire about it for the past couple of days.
He even spent a significant amount of money to learn about the matter from a well-informed and experienced person in the town.
In the end, he found out that it was true.
Therefore, for the sake of his wife and children, he felt he could no longer hesitate.
Packing some luggage and taking some dry food, he bid farewell to his wife and children and set off for Great Xia.
***
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