Chapter 1632: Stopped Work

Official efforts to extinguish the fire were ineffective, and the granary was almost completely razed. By dawn, only broken tiles and crumbling walls remained. Needless to say, all the grain stored inside was consumed by the flames. Everything was gone!

There were seven granaries supplying Tianshui City—three large and four small. The Kiln Granary was the largest of them all, reportedly capable of feeding the civilians in the southern district of Tianshui City for over two months at its peak storage capacity. Besides regulating supply, it also served as a transport and transit hub. Each autumn and winter, even a portion of military rations was transferred through it.

The complete destruction of such a crucial granary immediately ignited the King of Yao's furious wrath. The Kiln Granary was equipped with a comprehensive set of defensive arrays: one to prevent intrusion, another against rodents and insects, and a third to guard against fire. How could it suddenly have caught fire? The Kiln Granary was actually a complex of twenty-four scattered warehouses, not all adjacent to each other. Who could possibly have the ability to burn down all twenty-four warehouses, large and small, in a single night?

As the saying goes, "with grain in hand, one's heart is at ease." This particular panic for the King of Yao was no small matter; he immediately ordered the principal officials to be brought in for interrogation that very night. However, all the officials in charge of the Kiln Granary—one chief, two deputies, and over twenty clerks—had perished along with the warehouses. With them burned and dead, there were no witnesses left to question. Who possessed such capabilities?

The massive fire at the Kiln Granary lit up the entire southern sky, burning until the early morning hours of the next day, witnessed by countless people. The news spread throughout the city like wildfire within just two days. No one needed to fuel the flames; the rumors spread even faster than the fire at the granary itself. Grain prices skyrocketed like a firecracker, soaring to extreme heights and becoming impossible to bring down. Grain was already expensive, and with everyone having witnessed the granary burn down, the immediate question was: Where was the grain? Did Tianshui City still have any grain? Would they be able to buy any for themselves?

City-wide panic fueled the grain prices, and countless people rushed into shops and businesses to seize as much grain as they could. Queues were abandoned. Rich and poor alike surged forward with the crowd, fearing that a moment's delay would leave them empty-handed. At this point, money was no longer the primary concern. Shop assistants and highly paid guards attempted to intervene but were trampled underfoot after just a couple of confrontations. In just one morning of grain-grabbing chaos, over three hundred people were killed or injured. More than half of these deaths were due to being trampled, not just from fighting over grain.

Subsequently, multiple incidents of theft and robbery erupted in southern Tianshui City. If one had no money, they resorted to robbing others. Some, seeing their neighbors acquire grain from a store—whether by purchase or theft—would immediately prey upon them. For a time, theft and robbery became rampant. In just one morning, district offices across Tianshui City received over three hundred reports, keeping them spinning like tops. Since its establishment, Tianshui City had rarely seen such rampant and blatant criminal acts, apart from occasional incidents involving displaced people. It was as if the Night of the Emperor's Sap had arrived early.

The Yao Court urgently dispatched a batch of public grain to the market and swiftly ordered all districts to post notices and have special personnel preach that granaries were well-stocked, urging people not to hoard or rush. It was useless. Tianshui City had been experiencing a grain shortage for quite some time. Now, with panic spreading rapidly, a few peace-keeping notices or a slight increase in grain supply from shops were not enough to resolve the situation. Everyone was asking: Where was the grain? In such a large country, with abundant harvests every year, into what bottomless pit had all the grain disappeared?

Coincidentally, at this very moment, the Tianshui Eastward Expansion Project issued an announcement: to prepare for the arrival of the Emperor's Sap, ensure proper construction management, and prevent accidents, the project would be partially halted, wages settled, and personnel dismissed, effective immediately. In plain language, this meant: Construction has stopped, workers are no longer needed. Go away, and don't expect to freeload here!

This news immediately sent shockwaves through the workforce both inside and outside the city. For the past several months, the massive Tianshui Eastward Expansion Project had employed tens of thousands of able-bodied laborers and provided food for tens of thousands of people. After the autumn harvest, the fields in the counties surrounding Tianshui City would lie fallow, so not only displaced people but also local commoners and farmworkers had flocked to the city, hoping to earn extra provisions for the winter. Now that the project was suddenly halting, where would these tens of thousands of people go to earn money and food? The area in and around Tianshui City simply couldn't provide jobs for so many people! The impact of this announcement was no less devastating than the Kiln Granary fire.

Although there was no long-term contractual relationship between the Tianshui Eastward Expansion Project and the vast number of laborers, hunger was a major issue, while legal niceties were minor. Angry laborers stormed into their usual workplaces, intending to cause trouble, but the army was already there, prepared for a confrontation. They repelled several waves of unrest and arrested the instigators. Just as they were at their peak of anger and despair, a dozen foremen and accountants brought out tables and sat down, waiting for them to come collect their daily wages. To everyone's surprise, the construction site also distributed five meals' worth of rations to each person. Those who dared to cause trouble would receive no money or grain, only a severe beating. Did they want money and grain, or another beating?

"All the grain from the construction site has been brought out; not a single grain of rice remains in the warehouse! If you don't believe it, go and see for yourselves later. Lord You and Island Master He have done their utmost to secure this batch of grain. Take it and leave." At this point, the laborers calmed down. Seeing the gleaming spears and halberds of the army facing them, they realized that further unrest would gain them nothing. So, they took their money and grain, signed, and left. A major potential uprising was thus averted.

When this matter was reported to the King of Yao, he breathed a sigh of relief, but at the same time, he summoned You Rongzhi and reprimanded him severely. "Why halt construction and dismiss people at such a critical juncture?!" You Rongzhi felt somewhat aggrieved but could only nod subserviently. The project's halt was, after all, the King's own decision! Earlier that morning, You Rongzhi had entered the palace to seek the King's directive. After much deliberation, the King of Yao had decided to keep five work teams active and dismiss the remaining laborers on the spot. There was no alternative; the royal court simply couldn't afford to support so many idle mouths. The effects of the Emperor's Sap on humans and living beings would last for quite some time. The Tianshui Eastward Expansion Project would not resume for at least half a month after the Sap's emergence. Since a halt was inevitable, it was decided to seize the opportunity to dismiss the workers early, saving both money and grain.

Having received these instructions, You Rongzhi naturally proceeded to carry them out. Who could have known that the Kiln Granary would catch fire immediately afterward? At that moment, how could the King of Yao remember such a minor detail about the project? If he couldn't remember, could he expect his subordinate officials to adapt and make exceptions? When the entire city was worried about hunger and their livelihoods, the sudden halt of the massive Tianshui Eastward Expansion Project and the dismissal of its workers only served to create unnecessary trouble. From He Lingchuan's perspective, this was a clear indication of a lack of policy coordination within the state. Officials simply carried out their individual duties without sufficient communication or consideration for each other's work. They focused solely on their assigned tasks, disregarding the broader implications and consequences.

The King of Yao still felt somewhat fortunate. Thankfully, the trend of public unrest had been halted before it could fully escalate. When Qingyang heard this news in court, he couldn't help but smile, which the King of Yao interpreted as schadenfreude.