It was early spring, not long after the New Year, and the festive atmosphere in Sijiu City had not completely dissipated, and even the air seemed to have the fragrance of firecrackers. Although the curfew lifted for the Lantern Festival has been re-enacted, it is not very strict, and even after the twilight drum has been beaten at 1 or 3 o'clock, you can still see hurried carriages and pedestrians in the streets and alleys of Beijing from time to time.

The soldiers of the squad on the bluestone slab street are patrolling back and forth, after all, it is the foot of the Son of Heaven, all of them are fully clothed, holding the handle of the knife in one hand, and holding the lantern with the words of the Five Cities Soldiers and Horses in the other, striding forward, and the unlucky appearance of the border army in rags and blunt bows is in stark contrast.

However, the spirit is spiritual, but the inside is just a silver-like pewter spear head, I am afraid that nothing can be done, for example, the carriages, horses and pedestrians on the street will be punished by the rules of this hour, but the officers and soldiers patrolling the city are turning a blind eye and not seeing it. Without him, at this hour, ordinary people have rested at home early, most of the people who dare to walk casually on the street are either rich or expensive, the Five Cities Terracotta Division is just a six-grade yamen, in this imperial capital full of high-ranking officials, there are too many people who can't afford to provoke, and those who don't meddle in things are so nosy that they can't eat and walk around!

Zhengyang Gate, Chongwen Gate and Xuanwu Gate are the three gates that traverse the southern wall of the inner city, and they are the dividing line between the inner and outer cities of Jingshi. To the north of these three gates is the inner city, which is also the residence of the Son of Heaven built by Emperor Chengzu when he moved the capital to Beijing, and the majestic Forbidden City is in it. To the south is the outer city of Jingshi, which occupies a larger area than the inner city, and half surrounds the inner city. The walls of the two are joined together to form a strange "convex" shape.

Although the inner and outer city is only a word difference, but it is two completely different worlds, the inner city is built when the national strength was strong in the early Ming Dynasty, the building plan is neat and orderly, solemn and magnificent, and the end is a picture of the style of the heavenly kingdom. Not to mention the Forbidden City, with red walls and yellow tiles, carved dragons and phoenixes, even every alley and alley in the city has been cleaned up vertically and horizontally, and it is well organized!

Natural. Living in the inner city became an indisputable privilege of high society.

The outer city is a different story. In the twenty-ninth year of Jiajing, the Mongolian Altan Khan led more than 100,000 horsemen to the city of Beijing, and the reinforcements of the King of Qinwang on all roads were defeated. It hurts so much. Emperor Jiajing ordered Yan Song to preside over the construction of another city wall on the periphery of the capital. to provide an extra buffer in the event of an invasion by foreign enemies. It's just that the national strength of the Ming Dynasty at this time is far inferior to that of the beginning of the country. Only half of the repair was hastily completed, and it became the appearance that everyone sees now, in fact, to put it bluntly, it is a half-pulled project.

Since it is such a hastily built outer city. Naturally, there is no rigorous planning, and the alleys and alleys that lie out of the side, the dirty and messy markets, and the low-rise and old bungalows have become a unique scene here.

In the eyes of the upper class, the so-called "outer city" has naturally become a synonym for the slums, if it were not for the curfew being more relaxed than the inner city, so that there are many Fengyue establishments and restaurants and gambling halls, the upper class people living in the inner city would never have stepped into the outer city.

This stereotyped impression still exists even into the 21st century, and any taxi driver in Beijing can talk to you about Beijing's so-called "rich in the east, rich in the west, poor in the south, poor in the north" ("beibei" is a saying that only came into existence in the Qing Dynasty, the source is unknown, and those who are interested can check it themselves).

In the outer city at the beginning of February of the second year of Chongzhen, the streets and alleys were full of unkempt and ragged beggars.

In recent years, this scene has become the norm, and the drought in the late Ming Dynasty was caused by the climate of the Xiaoice River, which affected a wide range of northern China, from Liaodong to Shanxi, and Gyeonggi was naturally among them. Different from Shanxi, Jingshi, as the heart of the Ming Dynasty, has a supply of grain from the south from the Grand Canal, and after all, this is the foot of the Son of Heaven, and the intensity of disaster relief is much stronger than that of the local in any case, which naturally attracts people from all over the world to come with their families.

Listening to his accent, many of these people are from Changping, Shunyi and other counties in, and they all belong to the suburbs of Beijing in modern times, and they are not outsiders in the strict sense, but more people are from Luanzhou, Yongping, and Datong farther away, and even there are many disaster victims who speak Liaodong accents.

The number of victims was large and mixed, and the inner city was naturally strictly forbidden to enter, and there was nowhere to shelter them, so a large number of hungry people had to gather in the streets and alleys of the outer city, and many people slept under the eaves on both sides of the street, huddled into a pile for fear of freezing to death.

The spring cold is steep, the snow on the roof has not melted, and the temperature at night is extremely low. Some of them were covered with tattered, moldy, and smelly old cotton wool, some of them covered themselves with strips of colorful rags and hay that they found everywhere, and some of them even wrapped themselves in dried cow and horse dung to resemble a moving dung heap, regardless of the filth and pickle

From time to time there would be a small commotion somewhere, when a man had not survived the cold wind and had frozen to death, and the few wretched clothes he had on him immediately aroused the scramble of the surrounding crowd.

Even though they had tried their best, the victims were still shivering like fallen leaves in the biting cold wind. From time to time, they let out low moans and whining, and more often than not, sighs of helplessness at fate.

Most of the women were dressed in the same way as the men, most of them wore shabby, dirty winter clothes like ruin, and they wept mournfully while whispering the name of Avalokiteshvara Bodhisattva. The children shrunk together in their mother's arms, crying and crying out for hunger, tearing apart the hearts of adults. It was only when the patrol soldiers sent by the Five Cities Terracotta Division approached that they clung to the children in their arms, covered their mouths, and forbade not to speak out for the time being, lest they attract severe reprimands and whipping.

Jingshi has set up porridge factories in all five cities for relief, and it is rare to die of pure starvation, but what is more difficult than hunger is the strange long low temperature weather brought by the Xiaoice River. Since the beginning of winter, hundreds of people have died in the outer city every day, and the number of people has reached two or three hundred, especially the elderly and children.

Although it is already early spring, the weather in Jingshi is still wickedly cold, and the northwest wind is blowing tonight, which is particularly terrifying, who knows how many large and small corpses will be carried to the mass grave tomorrow morning?

Although Emperor Chongzhen in the Forbidden City is in the ninth place, he also knows a little about the tragic situation of the victims who poured into Beijing, but the rules of the Ming Dynasty have always been handled like this, even if he is the emperor, he has nothing to do, only to sigh, and the mountains of music in front of him clearly show that outside the Jingshi, there are thousands of victims in the places he can't see who are in a more miserable situation than the people of Beijing!

Tonight, Emperor Chongzhen dined with his wife Empress Zhou in Kunning Palace, and the earth dragon was burning around the palace, and the room was very warm, and he only wore an ochre yellow middle single.

The emperor stopped eating, and looked at a letter intently, this is his habit, Empress Zhou looked at her husband with some concern, the cold winter has just passed, and recently all parts of the country have been reporting the situation of the disaster this winter, the shape is very severe, and the emperor's brows have not been stretched in the past few days.

Today, though, it seems that things are a little different.

"Yes, yes!" The young emperor slapped the table hard, and the dishes on the table were all chaotic, and several young eunuchs standing on the side were startled and hurriedly knelt on the ground.

Chongzhen waved his hand to them, put the fold in his hand on the table, stood up, and paced back and forth quickly, unable to hide the joy on his face.

"What is the good news that makes His Majesty so happy?" Empress Zhou smiled and curiously picked up the fold, the cover of which read "Yang Heqi, the military minister of the three sides of Shaanxi".

Yang He? This name is familiar, Queen Zhou thought. (To be continued......)