These were hard times; business was hard to come by.
In past years, merchant caravans could often be seen passing through to trade, packhorses laden with goods as they crossed mountains and ridges, along with the jingling camel bells from the Western Regions. Caravans large and small brought the whole world to life, but now they had nearly vanished.
No business, no money, no happiness.
Morning.
After buying a bowl of mush and two flatbreads from next door, Bai Yujun sat on the shop threshold, drinking the mush and gnawing on the bread. A grain convoy was loading up in the street, its members shouting and clamoring. There were quite a few burly men, curses flying from their mouths without restraint. Trouble was inevitable, so she deliberately propped her Hengdao upright beside her to keep the peace.
"Slurp, slurp..."
She lifted the large bowl and drank the mush, practically plunging her whole head into it.
In those ancient times, common folk did not eat from those palm-sized bowls. Filling a bowl for every bite was far too troublesome. They preferred large porcelain bowls—practical and roomy. The chipped bowls used by ordinary people were even cruder and larger.
The men shouted in booming voices as they loaded the carts. Many prefectures and counties had been battered to ruins. It was said that even near the Southern Wastelands, conflict had broken out with the Nine Li. The imperial court demanded grain from every region day after day, and this year alone, it had already levied it two or three times.
Every grain requisition left common households shattered and ruined. The court took ten percent, then the local powerful clans and gentry directly raised it to fifty or eighty percent. Other than what they handed over to the court, they withheld everything else