The sun was setting.
Golden afterglow spilled over a dilapidated town from the Middle Ages, draping the ancient settlement in a faint golden cloak.
The town walls had long become weathered and mottled. Moss and weeds grew between the stones, as though telling of the ravages of time.
The city gates were tightly shut, covered in rust, as if they might collapse in the wind at any moment.
The two guards were painfully thin. When people passed by, they did not even spare them a glance.
Sloth was the best word to describe them.
They did not even bother extorting money anymore.
They simply drifted through each day.
The town's streets were narrow and winding as well.
Most of the buildings on either side were in ruins. The roof tiles had long shattered, and the walls were covered in cracks, as though they might collapse at any moment.
Dust flew through the streets, which were filled with filth. Hardened piles of dung and heaps of rubbish were everywhere.
No one cleaned them, and no one cared.
In the rural areas of Great Ming, this would have been excellent compost.
During the Song dynasty, "Dung carriers would empty chamber pots for women every day, without the slightest disgust, only wishing there were more goods in the pots." Roadside latrines were often contracted out to wealthy rural households.
Yet even though dung was so important, sanitation in major cities during the Ming and Qing Dynasties became poor again.
There were few public toilets, so people often relieved themselves by the roadside.
It was not that farmers did not want the fertilizer, but that no one organized its collection. In the cities, only a small number of Dung Heads had the ability to run latrines.
But their influence could not cover an entire