Converging Histories

The Corpse Burners had it bad; the Refugee Camp had it worse.

News of the Refugee Camp riot spread across the entire docks early that morning, bringing fresh reports with it.

The situation was even worse than Qin He had estimated. The entire Refugee Camp had ceased to exist. Less than one in ten refugees survived, and the rest scattered in defeat.

Over a thousand officers and soldiers were killed or wounded.

The emperor issued an edict to pacify the people, but under the workings of corrupt and incompetent officials, it ended in a tragedy that left everyone disgraced.

The dockside crowd reacted differently, each with their own opinion.

Qiao Sanhuang, who sold flatbread on the street, clapped his hands in delight. "Good killing! What right do these country bumpkins have to come to the capital? The capital belongs to the people of the capital."

Granny Huang, who sold vegetables, shook her head again and again. "What a sin, what a sin."

The boatmen at the noodle stall looked pleased. With the refugees gone, wages might rise.

Liu Kuizui at the teahouse had prepared a new storytelling piece before dawn—"The Secret of the Refugee Camp Rebellion"—and planned to tell it in five chapters and twenty installments.

But most people had no time to pay much attention to it. The crushing burden of life had nearly wrung all their strength dry. A few complaints, a few curses, and that was the end of it.

Quite a few people were utterly indifferent, like Yang Qiao'er, who sold tofu pudding.

Using Wind-Following Ear, Qin He could hear everyone speaking within a hundred paces. Only Yang Qiao'er had not uttered a word except to collect payment.

Who was Yang Qiao'er?

She was the Tofu Beauty whom Xu Changshou had visited in the dead of night to help grind tofu and "make friends," only to be beaten out.

Yang Qiao'er came from a fishing family. Though she had already borne a child, her figure was exquisite—full where she should be full, curving where she should curve, sweet and luscious, with her charm still very much intact.

By rights, with looks like hers, she should have married into a good family and never needed to show her face in public to make a living.

But Yang Qiao'er had made her living on the water since childhood and had never bound her feet. Her large feet barred her from the doors of wealthy families, so she could only marry someone of matching status: Chu Laosan, a tofu grinder.

Marry a chicken, follow the chicken; marry a dog, follow the dog. Yang Qiao'er followed her husband, Chu Laosan, into the tofu trade. It was hard work, but compared with braving wind and rain on the water, it was still better.

But good times did not last. Perhaps Chu Laosan had gotten too worked up during his nighttime activities and failed to catch his breath, farting his last breath away. He left behind a posthumous daughter still in Yang Qiao'er's belly.

Women were weak, but mothers were strong. Yang Qiao'er took on grinding tofu and raising her daughter all by herself. Life was difficult, but not unbearable. It was only that her lingering allure inevitably drew the covetous stares of some lecherous men.

For example... Xu Changshou, seated across from Qin He.

The fellow stared at Yang Qiao'er with blank, fixed eyes, slurping soft tofu pudding. There was no need to guess what filled his mind—nothing but filth. Even his breathing had grown heavy.

Qin He looked at Yang Qiao'er and the little girl beside her, who seemed carved from the same mold, and felt an urge to upend his bowl of tofu pudding over that man's head.

Humans did not grow tails. If they did, he would have looked exactly like one.

Out of sight, out of mind. Qin He lowered his head and tasted the tofu pudding. It had honey in it, sweet as silk.

The snowy-white color made Qin He think of Ma Lai, whose head had been blown apart by the refugees. Strangely, it did not diminish his appetite at all.

Sure enough, too much contact with corpses turned people abnormal.

They ate a bowl of tofu pudding and a bowl of sour bean juice, not leaving until Yang Qiao'er's tofu stall closed. Only then did Xu Changshou depart, still wanting more.

Qin He wanted to leave but could not very well do so, and could only accompany him. After all, Xu Changshou was treating him, and one bowl of honeyed tofu pudding cost thirty copper coins.

"Sir, your breathing seems a little restless."

As they walked down the street, Qin He quietly reminded him. He sensed something was wrong with Xu Changshou—his face was flushed, and his breathing was disordered.

Xu Changshou froze for a moment. "Hiss... now that you mention it, it does seem so. These past few days, I've always felt like there's a ball of fire below my navel, burning me up. Don't know what's going on."

"Maybe... you've stayed up too many nights. How about seeing a physician?" Qin He was not sure either.

Xu Changshou found that reasonable and agreed.

After paying, Xu Changshou headed for the pharmacy, while Qin He leisurely made his way back.

The Grand Canal's scenery remained as enchanting as ever. The deaths of tens of thousands in the Refugee Camp had not affected it in the slightest. Emerald waves rippled across the water, boats passed back and forth, and the place was bustling with life.

Ever since the Yu Dynasty opened the canal, no matter how destitute the people became throughout the ages, it had never affected this golden waterway running north and south—unless the Grand Canal was cut off.

If that happened, the ruling dynasty would probably have to change its surname.

The broad currents of this world's history were basically the same as those of Qin He's previous life, though many details differed.

Take the dynasties first. In his previous life, there had been Qin, Han, Tang, Song, Yuan, and Ming. In this life, there were Qian, Han, Yu, Song, Rong, and Li.

Qian, Han, and Yu broadly corresponded to the strongest Qin, Han, and Tang dynasties of the Eastern Lands. Their culture, institutions, and historical development had likewise converged.

In his previous life, Qin destroyed the Six States and ended the chaos of the Warring States. Here, Qian destroyed thirteen states, ended the feudal enfeoffment system, and ushered in the commandery-and-county system. It likewise began its grand unification with standardized carriage tracks and written script.

Yet the differences were also great. For instance, Qin had lasted only thirteen years after unification, while Qian had endured for more than two hundred years.

A slight pity was that the Qian Dynasty had always been beaten down by the northern nomadic peoples. Only by relying on the Great Wall had it barely managed to reverse its decline. The Great Wall was built with astonishing grandeur, much like the canal before him.

The canal of Qin He's previous life had merely been a river. Here, it was practically a great river; looking across, the grain ships on the opposite bank looked no larger than paper boats.

After Qian came Han. This was rather similar, even sharing the same name. It was divided into Eastern and Western Han as well, but its imperial span was longer—seven or eight hundred years combined. When it fought the northern nomads, it was ferocious enough to make the grassland peoples change several generations over.

Perhaps because Han had been fierce for too long, the Yu Dynasty that followed, corresponding to Tang, fell somewhat short. Still, it was quite good, especially in cultural achievements, and lasted more than five hundred years.

After that came another dynasty bearing the same name: Song.

It was once again beaten down by the rising Rong Tribe in the north. It held out in the north for less than a hundred years before crossing south over the Yangtze River and settling into a corner of Jinling.

But what was worth mentioning was that the Southern Song actually endured for three hundred years. It was not destroyed by the Rong Tribe; instead, it outlasted the Rong until they retreated back to the grasslands. At their most miserable, they were forced to hold Ryukyu, nearly destroyed several times before rising again from the ashes. They had the indomitable spirit of a cockroach that could not be killed.

Its true destruction came at the hands of the present Great Li Dynasty.

Unlike Ming, the founding ancestor of the Li Dynasty had not begun as a beggar. He had been a Han general under the Rong Tribe who rebelled. After gradually unifying the north, he raised the banner of the Han people and marched south to destroy Song, only then establishing the Great Li Dynasty.

Thus, the Li Dynasty's claim to the throne was not legitimate, and its history contained a master-and-servant relationship with the Rong Tribe that could never be washed clean, no matter how hard they scrubbed.

Therefore, to prove its legitimacy and completely sever its ties with the Rong Tribe, the Great Li Dynasty launched nearly a hundred campaigns north of the frontier after its founding. It fought the nomadic Rong Tribe for nearly three hundred years, while also moving its capital and raising the banner of "the Son of Heaven guards the nation's gates."

Afterward, history converged once more. The Great Li Dynasty and the Rong Tribe drained each other's vitality in three hundred years of slaughter, giving the fishing and hunting tribes of Liaodong—the Di Barbarians—the chance to rise.

In recent years, the eight armies of the Di Barbarians had won battle after battle and expanded wildly. The Rong Tribe was forced to migrate west, while the Great Li Dynasty suffered defeat after defeat. The three Liaodong prefectures it had spent more than two hundred years wresting from the Rong Tribe were all lost to the Di Barbarians in less than ten years. Soldiers and generals were lost, and they shrank south of the Great Wall, not daring to show their heads.

Combined with the abnormal climate of the Little Ice Age, which caused refugee rebellions to erupt throughout the Central Plains, the Great Li Dynasty, which had endured for nearly four hundred years, was repeatedly tugged back and forth by the Di Barbarians and the rebellions. It was already tottering on the brink of collapse.

Following the inertia of history, the Di Barbarians taking control of the Central Plains had become a highly probable outcome.