The entire city was steeped in blood and death. Wherever one went, rotten, stinking corpses lay scattered across the ground. Sometimes they were not cleared away quickly enough, and the bodies would be baked dry by the sun until they resembled cured meat.
Of course, they had all died the same way: starvation. Some ordinary folk had previously stored away grain and knew to go up the mountains to dig up roots or hunt, bringing back wild rabbits to fill their stomachs.
Those without hunting skills could only starve to death outside. Of course, those who died out there were a minority. Most people barely managed to survive. Saint Lord Taichu had also distributed a certain amount of relief grain before. Though it was not much, and it was only coarse wheat or rice, it was enough for most people to fill their bellies and temporarily ease their agonizing hunger.
To put it bluntly, even if many people went up the mountains to hunt, the wild rabbits and pheasants they caught would not be enough to eat. After all, the trees and insects in the mountains had been declining year after year. As a result, wild goats and boars could barely survive there. Even if one truly caught a chicken, how much could an entire family eat? At most, each person could gnaw on two or three bones, and then there would be nothing left.
So after most people caught a pheasant, they would bring it home, pluck it clean, chop it into pieces, toss it into a pot with some yams or wild mushrooms, and stir it all together. The whole family would gather around to drink the soup. A single chicken could be stewed into seven or eight pots of soup. That was not an exaggeration; it was