Two days were enough to change many things.
The grain shops in the eastern and western markets had closed for business. At first, word spread that, heedless of whether the common people lived or died, they had been swarmed by an outraged mob.
No grain had been found.
The shops had indeed been smashed to pieces, along with the clerks, bookkeepers, and shopkeepers inside.
After inspecting the scene and finding no hope of making arrests, the yamen pleaded other business, openly and covertly muttering that they had deserved it.
But the people of the Prefectural City could not go without grain, nor could the refugees outside the city be ignored.
The Provincial Administration and the Prefectural Yamen finally opened their granaries, sending some of the grain into the Grain Market to be sold at one tael of silver per shi.
The larger portion went toward disaster relief.
But after discovering that a charitable household outside the Prefectural City was giving every refugee one shi of grain,
the yamen officials changed their minds and sent the grain straight to Guang'an County and other places downstream along the Chishui River.
It was a two-pronged approach.
The people inside and outside the Prefectural City all praised Left Provincial Administrator Liu Hong, calling him their lord of clear skies.
Prefect Liu Si received plenty of praise along with him, which had made him act with thunderous speed over the past two days.
After all, every task he completed well would earn him another mark in the year-end ledger of achievements.
Disaster relief, preventing the spread of the Epidemic Poison, tracking down the killers of Lin Zhenghong and the others and those who had plundered a million shi of grain, and so forth.
Of course.
Several Thousand-Household Commanders in the Judicial Department also received some