Although reluctant to leave, Song Qingshu had no choice but to depart the Golden Snake Camp and hurry toward Daxing Prefecture in the Jin Dynasty.
Along the way, he occasionally encountered civilians fleeing north. Clearly, they had heard that war was about to break out in the south and had no choice but to abandon their homes. Interestingly, most of them were Han Chinese. At first, Song Qingshu found this strange. Logically speaking, the Southern Song was launching its Northern Expedition—shouldn't the Han Chinese have been welcoming them with baskets of food and jugs of drink?
But he quickly understood. He had been in this world for quite some time now and had gradually realized that, for ordinary people at the bottom of society, their daily struggle was simply for food and clothing. They had neither the leisure nor the energy to care about affairs of state. Those who did concern themselves with such matters were usually well-off families or hot-blooded, impulsive scholars.
For the poorest people, war meant danger to their lives, empty stomachs, and displacement...
"When the state prospers, the people suffer; when it falls, the people suffer..." Song Qingshu had never been some compassionate saint mourning for all humanity, but witnessing the misery of the refugees with his own eyes deeply affected him. It only strengthened his resolve to unify the realm as soon as possible and keep the ravages of war far from the people.
He hurried without rest until he reached Daxing Prefecture. There were twice as many guards as usual at the city gates, while patrols of soldiers could be seen everywhere in the streets. The atmosphere within the city was clearly much more solemn and tense than before. Evidently, a great battle was imminent.
Song Qingshu hesitated for a moment before deciding to