Triple Taxes

In less than half a month, Azure Cloud Ridge had fallen along the entire line. News of the border army's crushing defeat and rout spread without wings, swiftly sweeping through the rear regions.

"The Barbarian army is about to break through! All three thousand defenders of Azure Cloud Ridge have been wiped out."

"The border is completely finished! The Barbarians burn, kill, loot, and commit every evil imaginable. Our country is doomed!"

"Everyone, run for your lives! It'll be too late if you wait!"

"..."

Panic swept through Jade Sun Commandery like a plague.

In streets and alleys, villages and towns, people gathered together with pale faces, their discussions filled with fear and despair.

Grain shops and cloth stores were bought clean.

Heartless merchants took the chance to jack up prices. Rice that had cost ten copper coins rose to a hundred, then a thousand. Even so, there was a price but no supply.

The people hoarded food like mad. Every household shut its doors and windows tight, and the bustling warmth of daily life vanished from the streets.

Only an oppressive deathly silence remained, along with sighs of grief rising one after another. Everyone feared for themselves, unable to know whether they would survive the morning or the evening.

Children's cries, elders' sighs, and women's sobs filled every corner. Living each day in terror had become the norm for all common folk at the bottom.

They feared war, feared death, and feared even more that in this chaotic age, they would not have even a chance to cling to life.

Just as the people were drowning in terror and struggling desperately to survive, an imperial decree from the Imperial Court utterly crushed these suffering lowly folk.

Because the war had suffered consecutive defeats and the army's provisions and weapons had been nearly exhausted, the Imperial Court issued an order imposing triple taxes to sustain the front-line battlefield.

All shops and farming households, rich or poor, had to pay in full within a month. Those who failed to pay by the deadline would have their homes confiscated and be conscripted into the army to provide for military needs.

That single imperial decree was like a sharp blade stabbing viciously into every citizen's heart.

The poor were already starving and freezing, unable to fill their bellies. Paying the ordinary taxes had been as difficult as climbing to the heavens; tripling them now was no different from cutting off their last path to survival.

Government runners and tax collectors poured out in full force, carrying iron chains and clubs as they violently demanded payment from house to house, looking fierce and vicious without the slightest mercy.

"Pay your taxes! Pay them now! By order of the Imperial Court, anyone who dares resist taxes is colluding with the enemy and betraying the country!"

"No grain at home? Then hand over your house and clothing as payment! Refuse again, and we'll seize you for military service!"

"Handing over taxes is your duty! How dare you make excuses and stall?"

"..."

For a time, misery lay everywhere, and the people could barely live.

Some farmers could not pay their taxes, so their few meager plots of land were forcibly confiscated. Their entire families were driven from their homes and left to wander the streets.

Some small peddlers had their stalls smashed and all their goods seized, losing everything overnight.

Some impoverished families had nowhere left to turn. They could only sell their sons and daughters for a little silver to pay the taxes, their flesh and blood torn apart, their hearts aching beyond endurance.

With homes destroyed and families dead, sleeping in the streets, countless people killed themselves in despair beneath the double oppression of hunger and harsh taxes.

A living hell—this was the truest portrait of the Great Flame Dynasty at this moment.

The people begged bitterly and kowtowed until their heads were bloody, only to receive merciless clubs in return.

Those officials, gentry, and powerful nobles who sat high above remained clothed in silk and fed on delicacies, drowning in endless extravagance.

They colluded with tax collectors, concealing their lands and businesses while shifting the entire burden of taxation onto the common people below.

They paid not a single coin themselves and continued living lives of drunken luxury, watching the people suffer with cold indifference.

The Imperial Court's decree of heavier taxes swept into Azure Creek Village like a biting winter wind, without a shred of suspense.

Tax collectors and government runners from the county charged aggressively into this already impoverished little village.

"Clang, clang..."

The iron chains scraped across the ground with a piercing sound, and one vicious face after another shattered the village's peace.

"Listen up! The Imperial Court has imposed emergency taxes. Every household must pay in full. Delay by even a moment, and you'll all be treated as tax resisters."

"No money? No grain? Then pay with people! Able-bodied men will be seized for military service at the border, while the old and weak will be taken for corvée labor. Not one of you will escape."

"Behave yourselves, or my broadsword won't recognize anyone."

"..."

The lead tax collector stood at the village entrance, shouting harshly at the top of his lungs.

Behind him, government runners wielding clubs broke into homes one after another.

They rummaged through chests and overturned cabinets, plundering everything. Even half a sack of coarse grain or a single rough cloth garment was taken away.

The villagers of Azure Creek Village had always depended on the weather for their livelihoods. With years of war and unceasing demon disasters, the fields had yielded poorly.

The people had long since been reduced to yellow, emaciated faces. Forget triple taxes—even half a copper coin was difficult for them to produce.

Wails, cries, and pleas rang throughout the entire village.

"Sir, please, have mercy! Leave us a way to live! There's truly nothing left in the house."

Old Man Wang's family huddled in their courtyard as the government runners snatched away their only half sack of wild vegetables and bran.

His old wife knelt on the ground, desperately clutching a runner's leg and kowtowing until blood streamed down her forehead.

"Get lost! You dare resist taxes? What a troublesome peasant."

The runner looked utterly impatient. He kicked the old woman to the ground, then seized their young son, locked him in iron chains, and forcibly dragged him away to be conscripted.

"If you can't pay the taxes, go sell your life at the border to settle them."

The Imperial Court's cruelty was beyond outrage. If they could not pay taxes, then they would pay with people.

These men handled such matters with practiced ease. Clearly, this was far from their first time.

"No, no!"

"Sir, please! He's our only child!"

"Take me instead! Sir, seize me!"

"..."

Old Man Wang and his wife knelt on the ground, tears and snot streaming down their faces as they kowtowed without pause, trying to trade themselves for their son.

The old couple had only this one son. Once he was seized and sent to the army, he would basically never return.

"Father, Mother..."

The youth's crying and the old couple's desperate shrieks made everyone's hearts tighten, yet no one dared step forward to stop them.

"Will someone kind please buy my daughter?"

"She's pretty. She can do anything. You can beat her or scold her as you please."

Farmer Wang next door had nothing left to offer as payment. To preserve his family's lives, he could only pull his seven- or eight-year-old children to the village entrance and kneel there, weeping bitterly.

He wanted to sell his own flesh and blood in exchange for a tiny bit of broken silver to pay the taxes.

"Father, Mother, sob sob sob..."

The sorrowful cries of flesh and blood torn apart, wrenching at the heart, became Azure Creek Village's most tragic elegy.

Others, driven into a corner, signed contracts through their tears and sold off their last meager fields. From then on, they became homeless refugees with nowhere to return.

The entire Azure Creek Village was like a living hell. The people were scattered and displaced, their homes ruined and their families destroyed.

The tax collectors and government runners looked fierce and menacing, hurling vicious insults and swinging their clubs without mercy.

In their eyes, there were only taxes, not the slightest trace of humanity.

They too had no choice. If they failed to collect the taxes, then when those above held them accountable, no one could bear the consequences.

For people at the bottom like them, a single sentence from those above was a weight they could never bear.