The roaring flood swept everything away. Countless fertile fields were submerged, and countless common people were displaced.
Seen from the sky, crowds surged across the plains of Guanzhong.
The people traveled in groups between commanderies and counties, with someone collapsing to the ground from time to time. The sight made it almost impossible to believe this was Guanzhong.
Among these fleeing people were many small landowners who had once formed the bedrock of Great Han. Water and fire were merciless: once the flood swept their land away, everything generations had struggled for vanished in an instant!
"Go to the county town. There's grain in the state treasury."
"Go to the commandery seat. They have military supplies there."
Countless voices rose across Guanzhong. Having lost everything, with no one to turn to, they could only rely on the court. Only the commandery and county towns had grain. They could hardly just starve to death here.
This was what made floods more frightening than severe droughts. Drought was a gradual process, and the court could still roughly control people's movements and spread them out as much as possible. But a flood was a sudden disaster, and people would avoid the places in its path.
In the end, this produced the crowds now gathering together.
"The Chancellor came?"
It was not until the next day that Liu Yang recovered from his exhaustion and left the palace hall. The eunuchs hurried forward to report what had happened.
Liu Yang was startled. He had not expected the Chancellor to come through the heavy rain. When he heard that Guanzhong had indeed flooded, his vision kept darkening. This was precisely what he had been worrying about.
Liu Yang was initially furious that the eunuchs had failed to notify him. But just as they had anticipated,