Chapter 8: Disaster Assessment

Early the next morning, the convoy arrived outside the city of Huainan.

Fang De was in no hurry to enter the city. Instead, he settled the group in an abandoned granary three miles outside the city walls, unloaded the silver chests from the carts, and meticulously arranged everything once more.

Lin Yuan had no patience to watch his performance and went straight to him.

"Master Fang, now that the relief silver has arrived at its destination, shouldn't we follow procedure and first assess the disaster?"

Fang De was wiping sweat with a handkerchief. He smiled at the question. "Lord Lin, it seems you are quite knowledgeable. That's correct. We must first send people down to survey the situation, assess the disaster level in each county, and then allocate the silver accordingly."

"When will you send people?"

"What's the rush?" Fang De patted his round belly. "The brothers have been traveling for several days; they need to rest. I plan to send a few men out early tomorrow morning. We should have results in three to five days."

"I'll go with them."

Fang De's smile faltered for a moment.

"Lord Lin, disaster assessment is the Ministry of Revenue's duty. You are an inspector; your responsibility is the account books. There's no need for you to make this trip. The rural roads are difficult, the floodwaters haven't fully receded, and if something were to happen—"

"Master Fang," Lin Yuan interrupted him. "My authority is to inspect the income and expenditure ledgers of the relief silver along the route. How the silver is allocated depends on how the disaster level is determined. The disaster level is the source of those ledgers. I need to see it for myself."

Fang De stared at him for two seconds before the smile returned to his face.

"Alright then. If Lord Lin wishes to go, I naturally welcome it. Early tomorrow morning, I'll have my subordinates take you along."

Before dawn the next day, Lin Yuan was awakened by a loud knocking at his door.

Two men stood at the doorway, one tall, one short. The tall one was called Tao Si, the short one Qian Er. Both were clerks under Fang De from the Ministry of Revenue. Tao Si was a burly man in his thirties with a rough, meaty face. A short knife hung at his waist, and he walked with heavy, forceful steps, looking like someone who had practiced martial arts for a few days.

Qian Er was smaller and thinner, a strange smile playing on his lips, his eyes darting around when he looked at people.

"Lord Lin, Master Fang ordered us to take you for the disaster assessment." Tao Si gave a perfunctory salute, his tone lacking respect. "The horses are ready. Let's go."

The three men rode out of the temporary camp and headed south along the official road.

They hadn't traveled for half an hour before the official road ended.

To be precise, it had been washed away.

A large crack split the road surface, the underlying soil layer mostly hollowed out, with rubble and mud piled together. Tao Si dismounted, stamped on the roadbed, and shouted back to Lin Yuan.

"Can't ride ahead. We have to walk."

The three led their horses around the broken section, trudging forward through the mud and water.

Lin Yuan's boots were quickly filled with mud. Each step required effort to pull his foot out. Fortunately, with his foundation at the early Houtian stage, he could manage this kind of exertion.

Tao Si and Qian Er were accustomed to such roads, their steps fast and steady.

The first village was called Willow Bend.

Standing at the village entrance, Lin Yuan took in the devastated scene at a glance.

More than half the village was still waterlogged, with a thick layer of black mud left behind after the waters receded.

Seventy to eighty percent of the houses had collapsed. Those still standing leaned precariously.

An old locust tree had been uprooted, lying across the village's dirt road, its roots pointing skyward, tangled with torn cloth strips and unidentifiable debris.

Several dozen survivors had gathered on a relatively dry, elevated patch of ground within the village, building makeshift shelters from rags and branches.

Men and women sat or crouched, covered in grime. A few looked up as the newcomers arrived, their eyes dull and lifeless.

A hunched old man leaning on a broken stick hobbled forward.

"Sirs, have you come to distribute grain?"

Tao Si waved him away impatiently. "Not yet. We're here to assess the situation first."

"Sir, we haven't eaten in three days…"

"I know, I know." Tao Si didn't even stop, sidestepping the old man and walking straight to a collapsed house. He pulled out a ledger and began scribbling in it.

Lin Yuan walked over and glanced at the ledger. It read: "Willow Bend. Affected households: approximately thirty. Farmland damaged: approximately two hundred mu."

"You're filling it out like that?"

"How else?" Tao Si didn't look up.

"How many people have you asked?"

"Ask what?" Tao Si finally lifted his head, glancing at Lin Yuan. "Lord Lin, I've done this job more than once. Walk through the village, count the houses, estimate the land, write a number in the ledger. Did you think we had to go door-to-door asking questions? That would take forever and delay everything."

Lin Yuan looked at the sloppy handwriting in the ledger, then at the surrounding scene.

"Thirty households?"

"More or less."

"I counted on the way in. There are over forty makeshift shelters alone, all packed full. The original residents of Willow Bend are likely more than thirty households."

Tao Si stopped writing, looking at him sideways.

"Lord Lin, is this your first time on an assignment outside the capital?"

"What of it?"

"This disaster assessment business, there's an art to writing more or less. Write too much, and the silver allocated from above won't be enough to distribute. We'd have to file supplemental reports later—a hassle. Write too little…" He grinned, leaving the sentence unfinished.

"Write too little, and the saved silver ends up in someone else's pocket," Lin Yuan finished for him.

Tao Si's smile vanished. He stared at Lin Yuan for a long moment.

"Lord Lin, I can't explain all the intricacies here. Master Fang tells me how to fill it out, and that's how I fill it out. If you have any objections, take them up with Master Fang when we return."

Lin Yuan didn't respond further.

He walked over to the group of survivors, crouched down, and spoke a few words with the hunched old man. The old man told him that Willow Bend originally had seventy-two households. Over a dozen people were swept away during the flood. The rest had either fled elsewhere or gathered here.

The village originally had over four hundred mu of paddy fields, all destroyed.

Lin Yuan meticulously recorded these numbers in his own small notebook.

Tao Si watched from the side, saying nothing.

Leaving Willow Bend, they traveled another five or six miles south to the second location, River Mouth Town.

It was worse than Willow Bend.

The town was by the river. After the great flood, the entire town was completely submerged. The water had receded, leaving behind a muddy swamp. Some houses only had half a wall remaining, with shattered household items crushed beneath the foundations.

At the town entrance stood a bare tree. A child's garment hung from its branches—whether washed up by the water or hung by someone, it was impossible to tell.

There were far more survivors here than in Willow Bend, a dark mass of several hundred people gathered together.

A foul, pungent odor hung in the air, thick and piercing, drifting from deep within the town.

Lin Yuan didn't dare dwell on what that smell might be.

Qian Er covered his nose with his sleeve nearby, muttering indistinctly, "With this stench, there might be an epidemic later."

Tao Si wrinkled his nose, scribbled a few strokes in his ledger, and prepared to leave.

Lin Yuan stopped him.

"Not going in to look?"

"Look at what? A glance from afar is enough." Tao Si waved his hand. "The water inside hasn't fully receded, and there are dead—ahem, things that haven't been cleared. Going in is an easy way to catch sickness."

"If you don't go in, how do you verify the disaster situation?"

"This is how we verify it."

Tao Si said matter-of-factly, "I've been in this line of work for seven or eight years. I can estimate pretty accurately at a glance. Lord Lin, we still have six or seven more villages to visit. Can't linger too long in one place."

Ignoring him, Lin Yuan stepped forward into the town.

Tao Si called out from behind, "Hey! Lord Lin!"

Lin Yuan trudged into River Mouth Town, one deep step after another.

The further in he went, the worse the scene became.

The waterline on the walls reached almost an adult's chest height, indicating the floodwaters had been at least four or five feet deep.

One family's door had been washed away. A rotten straw sandal was wedged in the threshold.

A layer of yellowish-green water floated in a courtyard, with the bloated corpses of dead chickens bobbing on the surface.

He found a few survivors who had remained in the town. A middle-aged man told him that River Mouth Town originally had over three hundred households. The flood hit in the middle of the night, and many hadn't had time to escape.

"How many drowned?"

The middle-aged man's lips trembled.

"Just from our alley alone, they pulled out eleven bodies. For the whole town, there must be dozens. And those not pulled out…" His voice grew hoarse by the end, his fingers clutching the hem of his garment.

Lin Yuan recorded each detail.

When he walked out of the town, Tao Si was leaning against a tree waiting for him, an expression of unclear mockery or indifference on his face.

"Lord Lin, seen enough?"

"How many households did you write for River Mouth Town in your ledger?"

"One hundred and fifty."

"The actual number is over three hundred."

Tao Si snorted.

"Lord Lin, you're from the capital. You haven't seen scenes like this before, have you? Let me tell you, this is nothing."

He spat on the ground, crossing his arms over his chest. "Last year, during the snow disaster in Northern Ji, I also went for disaster assessment. That scene was much bigger. Survivors flooded the mountains and plains, running towards the city. Tens of thousands blocked the city gates. The local officials were so scared they shut the gates. A few of us, along with local constables, used clubs and the backs of swords to drive those survivors away from the city gates. Tens of thousands of them, like herding sheep. A few swings of the club and they scattered."

He even chuckled as he spoke, as if recalling something he was proud of.

Qian Er chimed in from the side, "That time, Brother Tao Si even broke a club."

Tao Si grinned.

"It's not that I'm heartless. It just had to be done. With so many survivors flooding into the city, there wouldn't be enough food, and public order would collapse. The officials themselves couldn't cope, let alone care for them. If we didn't drive them away, we'd be waiting for a riot, wouldn't we?"

Lin Yuan looked at him calmly.

"You used a club on survivors, broke it, and you're quite pleased with that?"

Tao Si's smile faded slightly, and he curled his lip.

"Lord Lin, where were you during the Northern Ji relief effort? Sitting in a capital yamen, I suppose? Well, you wouldn't know. Out here in the provinces, things aren't as reasonable as you might think. Desperate survivors will do anything—steal grain, smash yamens, beat people. I've seen it all. If we aren't tough, they'd have eaten us alive long ago."

He tucked the ledger into his robe and called to Qian Er to bring the horses.

"Let's go. The next village is still far. If Lord Lin thinks my entries are incorrect, you are welcome to go back and tell Master Fang. Master Fang will decide."

Lin Yuan stood in place, watching Tao Si stride away with large steps.

He looked down at his own small notebook.

Willow Bend: actual seventy-two households; Tao Si entered thirty.

River Mouth Town: actual over three hundred households; Tao Si entered one hundred and fifty.

Just these two places, and the numbers were already cut by more than half.

There were still six or seven villages to go.

Fang De was even manipulating the disaster assessment step itself. Reporting the disaster as less severe, setting the relief standard lower, meant another portion could be skimmed from the allocated silver.

Layer by layer, the survivors' life-saving money was being stripped away.