Chapter 77: Mobilizing the Masses

He swallowed it in one gulp. Only then did he stop to catch his breath, tearing off a strip of his tattered clothes to roughly bandage the wound.

With food in his stomach, his originally numb body gradually regained consciousness, and he only felt a sharp pain in his finger. He couldn’t help but grit his teeth, and only after a while did he feel better. Just as he was about to turn and leave, two mud-covered children suddenly pounced on the corpse of the woman whose steamed bun he had snatched, wailing and crying, “Mother, mother.”

Xiao Chuba’s whole body trembled, and he turned and wanted to run away. However, the desperate cries and wails were like sharp knives piercing his internal organs. He had eaten too hastily just now, and in an instant, he only felt a bloody smell in his mouth. He retched, and his stomach churned. He couldn’t hold it back any longer and vomited out all the steamed bun he had just swallowed. He coughed repeatedly, and his mouth was full of blood-red steamed bun dregs.

After Xiao Chuba finally stopped coughing, he looked at the filth he had vomited, knelt on the ground, and cried desperately. His cries were hoarse and shrill, but they were soon drowned out by the murmuring of the crowd chanting scriptures.

Amidst the fanatical chanting of scriptures, the more than 20,000 refugees gathered together, like a huge turbid wave, for the sake of survival, with a destructive force, broke through and swallowed the villages on the land of southern Shandong, and came towards Dadian Village in one direction, leaving behind an endless trail of corpses.

In front of Yunsheng Temple, although it was cold and freezing, it was a scene of bustling labor. More than 20,000 refugees in the refugee camp had been mobilized by the people of the new Taoism to dig a huge ditch around the Taoist temple and the refugee camp.

The specification of this ditch was one zhang and two chi wide at the mouth, five to six chi wide at the bottom, and one zhang and five chi deep. The excavated earth was piled on the inner wall, forming an earthen embankment, which made the relative height on the inner side of the ditch higher.

Surrounding the refugee camp and Yunsheng Temple, it was necessary to dig a ditch about 3 kilometers long. The project was daunting, not to mention that it was now covered with snow and the ground was frozen and hard, making manual excavation extremely laborious. But in the Daoist priest’s view, this was the only way to save the refugee camp and the Taoist temple.

Tens of thousands of refugees were a destructive force. No matter how many “magic spells” of the 21st century Zhang Yingchen had, he was very fragile in the face of this tide of refugees who came for survival. In the face of the mob whose minds had been blinded by fanaticism and hunger, he had to have enough means to intercept them and let them settle down.

Machine guns were the best means, but the Ye Mengyan squad only had two light machine guns, which was too few. They could only use the ditch to stop them.

For this reason, he mobilized more than 20,000 refugees in the entire refugee camp, and specially sent people to Dadian Village to ask the Zhuang family for help. He also had to mobilize the common people of Dadian Village and the neighboring villages, and also borrow a large number of farm tools, earth baskets, and shoulder poles.

It was easy to say that the Daoist priest promised to use grain as wages. As for the farm tools, it was not a problem. It was originally the slack season for farming. Besides, the households that had fled and the households that had been wiped out had left behind many farm tools that they could not take with them. It was enough for more than 20,000 common people to use.

Except for the Daoist priest and the naturalized citizens who came from Lingao, everyone had doubts in their hearts. Could a ditch of this scale be built in a short time? Third Master Zhuang asked euphemistically:

“When can it be completed?”

The Daoist priest replied nonchalantly, “Oh, it can be completed in ten days.”

It was simply incredible. Indeed, if it was completed in ten days, it could be done before the refugees arrived. But with such a huge scale, even if the government were to operate it, it would take several months to complete.

Could it be that this Daoist Master Zhang had the great art of transportation? Third Master Zhuang and the masters of the Zhuang family all found it incredible.

Zhang Yingchen returned to the refugee camp. He immediately sent someone to spread the word, asking the common people in the refugee camp who had participated in digging canals and river channels to come and see him.

Digging a ditch was essentially no different from dredging a river or digging a canal, and it didn’t require much advanced engineering technology. In China, building water conservancy projects in winter was a common thing for farmers to do during the slack season. Almost every young and strong laborer had done it.

Zhang Yingchen met with the more than a hundred people who were in charge, and explained the current urgent situation and his own plans to them. And he promised that all refugees who participated in digging the ditch would be given extra relief grain according to the amount of earth they moved.

The refugees all regarded him as a god who saved the suffering. Now that the “immortal” had said so, and there was an extra supply of grain, of course they all obeyed. The refugees were also afraid that the stable life they had finally obtained would be destroyed by others. At that moment, they all expressed their willingness to start working immediately.

Zhang Yingchen drew a rough outline on the blackboard and gave the specific dimensions.

“Don’t dig the ditch on the north side completely,” Zhang Yingchen pointed at the blackboard. “Leave ten earthen roads across the ditch. The width of the road can only allow one person to pass through with difficulty.”

“Does the True Person want to let the refugees in?” one of them asked.

“They are all children of heaven, and they are also forced to do so. It’s just that they now believe in heretical ways. As long as they can return to the right path, we still have to save them…” Zhang Yingchen put on a compassionate face.

In addition to the ten earthen roads across the ditch, several more watchtowers were built on the earthen embankment with earth. This was prepared by him for the shooters of the Ye Mengyan squad.

Zhang Yingchen immediately took these more than a hundred people as the core, and selected another two thousand young and strong laborers to form twenty teams, with one hundred people in each team, and each team had a captain and four foremen. The captains had paper flags stuck in their waists and went back and forth to supervise. They were the main force in digging the ditch. Each team was responsible for a section of the project, and all sections started work at the same time.

However, two thousand people were far from enough. Therefore, he mobilized about twenty thousand refugees in the refugee camp and announced that regardless of men, women, old or young, as long as they could dig and transport a basket of earth, they could get a relief biscuit or five potatoes. This condition was the same for all the common people in the villages around Dadian Village.

In a year of famine, the most important thing was grain. It was a life-saving thing that was even more important than money. As soon as the Daoist priest’s order was issued, not only did the refugees enthusiastically go to work, but the common people from the neighboring villages also flocked there. Men, women, old and young, as long as they could walk, they all brought their farm tools, baskets, shoulder poles, and wheelbarrows and flocked to the construction site day and night, working desperately.

The Daoist priest’s disciples, as tallymen, were distributed in various sections of the project, handing out bamboo tallies as proof for receiving work food.

The project was carried out very intensively, day and night. Every night, Zhang Yingchen ordered people to light bonfires along the ditch to provide light for the common people to work, and at the same time to resist some of the cold at night. The large pots borrowed from various temples were burning day and night, boiling water and porridge, and supplying them at any time.

Even so, for people who had been malnourished for a long time to suddenly engage in such heavy physical labor, and with insufficient intake of protein and calories, more than a hundred refugees and common people died on the construction site every day.

Zhang Yingchen stood on the earthen embankment that had already been piled up, looking at the common people who were swarming like ants in the ditch and on the earthen embankment, digging and transporting earth with sweat pouring down like rain. Every time he raised his hand, the common people would let out a burst of enthusiastic cheers, one after another, and the hoes, shovels, and shoulder poles would surge like a tide. He stood on the earthen embankment, and the wind gently blew his Daoist robe. He felt that he was “floating like an immortal.” This feeling was intoxicating. To let many people act according to his own will, was there anything more enjoyable in the world? No wonder the real leaders were all people who were pure in heart and few in desires, and lived a simple life. Power was the best aphrodisiac. What was the need for wealth and women?

On the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, the Lantern Festival, the project was completed. The entire project only took six days and nights. When the several masters of the Zhuang family came here and saw that such a magnificent project had been erected, they couldn’t help but be amazed. The True Person’s ability was really not to be underestimated.

After the completion, Zhang Yingchen asked the carpenters and masons to build a small house on the north side of the earthen embankment as his command post. He asked the soldiers of the special reconnaissance team to move a box that he had been hiding in the temple to the earthen embankment.

“Xiao Ye, when the refugees arrive, your men will be the key,” Zhang Yingchen said to Ye Mengyan. “At that time, bullets will be the tranquilizer to bring down their fever. You must hold on tight.”

“No problem,” Ye Mengyan nodded. “I’ll arrange a code with you. Whatever gesture you make, my men will shoot accordingly.”

“Good,” Zhang Yingchen said. “Remember, before I give the order, no one is allowed to set foot on the earthen road across the ditch!”

The crowd of refugees pouring into Linyi, after leaving countless corpses along the way, finally arrived at a place seven or eight li away from Yunsheng Temple. Several Namo Liang Jiao believers in black clothes, who had gone ahead, rushed back.

“Xiangzhu Lei! Xiangzhu Wang!” the believer knelt down and kowtowed. “The demon Taoist’s lair is ten li ahead!”

The two people who were called Xiangzhu were the actual commanders of this group of refugees. This large group of refugees was nominally led by the “Rain-Praying Holy Maiden” of the Namo Liang Jiao’s main altar, but the one in charge was actually a guardian of the main altar. This person, because he disliked the smell in the refugee crowd and the sound of chanting scriptures and playing music was too noisy, sat in a large sedan chair with the Holy Maiden, following behind the refugee crowd, and only showed his face when distributing blessings. He sent these two people to be responsible for maintaining order in the refugee crowd.

One of them, with the surname Lei, was named Lei Zilin. He was in his forties and was a down-and-out scholar. A few years ago, he had drifted from Liaodong to Shandong. Because he had no food and clothing, he joined the sect. He was proficient in literature and ink, and also knew some physiognomy and medical skills. He had also made a small name for himself in the main altar.

This time, he was sent to act with the refugee crowd, commanding the believers to burn incense and carry banners, and chant scriptures and incantations along the way. He was considered the literary team.

The other was named Wang Xing. He had a quiet appearance and seemed to be an ordinary person who did not like to meddle in other people’s business. In fact, he was a bandit leader in the Yimeng Mountains. He was driven out after a fight in the stockade and drifted to Jinan Prefecture with a group of die-hard followers, and also joined the sect. This time, he was the martial team of the believers in the refugee crowd. He led more than three hundred strong believers, many of whom were deserters from the government army and scattered bandits. They were all brave and ruthless, and they carried sharp weapons.