The Kotaro family has been farmers from Shimoshima Town, the castle town of Yoshima City for generations. The very dedicated farmers, relying on the hard work of their whole family, can hand over food on time every year. Every time they are taken to train and fight in winter and summer, they never complain. This gives them a good reputation among the lord samurai and their neighbors.
Kotaro, 36, is the pillar of this family after his father died of illness last year. He has two younger brothers, a sister who is married to Kagawa, and he also has two teenage children. His daily life is pretty good. After the farming and resting on the ridge of the field, Kotaro always nags his two precious sons. He said that his eldest son had already agreed to have a marriage and would get married this fall. The second son could also work with him in the fields not long ago, sharing a lot of work with him and his eldest son.
"When they both grow up and get married, I can retreat." Whenever Kotaro's wrinkled face said this, he would have a longing smile, "Battle the sun, just like my father before."
However, all the wonderful life was broken by the war more than ten days ago.
When the Okabe family led the troops to the Yinma Castle, many villagers in the township felt that they were going to fight and took their families to other places to hide. But Kotaro felt that they would not fight. After all, the samurai master of the Asahina family and the samurai master of the Okabe family have been working together for decades for the Imakawa family. How could they fight just by fighting? Moreover, his second brother's wife was sick and needed someone to take care of her. However, the second brother was not in good health and could not take care of her alone. Kotaro had to stay and help, so he didn't mention the escape. - He later regretted it and said that he should find a way to escape to Kagawa to find his sister.
However, when the coalition forces of the Hinai-ichi group surrounded him, Kotaro took his whole family to make another wrong decision. At that time, when many villagers saw the army coming, they said they would run to Asahi-in and His Highness Iino. But Kotaro felt that it would be safer to hide anywhere than to hide in the city. If they ran outside the city, it would be possible that the siege troops would take these poor people to the front line as men and let them carry sandbags to fill the trenches in Yinma City. So he took his two younger brothers and the three families to clean up the family's fineness and weakness and hide in Yinma City. In the first few days, life was stable. Although they had to collect food and other things from Yonekura, at least they did not continue to fight.
However, on June 13, Kotaro, who was still living in an idle teahouse with his three families, suddenly learned a shocking news that the Okabe family was going to close all granaries! The people in the city were desperately robbing food! At that time, Kojiro was delivering water to his sister-in-law, suddenly fell down the water in his hand, called his third brother and his eldest son and rushed out and joined the abortion! He knew that the food around the family was enough for two or three days now. If the food was really blocked, it would be hard to say whether he could have a meal next!
However, when Kotaro and the others arrived, several granaries had been swept away, and the samurai of the Okabe family blocked the remaining granaries. Kotaro had to return home disappointed and announced that he would strictly control everyone's rations next.
It's okay for adults to be hungry for a few days, but the key is that his third brother is still with a boy who is just two years old. The third brother had two daughters before, but unfortunately died. This child is his treasure and cannot be hungry at all. The crying of the child because of hunger is like a whistling flute, echoing in everyone's heart. Kotaro, with his two younger brothers and three adult younger generations, searched around in the city of Yanma for two days, but only his second son found a small bag of millet from an abandoned warehouse that was unknown how long it was - this had made the whole family happy for a long time, and the food crisis at home delayed for a day.
On June 16, the whole family really couldn't eat, so they could only dig wild vegetables and eat everything they could see. Kotaro did a bad thing for the first time in his life - from a fellow villager's house, he stole a small bag of rice and went home while he was not paying attention - but this was still not enough for everyone to eat. His second brother and third brother followed many villagers to the city gate and asked the Okabe family to open the door and let them go back to the castle town town - but were beaten by the guards. The second brother was in poor health and was hit hard in the stomach. He didn't recover for a long time and was carried back to the teahouse by the third brother. The second brother's wife cried into tears. That night, the whole family couldn't have supper.
On June 17, the nightmare began. The second brother's body was still not able to bear it. After a night of perseverance, he died of illness. Kotaro looked at his relatives who were crying, but he had no time to be sad - if he didn't go out to find food, the whole family would starve to death. Kotaro took his third brother, the second brother's son, and his two sons to go out to find food together. Kotaro taught his two sons how to steal things step by step - he has taught them since he was a child that they should be a person and not do these stealing things.
However, at this time, every citizen cherishes their own food and it is not so easy to steal it. Kotaro's two sons and a group of people were preparing to steal a wealthy family together when they were robbing food. However, they were seen by the wealthy family. The two sides immediately fought and caused a large-scale fight in the south of the Tenshou Pavilion. Many people took advantage of the chaos to plunder. The scene was not stable until the Okabe family's footsteps arrived. However, Kotaro could not find his eldest son.
People around him said that in order to avoid the epidemic, the Okabe family's footsteps had dragged away many people who were beaten to death and burned them. However, Kotaro could not accept this reality no matter what - his eldest son, who was about to start a family, left like this, and his white man sent a black man. He searched around the city and finally returned to the teahouse with tears.
The only good news is that his third brother and second brother's son snatched two large bags of food in the chaos, and some of the babies and three women in the family would not starve to death. However, the whole family was particularly depressed at dinner that day - if they lost two relatives within a day, how could such an ordinary family bear it? And that day, the atmosphere in the entire Yinma City became extremely tense, and everyone was guarding against every villager who had been close to each other in the past with the thief's eyes.
That night, Kotaro lay on the floor because of the death of his son and brother, tossing and turning, unable to fall asleep - this accidentally saved the whole family's life. In the early morning, a group of people rushed into the room without saying a word and wanted to grab the two large bags of rice hidden under the bed. Kotaro, who was still awake, fought desperately and pulled a bag torn apart during the tearing. Half of the millet in the bag fell to the ground. The group also saw the noise getting bigger and bigger, and stopped when they saw it, and fled with the snatched bag and a half of the food he had snatched it and fled. The whole family could only carefully pick up the fallen food from the ground one by one and looked at each other. It was the remaining half bag of rice that prevented the family from immediately losing food.
On the 18th, the Okabe family finally opened the warehouse to release grain. However, Kotaro was unable to receive his food. When he was about to line up to receive the food, the team suddenly became chaotic and someone began to rob the food! The Okabe family sent troops to suppress the rioters, and the situation suddenly became uncontrollable. When the city finally stabilized, the granary for the food was closed. No matter how the people, including Kotaro, cried, the guards and the guards were unmoved.
After eating everything she could eat, the family completely ran out of food. The third brother's baby who was still in her infancy was the first to leave, and the second brother's wife was also sick again due to excessive grief and died of illness. The third brother's wife also contracted the damn disease. That night, in order to avoid placing her relatives, she actually jumped into a well and committed suicide. The family, which was originally happy, was only five people left at once.
On the 19th, the trust among the people disappeared, and the hungry people plundered others frantically. Theft and robbery were frequent in the Imperial City, and the conflicts with the Okabe family's army became increasingly serious. But Kotaro was already a little numb. They had nothing to be stolen and robbed, so they became calm. The family barely survived by a half bag of food provided by Muji, a former neighbor, and survived in this hell on earth. The entire Imperial City was like an active volcano about to explode.
However, on the 2nd, just before the struggle between the city of Shima City was completely reduced to a miserable world due to hunger, disease and the struggle between residents, the dawn of hope came. The Okabe family, who went out to negotiate, brought back the news that Yu Qiuping was willing to accept the city of Shima City and provide accommodation and food for everyone. When the news came, the people were unwilling to believe it, and they all thought that this was just a trick to stabilize the people's hearts. However, when the Okabe family's footsteps came to the gathering refugees, distributed the food for the last day, and asked everyone to wait outside the east gate for the evening release, people finally realized that they could leave this hell on earth!
The Rain Qiu Hongye gave up on the continued besieging Yinma City, which was about to fall due to hunger, and was willing to accept these refugees. The people of the Rain Qiu Hongye cheered and sang the kindness of Yu Qiu Hongye with their unimaginable kindness. Even Kotaro, who had many relatives who had died and were extremely distressed and depressed, cried because of the kindness of His Highness.
Chapter completed!