A monk wearing a raincoat and a bamboo hat, holding a Zen staff, is walking in the countryside of Kyoto.
Like an ascetic, he has been measuring the distance of this land with his own feet.
In Buddhism, it is believed that all living beings suffer, but there is a limit to the crying of living beings, and ascetics feel that as long as they suffer a little more, they can make other sentient beings suffer less.
It is a very unreasonable thought, but they firmly believe in it and continue to do so.
Master Lianhua followed the practices of the ascetic monks completely and began to observe this part of Kyoto.
He didn't know how many days he had been practicing hard. It seemed that he had gone in a big circle, and he came to the edge of the farmland near the Yawata River again.
More than half a month ago, an unusually large plague broke out with the Yawata River as its source. Everyone here has died, and almost all those who contracted the plague have died.
In this era, infectious bacillus gangrene is a disease that has no cure, and it is a subspecies that mutated from the corpse of a demon.
The area near the Yawata River was originally fertile land, accounting for almost 40% of Kyoto's grain production. At this time, most of the farmers in the area were dilapidated, and a large number of them had begun to be demolished.
The original farmland had been abandoned for more than ten days, and almost all the harvestable food had become food for pests and birds.
He returned here again, and this was also the last stop of his penance.
At this time, this area was completely controlled by the Fujiwara family, with two ashigaru guarding the area, and some farmers were clearing away abandoned rice ears and weeds in the fields.
Farmers who clean up rice fields will secretly pull some grains still on the ears of rice into their pockets from time to time. After finishing the farm work in a field, their pockets will become bulging.
The two guarding ashigaru seemed to have noticed these small actions, but they didn't react at all.
Even if the ears of rice in such fields are deliberately recycled, less than 10% can be recovered, and it is estimated that they cannot even recover the cost, so they simply let these farmers collect it themselves.
These farmers worked for a day, and Master Lianhua also watched them for a day.
When the sky was about to set, a group of women holding bamboo baskets and wearing headscarves began to appear near the farmland here. Master Lianhua thought these people were farmers in the fields and paid no attention to them.
It was getting dark and the place was almost cleaned up. The two ashigaru began to call the farmers together and cursed: "Our master is kind-hearted and will not be held accountable for secretly hiding the rice ears in his pocket, but When we plant those magical potatoes tomorrow, whoever dares to steal them will be punished."
"Don't feel relaxed. There was a man who secretly took away more than ten potatoes before. After being caught, he was tied up in the city and left to dry in the sun for three days without food or water. Let's see how many of the people inside can endure it." Another person echoed.
These farmers all nodded and bowed in thanks. Their pockets were almost full of rice ears. Even if they wanted to, they couldn't hide it and could only keep bowing.
The two Ashigaru left with the farmers to give them their share of work and food for the day.
As for coming to those peasant women, he didn't say much.
At this time, the peasant women all took action. They seemed to be bringing their families with them. Master Lianhua also saw some people carrying a baby on their backs and holding gray-headed children in their hands. They came to the farmland like locusts. middle.
"What is this going to do?" Master Lianhua decided to take a closer look. He originally thought that these people were farmers in the fields, but found that they were not. They seemed to have come to the fields and bent down to pick something.
When Master Lianhua walked in and took a look, he found that they were bent over, picking up rice one after another on the ground.
The rice on the ground that was either buried in the soil or still growing on the rice stalks was like gold to them. They lowered their heads and kept picking it up, for fear of missing it. Any rice at any place.
At this moment, even Master Lianhua, who had been practicing asceticism for more than half a month, let out a long sigh.
If he hadn't seen it with his own eyes, he would never have imagined that such a situation would occur in Kyoto, which was once the ancient capital during the Heian period.
Even if you take one bite of this kind of rice, you may eat hundreds or even thousands of grains, but each grain is picked up by bending down from the ground.
He saw a peasant woman with a scarf on her head that had turned completely khaki, because there were two thin children under ten years old beside her, who were also gathering rice ears together with the peasant woman.
Master Lianhua stepped forward and began to ask: "Is it possible to eat enough by picking up ears like this?"
The peasant woman saw Master Lianhua dressed as a monk. She hurriedly put a handful of rice with soil in her hand into the package and said, "Master, we don't want to be full, we just want to be able to go home and cook." Just serve a pot of porridge."
"Then the Fujiwara family won't stop such actions?" Master Renhua asked the doubts in his heart.
"No, no, if the rice falls into the soil, it will affect the planting in the coming year. The Fujiwara family also allows us to pick it up. As long as the fields are not planted with things like earth balls, we will pick up a few. All over.”
"How much can you pick up in that day?"
"If there are more, there can be three or four handfuls, and if there are few, there are about one or two handfuls, so that Taro Erlang can eat more." The old woman looked at the two children beside her.
"Well, how old are you now?"
"Twenty to six."
Master Lianhua was silent. He had always thought that the old woman in front of him, with a face full of wrinkles and dark brown skin that seemed to be wrinkled, would be nearly forty years old.
However, he learned that such a person was only twenty-six years old...
"Then let me help you..." Master Lianhua also began to come to the field to glean ears. His appearance as a monk seemed incompatible with the gray-faced people present.
Only when the sun was setting in the west and almost nothing could be seen as far as the eye could see, people left one after another.
After what they told them, they would still be able to pick it up for an hour before dawn tomorrow morning.
"Brother Lianhua, the troops of the Genji shogunate in the city of God have pressed in. We have to go back to the temple to discuss how to deal with it." At this time, another monk seemed to have made a special trip to see Master Lianhua and said.
Looking at the departing figures, Master Renhua slowly came back to his senses and said: "Brother Renzhong, how do you think we should stand in line this time? Should we continue to help the Fujiwara family? Or should we continue to do what we did in the past? Ignore the fights between nobles?"
"Young monk, do you think it's okay to ignore it?"
"How many people will die? As for those peasant women who left, how many of them will survive in this war?" Master Lianhua asked as he looked at the hunchbacked figure.
"Half of it..."
"Then assist the Fujiwara family. I want to see the world described by our master, a world where everyone can live..." He murmured as he looked at the sunset setting over the mountains.