House of the Righteous
The battle against the locusts was over in roughly four shichen.
In a mere four shichen, most of the swarm lay dead, fallen across the soil of Sichuan.
It was not total annihilation, of course. Scattered bands of locusts, large and small, still roamed in every direction, gnawing at the greenery and damaging fields that had not been properly prepared. But those were no more than the dying embers of a wildfire.
Clerks from the Provincial Administration and local troops under the Regional Military Commander were already sweeping from farm to farm, crushing the remaining stragglers. Those last pockets would be put down soon enough.
Unlike Yunnan and Guizhou, where people had fought with flails and sulfur smoke, Sichuan had Myeonghwangha—a poison nearly harmless to humans yet lethal to insects—and that made all the difference.
"Blast it! Just keep blasting!"
"You idiot, the Dang Family told us not to do that! Use only as much as you need. Dump too much and you'll kill every other bug along with the locusts—then we're finished!"
"Aren't we supposed to kill all the bugs?"
"If you wipe out the bees and the butterflies, who do you think is going to carry the pollen—our ancestors? And if you kill every mantis and spider, the flies and mosquitoes will throw a festival. That what you want?"
"Ah. Right."
Myeonghwangha had been engineered to vaporize and spread over a vast area specifically to break large swarms. That made it superb against locusts—and dangerous if its side effects were ignored.
Hwi-yeom walked the roads and paddies still littered with locust corpses, receiving Ye-eun's report between the crews hauling them away.
"Damage figures still not in?"
"No, sir. We're still cleaning u— cough, cough—up."
At Ye-eun's dry cough, Hwi-yeom's face tightened with concern.
"You all right? You've looked off since earlier."
Ye-eun waved a hand.
"I simply inhaled more Myeonghwangha than I should have. It's nothing. Please don't trouble yourself."
"Is that so? Still—harmless or not, breathing in that much of anything can't be good. Be careful."
"Yes, sir."
"Anyway… the cleanup is going to be a problem of its own."
Leave a mountain of carcasses to rot and they would foul soil and water, breeding plague. Worse, the aqueducts feeding the city had been choked with locust bodies; if they were not cleared before the underground cisterns ran dry, the entire urban water supply would fail.
"Gathering them up and burning them would be simplest… but at this volume, even that becomes a problem…."
This was medieval Central Plains—no carbon tax to worry about—but incinerating that many locusts would still devour an absurd quantity of fuel.
"And we can't exactly haul them to the ironworks as a coal substitute."
Feed a furnace locusts instead of coking coal and hard coal, and you would never reach the temperatures needed for proper molten iron.
"No—before any of that, this is a resource. Just dumping it feels like a waste…."
Hwi-yeom frowned.
"Can people eat locusts? Fried grasshoppers, roasted ones—they're not bad."
"Young Master, when have you ever eaten something like that?"
"…When I was little."
"Pardon? When I wasn't around?"
"…Even younger than that."
That would have been an age when he could barely feed himself. Ye-eun tilted her head, puzzled. Hwi-yeom shook his own.
Slipped up.
He could not very well explain that the memory belonged to a previous life, so he forced his thoughts back to the locust problem.
The idea of eating them had flickered through his mind—until he saw the faces of the people staring at the corpses. He shook his head at once.
That kind of revulsion doesn't vanish overnight. And it isn't as if anyone is starving.
The full tally was still coming in, but Sichuan had weathered the plague remarkably well. With the grain stockpiled last year released as relief, the province would have more than enough.
What else, then… Hmm. There's a mountain of the things. Fertilizer, maybe?
The moment the word fertilizer formed, something sparked behind his eyes.
Using them raw would invite plant disease and acidify the soil. But if we dry and age them for a long time, then mix in lime…?
Locust shells were chitin—rich in phosphorus, nitrogen, and potassium, not unlike guano, that fossilized bat dung which was the premier ingredient for gunpowder and chemical fertilizer.
Pack abandoned coal mines full of locust corpses—dark, dry places—and leave them for years. Fungi and parasites die off on their own… and what you get is fertilizer that can stand in for guano.
Bat droppings sat for ages before becoming guano. Why shouldn't locust corpses work the same way?
Hwi-yeom grinned.
"Handled right, this could replace natural guano deposits decades from now, once those run dry…."
He issued orders through Ye-eun at once.
And so—
"What? Haul the locust corpses into the abandoned coal mines?"
"Well, nowhere decent to bury them, and burning them's a nightmare. Works for me."
"Yeah, but the mines are up in the mountains. Hauling all this up there on our backs…."
"What, are we saving the oxcarts to stew for dinner? Why are you worrying about the hard part?"
Sichuan's commoners and the Dang Family's laborers took the order and set to work, shoveling the roads and paddies clean, packing cart after cart high with locust dead.
Across the whole of Sichuan, processions of wagons loaded with the corpses of hundreds of millions of locusts stretched on without end.
Bodies that had fallen into canals, aqueducts, fountains, and rivers were too damp; storing them with the rest would only breed rot. Those were gathered separately and burned with pitch and coal as kindling.
Clearing Sichuan of its carpet of locust corpses took seven full days and nights.
Once the dead were gone, people turned at last to their own fields.
"Thank you! Bodhisattva Guanyin, thank you!!"
A farmer whose land might never have been touched at all dropped to his knees, tears of joy streaming as he stared up at the sky.
"Ah… well, if it's only this much…."
Households that had taken some damage still wore bitter expressions, but they managed wry smiles and squared their sagging shoulders.
"A locust swarm hit us and we got off this light. Grumbling about it would be shameless."
"Damn right!"
Even the paddies left without insect nets, or those where the nets had torn and the swarm broken through, had suffered less than anyone expected. Roughly eight-tenths of the crops had survived.
"No way anything was living through that pesticide fog."
"They sprayed the fields too, remember? Eat and die. That's what saved us."
"What would we have done without the Dang Family?"
"Whew. Joining the Agricultural Cooperative really was the best decision of my life."
Not every farmer shared that fortune.
Members of the Cooperative who had still run short of nets—and who, even with the pesticide's help, had lost half their fields—heaved long, bitter sighs.
"Haa…."
"Hey, wipe that look off your face. You've got the crop purchase guarantee contract, don't you?"
"I've got it."
"Take that to the Cooperative and they'll buy your whole yield at the average market price. Stop fretting."
"That's what they promised… but will they really?"
"Come on, man. If you can't trust the Dang Family, who can you trust?"
"Mm… fair point!"
"And the Provincial Administration is in on it too, aren't they? Stop worrying."
"Honestly… thank heaven we live in Sichuan. Thank heaven."
Others had lost everything.
"Aigoo—!! How am I supposed to live now—!! Aigoo—!! Even Heaven has no heart—!!"
A handful of farmers who had never sprayed pesticide and never joined the Cooperative sat collapsed before fields reduced to yellow dust and paddies turned to stagnant ponds, wailing.
"Isn't that the Park family? They never joined the Cooperative?"
"Seems that way."
"What now? Without relief they'll starve."
"Well… the Dang Family will sort it out eventually, won't they?"
Too late, those farmers beat the earth and cursed themselves for staying out of the Cooperative.
Cooperative members who had taken losses reported their damage at once. Jin Cheong compiled the figures into a formal report and submitted it to Hwi-yeom.
Once the tally was complete, Hwi-yeom carried it to Dang Un-sang, then the two of them set out together for the Provincial Administration to meet the Provincial Governor and the Regional Military Commander.
"You go. To the Provincial Office."
"Father—you're the head of the family. Sending me alone to a seat this important… people will talk…."
"They're summoning us because they want to hear what you have to say anyway. Let's not exhaust each other for nothing. If anyone asks, tell them I'm ill."
"…Yes, sir."
Hwi-yeom's lower lip pushed out in a pout.
Dang Un-sang, for his part, intended to sit alone in his chambers and refine his martial arts.
A hundred and eight thousand fiery rain was nowhere near enough. Ten thousand thousand fiery rain—I must resurrect the Ten Thousand Heavens of Fiery Rain if the Dang Family's hidden-weapon arts are ever to live again.
To banish the sense of powerlessness, he had chosen the most martial path available to him.
In the end, cleaning up after the catastrophe fell not to a martial artist, but to a businessman: Hwi-yeom.
And yet—
"Ah, that is… my father…."
"It's fine. Un-sang must have had his reasons for staying away. You're here, and that is what matters. Haha."
Neither the Provincial Governor nor the Regional Military Commander cared in the least that Dang Un-sang had sent only Hwi-yeom.
Watching them, Hwi-yeom found his thoughts turning heavy.
The Sichuan Dang Family… is this truly all right?
Whatever his private misgivings, he laid out the materials he had prepared with crisp precision.
The grounds on which the locust plague had been foreseen.
How the countermeasures had been prepared.
How the swarm had been sighted, engaged, and broken.
And finally, what the results had been.
"…That concludes the total damage sustained across Sichuan Province."
His clear, methodical account left both the Provincial Governor and the Regional Military Commander openly astonished.
"Remarkable. Truly remarkable. After a locust plague, and this is the full extent of it?"
"At this level we can go beyond relieving Sichuan—we may even be able to aid Yunnan and Guizhou, which took far heavier losses!"
Official fields: fully intact. Civilian fields: seven- to eight-tenths preserved. The vast farmlands held by the Sichuan Dang Family: untouched.
"I had thought recovering even half would be heaven's own mercy…."
"This is all thanks to Your Excellency the Provincial Governor's foresight in preparing early, and to Your Excellency the Regional Military Commander's skillful deployment of the troops against the swarm, is it not?"
Hwi-yeom smiled as he gilded their faces with praise. Both high officials blossomed with pleasure.
"Sichuan appears to owe the Dang Family a great debt."
"You are too kind, Your Excellency. Still, some form of recognition from the local government would seem appropriate…."
"Let me think what would serve… Hmm…."
After a moment's thought the Provincial Governor clapped his hands, struck by an idea.
"Ah—what if we raise a stele of meritorious virtue in every village the locusts failed to devour, praising the Sichuan Dang Family's grace, and bestow upon the family the title of House of the Righteous?"
"Oh, excellent, Governor."
"Is it not? All will praise the Dang Family's virtue, and with the title of House of the Righteous, one of the family's bloodline may even be recommended for the Filial and Incorrupt examination. Good for everyone, wouldn't you say, Commander?"
"I concur."
"And what do you think?"
"Mm…."
Hwi-yeom, who had been listening quietly, answered with the same smiling face.
"If it would not inconvenience Your Excellencies, I would prefer a different form of compensation."
"A different form?"
The Provincial Governor's eyes narrowed, twin daggers of suspicion: Surely you are not about to demand money at a moment like this? Hwi-yeom shook his head.
"Raising steles of meritorious virtue costs money and labor. If the purpose is to honor the Dang Family's efforts, I do not believe such monuments are necessary."
"Mm, even so…."
"Nor do we need the title of House of the Righteous. The Dang Family is not a great aristocratic house of the court, but a clan of the murim, and to my knowledge none among us seek official posts. Would it not be a waste of a Filial and Incorrupt recommendation?"
"Hoh—to refuse the Filial and Incorrupt…."
Recommendation as Filial and Incorrupt was effectively a fast track into high office—the equivalent of a special appointment as a county magistrate. That anyone would decline it widened both officials' eyes.
Hwi-yeom only offered a wry smile.
Trying to settle a debt of gratitude with a monument and a district chief's post? How cheap.
What Hwi-yeom sought was profit—greater profit. So he swung for the fences.
"Instead! Grant us the monopoly rights to handle Yunnan Province's tea!"