In a Year of Great Drought, Starting as a County Granary Clerk

Food doesn’t simply vanish. Before it reaches the hungry, people divert it at every step. In the thirty-seventh year of Taiping under the Great Ning, a severe drought struck Yongzhou. When Lu Chen came to, twenty thousand starving people outside the city were battering the granary gates. The grain ledger claimed that Qinghe County’s granary held twelve thousand shi of grain. But when the doors opened, all that remained was a thin layer of old grain scattered across the floor. The granary had to open in two hours. The disaster relief inspector would arrive in seven days. And the keys to the granary, along with the records of every grain shipment, were in the hands of Lu Chen, a low-ranking granary clerk. If he couldn’t find the grain, he’d be executed for stealing from the granary. If he didn’t open it, the people outside would die today. Starting with the recovery of the first sack of grain, Lu Chen cleans up the county granaries, stabilizes grain prices, repairs irrigation works, opens trade routes, and reforms river transport. Only many years later does the world understand: What he protected was never just a granary, but a path that allowed ordinary people to survive.