Chengcheng County woke up loud.
Suspiciously loud.
By midmorning, people were pouring toward the magistrate's office like a rumor had learned to walk.
"What's going on today?"
"No idea."
"You didn't hear? It's a festival."
"A festival? New Year's isn't for another half month."
"This one's special."
"Special how?"
"The Heavenly Honored Bacon-and-Potato-Rice Festival."
"…What?"
"That name alone should be illegal."
The county folk were still amateurs.
If this were Gao Family Village, the moment someone said festival, they'd already be lining up with bowls and religious enthusiasm. City people, though—still innocent. Still learning that the Dao Xuan Tianzun treated reality like a suggestion.
Nearly ten thousand residents flooded the square.
Then they smelled it.
The magistrate, Liang Shixian, sat exactly where he always did during relief distributions—calm, watchful, pretending this was normal governance. In front of him, yamen runners, hangers-on, and conscripted laborers worked like surgeons in a crisis ward: hacking massive grains of rice, slabs of cured meat, and unfamiliar yellow blocks into smaller, manageable truths.
Bowls moved down the line.
The first man took a bite.
His face collapsed into joy.
"—It's good. No, it's really good."
"The rice is fragrant!"
"The meat—this cured meat is absurd!"
"What's the yellow thing?"
"That," someone said reverently, "is called a potato. A new crop. Dao Xuan Tianzun says if we ever get seeds, we must plant them."
"Where do you even get seeds like that?"
"Xi'an."
"Then next time Honglang comes to collect embroidery, she'll bring some back."
"Good. I'm planting this. Even if Heaven collapses."
This was always how new crops spread.
Not pamphlets. Not lectures.
One bite.
Meanwhile, another operation was underway.
Outside the city, carts rolled toward Wang Chengen's encampment.
One thousand five hundred men required an unreasonable amount of food, so everything was minced, diced, recombined—nutrients disguised as mercy—and shoveled into barrels. The carts creaked under their own generosity.
Wang Chengen had just been wondering why the city sounded like it was celebrating surviving the apocalypse when the gates opened and the smell hit him.
He blinked.
Liang Shixian stepped forward, smiling like a man who knew exactly how strange this was.
"General Wang," he said, "you march to suppress bandits. The people remember that. This is their thanks."
Wang Chengen froze.
This was not how this usually went.
Armies arrived, civilians hid.
Armies left, civilians counted losses.
He had ordered his troops to camp outside specifically to avoid frightening the county. And now the county was feeding them?
He felt something dangerous stir.
Gratitude.
He cupped his hands. "Then I will not insult the people by refusing."
The soldiers surged forward.
One sniff and discipline nearly collapsed.
"There's meat in the rice!"
"Actual meat!"
"This smells like a good year."
A personal guard handed Wang Chengen a bowl.
He ate.
Paused.
Then stared at it like it had betrayed time itself.
This wasn't just good—it was layered. Complex. The kind of flavor that required wealth, trade routes, and a future. Potatoes he had tasted before, boiled into obedience. This—this had ambition.
Crushed potato. Rice. Cured meat. Seasoning expensive enough to make accountants cry.
Wang Chengen exhaled. "If the garrisons learned to grow this… famine would loosen its grip."
Liang Shixian nodded politely, as if discussing weather rather than survival.
Around them, soldiers ate like men remembering what it felt like to matter.
Morale, that invisible currency, quietly spiked.
Then hooves thundered.
A rider tore in from the southwest, screaming before his horse even slowed.
"Eight hundred li urgent dispatch! Imperial command—!"
He didn't dismount so much as fall off.
Blood, dust, panic.
"Late tenth month," he gasped. "Enemy forces split three ways. Daan Pass—lost. Zhou Zhen killed. Longjing Pass—breached. Hongshan—collapsed. Zhang Wanchun surrendered."
Silence.
"Jizhou encircled. Eleventh month—capital under martial law."
Wang Chengen's bowl slipped in his hand.
The rider continued, voice breaking history apart piece by piece.
"Huang Taiji personally led the assault. Guided by the Khorchin Mongols. Zunhua fell. Zhao Shuai-jiao died in relief. Entire army destroyed. Officials died holding the walls. None surrendered."
Wang Chengen went pale.
"The capital is in danger."
"Orders," the rider said. "All commanders to mobilize immediately. You are to return to Xi'an, join the other four generals, and march to defend the capital."
Wang Chengen stared at the food in his hands.
Then clenched it.
"If I leave," he said slowly, "what happens to Shaanxi? What about Fanshan Yue, still wearing a uniform while robbing the people?"
No one answered.
Because everyone already knew the truth:
Empires don't collapse because no one fights.
They collapse because everyone is ordered elsewhere.
Trivia :
Why potatoes matter: In the late Ming, potatoes were not yet widely adopted in North China. They thrive on poor land and require less labor—meaning they quietly undermine famine, bandit recruitment, and tax collapse. One crop, many consequences.
Why morale wins wars: Ming armies often lost not from inferior weapons, but from hunger. A fed soldier obeys orders. A hungry one listens to rumors.
Why the capital panic matters: Once Beijing entered emergency defense, local governance everywhere suffered. Bandits flourished not because they were strong—but because the state's attention blinked.