Magistrate Li Wenhu stood below the city wall, muttering a curse under his breath.
"Cai Fang," he asked the person beside him, "it's this late, surely they won't fail to come?"
The middle-aged man standing next to him was clad in a crumpled long robe, his face turned blue with cold, persistently stamping his feet and rubbing his hands, yet his expression remained determined: "Wait a bit longer. They should arrive today no matter what."
Li Wenhu looked towards the deserted city gates in the distance.
An infestation of locusts had struck Su Nan County.
The locust disaster destroyed the crops, and without food, famine soon ensued.
The disaster relief grain and money trickle down from the court still hadn't arrived, and the epidemic in Su Nan struck first.
This epidemic was fierce, in just a few months, more than half of the city's population had died.
