As the capital of the Northern Song Dynasty and a sprawling metropolis with a population of 1.5 million, Bianliang consumed a truly astronomical amount of grain each day. Yet, by that same token, the quantity of grain stored over the years within the city was equally staggering.
—Nestled in the very heart of the fertile Central Plains, Bianliang was surrounded by some of the most historically productive agricultural lands in all of China. Since ancient times, this region had served as the empire's breadbasket. With the imperial government sparing no expense in constructing canals and organizing irrigation systems, the agricultural output was immense. As the hub of inland waterway transport in eastern China, the Song court could easily mobilize vast quantities of provisions from the south via river routes.
Under such circumstances, even if grain appeared scarce on the streets of Bianliang, the storehouses still brimmed with reserves. The grain merchants' guild of Kaifeng alone hoarded no less than two million shi of rice and wheat. In the residences of princes and high-ranking officials, noble houses stockpiling over ten thousand shi were commonplace.
Ten thousand shi of grain, if rationed carefully, could sustain ten thousand people for half a year. At that time, the total food reserves within the city of Bianliang could feed the entire population for at least a year.
But in times of national crisis, there is never a shortage of heartless profiteers and corrupt officials hoarding supplies for gain.
—And so, despite the fact that the Jurchen forces had besieged the city for only a month, famine gripped Bianliang, and its streets became a living hell, strewn with the corpses of the starved.
"Ever since the Jin army encircled the city, the Kaifeng grain merchants, sitting on their mountain of rice, have dreamed of driving prices sky-high, scheming to squeeze the last coin from the common folk," Guo Jing explained to Wang Qiu. "If you were to suddenly flood the market with grain and bring prices down, you'd be shattering their golden dream. What do you think they'd do to you? I may be a fake immortal, but I lack the divine power to protect you from that."
"They're brazenly sabotaging the war effort from within—does Kaifeng Prefecture do nothing to stop them?" Wang Qiu exclaimed in disbelief.
"Who would dare intervene? These grain guilds are colossal conglomerates monopolizing the capital's entire food supply. Do you think they operate without powerful backers? Within this very city, countless princes, princesses, ministers, and nobles are all eagerly awaiting their share of the guilds' spoils."
"Princes and ministers… have they gone mad?" Wang Qiu gasped, his breath catching. "It's already the tenth. In just over half a month, when the Jin army breaches the walls on the twenty-fifth, no matter how much wealth they've amassed, it will all be looted. They themselves will be captured—men enslaved, worked to death; women defiled, bearing illegitimate children by the thousands. Even the Empress could be forced to perform lewd dances or be used as a concubine… The shame and agony of the Jingkang Disaster was no mere legend! And yet what are they doing now? Undermining the already perilous defense of the city?"
As he gazed at the luxurious sedan chairs parading proudly through the streets, Wang Qiu's eyes brimmed with a hint of pity. "Are they courting death? Tempting death? Or simply perfecting the art of self-destruction?"
"What can one do?" Guo Jing shrugged. "Wealth is hard to relinquish. A capitalist will sell the rope that hangs him if the price is right. And in a feudal regime, the ruling class sheds no tears until the coffin is nailed shut."
"You've likely heard of what happened in the Ming Dynasty," Guo Jing went on. "When Li Zicheng marched on Beijing, Emperor Chongzhen, with an empty treasury and unpaid soldiers, pleaded with the capital's aristocrats. Yet those noble houses refused to part with even a coin. With no grain and no pay, the defenders crumbled without a fight. Once Li Zicheng entered the city, he tortured and executed many of those same nobles, extracting seventy million taels of silver. Did they not foresee the consequences? Of course they did. But blinded by greed and false hope, they betrayed the emperor, sealed their own fates, and forfeited their lives.
"Similarly, during the Jingkang era, the Song court's peace faction—desperate to suppress the war party—resorted to treachery. On the eve of the Jin invasion, they forged military orders and dismissed loyalist armies, leaving the capital defenseless. Their goal? To break the war party's morale and prove that resistance was futile. But when the city fell, the Jurchens showed these 'meritorious traitors' no mercy—looting their wealth, ravaging their families, and enslaving them all. The Song court, it seems, was locked in a grim contest to see who could ruin themselves most creatively. Their absurdities would leave even the most jaded observer dumbstruck."
Here, Guo Jing offered a cold, toothy smile. "In truth, if a loyal general were to arrive now with reinforcements, not only would he receive no gratitude, he'd be hated—by both factions! Even the war party would view him with suspicion. Last time, when General Zhong Shidao marched from the northwest to defend Bianjing with thousands of troops, those very courtiers he saved engineered his downfall. Why? Because his army was too strong to control. With such precedents, who among the righteous would not feel disheartened?"
"Heavens! What twisted logic!" Doraemon finally interjected, despite Nobita's blank expression. "Most people yearn for salvation when under siege—yet they despise their saviors? Are they all death cultists? And what of the emperor? Can't he intervene while they ruin the nation?"
"Emperor Qinzong?" Guo Jing scoffed. "He does have more resources than Chongzhen. The palace still holds considerable wealth and grain. But his first obligation is to supply seventy thousand soldiers defending the city—and potentially the reinforcements en route. If he can manage to keep the refugee masses alive with thin gruel, that alone is a miracle. As for punishing the noble hoarders—His Majesty likely lacks the will."
Regardless of whether the robotic feline could comprehend, Guo Jing continued, "And truthfully, in this siege of Bianliang, grain isn't the true issue. Most households had stored supplies before the city was surrounded. The problem is, they won't last long enough to eat through them—the city will fall before then."
—In history, the second siege of Bianliang lasted less than a month, from the start of the leap eleventh month to the city's fall. Much of that time was a standoff; the Jurchens focused on cutting off reinforcements rather than assaulting directly. Yet even so, a city with a million people, seventy thousand soldiers, and mountains of supplies, collapsed.
The Song defenders held out for less time than the 1453 fall of Constantinople, where the last Byzantine emperor resisted an Ottoman horde with merely nine thousand men—for two whole months!
Such was the terrifying might of the Jurchen cavalry—and the staggering ineptitude of the Song imperial army.
But what was more tragic still was the court of the Song in the Jingkang era. One might say, without exaggeration, that a herd of pigs would have governed more wisely.
At least pigs don't rush to their own demise. But humans—they carve their own graves.