I had originally planned to rest for another day, but before the sun had even risen, General Zhao was already back. He stood right at my doorstep, calling out to me repeatedly. My mother woke me up, and since it was the General calling, I decided I might as well get up.
I asked him, "Weren't we supposed to leave tomorrow? What are you doing here so early?" He looked a bit embarrassed. "18th Prince, this... this..." I cut him off, "What is with the 'this' and 'that'? Just say it." He explained that those two brothers I had mentioned yesterday had insisted on eating meat. Once the other prisoners saw the meat, they all started clamoring for it as well. He had no choice but to feed them all a meal of meat. I shrugged, "So they ate it, so what?" He replied, "My money is all gone." I was incredulous. "You are a Great General, and you managed to spend all your money feeding a few thousand people a single meal? That’s ridiculous." He sighed, "18th Prince, you have no idea how much those people can eat. Perhaps you don't truly understand the concept of 'meat' to them."
He told me that for them, one meal of meat was equivalent to two months' worth of standard rations. When I did the math, I was shocked. There were at least five thousand people in those prison cells; that was an immense amount of food.
Chapter 22