Chapter 30: Jiangchuan Hauling Chant

Two horses were harnessed to the cart, their bridles adorned with red tassels, new iron shoes clattering sharply against the blue stone slabs as they snorted loudly.

The driver was an old hand long employed by the county yamen, wearing a Fan Yang hat and a blue cloth belt; his long whip never cracked lightly—this was the dignity of the magistrate, and galloping through town to disturb the people was unacceptable.

Normally, official travel required runners to clear the way, but this trip was not formal business, so everything was kept simple: only four attendants in black official robes, carrying batons and broadswords, accompanied them.

Though few in number, they faced little danger: peace had reigned for years, and bandits were virtually nonexistent in the Sichuan Basin; moreover, these men had all trained alongside Li Pan on the northwestern frontlines and were highly reliable in combat.

In total, they were more than sufficiently imposing in Shu.

Along the road outside Hejiang County, common folk stepped aside at the sight of the black lacquered carriage and the officials’ uniforms; if gentry spotted them from afar, they would straighten their robes and bow respectfully.

Lu Beigu sat inside the carriage, listening to the clip-clop of hooves and the shouts of the attendants, and suddenly realized this was the tangible form of power—even if only the tiniest end of the Song bureaucracy.

Beyond Hejiang County, the official road stretched endlessly along the southern bank of the Yangtze River.

Outside the city, Fawang Temple was now bustling with laborers in short shirts, preparing the temple, which had been built in the Tang dynasty, damaged by war, yet rebuilt more splendidly than ever.

Dozens of men climbed ladders in pairs to hang rows of colorful banners embroidered with Buddhist sutras or auspicious patterns; the fabric looked like silk, revealing Fawang Temple’s wealth.

“It must be nearing the Buddha Bathing Festival,” Lu Beigu heard someone say outside.

Beyond Fawang Temple, the road entered the wilds; due to the mingling of Han and Yi peoples, bamboo houses built beside the water were common, their roofs thickly thatched with straw, eaves hung with cornelian cherries and dried river fish.

Sometimes barefoot women walked along the river, bamboo baskets on their backs filled with freshly gathered wild greens; upon seeing the official carriage pass, they bowed their heads to yield the road, yet couldn’t help stealing a glance at its grandeur.

Now in late spring, most of the mountain peach blossoms along the road had faded, their pale pink petals clinging to damp moss.

As the carriage passed the boundary marker of Hejiang County, it encountered a group of tea merchants resting by the roadside, wrapped in oil-soaked straw capes, their bamboo packs stacked higher than their heads, steaming with a bitter, fragrant aroma.

“Qingming tea—”

The lead tea merchant, unafraid of the armed attendants, waved his sweat-soaked towel toward the carriage and called out: “Sir, want some fresh buds?”

Li Pan naturally ignored him; Lu Beigu politely lifted the carriage curtain and waved his hand in refusal.

Soon, the carriage and horses rattled on, wheels rolling over deep ruts in the blue stone slabs, gradually receding into the distance.

As they approached Luzhou, the Yangtze split into numerous midstream islands, and the southern road became uneven; mountains stretched endlessly, and from the carriage, woodcutters frequently appeared and vanished amid the mist, their axe strokes blending with the calls of cuckoos.

The next afternoon, they finally reached the ferry dock on the southern bank of Luzhou’s prefectural city.

Here, they would board a large boat to carry both themselves and the carriage across to the northern bank, then continue along the official road toward Chengdu Prefecture.

Li Pan watched Lu Beigu, absorbed in reading the *Selected Examples from the Book of Rites*, borrowed from the school prefect, and said:

“Put the book down for now, step out and get some air—the ferry won’t arrive from the other side for a while.”

“Yes.”

Lu Beigu, immersed in his reading, suddenly realized they had already reached Luzhou.

The group gathered at a tea stall by the ferry.

Several women were leading children to pick mulberry leaves; among the tender green leaves, occasional red-garnet mulberries appeared, prompting the children to tiptoe and reach for them.

Lu Beigu took the green dumpling handed to him by an attendant, bit through the glutinous skin, and tasted the scent of the wilds—it was made from rice flour kneaded with juice from young mugwort gathered just before Qingming, stuffed with roasted walnuts and wild honey.

He had thought such food was unique to Jiangnan; he hadn’t expected it in Sichuan too.

But then again, it made sense: green dumplings originated as a cold dish of the Cold Food Festival in the Tang dynasty; Bai Juyi had once written in Chang’an: “Cold Food dumpling shop, spring lowers the willow branches.”

Given how often Tang emperors fled to Shu, it was natural they brought this dish with them.

“Hey—zuo! Hey—zuo!”

“What’s that?”

Amid the ferry’s clamor, the deep, powerful chant cut through the river wind, drawing Lu Beigu’s gaze as he bit into his dumpling.

By the riverbank, a wooden boat laden with salt sacks was slowly pulling away from shore.

The hull sat low in the water, bow cutting through waves, stern helmsman gripping the rudder, and along its side, over a dozen haulers stood bare-chested, bent forward, thick hemp ropes deeply gouging into their shoulder flesh, leaving dark red scars on their bronze skin.

The lead chanter was a lean old man, his voice hoarse yet piercing.

“Rain falls from heaven, ground turns slick—hey zo!”

“Feet on pebbles, hands claw sand—hey zo!”

Each time he called, the haulers responded in unison, their steps thudding heavily on the slippery pebble beach.

The chant’s words were crude and direct, the haulers’ voices uneven, even hoarse and off-key, yet their sheer grit struck Lu Beigu to the core.

He saw one man slip and kneel into the shallows, instantly yanked upright by a companion; another’s shoulder raw from the rope, spat on the wound, rubbed in dirt, and pushed forward again.

“Hemp rope breaks the spine—hey zo!”

“Wife and child wait for rice to boil—hey zo!”

River wind and spray slapped his face; Lu Beigu suddenly realized the deeper rhythm in the chant was not the measured cadence of scholar poetry, but the wild, undulating pulse of the river itself.

The lead chanter stretched his notes or cut them short; the haulers’ responses rose and fell in sync, perfectly matching the rhythm of hauling.

“What did you hear?” Li Pan, also chewing his dumpling, asked vaguely.

Lu Beigu said seriously: “When the long note sounds, they’re drawing tension into the rope; the short shout is the moment they all push off together—when the pause comes, the rope shudders ‘whirr,’ and the boat surges forward several feet.”

At that moment, the large ferry carrying their carriage arrived.

A one-eyed old boatman from the tea stall came over to urge them aboard; he wasn’t in a hurry, first ordered a bowl of tea, then spat out a mouthful of dregs and grinned at Lu Beigu.

“Young man, you picked up the rhythm? That’s the ‘Jiangchuan Hauling Chant’—the waters above Luzhou are full of hidden reefs; you’ve got to keep this breath alive to push forward!”

As he spoke, a whirlpool suddenly surged beside the river; the wooden boat lurched violently.

The ropes snapped taut, straight as a line—about to snap!

“Dragon King pulls the sail rope—” the old man’s chant rose sharply, nearly breaking.

“Brothers, stake your lives—hey zo!!!”

The haulers all twisted sideways, bracing against the riverbank rocks, toes digging into crevices, neck veins bulging like earthworms.

The boat rocked violently in the storm, then groaned—“crack!”—and broke free of the whirlpool.

Someone’s shoulder had been scraped raw by the rope; blood droplets flew onto the pebbles, instantly swallowed by the rising river.

——————

① Temporary laborers hired in the city.

(End of chapter)