Chapter 32: Observations at the Relay Station

As they set out again, the sky suddenly changed.

The contours of the northern mountain ranges of Luzhou were blurred by rain and mist into a cyan-gray hue, yet farmers in the paddy fields by the roadside were still bent over transplanting rice seedlings.

Their brown straw rain capes merged into a single mass within the curtain of rain; an old man wearing a bamboo hat stood on the field ridge, pouring fish fry from a bamboo basket into a pond beside the paddy, where silver-bright fish tails flashed briefly in the muddy seedling fields before vanishing.

As the sudden rain eased and twilight descended, the carriage climbed a slope passing a mountain pass, the sunset dyeing the entire expanse of hills orange-red.

The terraced rape flower fields on the slope had already set seed, and several village women carried bamboo baskets, harvesting the last of the tender rape stems.

Farther away in a mountain hollow, evening cooking smoke rose curling from the thatched roofs of cottages, winding with the mountain mist and drifting toward the direction of Jin'guan City.

After resting one night and leaving Luzhou to head north, they had completely entered the Sichuan Basin, where the mountain ranges vanished entirely.

On the endless flatlands, the number of farmlands along both sides of the official road began to drop sharply, replaced instead by vast expanses of mulberry groves; now approaching early summer, the mulberry leaves were extremely thick and oily-shiny, gleaming with an oil-like luster under the sunlight.

Lu Beigu noticed that basically every hundred paces there was a stone-built well, with a windlass mounted on the well platform, and often women would use bamboo poles to lower silk-rearing trays into the wells for washing.

"Never seen it?"

"Never seen it." Lu Beigu was also quite curious. "The people in Anle Creek mostly make their living by planting sorghum, brewing wine, and gathering mountain produce; they have never seen silkworm raising."

"This is 'bathing the silkworms'."

Li Pan explained, "Silkworm farmers in the Shu region emphasize 'three baths and three dormancies'; well water is cool, which can stop silkworm diseases, or rather, silkworms unable to withstand such cold cannot survive."

"Nature selects; the fittest survive."

Hearing this, Li Pan paused slightly, pondered it, then smiled and said, "Those words are interesting, incisive."

After traveling for most of the afternoon, Lu Beigu had finally read more than half of the reference book *Li Ji Ju Yu*, and they had arrived at a relay station suitable for resting.

On the Song Dynasty official roads, there were relay posts every twenty li, and relay stations every forty li.

But the relay posts were not for their use; they were military, under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of War.

The Song Dynasty had a famous rapid military postal system called "Ji Jiao Di," capable of covering four hundred li per day at fastest, established specifically for urgent military intelligence.

Dai Zong, the Star of Heavenly Speed in *Water Margin*, nicknamed the Divine Walker Taibao, was described in the book as possessing Daoist techniques and the Divine Walking Method; tying divine walking wooden horses to his legs, he could travel up to eight hundred li per day at fastest; this ability was roughly derived from the "Ji Jiao Di" as its prototype.

And what was truly for their use was the relay station.

The primary duty of Song Dynasty relay stations was to provide lodging, meals, and horse-changing services for passing officials and clerks, similar to modern inns.

After their carriage drove through the courtyard gate of the relay station, Lu Beigu also got down from the carriage with Li Pan.

Stretching his back and waist, which had become somewhat sore from sitting, he glanced around the surroundings.

Within the walls built of blue bricks, two ancient locust trees cast dappled shadows, and from the stable came alternating snorting sounds.

The station master, wearing a round-collar robe, was directing laborers to move fodder; seeing the carriage and horses arrive, he quickly brushed his sleeves and stepped forward to welcome them.

After verifying Li Pan's identity, the station master's attitude instantly became three parts more respectful: "There are still several upper rooms in the rear courtyard; please!"

Saying this, he led the group through the front hall, where wooden plaques were nailed to the pillars inside the hall, densely recording the officials who had stopped there this month.

"On the sixth day, Wang Moumou, an official handling public affairs for the Zizhou Circuit Transport Commission, accompanied by three attendants and two horses."

"On the eighth day, Zheng Moumou, the Inspector of the Yizhou Circuit Judicial and Prison Administration, delivered one sealed dispatch."

Lu Beigu glanced at the rows of red-lacquered dispatch boxes under the corridor; each compartment was labeled with tags for different circuits; the compartments destined for Lizhou Circuit and Kuizhou Circuit were already stuffed full, obviously because the long journey made each trip arduous, so they had to pile them up until full before sending; whereas for places closer to the relay station like Yizhou Circuit and Zizhou Circuit, the compartments appeared somewhat empty.

As soon as they put down their luggage and turned to come out for a meal, they heard the sound of carriage bells again on the official road in the distance.

This time it was a group of escorting guards transporting prisoners; the leading captain was drunk, handing over the travel voucher while shouting to get a meal quickly.

The station master, with a bitter face, took the travel voucher and pulled out an account book to register it.

Lu Beigu, with keen eyes, clearly saw the station master casually write "ten" after "fodder consumed," hesitate, then add "five," changing it to "fifteen" bundles.

"Taking advantage of public resources; this is true in all ages," he muttered to himself.

Soon the dishes were served: three dishes and one soup, including pickled vegetables, plain vegetables, and meat dishes.

The pickled vegetable dish was a plate of soy-marinated shredded melon, made by shredding pickled melon strips and mixing them with garlic paste, vinegar, and a little sesame oil; salty, fresh, crisp, and very appetizing with rice.

The plain vegetable dish was boiled cabbage, simply cooked in clear water, sprinkled with a bit of salt, and served in a clay bowl; it looked like it had no flavor.

However, the meat dish looked quite appetizing; it was pan-fried fish preserved in brine. The method involved cutting carp into pieces, marinating them with salt and wine lees, then pan-frying until golden; the fish skin was crispy, the flesh salty and fragrant with a chewy texture, somewhat like the fried hairtail Lu Beigu had eaten before.

As for the soup, it was a bowl of scallion-white soup, slightly spicy, enough to warm the stomach and dispel the cold, but by no means delicious.

The station master apologized with a forced smile: "Official road relay stations are not like the restaurants in prefectural cities; the food is coarse and rough, please forgive us."

Li Pan waved his hand, saying only, "It is already better than other relay stations on the way we came."

With that, he broke off a piece of steamed bun, dipped it in the oily juice of the preserved fish, and began to eat.

Lu Beigu scooped a spoonful of soup, ate it with millet rice, and picked up some soy-marinated shredded melon, finding the meal quite comfortable.

At the neighboring table, the escorting guards transporting prisoners were also eating, but their meal was even worse than theirs; they couldn't even see a trace of meat. The relay station served dishes according to the person's status; Li Pan was a county magistrate, while the opposing leader was merely a captain.

The clerks accompanying their own party, after just glancing at the prisoners at the opposite table, could not help but ask.

"Ho! A square-headed cangue, five-pound leg irons; what heavenly crime did he commit?"

Hearing this, Lu Beigu also turned his head.

The prisoner was an honest-looking middle-aged man, tall and sturdy, with a sallow complexion, his head hanging low.

He wore a square-headed cangue locking his neck and hands; the cangue was made of paulownia wood, its edges wrapped in ragged cotton cloth to prevent chafing the flesh, looking to weigh at least twenty-some jin. That was not all; on his feet were leg irons, with a ball weighing about five jin attached to the chain above; with any slight movement, the copper bell inside would ring.

To be honest, even Wu Song in *Water Margin* did not receive such treatment.

Both sides were officials, so naturally they could converse; the drunk captain on the opposite side simply said, "The entire household that provided the seedling money was slaughtered."

This was a capital crime at the highest level; according to the "General Principles" section of the *Song Xing Tong*, it belonged to the category of "Ten Abominations," which would not be pardoned even in a general amnesty; the result was most likely death by heavy beating, and less likely death by lingchi; the latter probability was very small, having occurred only once during the Tiansheng era in recent years.

In short, in the eyes of the officials on both sides, this man was no different from a dead man.

"What was the reason?" Lu Beigu asked.

The escorting guard merely mumbled, "Probably because he couldn't pay it back."

And the yellow-faced man silently ate the rice ball specially hand-kneaded for him on the spot, not even raising his eyes; Lu Beigu did not dare to ask further, so he lowered his head to eat.

After finishing the meal, Li Pan, probably having sat in the carriage for too long, suggested that everyone go out for a stroll.

Although Lu Beigu did not want to admit that his young body was not as sturdy as Li Pan's forty-year-old old man, to speak the truth, he actually really wanted to lie down; but since the county magistrate wanted to stroll, he could hardly say, "I'll go back and lie down for a while," could he?

So, he could only follow along and head out.

This relay station sat on the official road that ran straight through to Chengdu Prefecture, and because of its convenient transport links, a settlement had gradually grown up around it.

The group wandered aimlessly, and after rounding a low wall at the back of the relay station, overgrown with kudzu vines, dozens of neatly arranged flower-loom brocade weaving frames suddenly came into view.

This was a Shu brocade weaving workshop that produced Shu brocade.

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① A silkworm tray is a common piece of silkworm-raising equipment in Shu; it is woven from bamboo strips or reeds and is used to hold mulberry leaves and silkworms.

② "Jiao" is a term commonly used in the postal system of the Song dynasty, meaning a parcel; "di jiao" means to mail a parcel. As for "fengpi" (the wrapper), this is because the transmission of official documents was divided into "tongfeng" and "shifeng" — that is, non-classified mail and classified mail. On a tongfeng wrapper, a summary of the contents was pasted on; a shifeng wrapper, beyond being sealed in the usual manner, had to be additionally folded over at the corners and re-sealed with paper, and the serial number of the contents had to be written on the wrapper without revealing what was inside.

③ A paper warrant entitling the bearer to ride the relay station's horses and carriages and to use its laborers. Wu Chuhou, an official of Emperor Renzong's reign, recorded the origin of the relay warrant in "Yi Quan" from his Qing Xiang Za Ji: "Before the Tang, the post stations all issued chuan 【passes】 for travel; in the Kaiyuan period, in the interest of simplicity and convenience, paper warrants were issued instead, and the practice of issuing warrants at the post stations began from then on." The Song followed the Tang system, and this institution was inherited as well; it is also recorded in the "Treatise on Officials, Chapter 12" of the Song Shi.

(End of chapter)