[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":-1},["ShallowReactive",2],{"origin-a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army":3,"chapter-a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-chapter-604":6},{"origin":4,"title":5},"chinese","A Little Soldier of the Late Ming Border Army",{"chapter":7,"nextChapterSlug":19,"prevChapterSlug":20,"totalChapters":21,"novelImage":22},{"id":8,"novel_id":9,"title":10,"slug":11,"index":12,"content":13,"wordcount":14,"created_at":15,"updated_at":15,"volume":16,"translator":17,"content_hash":18},1205893,1561,"Chapter 604: Seething Without Cease","a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-chapter-604",604,"\u003Cp>In the eleventh month of the fourteenth year of the Chongzhen reign, at Yanqing Subprefecture.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The weather grew ever colder, and from time to time flurries of snow drifted down from the sky; when people trod the roads, their footsteps often went creak-creak.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This was also the farming slack season, so business at the various teahouses grew ever better — having the tea master brew a pot of hot tea, then listening to the storyteller recount a tale of the Liaodong campaign was truly a wonderful pleasure, especially now when tea leaves were being rationed…\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Out of many considerations, the tea leaf supply to the teahouses was not much less than in ordinary days.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>When granaries are full, people know courtesy; when food and clothing are sufficient, they know honor and shame. After years of development, the Eastern Circuit’s economic strength had steadily risen, and with more and more wealthy households migrating from all over the Great Ming in recent years, the leisure class had grown even larger, so the demand for cultural entertainment had become ever more enormous.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Where there is demand, there is a market. Storytellers and opera troupes from every region, seeing the prospects for profit, had all moved in, bringing the common people of the Eastern Circuit an extremely rich entertainment life. Moreover, with the Eastern Circuit’s fine public order, each city and each fort had successively lifted their curfews, making cultural life even more varied and colorful.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>From the east came the fashionable ditties of the capital and the music of the palace music academies; from the west came the clapper operas of Shanxi; from the south came the Kunqu opera of Jiangnan — the Eastern Circuit had every kind of troupe. From a culturally barren land to a center of entertainment resources, the soldiers and civilians of the Eastern Circuit could now righteously and boldly curse outsiders and people from other garrisons as country bumpkins!\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Of course, nine-tenths of the storytellers and opera troupes in every city were inner-circle or outer-circle personnel of the Intelligence Bureau’s Propaganda Section, and each month they had set tasks requiring them to propagate whatever the Shogunate needed propagated.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Recently, the task at every teahouse was naturally to vigorously extol the Liaodong campaign and the series of tragic and stirring stories within it. The Grand General Wang Dou and the Border-Pacifying Army under his command were naturally the weightiest of the weighty; Wang Pu, Fu Yingchong, Wu Sangui, and other supporting figures were also being urgently written into the repertoire.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And most recently, the urgent task for every storyteller and opera troupe was to furiously denounce treacherous officials and treacherous merchants, blackening their names from every angle. In truth, there was no need to blacken them — whatever tidbits the Intelligence Bureau casually leaked, combined with personal experience, were more than enough to fill the audience with righteous fury.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>In a place like Yanqing Subprefecture, there were many old-style literati, gentry, merchants, and officials; many wealthy outside migrants also preferred to move to Huailai City, Yanqing City, Baoan Guard City, and the like. Elsewhere, they always felt out of place with those new military households.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Yet even in Yanqing Subprefecture, listening to the storytelling in the teahouses, even if some privately disapproved, they dared not question the content too much. The Eastern Circuit was now increasingly coalescing into a single whole; they had only one choice — either blend in, or be cast out.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Besides, the content was truly brilliant. Though inwardly conflicted, they still could not resist listening, just as many later-age audiences and readers curse the author or director yet cannot resist following along — the exact same psychology.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Like the other forts of the Eastern Circuit, Yanqing Subprefecture also had numerous temples; the Manfu Teahouse near the City God Temple was famously well-known throughout Yanqing Subprefecture.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At this moment in the main hall, the storyteller had set up his platform, his clapper cracking sharply as he launched into a spirited account of the Grand General single-handedly battling a cabal of villains. He spoke with spittle flying, and the audience below and on the second and third floors listened with faces alight with delight.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The door curtain lifted, bringing in a gust of cold air, and several young men walked in. Each of them wore a soft cap and a round-collared, narrow-sleeved robe, with a sharp sword at the waist — full of heroic vigor, they inevitably drew some people’s attention.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At present in the Eastern Circuit, only soldiers and students could carry weapons on their persons; all others, even if they held a sword permit or a firearm permit, had to keep their weapons stored at home.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Soldiers aside, students held a very high status in the Eastern Circuit. Perhaps, too, they were students of the Guanshan Academy in Yanqing. Yet nowadays fewer and fewer academy scholars wore loose robes and wide sleeves; every one of them took pride in wearing a sword, just like the students of many new garrison forts.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At this time, academy instruction still balanced strictness with leniency and combined work with rest. Generally, there were four months of vacation each year, and within each month, certain days were designated as holidays. The various schools of the Eastern Circuit were also experimenting with summer and winter vacations, and some academies were already following suit.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Perhaps they were on holiday today.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Looking at these students, even though most of those present were of the leisure class and did not need to go out in the bitter cold to labor or seek work, many still felt envy in their hearts. Studying in the Eastern Circuit now not only cost no tuition fees, but each month one also received a monthly allowance — and though this allowance had to be earned through various activities, compared to the past, it was truly far too comfortable.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The student at the head was a spirited young man of about seventeen or eighteen. Behind him was another young man of roughly the same age, with a slightly round face and features vaguely resembling Zhong Rong, the Commissioner of the Finance Bureau. They found a table and sat down, and the tea master brewed tea for them.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The storyteller shot them a glance, then continued his tale with full emotion. When the crowd heard that the remonstrance official Zhuo Buwei and others had been beaten to death on the spot, everyone in the hall roared their approval, and the place erupted in cheers.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“To know what happened next, pray listen to the next installment…”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The storyteller struck his clapper once, bringing the tale of the Grand General single-handedly battling a cabal of villains to a temporary close. After the audience had milled about and excitedly discussed the story, a quarter-hour later he returned to the platform and told a bawdy tale — the barbarian woman Zhezhe’s reverse conquest of the little slave chieftain Duoduo — to lighten the mood.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Then the Eastern Circuit gazette arrived. His expression changed, his leering face turning righteous and awe-inspiring, and he began to sing the gazette with deep emotion.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>As for this gazette, the Great Ming had a great many versions and editions; many unofficial historical sources likewise referenced the gazettes of the time. For example, Tan Qian wrote Guoque, Sun Chengze wrote Chunming Mengyu Lu, and Xie Zhaozhou noted in Wu Zazu: “Master Wang Yuanmei’s book collection, aside from the two canonical works, still numbered over thirty thousand volumes; the rest, tomb inscriptions and court gazettes, were piled up like mountains.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>This shows that Ming gazettes were produced in enormous quantities.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Throughout the entire Great Ming dynasty, the capital had countless copyists who daily transcribed memorials from the various government offices from the gazette bureaus. The readership ranged from the Senior Grand Secretary, Junior Grand Secretaries, and the Nine Chief Ministers above, down to county magistrates and the registrars, clerks, interpreters, and instructors below, as well as ordinary commoners — and there were both official and popular editions.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>However, because of the cost of woodblock printing, Ming gazettes were still mainly handwritten. The Eastern Circuit Shogunate also had a similar gazette; besides interested officials and commoners, storytellers hired people to copy it daily and chant it aloud to their audiences.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Great Ming gazette was somewhat like a small booklet, with the two characters “Di Bao” on the cover in black on a white background. It recorded official transfers, government policies, disclosable military intelligence, disaster conditions, new policies, and so on. The Eastern Circuit Shogunate’s was much the same, but as the Eastern Circuit’s literate population grew and demand increased, establishing a systematic gazette was imminent.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The Eastern Circuit gazette was closer to daily life, more accessible and easier to understand, richer in information — there were even merchants beginning to place advertisements in it.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>After the storyteller finished singing the gazette, the teahouse grew even more heated. Someone said: “The Eastern Circuit’s foundations are deep and its granaries full; it will surely bleed those treacherous merchants dry until they lose everything.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Someone said: “The Compassionate Mother’s inspection tour of the Eastern Circuit has greatly steadied the people’s hearts.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Someone said: “The Grand General will soon return in triumph; when that time comes, the treacherous merchants’ doomsday will arrive.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That group of students also showed excitement on their faces. Amid the crowd’s discussions, they pressed their hands to their swords and left the teahouse.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The moment they stepped out of the teahouse, a deadly north wind struck, blowing faces blue and lips purple. Yet the youths all strode proudly with hands on swords, leaving the city and arriving at the banks of the Yang River.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>By now, both banks of the river were largely frozen over. Gazing at the river, one youth sighed: “This is a land of peace and refuge — yet how can we of this generation rest content in pleasure?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Another youth said: “Brother Zhao speaks truly. With treachery and evil watching on all sides, how can we of this generation stand aloof and preserve ourselves alone? We must use our full fervor and hot blood to defend our homeland and our village hearths!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Another youth said fiercely: “The Grand General serves the nation with all his heart, yet is envied by villains — where is Heaven’s justice?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The youth with the slightly round face and features somewhat resembling Zhong Rong was his son, Zhong Ding, aged seventeen, a stipendiary student of the Guanshan Academy in Yanqing.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He said: “Yesterday the Compassionate Mother inspected our academy and said to us: ‘I have read little, but I know that you are all men of virtue. The Grand General says that the future belongs to the young, just like the morning sun at the hour of dawn — unstoppable.’ How well said that is.”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He cried out: “The Grand General serves the nation with all his heart, the Compassionate Mother cherishes the common people — why, why is Heaven so unjust?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>At this, his expression grew agitated, and his voice caught with emotion.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The other youths were likewise too moved to speak. One youth shouted: “Shall we merely grieve in vain and do nothing at all?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The grievances that Wang Dou and the Border-Pacifying Army had suffered in the capital — they felt them as if they were their own, deeply indignant. And now, with treacherous officials and treacherous merchants besieging the Eastern Circuit, they were filled with righteous fury and seething rage. Their hearts brimmed with fervor and passion; they felt they had to do something to be worthy of the moment.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>All of them looked toward that spirited, imposing young man, calling out one after another: “Brother Wen!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Brother Jinghe!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>That young man quietly gazed at the river, as if the bitter cold were nothing to him. Slowly he turned his head back, his gaze cold and sharp.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He said slowly: “In the ninth year of Chongzhen, I was still a child in Shunxiang Fort. The Grand General provided for us to study. At that time, the Grand General was only a Garrison Commander, yet he did all he could to supply every child with rations — everyone ate their fill and did not have to labor. Over all these years, we have all been preparing to enter the Military Academy. This grace, this kindness — Jinghe dares not ever forget!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>He said: “In years past, Master Fu taught us the rites of Chancellor Wen. And now, in our academy we study the Records of Great China anew, reciting the heroes of every record, the Way of the Gentleman, the Way of the Warrior, understanding the principles of family and nation. Now that treachery and evil hold sway, why should we of this generation begrudge our very selves?”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>With a ringing clang like a dragon’s cry, he drew his sword and shouted: “I swear with utmost sincerity — this day I establish the Lingyun Society. With my hot blood, I vow to follow the Grand General unto death, to cut down with my sword all darkness and thorns, to restore to our China a clear and bright sky, and to create anew an age of great peace and prosperity!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>Clang after clang rang out as one youth after another drew his sword, earnestly facing the blades and the river as they swore the oath: “…I swear with utmost sincerity… With my hot blood, I vow to follow the Grand General unto death, to cut down with my sword all darkness and thorns, to restore to our China a clear and bright sky, and to create anew an age of great peace and prosperity!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>“Restore to our China a clear and bright sky, and create anew an age of great peace and prosperity!”\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The youths shouted at the top of their lungs, every heart burning with fervor. In the cold winter day, the hot blood of the young seethed without cease.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>…\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>With different education, a people’s character and the trajectory of their direction will slowly change.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>And on the sixteenth day of the eleventh month, after Xie Xiuniang returned from her inspection tour, the Shogunate's remaining personnel — Feng Dachang, Chief Clerk of the Shogunate Personnel Office; Zhong Rong, Commissioner of the Finance Bureau; Lin Daofu, Commissioner of the Training Bureau; Zhang Gui, Commissioner of the Civil Affairs Bureau; Qi Tianliang, Commissioner of the Logistics Bureau; Liu Benshen, Director of the Internal Affairs Section of the Intelligence Bureau; along with other important Shogunate personnel and members of the Education Bureau — gathered at the Grand General's mansion.\u003C\u002Fp>\n\u003Cp>The commercial battle with the treacherous merchants had entered its most critical moment, and on certain concrete matters they had to report to Xie Xiuniang, who had newly been elevated to the rank of Marquis’s Lady.\u003C\u002Fp>",2463,"2026-06-03T14:06:10.567Z",1,"Novelzhen Translator","7ede77a953d7241f5afa25c812457c215bb372f30289fc8db59439c8fa3be3a4","a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-chapter-605","a-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-chapter-603",896,"https:\u002F\u002Fnovelzhen.com\u002Fimages\u002Fcovers\u002Fa-little-soldier-of-the-late-ming-border-army-cover.jpg"]