Chapter 56: Eyes Closed in Peace

After all the remaining Qing soldiers surrendered, Zhou Shixiang ordered Shao Jiugong and Peng Dazhu to take men and escort the prisoners to the ferry crossing. Then he brought the Ge Wu and Ge Liu brothers to find Boss Hu's body, and in a patch of grass found his severed head.

With tears in his eyes, he held it in his hands and told Ge Wu to lift Boss Hu's body onto his back, then trudged step by step toward the ferry crossing.

"Brother, Brother Zhou is bringing you home!"

Ge Wu and Ge Liu followed the whole way, weeping the whole way. The old brothers from Dajiao Mountain they met along the road all became tear-soaked figures as well, and even the Luoding and Jiangxi soldiers, who had no particular attachment, shed a few tears too.

After reaching the ferry crossing, Zhou Shixiang had Shao Jiugong send men to the surrounding villages to find needle and thread, and also seized a coffin from a household.

Gently placing Hu Quan's severed head at his neck, Zhou Shixiang let out a long sigh. With the care of a woman, he used the needle and thread to sew Hu Quan's head back onto his body.

With each pass of the needle, his expression was utterly solemn, and the Qing prisoners escorted to the ferry crossing stared wide-eyed at the sight.

"Brother Hu, we Han believe that when a man dies, he should return to his roots — wherever he was born, there he should be buried.

Even if a man rises to the greatest heights in this life, after death he must still be laid to rest beside his father and mother. But I have no way to send you back to your hometown now.

I can only bury you here in Luoding for the time being. May your spirit in heaven not blame me..."

After murmuring this in his heart, Zhou Shixiang, who had learned needlework as a soldier in his previous life, deftly tied the thread in a dead knot, then lowered his head and bit the thread off.

He rose, lifted Hu Quan's body into the coffin, and said to the sobbing Ge brothers, "Stop crying. Nail the coffin shut, then find a cart to take Brother Hu back."

"Ah, all right."

Ge Wu and Ge Liu stopped their sobbing at these words. Both rose and walked to the coffin to close the lid, but when they saw Boss Hu inside, the two brothers stood frozen, motionless.

Seeing the two of them hesitate, staring at the coffin instead of acting, Zhou Shixiang asked in puzzlement, "What is it?"

"Brother Zhou, Big Brother, he... he..."

Ge Wu mumbled, unable to get the words out, while Ge Liu's throat kept swallowing, unable to speak.

Zhou Shixiang frowned slightly and leaned over to look into the coffin, only to find that Hu Quan's eyes were still open.

In the eyes of the ancients, a dead man whose eyes would not close still had unfinished business in this world. If that business was not settled, the eyes would never close — or rather, the last breath would never be released.

As for talk of ghosts and gods, Zhou Shixiang did not know whether he should believe it or not. If he did not believe, it was hard to explain how he had come to this era; if he did believe, he could not convince himself.

But whether he believed or not, he could not let Hu Quan die with his eyes open.

Ge Wu and Ge Liu stood there helplessly, not knowing what to do, both looking to Zhou Shixiang to solve the problem. But Zhou Shixiang was no spirit medium — what could he do?

After frowning in thought for a moment, he could only try, with the attitude of giving it a shot. He leaned into the coffin and whispered by Boss Hu's ear, "Brother Hu, go in peace. As long as I, Zhou Shixiang, am alive, I will surely find your mother's remains and bury you beside her."

With that, he reached out to close Hu Quan's eyes. Then, somewhat uneasily, under the gaze of Ge Wu and Ge Liu, he slowly withdrew his hand. In that instant, Ge Wu shouted, "They closed!"

"They really closed, they really closed..."

Ge Liu stared in astonishment.

The surrendered Qing soldiers were all escorted to the ferry crossing — 219 men in all, 23 of them armored soldiers. Zhou Shixiang ordered their upper garments stripped off, leaving only their trousers, and the cloth belts at their waists were also taken away.

Now they hung their heads one by one, awkward and frightened, holding up their trousers as they knelt on the ground.

Peng Dazhu led men to collect the bodies of the fallen Taiping Camp soldiers, and along the way gathered up all the captured weapons.

Several Jiangxi soldiers Shao Jiugong had sent out as sentries came back to report that people from Deqing city had come to the crossroads to look around, then run back again.

Tang Sanshui said there were only 500 Qing soldiers in the city in total. The elite troops had all been led out by Zhang Dade, and the 200 Green Standard soldiers left in the city were all porters of no real use.

County Magistrate Lu Gongming was a cowardly sort who would never dare lead troops out to attack. Therefore Zhou Shixiang was not worried about the Qing army attacking again, and told them to keep watch.

Though this battle was won, the price the Taiping Camp paid was not small. Commander Hu Quan had died in battle, three squad leaders were dead, and over half the soldiers were killed or wounded.

When the bodies of the fallen soldiers were carried over, Zhou Shixiang felt deep guilt, because it was his decision that had caused these men to die needlessly.

While reproaching himself, he also resolved to train the new recruits, for if they encountered Qing armored soldiers again, what awaited them would still be a one-sided slaughter.

If not for those unarmored Green Standard soldiers, greedy for small gains, throwing their own formation into chaos, and if the armored soldiers had not been so few, the outcome of this battle would truly have been hard to say.

"Take all the wounded with us, and take the dead back too. We brought them out, so we must bring them back. Even if a man is dead, we must bring him back and hand him over to his family."

How were they to carry back so many bodies?

Peng Dazhu, given this task, looked thoroughly troubled, but Zhou Shixiang paid him no mind and told him to figure it out himself. In the end, Peng Dazhu got clever.

He led troops into the surrounding villages to seize able-bodied men, and took every animal that could pull a load. The racket set the whole area in an uproar, and the people's grievances filled the roads.

When Zhou Shixiang learned that Peng Dazhu had let his troops loot, he gave a bitter smile and did not send anyone to stop him. He only had word passed to Peng Dazhu: seizing goods and conscripting laborers was acceptable, but no harming people, and absolutely no raping women.

Peng Dazhu only wanted to solve the problem of having no hands to carry the dead and tend the wounded; he had no intention of committing atrocities.

In the end he rounded up over a hundred able-bodied men, plus three mule carts and seven donkey carts, and hitched up three plow oxen with their drivers. Only then was the manpower shortage barely resolved.

While Peng Dazhu was off conscripting laborers, Zhou Shixiang called together Ge Wu and his brother, Baldy, and Shao Jiugong and the other squad leaders to discuss what to do with the prisoners.

On how to handle the prisoners, the squad leaders split into two factions. Shao Jiugong strongly urged using their own method: brand these Deqing soldiers with characters so they could never turn back, and would follow the Taiping Camp wholeheartedly.

Ge Wu, under the banner of avenging Boss Hu, fiercely demanded that all the prisoners be killed and their heads thrown beneath the walls of Deqing, so the city would know the fate of those who opposed the Taiping Camp.

Ge Liu went further, shouting about storming Deqing and slaughtering the entire city to bury with Boss Hu. This proposal naturally won no approval from Zhou Shixiang, and even his brother Ge Wu ignored him, because the idea was simply too fantastical.

For the vanguard camp, now down to half its men, to storm Deqing was sheer delusion.

With no one paying him any attention, Ge Liu angrily ran off alone to Boss Hu's coffin and wept bitterly, saying that now that Big Brother was dead, they had all lost their sense of brotherhood. This so angered Ge Wu that he ran over and gave him a fierce beating.

In the end, it was Peng Dazhu who spoke: "Now that Brother Hu is gone, Brother Zhou here is the highest-ranking commander in the whole camp, and the most capable too. From now on, brothers, let's listen to him. How to deal with the prisoners — that's his call too."

Zhou Shixiang said nothing, watching Ge Wu and Baldy and the others' reactions without a change of expression.

"When Big Brother was alive, he told us to listen to Brother Zhou. Now that Big Brother is gone, we'll listen to Brother Zhou."

Ge Wu, Baldy, and the others exchanged glances and nodded, acknowledging Zhou Shixiang's position as leader. Shao Jiugong was an outsider in their eyes, and a man who had been forced to join, so naturally he had no say.

He was wise enough to keep silent — in any case, whoever became leader, it would never be his turn.

"Since you brothers are listening to me, then I'll take charge for now.

We'll discuss it further once we're back in Luoding." Zhou Shixiang pointed at the prisoners kneeling in the distance by the ferry crossing.

"Killing them is definitely out of the question.

My idea is to use them to trade with Deqing for our people."