Chapter 8: Fugitives

First he threw in with the bandits, then with the Ming, then with the Qing, then back to the Ming again, and after that became a bandit once more — no matter how you reckon it, Song Xianggong can never shake the label of "a slave to three masters."

Looking at his career, one might truly call it unprecedented and never to be repeated, enough to make a man "see him in a whole new light."

In the past, when Song Xianggong mixed among a crowd of rough, unlettered men, he had never been shy about his history — after all, those fellows were hardly better than he was; a man who had fled a hundred paces had no call to mock one who had fled fifty.

Yet before Zhou Shixiang, for some reason he always felt his past was too shameful to bear, and his face burned with embarrassment.

Several times while Boss Hu was speaking, he had wanted to step forward and cut him off, but his feet simply would not move, and he was left stewing in a bellyful of stifled anger, wishing the ground would open up and swallow him whole.

Whether Boss Hu did it on purpose or was simply rough and forthright by nature, he took no notice whatever of Song Xianggong's discomfort, and spoke in a very loud voice.

When he had finished, he turned to Zhou Shixiang with a smug, self-satisfied air and said, "I wasn't lying to you, was I? Our Master Song really did serve as a County Magistrate.

If the old prince hadn't met with misfortune, who knows — by now Master Song might be sitting as a Prefect in some prefecture or other." (Author's note: After Li Chengdong's death, the Southern Ming Yongli court posthumously honored him as "Prince of Ningxia.")

"Yes, yes — Master Song is a man of great talent!"

Zhou Shixiang did not dare show the slightest trace of looking down on Song Xianggong, and very tactfully came to the rescue of the mortified man, inclining his body slightly as he said, "I must ask you, sir, to introduce the other good men to me."

"Oh!"

Song Xianggong's spirits immediately lifted, the flush of shame vanishing at once. He gave a light cough, gestured toward the lead man, and said with a smile to Zhou Shixiang, "This is Boss Hu, single name Quan, a native of Hejian Prefecture in Northern Zhili.

After the Tartars came through the pass, he became a fugitive and fled south, hiding himself in the army of my benefactor Li.

After Benefactor Li died and the Tartars came pressing in, if Boss Hu hadn't dragged me away for all he was worth, I'd have gone to see the King of Hell long ago."

A fugitive?

Zhou Shixiang was somewhat taken aback. This was the first time he had heard of such a thing as a fugitive, and he did not know whom they were fleeing from, or why they fled.

Song Xianggong, seeing that he did not understand, offered a brief explanation.

The so-called fugitives were Han commoners who, after the Manchu Qing entered the pass, had been distributed as slaves to the households of the banners. Most of these people had been carried off during the Qing army's raids inside the pass in the Chongzhen years.

Later, when the Manchu Qing established their rule over the Central Plain, in order to reward the merits of the Eight Banners' Manchu officers and men, the Prince Regent Dorgon issued a special order to enclose land in the capital region and Northern Zhili as recompense, and all the people on the enclosed land were assigned wholesale to banner households as slaves.

Among them were also Ming soldiers successively captured in the Qing army's southern campaigns — men who were no good at fighting but perfectly capable of labor, and since they were all able-bodied young fellows, they were greatly prized by their Manchu masters.

Boss Hu was one whose family land had been enclosed by the Eight Banners, and who, unwilling to be pressed into service as a banner household's slave, had fled south with his old mother and brothers.

At the thought of his mother and brothers, who had died on the road south, Boss Hu could not help cutting Song Xianggong off, cursing furiously: "That ****ing fugitive-slave law! To drag us back and make slaves of us, the Tartars killed more people than there were fugitives!"

Song Xianggong told Zhou Shixiang from the side that the Qing court, to prevent the localities from hiding fugitives, had enacted a harsh fugitive-slave law.

If anyone was found daring to conceal such fugitives, the crime was compounded upon crime, and in the worst cases the entire family could be implicated, with heads falling in great swaths.

He went on to say that the reason the Tartars placed such importance on fugitives was, in the end, that these fugitives were the very lifeblood of their Manchu masters.

The masters all counted on these banner slaves to till the land and produce for them; if the banner slaves all fled, who would support the masters?

The late Qing Prince Regent Dorgon, in the fourth year of Shunzhi, had issued an edict to the Manchu and Han officials, saying: "The population gained through bloody battle has always been used for tilling the fields and herding horses and other such labors, yet those who flee grow more numerous by the day, and not one in ten is recovered.

The cause, when examined, is that wicked folk harbor and conceal them; therefore the law must of necessity be strict.

If it is said that strict law makes the Han suffer, then if the law is not strict, the harborers will have no fear, the fugitives will grow ever more numerous, and whom shall we Manchus command? On what shall our livelihood depend?

Do the Manchus alone not suffer?"

To prevent any further reckless remonstrances from Han officials, Dorgon further proclaimed to all his ministers: "Any who submit memorials touching upon the five matters of head-shaving, dress and caps, land enclosure, impressment into banner service, and fugitives — all shall be beheaded, and such memorials shall not be permitted to be presented."

Under such crushing pressure, the local authorities everywhere no longer dared treat the matter of fugitives lightly.

Any fugitive found within their territory was seized and sent back north without exception, and for this purpose the people killed for harboring them numbered in the hundreds of thousands.

Whether a father hid a son or a son hid a father, whether a husband hid a wife or a wife hid a husband — the moment they were caught, they were killed, heads lopped off in great swaths. It was truly a trampling of all natural bonds, a horror beyond all human misery!

While ordinary Han commoners were slaughtered in great numbers for harboring fugitives, the Han officials who sold their lives to the Qing court did not escape either.

The former Qing Governor of Guangxi, Guo Zhaoji, was found to have fugitives hidden among his retinue and failed to report it, whereupon Dorgon flew into a rage and had his entire family beheaded and his property confiscated.

And Geng Jimao, the Prince of Jingnan, exalted as a prince though he was, was so terrified by his subordinates' secret harboring of fugitives that he took his own life out of fear of punishment!

With a Governor and a Prince both brought to such ends over the matter of fugitives, what other official would dare be negligent? For no other reason than to save their own skins, they had to seize every fugitive in their territory and all who dared harbor them.

Otherwise, who knew whether the Prince Regent might not set his sights on their own heads as well? Under such circumstances, the plight of fugitives like Boss Hu was bitter beyond words.

Of those who successfully escaped and survived, not one in ten remained; most were either caught halfway and sent back to be worked to death as slaves, or slaughtered by Qing soldiers for resisting.

All things considered, Boss Hu had been fortunate. He had made his way south and successfully slipped into Li Chengdong's army.

Though he had lost an arm, because his native Hejian Prefecture had a martial tradition, he had trained in martial skills from childhood and had won some merit in the army, earning selection into Li Chengdong's personal guard. Otherwise, how could he have lived to this day?

"Let's not talk about this anymore.

The moment I speak of it, my heart clenches up. Back then, the three of us brothers fled south together with our old mother, and in the end Mother and my second and third brothers all died on the road.

I alone survived. Ah!...

This vengeance — I fear I'll never be able to take it."

Boss Hu's face darkened at once. Given the present state of affairs, anyone with eyes could see that the Ming was truly doomed, and there was no way for him to take his revenge.

The despair in Boss Hu's expression made Zhou Shixiang sigh inwardly. He said in consolation, "Our Ming still has the Son of Heaven, and still holds several provinces.

It's not certain the Tartars will take the whole realm. Who knows — one day we may defeat them, and then, Brother Hu, you can join the army too, and won't that be your revenge?"

"Ah, it's hard." Boss Hu shook his head, his look one of melancholy, painful for anyone to behold.

Zhou Shixiang did not know how to console him further. Catching sight of Boss Hu's left sleeve hanging empty, he asked, "Was Brother Hu's arm also ruined by the Tartars?"

At these words, Boss Hu's expression changed, and then he shook his head, said nothing, turned, and walked out of the shed. The other men's faces also showed something strange, and the looks they cast at Zhou Shixiang held a measure of reproach.

Zhou Shixiang thought he had said something wrong, and for a moment did not know what to do, standing there frozen.

Glancing at Boss Hu's figure outside, Song Xianggong shook his head to himself, stepped forward, clapped Zhou Shixiang on the shoulder, and said in a low voice, "Boss Hu's arm wasn't ruined by the Tartars. He broke it himself."

"Broke it himself? Why?!"

Zhou Shixiang was speechless. Was there truly a man in this world who would break his own arm?

Song Xianggong's tone was somewhat heavy as he said, "Back then, Boss Hu was fleeing south with his mother and brothers. The Tartars were checking the roads closely, so they hid in the mountains.

But they had not a mouthful of food on them, and his old mother was so starved she could hardly hold on. The three brothers split up and went out of the mountains to find grain.

Who would have thought the second and third brothers would be discovered by Qing soldiers? The two brothers would rather die than be captured and taken back as slaves, so they fought the Qing soldiers with their lives, and both were killed.

After Boss Hu made it back alone, he didn't dare tell his mother the truth. His mother was starving, with only a breath of life left in her.

Gritting his teeth, he steeled his heart, picked up a rock, and smashed his own arm. He found a pot discarded by some mountain folk, boiled the flesh into a broth, and fed it to his mother.

Not long after she ate it, she breathed her last."

Hiss!

When Zhou Shixiang heard this, he drew in a sharp breath.

In his previous life he had heard the tales of the Twenty-Four Filial Exemplars — wearing thin reeds to obey one's mother, burying one's son to support one's mother, selling oneself to bury one's father, lying on ice to catch carp — each one a tale of filial piety moving heaven and earth.

But those were all handed down from the elders; who knew whether they were true? Now, with his own ears, he had heard of a world-shaking act of filial piety — breaking an arm to feed one's mother — and the man himself stood alive before his very eyes.

The shock in his heart was beyond measure.

Filial — the greatest filial piety under heaven!

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