Chapter 320: A New-Deal Spring Breeze Blows Across the Land (Ready, Sing!)

The lingering afterglow of New Year's Day had not yet faded from the bitter cold beyond the passes when a sudden storm swept up from Shanhai Pass and raged across the Liaodong region. The sixth day, the hour of the Dragon, Shanhai Pass.

Everything was already settled.

Yuan Jixian watched expressionlessly as the last batch of prisoners was led away. Only then did he swing back into the saddle and ride on ahead.

On the road leading out of the city, the Valiant Guard Camp had already formed up in neat ranks, filing out in order.

This army would follow the pace of the Pay-Audit Team, completing a long-distance march, using its disciplined martial presence to announce its arrival to the entire Ji-Liao region.

No earth-shaking slogans — only the clank and clash of armor and weapons.

The scouts spread forward like a great net, clearing the road ahead.

The great army slowly advanced, like a cold and precise iron roller, intent on pressing over every inch of this Ji-Liao land.

From Yu Pass to the next stop, Zhongqian Garrison, was a mere forty-three li — half a day's journey.

Members of the Pay-Audit Team, already in position, held military orders approved by Sun Chengzong and had long since assembled the officers and soldiers of the surrounding forts here.

In the wind and snow, Yuan Jixian dismounted. The procedure was tedious, yet chilling.

Read out the names.

Seize the men.

Proclaim the orders.

The sixth day, the hour of the Monkey, Guangning Zhongqian Garrison — matter concluded.

Night was already falling, so the Valiant Guard Camp did not enter the city but made camp outside the walls.

Within the strict encampment, apart from the night-watch clappers, not a whisper of noise could be heard.

The next day, at the hour of the Rabbit, the entire army struck camp and marched on.

The seventh day, the hour of the Snake, thirty li north — Guangning Qiantun Guard, matter concluded.

The eighth day, the hour of the Dragon, forty-five li north — Guangning Zhonghou Garrison, matter concluded.

The eighth day, the hour of the Rooster, forty-nine li north — Ningyuan Zhongyou Garrison, matter concluded.

The ninth day, the hour of the Horse, thirty-seven li north — Ningyuan Guard, matter concluded.

The tenth day, the hour of the Snake, sixty li north — Ningyuan Zhongzuo Garrison, matter concluded.

The tenth day, the hour of the Monkey, forty-five li north — Guangning Zhongtun Garrison, matter concluded.

The tenth day, the hour of the Rooster, ten li north — Jinzhou City, matter concluded.

(Attached illustration: route-of-march map)

In five days, the Valiant Guard Camp and the Pay-Audit Team marched north, holding nine rectification assemblies.

From Yu Pass to Jinzhou, they covered a total of three hundred and twenty-seven li, averaging sixty li per day — considerably slower than the prescribed eighty li. In the first few cities, when names were called and men seized, the soldiers below still looked rather panicked. Many, like their comrades at Shanhai Pass, were utterly at a loss, completely unaccustomed to such swift and decisive methods.

But starting from Zhonghou Garrison, the situation changed.

Word of mouth in private, after all, traveled a step faster than this unhurried army.

An unprecedented fervor began to spread like wildfire among the common people of Liaodong and the rank-and-file soldiers.

The Guanzi says: "Governance flourishes when it follows the people's hearts; governance crumbles when it defies the people's hearts."

The garrison farmers, traveling merchants, women and children of Liaodong, and those low-ranking soldiers whose pay and rations had been docked year after year — they hoped, they yearned, they waited for this sweet rain to arrive.

By the time the Pay-Audit Team neared Ningyuan Guard, this atmosphere had reached a fever pitch.

On the march, both sides of the road were packed with dense, dark crowds.

When entering a city, heads craned out all along the top of the walls.

On both sides of the streets, atop the houses, even in the trees around the parade ground — people everywhere, people absolutely everywhere.

Countless eyes stared fixedly at those corrupt officers, stripped of their official robes and locked in cangues.

Every time a man was seized and led away from the ranks, a tidal wave of thunderous cheers erupted.

Even after the army left a city, countless busybodies, idle men from hereditary military households, and shiftless young idlers followed the great army's advance — some on horseback, some simply trudging along on foot.

At this stage, the scout protocols in the drill manual could no longer be fully enforced.

Yuan Jixian held an urgent conference with Sun Yingyuan and Sun Chuanting, and they temporarily opened the army's rear, permitting these people to follow.

But for the road ahead and the left and right flanks, the twenty-li road-clearance rule was still strictly enforced.

Yet the more this was so, the more the commoners and soldiers of Liaodong felt that this time, things were truly going to be different.

And so, one told ten, ten told a hundred, and this column began to swell steadily.

From a thousand men, it grew to fifteen hundred, then to two thousand.

By the final stop, counting the trailing common folk and low-ranking soldiers, there were several thousand in a vast, mighty throng, surging like an unstoppable torrent into the tiny city of Jinzhou.

A forward post like Jinzhou — ever since the defeat at Guangning, when the Sancha River became the front line — when had it ever witnessed such a clamorous scene?

Amid this rectification campaign, which rolled on and on like a swelling tsunami, there were naturally officers who knew they could not escape this calamity and began seeking their own ways out.

Those whose families and clans were local, or who came from hereditary military households and were tied down by family property, dared not act recklessly in the end.

They could only grit their teeth and voluntarily confess their crimes in advance, hoping merely to suffer less humiliation on the parade ground and preserve some shred of dignity.

But for those guest officers and clerks of irregular rank, if they had not yet established family property in Liaodong, or if they were men of decisive temperament, they simply fled alone.

Some disguised themselves as traveling merchants, hiding in carts and moving in the opposite direction toward the pass.

Others called in past favors from beyond the passes, dressed themselves as Mongols, and took roundabout routes through the steppe passages.

In any case, the goal was to flee inside the passes first and return to their old homes.

As long as they stayed one step ahead of the court's wanted notices, there would still be time to conceal their identities.

With the gold and silver they had embezzled clutched in their hands, in this vast realm of the Great Ming, where could they not buy several hundred mu of fine paddy fields and live comfortably as a wealthy country gentleman? As for surrendering to Jianzhou — that option, if presented to a clever man, would only draw a snort of contempt.

The wave of defections from the Great Ming to Jianzhou was, in fact, divided into several periods.

The earliest was at the end of the Wanli era, when Jianzhou had just risen and was still warring with the various Haixi Jurchen tribes.

The most famous case was Tong Yangxing.

This man was originally a merchant by background, thrown into prison on charges of colluding with the barbarians and funneling them funds.

He was then personally released by Guo Guangfu, the Governor of Liaodong at the time, and sent deep into the Later Jin as a spy.

In the forty-second year of Wanli, his life as a spy began.

But by the forty-fourth year of Wanli, his handler Guo Guangfu had died of illness while still in office.

Tong Yangxing watched coldly from the sidelines. Seeing that Jianzhou was poised to crouch like a tiger over Liaodong, he simply turned around, dragged the entire Tong clan down with him, and threw in his lot completely with Nurhaci.

This affair, rather than an act of traitorous collaboration, was more a case of a merchant prizing profit and placing a speculative bet.

Behind it lay the Tong surname's Manchu background, and the context of Liaodong's local gentry being harassed and persecuted by the mining taxes at the time. It was a choice driven entirely by self-interest.

After that came Nurhaci raising his troops in revolt, the period of the attacks on Kaiyuan, Liaoyang, and Shenyang.

The Ming troops who surrendered in this period were mostly captured or taken prisoner, bending the knee only to save their lives.

Among them were even men of honor who feigned surrender, then later sought a chance to flee back inside the Pass.

In the early years of Tianqi, the successive Han uprisings in southern Liaodong and elsewhere, the poisoning of wells inside the Jianzhou barbarians' territory, the assassinations — behind all of these were the shadows of such men. The truly rout-like collapse into surrender came only with the Battle of Guangning.

In that battle, the Liao troops in fact lost only a few tens of thousands, and Guangning city did not even put up a proper defense.

The fighting spirit of the entire Liao region was utterly crushed by the infighting between the two supreme commanders, Wang Huazhen and Xiong Tingbi.

Bao Chengxian, Gao Hongzhong, Shi Tingzhu, Sun Degong, and others — whether Han or Manchu, main-force troops or auxiliary troops — all surrendered to the enemy in despair.

At that moment, surrender became a matter of being pushed by the "momentum."

As the saying went: "The Privy Councilor intends to station me on the desolate frontier beyond Ningyuan — that is to kill me."

And another: "They look upon the land beyond the Pass as a place of death, and the post of Regional Commander as a death sentence."

These were the views people held at the time about confronting Jianzhou in Liaodong.

First — this is a doomed cause, a land of certain death!

But — that was then, and this is now.

In the middle and late Tianqi years, the situation in Liaodong gradually stabilized. The Great Ming caught its breath.

Looking at the Later Jin side, however, years of grain shortages had driven them to begin slaughtering Han people en masse.

Though they now have a new Khan, Hong Taiji, said to govern with leniency, this man seems to be somewhat lacking in martial prowess.

Last year he brought his great army to the walls of Ningyuan for a tour, got his nose bloodied, and slunk away in defeat.

Ask yourself — unless a blade is held to your throat on the battlefield, forcing you to choose between loyalty and your life —

what clever man would, at this moment, go of his own accord to throw in his lot with Jianzhou?

Is he tired of living, or has he opened a heavenly eye that can see the Great Ming is doomed?

On the contrary, it is from the Jianzhou side that people who cannot endure the bitter cold and oppression flee from time to time.

Han people fleeing is entirely normal; even Mongols and Manchus fleeing (a true fact, I can't be bothered to dig up the sources) is not unheard of.

The leaning of men's hearts, after the two battles of Ningyuan and Jinzhou, had in truth already quietly reversed.

And Zu Dashou was naturally a supremely clever man.

Even back when the Guangning front collapsed and he led his remnant troops in retreat to Juehua Island, in those days of unrelenting dread, what filled his mind was how to link up with the Mongols to preserve himself — he never once entertained the thought of going over to the Jianzhou barbarians.

Surrender to the Jianzhou barbarians?

Wait until the day the banner of the Jianzhou barbarians actually flies over Ningyuan city, then we can talk!

His connections, his properties, his entire clan were all in Ningyuan — how could he possibly cross the whole of Liaodong to go be a slave to the Jianzhou barbarians?

At this moment, Zu Dashou, just returned from the final "rectification assembly" in Jinzhou, was weighed down with heavy thoughts.

As the outline of Ningyuan city emerged through the wind and snow, he simply loosened the reins and let the fine horse beneath him walk at its own pace, carrying him toward the city. Ningyuan city was the greatest city in Liaodong second only to Shanhai Pass.

To the east, Taohua Island and Juehua Island served as thoroughfares for water routes.

To the west, the Ningyuan River and the Nü'er River connected it to the various Mongol tribes.

(Attached image: This truly is a fine place for doing business. No wonder Zu Dashou was so wealthy — perhaps it really wasn't all embezzled.)

As the hub for north-south travel in Liaodong and a vital point for east-west trade, it was indeed prosperous and flourishing.

Moreover, in the frontier trade market beyond the passes, its geographic position happened to connect the Kharchin tribe and the Chahar tribe simultaneously, making it a gathering place for merchants. The moment one entered the city gate, what rushed to meet one was a bustling, earthy aroma — a blend of raw hide and fur, cheap tobacco, and the steam of mutton soup. Along both sides of the street, the silks and cloth of Han shops lay interspersed with the rugged hides of Mongol warhorses.

Mongol herders speaking stiff, broken Han Chinese were shouting at the top of their lungs, haggling with shrewd merchants from inside the Pass.

Great Ming standard copper coins clapped crisply on countertops, the cries of pushcart hawkers rose and fell without cease — a scene of noisy, bustling vigor.

"Regional Commander Zu is back in the city!"

"Greetings, Regional Commander Zu!"

The soldiers and merchants along the road recognized the armored giant on horseback and cupped their fists in salute one after another.

Zu Dashou nodded in acknowledgment all the way, his mind elsewhere.

The Book of Changes says: "When pushed to the limit, one changes; having changed, one breaks through; having broken through, one endures."

He had a vague feeling in his heart that the old way of playing the game in Liaodong might no longer work.

The Great Ming was changing. If he did not change with it, those colleagues seized on the spot at the Jinzhou parade ground would be his own future fate.

But...

How to change, in what way to change, and to what degree — these were matters he needed to weigh carefully. He was not the same as He Kegang.

Behind him were hundreds, even thousands, of the various branches of the Zu clan. The things he had to consider were far more numerous than those of that "Comrade He"! At this thought, the image of He Kegang these past few days — bustling about, face glowing with enthusiasm — surfaced in his mind once more.

Zu Dashou cursed under his breath with bitter resentment, and simply took up the reins, intending to return to his residence early.

Just then, from a roadside tea stall draped with thick felt cloth —

a high-pitched, piercing voice rang out from the crowd, seizing Zu Dashou's ear by force and making him involuntarily pull in the reins and listen intently.

"Now speak of that Wang Sancai — a man of iron backbone and unyielding integrity! Ignoring the three saber wounds on his body, he forded the frozen river through the night to bring word!"

In the center of the tea stall, a storyteller in a blue cloth gown snapped his folding fan shut with a crack, pointed it at the air, and spoke with flying spittle.

"With a 'thud' he fell to his knees, raised high with both hands the map of the enemy chieftain's Fourth Prince's position, his tiger-eyes brimming with tears, and cried out in a voice of blood: 'I beseech the Imperial Envoy to dispatch troops at once and cross the river, to capture the barbarian chieftain in one sweep, and comfort the heroic spirits of our Liaodong war dead!'"

"Dear listeners, were it anyone else, faced with such heaven-sent, monumental merit, they would have long since been frantic with impatience."

The storyteller's tone shifted, turning leisurely: "But this Commissioner Li, truly, bore himself with unhurried dignity, deep as an abyss and steady as a mountain. Utterly unflustered, he merely offered gentle words of comfort, stepped forward in person, took Wang Sancai by the arm and raised him up — yet in the end… he would not promise to send troops!"

"Aiyah!" The storyteller stamped his foot, his face taking on a look of grief and indignation. "It drove Wang Sancai to such desperation that his eyes nearly burst from their sockets. With a ringing clang he drew the steel blade at his waist and laid it across his own throat! He bellowed: 'If the Commissioner suspects I am a Jianzhou barbarian spy, feeding false reports to deceive the army, then this very day I can stain the ground with my blood and prove my innocence by death!'"

The words reached this point.

Crack!

The awakening block slammed heavily onto the table.

The storyteller abruptly shut his mouth, tucked his folding fan behind his neck, picked up the purple clay teapot from the table, and began leisurely skimming the tea leaves, not uttering another word.

Zu Dashou, sitting on horseback and looking over the crowd, raised an eyebrow slightly.

The tea-drinkers around him, who had been utterly absorbed, immediately protested, clamoring noisily.

"Get on with it, get on with it! How can you stop at such a critical point!" A burly soldier, his face all fierce flesh, pounded the table in agitation.

"Sir, don't keep us hanging — did Wang Sancai die or not?"

A merchant who knew the conventions immediately waved and called out: "Waiter! Bring the gentleman two pots of the finest Biluochun! Put it on my tab!"

"And slice up two plates of soy-braised beef for the gentleman! And add a plate of fried peanuts to every table!"

For a moment, the clinking of loose silver and copper cash falling into the wooden tray rang out crisply.

The waiter, a white towel draped over his shoulder, beamed with delight and sang out loudly: "Very good! Honorable Master Zhang bestows two pots of fine tea! Centurion Li bestows two plates of braised beef!" Seeing that the "tips had arrived," the storyteller stopped keeping them in suspense.

He cleared his throat, and with a swish, his folding fan snapped open.

"Gentlemen!"

The storyteller's face grew solemn, and his voice rose again, drawing everyone's souls right back.

"Seeing this, Commissioner Li was likewise helpless. In the end, he could not bear to let such a valiant man perish, and could only heave a long sigh, reach out and seize the steel blade, and say…"

The gentleman deliberately lowered his voice, imitating the tone of a high-ranking, weighty commissioner speaking with earnest gravity.

"'If a valiant man is willing to stake his life, this official naturally believes him.'"

"'But the matter of exterminating the barbarians — how can it rest on one man, one army, one affair alone?'"

"'Today you catch them off guard and kill the Fourth Prince.'"

"'What of the day after? There is still the Third Prince, the Second Prince, the First Prince!'"

"'The Jianzhou barbarians are like pigweed by the roadside — it grows back fast and cheap. How can they be slaughtered to extinction so easily?'"

"Yet when the Commissioner spoke thus, Wang Sancai was not convinced."

At this point, the storyteller snapped his fan shut with force.

He leaned forward, thrust out his chest, and his expression instantly transformed into that of a man stiff-necked, veins bulging, as he shouted in defiance: "I don't care how many princes they have!"

"I'll kill one today, and another tomorrow!"

"Kill one, and I avenge my father!"

"Kill two… and I avenge Big Ox Wang!"

"Kill three, and I avenge Third Sister Wang!"

"Kill four, and I avenge Old Father Niu!"

The storyteller's voice suddenly went hoarse, as if Wang Sancai himself had possessed him, and the rims of his eyes reddened too.

"At these words, Wang Sancai, a man of such iron fortitude, could not help but let his tears fall…"

The gentleman roughly wiped his face with his sleeve — whether he actually wiped away tears, no one could tell.

When he raised his head again, he was gnashing his teeth, roaring in fury:

"I don't understand your grand principles! All I know is this!"

"In this life, I am bound to kill seven Jianzhou barbarians, only then can I repay the lives of my father and every last fellow villager slaughtered at Dog's Hollow!!!" Around the tea stall, after a brief deathly silence, a heaven-shaking roar of approval erupted.

"Bravo!!!"

"Well killed!"

"Slaughter the Jianzhou barbarians!!!"

The soldiers, merchants, and common folk below listened until their eyes went red, hot blood surging straight to their heads.

The crisp clinking of coins merged into a continuous sound.

Copper coins, cash, and even a few grains of broken silver flew like rain, pelting into the wooden tray before the storyteller. Some soldiers, having searched their whole bodies and found no money, grew so frantic that they simply grabbed the plate of peanuts just delivered to them and hurled that over as if it were coin.

Only when the tray was brimming with copper coins, nearly overflowing, and the tea stall's emotions had vented to their peak, did the storyteller sweep his long sleeve across, suppressing the clamor of the crowd.

"The Commissioner's actions were profound, and he came bearing an imperial mandate in person — how could Wang Sancai, a man blinded by hatred, understand such things? Yet a valiant man is hard to come by, so the Commissioner could only guide him patiently."

The storyteller took out his folding fan again and resumed the Commissioner's tone: "'The Art of War says: Invincibility lies in oneself; victory lies in the enemy! To exterminate the Jianzhou barbarians, the first step is to strengthen ourselves!'"

"'So long as the court trains the troops well, and cleans out this rotten, putrid business of military pay!'"

"'So long as every man of our Great Ming receives full pay, every man has full rations! When granaries are full, men know propriety; when armor is stout and blades are sharp, men know how to die in service!'"

"'When that day comes — pacify one city today, recover one fort tomorrow, advance step by step, consolidating as you go — why worry that the Jianzhou barbarians cannot be destroyed?!'"

"'To put it the other way! If today we covet a moment's glory, acting on speculation, fighting recklessly!'"

"'The troops not yet drilled to proficiency, the commanders not yet clearly chosen — if we rashly strike out and are defeated, the great army scattered, how then shall we rally the hearts of the people in Liaodong?!' 'Do you wish for the events of Guangning to happen again?'"

Around the tea stall, there was utter silence, broken only by the sound of heavy breathing.

The storyteller slapped his thigh and cried out in Wang Sancai's grief-stricken, indignant tone:

"How can it be so easy! Crows everywhere are black! Rather than pin my hopes on such things succeeding, I'd sooner return alone and perish together with that barbarian chieftain — at least that would be a clean end!"

Around the tea stall, hearing this, there was still utter silence.

Everyone who heard this now realized that this story was not merely a story!

The storyteller once more took out his folding fan and waved it gently:

"These times are not like the old days!"

"Now that the Son of Heaven has ascended the throne, his very first act is to launch a new policy and purge the realm!"

"Take a good look out here beyond the pass. Wait right here for three full months. If the troops' pay is short by a single cent! If a single corrupt general is let off!" "What need would you have to go take the barbarian chieftain's head?"

"Just chop this official's head right off and carry it to the capital to beat the Dengwen Drum — wouldn't that be better!"

The storyteller rose to his feet, both hands gripping empty air, shaking it as though he had seized a man by the shoulders.

"Wang Sancai! These times are not what they were!"

"Over Ji-Liao, the sky — is about to brighten!"

These words had barely left his mouth when, in a mere moment, the long-suppressed emotion around the tea stall erupted like a volcano.

The rectification stories of the past few days and the tale from today's script had merged together, so strangely that no one could tell reality from illusion. Everyone was shouting wildly, every arm raised in frenzy.

"Yes!"

"Well said!"

"The sky is brightening! The sky is brightening!"

Yet the storyteller was not finished.

He wiped the hot sweat from his brow with a long sleeve, snatched up his wooden clapper, and began lightly tapping out a rhythm against the edge of the table.

"Tok. Tok. Tok..."

The crisp tapping gradually cut a path through the boiling din of voices.

The storyteller opened his throat, but no longer in the clashing-armor storytelling style of moments before. He switched to a Hebei ditty, one deeply familiar in the markets and alleys of Liaodong.

His voice carried a trace of bleakness, yet through it shone an irrepressible joy:

"The first month brings the new spring, ah —"

"The Emperor Grandfather sits in the Forbidden City, hey —"

"Issued a clear decree to settle old accounts, yo —"

"The greedy officials and corrupt underlings show their true forms —"

The tune was plain and easy to grasp, rolling off the tongue.

The soldiers and garrison farmers below listened, and many began to follow the beat.

The master's clapper struck ever more briskly:

"Fear not the Jianzhou barbarians, fierce and savage, ah —"

"Fear only the commanders and generals who've lost their conscience —"

"Now that the full pay has been issued, yo —"

"The new policy's spring breeze blows across the land —"

"Belly full of food, ah — blade sharpened well —"

"Let a few princes come and play the hero, what of it —"

"The sky has brightened, hey —"

When he reached this final line, "The sky has brightened," the master suddenly drove his voice high, carrying something of the silk-rending timbre of Qinqiang opera.

"The sky has brightened, hey —"

The common folk and soldiers around him — no one knew who started it — actually picked up the tail of the ditty and sang it out in unison.

From the tea stall to the long street, from the hawking peddlers to the armored soldiers on patrol, the voices of hundreds, of over a thousand people, merged together.

"The sky has brightened, hey —"

Zu Dashou sat quietly on his old horse, surrounded on all sides by singing commoners and soldiers waving their arms.

He did not join the laughter, nor did he join the singing.

He only watched in silence — watched the storyteller thronged at the center of the crowd, watched those low-ranking soldiers whose eyes glistened with tears over a few lines of song. What a masterstroke!

What a deft, ingenious stroke!

This storyteller — starting several months ago, they had gradually spread through every city in Liaodong.

At the time, he had not understood why so many penniless scholars, utterly fearless of death, would come to such a perilous place to scrape out a living.

Only now did he realize — this was clearly a stratagem the new sovereign had been laying for a long time!

That story in the Great Ming Times — the one he had read days ago when he got the newspaper.

Now, paired with the storyteller, and paired with this ditty, it was actually so rousing to the spirit!

What a line — "the new policy's spring breeze blows across the land"!

What a line — "the sky has brightened"!