Chapter 17: Returning Home

"What's that smell?" Beside the campfire, Gongsun Xun took the dry-roasted flatbread, enduring his thirst and refraining from drinking the raw river water nearby. But before he could swallow, he suddenly caught a faint, strange odor carried on the wind.

"Seems to be coming from over there. I'll go take a look." A companion sitting beside Gongsun Xun stood up, sniffed, then strode off with a torch to investigate.

No one paid it much mind, for it was just a strange gust of wind that brought it — surely it wouldn't hinder their meal too much... And besides, without any water, the dry-roasted flatbread was proving rather troublesome, and far more absorbing of their attention.

Of course, they all had some background with the Anli Trading Company and had all witnessed great plagues. Thanks to Lady Gongsun's years of instruction over in Liaoxi, they could all, in any case, still hold back from drinking raw water.

Just like that, they had barely forced down two bites of flatbread with the help of their own saliva when the companion who had gone to investigate came hurrying back — and very quickly, he made everyone lose their appetite entirely.

"It's abandoned infants," the man said, his face ashen. "I held up the torch and took a general look. That ditch is full of abandoned infants — just dead, dead for days, gnawed down to bare bones by wolves and rats. Dozens of them at least."

Abandoned infants, drowned infants — these were all too common in this age. Gongsun Xun had seen them more than once in Liaoxi, and he had asked his mother about it long ago. Her answer had been helpless.

She said: first, there are no birth control measures, so pregnancies happen constantly, and once pregnant, one cannot easily abort, so they can only give birth and then deal with it; second, the common people at the bottom in this age simply cannot afford to raise so many children; third, the government's reward and punishment system is essentially dead in all but name; fourth, don't forget the typical preference for sons over daughters... So, this matter is fundamentally unavoidable.

Only...

"Abandoned infants aside, there seem to be only two or three scattered hamlets to the east around here, three or four Company Commander at most. How could there be dozens of abandoned infants?" Gongsun Xun was greatly puzzled.

"Young master, forgive my bluntness." A middle-aged retainer from Gongsun Xun's household — a dependent with feudal ties to the master family, equivalent to a servant who could not be bought or sold — could not help but interject. "My family fled famine from Qingzhou to Liaoxi in the past. Over in Qingzhou, abandoned infants on this scale were already happening more than ten years ago."

"It had already reached this point more than ten years ago?" Gongsun Xun was rather shaken.

"Indeed it had!" the man said earnestly. "It's not that they were unwilling to raise them, but that they truly could not afford to. The common people are destitute. Often a single great disaster or plague would cause an entire township to collapse. Then we people of Qingzhou would either flee to Mount Tai and become bandits, or flee to the border commanderies to seek a way to survive. If my old home hadn't become unlivable back then, my family would never have fled en masse to the borderlands... On the contrary, over in Liaoxi, as the mistress says, the land is vast and the people few, and the oppression from the master family is not too severe, so they can actually manage to raise a few more children. Not to mention that in Liaoxi we have our Anli Trading Company — the mistress would even encourage the household slaves and retainers to adopt some abandoned infants. Many of those abandoned infants have now grown up and have always regarded the mistress as a figure akin to an immortal. So, it's not that the people here are excessively poor, but that Liaoxi is genuinely a better place. And since you, young master, grew up there, you naturally wouldn't know the situation here."

As the saying goes, reviewing the old helps one understand the new. Setting aside the flattery of his own mother in the man's words, Gongsun Xun suddenly recalled another thing his mother had once said — In the border commanderies, ethnic conflict effectively suppresses class conflict. Whether that is a good thing or a bad thing, I wonder?

Now, although his mother had carefully 'popularized' the concepts of ethnic conflict and class conflict for him, at the time he had heard this and remained utterly confused, not understanding a single bit.

Yet now, hearing that dozens of abandoned infants lay right beside him, and connecting it with the situation in Liaoxi, Gongsun Xun suddenly grasped it with piercing clarity — it was not that the great families and local magnates in the border commanderies had some higher consciousness, but rather that, faced with the immense military pressure of the Xianbei and the unease brought by the Wuhuan people living nearby, the great families and magnates there were willing to concede some things to the lower classes in order to maintain local military competitiveness.

This was the true essence of that saying!

But then, thinking in reverse, the inner commanderies and kingdoms of this Great Han dynasty not only had no military pressure, but also had to send vast amounts of wealth to the border commanderies to maintain this situation... Indeed, by the rules of the Great Han, the border regions were poor, so the funds to pacify the foreign tribes and maintain border defense there were all sent from the inner commanderies and kingdoms.

That being the case, to what extent would the great families and local magnates here in the interior exploit the common people at the bottom? To the point that so many abandoned infants appeared in a single hidden ditch? To the point that the local common folk were driven to flee to the life-threatening border commanderies to become retainers for others?!

That night, Gongsun Xun tossed and turned, unable to sleep.

And while this young master, who had never witnessed the hardships of the common people, was secretly troubled, what he did not know was that the Lulongsai cavalryman Jia Chao — the one he had missed because he took a wrong turn — was destined to do something that very night that would shock the entire countryside!

Let us turn back time to the previous afternoon. At that time, Jia Chao had no idea that the kind young master of the Gongsun family and the equally kind Han Dang, Han Yigong, were coming to find him. Even less did he know that these two would later take a wrong path because of a small river, and end up in the wilderness late at night, freezing like something or other.

In truth, as the second son of his family, having lingered at Lulongsai for many years without returning home, and this time bringing a fine horse and having obtained two bolts of silk — not to mention the considerable wealth he had saved and been rewarded with before — Jia Chao's heart was full of excitement. He only wanted to return home as quickly as possible to see his elderly mother.

Moreover, he was a local after all, and would absolutely never take a wrong path.

So, not long after Gongsun Xun's group had set out, Jia Chao had already passed through villages and relay stations, galloping his horse to the hamlet gate of Dasang Hamlet in Donghe Station, where his own home was.

A word more here: by the Han dynasty system, ten hamlets made a township, and also ten hamlets made a station — which sounds rather confusing. But in fact, the township was a civil administrative unit, discussed in terms of household registration. The station was a public security and administrative unit, discussed in terms of defense, postal relay, and public order. Both were directly under the county, not subordinate to each other, nor contradictory.

It was just that the station, as an institution managing postal and courier station services and also providing directions, naturally had a geographical indicator function. This is why one often sees addresses like 'such-and-such station, such-and-such hamlet'.

Of course, further down, the concept of the hamlet was undisputed. It was the most basic administrative organization in the Han dynasty, generally gathering a certain number of registered commoners into one settlement for management, universally set up with fences, walls, and a main gate, and appointing a hamlet chief to manage it. In this age, there were no terms like 'village' or 'residential community', so this hamlet could basically be considered a later-era village or community.

According to the Zhou system, one hamlet should have 72 households. In the mid-Han period, it was generally held that one hamlet should have 100 households. But in reality, wealth and poverty varied by region, and population density differed. Moreover, given the change in total population during the late Han compared to the founding period, a hamlet here in Julu, Jizhou, at this time likely already generally exceeded 100 households. And it could no longer be the standard 'ten hamlets to a township' either.

"Who is the hamlet gatekeeper?" Jia Chao panted, somewhat helplessly slapping at the sealed hamlet gate. "Why is the gate closed in the middle of the afternoon? Quickly, help me open it."

The hamlet gatekeeper was the hamlet chief's deputy, possibly the lowest-ranking functionary in the entire Great Han dynasty. In remote countryside like this, far from any city, the job was generally done by an elderly widower or orphan too old for farm work — a way to give him a means of survival.

"Who is it?" A local accent, still somewhat familiar, immediately rang out. "This gate is closed on the hamlet chief's orders. He said it's to guard against wolves. A few days ago, a wolf sneaked into Sanma Hamlet across the way and made off with two sheep..."

"Gatekeeper Zheng, it's me. I'm Jia Chao from the Jia family at the east end of the big mulberry tree." As he spoke, Jia Chao had already recognized the gatekeeper's voice. The local accent was unchanged, so his irritation instantly vanished, replaced by a touch of joy.

"Jia... Jia Chao from the east end of the big mulberry tree?!" The gatekeeper exclaimed in astonishment as he opened the gate. "Aiya, it really is you! And leading a horse, carrying so many things — is that fine silk? Did you receive a letter? I heard it snowed up north; we all thought we'd have to wait a bit longer."

"Wait for what?" Jia Chao was baffled. However, his heart was set on home, and he couldn't be bothered to waste words with this old man Zheng. So he directly led his horse and strode quickly toward his home.

"Aiya, it's a good thing Jia Chao brought money back, but coming back with a great fortune might not be a good thing..." The gatekeeper, advanced in years, could not help muttering to himself. But whatever he wanted to say, he did not continue. He merely bolted the hamlet gate again from the inside and returned to his little hut to shelter from the wind and keep warm.

On a winter afternoon, many villagers were sunning themselves in sheltered spots. Jia Chao, eager to get home, merely nodded slightly as he passed by. He had not returned for several years, and he was leading a horse with silk draped over it. The villagers wanted to recognize him but hesitated for a moment, only recalling who he was when he stopped before his own door.

But by then, it was no longer convenient to disturb him.

"Elder brother! Elder brother!" At his own doorstep, Jia Chao's heart was so full of joy he wanted to simply push the door open and enter. But remembering that the broken door at home had been knocked down by a single push from him when he left, he had to restrain himself and gently rap on the broken wooden plank.

"Second brother, could it be second brother is back? So soon?" A response immediately came from within the courtyard, precisely the voice of his elder brother, Jia Ping.

"I wonder if he brought any money..." At that moment, another voice sounded nearby — somewhat unfamiliar, yet still distinguishable, a plaintive female voice. It was clearly the sister-in-law his elder brother had married shortly before Jia Chao left home.

Now, before this sister-in-law married, she had been a famously pretty young lady in Dahuang Hamlet of the neighboring township. She had only married in because she took a liking to his elder brother Jia Ping's ability to endure hardship and farm, and because the family had four rooms and thirty mu of land — at the time, still a middling household in the hamlet.

"It's me, I'm back. Elder brother, sister-in-law, quickly open the door." Hearing this, Jia Chao, standing before the door, couldn't help but laugh. He hadn't expected his sister-in-law to be so small-minded, thinking only of his money... Yet, his journey home this time had been so fortunate, meeting benefactors one after another. Not only had he brought back the money he was supposed to bring, but he also had an extra horse, silk, and silver!

So, why would he quibble over such things?

In fact, on the ride back, Jia Chao had already thought it all through very thoroughly: the silver he would let his elder brother use to buy some good farmland for the family; the horse he would ride to nearby stations to see if he could enlist as a cavalryman, finding himself a job; and as for the silk — his mother was old and had never enjoyed such things, so first he would have a fine outfit made for her, then take out one bolt as a betrothal gift to marry a wife even prettier than his sister-in-law. If there was any left, he might even consider making some garment for this sister-in-law, seeing as she had cared for his mother at home for several years.

He was just smiling when the main gate opened, and the small courtyard enclosed by his family's four thatched mud-brick houses, along with his elder brother and sister-in-law, appeared right before Jia Chao's eyes.

Seeing the two of them staring at him and the horse behind him with such astonishment, Jia Chao naturally grew even more smug.

"I have some dried meat here. Sister-in-law, take it and boil some hot soup; we'll eat together shortly." Having trained away from home for many years, Jia Chao was no longer the rough village lad of the past. He immediately began giving orders in a very organized manner. "Elder brother, go borrow some fodder from the neighbors to feed the horse... And, where is mother? I must first pay my respects to mother!"

"In the first year of the Yongping era, Zhai Tong again bribed Pian He to attack Xinzhiben, defeating and beheading him. Thereupon, all the Xianbei chieftains came to submit and went to Liaodong to receive rewards. Qing and Xu provinces provided two hundred seventy million cash annually as a regular tribute. During the reigns of Emperors Ming and Zhang, the frontier remained peaceful." — Book of the Later Han, Volume 90, Treatise on the Wuhuan and Xianbei, Part 80

By the way, that one-star rating everyone mentioned... it's actually just because the number of reviewers hasn't exceeded ten... If any PC readers could help leave a review, that would do it... It's no big deal... Rest easy.

Mm, still in the new book period, continuing to ask for bookmarks and recommendations.

(End of Chapter)