Chapter 179: What They Fight For

The Han dynasty's coinage mints and all iron offices were staffed with officials, soldiers, and convict laborers, who mined the mountains to extract iron ore.

The Wu'an Iron Office workshop was the great iron mountain of Weicheng Commandery. Disheveled, barefoot convicts in reddish-brown prison garb covered the hillsides, every one of them gray with dust, some still wearing wooden cangues around their necks. But their bodies were sturdy enough — the weak ones, after all, had long since died off in the iron mines.

Weapons in hand, they watched Ma Yuan and his party outside the mining area with wary eyes.

"Greetings, Colonel Ma. This humble one is called Qing Lu. The men have chosen me to speak for them."

The iron-office convict who came out of the mining area to negotiate with Ma Yuan was tall and powerfully built, his hair loose, his face branded and tattooed with characters. He called himself "Qing Lu." Qing Lu still carried a large iron hammer as a weapon; Ma Yuan did not order it taken from him, letting him bring it in, and saw that it was still stained with dark red traces of blood.

"So you are the one who killed Li Lu?" Ma Yuan sized the man up and told him to explain exactly what had happened inside the mining area.

Qing Lu spoke in a gruff, muffled voice: "I venture to inform Colonel Ma: the iron-office officials and soldiers are normally responsible for guarding us, over a thousand iron-office convicts. But recently they struck off everyone's shackles and fetters, gave us several full meals, and distributed some simple armor and weapons."

"Then Li Lu came forward and told us that if we repelled those yellow-scarved enemy soldiers, you would all get extra rations, meat to eat, and those who distinguished themselves could even win release for themselves and their families, to become retainers of the Li clan!"

It turned out that the Li family would also pick out the strongest among the iron-office convicts and select them as thugs among their retainers — this was the iron-office convicts' one and only path out of the mine pits. Otherwise, most would labor here their whole lives until they dropped dead from exhaustion.

Normally, if such an opportunity arose, the iron-office convicts would all scramble to take it. But today was somewhat different. First of all, who was their enemy? Opinions were divided. Some said the Li family had raised troops and drawn an attack from government forces — and government troops were no good thing either.

"Others mentioned that the Li family and the Grand Governor of Weicheng are at odds, and now the two sides have gone to war against each other. The convicts we would have to fight are Duke Diwu's soldiers. Is that not rebellion? We have also heard that Duke Diwu's troops are mostly convicts and refugees of bitter background, and that he treats them generously. We have long yearned for that."

At this, Qing Lu raised his head and looked at the yellow-scarved soldiers behind Ma Yuan, who, like them, bore tattooed characters on their faces, and said: "Since that is indeed true, we talked it over. The benefits the Li family was willing to give us were not even as good as how Duke Diwu treats the soldiers under his command. So why not turn around, kill him, and surrender to Duke Diwu instead?"

"So when Li Lu came on his inspection round, I simply used my sledgehammer to smash his skull in."

This was a ruthless man. Ma Yuan's personal guards grew somewhat wary, but Ma Yuan himself laughed heartily: "A fine warrior! You struck hard enough — Li Lu's face was a bloody pulp. When you cut off his head and delivered it, we could barely recognize him."

"The Colonel flatters me. I'm just used to pounding iron ore on the anvil every day."

"This very hammer? Let me test how heavy it is."

Qing Lu presented the great hammer and let Ma Yuan take it and weigh it in his hands; then it was returned to his own grasp. Ma Yuan's free and fearless manner won Qing Lu's deep admiration.

"How many iron-office convicts are still in the mining area?"

Qing Lu pointed to his iron-office convict brothers, still on alert in the distance, and said: "We had the old clerk do a count. At the Wu'an Iron Workshop, there are over two hundred officials and soldiers, and over two hundred craftsmen. The rest are the convicts and slaves who do the labor — over a thousand in all, most sent here after committing crimes."

"What crimes did they commit?" Ma Yuan asked him.

"Some for unfilial conduct, some for wounding, kidnapping, or theft. And some were caught minting coins in secret."

"And you?"

Qing Lu's eyebrows rose: "Murder!"

The subordinate clerks behind Ma Yuan exchanged glances. When Diwu Lun first arrived in Weicheng Commandery last year and began selecting soldiers from among the convicts, he had rejected those guilty of the most heinous crimes. With so many iron-office convicts here, how should they be screened?

Ma Yuan narrowed his eyes at Qing Lu. "Why did you kill?"

Qing Lu said it lightly enough: "A quarrel broke out. Someone insulted my dead elder brother, so I followed him into an alley and slit his throat."

"Did the general amnesty not pardon you?"

"Those damned Lis never told us there had been an amnesty at all." Qing Lu ground his teeth.

Judging by Qing Lu's ferocious face, he had probably been a reckless young tough in the past. But Ma Yuan paid no mind to trifles; he knew the outcome was not yet decided and this was no time to be particular about fairness and justice. So he smiled and said: "You have all rendered great service. Your past crimes are hereby wiped clean, every one of them!"

"Those who wish to go home may freely shed their shackles and disperse. Those willing to serve Duke Diwu — stay!"

Qing Lu, bold as he was, actually began to bargain with Ma Yuan: "Most of us have no homes to return to, and some even come from other commanderies. In times like these, where else could we go? We are willing to serve Duke Diwu, but we have conditions."

"What conditions?"

Qing Lu said: "First, we keep these arms and armor."

They had finally gotten their hands on weapons and would not lightly lay them down again to be butchered at will.

"Second, Duke Diwu must provide us with clothing and food."

"Third, after so many years of this labor, we do not want to crawl back into those pitch-black mine pits."

Qing Lu's conditions were not excessive. If everything were to remain the same, what had they rebelled for? Ma Yuan granted every one: "From this day forward, you are all officials and soldiers of the Weicheng Commandery Iron Office. You, Qing Lu, shall serve as acting Iron Office Chief. The officials will receive salaries, the soldiers will be clothed and fed. As for those retainers, private followers, and their families who joined the Li family's rebellion, they will be sent here as slaves, placed under your supervision and put to labor."

Everything had been turned on its head. Ma Yuan knew that one reason Diwu Lun was determined to destroy the Li family was his covetous eye on the iron mines. The iron-office slaves had turned their fortunes around, but the work still had to be done by someone.

And just as Ma Yuan was taking the iron workshop without shedding a drop of blood, a soldier came to report.

"Colonel Ma! Below Wu'an City — smoke is rising!"

Li Neng was still unwilling to lose everything. Seeing that the enemy had grown arrogant — two or three thousand men, and they actually dared to split into three routes — Li Neng was suddenly delighted.

"Even I know that in the present situation, troops should be concentrated, not divided."

The chaos when the city gates first opened had been temporary. After Li Neng personally killed several county soldiers who were running wild, his trusted private followers and retainers poured out in order and actually began forming up into battle array with methodical precision.

Though centuries had passed, Li Neng was, after all, a descendant of Li Mu and Li Zuoche; he still possessed a bit of his family's transmitted art of war. Moreover, he had served as a Bandit Section Clerk and normally used military manuals to drill his retainers and followers.

On top of that, he and his younger brother had been robbing their own master — keeping the good armor and weapons for their own household and sending the mediocre ones to the commandery office to make up the numbers. Thus, the equipment of over a thousand retainers could be called first-rate.

Once they were outside the city gate, the foremost private followers could be seen in thick lamellar armor, a dense, black mass. Behind them, several hundred lightly equipped foot soldiers beat their weapons and howled like ravenous wolves. There were also many brave warriors bearing halberds and blades, long maintained by the Li family, now glaring fiercely, poised to strike.

Li Neng commanded in person from the city wall. He did not dare let ordinary commoners out of the city, for fear they would disrupt his own family's formations. Thus, the force that sallied forth numbered a little over two thousand in all. The front ranks of private retainers were the most elite, the county soldiers behind them were second-rate, and there were also many minor strongmen's armed bands waving flags and shouting battle cries.

Diwu Lun's old troops before the city numbered only a little over a thousand. Seeing Li Neng suddenly come out to give battle, they actually abandoned their camp and pulled back.

"The enemy is routed! The enemy is routed!"

Li Neng was on his guard. He first had men on the wall shout to intimidate the foe, then sent his retainers and private followers around the camp ramparts. But he discovered that Wan Xiu and the Boar-Rush Braves had not gone far and were not in disarray. They had abandoned the camp to withdraw to open ground and form ranks.

Now, having finished regrouping, the two sides turned the fields outside the city — where the harvest was nearly due — into a battlefield, standing amid chest-high millet stalks, sunlight pouring down upon them.

Li Neng knew full well that this might also be a ruse by Ma Yuan to lure him out. What he had to do was devour this thousand-odd force before the enemy reinforcements returned!

Holding out indefinitely was no solution either. He still had to sally forth and fight a battle to blunt the enemy's edge and destroy their effective strength — only then could he drag the war out longer.

Boom. Boom. Boom.

As Li Neng personally beat the war drums, the retainers and private followers, having completed their formation, advanced with battle cries toward the Boar-Rush Braves. And the other side, utterly fearless, came straight at them, every step resolute, without the slightest panic of an isolated force. In their eyes there was even something like...

"Madness!"

The Boar-Rush Braves were indeed somewhat wild with joy.

Qin He pressed his shield tight against his body, his ring-pommel saber gripped in his hand, and he had even used the cloth strip wrapped around the hilt to tie a dead knot around his hand so it would not slip free.

He was far more skilled with a hoe than with a blade.

Qin He was just an ordinary foot soldier among the Boar-Rush Braves — average looks, average build, the kind you'd never pick out of a crowd. In battle he always tried not to charge ahead; he was a man who rather valued his own skin.

Qin He still remembered that his home was near Maoling in Jingwei Commandery, a great city with a larger population than Chang'an itself. For ten li in any direction you couldn't find a single idle field, let alone any wasteland still fit to reclaim.

His family had been tenant farmers for six generations straight, but Qin He remembered his father, leaning on his hoe under the blazing sun, once telling him about their ancestors. With a sigh, he had said, "He, a few generations back, our family had land too — right under our feet, this very patch."

Their ancestor had been an ordinary foot soldier who followed Emperor Gao of Han in conquering the realm. He couldn't compare with the Marquises, of course, but through the land-and-homestead grant system, he had received several hundred mu of his own.

But after ten generations of dividing the inheritance, the land shrank with each succession. By the time it reached Qin He's direct forebears, only a few dozen mu remained. Later, whether through gambling debts, borrowing for weddings and funerals, or being trapped by the schemes of powerful local families, those few dozen mu were whittled away month by month, until not a scrap was left.

The rich hold fields that stretch from path to path; the poor lack even the ground to plant an awl. A farmer who lost his land lost all possibility of a settled life. If he didn't want to flee into exile or become a slave, he could only be a tenant, tilling the fields of powerful families and paying rent, scraping by on pitiful harvests to barely feed the children who kept being born.

Even as a tenant, he could not escape the exactions of government taxes. When Wang Mang imposed repeated property levies to fund his war against the Xiongnu, Qin He's family went bankrupt. He was seized as a conscript in lieu of tax and thrown into the Boar-Rush Braves.

Unluckily, he did not end up under Major Diwu. Instead he was assigned to the battalion directly under Major Ruchen. Along the road he watched his fellow villagers die on the march, saw the soldiers brutalize everyone they passed, and when they finally reached New Qinzhong with great difficulty, they were attacked by bandits and lost their grain.

Only after that was he absorbed into the Fifth Battalion. When Diwu Lun stirred up the oppressed soldiers to rise and kill the officials, Qin He ducked his head and missed his chance at an officer's post. After that, whether it was crossing the river to strike the Xiongnu, or Diwu Lun selecting men to march south, he never made the cut.

After three years of muddling along, he was still only a Corporal. The respectable families in New Qinzhong looked down on his poverty; no one would marry a daughter to him.

Until this time, when he followed Wan Xiu south — Qin He had come along in the same muddled way, another trek of thousands of li. When exhaustion and weariness set in, he would gaze up at the starlight and reflect.

"Why am I going to war?"

To fight for survival? At first, that was it. But three years of eating their fill had not only restored Qin He's body; it had raised their expectations, given them a higher craving.

To fight for an official post? Many comrades racked their brains to climb upward. Army officers did indeed get more benefits, but Qin He knew he wasn't cut out for that.

As for freedom… who told you the Fifth Battalion meant freedom? You still had to obey the orders of superior officers, going wherever they sent you.

Or was it, as the Seventh Squad Leader always shouted to fire everyone up when he toured the camp: "Fight for Lord Diwu!"

At first, Qin He had been deeply grateful to Diwu Lun. But after three years of the same slogan, with their lives hardly better than three years before, that feeling had gradually faded. Some even grumbled in secret — why did Diwu Lun have to drag everyone thousands of li all the way to Wei?

Until today. Qin He, who had always been lost and muddled, suddenly heard Wan Xiu speak those two words.

"Land!"

"Land… that belongs to me?"

Do you know what that word means to a farmer?

The field is the foundation of all livelihood and enterprise. It yields grain — plow in spring, weed in summer, harvest in autumn, store in winter. Generation after generation lived by that rhythm. So long as you weren't lazy, so long as Heaven granted fair weather, what you put in, you got back.

But in times like these, for a tenant farmer to regain land was sheer delusion. The powerful families had long since carved up all the good fields. Freeholding peasants barely clung to survival on their tiny, fragmented plots, constantly fearing that their land might be seized at any moment.

Never mind that the Xin Dynasty forbade land sales — even if you could buy it in some places, they could never save up that colossal sum.

When Qin He was young, he had heard a neighbor say the court was going to implement some "Royal Land System": if a household had fewer than eight adult males but more than nine hundred mu of land, the excess must be distributed to kinsmen and neighbors; those who originally had no land would receive it according to that rule.

But they waited and hoped, and what came instead was officials sneering at it, news that the law had been nothing but a casual remark from the court and had already been abolished amid a chorus of opposition.

"Liars!" The tenant farmers, whose hopes had been raised for nothing, spat on the Xin Dynasty and cursed Wang Mang. More hateful than doing nothing at all was making a promise and failing to deliver.

And after Qin He enlisted and reached New Qinzhong, apart from the riverbanks and irrigation ditches, the rest was barren desert — nowhere to clear land. At most they could farm the army's public fields, and how was that any different from being a tenant?

What they wanted was land they didn't have to rent or borrow — land truly their own, land they could pass down to their descendants, so that generation after generation could steadily coax food from the soil. When they were tired from labor, they could toss the hoe aside, sit down on the field ridge, scoop up a handful of yellow earth at their feet, and point to it proudly as they told their children:

"Look — this is our family's land!"

And then pat the child's cheek: "One day, it will be yours too!"

That thick, dirt-encrusted land that bears all things and grows all things — that was the dream the tenant farmers and bond-servants could gaze at but never reach!

And now, Lord Diwu, who had always kept his word, had set that dream before them all.

"Once we wipe out the Li family, the ten thousand-plus mu of fine fields that belong to them will be divided clean among the Boar-Rush Braves!"

For three years he had drifted in a stupor. The great forge of the army had never managed to temper him into good steel; every battle, he always shrank back. But today, somehow, Qin He's grip on his blade had tightened. He looked left and right — his comrades were all seething with the same fervor. Even facing an enemy twice their number, no one flinched.

The waist drums pounded. The Boar-Rush Braves erupted in a mighty roar and began to advance through the millet fields, striding forward.

At the very least, they now knew what they were fighting for in this battle.

"For this land beneath our feet — this land bathed in sunlight!"

…

PS: Bonus chapter again tomorrow.