Chapter 509: The Axe

Beneath his feet were straw sandals that looked ready to fall apart at any moment; his worn hemp clothes could not hide his robust frame. Over his shoulder rested that axe, honed razor-sharp — this was Fan Chong's breadwinning tool.

The night had just been broken by the first light of dawn when he set out on his day's work. Whenever he ran into someone in the hamlet, they would greet him with a smile: "Woodcutter Fan, out so early."

He answered them vaguely. How could he not be early? As the pillar of his household, he had several children crying to be fed. The times were hard; for most common folk, merely struggling to stay alive was difficult enough. The beautiful sunrise of Ju County in Chengyang and the stirring birdsong — Fan Chong had no leisure to notice any of it, pressing onward in his journey.

He walked farther than the average woodcutter, cutting through thickets of brush taller than a man. Neither fierce tiger nor jackal-wolf could threaten Fan Chong's life. Only when he reached a sun-drenched mountain ridge did he stop, before several fine specimens of zhe tree.

This tree grows slowly; its heartwood is golden yellow, produces little smoke, and even carries a faint fragrance. It was the fuel the powerful and wealthy households of Ju County loved to burn, and only by relying on it could Fan Chong earn enough money to meet his taxes.

He swung his axe without pause, tireless. Amid the thunderous whoosh of the axe, his hands went numb. One by one the zhe trees toppled with a sobbing moan of wind, and were further broken down by Fan Chong into firewood that could be stuffed into a stove.

After a day of toil, Fan Chong was utterly exhausted. The only meal he had eaten was the green rice ball his wife had pressed on him: a lump of wild greens and coarse brown rice wrapped together.

Swallowing this rough fare, Fan Chong gazed ahead. All that met his eyes were great mountains and poverty, without the slightest hint of pastoral poetry.

By the time he carried the firewood — a hundred jin on each end of his pole — back home, spread it out to dry, the sky was already dark. His home was very crude: a thatched roof, a reed mat for a door. Seeing them, Fan Chong felt ashamed. In his youth, relying on his strength and ability, he had managed to save up a modest household. Later, however, he became addicted to liubo gambling and lost every bit of that fairly comfortable family property.

But his wife had never blamed him. Now she simply set aside her needlework, squinting as she helped Fan Chong pick the thorns from the soles of his feet. His children clustered around him, chattering about the day's amusing happenings in the hamlet.

A gentle look, rare for him, appeared on Fan Chong's face. His hands, covered with thick calluses from years of felling trees, stroked over them. But the children's bodies were very thin, their bellies swollen — the result of long-term malnutrition. His wife too had not replaced her clothes in many years, yet she was more concerned about the broken spinning wheel.

For Fan Chong, chopping wood was not difficult. The trouble was how to sell those sun-dried zhe logs for a good price.

Originally, Fan Chong had gotten by selling firewood to neighbors in the county and village in exchange for grain and cloth, enough to be self-sufficient. Yet every year, the poll tax and the suan tax both had to be paid in proper coin, and the taxes grew heavier year by year. No one knew if it was truly the Emperor raising taxes, or the commandery office responsible for collection colluding with the powerful families to apportion extra burdens. He had to go to the market to exchange for those coins. If that bit of money could not be handed over on time, what awaited his family would be utter catastrophe.

Fan Chong loaded several hundred jin of dried firewood onto a creaking cart and, together with a few fellow woodcutters, pushed them with difficulty toward the commandery seat thirty li away.

Traveling in a group was essential. If someone's cart broke or their firewood spilled, they could help repair and gather it. When they met a small slope, they could push each other up.

They could also huddle together for warmth on the road, avoiding the need to stay overnight at a post station and waste a bundle of firewood on the stationed clerk for nothing. Fan Chong had left his thick clothes at home for his wife and children to ward off the cold. Pitifully, he wore only a thin summer garment, yet in his heart he worried the firewood would not sell and even hoped the weather would turn colder. The night wind made everyone shiver, but every stick of firewood was crucial for exchanging for coins. When it was not necessary, they could not bear to burn it, only casually picking up some dead branches by the roadside to make do for warmth.

And if they encountered road bullies or vicious bandits, the axes in the hands of a group of woodcutters could make the thugs think twice about extorting them. Fan Chong had already vaguely become the woodcutters' leader. A man like him would ordinarily collect a certain benefit from the others as a protection fee, thereby improving his own life, but Fan Chong never did this. He insisted on fairness.

On this road of poverty, at least he was not the only one struggling.

Leaving the rough, narrow paths and stepping onto the muddy main road, the firewood carts wobbled and swayed the whole way. Everyone's lips had gone pale and cracked, their eyes bloodshot, their gazes very unfocused, yet still they did not stop.

They passed through fields dotted with fortified manors. The field slaves had been toiling with heads down since first light, but the sons and daughters of the powerful families only leisurely dressed and made themselves up when the sun was already three poles high, preparing for hunts and evening banquets. The firewood the group carried might perhaps add a little light to such feasts, but the woodcutters who went to inquire mostly met with rejection — the wealthy houses wanted zhe wood.

"But only half a cart."

Everyone looked at Fan Chong. As long as this tall, big fellow was willing, no one dared to compete with him.

Yet Fan Chong gave this opportunity to a neighbor who had likewise managed to cut some zhe wood. His own family, though hard-pressed, could still scrape by, but the neighbor's wife and daughter had fallen ill and were already struggling on the line between life and death.

The neighbor thanked Fan Chong profusely. He only waved his hand and continued hurrying toward the commandery seat.

Ju County was a great city of the Haidai region, having fully recovered from the great earthquake of Emperor Xuan of Han's time. The marketplace in particular bustled with noise, hawkers' cries rising and falling without end.

But all of this had nothing to do with the woodcutters. They were like intruders, staring blankly at everything around them.

Entering the market meant being ruthlessly fleeced: all the mountains and forests under heaven had been designated state property by the court's "Five Equalizations and Six Monopolies." Wang Mang had decreed that all those engaged in fishing for turtles and fish, hunting birds and beasts, or gathering firewood must surrender thirty percent of their profit as "tribute," to be paid upon entering the market.

In other words, for every hundred jin of firewood the group wanted to bring into the market to sell, they had to hand over thirty jin to the authorities.

What Fan Chong did not know was that the mountain-and-forest tribute Wang Mang had proclaimed was only ten percent, but the local authorities had privately exempted the powerful families and instead shifted the burden onto the common folk, slashing two extra cuts.

These two cuts were enough to be fatal.

Some people bypassed the restrictions and traded at private markets in the suburbs, but these private markets were also under the protection of local powerful families and likewise required a twenty percent "tribute." The common folk were like chives — they might dodge the sickle, but they could not dodge the shears.

Even after suffering this exploitation to enter the private market, the woodcutters were clumsy of speech and often could not sell their firewood for a satisfactory price, while the sharp-tongued city folk nitpicked the quality and shape of the wood, dismissing it as worthless.

Seeing that the sky was about to darken again and the evening market would soon end, some decided to wait a little longer, spending the night at the foot of the city wall and holding out until the next market day — the firewood would not spoil anyway. Others, desperate for money, could only endure the bleeding in their hearts and sell at a low price.

Clutching the coins he had finally managed to exchange, the neighbor hurried off to find a physician and ask about medicine. Fan Chong calculated that he had just enough to pay the taxes and planned to use the leftover money to buy his wife new shears and iron needles, and to replace his own axe with a new one. But one inquiry gave him a terrible shock.

The ratio of salt and iron to coin had doubled since his last trip into the city!

"Then why hasn't the price of the grain and firewood we sell to merchants and nobles risen?"

The neighbor who had gone to ask about medicine also returned empty-handed. Helpless, in the end he could only blankly follow the crowd of the evening market and prostrate himself before the temple of the "Illustrious King of Chengyang," praying for a change in his family's plight, beseeching the radiance of the divine lord to shine upon them.

Finally, they even handed over the little money they had left to the shaman-priest, in exchange for an empty promise, and then begged for some incense ash to take home and mix with water for their wives and daughters to drink, as if this could make them recover.

If they had not truly fallen into despair, who would place their hopes in vague and intangible gods?

The companions on the journey all contributed more or less an offering to the Illustrious King of Chengyang. Only Fan Chong did not stop. Pushing his cart, his axe resting on top, he strode home.

"The Illustrious King of Chengyang bears the surname Liu. He will only shelter his Liu clan descendants. Why would he help paupers like us?"

Fan Chong believed in no one, only in himself, and in the axe in his hand.

Though his whole body was weary and the hope of a new axe and shears was gone, he had at least scraped together enough for the taxes after autumn... He could only hope to save a little more the coming year.

Under the dim night sky, Fan Chong was rather generous that day. He lit some of the zhe wood he had kept at home and not sold, bringing a little more light to the house. His wife and children sat gathered around him, and together they planned their future new house.

"After paying the taxes, there'll still be a bit of money left. I have some standing in the hamlet. If I put on a good feast and invite everyone to a meal, I can ask them to help make adobe bricks, then fell timber for the beams, and finally buy some good tiles — then we can live in a tiled house."

A tiled house that could shelter his family from wind and rain — that was the "promised land" in Fan Chong's heart at that time. His wife said she wanted to build a courtyard, plant fruit trees in front of the door, plant mulberry trees on the right, and raise some chickens and ducks so the children could have eggs to eat every few days.

The children chattered away, saying they would plant more zhe trees. They would piss and shit underneath them to make the zhe wood grow faster, so Father could chop firewood right outside the door and never have to trek through brambles up the mountain again.

A smile appeared on Fan Chong's face. This was his happiest moment after many days of bitter toil.

Yet when autumn passed and the time came to pay the taxes, fate played a colossal, cruel joke on everyone!

"This money was invalidated the year before last. You people actually didn't know?"

The tax clerk disdainfully threw to the ground the liu quan coins and shi bu coins the hamlet folk had carefully presented, and showed them the new coins Wang Mang had ordered cast: "The large and small coins are already abolished. From now on, only the huo quan and huo bu are valid!"

Was this not sheer madness! Everyone was stunned. For peasants and woodcutters to exchange for a little money was no easy thing; it took a year of bitter labor just to scrape together the poll tax and suan tax, which the commandery office had doubled. To save a bit of money, they would not even mention concealing household registrations; worse still, some even tearfully drowned their newborn infants!

And just like that, the money they had so painstakingly saved — the authorities abolished it with a word! And they were not even given the chance to exchange the old for new!

Everything was declared an imperial edict, beyond question. But how much profit had the powerful families and officials, who knew the news in advance, extracted from it?

Why did the rich grow richer and the poor grow poorer, until even their final right to survival was to be mercilessly stripped away? Fan Chong felt as if someone had slapped him hard across the face. He stared fixedly at the tax clerk.

The Emperor made decisions on a whim, and his word became law. The officials carried it out according to their own interests. Coin and silk were abolished just like that — but what of the blood and sweat these woodcutters and peasants had shed through a year of bitter hardship? Just voided and written off like that?

And Fan Chong's hope of letting his family live a little better? Just utterly dashed like that?

"The various great surnames of the commandery can pay your taxes on your behalf."

The local magnate who had come along began to play the good man, echoing the tax clerk in a duet, revealing their true aim: "But those of you who have fields must pay grain next year to repay the loan. Those without fields but with strength must repay it with your labor..."

Was this not a disguised way of turning small farmers into tenant farmers and woodcutters into private slaves? The Xin Dynasty prohibited land sales and the slave trade, but the officials and powerful families, who controlled authority and the channels of communication from above to below, could always find ways to keep flaying the skin off them.

Some lowered their heads in resignation — better than being seized by the officials and local strongmen, branded criminals, and sent to hard labor.

Some sat on the ground and wailed, despairing at the fate awaiting them. The taxes were already crushing enough, and now they were inexplicably saddled with enormous debts, like mountains piled one upon another, breaking their backs. With compound interest rolling on, it was rarely a debt one generation could clear — it meant generation after generation toiling like oxen and horses for others.

But there were also those who, with long-suppressed fury, walked step by step toward the tax collector with his insufferable arrogance, toward the village magnate with his hypocritical benevolence — then raised an axe high and brought it crashing down on him!

Then, with another swing, he cut down the tax collector too!

Everyone stared in shock at this usually silent, tight-lipped "honest man." The tax collector's blood splattered onto the killer, leaving a stark streak across his forehead, as if dyeing his eyebrows crimson!

"If we can't live, then let us rise up!"

Fan Chong raised his bloodstained axe. The morning sun shone on him, casting a shadow so immense he seemed a giant!

"Follow me! Into the mountain forests — never again shall we suffer under anyone's heel!"

Eight years had passed. Fan Chong still swung his axe as he did back then, tireless.

But the difference now was that what he hacked at today was no longer mulberry wood, but living men — Wei soldiers!

Their hard armor was like the thick, petrified bark of ancient trees; their long spears and halberds, like branches crisscrossing every which way. Fan Chong chopped and hacked, parried and blocked, lopping off limbs and branches, then brought his axe crashing down again on the "bark."

Just as tree sap and wood chips once flew, so now blood sprayed, and another Wei soldier collapsed to the ground.

Yet still they surged toward Fan Chong, as if endless.

In his weariness and numbness, between bouts of fighting, Fan Chong seemed to return to his woodcutter days. Back then, his thoughts were simple: when would he and his family finally know good days? No — not just one household. If his village friends and kin could share in it too, that would be a blessed land!

But things went against his wishes. Fan the Giant still fought on, yet of the village companions who had slain officials and risen with him eight years ago, precious few still remained at his side.

In the early days of Fan Chong's rebellion, his force was still small and was soon defeated by the local strongmen's armed bands. His beloved wife was caught by the authorities, and to force Fan Chong out of the mountains, they brutally killed her.

He led his band east to Mount Tai in Yan Province, slowly building strength, until at last he fought his way back to his homeland and hung nearly every strongman and official in Ju County from the mulberry trees!

But then a plague swept through. Fan Chong's two sons died of the pestilence.

Though he rose up and fought back, suffering and misfortune still followed him like a shadow.

Fan Chong shed his last tears. He buried them beside his wife's grave mound, and from then on felt not a shred of attachment to his homeland — he set his mind only on pressing forward.

As if to replace his lost kin, he came to regard the Red Eyebrows as his brothers and sisters. Fighting across the provinces, the half-grown children he took in grew more and more numerous, eventually reaching over a hundred. Though other Red Eyebrow leaders imitated Fan Chong in taking "adopted sons" as a disguised form of slave-keeping, Fan Chong, the one who started it all, truly treated them as his own sons — and they fought at his side.

To this day, Fan Chong's dream had not been shattered.

After felling yet another Wei army Platoon Commander with his axe, they had broken through the weak point between the Wei army's Sanhe troops and Jizhou troops. Fan Chong now meant to lead his men toward the rear army, hoping to muddy the waters and let the routed conscripts throw Diwu Lun's great formation into chaos.

"To live good days — in the past, we could not count on Wang Mang, or the mighty nobles, or even that Chengyang Jing Wang."

"And now, we cannot count on this 'good emperor' Diwu Lun either!"

Fan Chong had never studied books, but over thirty years of abject living, and these eight years of struggle, had taught him one truth.

"A blessed land — we must cleave it open, inch by inch, with the axes in our own hands!"

Diwu Lun was no longer in the command post. He had mounted his war chariot. To its left and right were axe-chariots, each bearing an axe as well — but unlike Fan Chong's blood-caked killing axe, Diwu Lun's axe blades were hung with multicolored streamers. They were emblems of authority.

Scouts kept returning from every sector of the battle to report.

"Commandant Ma has caught up with the Red Eyebrows' rear contingent. The Yuyang lancers have also arrived and are locked in fierce combat with them."

"The Red Eyebrows' momentum has indeed flagged. The Jizhou troops have held off their assault."

"Fan Chong has committed the Red Eyebrows' last ten thousand fresh troops to the field!"

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The moment he heard that Fan Chong had staked everything on one throw, committing his last troops in hopes of breaking the Wei army's "weak point" and throwing the rear into chaos, Diwu Lun's hand, gripping the command arrow, struck hard against the chariot rail.

"At last!"

Without realizing it, Diwu Lun found his hand already slick with sweat. Though the Jizhou troops were crying out in distress, the Sanhe troops were fighting outnumbered, and Ma Yuan was straining every sinew in bitter combat — Diwu Lun had still held at least fifteen thousand soldiers in reserve, clutching them as tightly as a family heirloom, unwilling to commit them to the field. Until now!

"Tell Commander Zheng — execute the plan!"

From the center army position, signal kites rose one after another. First, the Guanzhong troops facing south completed their turn and began advancing toward the Jizhou troops and the Red Eyebrows' tens of thousands, who were pecking at each other like barnyard fowl. The Goshawk Banner streamed out, like a hunting falcon that had waited long, at last spreading its wings to stoop upon its prey.

And half a li ahead of Diwu Lun, the five thousand Wei Commandery soldiers who had all this time been "sitting in formation," invisible to the Red Eyebrows outside, now rose slowly to the sound of drums and horns. Rubbing their legs numb from sitting, they began advancing toward Fan Chong's unit, which had penetrated deep into the Wei army's "weak" line and was now isolated.

Diwu Lun took in the Red Eyebrows' fearlessness. He admired Fan Chong's courage in cleaving apart injustice — but beneath Fan Chong's great axe, the remnants of the former dynasty had already been wiped out. To keep hacking wildly would yield not a future, only ruin and calamity.

"Now, I must mend this riven sky."