Chapter 250: Having Seed and Having No Seed

That night, after everyone had taken their leave, Hei Fu looked at the cups and dishes strewn across the banquet table and broke into a smile.

"The way they all looked when they left — they must have been shaken by my bold words..."

"Brother, it isn't just them. I'm still lost in what you said, and I haven't come back to myself yet," Jing said from the side.

He raised his head to look at Hei Fu, a trace of unease in his eyes. "Second Brother, are dukes, marquises, generals, and ministers truly not determined by birth? Why, ever since I was small, have people always told me that nobility is inborn?"

Jing was still somewhat hesitant, because in Nan Commandery, which had been ruled by Chu for centuries, bloodline theory was very prevalent.

The kings of Chu through the ages all claimed descent from the bloodline of Zhu Rong. The bronze script for their clan name was not the later "Xiong," but "Yan," whose pictographic meaning was offering bundled reeds and strained wine in sacrifice to Heaven — thick with the implication of a divine mandate. Since King Wu of Chu, over five hundred years, only two prime ministers had come from outside the royal clan. One of them, Wu Qi, had wanted to abolish Chu's system of hereditary enfeoffed lords and suppress the hereditary ministers, and was attacked from all sides for it, meeting a bad end.

And so this idea of "inborn nobility" was still very popular among the common people of Nan Commandery.

Faced with his younger brother's doubts, Hei Fu asked him in return: "Do you still remember those stories I told you? Fu Yue was raised up from among rammed-earth builders, Jiao Ge was raised up from the fish and salt trade, Guan Yiwu was raised up from a jailer — were any of these men born worthy ministers? They all came from lowly origins!"

"What's more, the Yun clan also had a noble lineage, descendants of the ancient state of Yun. But where is Yun Man now? My own origins are humble; born of the same mother as you, I too was once a commoner rank-and-file soldier, not worth a single coin. And what position do I sit in now?"

Thinking of it this way, Hei Fu felt that he truly was an inspirational model. Judged by birth alone, he was even more of a loser than Liu Bang or Chen Sheng!

Fortunately, he had not landed in the Shang or Zhou, nor in the Spring and Autumn period, but had arrived at the very end of the Warring States.

Chinese history can be divided into an era of hereditary ministers and hereditary emoluments — the era of "having seed" — and an era of imperial bureaucracy — the era of "having no seed." In the former, birth outweighed ability; in the latter, ability outweighed birth. These two eras were precisely divided by the Warring States, Qin, and Han. Hei Fu and his companions stood right in the midst of that shifting tide.

The wars and flames of the Warring States had already torn down the high walls of hereditary office and emolument from the Spring and Autumn period. The ducal houses fell, and men of talent rose. Scholars of letters, warriors, and strategists of lowly birth entered the courts of every state, ranking among the ministers and generals. The slogans "prime ministers must rise from the provinces" and "fierce generals must emerge from the ranks" were proclaimed openly and boldly.

Unlike Chu, which continued down the old path of hereditary rule, Qin's system of military merit ranks went to the opposite extreme: "Those with military merit shall each receive high rank according to their achievements." This meant that anyone who rendered military merit, regardless of birth or social stratum, could enjoy ranks and emoluments. Military merit was the most essential condition for receiving rank and reward.

Furthermore, "Members of the royal house who have no military merit to their name shall not be entered in the clan registry." This abolished the hereditary privileges enjoyed by the royal clan nobility. They could no longer, as in the past, obtain high office, rich emoluments, noble ranks, and fiefs purely by blood ties. It was said that even Cheng Jiao, the younger brother of King Zheng of Qin, initially held no noble rank. Only after he was sent as an envoy to Han and gained considerable land and cities for Qin did he become an enfeoffed lord.

The transition from "having seed" to "having no seed" went through a long, drawn-out preparation; it was absolutely not something that Chen Sheng called into being with a single sentence. The greatest achievement of that line, "Are dukes, marquises, generals, and ministers truly born of seed?" was that it toppled even the emperor — of a single lineage ruling ten thousand generations — from his divine pedestal.

Hei Fu dared not shout such words now — that would be outright rebellion. A clever modification, linking it to the military merit rank system, would do.

A person's achievements are made, not inborn. Fate rests in one's own hands; only through one's own effort can an unequal destiny be changed!

That said, in Qin, an ordinary commoner rank-and-file soldier, even if he struck it lucky and rose through the ranks by beheading enemies all the way, could at most become a Gongcheng. After that, advancing further was extremely difficult. This was a ceiling on class mobility. Before Hei Fu, who knew how many people had smashed their heads bloody against it.

Because from Grand Master of the Fifth Order and above, one was equivalent to a "minister" and began to be registered separately by native place.

Yet Hei Fu had boldly declared that he would break through this ceiling, setting himself a small goal first: to be enfeoffed as a marquis! To obtain a clan name!

These heroic, ambitious words had jolted Li Xian, Dongmen Bao, Ji Ying, and Xiao Tao awake on the spot, making their scalps tingle, as if a brand-new door had been thrown open before their eyes!

None of them dared to harbor the same ambition, but they also understood that if Hei Fu truly could reach that step, they, his followers, would certainly not be shortchanged in the benefits.

Grand Master? County Commandant? Perhaps they could hope to go even further!

And so, the day after they returned, the previously indolent and slack group underwent a complete transformation in spirit and attitude!

Dongmen Bao no longer clamored all day about holding his son. After returning to his village, he dug out the hand halberds he had not practiced with for a long time and began going through the drills, earnest and methodical.

Xiao Tao also tightened up the training of the crossbow and materiel officers. He had suddenly found his goal: to assist Hei Fu with all his might!

Ji Ying, too, quietly changed his ambition from "becoming a Grand Master" to "becoming an Official Grand Master!"

Li Xian became even more diligent in official duties, assisting Hei Fu in preparing the troop training matters.

Even Jing, who was certain not to graduate before this war, upon returning to the study chamber, picked up the dry and tedious legal statutes and began reciting them once more.

Hei Fu observed all of this and was thoroughly satisfied.

"On the day I first took up my post, Magistrate Yong He said to me, 'Governance is the chariot; the clerks are the horses. We are all driven by others.'"

"But as I see it, my ambition is also like a chariot. I cannot push it forward on my own. Are these men not likewise my team of four? In wisdom and potential, they certainly cannot compare to a thoroughbred like Chen Ping. They are merely ordinary mules and horses of the county and village — not fast, but utterly loyal, following my direction, pulling steadily. These horses each have their own temperaments and different tastes; they grow weary and they slack off. To keep them from falling behind, I must apply the whip from time to time!"

After spurring on his subordinates, Hei Fu also threw himself into the intense conscription work in Anlu County.

According to the commandery's plan, in the fifth month each county was to draft the conscription rosters; in the sixth month, small-scale formation training would be conducted in the villages and ting; in the seventh month, they would concentrate at the county seat to continue reorganization, enabling the troops to recognize gongs, drums, banners, and flags; in the eighth month, weapons would be distributed and combined tactical drills would begin...

However, in the sixth month, a major case occurred in Anlu County, throwing local order into some chaos. The conscription work was also delayed, and the current progress was far behind schedule.

Hei Fu had Li Xian bring the drafted conscription roster for him to review. Qin practiced universal conscription. Once a youth reached adulthood at seventeen, he was entered into the registry by native place and had to be ready to answer the call at any time!

Youths aged seventeen to twenty mainly performed corvée labor — that is, repairing walls and building roads, transporting grain, and so on. Hei Fu had done wall-repair work in the county and had also been dragged along last time to escort convict laborers. During the conquest of Wei, he had been in the supply train and only managed to slip into a combat unit through connections.

Upon reaching twenty, one was classified as "able-bodied" and had to continue serving as a garrison soldier and a regular soldier. One year was spent in the local commandery troops — that is, the commandery soldiers — and one year in the border or central guard forces.

Of course, most people in Nan Commandery never had the chance to go to Xianyang; they were stationed directly nearby. After all, Nan Commandery itself was a border region. It was precisely during these two years of military life that commoners of lax discipline were forged by military law into orderly soldiers, acquiring a sense of formation and the ability to recognize gongs and drums. When they heard that war was coming, they would not show fear but would rejoice at the prospect of battle.

After completing their standing army service, all youths of eligible age were transferred to the reserves. Apart from still serving one month of corvée labor each year in the commandery or county, once war broke out, if their names were called, they had to report for enlistment immediately. They were not exempted from service until the age of fifty-six (for those with noble rank) or sixty (for those without).

Unlike the somewhat hasty and haphazard conscription during the last campaign to destroy Chu, this time the entire Nan Commandery was strictly carrying out the summer conscription in accordance with the "Statutes on Garrison Service."

Li Xian was indeed a capable clerk and had thoroughly familiarized himself with everything in the County Commandant's office. He presented the bamboo slips and said, "County Commandant, Anlu County has one county town with over a thousand households, as well as three townships: Beijiao Township, Yunmeng Township, and Yunshui Township. The three townships together comprise thirty ting, each ting containing anywhere from five to ten li."

"According to the established practice of conscription in previous years, each li contributes one squad of five soldiers, with the wu elder or li head serving as squad leader or platoon leader. Two ting combine to contribute fifty soldiers, with one ting head selected as tun commander, and one conscripted county clerk serving as hundred-man commander. In this way, the hundred-man unit, tun, platoons, and squads are all composed of fellow villagers who know each other well!"

This was universal conscription — the Qin of classical militarism! Grassroots organizations from peacetime could, in wartime, transform in the blink of an eye into military formations, with conscripts assuming different posts in the army according to their noble ranks...

Calculated this way, the three townships alone could contribute nearly a thousand soldiers. Adding the conscripts from the county town, there would be over a thousand men — already reaching the number Li You had demanded.

They would be organized into one regiment, with Hei Fu, the County Commandant, serving as regiment commander. Under him would be two five-hundred-man commanders, one hundred-man commander for his personal guard, as well as medical and emergency support personnel and other logistics and supply staff.

Hei Fu thought to himself, "Come to think of it, that force of nine hundred that Chen Sheng and Wu Guang later led to garrison Yuyang — that was also a regiment formed from two counties, wasn't it? The two of them even served as tun commanders, and those two officers who were killed were actually the County Commandants!"

Hei Fu naturally would not allow such an incident to occur ahead of time. So he had Li Xian carefully finalize the roster, prioritizing the conscription of men of property, and not allowing propertyless men from the left side of the village gate to join the army. Ruffians and wandering bravos were destabilizing elements in the military.

"I want an elite force composed of the sons of respectable families from Anlu! Merchants and artisans will be organized into the supply train!"

He gave these instructions: "Every township and ting must complete conscription before the first day of the seventh month. Train in the townships and ting for one ten-day period, organize the ranks, and on the tenth day of the seventh month, bring everyone to the county town to muster!"

And just as the conscripts from each township were about to converge on the county town to undergo training by Commandant Hei, Hei Fu was also busy arranging a private matter.

Moving house!

When Commandery Governor Teng toured the counties, he had greatly praised the method of composting and retting fertilizer, saying it had significantly increased grain yields in Nan Commandery and rendered great service to both state and people. Thus, at the same time that Hei Fu was finally granted the rank of Gong Dafu for his "proposal on medical and emergency aid" and for pacifying the Yi Circuit rebellion, his eldest brother Zhong had also received a reward from the commandery and was elevated from Shangzao to Zanniao...

Not only was his rank raised, but Zhong was also recruited into the Anlu county town to serve as Assistant Field Clerk, acting as deputy to the Field Overseer — equivalent to a later "deputy director of the county agricultural bureau." He was to take up the post at the end of the sixth month.

That being the case, all three brothers of the family would be in the county town. They could hardly leave their mother home alone, could they? And so, after discussing it with Zhong, Jing, and their mother, Hei Fu made a decision: move the family to the Anlu county town!

Hei Fu completed the household registration procedures at the magistrate's office and, taking advantage of a rest day, made a trip back to his old home. Gazing from afar at the great banyan tree with its luxuriant branches and leaves in Sunset Li, Yunmeng Township, Hei Fu felt a twinge of reluctance. The old, cracked door of his home, the yellow dog growing old — every brick and tile held the warmth of home.

But in the end, they still had to go. His family and his home were involuntarily moving along with the advance of Hei Fu's footsteps.

The next day, seven or eight ox carts, some rented and some borrowed, set off carrying all sorts of household goods that his mother could not bear to part with, heading for the county town. Standing outside Sunset Li, responding as best he could to the congratulations and well-wishes of the villagers, a mischievous thought flashed through Hei Fu's mind.

"From now on, our family has urban residency too!"

(End of chapter)