Chapter 255: Those with Fixed Property Have Fixed Hearts

"The thing I regret most in these past few years is that evening after our corvée ended, in the twenty-first year of the King's reign, I didn't stay behind with Ji Ying, Xiao Tao, and Dongmen Bao to wait for the County Lieutenant..."

In mid-eighth month, in a farm field beside the township of Yunshui Village, the common soldier Zhi, dressed in coarse hemp brown clothes and barefoot in the golden rice paddy, looked up at the wild geese flying south, his face full of regret.

Back then, Heifu had been their squad leader during corvée service; the few of them trained together, repaired walls together, earned coin together — you could say they had some bond.

But that evening when the service ended, because Heifu had been called away by the then County Right Lieutenant Du Xian, Zhi was in a hurry to get home, so he dragged his cousin Mu along and left first...

Until now, seeing that Ji Ying and Xiao Tao — commoners and common soldiers just like them back then — had both gained noble ranks and even taken up official posts in the county, and that Dongmen Bao was commanding five hundred men in all his might and glory, only then did he realize exactly what he had missed!

If he had stayed behind that year, gone with Heifu to Huyang Station, gone to Wei and Chu, then even if he couldn't command an entire village like Dongmen Bao, he'd at least be a petty ration-rank official by now, wouldn't he?

As he spoke, Zhi sighed again and looked toward Mu, who was swiftly swinging his sickle to cut the rice in the field, and said irritably, "Cousin, don't you regret it?"

Tall and sturdily built but dull by nature, Mu raised his head blankly, wiped away sweat, and showed a simple, honest smile. "I don't regret it. Now I've been conscripted for military service. When the County Lieutenant inspected the camp and saw me, he actually still remembered what happened back then, pulled me aside and talked for a long while, and in the end even made me his flag-bearer, with the same treatment as his short-weapon personal guards. Every meal I get one bowl more than ordinary soldiers, and there are scallions, leeks, and fish soup to go with the rice!"

"Eat — that's all you think about!"

Mu's words only made Zhi angrier. As things stood now, his cousin had at least hitched a ride on the County Lieutenant's big ship, but he himself was short in stature, hadn't been conscripted, and it looked like he was about to miss this chance for rank and riches all over again!

He threw his sickle down in frustration, sat on the field ridge, and sulked. "When you come back, you'll at least be a First-Rank Noble... no, a Second-Rank Noble! And I'll still be a common soldier in a poor village!"

The honest Mu didn't know what to say, so he could only bury his head again and speed up his rice-cutting. Originally, none of them would have had a chance to go home; it was all thanks to the County Lieutenant's kindness in letting them return to their villages under the leadership of their platoon captains and squad leaders to help their families with the autumn harvest and bid farewell at the same time. Now it was already the fourteenth of the eighth month, and they had only four days left before they had to return and assemble.

His arms were thick and powerful, able to bear the County Lieutenant's great banner, and he was no slouch at farm work either. He quickly finished cutting one mu of rice, and after carrying it to the field ridge and setting it down, he said with some surprise, "The rice grew really well this year!"

"Of course."

Zhi, who had been sulking for half the day, finally answered. "The Field Adjutant had already spread the word back in late summer about the methods of composting and fermenting manure, and used them on the public fields. But many households in the village stuck to the old ways and didn't dare try. As soon as I heard it was a method offered up by the County Lieutenant's household, I thought it had to be reliable, so I had my family use it on these dozen or so mu of rice paddies. This year, every mu of paddy will yield at least three or five dou more grain!"

Mu had gone to the village station to answer the conscription and receive training at the end of the sixth month, so he didn't know much about it. Hearing this now, he told Zhi about the "public latrine" he had seen in the county seat.

"That day when I was holding the flag up on the city wall, I also heard the County Lieutenant discussing with the County Magistrate. They said that after the autumn harvest, besides the county seat, they'd also build a public latrine in the township of three villages to collect night soil..."

The three townships combined had five or six thousand people. Over a year, the night soil obtainable from the public latrines would be quite considerable, so County Magistrate Yong He was only waiting for approval from the commandery before continuing to push the "Public Latrines to the Villages" campaign.

This remark jolted Zhi awake. He slapped his thigh and immediately stood up.

"Right! Brother, that public latrine is under the Field Adjutant's jurisdiction and cleaned by convict laborers. They'll definitely need a petty official to oversee them, right? This filthy job — the ranked nobles in the village surely won't want to do it. How about I go and offer my services? Anything initiated by the County Lieutenant can never go wrong! Maybe I'll even get a chance to earn merit and gain a rank!"

At the same time, in Zhaoyang Hamlet, Huyang Station, the First-Rank Noble Quji had also finished harvesting the millet from his family's dry fields.

His wife, wearing a hemp dress and cloth skirt, carried their one-and-a-half-year-old child in a back-basket and brought a clay pot to deliver food to her husband and the neighbors who had come to help...

As Quji lifted the clay pot to drink water, his wife said in a soft, thin voice, "Thank goodness the County Lieutenant showed mercy and let my husband come back. Otherwise, with these hundred mu of land, relying on me alone, I wouldn't know what to do..."

"Yes."

Quji was full of feeling. "The earlier kindness hasn't been repaid yet, and now I owe the County Lieutenant another one... no, two more debts of gratitude!"

The year before last, because he had discovered that the hamlet gatekeeper was colluding with outside bandits to rob tombs, and fearing retaliation, he had slipped an anonymous letter into the back-basket of the postal runner Ji Ying. He thought it was flawless, but who could have guessed that Heifu, then the Chief of Huyang Station, would ferret him out. That case was eventually solved, and the hamlet gatekeeper and the tomb robbers were all captured. But according to the law, Quji had also committed the crime of delivering a letter, and had to pay a fine of four thousand coins.

At that time, his family had just finished a funeral, and his wife was pregnant. They couldn't come up with that much money and could only substitute it with penal labor. But Heifu directly "lent" him four thousand coins and burned the debt bond on the spot...

With Heifu's rescue, Quji was able to use the family's money to hire a physician for treatment, and smoothly waited until his wife gave birth to a chubby little boy.

Looking at his wife and child, Quji was perfectly content. His only concern was that he had never had a chance to repay that kindness, even though Heifu had risen higher and higher and didn't care about it.

This time, it was Quji's turn to serve. After arriving at the military camp with a nervous heart, the County Lieutenant noticed him during an inspection, chatted with him for a while, saw that he had no martial skills and could barely draw a bow, thought for a moment, and then had him serve as a clerical assistant at his side...

"I remember, the handwriting on that letter you delivered back then was not bad."

The County Lieutenant said it lightly, but Quji felt as if granted a great reprieve and regarded this as the County Lieutenant's special care — that was the second kindness.

Add to that this time letting the soldiers go home for the autumn harvest — that was the third kindness.

"How can I ever repay..."

Quji was deeply troubled, and at the same time worried about how, after he left, it might be a year or more before he returned. How would his wife, with a child, manage to live? Although as a First-Rank Noble, the Field Registrar would assign a servant to help tend the fields, tasks like pounding rice would have to be done by his wife herself.

His wife, while soothing the child, comforted him, saying, "We have a treadle pestle; it won't be too hard."

"Besides, last month, after the Field Registrar made a trip to the village, he came back with several craftsmen and set up a water-powered pestle house in the hamlet gate. He said villagers can bring their rice grain there to be pounded, just paying one-fifth of the grain. This is also a device made by the County Lieutenant's household. If I really can't work the treadle pestle anymore, I can go there to pound the rice!"

The days drew nearer one by one. The husband and wife were about to part, both reluctant to leave. On the last day, when they woke in a daze, the wife said, "The cock has crowed." The husband said, "It's barely dawn." But no matter the hour, they always had to rise. The king's service never rests; there is no leisure to sit at ease. As common folk, once conscripted, there was no room for choice.

In front of the yellow pear tree at the home of First-Rank Noble Quji, his wife stuffed one more pair of newly made shoes into his already bulging traveling pack. Her eyes were red, and she said through gritted teeth, "If my husband does not follow military law, then I and our child will both be condemned to death under the law!"

This was the customary exhortation in Qin when sending a family member off to the army. Quji smiled helplessly, and placed a grasshopper he had woven the day before into his son's tender pink little hand...

"Wait for my return!"

At the same time, in Yunshui Village, the door of common soldier Mu's house also opened. The tall flag-bearer stepped out of his home. His parents, wife, and children, even after he had walked far away, still shouted toward him, "If you don't gain a rank, don't come back!"

In the hundred-plus hamlets of Anlu County, in countless households, these two phrases were being repeated. Parents, brothers, wives, and children all stood by the door, watching their sons and brothers, carrying winter and summer clothes, bearing thin bedding, chewing dry rations, leave their warm homes. At the hamlet gate, they assembled with their squad leaders and fire-team leaders. After the headcount was confirmed, they converged like streams flowing toward the station headquarters...

On the seventeenth of the eighth month, the night before assembly, at Heifu's new home on the outskirts of Anlu County, the family had finished their "reunion meal." After attending to his mother's rest and fulfilling this year's last bit of filial piety, Heifu noticed that his younger brother Jing had not yet slept either, but was instead pacing restlessly in the courtyard with some anxiety.

"Second Brother."

Jing said somewhat uneasily, "Tomorrow is the assembly day. If some people really don't show up..."

He had studied the laws and ordinances and worried that if too many men deserted, his second brother would be in a difficult position to deal with it, and might even be punished by the Commandery Lieutenant for failing to meet the conscription quota.

"You're actually worried about this!"

Heifu smiled helplessly, beckoned him to sit by the pond, and said, "Do you know why, in this conscription, I prioritized drafting men of property?"

Jing nodded. "Second Brother told me before: those with fixed property have fixed hearts; those without fixed property lack fixed hearts!"

"Correct. 'As for having a fixed heart despite lacking fixed property, only a shi is capable of that!' In the Qin army, we've always preferred to use good family sons with fixed property, and dislike the rootless gallants, wicked youths, and slum-dwellers without property. The first reason is that good family sons can prepare the clothing and supplies needed for a campaign, whereas the slum-dwellers can't even afford winter and summer clothes..."

In the original course of history, Heifu and Jing, who participated in this war, were also considered good family sons; their family could at least send them clothes and money.

"Second, good family sons are easy to command and obey military orders. In single combat, they may not match the wicked youths, but once they form ranks and fight, they are infinitely stronger than the gallants who each fight for themselves. This is one reason why Qi's martial champions are inferior to Wei's elite armored soldiers, and Wei's elite armored soldiers are inferior to Qin's fierce warriors."

"Third, even if these good family sons have some fear of battle, they won't rashly desert, because that would implicate their families. They can only grit their teeth and charge onto the battlefield!"

This is what's called: the monk can run, but the temple can't.

Furthermore, as Wei Liaozi said, there are five demands for an elite army: "As a general, forget your family; crossing the border, forget your parents; facing the enemy, forget your life; if determined to die, you will live; rushing for quick victory is the lowest." Only thus can a hundred men under blades break formations and throw lines into chaos; a thousand men under blades capture the foe and slay the general; ten thousand men under blades rampage across the realm!

But to receive orders as a general and forget your family, to go abroad to war and forget your parents — how could these two things be easy?

Men are not birds or beasts; it is very hard to completely sever family ties. Sometimes, the more you forbid soldiers from returning home, the more they yearn for it. Conversely, let them go back and finish the autumn harvest, see with their own eyes that the family granary is full, and have their fathers urge them, "Win no rank, do not return" — then they can set their minds at ease and throw themselves wholeheartedly into the slaughter to earn rank.

This is the same effect as last war, when Heifu proposed to Li You that the Southern Commandery troops who had been away too long be allowed to write letters home, which greatly boosted their morale.

After hearing this, Jing was thoroughly convinced. He bowed to Heifu with clasped hands and said, "Second Brother, your younger brother feels that your methods of training and commanding troops already have the bearing of a famed general!"

"What famed general am I?"

Heifu burst out laughing at these words. He had his own self-awareness: "In the art of military command, I am merely a fledgling chick, still carrying eggshell on my body and just opening its eyes. There is still so much more to learn!"

He gazed toward the distant north and said with anticipation, "Old General Wang Jian, who is about to command the great army of six hundred thousand — now that is a famed general!"

Qi, Mu, Po, Jian — the Four Great Generals of the Warring States in later ages. Lord Wu'an cut his own throat at Du Pavilion, Lian Po died of old age in Daliang, Li Mu perished by slander and stratagem — only Wang Jian remains!

Heifu now felt boundless anticipation for meeting this general who fought wars as steady as an old dog!

"To witness his showdown with Xiang Yan is also a privilege for one of my junior generation!"

(End of chapter)