Chapter 317: Entering the Pass

"Reporting to the Left Chief, ten li ahead lies Wu Pass!"

The Chief of the small pavilion hostel was most respectful. Heifu nodded, had him heat water and came out to wash his face, then peered into the bronze mirror he carried — at last he no longer looked travel-worn.

It was now the first ten days of the first month of spring, the twenty-sixth year of King Zheng of Qin. After more than half a month of trudging, Heifu's party of over ten people and six horse-carts had finally left Nan Commandery and Nanyang Commandery behind, reaching the last pavilion hostel before entering the pass.

"Guanzhong" means the land within the Four Passes — Hangu Pass, San Pass, Wu Pass, and Xiao Pass. Although Hangu Pass is the main route from east of the mountains into Guanzhong, starting from Nan Commandery, Wu Pass was more convenient. If Heifu remembered correctly, in history Liu Bang had also taken this road to enter the pass.

Heifu had his driver Sangmu feed the horses well, and told his cousin Yan to check their travel permits and tallies once more. Aside from luggage, what several of those horse-carts were hauling was a full two thousand jin of brown sugar...

Yan took out everything they needed and re-inspected it, then laughed: "With the tally of a Left Chief, would the officer guarding the pass dare stop us?"

Heifu's face hardened. Sternly he said: "Never mind that my Left Chief rank counts as high nobility in Nan Commandery — once inside the pass, it amounts to little. Besides, entering the pass is no small matter. The pass soldiers will inspect strictly in a moment. If anything goes wrong, I won't cover for you!"

"What am I to do then?"

Frightened by Heifu, Yan's face went pale in an instant. He was only a small-time trader in Anlu, glib enough before his fellow villagers, but he had never set foot outside Anlu, let alone entered the pass all the way to Xianyang.

Heifu clapped him on the shoulder. "You're not transporting forbidden goods like metal weapons or arms — what are you afraid of? Just tell it as it is when the time comes."

After a brief rest, the party set off again. They traveled the "Wu Pass Eastern Road," a route carved along the Dan River valley, bordered to the east by the Xiong'er mountain range. From the Nanyang basin to here, the further west they went, the narrower the road became. For hundreds of li, it was all great mountains and long gorges, narrow and hard going.

Before long, after crossing a mountain defile, Wu Pass loomed before everyone's eyes.

The pass fortress was built on a stretch of relatively level high ground within the gorge, backed by the towering Shaoxi Mountain to the north and overlooking the Dan River to the south. The pass walls were built of rammed earth, with brick and stone foundations. The ramparts stretched two li, winding along the mountainside, almost seamlessly sealing off the road into the pass entirely!

To hold this place, Qin had specially established a "Wu Pass Commandant" to garrison it, with five thousand troops.

Gazing up at Wu Pass now, Heifu could not help but silently praise: "Gripping the border of Qin and Chu, commanding the peril of mountains and rivers. If the road through Nanyang opens, the east stirs; if one enters Lantian, the land right of the pass is imperiled. Wu Pass, a mighty bulwark — a single move here tips the scales of power. How true those words!"

They were not solitary travelers. For nearly a full li ahead, the road was packed with merchants and officials waiting to pass through, their sweat forming clouds and rain, their carts and horses raising dust.

The left side was the commoners' lane, the right the officials' lane, and the middle passage was reserved for postal relay officers coming and going. Just in the interval of waiting on one side of the officials' lane, Heifu had already seen over ten riders galloping in and out without pause, likely delivering documents and military dispatches from the various commanderies and counties.

Guanzhong was, so to speak, the lungs and vitals of Qin, and these roads were like its blood vessels.

Although Heifu acted as if he did not care whether Yan lived or died, he still had him enter the pass at the same time. When their turn finally came, Heifu stepped forward and presented the tally, travel permit, and pass issued to him by Nan Commandery, as well as the King of Qin's edict summoning him to Xianyang.

Despite his Left Chief rank and the King of Qin's edict, Heifu was still subjected to a rigorous inspection. A Hundred-Man Commander who had hurried over first apologized to him, then began ordering his men to split into squads and separately check the permits of Heifu's retinue and the goods loaded on the carts.

"What is this?"

Lifting the mat on a transport cart, the pass officer picked up a horseshoe-shaped lump of brownish sugar and asked.

"A specialty of Anlu County in Nan Commandery — called brown sugar! Similar to malt syrup."

After Yan gave this explanation with a smile, he added, as Heifu had instructed: "This is tribute that the Left Chief is presenting to the Great King!"

The Hundred-Man Commander nodded. Looking at Heifu, he smiled. "Left Chief, may I inspect it?"

"Go ahead."

Heifu wanted to use this chance to see whether Yan could handle a business worth over a million cash. Tossing out that one line, he stepped forward to chat with the Company Commander on duty that day.

And so, Yan was left to deal with the pass soldiers by himself.

The Hundred-Man Commander popped the horseshoe-shaped brown sugar into his mouth and bit off a piece. His eyes widened. He had expected a mild sweetness like malt syrup, but instead it was cloyingly sweet, making his mouth flood with saliva...

"So sweet!" he could not help exclaiming.

The other Hundred-Man Commanders and Platoon Commanders also came over upon hearing this, grinning as they asked if they too could have a taste.

At this, Yan seemed to lose his nervousness. Putting on the smile he used for the market officials back in the county, he said: "In Xianyang, a small piece of this brown sugar can sell for over a hundred cash. Gentlemen, would this count as soliciting a bribe?"

Hearing it was so expensive, the men were startled. The Hundred-Man Commander even moved to put back the piece he had bitten, but Yan stopped him:

"This is tribute for the Great King. If it were delivered to the palace and discovered with a bite taken out of it, a tooth mark left behind — what crime would that be? If you gentlemen wish to taste it, please share and finish this piece among yourselves!"

After Yan came through smoothly, Heifu looked at him with appreciation. "Though this is your first time entering the pass, you handled it well."

He added in praise: "Your Guanzhong speech is also coming along nicely."

"When you're a small peddler, you see plenty of things like this."

Yan rubbed the back of his head and said: "Qin officials fear the law. They dare to take small advantages on the sly, but they dare not openly solicit bribes. As for the Guanzhong speech, the Left Chief instructed me a year ago to find someone to learn it."

He could not help but admire Heifu's foresight.

They were not required to pay tax. Apart from Heifu saying these were "tribute goods for the Great King," it was also because in the first month, Xianyang had issued an order declaring that this year, those entering the pass from outside would be exempt from pass duties — likely to set an example for the nationwide removal of pass barriers and the policy of inspecting but not taxing travelers.

However, while Heifu's people and goods passed without trouble, the horses still lagged behind, surrounded by a group of pass soldiers fumigating them all over with mugwort and other herbs, the smell intensely acrid.

"This is a routine inspection."

The Company Commander guarding the pass told Heifu: "The statutes say: when travelers come from outside the pass, burn the yoke with fire, and inspect the oxen and horses, to prevent 'parasite horses' from entering the pass..."

Heifu knew that "parasite horse" referred to a kind of equine parasite. To prevent carts and horses from outside the pass from bringing in this livestock disease, all carts and horses entering the pass had to have their yokes, crossbars, and leather harness straps smoked with fire.

People were treated the same way. Wu Pass, Hangu Pass, and the other passes all had physicians stationed there. Any person entering the pass who looked ill at a glance, even if it was just a headache or a slight fever, would be stopped, to prevent infectious diseases from being brought into the capital region.

"This strict?"

Heifu could not help sighing: "Entering the pass in this day and age is on par with going through customs quarantine in later ages!"

Fortunately, under Sangmu's meticulous care, Heifu's horses had no problems whatsoever.

After this rigorous quarantine inspection, Heifu instead felt a genuine sense of having entered the capital region, not just casually going somewhere.

Guanzhong — that was the heartland of Qin, the land of Yong Province, the fastness of Xiao and Han, the eight-hundred-li Qin River plain, the true "Land of Abundance" of this era.

What wondrous sights, he wondered, would he see there?

"The Left Chief may enter the pass."

Everything was in order. The Company Commander guarding the pass bowed to Heifu with clasped hands. At once, the soldiers behind him parted to clear the road, and the two heavy pass gates swung open before Heifu.

Heifu sat in the cart. As the wheels rolled forward, he entered the shadow of the Wu Pass gate tunnel. As the light ahead grew brighter and brighter, his heart silently filled with anticipation: "Guanzhong..."

"I have come!"

At the very moment Heifu set foot on the soil of Guanzhong, thousands of li away, in Xiaxiang County on the border between Sishui Commandery and Donghai Commandery, within the Xiang clan's manor hidden among mountain forests, Xiang Liang, dressed in Chu robes, slammed the table in fury and roared at the youth before him:

"I sent you to the academy to study letters — you failed to master them and quit, and even beat the tutor black and blue. I thought you despised the literary and loved the martial, so I invited famed swordsmen from Yan and Zhao to teach you the sword, yet you loafed about all day, and I hear you even wrecked the swordsman's blade!"

"Can it be that the eldest grandson of our Xiang clan is a man accomplished in neither letters nor arms? Have you forgotten how Chu fell, forgotten the enmity of your grandfather and father, slain by Qin?"

"Ji dares not forget!"

Though still very young, the boy no longer wore his hair in the child's double tufts, but had it bound up in a mallet-shaped topknot. He knelt on the ground, head lowered, and after touching his forehead to the floor, said to his youngest uncle:

"Your nephew believes that for letters, knowing enough to record one's name is sufficient — why must one study to become a scholar who can compose whole essays? As for the sword, it can only fight one man at a time. Though your nephew has barely passed his coming-of-age, he can already fight three men. In days to come, fighting ten or a hundred will be nothing to speak of — that too is not worth learning!"

Xiang Liang had not expected such an answer. He was stunned, and only after a long pause did he say, "Then what do you want to learn?"

The boy suddenly raised his head. Though he was only twelve, he had a sturdy, tigerish look. Beneath a pair of heroic, sword-like brows, his eyes were filled with hatred!

Hatred for Qin, hatred for Qin officials! The hatred of a conquered kingdom and a ruined family!

With that blazing hatred burning in him, the boy Xiang Yu said, word by word, "A true man should learn to fight ten thousand!"

Leaving Xiaxiang, following the winding Sishui River upstream, passing Xiapi, going through Pengcheng, they finally arrived near Pei County. On the river's eastern bank, at a vital crossroads, stood a small post station called Sishui Pavilion.

Unlike Huyang Pavilion in Anlu County, Nan Commandery, which was in the middle of nowhere, this place was not only close to the village hamlet but also had two wineshops, run by Old Woman Wang and Wu Fu respectively. Because they were rivals, the two women usually glared at each other with knitted brows and were far from friendly.

Yet on this day, inside Old Woman Wang's wineshop, Dame Wang was busy preparing food and drink, while across the way, the rather comely Wu Fu had closed her own shop and hurried over to help.

As it turned out, both wineshops had been booked out today by the newly appointed Chief of Sishui Pavilion...

This new pavilion chief was named Liu Ji.

Sporting a fine beard and whiskers, Liu Ji was nothing like the down-and-out wanderer he had been in his knight-errant days. Today he wore a red headscarf and official cap, was armored and carried a sword, and sat with his belly thrust out and legs sprawled wide in the seat of honor. He also had his arm around his newly acquainted lover, the pretty widow Cao, while accepting congratulations from his subordinates — the thief-catcher, the pavilion steward, the pavilion runners — as well as his good brothers Ren Ao, Lu Wan, and the rest, his face brimming with smug satisfaction.

"Who would have thought that I, Liu Ji, who in the past was always chased off by officials, would one day become an official myself!"

Over the past year or so, Pei County had undergone earth-shaking changes.

In accordance with Qin's long-standing policies, the Qin army destroyed the old Chu local government and established Sishui Commandery to administer the region. Sishui Commandery and Pei County swiftly reorganized village society according to Qin's tithing system: every five households formed a unit, every ten a tithing. They registered the population and property, and levied taxes, military service, and corvée labor. Everyone was fixed to the land where their household was registered; neighbors supervised each other under collective responsibility, and no one could leave their registration and move about freely.

Under this new system, those most affected were the idle drifters, especially the knight-errants, who suffered brutal suppression and nearly lost all room to survive.

As the times changed, the knight-errant Liu Ji faced a major choice: either integrate into the new system, settle down with a fixed residence and occupation, and turn over a new leaf.

Or flee and become an outlawed fugitive beyond Qin law. For example, Zhang Er, the Wei county knight-errant whom Liu Ji had once followed — after the Qin army conquered Wei, he immediately became a wanted man by the Qin authorities, hiding and fleeing, his whereabouts unknown.

Ever since the Battle of Waihuang, Liu Ji had long anticipated this day. Without the slightest hesitation, this man who knew how to read the times chose to turn back from his wayward path.

But he could not be bothered to heed his parents' advice to honestly take up farming. Instead, he boldly set his sights on becoming an official!

"You? A clerk?" His father, Old Man Liu, had spoken in just that tone at the time, absolutely refusing to believe that mud could stick to a wall.

Yet once again, Liu Ji had bet right. He, who had no path to office under Chu rule, had finally caught a good moment!

According to Qin's bureaucratic system, the newly arrived county magistrate, county assistant, and county commandant were all transferred from Qin's home territories. But the local minor functionaries were mostly filled by locals.

There were several paths to enter local minor office: one could transfer from a military clerk position in the army, be recommended by the locality based on certain property and conduct standards, or be selected through a "clerical examination."

Liu Ji was already thirty-five this year, a notorious old bachelor with a foul reputation in his hometown of Fengyi. Recommendation for office required virtue and the praise of the community — he could not qualify that way — so he could only choose the examination path.

Relying on his connections with Ren Ao, who worked as a jail clerk in the county, he sought out some Qin statutes to copy and memorize.

As a child, Liu Ji's parents had held high hopes for him, and he had learned to read. He spent half a year and managed to get a rough grasp of the Theft Statutes, Assault Statutes, Arrest Statutes, Imprisonment Statutes, Miscellaneous Statutes, General Statutes, as well as the Provisions on Food Rations and the Statutes on Document Transmission — the very texts that Heifu had once memorized so thoroughly years ago. He took the statutes examination in Pei County in the tenth month; though he made some mistakes, he barely scraped a passing grade.

The post of pavilion chief, as a martial clerk, also required skill in swordsmanship and proficiency with the five weapons — and that was Liu Ji's strong suit.

Thus, in the first month, he was appointed Chief of Sishui Pavilion.

The Chief of Sishui Pavilion, however small, was still the head of a district. In one hand he held official tablets and orders, in the other the ropes for binding men. He had two or three subordinate runners at his beck and call, and within ten li, everyone held him in awe — was that not prestige!

The group had been chatting idly for a while when a loud voice rang out from outside the wineshop door.

"Brother Ji, lads — the meat is here!"

A butcher around twenty years old, with a full whiskered beard and hands greasy with fat, walked in, carrying two freshly roasted dog legs.

He was called Fan Kuai, a dog butcher of Pei County and a young brother Liu Ji had befriended during his knight-errant days.

"Ah Kuai, sit down quickly — you're the only one missing!"

Liu Ji was the boss of the group. After having Fan Kuai take his seat, he pulled the Widow Cao close with one arm, planted a kiss on her, then burst into loud laughter and raised his pottery wine cup high!

"Lads, before entering office, Liu Ji was a village knight-errant. A knight-errant roams the four corners, makes friends, and values brotherly loyalty!"

"Now that I've become a minor government functionary, I must submit to the many restraints of the Way of the Clerk and the laws and ordinances of Qin — no more reckless misdeeds. With official duties to attend to, roaming about everywhere is out of the question..."

After these two solemn sentences, the old rogue could not hold back and revealed his true colors, grinning cheekily: "But drink must still be drunk, and friends must still be made!"

"Well said! A toast to Chief Liu!"

The thief-catcher, the pavilion steward, the pavilion runners, as well as Ren Ao, Lu Wan, Fan Kuai, and the others also raised their cups, drank with Liu Ji, and roared with laughter.

Though the wine was rough and poor, it went down smoothly enough. After Liu Ji had downed several cups, he let the Widow Cao wipe the wine from his thick whiskers. Reaching up to touch his red headscarf, he said with deep emotion:

"From this day on, I, too, am a Qin clerk!"

PS: This chapter is the update owed to Alliance Leader "Archimedes Smashes the Vat." It's been delayed until now — thank you!

(End of chapter)