Chapter 34: Amidst Board and Rammer

Although Heifu had told Zhong that "life will get better and better," no sooner had Zhong left than life for them, the rotational conscripts, suddenly plummeted to a low point.

Because drill training had ended, and the conscripts had to begin their primary work: corvée labor.

At the mention of corvée, scenes immediately surfaced in Heifu's mind:

The seven hundred thousand convict laborers at the Mausoleum of the First Emperor on Mount Li, the Great Wall of Qin stretching for thousands of li, Wan Xiliang buried alive within the Wall, and Meng Jiangnü, whose weeping brought the Wall crashing down…

Of course, the prototype for that last story had long existed by this time, called "The Wife of Qi Liang," but it was actually about an event in the State of Qi during the Spring and Autumn period, later falsely pinned on the Qin dynasty through a chain of errors. After all, "All the world's virtues are ascribed to Shun, Yu, the Duke of Zhou, and Confucius; all the world's vices are laid at the feet of Jie and Zhou." In the eyes of later scholars, the tyrannical Qin, with its "book burnings and live burial of scholars," was ten thousand times more vicious than Jie and Zhou—so such a cruel deed must have been your doing! Just like the broken windows theory, since the Qin dynasty was already so blackened, plenty of people came along to add a stroke here and a smear there, until its crimes became too numerous to record on bamboo strips.

Though the story was false, the crushing corvée was indeed real. Most of the heroes at the end of Qin who rose up in rebellion over a decade later were troubles stirred up by corvée.

Therefore, Heifu approached the construction site where he was to serve with a mindset ten times more cautious than during training, full of trepidation.

Fortunately, Centurion Chen's attitude toward Heifu was growing better and better. On their way from the South Gate to the East Gate, he even chatted with Heifu.

He explained that the highest-grade corvée in the State of Qin was called "imperial central conscription," which was labor dispatched from the capital and required working in Xianyang. Although King Zheng of Qin was in his prime, his royal mausoleum—the future Mausoleum of the First Emperor—had already begun construction, though the current scale of work was not large, nothing like the later seven hundred thousand…

At the mention of Xianyang, Centurion Chen's eyes sparkled. He longed at every moment to visit the capital, even if it meant just lying by the roadside and stealing a glimpse of the King's chariot—that would be satisfaction enough. To behold the splendor of Xianyang and bask in the King's glory was the most anticipated moment for every Qin official.

Heifu knew that, a dozen or so years later, a Sishui Village Head wearing a bamboo-skin cap and sporting a large beard would head to Xianyang for corvée service with the same thought as Centurion Chen, and upon seeing the First Emperor's chariot, would sigh, "This is how a great man should be!"

Beyond that, the civil engineering projects and transport labor requisitioned by each commandery and county on their own authority were called "regular works," and they came in a great variety. Some involved repairing the fences and walls of forbidden parks and state pastures, some involved building city walls and dikes for various counties, or expanding county government buildings.

The last type was temporary corvée, which fell outside the annual "expenditure matched to revenue"—that is, outside the government's fiscal plan. It required approval from higher authorities before a project could be established, because in theory, the Qin State did not encourage arbitrary conscription of labor. That day in the county prison, Heifu had seen in "The Way of an Official" a line that read, "Launching projects at untimely seasons, issuing orders tardily yet demanding urgent conscription," which truly made him click his tongue in wonder.

Unfortunately, the batch of conscripts that Heifu's group rotated into was assigned precisely the heaviest of heavy labor: repairing the city wall…

Originally, the eastern part of Anlu County seat was built along Quyang Lake and had no wall. Perhaps considering the future war with the State of Chu, as a border county, Anlu had to strengthen its defenses, so it was decided to build an eastern city wall. The previous year, it had been reported up to the commandery and approved. Thus, starting after the autumn harvest, construction had been ongoing in fits and starts. Besides over a hundred convict laborers working day and night without rest, a group of rotational conscripts had to be called up each month to build another section.

After Centurion Chen handed over the hundred-odd conscripts to the "County Sikong" in charge of the project, his task was complete.

As the foreman responsible for the project, the County Sikong gave Heifu and the others a cold reception to assert his authority, announcing numerous prohibitions—no malingering, no laziness, and so on—with severe punishments for violators.

"If you refuse to heed repeated warnings and defy the Sikong, these convict laborers will be what becomes of you!"

The County Sikong intimidated them, pointing his finger at a group of people already toiling on the worksite…

The weather in mid-to-late October was already bitterly cold, yet those people were dressed in tattered rags, wearing reddish-brown prison uniforms, their lower garments barely covering their bodies, their hands and feet red from the cold. Still, they had to labor without pause under the foremen's watch.

"Brother Heifu, isn't that the merchant Bao who framed us and was sentenced to wall-builder labor a few days ago?"

Ji Ying had sharp eyes and recognized at a glance the stumbling figure among the convicts. It was indeed the merchant Bao, who had returned their kindness with enmity!

Bao seemed to have spotted the two of them as well. He froze for a moment, and the basket of earth in his hands spilled. Immediately, a whip cracked down on him. He cried out in pain and hurriedly lowered his head to resume work. In just half a month, all his former prosperous plumpness had vanished. His hair and beard had been shaved off, and his expression was one of utter desolation…

Next, Ji Ying found the three pavilion guards from Huyang Pavilion, who were working together to pry loose a large obstructive boulder. When they looked up at Heifu and Ji Ying, their eyes were full of terror; whatever hatred they had harbored before had been completely worn away. Wall-builder labor was the bitterest of penal servitude, and they still had to serve their sentences here for several years.

Finally, they also spotted one of the Chu bandits who had been captured and sentenced. His face was tattooed with dark ink characters, a wooden cangue was locked around his neck, and he was doing even heavier work, shouted at and ordered about by the foremen.

"Only found one. Where did the other one go?"

Ji Ying looked for a long time but still couldn't find the other Chu bandit. Seeing the convicts' wretched state, he said with lingering fear, "All thanks to Heifu's quick wits that day. Otherwise, if we had lost the lawsuit, you and I would be serving wall-builder labor here—not for half a month, but for three to five years!"

Heifu nodded too. Being transmigrated into the Qin State truly was a hell-difficulty dungeon. It wasn't a matter of just following the general trend of the world and sailing smoothly. As a small fry, you had to carefully avoid all manner of illegal acts. One wrong step, and it was an abyss of ten thousand fathoms, with absolutely no second chance.

Thinking back carefully, he had been far too reckless during training a few days ago, never leaving himself a way out when gambling with others. It seemed he would have to be more cautious from now on and not take such risks.

The County Sikong did not waste words with them either and immediately assigned tasks. Each squad had its own work to be responsible for. And so, on that gloomy winter day, under the County Sikong's supervision and the prodding of the petty foremen, on the worksite swirling with yellow dust, over a hundred conscripts and over a hundred convicts shuttled back and forth like a colony of worker ants, coming and going in haste.

Although Heifu was a squad leader, he couldn't idle either. He took a large basket of earth passed over by his comrades and thought to himself, "So the city walls of this era aren't made of brick after all…"

He had seen inside the county seat that the government office's foundation and floors were paved with brick, but the city walls of this era were not brick-built; they were made of rammed earth.

Building walls of rammed earth was a meticulous process. At first, under the foremen's direction, everyone assembled thick wooden planks, inserting a vertical post called a "zhen" on the outside of every pair of planks. These posts were also bound together with ropes, fixing the planks like a set of stocks to keep them from collapsing. Thus, they erected four wooden walls, forming a long, narrow rectangular frame that looked very much like the scaffolding used in later-era building construction.

It was said that this four-board wall-building method had been brought from the Central Plains to the Jianghan region by Wu Qi over a hundred years ago, supplanting the local, backward two-board wall method. As times changed, few locals even remembered Wu Qi's name anymore. This four-board method was probably the only thing he had left behind in Chu…

Heifu and the others' task was to continuously shovel earth using the iron spades of this era, called "cha," place it in bamboo baskets, have people carry it up along that "scaffolding" to the top of the wooden walls, and keep filling the inside with earth. At this point, the effectiveness of the previous days' training became apparent; they passed the baskets along in sequence, very orderly and efficient.

Once the inside was full of earth, the wall-builders and convicts, in groups of three or four, would swing heavy tamping pestles and rain down blows upon the loose pile of earth!

Heifu knew that those wooden planks were called "boards," and the tamping pestles were called "rammers." This process was called "board-ramming." Mencius said, "Fu Yue was raised from amidst board and rammer," meaning that Fu Yue, the minister of King Wu Ding of Shang, had also started out swinging a large pestle, doing the bitter work of tamping earth…

"Heave! Heave! Heave!"

As the convict wall-builders chanted their work song time and again, swinging the large pestles and smashing them into the earth, the loose, dry soil was slowly compacted, becoming denser and denser, harder and harder, until even an iron spade driven in with full force could not pry it loose. Then water was sprinkled on, a layer of mud was plastered over, and a section of the city wall was considered complete.

After the construction was finished and the scaffolding was dismantled, the inserted poles pressed into the rammed earth also served a reinforcing function.

Heifu was still somewhat skeptical of the wall's quality. He stabbed at the already air-dried ramparts with his dagger, only to find his worries had been unfounded. It was indeed rammed as hard as stone. Its lifespan might not match that of a stone wall—after a thousand or a hundred years, it would surely be eroded by wind and rain, grow shorter, or even vanish—but its defensive capability was quite good and could withstand the bombardment of stones.

Thus, the best method for attacking a city in this era was not stone-throwing catapults, but digging tunnels, or diverting water to slowly soak the walls…

Thinking it over carefully, the Great Wall of Qin was actually built of board-rammed earth too. But after doing some silent calculations, Heifu couldn't help but feel alarmed.

Over two hundred of them had been busy for quite a few days, yet had only managed to build a short section of the city wall.

How long was the Great Wall? Even if not literally ten thousand li, it was at least several thousand li, right? How much labor would that require? The transportation and population on the northern frontier were far worse than in the Jianghan region—how many people would die?

Posterity all says that when Qin built the Great Wall, the dead propped each other up.

In these two days, Heifu had indeed seen with his own eyes a convict, whether from illness or overwork, suddenly collapse and die, then be carried away. Everyone just watched numbly, without any look of surprise, showing that this was a common occurrence…

"Bear a son, be careful not to raise him; bear a daughter, feed her dried meat. Do you not see, beneath the Great Wall, corpses propping up skeletons!"

This was no false rumor, but the genuine voice of the common people. Thinking of this, Heifu couldn't help but shudder.

For now, he didn't dare entertain grand ambitions or think of a far-off future. He only wanted himself and his family to live a good life first, to avoid dying in a ditch. He absolutely could not fall to such a state!

Therefore, he had to quickly find a way to raise his noble rank to "No Further Corvée," so that he could be permanently exempted from labor service and have the ability to protect his family.

Just as he was thinking this, a shrill, piercing cry rang out. The conscripts put down their work one after another to look. They saw a man draped in feathers, his hair disheveled, slowly walking over while singing an eerie song—a local shaman. The County Sikong followed behind with a frosty expression, and behind him, two foremen were firmly gripping a bare-chested man with an inked face…

"Brother Heifu, he's…"

Before Ji Ying could finish, Heifu recognized him. It was one of the Chu bandits they had captured last month. They hadn't seen him for the past few days; what had happened? And now he was being brought out again—what was this about?

When they got closer, Heifu was stunned to discover that the Chu bandit convict's left foot, from the knee down, had vanished without a trace!

PS: For those interested in the prototype and era of the Meng Jiangnü story, you may read Mr. Gu Jiegang's "Research Collection on the Meng Jiangnü Story."

(End of Chapter)