Chapter 37: Climbing Up the Pole

"The first day of the twelfth month is the Clerk Assessment, to be held at the Official Temple and presided over by the Chief Clerk. Heifu, remember this well — do not forget!"

By the time Heifu and the others came out, it was already dusk. As they said their farewells before the gates of the County Lieutenant's office, Hundred-Leader Chen repeatedly urged them not to miss the date.

He also solemnly reminded Heifu, "If you truly become Chief of Huyang Ward, do not forget whose hand it was that lifted you up!"

Heifu put on a look of profound trepidation and gratitude. "Heifu will engrave it upon his heart. In my home village there is a saying: 'A kindness as slight as a drop of water shall be repaid with a gushing spring.' Heifu dares not forget the great kindness of the Right Lieutenant! And of course, I will not forget Hundred-Leader Chen's kind words either…"

"'A kindness as slight as a drop of water shall be repaid with a gushing spring'… That is a fine saying. I shall relay it to the Right Lieutenant."

Unlike County Right Lieutenant Du Xian, who handled weighty matters with a light touch, Hundred-Leader Chen was a man of petty cleverness but no great wisdom. He nodded with satisfaction. "That will do nicely. Chief Heifu, I look forward to the day when you and I become colleagues serving together!"

With that, he took his leave of Heifu and departed.

Heifu bowed with clasped hands toward Hundred-Leader Chen, only raising his head after the man's figure had vanished around the street corner. The smile from moments before had long since faded; his gaze was deep and thoughtful.

His lips were full of gratitude, but in his heart he remained clear as a mirror.

Many years ago, Xunzi once recounted his observations upon visiting Qin: "Enter its domain, observe its scholar-officials — they leave their own gates and enter the public gate; they leave the public gate and return to their homes, with no private affairs between; they do not form cliques, they do not create factions…"

That is not wrong — Qin indeed had many good officials like Xi, who formed no factions and created no cliques. Yet old Master Xun's view of Qin was still far too one-sided.

Although Shang Yang's reforms had attempted to stamp out the favoritism, corruption, and mountain-stronghold factionalism that ran rampant in the Six States, Qin was so vast, its commanderies and counties so numerous. Its laws, though harsh and meticulous, could not sever the countless threads of human sentiment and obligation so long as people were alive. How could every matter escape worldly convention? Had it been otherwise, when Fan Ju was Chancellor under King Zhaoxiang of Qin, he could never have placed his life-saving benefactors Zheng Anping and Wang Ji in key posts — only to end up losing his own life through collective punishment when they defected to the enemy.

That was a grand case. On a smaller scale, the open strife and veiled struggle between the two County Lieutenants of Anlu right now was a perfectly typical silhouette of the same thing.

Although Right Lieutenant Du Xian was the ranking officer, he was an outsider with no deep local roots. To avoid being sidelined by Left Lieutenant Yun Man, he could only promote trusted men as his wings and feathers — either clerks like Hundred-Leader Chen, who had come out of the Southern Commandery Academy, or locals like Heifu, of humble birth yet possessing some ability, because such men were all the more prone to feel boundless gratitude.

Through all the events of this past month and more, Heifu had thoroughly made an enemy of the Left Lieutenant's faction. To avoid the retaliatory strikes that could come at any moment, he had no choice but to throw himself, body unwilling, under the Right Lieutenant's banner. This was also thanks to the fact that he had proven himself useful in the two matters of catching bandits and the ten-day military drill; otherwise, how could the Right Lieutenant possibly have taken notice of him?

On the road away from the Official Temple, after thinking this through clearly, Heifu sighed again. "Though I know the County Right Lieutenant is by no means acting without purpose, I am still grateful to him — grateful that he gave me such an opportunity!"

Ward Chief may be a minor post, a petty clerk of the "Grain-Scoop" rank — in the parlance of later ages, not even worthy of being called a ninth-grade sesame-seed official. But then again, in later ages, what police academy student fresh out of school could ever have such a stroke of fortune? To become the head of a grassroots police station? The reason Heifu had been so impatient to prove himself during the ten-day drill was precisely for an opportunity like this.

In the Warring States era, Qin possessed the fairest class mobility under Heaven. So Heifu believed that an awl would always, in the end, pierce through the cloth and stand out.

Though in the end, he was being gripped in someone's hand, ready at any moment to be used as a weapon to stab at an opponent. And if that day truly came, the first thing to snap would surely be the weapon itself…

Yet for now, all Heifu could do was climb up the pole as best he could, getting as far as he could get. This was his first step onto that bamboo pole called "official career." On this pole, you had better be mentally prepared: when you look up, it's all backsides; when you look down, it's all smiling faces.

But the matter was not yet settled. Appointing or dismissing a Ward Chief was not the County Lieutenant's word alone. Du Xian could propose a candidate for recruitment to the County Magistrate, but the power of personnel appointment and removal did not rest with him — it lay in the hands of the County Magistrate and his subordinate, the "Chief Clerk."

The Chief Clerk was a Two-Hundred-Bushel official, of the same rank as Prison Clerk Xi, responsible for personnel appointments, removals, and the advancement and demotion of officials — equivalent to the head of a county Party Committee's Organization Department in later ages.

If Heifu remembered correctly, some years from now, in Pei County a thousand li away, the Han dynasty's first Chancellor, Xiao He, would also hold this post, and through it come to know Director Liu of Sishui Ward…

"Reckoning it this way, doesn't that mean I'll become a Ward Chief a good few years earlier than Liu Bang?" The thought struck Heifu, and he could not help but grin.

But he must not celebrate too soon. Before that, he still had to pass one more test — namely, the Qin state's civil service examination: the Official and Clerk Assessment.

At this time, Qin clerks were divided into two types: civil-law clerks and martial clerks. A Ward Chief was responsible for catching bandits and maintaining public order, and thus belonged to the martial clerks. Personal martial skill was a requirement, which was why the County Lieutenant had asked him whether he knew the "Five Weapons." To become a Ward Chief, one had to be proficient in at least one. On this point, Heifu was not worried; he had confidence in his own abilities — he could not bring shame upon his police academy, could he?

What would be examined, apart from martial skill, was also statutes and ordinances.

In Qin, which upheld the rule of law and where "all matters were decided by law," the Commandery Governor of Southern Commandery, in a public proclamation issued the previous year titled "Discourse on Law," had set forth one of the criteria for distinguishing good clerks from bad clerks: "All good clerks understand the laws and ordinances clearly, and there is no matter they cannot handle," whereas "bad clerks do not understand the laws and ordinances, and do not comprehend affairs."

As a Ward Chief, apart from catching thieves, one also had to hold a two-foot wooden tablet and disseminate the law to the common people along the roads. Thus, one could not afford to be ignorant of the law.

To prove before the Chief Clerk that he was a good clerk capable of fulfilling the post of Ward Chief, Heifu had to pass a back-and-forth "Legal Question-and-Answer" session before he could be considered to have cleared the bar.

At this, Heifu was somewhat at a loss. Although he had learned quite a bit of law these past days, on the whole he was still utterly ignorant of it.

Fortunately, the Chief Clerk had not demanded he take the examination immediately, but had instead set the assessment date for the first day of the twelfth month. For according to Qin custom, the period from the first day of the twelfth month through to the third month was the time for the appointment and removal of officials in all regions.

"Right now it's the last day of the tenth month — which means I have only one month left?"

Heifu could not help feeling troubled. For him to memorize multiple legal codes such as the Theft Code and the Arrest Code by heart within a month was not the hard part, since the characters were few. The difficulty lay in applying them skillfully according to different case scenarios. Qin's concepts of punishment and penalty were vastly different from those of later ages.

Whom should he go to for guidance?

The first person Heifu thought of was Xi. But Master Xi was a key official of the county, and had only met Heifu once in passing. Where would he find the time to teach him law?

After mulling it over left and right, an idea came to him.

The reason this "Heifu" could read and write was that, when the family's circumstances had still been good in his childhood, he and his elder brother Zhong had studied simple reading and writing under two elders — Lü Ying of Xiyang Hamlet and Yan Zheng of the neighboring Bian Hamlet.

These two elders had once been civil-law clerks for the county and township, and were also well-versed in statutes and ordinances. When common soldiers in the hamlet encountered points of law they did not understand, they would come to their doors to inquire. Heifu's family had some ties of friendship with them; once he returned home, he should pay them a visit.

Thinking thus, Heifu quickened his pace, wanting only to hurry back, pack his bags, and go home — not merely to see his family sooner, but also for the sake of his future prospects…

By the time Heifu returned to the barracks on the drill ground, the sky was already growing dark. The drill ground, which in days past had bustled and hummed when packed with conscript soldiers, now stood empty and silent. Looking out from afar, that row of thatched huts was pitch-black, not a lamp lit, and even the stoves had all gone cold.

He could not help saying with regret, "We had agreed to set out together, Ji Ying and the others and I. Who would have thought I'd be called away by the Right Lieutenant? At this hour, they've probably all left ahead of me…"

Just like Heifu, after a month away from home, what conscript soldier did not long to return sooner and see his parents, wife, and children? The Gui Squad, which had spent every hour of every day together for a month, had thus scattered when the song ended and the people were gone.

It was not that Heifu could not bear to part with that temporary post of squad leader; rather, he regretted the loss of that camaraderie and friendship among brothers-in-arms. This was the second time since arriving in this era — apart from the warmth of family — that he had felt he was not utterly alone. Perhaps influenced by his past life studying at the police academy, Heifu was, deep in his bones, also a collectivist.

Many village hamlets in this age still lived a life where the cocks crowed and the dogs barked within earshot, yet the people grew old and died without visiting one another. Qin had also enacted laws restricting the populace from leaving their household registers and wandering about recklessly, calling it the "Crime of Roaming." Who knew if he would ever again have the chance to meet people like Ji Ying and Dongmen Bao?

This very barracks, come tomorrow, would welcome a new batch of conscript soldiers. Perhaps they too would be named the Gui Squad. But the "Gui Squad" that belonged to Heifu was only this one — the one from the tenth month of the twenty-first year of King Zheng of Qin!

Thinking this, even the joy of having the chance to become a Ward Chief was diluted considerably.

Heifu, his spirits somewhat dampened, pushed open the broken door of the thatched hut. Who could have expected that from within the pitch darkness, a human figure would leap out!

With a bizarre shriek, claws bared and fangs gnashing, it threw itself straight at Heifu!

(End of Chapter)