Chapter 389: The Rong of the Great Plain

In mid-September, the day was mild and sunny, the sky high and clouds faint. Thirty li southeast of Yiqu City, a force of over a thousand infantry and cavalry was breaking camp and setting out from its encampment.

"Commandant, another ten-odd li, past Wild Fox Gully, and we'll be up on the Great Plain!"

Heifu, Commandant of Beidi, sat in his carriage, spreading a map open with both hands to examine it. Yiqu City, the Great Plain, Pengyang Town, and more were all marked on it, yet he could not find the place called "Wild Fox Gully" anywhere. He cast a puzzled look at the young man guiding the way: Wang Wei, Centurion of the commandery troops.

Wang Wei was from Yuzhi County, barely in his twenties. When Heifu, newly appointed, inspected the commandery troops, he found that the hundred men under Wang Wei's command were the most disciplined and orderly. Upon inquiry, he learned that both of Wang Wei's parents were Qin people, he was a son of a respectable Qin family with no criminal record for generations, and he could speak fluent Guanzhong speech. Heifu thus made him his personal guard centurion.

Although as a personal guard, Wang Wei was not as intimately known as Xiao Tao, he was still a typical northwestern lad — straightforward and sincere.

Prompted by Heifu's question, it dawned on him, and he scratched his head, saying: "This subordinate forgot. Wild Fox Gully is what we locals call it; the officials all call it Plain North Road..."

Heifu looked, and sure enough, it was so on the map. Not taking offense, he was precisely in need of learning more about the local human geography. On the way past Wild Fox Gully, he asked Wang Wei about the origin of the name.

Wang Wei said: "This subordinate heard it from soldiers who live nearby. The Commandant surely knows that the hamlets and village communities of Beidi Commandery are all built on plains large and small; once you go down a slope, it's all gullies and ravines. These gullies are named after the clans of the nearby residents. For example, my home is in Wang Hamlet, and the nearby gully slopes are called Old Wang Gully and Wang Family Slope. But there is one gully named after a beast — that is Wild Fox Gully."

"It is said that decades ago, when our forebears had just migrated from Guanzhong to Beidi Commandery, a common soldier in the hamlet was weeding the ground at the plain's edge when he suddenly heard people shouting in the distance: 'Fox, fox!' The soldier looked up and saw a fox, pure white all over, limping past — its leg was injured. The soldier knew fox pelts fetched a good price, especially white fox pelts, so he raised his hoe and gave chase, all the way into the gully..."

"But there was no proper path in the gully. The soldier threaded his way through the wormwood, following the blood trail for a long time, until he saw only a small cave dwelling. At the mouth of the cave sat an old man with white hair and a white beard, warming his feet in the sun. When the soldier asked him, the old man merely pointed south with his hand. The soldier continued the chase as directed, and ended up chasing all the way to the Great Plain without ever seeing a trace of the fox."

"Because a former king had a prohibition: registered commoners were not permitted to ascend the Great Plain without authorization. So the soldier retraced his steps and returned to the cave dwelling, but the elder was gone. Only where he had sat did he see a patch of blood — and white fox fur!"

When Wang Wei reached this point in the story, before Heifu could speak, Sangmu, who had been listening from up ahead and could also understand Guanzhong speech, chimed in:

"Could it be that the fox turned into a demon?"

Wang Wei said: "Exactly. The soldier was badly frightened. He stopped weeding, returned to the hamlet, and told everyone about the matter. All were shocked, and from then on, they called that gully Wild Fox Gully..."

The superstitious character of the Qin people was much like that of the vast countryside in later ages: they liked to live their lives by the era's almanac, the *Day Book*, and had all sorts of legends about demons, ghosts, and monsters — truly found everywhere, from north to south, from west to east.

For instance, in Fangmatan Township, Gui County, Longxi Commandery, which Heifu had once passed through, there was a story of a local who died and came back to life. It was said that in the time of King Zhaoxiang of Qin, a man named Dan was beheaded and his body exposed in the marketplace for wounding someone, but three years later, he returned from the dead...

This matter was solemnly reported to the Imperial Secretary by the Assistant Magistrate of Gui County. King Zhaoxiang of Qin had it investigated. At the turn of spring and summer this year, when the First Emperor toured the west, he had the matter investigated anew. The local Prefect and Assistant Magistrate dared neither to affirm that the event had definitely occurred, nor to deny it.

And in Nan Commandery, there were rumors of tigers becoming spirits and mountain ogres in the wilds. It seemed that although Beidi Commandery was a border region, it had similar legends as well.

Of course, whenever they encountered such things, the common folk would also use some extreme methods to exorcise evil. The simplest was... bathing in dog dung!

Wang Wei swore with conviction that the farmer who had encountered the white fox demon, fearing retaliation, took a "dog dung bath" when he returned home. They believed that dog dung was the filthiest thing, and ghosts and demons were the most defiled; when the two met, they canceled each other out.

Sangmu believed it. As they passed Wild Fox Gully, he kept carefully observing both sides of the road, afraid of encountering the white fox demon, and thinking he would have to take a dog dung bath himself when he got back.

Heifu did not believe it, but he was not about to go out of his way to shatter their feudal superstitions. As for whether his own transmigration was a scientific event or the work of ghosts and demons — who could say for sure...

However, compared to the story of the white fox demon, he was more interested in the "former king's prohibition" that Wang Wei had mentioned.

Wang Wei then explained that decades ago, after Beidi Commandery was established and people from Guanzhong were moved to settle there, a local ordinance was also enacted: inland immigrants could settle along the banks of the Jing and Ni Rivers, but were not permitted to go to the Great Plain to open up wasteland.

This was because the Great Plain was the largest "reservation" set aside for the Rong tribes of Beidi. While the ordinance forbade Qin people from ascending the plain, it also ordered that the Rong of the Great Plain were not to descend from the plain without cause! Violators would face severe punishment!

At that moment, a rider on a chestnut horse turned back and returned. It was Gongsun Bailu, the one who had been late to welcome Heifu a few days prior — the Sheriff of Yuzhi County.

When they set out from Yiqu City, besides the commandery troops, Heifu had also ordered Gongsun Bailu to select two hundred riders from the Yuzhi County horse pastures to accompany them and clear the way ahead.

"Commandant!"

Gongsun Bailu dismounted and bowed with clasped hands: "The Great Plain is reached!"

Heifu had seen it from ten li away: a tall, brownish-yellow earthen wall appearing on the southern horizon, towering over a hundred meters above Wild Fox Gully. Only upon drawing near did he realize it was no wall at all, but a high tableland.

This was the largest loess tableland in China, one hundred fifty li from north to south, and two hundred eighty li from east to west — equivalent in area to a large county. Heifu's party ascended the loess slope onto the tableland. Gazing out, they saw a boundless expanse of flat grassland, with occasional forests.

Looking in all directions, the fantastically sculpted gullies, ridges, knolls, and narrow saddles truly resembled the rolling waves of a yellow sea, propping up this great plain.

"Vast, high, and level, stretching for hundreds of li — hence it is called the Great Plain."

Heifu was thoroughly convinced. According to the materials Chen Ping had prepared for him, Heifu knew that this plain had existed since ancient times. King Mu of Zhou had once led a great army to campaign against the Western Rong, capturing the five Rong kings, and the remnants of the five Rong fled to the Great Plain. By the time of King Xuan of Zhou, the Great Plain was occupied by the northern Xianyun tribes. The Zhou dynasty fought them, hence the poem says: "We smote the Xianyun, as far as the Great Plain."

Afterward, the Zhou dynasty established strongholds here, forcing the local Rong people to submit. They lived half by farming, half by herding, but were not registered in the census and paid no taxes. Some years later, because the Zhou Six Armies and the Southern Domain armies suffered successive losses, King Xuan of Zhou, having no alternative, conducted a population count on the Great Plain, hoping to make these Rong people a new source of troops for the Zhou armies...

Later, when the Quanrong broke the Zhou, the Great Plain once again fell out of control. This area was occupied by the Penglu Rong, and later the Penglu Rong were annexed by Yiqu. Many Yiqu people also migrated in, intermarried, and mixed, forming the "Great Plain Rong." Today, the Great Plain Rong people consist of five tribes with a population of over twenty thousand, each occupying a corner of the Great Plain, living a life of half farming and half herding...

The current Qin attitude toward the Great Plain Rong people was much the same as King Xuan of Zhou's: treating this place as a source of troops. After all, getting a bunch of farmers from Guanzhong and Nan Commandery to fight directly on horseback was very difficult.

While waiting for the entire army to ascend the tableland, Gongsun Bailu also reported to Heifu: "In the event of a major conscription, the five Rong tribes of the entire Great Plain can provide one to two thousand riders — equivalent to one-third of Beidi's cavalry."

The other two-thirds came from the Qin and Rong herders along the banks of the Jing and Ni Rivers, respectively.

And at present, the cavalry of all four regions west of the Pass in the entire Qin state numbered no more than ten thousand-odd riders.

"One-tenth of the cavalry west of the Pass comes from this plain."

Heifu nodded, understanding its importance to Beidi Commandery, especially with the First Emperor about to launch a massive military campaign against the Xiongnu and Yuezhi in just two more years!

Yet now, the Great Plain was in turmoil...

Gongsun Bailu said: "The prohibition from King Zhao's time not only forbade Qin people from ascending the plain to occupy land, but also forbade the Rong from leaving the Great Plain. It even clearly demarcated how much land each tribe could occupy, forbidding them from crossing boundaries..."

"At first it was manageable, as there were few Rong people. But after decades of peace, the registered population of the Great Plain Rong has surged, tripling, and the cattle and sheep they raise have multiplied as well. Every winter, the pasture and game in their respective territories become insufficient. Thus, in recent years, the five Rong tribes have frequently clashed. As it happened, in the days when Yiqu Bailang went to pay respects to the Commandant, the five tribes stirred up trouble again — brawling over water sources and winter grazing lands, fighting amongst themselves, with dozens already dead..."

They were treating the Great Plain Rong like penned cattle and sheep. Heifu nodded and asked the Clerk beside him: "Where is Yiqu Bailang now?"

To herd cattle and sheep, a sheepdog is naturally indispensable. Yiqu Bailang, the great-grandson of Queen Dowager Xuan, played precisely this role. Although a man of Yiqu City, he had been dispatched to the Great Plain to command the Rong cavalry, stationed at Pengyang Town. It was he who had sent the request for reinforcements.

The Clerk replied: "By the time Yiqu Bailang reported to the commandery, he could no longer control the situation. He could only restrain the two to three hundred men under him and hold Pengyang Town, to prevent any reckless elements from running amok."

The Great Plain was the heartland of Beidi, a matter of grave importance that concerned the stability of the entire commandery. This was why Heifu had personally led troops here. Fortunately, it was only mutual brawling, not the killing of officials and rebellion. Brawls and fights among the Rong were only prosecuted under the "banditry" statutes, and were given lenient sentences, commuted from the death penalty to "firewood gatherer" penal labor, and could even be atoned for with cattle and sheep.

Even so, Heifu knew that if the Rong tribes were allowed to continue brawling, it would sooner or later affect his "grand plan" for the next few years.

Thinking thus, Heifu brought out his tally and issued orders to his subordinates.

"Gongsun Bailu, you and the Clerk will each take five hundred men and proceed to the five tribes by two routes. Order all tribes to cease armed fighting. Those who disobey will be regarded as rebels — arrest their chieftains! Those who resist — kill without mercy!"

Gongsun Bailu's heart trembled, but he acknowledged the order and accepted the command.

"After quelling the fighting among the tribes, order the five tribal chieftains to assemble at Pengyang Town within three days. Let them come and meet their Commandant. I will convene a covenant assembly and dispense justice for them! Redraw the territorial boundaries anew!"

To put it plainly, Heifu had come to do ethnic mediation work.

"The five tribes have been feuding and brawling with each other for more than just a year or two. How does the Commandant plan to handle it?" Wang Wei was very curious.

"Have you ever raised dogs at home?"

Heifu glanced at him.

Wang Wei nodded. The Qin people had a saying: "One who formerly had no dog and later no pig is a pauper." Thus, even if one could not afford oxen or horses, a pig and a dog were standard for a middling household. This was especially true for the Qin people of Beidi, living half by farming and half by herding — how could their homes possibly lack dogs?

Heifu then asked: "When dogs fight over food, what do you do?"

Wang Wei's eyebrows danced with excitement: "Give them a hard kick, lash them a few times, then separate the fighters and raise them apart. If they still won't behave, then slaughter them, skin them, and eat the meat!"

"Wrong."

Heifu smiled: "The best method is to lure them — rather than fighting inside their own den, they'd be better off going out and scrapping with the foxes and wolves for food!"

(End of chapter)