Chapter 70: The Hungry Ghosts of the Ruo

"You're saying this Ruo'ao clan has been passed down for six hundred years, through dozens of generations, once held sway over the state of Chu, and nearly did in King Zhuang of Chu?"

Heifu never expected that, from the dead of night until the cockcrow, in this desolate wilderness, what would keep him company through the long night was Li Xian's tale of the Ruo'ao clan.

Just moments ago, after Heifu and the others captured the tomb robbers, they immediately interrogated them, hoping to extract the truth about the robbers' collusion with the Neighborhood Gatekeeper of Chaoyang Neighborhood. But the robbers' ringleader, that red-faced, short-bearded crook, kept his mouth stubbornly shut, refusing to speak even on pain of death, which so enraged Dongmen Bao that he wanted to run him through with his halberd.

The tomb robbers, however, were not a solid bloc — especially that Chu youth "Xing," who had been forced into the gang. Because he bitterly resented the beatings and abuse the robbers had inflicted on him, he spilled everything he knew like beans pouring from a pod.

Xing further confessed that, at the pingdan hour tonight, the Neighborhood Gatekeeper of Chaoyang Neighborhood would personally drive an oxcart to meet them and help move the stolen goods…

So Heifu and the others talked it over and decided to have Dongmen Bao and Xiao Tao drag the five tomb robbers behind the hillock and hide them, gagging their mouths. Heifu and Li Xian would then pose as the tomb robbers, holding iron spades and sitting by the grave pit, staging a "waiting by the stump for the hare" for that Chaoyang Neighborhood Gatekeeper…

The night was deep and cold, and time crawled. Since Heifu was just hugging his arms and shivering anyway, he chatted to pass the time, asking Li Xian about the origins of the tomb's occupant, the "Ruo'ao clan."

Li Xian was not surprised that Heifu had never heard of the Ruo'ao clan. After all, Chu had withdrawn from the Jiang-Han region over fifty years ago. Times had changed, and commoners only recognized whichever officials ruled them now. Aside from minor aristocrats like himself who still murmured of old ties from the Chu era, who would still remember the former enfeoffed lords?

He told Heifu that the Ruo'ao clan were the descendants of "Ruo'ao," the fourteenth ruler of Chu. After Chu proclaimed its kingship, the Ruo'ao clan gradually grew in strength, becoming the most powerful ducal clan in Chu. Later it branched into the Dou lineage and the Cheng lineage, producing many Lingyins and Simas who long held key military and civil posts — men like Dou Gouwutu (Ziwen), Cheng Dechen, Cheng Daxin… It was a pity that Heifu did not recognize a single one of these names.

After Heifu had patiently listened for a long while, Li Xian finally came to someone he did know: King Zhuang of Chu, the man who "never cried out, but when he did, he astonished the world."

Only then did Heifu learn that the reason King Zhuang of Chu spent three years not flying and three years not crying out was precisely because the Ruo'ao clan held such sway over the court that they had hollowed out the king's power. It was said that at the time, the Ruo'ao clan had six divisions of private troops, which together accounted for half of Chu's army.

In the end, King Zhuang of Chu went to war with the Ruo'ao clan and only with great difficulty achieved victory — which led to his later exploits of contending for hegemony in the north and inquiring about the weight of the Nine Cauldrons.

"Did the Ruo'ao clan perish right after that?" Heifu asked.

"How could that be?"

Li Xian waved his hand and said, "The King of Chu, mindful that the Ruo'ao clan had served Chu loyally for generations, preserved one branch of descendants and enfeoffed them at Anlu — at that time, this place was still called Yun County. The Dou lineage thus became the Duke of Yun County."

When Chu and Wu fought their great war, and Wu Zixu and Sun Wu led their army to smash the Chu forces and storm the capital of Ying, the Ruo'ao clan met another opportunity.

At that time, King Zhao of Chu fled to Anlu, and the Ruo'ao descendant Dou Xin followed closely at his side, earning some merit by protecting King Zhao. So when merits were assessed and rewards distributed afterward, King Zhao of Chu promoted Dou Xin to Right Minister, a position below Lingyin and Sima but above ordinary county dukes.

These deeds were all inscribed on the very ding that the tomb robbers had laid their hands on. This great tomb was none other than the burial of Duke Dou Xin of Yun — no wonder its scale was so grand, with not only chariots and horses buried as grave goods but also tomb-guardian beasts, rivaling the feudal lords.

Hearing this, Heifu gave a slight start. "Wait — this Ruo'ao clan were the Dukes of Yun. What relation do they have to the family of County Left Commandant Yun Man?"

"The Yun clan?"

Li Xian was taken aback, then spat instinctively and said with contempt, "How could that be? The Ruo'ao are descendants of the Chu royal Mi clan, and were the Dukes of Yun. The Yun clan, though they style themselves aristocrats, are merely the remnants of the fallen ancient state of Yun. Like my own Li clan, they were only servitors, mere vassals of the Ruo'ao clan. I'm not boasting — my Li clan at least managed the Ruo'ao clan's archives and records back then. But the Yun clan? They just tended the stables and parks. They aren't even fit to carry the Ruo'ao clan's shoes!"

It was plain to see that, with the Yun clan having thrived in recent years to become the biggest local power in Anlu, the Li clan, once their equals, felt some envy. Heifu smiled but did not expose him. For him, having already made an enemy of the Yun clan was trouble enough; hearing that these old aristocratic families were not a monolithic bloc was, on the contrary, cause for satisfaction.

In the two hundred-plus years after King Zhao of Chu and Dou Xin, although Chu underwent several upheavals — even being reformed once by Wu Qi — the essential nature of aristocratic rule remained unchanged. The Ruo'ao clan continued as the "Lords of Yun," ruling Anlu for generations.

Time seemed to stand still, just like the stagnant classes and society of the Chu lands, except that the aristocrats' lives grew ever more extravagant, squeezing out countless riches to adorn their own palaces and chambers.

But the outside world, especially the state of Qin to the north, was undergoing earth-shaking, radical change!

Until one day, a Qin general named Bai Qi led his army sweeping across the Jiang-Han region. In one battle, he took Yan and Ying; in a second, he burned Yiling; in a third, the King of Chu fled eastward in panic, and Qu Yuan, in grief and indignation, drowned himself in the river… Chu's centuries-long rule here collapsed overnight with a thunderous crash.

The Ruo'ao descendants in Anlu also fled in haste. From then on, the deeds of the Ruo'ao clan became vanishing clouds and smoke. Even Dou Xin's tomb, with no one left to offer blood sacrifices, became a heap of weeds on a mound of earth.

Among the common folk, only a legend remained that the Ruo'ao clan had a great tomb in Anlu, but no one knew exactly where that tomb lay.

No one expected the legend to be true — and that today, by a twist of fate, they would find it.

At this point, Li Xian could not help sighing with emotion: "Ghosts still seek food — shall the ghosts of the Ruo'ao clan go hungry? I never thought that the words of the Ruo'ao ancestor back then would actually come true! After the Ruo'ao clan scattered, even Dou Xin can no longer receive blood offerings. How lamentable, how tragic!"

As the saying goes, one mourns for one's own kind. As a descendant of aristocrats, though now reduced to a mere ting soldier, Li Xian still felt regret at the Ruo'ao clan's decline. A clan of aristocrats passed down for six hundred years, yet now they could barely sustain their blood offerings — was there anything more staggering than this?

But Heifu's heart was utterly unmoved.

…

While Li Xian was sighing and lamenting, Heifu nodded outwardly, but inwardly he did not agree at all.

"The Ruo'ao clan declined — so what? What's there to lament?"

Perhaps because of the influence of his previous life, or perhaps because of his status in this life, Heifu had never, from start to finish, been sympathetic to aristocratic rule.

Nostalgic for the "aristocratic spirit" of the Spring and Autumn period? Prick up your ears and listen! Beneath the grand courtly odes where the aristocrats sang their own praises amid bell music and cauldron feasts, how did the "Airs of the States" celebrate this life?

The "Airs of Wei" says: Big rat, big rat, do not eat my millet! Three years I have served you, but you take no heed of me… The feudal system of aristocrats from top to bottom meant that great and petty nobles took turns exploiting the peasants, while the uncivilized "wild men" were treated like pigs and dogs.

The "Airs of Bin" says: Without clothes, without coarse wool, how shall we see the year's end… The peasants toiled all year, yet the silk and fox furs all went to the aristocrats "to make the young lord's robes," while they themselves could not even afford rough hempen garments.

Look again at the tomb of this Ruo'ao Dou Xin before their eyes — truly, the greater the state, the richer the house, the more lavish the burial. Within the inner and outer coffins, rare playthings and precious goods, bells, ding, ewers, and gui vessels, chariots, horses, robes, and bedding — the grave goods were beyond counting. Were all these things not the blood and sweat of the common people under his rule? Chu may have had laws, but on the enfeoffed lords' domains, they were mere empty formalities.

Unlike the old aristocratic tales Li Xian had heard from his elders, Heifu had also heard his mother tell of the times of his "grandfather" and "grandmother," but from the perspective of the common people. In the eyes of the humble folk, compared to the Chu era, life in Anlu under Qin rule, though still harsh, was a little better than before.

The present Qin was not yet the era ruled by the Second Emperor of Qin. The laws and ordinances were strict, but in all matters there was still a limit.

Peasants no longer had to pay tribute and taxes in turn to great and petty nobles; they only needed to pay a unified grain tax and poll tax to the Qin county officials, and serve one month of corvée labor each year. The labor was heavy, but at least it no longer happened that some noble on a whim would organize the people to build city walls or hunt tigers and leopards during the busy farming season.

Because of Qin's emphasis on agriculture, the neighborhood settlements were organized into production brigades. The common people could borrow plow oxen and iron farm tools from the officials and devote their efforts to tilling their own land. They no longer had to worry about some royal scion galloping his fine horse across their fields in pursuit of foxes and hares, trampling their crops with impunity and paying no price. Merchants, though low in status, no longer faced some young lord reining his horse before them, eating and taking goods for free, forcing sales and purchases.

While Qin law fettered the common people's freedom, it also restrained the old aristocracy's willful recklessness.

While Qin law put an end to aristocrats monopolizing local power, it also opened a door to class mobility for the common people.

The officials appointed by the government were no longer chosen by family lineage and bloodline, but had to be tested on their mastery of the laws and ordinances, examined for real talent and learning. Coupled with the military merit rank system, people who in the past were destined to be farmers and commoners forever now seemed to have something to hope for…

Over the course of several decades, the people of Anlu County still spoke with a Chu accent, but they no longer considered themselves Chu people — they were Qin people now.

They were beginning to forget the Ruo'ao clan, which had ruled this land for centuries, and beginning to firmly remember the Qin laws and ordinances that governed their lives.

This age of patriarchal clan aristocracy, which had lasted over a thousand years, after passing through the rites collapsing and music decaying in the Spring and Autumn period, through the slaughter and baptism of the Warring States, and then being ground over once more by the all-pervasive Qin law, was tottering on the verge of collapse, together with the aristocratic symbols of ding and gui…

Yet such an era was precisely the opportunity for a small figure like Heifu to rise.

Heifu was keenly aware of this.

A transmigrator is the sharpest awl of this age — he only needs to be placed in a pouch to stand out from the rest…

And now, he had already placed himself within the system, seeking any chance to soar on the wind.

Just as Heifu and Li Xian were each entertaining their own thoughts stirred by the story of the Ruo'ao clan, from the distant neighborhood settlement came the sound of repeated cockcrows.

Cockcrow had passed; the pingdan hour had arrived.

The sky was still pitch-dark, but on the dirt road from the direction of Chaoyang Neighborhood, a faint, flickering flame appeared…

…

A gust of cold wind blew, and sitting on the oxcart, Bo Wu, the Neighborhood Gatekeeper of Chaoyang Neighborhood, shivered, instantly sobering up considerably.

After parting ways with Chang the night before, he had not slept a wink, tossing and turning, worrying all the while that the affair would be exposed.

Too many unexpected things had happened in the past few days.

The tomb excavation that should have gone smoothly was hit by a rare heavy snow.

On his very first day in office, the Village Chief Heifu came to inspect the quiet and uneventful Zhaoyang Hamlet...

Without any warning, the uncontentious Gongshi Quji from the east of the hamlet was suddenly arrested by the Huyang Village Office, on the charge of picking up lost coins in the county seat?

All these matters, tangled together over these two days, had made Bo Wu extremely anxious.

He also knew that, out of greed for money, colluding with grave robbers to excavate tombs, purchasing tools for them, and transferring stolen goods, he had already violated the law and would certainly face severe punishment!

Therefore, he absolutely must not be exposed!

Unfortunately, he had failed to persuade Chang. Now that the die was cast, he could only steel himself and, as promised, hurry the ox cart to meet the grave robbers.

What else could he do now? He could only pray that Heifu had not discovered anything amiss, so he could quickly transfer the last batch of stolen goods tonight and send those grave robbers on their way.

His own share was enough to sell for tens of thousands of coins—a fortune overnight. This was also why the hamlet gatekeeper would rather risk colluding with Chang than proactively report him to the authorities. The money gained from crime was far more generous than the reward for reporting it.

So Bo Wu sped up his journey. When he reached the agreed-upon spot, he saw torches lit in front of the earthen mound, with two figures waiting for him behind the grave site.

Bo Wu stopped the ox cart and walked closer to look. He saw that beside the grave site, quite a few lacquer vessels, bronze items, and the like had already been piled up...

"It seems the tomb has finally been opened. Good, good. Chang is punctual after all."

He set his mind at ease and, as he walked toward the two figures, said with a laugh: "Chang, what a rich haul tonight! I'm truly ashamed. I really shouldn't have told you to stop just because that Village Chief Heifu made a round through Zhaoyang Hamlet..."

At that moment, the two figures also walked over. One of them thrust a torch forward, and the searing flame and acrid smoke forced Bo Wu to shut his eyes. He couldn't help cursing: "What's the meaning of this?"

"The meaning of this? To get a clear look at the culprit, of course." The voice carried a hint of amusement—it was not Chang!

Bo Wu was terrified and tried to flee, but his escape route was blocked by the other person. Trapped between them, he could only dodge the torch pressing ever closer while straining to open his eyes and look at the man before him.

He saw that this man wore a red headscarf and a crimson uniform, and was smiling cheerfully at Bo Wu, as if looking at a stepping stone to higher rank and greater wealth.

"Huyang Village Chief... how... how can it be you..." Bo Wu's face instantly turned deathly pale. He could not believe his eyes.

The newcomer was none other than Heifu. He stood before Bo Wu, swinging the rope in his hand as he laughed:

"Hamlet gatekeeper, what a small world! We meet again!"

PS: A new week, asking for recommendation votes.

(End of chapter)