Chapter 77: The River Relay, the Long Road — A Journey Far Away

Flickering, flickering — a bundle of kindling was lit inside the narrow, dim room, casting the silhouettes of Heifu and his brother-in-law.

In this age, lighting depended almost entirely on fire. Wealthy households used animal fats — "grease" and "tallow" — along with beeswax and insect wax, inserting a wick and igniting it, though the glow was faint, generally no brighter than a bean. People like Heifu could not afford such things at all; only when necessary did they carefully strike a flint to light a small pine-resin-soaked stick of kindling, and even then they had to be cautious not to set the house ablaze — the risk of fire in this age was far higher than in later times.

Under just such lighting conditions, Yuan crept stealthily to a corner of the room and brought out a large, heavy basket...

Without looking, just from the sound, Heifu knew: this was money, a basket packed full of banliang coins.

"Heifu, this is the reward money the commandery seat had the county distribute. Guess how much?" Yuan lowered his voice.

Heifu could not be bothered to guess. His hands had already gone soft from counting money all day. He merely glanced at it by the dim lamplight — roughly ten bamboo baskets' worth — and said with a smile, "Ten thousand cash?"

"Right — ten thousand cash it is!"

Yuan was a simple, honest craftsman who rarely ventured beyond his village. He had been poor his whole life and had never seen so much money. After collecting it today, he was excited for a while, then grew paranoid, constantly suspecting that someone outside was eyeing it covetously.

So he simply locked the money inside the house and stood guard alone outside the door, pacing like an ant on a hot pan, eyeing every passerby with suspicion, just waiting for Heifu to return so he could let him decide what to do.

Heifu had indeed seen the world — after all, just that morning he had received over fifteen thousand in reward money, and by afternoon he had given four thousand away in the blink of an eye. So he was not overly astonished, and only asked, "Apart from the money, were there any other rewards?"

"Yes, yes."

Seeing that his young brother-in-law remained utterly composed before such a huge sum, Yuan could not help but admire him. He took out a brown headband and said, "I was also granted the rank of Gongshi. From now on, I'll be the same as you, Heifu..."

At this point, Yuan noticed that Heifu's head was now wrapped in an earthen-red headscarf, and he was greatly taken aback: "You are already a Shangzao?"

"Just promoted at noon today." Heifu touched the topknot on his head and smiled calmly. "I was just about to tell you, brother-in-law. It seems today our family enjoys double blessings!"

At this, Yuan was so overjoyed he danced about: "Right, right — double blessings! If your mother, your elder brother, and your elder sister knew, who knows how happy they would be."

While Yuan was giddy with happiness alone, Heifu sighed quietly to himself at the side, because he felt that a single rank of nobility plus ten thousand cash, which Yuan saw as an enormous reward, was — in Heifu's view, considering the usefulness of the treadle pestle — still somewhat meager...

According to the demonstration at the county granary that day, when used properly, the treadle pestle could nearly double the efficiency of grain pounding. A task that previously required two bondmaids using pestle and mortar could now, in the same amount of time, be done by one person with a treadle pestle.

If this were a later age, it could have been named "Major Invention of the Year," couldn't it?

"It seems that although Qin does value technical skill somewhat, the status of craftsmen is still rather low — fobbed off with a casual rank and some reward money. The returns on inventing things aren't very high after all," Heifu grumbled inwardly.

What he did not know was that originally, after the two of them presented the treadle pestle to the county, the Granary Overseer thought the item merited a reward of ten thousand cash, while the County Artisan Master thought a single rank of nobility was more appropriate. The Magistrate of Anlu County could not decide, and also felt that the item's utility perhaps could not be properly assessed at the county level, so he had two replica treadle pestles, along with the documentation, reported together to Nan Commandery.

After the report reached the commandery, the Commandery Governor had the Commandery Artisan Master in Jiangling evaluate the treadle pestle's value, and only then decided on a double reward — rank and money granted together — to encourage the achievements of craftsmen.

At this moment, after repeatedly thanking Heifu, Yuan pushed the basket of money toward Heifu and said, "Heifu, though you warned me to tell outsiders that I thought up and made the treadle pestle myself, and that it had nothing to do with anyone else — the truth of the matter, you and I both know! The treadle pestle was your idea, but you yielded it to me. For me to receive the rank of Gongshi is already an immense honor. This money — you take it!"

"Brother-in-law, I already received a good deal of reward money for capturing the tomb robbers. Since this money was expressly awarded to you, how could I take it?"

Yuan was very stubborn and insisted Heifu accept it. In the end, unable to refuse, Heifu had to agree that they split the money fifty-fifty. Yuan would not have it, insisting on a ninety-ten split — one part for him, nine for Heifu.

As the two were in the midst of this polite refusal, Yuan remembered something else and hastily set aside the matter at hand to consult Heifu.

It turned out that, apart from the rank and the money, because Yuan was honest by nature and his craftsmanship was quite good, during these days assisting in building treadle pestles at the county seat, he had caught the eye of the County Artisan Master, who wanted him to stay and work as a craftsman in Anlu County seat, allowing him to bring his family and transfer his household registration to the county.

Yuan did not know what to do for a moment and wanted Heifu to help him decide.

"Brother-in-law, this is good news."

Delighted, Heifu said, "People move toward higher places, water flows toward lower ones. If you come to work in the county seat, your prospects will surely be better than being stuck in a tiny rural hamlet."

Yuan hesitated slightly: "It's just your elder sister..."

Heifu said, "Didn't the County Artisan Master permit you to transfer your household registration to the county seat? My sister has longed for the county seat for ages, and she never stops praising the cloth and silks there. She will certainly be happy to move to the county seat! Besides, in a month's time, I will be a formal minor official, and I can have Jing come to the county school to enter the student register and study the laws and ordinances. When that time comes, with your family in the county seat, you can look after him a bit..."

There was another reason Heifu did not voice aloud. His brother-in-law had skill and was honest, without any malicious intent; being stuck in a small village truly meant his talents were buried. Heifu recalled the currently influential Commandant of Justice, Li Si, and his analogy about the rat in the granary and the rat in the latrine: "Whether a man is worthy or unworthy is like a rat — it all depends on where he places himself!" In this world, a capable person had to move toward the center of the age to make his value apparent.

Yuan's craftsmanship, placed among all the craftsmen in the land, might only be middling — but there was still Heifu.

【134】 Because of Qin's unique household registration system, commoner soldiers responsible for farming and fighting were not permitted to casually practice crafts or set foot in commerce. So Heifu reckoned that in the future, if he wanted to make any device from later ages, he would probably have to do so through his brother-in-law's hands. That way, Heifu could both produce the things he wanted and, incidentally, give his own relatives a leg up — why not?

Because of Qin's unique household registration system, the soldier-farmers who tilled the fields and fought in battle were not permitted to casually dabble in crafts or set foot in commerce. So Heifu figured that, from now on, if he wanted to make any object from later ages, he would probably have to do it through his brother-in-law's hands. That way, Heifu could both produce the things he wanted to make and give his own relatives a leg up at the same time — why not enjoy doing it?

So Heifu pushed back the money that Yuan had once again shoved toward him and said, "Brother-in-law, keep half of this ten thousand cash to set up a household in the county seat. Rest assured, no matter who in our family, the days ahead will only get better, and the road will only grow wider!"

Heifu, the village headman in the small county of Anlu, thought that the stir over presenting the treadle pestle had finally come to an end. But he did not know that this was not the end, but the beginning.

The very next day after they received their reward, in Jiangling, the capital of Nan Commandery, outside the Jiangling Relay Station — the hub for sending and receiving government postal documents — two "treadle pestles" hastily built locally in Jiangling, together with an urgent letter marked "Urgent," were loaded onto a "relay cart" specially used for transporting emergency dispatches.

Then the horse was harnessed to the shaft, and the relay cart departed through the north gate of Jiangling, racing northward along the straight, paved road...

"Let none who carry this missive delay — the letter departs on the yihai day of the first month, at the hour of pounding, bound for the Court..."

The relay courier on the cart needed only a glance at the date marked on the letter's sealing strip to understand that this was an urgent dispatch. This journey had to be swift; it must arrive in Xianyang before the hour of pounding on the tenth day of the first month. Traveling with him was a subordinate clerk under the Commandery Artisan Master.

And so from that day on, this relay cart began its non-stop journey.

By Qin regulation, every thirty li there was a relay post, every ten li a pavilion station. Relay posts could change horses and repair vehicles; pavilions had lodging houses. The courier could only stop briefly, letting the pavilion keeper feed the horses while he himself, after presenting his tally and travel permit, ate the rations provided free to traveling officials. Because his rank was Shangzao, his meals were decent, with pickled vegetables, leeks, and scallions to go with his food.

According to the Statutes on Postal Relay, the courier had to record the distance traveled that day and the distances of the towns passed through, for later performance review. So while resting at a pavilion station, the courier could only, by the bean-sized lamplight, laboriously record his journey with a brush:

Jiangling to Dangyang, one hundred eighty li...

Dangyang to Yan County, one hundred eighty-five li...

Yan County to the Canglang River at Sanshi, one hundred li...

Canglang River to Deng County, two hundred forty li...

They left behind the river-laced shores of Jianghan.

They drove into the densely populated Nanyang Basin.

They passed Wu Pass, crossed the Shangyu region, and entered the heartland of Qin — the Guanzhong Plain.

They passed Lantian, where they saw no warm jade smoke, but glimpsed the heavily guarded great camp of the Qin army.

They skirted Shanglin, crossed the Wei River, and from afar saw that enormous, majestic city — still grand and imposing despite lacking the protection of city walls...

The river relay, the long road — a journey far away. On the tenth day of the first month, after traveling day and night, trekking for twenty days, just before the final deadline, the courier and the envoy from Nan Commandery finally reached the journey's end — the Xianyang Relay Station.

The Xianyang Relay Station gathered postal dispatches from all across the land. In the early spring, when warmth was just returning but the chill still lingered, the clerks in black robes were sweating profusely as they sorted all manner of letters and documents; a single mistake would bring severe punishment.

The urgent letter from Nan Commandery was at last assigned to someone. An old postman who could run every street and alley of Xianyang with his eyes closed, following the letter's instructions, drove a horse cart and delivered the treadle pestles along with the letter to the "Lesser Treasury" located in the eastern part of Xianyang, into the hands of a minor clerk of the Lesser Treasury named Zhang Han...

PS: I'm home now, everyone, sorry for the long wait. Updates will be normal during the New Year period.

(End of chapter)