Chapter 90: The Coal Works

The White Jade River — known in later ages as the Kashgar Yulong River — was where Zhang Zhao, with Fan Shun, Qiongre Duojin, and some twenty others, rode upstream along the river. Beside him was a fifty-man guard detail sent by the Prefect of East River Prefecture.

Zhang Zhao had originally assumed, from the heavy use of coal in Khotan's capital, that the coal mines were not far from East River Prefecture.

But after asking Prefect Cui of East River Prefecture, he learned that the coal mines were a full seventy li away — half a day's ride even on horseback, with stops along the way.

As they went on, more and more boats of all sizes appeared on the White Jade River, many of them nothing more than log rafts, drifting down the not-so-gentle Yulong River toward East River Prefecture.

It was already deep winter, and in the bone-piercing wind, thinly dressed boatmen shivered on the Yulong River.

Zhang Zhao had no doubt that if one of those broken boats or rafts capsized, the boatmen would freeze stiff the moment they hit the water, with no strength left to climb out.

"Lieutenant, sir, the coal works is here!" The speaker was a short, stout Scythian Khotanese — a village headman the Prefect of East River Prefecture's guards had grabbed from somewhere to serve as a guide.

Zhang Zhao nodded and spurred his horse forward. This was a coal works set in a hollow halfway up the mountain, and not a small one either. The surrounding trees and sheds were all coated in a thick layer of coal dust, and the ground was covered in black muck.

Everyone Zhang Zhao saw along the way was black from head to toe, and small peddlers drove pack horses laden with coal past him.

Women and children, big and small, had stripped branches from saplings to make crude sled-like contraptions, hauling loads of coal down the mountain.

"Lame Horse! Lame Horse! The lieutenant from the royal city is here — have you got your people assembled?"

No sooner had they entered the mine than the little headman they'd conscripted went trotting ahead on his donkey, clip-clop.

The guards at the gate, shivering with cold, saw Zhang Zhao's party in their bright robes and instantly dropped to their knees with a rush. Those nearby holding horses or dragging "sleds" also fell to their knees on the icy, wet ground as if waking from a dream.

Zhang Zhao did not tell them to rise — that was the custom of this age. He could only spur his horse forward a few quick steps, so they would not have to kneel on the freezing ground quite so long.

Lame Horse lived up to his name: a long horse-like face and one lame leg. But he did not have Scythian features — he looked like a Han.

He limped over and knelt before Zhang Zhao's horse. Zhang Zhao tossed a leather pouch from his chest — it held millet wine, a fine thing for warding off the cold.

"A reward for you. Wipe your nose, and get your people to me at once. This lord doesn't have much time!"

Lame Horse looked up in surprise. He took the leather pouch, his lips twitching twice, but said nothing. The short, stout little headman hurried over obsequiously.

"Lieutenant, sir, Lame Horse isn't a son of Tang — he's a Tibetan barbarian from the mountains!"

So Zhang Zhao had been speaking Han Chinese just now — no wonder Lame Horse couldn't understand.

A Tibetan! Zhang Zhao nodded. After all, the Tibetans had ruled Khotan for nearly seventy or eighty years, so it was natural that some Tibetan descendants remained. And Tibetans, apart from the highland flush, looked much the same as Han.

"Honored lord! Please give Lame Horse a little time — the miners will be assembled at once!"

Lame Horse kowtowed to Zhang Zhao, and after receiving permission, took the leather pouch and limped back.

At his loud shouts, men who looked like foremen, with swords at their waists, began dispersing in all directions.

Before long, the whole hollow was like a hornet's nest that had been poked. Thinly clad miners, so black with coal dust their race was indistinguishable, were driven out of their dugout shelters. They pressed together shoulder to shoulder, kneeling shivering all over the ground in the cold wind.

Zhang Zhao dismounted and bared his teeth as he looked at the miners before him. Most were pitifully thin, their faces full of fear and unease.

The moment Zhang Zhao walked over, they huddled even tighter in panic, like startled little mongrel pups, as if Zhang Zhao were some man-eating beast.

"How many people are here?" Zhang Zhao asked in Khotanese, addressing Lame Horse, who had just limped over again.

"Reporting to the lieutenant, sir! About five hundred. Last night this humble one gathered them from the surrounding mines. The lord may pick three hundred from among them!"

Zhang Zhao smiled faintly. So they were treating him as a greenhorn from the Khotan royal city!

Mining was hard work, but miners would never all look as cowed and cringing as these before him. Cowed, cringing people were slave laborers, not miners.

If they truly were this spineless, the brutal arena of the lowest rung of society would have swallowed them whole. Miners and boat-trackers — you could say theirs was the cruelest existence among laborers.

Anyone who had neither shrewdness nor strength, like these people before him, simply could not survive.

And while miners might not necessarily be very strong, they were absolutely lean and wiry. But these people — most of them had had the life force nearly wrung out of them.

These were no miners at all. To put it harshly, they were nothing but disposable consumables. Real miners were always organized.

And they would have a leader among them. Otherwise there was no way to bargain with a foreman like Lame Horse. Those who couldn't bargain with the foreman would be dead within a few months of arriving at the mine.

In a brutal arena like a mine, miners who survived and still had money to go home with were absolutely tight-knit groups.

They were the ones with rich experience working underground, with healthier, tougher bodies. These nearly spent consumables before him were not what Zhang Zhao wanted.

But he glanced at the foremen huddled together, and at Lame Horse's slightly uneasy face, and understood at once.

Pushing these lowest, weakest miners out for him to choose from was definitely not one man's idea — it had to be a collective decision.

Because coal mining was one of the most lucrative businesses in Khotan. Those with the right to mine here were all power players in the Kingdom of Khotan.

Three hundred organized elite miners were three hundred money-printing machines — how could they bear to part with them?

Perhaps in their minds, this newly arrived son of the Princess of Fengtian surely wanted to snatch food from their bowls. That they were willing to offer these five hundred for Zhang Zhao to choose from — they probably felt they had already conceded quite a lot.

At that thought, Zhang Zhao drew a deep breath and looked at Lame Horse beside him.

"From these people here, I will take one hundred and fifty. But! For the other one hundred and fifty, you will give me the real goods. Don't take this old man for some fool who knows nothing!"

He would take one hundred and fifty. A strong dragon does not crush the local snakes. As long as he got one hundred and fifty elite miners, he could feed the rest well for ten days or half a month, then have the elite miners lead them — they'd be usable. It would also count as doing good. One hundred and fifty lives!

Lame Horse's expression changed. Involuntarily, he glanced at the short, stout little headman beside Zhang Zhao. The little headman saw Zhang Zhao's gaze turn his way too, and his face went deathly pale, but he slowly shook his head, signaling that he had not spoken out of turn.

"I give you a quarter hour. I want to see the men, or this old man will make you regret it!" Zhang Zhao snorted coldly.

Thud! Lame Horse dropped straight to his knees, but said nothing and made no gesture. The foremen around him huddled together, all staring at the ground. The silence was terrifying.

"Lieutenant, sir! The miners really are all here. Don't look at how thin they are — feed them up a bit and they'll all be strong men!" The short, stout little headman took two trembling steps forward and said dryly.

Shing! Zhang Zhao slowly drew his hengdao saber. You motherfucker — I've already cut the number in half, and you're still putting on an act for me! Do you really think I'm that easy to fool? He had no more time to waste.

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