Chapter 23: Security Armored Soldiers

For Squad Leader Cao, probably nowhere the authorities knew about in this world was safe — not even a backwater like Black Dragon King Temple Mountain.

For Liu Chengzong, going home meant he could eat two full meals a day and briefly live a stretch of peaceful days.

Hard to say whether this was really the right time to want peaceful days, but Liu Chengzong wanted — he needed — a stretch of peace, and besides, he knew perfectly well that the time for peaceful days was running short.

It wouldn't even last until Wang Zuogua's rebel army was defeated by the court's pacification troops — because of Cao Yao.

Cao Yao stayed at the Guandi Temple less than half a month before finding a suitable place to settle. On the seventeenth of the second month, Squad Cao moved out five carts loaded with grain and carrying axes and shovels; five days later, another five carts left. After that, they paid their respects to Lord Guan, bade farewell to Old Master Liu and the Liu brothers, and the entire force marched out.

They also poached eight men from Squad Liu.

He carted off fifty dan of grain, leaving a little over thirty dan in the cave dwelling Liu Chengzong had arranged for Sister-in-law Cao, as a precaution.

Judging by the grain they took, Liu Chengzong figured Cao Yao's timetable was extremely tight — the grain they took would only last them until the fourth month.

Which meant that before the fourth month arrived, Cao Yao would have to lead his men to seize grain, whether by raiding rich households or fighting mountain bandits.

During this stretch, no one had been idle.

Squad Leader Gao Xian and Tian Shoujing led men escorting Liu Chengyun on two trips to Yan'an prefectural seat. On one hand, they asked Chengyun's father-in-law, the Yan'an litigation master Wang Kun, to purchase iron stock on their behalf; on the other, they wanted to try offloading the calligraphy, paintings, antiques, and such they'd taken from striking White Eagle, exchanging them for silver and grain.

But neither task was easy. The place in Yan'an Prefecture that produced wrought iron was called Yanchang County, over a hundred li southeast of Black Dragon King Temple Mountain.

So on the second trip, they had to purchase spearheads and arrow shafts on the open market under the name of the Black Dragon Temple Mountain Security Armored Soldiers. These items were all quite expensive; the smiths in Yan'an prefectural seat were no longer willing to accept copper cash or silver — weapons had to be bought with grain.

In truth, the smiths' labor and material costs weren't high, but in the broader climate of economic collapse, a daily wage of three or four fen of silver wasn't enough for a craftsman to eat a full meal with grain prices so exorbitant. At a time like this, as long as there was work, as long as a day's labor meant one meal, craftsmen would scramble for the job.

As for the second matter, selling the spoils of war, it was equally a headache for litigation master Wang Kun. In prosperous times, antiques; in chaotic times, gold — these goods weren't easy to find a buyer for. To offload them, you could only seek out merchants heading south. It was a matter of luck.

Chengyun's father-in-law Wang Kun was something of a legend in Yan'an Prefecture. A xiucai by background, his family's land and shops had been seized by relatives, and he himself couldn't pass the provincial exam. He fought lawsuits for a full ten years, outlasting three county magistrates and two prefects before finally resolving the matter.

Over those ten years, in order to win his lawsuits, he continuously honed his ability to write legal plaints. After his own affairs were settled, he simply set up as a litigation master right there in Yan'an Prefecture.

It was a profession the imperial court did not recognize; litigation masters usually had an official cover identity.

For instance, the Xinyang petifogger Song Shijie, active from the Zhengde reign into the early Jiajing reign, used his position as a clerk in the yamen's penal section to write plaints for people.

The profession of litigation master did not exist in officialdom or the legal code, but the common people had such a need, which gave rise to an unspoken rule of transformation: acknowledging a godfather.

To engage Wang Kun as litigation master, to have him write a plaint or represent someone in a lawsuit, you first had to acknowledge him as godfather or god-grandfather. Then the godfather would step forward to submit the plaint to the yamen. Even if the yamen didn't recognize it, they had no recourse — after all, it was family.

Thus, Litigation Master Wang had quite extensive connections, with a whole host of goddaughters and godsons in Yan'an Prefecture, from all trades, rich and poor, noble and humble. All told, he lived far more comfortably than Liu the Provincial Graduate.

When it came to fencing the spoils of war, there was no one more suited to the task than Old Master Wang.

And Liu Chengzong, aside from helping with troop training and his studies, was mainly busy with one thing — persuading his father, the head of the Security Armored Soldiers, to expand the force's scale.

The name "Security" had been chosen by Liu Xiangyu, with the intent of protecting the region and bringing peace to the people.

But with only a mere twenty-four men, Liu Chengzong felt it wasn't enough — nowhere near enough.

While assisting Liu Xiangyu in compiling a military manual, Liu Chengzong raised this issue.

"There are over a hundred able-bodied men in the ward, and many of the women are robust too, but they know nothing of military affairs and haven't a weapon to their names. When trouble strikes, panic is inevitable. A mere twenty-four armored soldiers and a little over twenty border troops can hardly shoulder such a heavy responsibility. If we are to train..."

He set down his brush and said to Liu Xiangyu, "Father, you ought to train all the able-bodied men of Xingping Ward between twenty and fifty. Even if they only trained two days a month, at least they'd have the strength to defend themselves when something happens."

No one knew better than Liu Chengzong what was going to happen in Shaanxi from now on. To put it bluntly, in the great upheaval of a dynastic change, no matter how great a power or how extensive the preparations, it was all really just doing what one could as a mortal. Whether one survived in the end still depended on Heaven's will.

"The armored soldiers plus you men — it's not enough."

Liu Xiangyu flipped through his book without raising his head. "If border troops and armored soldiers won't do, can civilian conscripts be of any use? What exactly are you and Chengzu plotting?"

What he was leafing through was Mao Yuanyi's Treatise on Military Preparedness, the Tianqi first-year printed edition. Liu Chengzong had no idea through what channel his father had obtained this book. It comprised two hundred and forty juan in total, divided into five sections: Assessments of Military Principles, Studies in Strategy, Formations and Training, Military Provisions, and Divinations and Measurements — encompassing all manner of military thought from ancient and modern times.

It was a fine book, but its scope was broad and varied — a general's reference, not a manual of regulations for low-ranking officers. Not that it was unsuitable, but much of its content was simply useless to a low-ranking officer.

Liu Xiangyu's aim was to compile from it a volume of rules and methods suitable for the rapid training and command of troops by low-ranking officers, to present to the prefectural yamen for printing and distribution to the local gentry everywhere, so they could combine household troops for self-defense.

His elder brother, as a low-ranking officer, was naturally the perfect fit to assist their father in compiling this military manual. Liu Chengzong, for his part, was mostly learning through the process of compilation.

Only, the more he learned, the more Liu Chengzong felt that his father's idea of compiling the book and distributing it everywhere was unworkable... Once this newly compiled manual was printed, the ones who would most easily use it to boost their combat power were probably not village troops, but bandit troops.

What did Liu Chengzong want to do?

Looking further ahead, what he fundamentally sought was, of course, to preserve his life in the coming class struggle that would originate in Shaanxi. And to preserve his life, in the long run, choosing between the peasant army and the court's imperial troops was an inevitability.

He knew which side would be the ultimate victor, and he knew how swiftly the peasant army would collapse after breaching Beijing. But knowing all that did nothing to solve the problems at hand.

The emperor who held the reins of the realm couldn't even save his own life in this struggle — much less a mere military man like him.

"Father, your son does not intend to become a bandit. I want to preserve the lives of our clan, and save a few more people besides — as many as we can."

"Save people? Have I, your father, not saved people?"

Liu Xiangyu shook his head with a sigh. "In Xingping Ward, we can save a few dozen, maybe a hundred souls. Any more, and the armored soldiers won't have enough to eat. Yet saving a hundred-odd lives — what is that but a drop in the bucket for northern Shaanxi today?"

"As far as I, your father, know, there isn't a single great household or powerful family that isn't distributing porridge to relieve the disaster victims. But by the same token, there isn't a single great household or powerful family that isn't seizing this moment to use the trick of 'produce gone, grain remains' to buy up fields and land on a massive scale and issue heavy-interest loans."

"Land is the foundation upon which great households stand. If you don't buy up fields, someone else will. The next famine year, your fields will be bought out from under you, and thus the peasants have nothing to eat. The court levies two hundred thousand in taxes; the localities exact a million but cannot deliver even the two hundred thousand. Hence the troops go without pay while the people's strength is already exhausted — rising in revolt is an inevitable consequence."

"You can relieve three or five people, but the disaster victims and refugees keep coming in an endless stream. The situation is truly beyond the power of the likes of us to sway. In the end, all of northern Shaanxi will be dragged down into ruin. Fortunately — northern Shaanxi already has no grain left. They will go to Hancheng."