Chapter 234: A Tusi's Dream

After meeting everyone the tusi had sent, Liu Chengzong finally confirmed one thing.

All fourteen tusi of Xining had come to see Cao Huachun; the gifts they brought for Eunuch Cao filled two full carts.

Only a scant handful of them brought him a little stone or some other trinket.

But after seeing Lion Camp, the tusi immediately sent men running back, and brought him even more gifts than they had brought for Cao Huachun.

Gems from Ü-Tsang, fine steel blades from the Western Regions, antlers from Qinghai, and top-grade hides — Liu Chengzong took none of it.

He only had the lamb that Chen Shiwen had led over slaughtered.

As the sole Han minor tusi in Xining, after more than ten generations, Chen Shiwen had felt all his life that he did not seem much like a Han.

When there was something good, the Han officials in Xining did not treat him as Han, and the Tu people did not treat him as Tu either.

When there was something bad, the Tu people would remember he was Han, and the Han officials would remember he was a tusi.

After so long caught in the middle, he even began to doubt himself — am I not Han after all? Otherwise, why would Father have named him Chen Shiwen?

But watching Scholar Liu slaughter the lamb, drain the blood, skin it, and set up the roasting rack with such practiced ease — more like a sea bandit than any sea bandit — Chen Shiwen felt reassured.

He was more Han than the Han, utterly authentic.

Liu Chengzong rubbed salt into the dressed lamb, told his guards to help finish up, took off his leather apron and set it aside, washed his hands, wiped his blade, and motioned Chen Shiwen to sit with him. He said, "The Huang River valley is truly a fine place. I haven't seen land this green in a long time. How much farther to Xining?"

"General, still one hundred and twenty li."

Liu Chengzong nodded. "You people here don't know I'm in rebellion. From what I can see, none of those tusi even know who I am."

"We know a little — it was in the Xining Guard gazette — but we didn't know the General had this many troops." Chen Shiwen said, "It's too far. Following the border wall, it's two thousand li just to get there."

Chen Shiwen asked, "Is the drought in Shaanxi so severe that tens of thousands follow the General in rebellion?"

The Hehuang Valley had no drought. Ever since they neared Lanzhou, conditions here were like a golden age — Tu and Han living intermingled, the people content and at peace, nothing at all like the hellscape to the east.

Northern Shaanxi was no wealthy place even in years of peace, and now beset by great drought and military chaos — coming from there into the Hehuang Valley, this feeling that everything was so normal left them somewhat at a loss.

Liu Chengzong nodded in acknowledgment. Chen Shiwen could not help but click his tongue, and said with sudden understanding, "I heard men back from the relief expedition in Lintao say Shaanxi was suffering drought, that even the Yulin troops had no food, but... I thought they were lying to me."

"Indeed. When I came through, I saw such fine land, and they were growing hempseed on it." Liu Chengzong had been baffled by this for a long time. "Do you have enough grain to eat here?"

"More or less. We rotate wheat with hemp, wheat with beans — we have to, nothing else sells. Pressing oil brings in money to pay the court's levies. The Haibei tribesmen grow it too — rapeseed over there. The Hehuang Valley produces two to three hundred thousand jin of vegetable oil a year."

As Chen Shiwen spoke, he frowned in a bitter smile. "It's the same everywhere, I suppose. The poor starve and abandon their fields; the great households annex the land. The only thing better about Xining is that when common folk can't survive, they can hide in the mountains and live as tribesmen. These days, being a tribesman is comfortable."

"How is it comfortable?"

"Shengfan, shufan — those who farm pay grain tax, those who herd pay horse tax, all at fixed quotas, not like the levies that have no limit. If truly desperate, they can still go join the sea bandits under Little Lhatsun — over there they only take one-tenth as tianba."

Liu Chengzong searched his memory but had no knowledge whatsoever of these two terms. He asked, "Little... Little Lhatsun, tianba — what are those things?"

"Little Lhatsun is the ordained son of Huoluochi. The General knows of Huoluochi, yes? Right. His two sons are now the sea bandit chiefs. Tianba means paying grain, silver, and horses in tribute — only collected once a year, and only one-tenth each time."

Liu Chengzong let out a helpless laugh.

The Great Ming was supposed to be the one that taxed the least.

Yet in reality, paying grain to the tribal chieftains was less than to the Great Ming, and paying grain to the sea-bandit Tatars was less still than to the tribal chieftains.

The court's organizational capacity at the local level was no longer sufficient to handle complex tax collection and levies.

Chen Shiwen glanced cautiously at Liu Chengzong. "The General isn't planning to sack Xining, is he?"

Liu Chengzong's crew looked even more like nomads than the nomads did — they looked like they were in the plundering trade.

"Why would I sack Xining?"

"Then... then why won't the General accept the tusi's gifts?"

Liu Chengzong shook his head, pointed at the mutton being dressed, and said, "You didn't even know how many men I had, yet you brought this lamb. What those others sent later — they may not even have wanted to send it themselves. Do I look like I'm short of anything? You, on the other hand."

Liu Chengzong looked at Chen Shiwen. "You came more eagerly than anyone else. What do you hope to get from me?"

"I don't hope to get anything, but I do have a request of the General. I have two younger brothers. The third, Chen Shili, has taken monastic vows. The second, Chen Shifo, is opening his own household. I want to send him to follow the General out to sea."

Out to sea — that was a new one.

Liu Chengzong asked, puzzled, "Opening a household? Was your second brother destined for the monastery from birth?"

Chen Shiwen nodded. "Yes. All second sons of tusi households take monastic vows. 'Opening a household' means establishing a separate branch and dividing the family — the Eastern Bo Estate, for instance, has opened thirteen branch households."

"Our Chen tusi family is small and poor, and has never opened a branch. I don't want my second brother to do it either. I have only twenty-five soldiers in total. If we divide the household, I'll be left with thirteen."

Chen Shiwen cupped his hands in salute as he spoke. "So I would rather let him follow the General out to sea and earn his own merits."

Liu Chengzong truly did not understand tusi, still less Xining and Qinghai.

But he understood himself, and understood his own needs.

"Taking your brother with me — no problem." Liu Chengzong nodded first, then said, "But what can he bring me? Judging by his name, I fear your family did not raise him as a warrior. One lamb probably isn't enough — that wouldn't even feed him."

Chen Shiwen laughed easily at this, fully confident. "I was frail as a child, and my parents feared I would die young, so they raised him as the heir as well. He was only sent to the monastery later. He knows all two hundred and twenty monasteries and temples in Xining for study, knows every native-official lama, and has even been to the monasteries north and west of the lake. He never passed the licentiate exam, but he speaks the Tu and Mongol tongues."

That last skill as an interpreter stirred Liu Chengzong's interest, but the earlier specialty was a bit absurd.

Liu Chengzong said, "What use is it that he knows so many monasteries?"

"Ah, I forgot — the General is not a Xining man."

Chen Shiwen's smile was utterly relaxed. "In Xining, every village has a temple. If one has no temple, then it must be very close to one — because temple fairs are the markets. In Qinghai, this is even more true."

"Every monastery has its own temple-fair dates. The sea bandits and tribesmen will never fight or raid during a temple fair. That is to say, my brother Shifo knows when there is no fighting."

That was very important.

Liu Chengzong was glad Chen Shiwen was offering his brother. He truly did not understand this land. But before accepting, he still had to ask whether the other man had thought it through. He asked, "Do you know what it means, to send your brother to me?"

Chen Shiwen had been full of confidence, but being asked this by Lion gave him a moment of self-doubt. "I know... I know part of it?"

Liu Chengzong smiled. "How many people does Xining have?"

"The General's question is complicated. Xining's fields are fertile and its manpower considerable, but unregistered and missing households are severe. Registered military households number six or seven thousand; commoners, over fifty thousand."

Liu Chengzong blinked. "I recall Eunuch Cao telling me that just the Li tusi here controls twenty thousand people."

Chen Shiwen quickly waved his hands. "We are Tu people — neither we nor the shengfan and shufan are on the commoner rolls. Then there are three or four thousand deserters not on the rolls, and commoners not on the rolls — thirty to fifty thousand?"

Liu Chengzong reflected that even counting only the registered population, Xining had more people than Mizhi. Yet this place had made remarkably little impression on him. "Xining has that many people? And counting the shengfan, shufan, and tusi?"

"Then it can't be counted as just Xining anymore. The raw and cooked tribes and the chieftains are scattered all over — you'd have to count the whole He-Huang region: Xining, Hezhou, Guide."

Liu Chengzong had seen the land all along the way and had a very good impression of the He-Huang valley. It was a prosperous place. He said, "Then why don't you tally it up for me? Can you work it out?"

"Roughly."

Chen Shiwen sat there thinking for a long while before he finally spoke: "Xining's military and civilian population is more than eighty thousand, less than a hundred thousand. Hezhou's is the same. Guide's raw and cooked tribes might be a little over a hundred thousand, plus over a hundred thousand native households."

Close to five hundred thousand?

"Are you telling the truth?"

Liu Chengzong had never dreamed this place would have a population of five hundred thousand. What did five hundred thousand people even mean?

With the comfortable living conditions his combat troops enjoyed, taking the He-Huang valley could support twenty thousand of them.

He stood up, then sat back down, slapping his own thigh with his hand. Then a very important question struck him: "What about the Han people? Out of five hundred thousand, how many are Han?"

"Is the General asking about those who consider themselves Han, or those who are indisputably Han?"

Liu Chengzong thought, isn't that a pointless question? As long as someone wanted to be, anyone could be Han. "The latter."

Chen Shiwen stood up, looked around, and mentally estimated the size of Liu Chengzong's forces. He said, "Right now, there are a hundred and ten thousand."

Liu Chengzong fell silent for a very long time.

After a long while, the lamb had been placed on the roasting rack, blood slowly seeping out.

Only then did he speak: "I brought seventeen thousand men, and you're telling me there are only a hundred and ten thousand Han?"

To his surprise, Chen Shiwen was utterly astonished. "S-seventeen thousand? You have so many warhorses, I thought it was thirty thousand men. Then it's only ninety-seven thousand."

Liu Chengzong finally understood why Xining had over two hundred temples.

And why Chen Shiwen's younger brother had to enter a monastery.

And why this minor Han chieftain had run faster than anyone else to come see him.

Seventeen thousand famine refugees recruited into Qinghai didn't mean much to most people, but to this minor Han chieftain who governed native tribes in Xining, it mattered a great deal.

He shook his head and asked, "Why are there so few Han? It doesn't make sense."

Chen Shiwen spread his hands and said, "They ran, of course. Imperial taxes and levies, plus the guard battalions conscripting soldiers — the common folk had no choice but to run. Those who fled into the southern mountains naturally became tribesmen; those who fled west naturally became Tatars."

You could divide people up like that?

"So you're saying there are Han people to the west too, only they've joined the Tatars or the tribes?"

Chen Shiwen nodded. "Quite a few, actually. But I think the General need not be so rigid about who is Han, who is native, who is captive, who is tribal."

"Look at Lord Bingzhong of the Eastern Qi chieftain family — an old Tatar official who served the court loyally on the Liaodong battlefield, only to be killed by the Han man Sun Degong."

Liu Chengzong nodded with a faint smile.

What Chen Shiwen said was one side of it — there are good and bad people everywhere — but what truly pleased Liu Chengzong was that the common folk would run.

Then what was to stop them from running into his territory?

Thinking of this, he asked the question he most wanted answered: "West of Xining, can you farm the land?"

"North of the lake — farming is possible, but the land lies high and cold. Spring comes late and winter early. Quite a few tribesmen farm there, but the harvests are poor. For farming, the He-Huang valley is best, unless there's no—"

Mid-sentence, Chen Shiwen suddenly remembered something extremely important. "General, this Qinghai Pacification Commissioner's Office of yours — what does it pay the court? Grain, silver, or horses?"

Liu Chengzong froze for a moment, then raised a hand, pointed at Chen Shiwen, and nodded at him.

After a moment's deliberation, he said, "You've stumped me."

Liu Chengzong had no idea how to tell this minor chieftain: your lord pays nothing at all, and has no intention of ever paying anything.

But Chen Shiwen was still quite considerate on Liu Chengzong's behalf. "The court hasn't specified yet, I suppose. Once the General reclaims the land, you must negotiate carefully with the court about the poor harvests. If the tribute isn't too heavy, people can survive out there too."

Liu Chengzong said, very seriously, "Then I suppose I won't be reclaiming any land at all."

Chen Shiwen took it as a joke and laughed. "But if the General wants to earn some hard money, I do have an idea."

"What idea?"

"The General could become a great bulk-goods merchant. Xining's caravans can't get out, and the sea bandits' caravans can't get in. There's some smuggling through small tribal groups, but it's all small-scale."

Chen Shiwen sounded like he had wanted to do this for a long time, only frustrated by his own lack of power. "The General can freely pass through the checkpoints. If you establish a firm foothold on the Western Sea—"

"Qinghai's salt, wool, hides, and minerals, and the inland commercial goods — you could control it all single-handedly. Especially the wool. My younger brother has been to the monasteries further out."

Chen Shiwen's face was full of pained regret. "He said that deeper in, the sea Tatars either discard the wool in the wilderness to rot, or the tribesmen mix it with sand and soak it in dung. It all goes to waste."

Liu Chengzong thought, that can't be right. The Mongols wouldn't just throw all that away. "Don't they weave it?"

"They do. A small amount is woven into coarse cloth and felt, but which sea bandit household is short of wool? Besides, it's all hand-woven and low quality. They have no need to buy or sell it, so they might as well soak it in dung or burn it for warmth."

Chen Shiwen's face lit up with excitement. He raised two fingers. "General, imagine this: Qinghai wool, conservatively estimated, yields five hundred thousand jin a year. At two qian per jin, that's a two-hundred-thousand-tael business."

Liu Chengzong thought this had real potential, but it wasn't just about wool. He had a group of craftsmen from the interior, many of whom had once served the imperial clan in Prince Han's mansion. Their skill was arguably second to none.

They could process all the raw materials from the pastoral regions and then sell the finished goods — both to the Han heartland and back to the herders. More importantly, they could use shared interests to bind certain people to them.

Interests were more reliable than bloodlines.

Besides, the He-Huang valley's five hundred thousand people were already a huge market in themselves.

Liu Chengzong asked, "Since you've had this idea, why haven't you done it yourself? Even starting small would work — smuggling, for instance."

"I want to! But I have no capital."

Chen Shiwen shook his head with a bitter smile and slapped his thigh. "I inherited the chieftain title from my father, but I didn't inherit any money. The benefactors of the temples in our region mostly donate their property to the temples when they die. My father was one of them — he donated to the temple of the Li chieftain family."

"General, you have no idea. Being a chieftain is not easy."

"Our farmland comes from only three sources: first, preserved from the previous dynasty; second, granted by the imperial court; third — third is seizing it... So my land is nearly all seized away."

Just as Liu Chengzong was thinking that Chen Shiwen had come early specifically to find an investor for smuggling, he saw Chen Shiwen sweep away his dejection. For the first time, he spread both hands wide, as if a beautiful life lay right before his eyes.

"So I hope that once the General succeeds, he can build a great, great temple for my family, and let my third brother be its abbot. Invite the finest meditation masters from the snow mountains, and make sure everyone in Xining donates their property to our family when they die!"

This fellow had no intention of getting a cut of the smuggling business at all. What he had in mind was a venture for the ages.

The lamb was already sizzling and dripping with oil. Liu Chengzong stepped forward, grabbed a leg, then let go — it was a bit too hot. He used a clean cloth as a pad and cut, slice by slice, separating meat from bone.

"Have your brother come over. When others offered me gold, silver, and jewels, I didn't take them. But you brought me a lamb — I'll give you back a leg."

As he spoke, he cut off a leg of lamb and handed it to Chen Shiwen, then casually flung the knife to embed it in the tree stump. Pointing at the young tusi, he laughed and said, "But from now on, you'll always have lamb leg to eat."

Note:

Xining population figures reference *A Study of Ethnic Populations in the Hehuang Region During the Ming and Qing Dynasties*.

The tusi sections reference *A Study of the Li Tusi Family System*.

Qinghai's commercial structure and discarded wool reference *A Study of Shop-Based Commerce and Market Systems in Qinghai During the Ming and Qing Dynasties*.