Chapter 263: The Master's Master

Two days later at dawn, the thunderstorm had just let up, and the air in the castle was fresh.

Liu Chengzong stood in the castle's open ground, drawing his bow to full stretch, staring at the red-willow-branch target twenty paces away with a look of hatred, as if another version of himself stood on that target.

Whoosh—the arrow flew, the shaft streaking fiercely before burying itself in the target bundled from red willow branches.

He lowered the bow, frowned as he gazed at the distant target, exhaled a breath of pent-up frustration, and said to Chen Shifo, "Don't lose heart. Everything is hard at the start."

Liu Shizi let his gaze stretch into the distance, toward the deep-blue sky that merged with the snow-capped mountains, as if he could see countless Dharma Kings and nobles up in that sky, flashing him sinister grins.

Chen Shifo stood to the side, head drooping, and sighed. He knew the Grand Marshal was saying those words to cheer himself up.

He had never lost heart, because he had never had any faith in the progress the Grand Marshal spoke of.

Sometimes, Chen Shifo even felt that working at Liu Chengzong's side was just like serving the senior monks in the temple when he was a child.

I don't understand what you're saying, and I don't know what's in your mind, but I know that doing as you say will benefit me.

He addressed the Grand Marshal, "Actually, I think there's no need to bother with the slaves. Things are fine as they are. Let the slaves become the new nobles. This is all they know. We can't suddenly pour enlightenment into their heads and make them want to become someone they've never seen and don't know."

Liu Chengzong put away his bow and arrows, his face expressionless. He pointed to a stone pier by the wall at the edge of the open ground and said, "Let's go talk over there."

Chen Shifo did not understand. He had to fight this system.

Not because of revolution, not because of liberation, not because of productivity, and not because of power — but because of combat effectiveness.

The army he led was composed of a group of exiled soldiers and disillusioned officials who wielded extreme martial force. They had to become a regime and establish their own state.

If they were still at Küer Bay or Qinghai Lake, he would still have the option of turning a blind eye to this system. They would naturally form a local regime slightly more progressive than the Great Ming.

But after he advanced into the heartland of Qinghai, that option vanished.

The system here would corrode him. It would corrode his army. It would turn them from a band of desperadoes who had rampaged four thousand li into scattered, territory-dividing slave masters.

Weak and easily bullied nobles, submissive and resigned slaves, the power of life and death over others — these things can stir the darkest things in a man's heart.

Who wouldn't want to be a slave master?

The two sat down to the side, and only then did Liu Chengzong ask, "You said they've never seen, never heard of such a person. What did you mean by that?"

Chen Shifo had only said it offhandedly, but Liu Chengzong's seriousness made him nervous. After organizing his thoughts a little, he said, "Grand Marshal, I don't know if what I'm saying is right..."

Liu Chengzong raised a hand. "Just speak freely."

"I was born into a tusi family. From childhood, I saw plenty of my father fawning over his superiors. I was very satisfied being the second son of a tusi. I know the Grand Marshal doesn't like monks, but what I wanted most was to be a monk — leisurely, comfortable, with people serving me and high status."

Liu Chengzong did not treat this as idle chatter. He caught the implication behind Chen Shifo's words: the slaves had never seen free men. They had only seen nobles. What they wanted most was not to be free men, but to be masters who could enslave others.

He asked, "Then why didn't you end up becoming a monk?"

"I wanted to marry a woman."

It should have been a happy thing, but Chen Shifo's eyes held a trace of sorrow. "I'm not afraid of the Grand Marshal laughing at me. When I was sixteen, I fell for a shepherdess north of the lake. I wanted to marry her and bring her home, but my father forbade it. My family was a small tusi — whenever we scraped together a bit of money, it all went to the temple. The Grand Marshal knows this."

"I chanted sutras for people. I rented a house west of Xining City and let her live there. My father kept sending people to drive her back north of the lake. It pained me deeply. I gave her all the money I earned from copying scriptures. I shouldn't have..."

Chen Shifo shook his head, his hands interlaced before him, fingers gripping tight. "The last time I gave her money, she used it to buy a Han person's arsenic."

Liu Chengzong patted him. No wonder the Chen Shiwen family had an ungraduated fake monk who had come all the way to him looking for work.

Chen Shifo let out a long sigh. "After that, I never went back to the temple. I only returned home after my father died..."

This fellow took things in stride; his mood recovered quickly, and he pulled the topic back. "After that, I didn't want to be a monk anymore. I wanted to be an accountant. An accountant's work is easy, and the pay is good."

"I had seen monks, accountants, and tusi, and I wasn't constrained by my birth, so I didn't want to be a tusi — I wanted to be a monk or an accountant. The slaves' birth constrains them, so they don't dare imagine doing anything else. And if there were no birth constraints, what they'd want most is not to be free farmers."

Liu Chengzong nodded. "I know. It's to be noble masters."

He smiled helplessly. "Let's leave it for now. Have Master Basang take his slave soldiers and campaign everywhere, wipe out every last noble of the Gama family. We'll strike east first and crush Boli — we can't drag the fighting into winter."

Liu Chengzong had already sent word north of the lake, telling Chengyun to find Chen Shiwen. They needed people fluent in both Han and Tibetan languages to serve as teachers for the garrison troops.

Every man in the garrison had to learn the Tibetan language.

Half of his soldiers came from peasant uprisings, and the other half were all people who had suffered. Even without deliberate training, they had a strong capacity to agitate.

It was just that here, their agitating ability was completely useless... the language barrier.

Over the next two days, Liu Chengzong selected the commander to defend Nangqian Castle: Artillery Battalion Commander Huang Shengxiao. He ordered him to guard and refortify the castle, haul four Lion Cannons up there, and, with Gama's help, collect copper materials to cast cannons right at the castle.

The garrison would number one thousand: two hundred soldiers and eighty Tibetan craftsmen stationed up on the mountain, and eight hundred soldiers stationed at the foot of the mountain.

Basang's army assembled at Nangqian, keeping Chen Shifo so busy his head spun.

At the foot of the mountain, at the entrance to Gama's slave army camp, Liu Chengzong met Basang for the first time.

From a distance, he saw Chen Shifo spurring his horse closer, and a mass of dark figures came running out of the camp, lowering their bodies and touching their foreheads to the ground.

It nearly frightened Chen Shifo off his horse. He hurried over and told them to get up.

He knew Liu Shizi hated it most when people knelt and kowtowed.

He urged them twice, but no one listened. Finally, he cracked his whip fiercely in the air and gave them an order. Everyone obediently rose.

The people called Chen Shifo "the master's master."

After they stood up, Chen Shifo introduced the person behind him — the Grand Marshal Liu Chengzong. The people had no reaction.

He said, "He is the master's master's master."

Swish — the dark mass of people knelt again.

Chen Qindai was at Liu Chengzong's side. He rode ahead, turned his head, and gave a bitter smile. "Grand Marshal, what do you say... what do we do about this?"

"What's there to do about it? I used to kneel when I saw a general, too. Didn't you kneel when you saw General Li back then?"

Liu Chengzong shook his head. "This is all they know. Now that we're here, they'll come to know more things. It'll get better in time."

Liu Shizi was not the least bit pessimistic about these kneeling people. On the contrary, he was very optimistic.

These people were like blank sheets of paper. From birth until now, they had never truly learned anything beyond following orders. It was just that some things had been branded so deep they had become instinct.

He was not afraid.

Chen Shifo cracked his horsewhip twice more and brought Basang over. Liu Chengzong dismounted and carefully studied the young man before him.

Basang struck him as a lucky fellow.

The man wore a black-gray old sheepskin coat that looked oiled, its wool matted and filthy to the point of shining. Over it he wore a suit of mail armor with a smashed-in chest, and on his head was an iron helmet with a white tassel.

Half of the helmet plume had been stained brown by blood.

Without comparison, he would have thought Basang was very pitiful.

But among the several hundred slaves behind Basang, Liu Chengzong did not see a second sheepskin coat.

The vast majority wore clothes crudely stitched together from tattered coarse cloth, frayed edges revealing loose threads, and there were even a few elderly people whose bodies were draped entirely in ragged old cloth strips.

Compared to them, the sheepskin coat on Basang was simply sumptuous and magnificent.

Based on this, Liu Chengzong believed that choosing Basang as the new master was perhaps not a good choice.

They should find someone with barely any clothes, starving, and close to death — the old sheepskin coat on Basang, as thick as it was filthy, was enough to keep him from freezing to death sleeping outdoors.

Liu Chengzong smiled. "Your former master did not treat you badly."

Chen Shifo stared wide-eyed and asked, "Great Commander, should I say this line to him?"

Liu Chengzong nodded and raised his hand. "Tell him to lift his head."

Basang raised his head cautiously and with difficulty, and said, "The master and the young master Duoji both treated me very well."

"You have kept your head down too long. Your neck needs exercise. Lift your head, straighten your back, stop kneeling — you must tell everyone."

After Chen Shifo finished relaying his words, Liu Chengzong then said, "They treated you very well, so do you still want to go back?"

Basang did not answer. He thought for a moment, a wariness he could not hide in his eyes, and shook his head slightly. "I do not want to go back."

Chen Shifo was very satisfied with Basang's answer and said with a relieved breath, "Great Commander, he says he does not want to go back."

Liu Chengzong, however, shook his head. "Ask him again, why he does not want to go back."

Not understanding human speech sometimes has its advantages — it allows one to focus all attention on the subtle expressions and demeanor of the other person.

Basang's demeanor showed that this "do not want" was not because things were better here, or because here he was a master and going back meant being a slave.

Sure enough, Basang said something unknown, and Chen Shifo became so agitated he nearly jumped up. He muttered a few words, so angry his teeth itched, before saying to Liu Chengzong, "Great Commander, he says he does not want to go back because having him lead troops back would harm his master and young master."

Liu Chengzong was not as angry as Chen Shifo; he merely sighed inwardly.

His state of mind was complicated. Loyalty has always been precious. Even if the person before him was a slave, not forgetting his old master was a rare character trait.

It was just that he did not know how this slave had grown up — he seemed even smarter than Chen Shifo.

"Your mind is very perceptive."

Liu Chengzong had Chen Shifo call all the slave soldiers outside the camp gate back into the encampment, and went inside with the two men to find a place to sit.

He looked at the camp full of soldiers in tattered clothes, turned his head, and said to Basang, who was sitting on a tree stump looking awkward no matter how he sat: "In the Tang dynasty there was a man named Li Yide, also of slave origin, who ran away from his master."

"Later he followed Emperor Xuanzong in his coup, and was appointed General of the Martial Guard. His former master encountered him on the road and hid elsewhere, but was invited by him into his mansion, where he personally served food and poured wine for his old master."

"He kept his old master at his home for several days, then went to court and told the emperor that the official post and salary he had received by the grace of the state were far too high, that his old master was of lowly status and had no official post, and he begged the emperor to bestow half of his own post and salary upon his old master, hoping Emperor Xuanzong could grant his foolish request."

"You should be able to understand this story."

After Chen Shifo finished translating, Basang thought for a while, then looked at Liu Chengzong with a blank expression.

"In your lands, when a slave fights for his master, no matter how brave, he can only wear a wolf skin or tiger skin, and goes back still a slave. Official posts all belong to the nobles."

Liu Chengzong pointed at himself. "But with me there are no nobles. A man who displays his talents and fights bravely for his sovereign can obtain official posts that only nobles could hold... This is something new, isn't it?"

"The slave system is insufficient to excavate the full talents of people. I am going to do something even greater than the Tang Emperor Xuanzong's coup, so I must have people study and train, mobilize all the wisdom and strength of everyone. The nobles have seized too many things. Fifteen years makes a generation — they must be finished."

"No one can stop me, and the same goes for your master. What sets your old master apart from other nobles is you."

Liu Chengzong pointed at Basang. "Not used to sitting? You will get used to it. If you do not serve me with all your heart, they might not die, or they might die. Blades and spears have no eyes — who can say for sure?"

His words, filtered through Chen Shifo's translation — some things Basang understood, some things he did not.

But the story about Li Yide from Emperor Xuanzong's time, Basang understood.

He said, "If I serve you with all my heart, and in the future take an official post that only nobles can hold, can I give half the post and salary to young master Duoji?"

"Ha!"

Liu Chengzong shook his head. "I am no Emperor Xuanzong, and I will not permit such a foolish request. But if you say you want them to live, I can let them live — a few dozen mu of land, hire two people, no need to die or sleep under a ladder."

While Basang was thinking, Liu Chengzong frowned and looked around this crude encampment.

The camp had not only men, but also women — even women holding unweaned infants.

Some people had set up archery targets and were practicing shooting, but more were simply sitting on the ground pointlessly. Women bared their chests to tend to their little ones; men found a corner to relieve themselves wherever they pleased.

He turned to Chen Shifo and said, "This afternoon, go to Bai Yan and ask for a few herding soldiers who understand the Western Tibetan tongue to help. Have the women in camp set up a small camp nearby. I will assign you a few officers. You compile a set of military regulations and proclaim them in the camp."

"Compile military regulations? I don't know how, Great Commander."

"I'm telling you to write. First regulation: when making camp, dig four latrine pits fifty paces outside the four corners of the camp. Bury it on the spot when away from camp — otherwise people will get sick."

Liu Chengzong shook his head. He had still failed to consider enough. Slaves alone could not form an army. None of these people had received military education, and the camp was in greater chaos than a mountain bandit stronghold.

More and more slave soldiers would be recruited in the future — this could not go on.

He asked Basang, "Have you thought it through? Do you intend to take these slaves back to show your noble master, and then be wiped out together by me, or serve me steadily and earnestly, so that in the future you can save your master's life... Stay seated, don't kneel!"

Basang's backside had just left the tree stump when it thudded heavily back down. Liu Chengzong had never imagined that this fellow could actually perform a kowtow motion while seated, and say, "I will serve the master of my master!"