Chapter 285: The Square Steles

The twenty-fourth day of the ninth month, in the fourth year of the Chongzhen reign.

Beneath towering snow-capped mountains, two riders drove their horses south across the vast grasslands.

The man at the head of the party was twenty-six or twenty-seven years old, named Mo Fuli.

He was from Zhenhai Fort in Xining Guard, a place where everyone belonged to the frontier army, and he was no exception; among his distant relatives was an uncle named Mo Yujing, who held the rank of Garrison Commander of the Lutang Encampment in Jinglu Guard, Gansu.

Mo Fuli had served as a frontier soldier at Zhenhai Fort for a few years and had originally planned to change his fate by passing the county exam to become a licentiate, then go serve under his uncle Mo Yujing, but during that time the situation in Xining had shifted dramatically.

The Lion Army's arrival had put everyone there on edge — no matter how great a clan, could it be greater than a chieftain? Even the chieftains, lured by real gold and silver, had bowed their heads to the Qinghai Pacification Commissioner's Office; in that little patch of Xining Guard, what could possibly bypass Liu Chengzong?

To safeguard his clan's local security, Mo Fuli, having passed the licentiate exam, abandoned his plan to serve his uncle and instead pledged himself to the Xining Guard Commander, Liu Chengzu.

Liu Chengzu greatly valued talent, especially young, vigorous, and educated scholar-soldiers like this; after keeping him at his side for two months, he entrusted him with a mission — to deliver a letter to Liu Chengzong in Kangning Prefecture, and if Liu Chengzong had use for him, to stay and help.

The journey was far from easy; Mo Fuli traveled with a guide named Du Mao.

Du Mao was an old licentiate who had failed the provincial exam four times, a ruthless character who refused to accept his fate; having discovered early on that he was not destined to become a provincial graduate, he sold his house and fields, scraped together money to go overseas and trade, collected a huge batch of furs in Nangqian, and on the way back had them all stolen by horse bandits — lost everything down to his bare arse — and only then became a schoolteacher at Zhenhai Encampment.

The two men rode two horses and led two mules, traveling for twenty days on the road; they had taken the right route, and in the territory of the Yushu Hundred-Household Chief they came upon Lion soldiers driving stone posts into the ground along the road from south to north.

The Lion soldiers said they were acting on the Grand Marshal's orders, setting up square stone steles northward along the road starting from Nangqian; on the stele they saw at that moment, the north face read: "This point is 298 li from Nangqian."

Going north from Nangqian, although the local chieftains had been forced to give up manpower, their territories remained, so these square steles were all demanded from the local nobility by the Lion soldiers; when they reached one place, they would have the nobility of the next place prepare to carve a stele, and after the stele was planted, the stonemasons they brought along would carve the characters on the spot.

Because the roads were uneven and winding, the distances were measured on horseback by these Lion soldiers; they carried several wooden posts and several ropes five hundred paces long, laying them along the road, and after covering the distance of one rope, they would drive a knee-high stone post into the ground.

Every ten li, they drove a waist-high stone post; every hundred li, they drove a man-high stone post.

According to the Lion soldiers who completed this mission, these steles were planted to make it easier to assign corvée labor, calculate porterage fees, and set up relay stations.

They were to drive stone posts all the way north to Ju'er Bay, then carve the distances back south li by li from Ju'er Bay; the only difference being that going north to south, you read the north face of the post, and going south to north, you read the south face.

In the future, they would also carve directions and distances on the roads connecting east and west, which was why they were called the Grand Marshal's Square Steles.

But this work would not be finished this year; the weather had already turned cold, the ground was freezing, and progress was growing slower and slower — it would probably have to wait until next spring, then take another two or three months to reach Ju'er Bay, with completion expected by the eighth month of next year.

Still, once this work was underway, it would not delay the establishment of express relay posts and courier stations along the route.

Du Mao led Mo Fuli to Nangqian, and the man was dumbfounded — the place had changed so much; the once-bustling Genbang Monastery had vanished without a trace, leaving only the ruins of massive pillars; he thought Liu Chengzong had torn it down, but upon asking, he learned it had been burned by the army of Dunyue Duoji.

Near the estate by the Zhaqu River, several large villages had formed, and in the middle of these large villages wandered bands of begging monks.

When they asked the Lion soldiers on duty, people said these monks had all come from elsewhere to seek refuge with the King of Nangqian, their monasteries destroyed in the war with the King of Baili.

But after Genbang Monastery was burned, because of a prophecy made by the eminent monk who founded it several hundred years ago, the monastery would never be rebuilt, and the surrounding area, ravaged by war, had no monasteries left — so they had lost their livelihood.

To put it bluntly, the higher-status monks would not, and dared not, come seeking refuge here; those men had long owned properties elsewhere and accumulated great wealth, and had fled to other places long before the war arrived.

So the monks gathered in Nangqian now were all wretched souls from poor families, who in the past had done menial labor in the monasteries just to scrape by with barely enough to eat; many no longer even had homes and had nowhere to go.

"Those fellows," said an artilleryman stationed in Nangqian, sitting on a wooden ammunition crate and looking at the begging monks in the distance with a complicated expression, "all swarmed here when they heard the Grand Marshal was distributing land to slaves in Nangqian. But land distribution doesn't apply to them — it's hard to explain."

"What's so hard to explain?" Mo Fuli asked, folding his arms. "I heard in Xining that the Grand Marshal wants to turn slaves into commoners. They suffer under hard labor in the monasteries — isn't that pretty much the same as being slaves?"

The artilleryman shook his head and looked at the soldier who had spoken. "The Grand Marshal likes slaves, not monks. He likes people with ability, not useless people."

Mo Fuli understood — this artilleryman spoke with a certain philosophical bent.

Useful slaves, useful monks, useless slaves — all could gain benefits from the Grand Marshal.

These monks were extremely unfortunate in that they simultaneously possessed two traits the Grand Marshal disliked.

Mo Fuli sighed. In the farmland not far away, groups of slaves were following officials who were demarcating the ownership of plot after plot of land; Yang Dingrui stood among the ranks with an interpreter, occasionally shouting out a few lines — sometimes met with a burst of cheers, sometimes with silence.

To be precise, these people were actually no longer slaves; they were soldiers who had followed Basang on the eastern campaign, and even if they had merely marched from one territory to another, it had enormously broadened their horizons.

Especially after storming one noble estate after another, climbing up into the three-story buildings that noble lords had never before allowed them to see, and laying eyes on unheard-of, unseen rare treasures — they had all developed desires.

Harnessing the soldiers' immense enthusiasm for land distribution, Yang Dingrui was able to propagate among them the laws and regulations he had established.

Yang Dingrui's regulations had originally been written at great length — three hundred and eighty statutes, with the opening alone running over four thousand characters, depicting the boundless merit of Liu Chengzong in driving out oppressive powers and punishing the wicked to comfort the people.

After an inspection of the Baizha Salt Fields, they were revised to four hundred and ninety-four statutes; the many nobles of Nangqian were assembled, and all unanimously agreed to implement them — fortunately, it was at this point that Liu Chengzong told him to ask the slaves for their views.

He received no response at all; the slaves could not understand, and even with an interpreter it was very hard to grasp, so he used a kind of "foolish" method — standing among the slaves with Master Chen and reading out the statutes, deciding whether to keep, discard, or amend each legal article based on the slaves' reactions.

For Yang Dingrui, whether it was distributing farmland or distributing grain, this legal code had ample time and opportunity to be revised.

Among the seven counties of Kangning Prefecture, the other places were manageable, but Nangqian County alone had endured a protracted war, and this year the fields had yielded virtually no harvest; in places where there were no nobles, the government needed to gather refugees and set up porridge kitchens and tsampa stalls.

Although the Lion Army's grain reserves were not large, the refugees here were not many either, and they were very frugal with food — a person only needed two tsampa a day to scrape through the winter with their happiness index satisfied.

That amount of food was twice what they had received in the past under the nobles, and was basically equivalent to half of one Lion Army soldier's breakfast.

It was not that Liu Chengzong did not want them to eat better — the tsampa he distributed had a little butter, a tiny bit of salt and sugar added, and tasted rather good.

At first, Liu Chengzong had even ordered cooked minced meat mixed in, but the result was over a hundred refugees suffering diarrhea at the same time, and one person who was already ill actually died from it.

This incident filled Liu Chengzong with remorse and dealt a tremendous shock to his thinking.

At the very beginning, he had thought serfs were people of lowly status; later, he thought serfs had the same status as livestock.

Later, he realized — yaks could graze and bask in the sun, horses had salt licks to lick, dogs could enter the house and eat meat, but serfs could not; they could only toil endlessly day and night.

They could take nothing with them but their shadows, and leave nothing behind but their footprints.

When Mo Fuli and Du Mao arrived at the Zhaqu estate, they waited a long time, and it was not until dark that they saw an exhilarated Liu Chengzong and Liu Chengyun returning together.

The two of them had gone to observe Huang Shengxiao's encampment drill and, along the way, inspect Huang Shengxiao's newly designed firearms.

As early as when they first occupied the Nangqian Chieftain's Palace, Liu Chengzong, fearing Huang Shengxiao would grow idle, had assigned him the task of collecting copper materials to cast Lion Cannons, but the casting technique was somewhat lacking, and the cannons produced were never serviceable.

Later, Huang Shengxiao did manage to lead the local craftsmen in producing six three-foot short-barreled bird guns... he had actually aimed to make a hundred of them, but the skill of the blacksmiths here — how to put it — was too long a story to tell.

Under the slave-masters' whips, even forging an iron spearhead could come out crooked, let alone when Huang Shengxiao had no whip.

The simplest possible tube-rolling and welding process became extremely complicated to execute here; the craftsmen had all the required skills — rolling tubes was rolling tubes, forge-welding was forge-welding, the steps were correct — but when assembled, the gun barrel was crooked.

On the other hand, when it came to machining small copper and iron parts like the firing mechanism and the cocking lever, the craftsmen's skill was extremely refined, and they could produce very good precision components.

It took Huang Shengxiao a long time to understand the reason... due to the language barrier, the craftsmen still maintained their long-standing corvée habits — when making weapons, usable was good enough, no need to put in too much thought, since they were for slaves to use anyway.

But those small components, the craftsmen assumed, were ornaments needed by the nobility, and not putting thought into them might bring punishment, so they strove for perfection.

Once he understood the reason, Huang Shengxiao had enough confidence to lead the craftsmen in making firearms, but he then wanted to try making a jingal gun, and this time it was a complete failure; although a jingal looks like merely an enlarged firearm, manufacturing it was far more troublesome, even back in Ju'er Bay.

Let alone here — even with a ready-made jingal placed beside them, there was no way to make an identical copy.

But casting cannons was different. Huang Shengxiao could produce a cannon right from the start, but he could not cast a Lion Cannon.

The Lion Cannon was no different from other cannons in manufacturing technique, but its dimensional tolerances were extremely strict. Huang Shengxiao, who knew nothing of modular design, could only order the craftsmen to produce an exact replica.

This utterly stumped the craftsmen.

Because the Lion Cannon was somewhat large. Although among the cannons Liu Chengzong had seen, the Lion Cannon counted as small-caliber, for the casting capabilities here, it was somewhat large.

The craftsmen had far more experience with objects roughly the size of the Buddha statues nobles commonly used for worship.

Later, Huang Shengxiao, playing to the craftsmen's strength in casting small objects, put his mind to work. Using the Lion Cannon as a blueprint and scaling it down proportionally, he designed a red-barbarian-style gushing-bead cannon. The cannon weighed seventy jin and fired a nine-ounce iron ball.

He believed this cannon suited the offense and defense of the narrow mountain forts in Kangning Prefecture. Soldiers could carry it up a mountain to attack, or place it on a mountain path or in a fort as a defensive implement.

Huang Shengxiao did not dare cast many, producing only twenty-four. He used them to re-equip his twelve hundred troops stationed at Nangqian Qianmo Palace and along the Zhaqu River, replacing the wooden cannons that could not withstand prolonged use.

Liu Chengzong thought this cannon was quite good, and naming it was simple.

No need for big lion or little lion — this thing was just a lynx cub, a Bobcat Cannon.

From these cannons, Liu Chengzong could tell Huang Shengxiao still wanted to fight.

Lion Cannons hauled up to the mountain fort were already sufficient to hold it. On that small platform at Nangqian Qianmo Palace, four Lion Cannons firing in rotation could stop even heavenly troops from advancing. This cannon's best use was not defending a fort, but assaulting a mountain.

However, there were no more battles to fight here — unless Bai Yan's advance into Tibet met setbacks and might require them to provide some support in the rear, drawing up a defensive line.

In Bai Yan's war to enter Tibet, Liu Chengzong did not intend to exert much effort... If he contributed, even if he wanted no reward, his subordinates would need one. Could what goes into a lion's belly ever be spat back out?

When the time came, if Bai Yan wanted territory again, he might have to go looking for it in India.

Of course, that was not a bad thing. It would be quite good if Bai Yan really went to India. The key issue was that if Liu Chengzong entered Tibet, he might never come out again in this lifetime. Resisting the temptation to become a Kham slave-owner was already hard enough for the Lion Army, and they were drifting ever farther from Shaanxi.

But Mo Fuli's arrival and his elder brother's letter pulled Liu Chengzong's thoughts back to Shaanxi.

Liu Chengzu had sent two letters. One brief note explained Mo Fuli's situation, and the other, a long letter, detailed the recent changes in Xining Guard.

To be precise, the long letter mentioned changes in court policy.

At the start of the Chongzhen Emperor's reign, in light of the Wei Zhongxian affair, he had withdrawn all garrison eunuchs from the regional commands. But by the ninth day of the ninth month this year, he had again dispatched eunuchs to oversee Ji, Liao, Guan, Ning, and the various frontiers, putting eunuchs in overall charge of funds and grain for the Ministries of Revenue and Works, supervising the capital training command, and monitoring military pay on all frontiers.

Xining likewise fell under this oversight.

Liu Chengzu wrote in his letter that by the time he sent it, the court's order had already been issued. A eunuch surnamed Zhang had set out from the capital and was heading to Xining to oversee the tea-and-horse trade.

Liu Chengzong clutched the letter, calculating the journey in his mind. From the capital to Xining took roughly twenty-two days, and because the road infrastructure was excellent, it was even a few days faster than Mo Fuli's journey to Nangqian.

Too late. By now, that eunuch Zhang's man should have already reached Xining. Knowing his elder brother's character, he probably would not ambush and kill an envoy on the road.

Liu Chengzong told Mo Fuli and his companion to find a place to sit first, then picked up his brush and began writing letters. He wrote not only to his elder brother, but also to Li Wanqing, Liu Guoneng, and others, reminding them to stay alert and mind their defenses.

Beyond that, he told his elder brother to send someone to inform that eunuch to come see him in Nangqian.

He drew a deep breath, tilted his head, and scratched his neck. He never would have guessed that after Cao Huachun, there was still a eunuch who dared come to Xining.