Chapter 452: Sand Fields

When the Western Camp drove the first shovel into the gravel-covered fields and raised the first plume of thick smoke from a funeral pyre, the Liangzhou Guard banner troops inside the wagon fort grew restless and agitated.

The former sealed off their retreat from the battlefield; the latter made the war meaningless for most soldiers… they needed heads. Without heads, even victory in battle was meaningless.

Ding Shaoyin paced frantically inside the wagon fort, cursing, "These barbarians are acting just like the eastern Tartar slaves!"

In truth, it was not only the eastern Tartars — denying Ming troops their heads was a consensus among nearly all of the Ming's opponents; only the method of disposing of corpses varied from foe to foe.

The Mongols, through customary rules of repaying kindness, turned hook-scythe lancers on the battlefield into entrepreneurial vanguards; while in Liaodong, the Jurchens instituted even harsher reward and punishment regulations during wartime.

If they could carry the dead away, they did; if not, they destroyed them. When all else failed, they would cut off their own fallen soldiers' heads before the Ming troops could, and take the queues home.

The trench draped a pall of despair over the Liangzhou Guard banner troops in the wagon fort, and the burning of corpses shattered their dreams of earning merit and reward. After a moment of agitation, every man in the wagon fort banner troops gave up trying — with plenty of supplies still on hand and the enemy unable to break in anytime soon, they would simply hold fast and wait for relief.

This peacetime lull between battlefield clashes also brought Basang considerable relief.

He had not paid any attention to the ground beneath his feet before, but when the Western Camp soldiers began digging the trench, he noticed that the fields here were covered with a layer of sand and gravel.

Cobblestones and fine sand, two or three inches thick, evenly blanketed the field ridges. These stones and sand stood out starkly on the surface, clearly man-made rather than natural, which piqued Basang's interest.

Basang, born a slave, had once been a top hand at the mindless drudgery of serf farming, before the steward taught him archery with a whip.

He was very knowledgeable about agricultural techniques. When a headman appointed by a noble lord received a manor estate, he would first drive serfs to set fires around the manor's perimeter, then deploy a row of serfs with wooden plows for shallow tilling, scatter the seeds, and the next year they would harvest grain.

After planting like this for three to five years, when the land could no longer grow anything, they would move outward, burn another patch of wasteland, and continue farming. After another three to five years, when all the surrounding territory had been burned, they would circle back to cultivate the earliest abandoned land, and once again reap a harvest.

This was called shifting-field agriculture.

Later, when this shifting-field agriculture was brought under deliberate human control, fallow-field agriculture emerged, giving the land fixed rest periods.

For example, a field might be planted for two years straight and rested for one; or two or three plots might be selected, planting one while resting another, or planting two while resting one — the three-field system, all variations on the same theme.

Beyond this, because the Kham and Ü-Tsang regions had strong winds, coarse soil, and low air and soil temperatures, oxidative decomposition in the soil was slow, latent fertility was high but available nutrients were few, and large amounts of livestock dung were burned as household fuel, so the concept of fertilizing simply did not exist.

Thus, under these objective conditions, the common people of the western regions developed a crop-rotation system: a field would be planted with highland barley one year and beans the next, in order to obtain a relatively stable harvest.

The above constituted the entirety of Basang's agricultural knowledge before he joined the Marshal's headquarters.

But after Kangning was established as a prefecture, Basang experienced an unprecedented cultural shock and was introduced to the greatest creation of human agricultural science — ridge-furrow alternate-field farming.

This, like the iron plow, the imperial examination bureaucracy, or the notion that children must be sent to community schools or private academies to study, was something the farmers of the Central Plains understood in their very bones about the world, as if it required no scientific technology whatsoever.

As long as a piece of land was called a field, it ought to look the part: a square plot of earth, plowed into ridges and furrows. Planting grain on the ridges one year was called ridge cultivation, a system from the Warring States period; the next year, the furrows were dug open, furrow and ridge swapped places, so that labor and fallow were completed on the same plot of land — this was called alternate-field farming, invented by Zhao Guo, the Grain-Searching Commandant during the reign of Emperor Wu of the Western Han.

The matching agricultural implement, the three-legged seed drill, was also Zhao Guo's invention. The seed drill was an animal-drawn row-seeding machine, its main body consisting of three plowshare shafts, with a wooden hopper at the front to hold the seeds. The bottom of the hopper connected to the plowshare shafts via wooden tubes called seed-dropping cylinders. As an ox or mule pulled the seed drill across the land, the iron shares cut through the soil, carving out furrows; the seed-dropping cylinders behind the shares released the seeds, and the soil turned by the shares covered them over.

Three shares, one ox, one man operating — integrating furrow-opening, seeding, covering, and pressing into a single process.

But in Basang's impression, and that of many common people of the western regions, the world did not look like this. Iron plows, imperial examinations, and schooling did not exist; fields were supposed to be pitted and chaotic, and sowing was done by hand, dibble by dibble — machinery did not exist.

In truth, it was not that the western region nobles were unaware of these production methods and implements, but the great unified dynasty used copper for currency, the southwest had no means of casting iron, and under the manorial system, ordinary people had great difficulty obtaining forged iron farming tools.

Without changing the production technology and environment, forcefully adopting the ridge-furrow alternate-field system would mean the serfs, scratching at the earth with wooden tools, would be far too slow — in the end, it was more practical to simply plant more land.

From that moment on, Basang understood that for his slave brothers in Kangning and even Ü-Tsang, the silks and satins the nobles loved from the Central Plains were worthless to them, but everything the common people of the Central Plains took for granted was a treasure that could defy fate and change their destiny.

While the Western Camp was busy with earthworks and trench-digging, Basang gathered the Han firearms officers in camp and pointed at the cobblestones and fine sand on the ground, asking the purpose of such a practice.

The firearms officers were mostly veterans who had followed Liu Chengzong into Kangning; no Lanzhou local could tell him the significance. However, the men pointed Basang toward a clear path.

That squad commander inside Zhuanglang Guard city, Jing Xiaoliu, had been garrisoned here for a long time, and the banner troops under his command included men from the Zhuanglang Guard — they would surely know the meaning of covering fields with sand and gravel.

The Western Camp's hundred-man commander, a Han soldier with a full beard, promptly entered the city and found Jing Xiaoliu in the north gate tower, which had taken a pounding from bombardment.

The windows of the gate tower had been blasted into holes by cannonballs; the afternoon sunlight streamed through the gaps in bright shafts, illuminating shattered tiles across the floor, while countless dust motes glittered and danced in the beams.

Jing Xiaoliu sat there, bent over a long table with a cannonball embedded in it, writing a long letter by the light pouring into the room.

"Commander Jing, I am Liao Beard, hundred-man commander of the Western Camp. Sent by Brigade Commander Ba, I have come to ask the Commander why the fields of Zhuanglang are covered with sand and gravel."

Jing Xiaoliu had not intended to look up at the news of the Western Camp hundred-man commander's arrival, but upon hearing the man's peculiar Liaodong accent, he raised his head for a glance and said, in an utterly flat tone, "What Brigade Commander Ba wants to ask about is sand fields. You are from Liaodong?"

"Aye, I'm a Liaodong man, a night-ranger from the Middle-Front Thousand-Household Station of Front Garrison Guard in Guangning, beyond the pass. During the Jisi Incident, under Lord Yuan's orders, I followed Guerrilla Commander Cao into the interior."

Liao Beard was the sort who warmed up to strangers quickly, his face full of smiles as he rambled on: "At first I served as a scout-rider for the Marshal, then went into Kangning and fought a few battles under Commander Dai, got picked up by the Western Camp. The Brigade Commander saw the beacon fires and came to rescue you all straight away, didn't dare delay a moment."

Liao Beard had said plenty of kind words, but Jing Xiaoliu's face still wore an icy expression that kept others at arm's length; he merely raised a palm and said nothing.

For a moment, Liao Beard stood in the gate tower feeling deeply awkward, unsure whether that raised palm meant "I understand" or "stop talking." All he could do was curse inwardly that this old Shaanxi squad commander was truly strange.

Jing Xiaoliu did indeed know about sand fields.

This was a dryland cultivation method that originated in the mid-Ming dynasty around the Lanzhou area in the northwest.

Here, rainfall was scarce, evaporation was high, the soil was heavy with clay, and the wind blew fiercely. In a bad season, too much rain turned the ground into a mire of mud; under a harsh sun, it baked into a hard, compacted slab. High evaporation also made salinization more likely.

So people gathered large sand and small stones from the old Yellow River riverbeds. The old riverbeds contained decaying plant matter with considerable nutrients. Spread over moistened farmland that had been treated with manure, this layer shielded against the scorching sun, preserved moisture, and even provided some fertilizer. With evaporation reduced, the salinization problem naturally resolved itself.

On this foundation, crops planted beneath the sand-and-gravel surface effectively retained moisture, their roots driving deep into the soil layer, pushing up through the gaps between stones to grow strong and healthy. This allowed places with low rainfall to preserve water; even in years that would normally count as droughts, as long as a little rain fell, the sand fields could still yield a bumper harvest.

A properly laid sand field could be used for sixty years in dryland, but after five to ten years, fertility would markedly decline, requiring another layer of sand.

However, this method was extremely labor-intensive. One mu of land required over fifty thousand jin of sand and gravel, carried basket by basket and carted load by load. The results, of course, were equally striking: sand fields yielded one to three times more than earthen fields, and even when earthen fields produced absolutely nothing, they could still guarantee a wheat yield of eighty jin per mu.

But for one, he was in no mood to discuss this with Basang, and for another, he had no wish to see this Liaodong-soldier-turned Liao Beard grinning cheekily in front of him.

So he paused for a long moment, then waved his hand and said, "I need to write a letter to the Grand Marshal. Ask around in the city about the sand fields — plenty of people know."

Liao Beard had been about to argue, thinking to himself, what are you so high and mighty for, a local militia squad commander, showing such disrespect to my brigade commander? But he stole a glance at the long letter Jing Xiaoliu was composing — it was filled entirely with names and causes of death.

Just then, a hundred-man commander entered, glanced at Liao Beard without paying him any mind, and reported in a low voice, "Commander, Feng Laosan has breathed his last. Xiaowu threw a fit and knocked himself senseless against the wall."

Jing Xiaoliu's face still showed little expression; he merely opened his mouth as if to ask something, but in the end said nothing. Drawing a deep breath, he said, "Keep an eye on Shicong. Don't let him do anything foolish. Tell him his mother is still waiting for him to come home."

The Feng brothers were local militia he had personally recruited; he knew their background inside and out.

Old Master Feng was a short-lived scholar who, before he passed, had fathered six children. The family had owned some land and was fairly well-off, but after his death, the fields all went to others, and the household declined steadily.

Madam Feng, in her youth, had been a beauty from a respectable family. She raised the children by working as a tutor in the women's quarters, but it was an immense struggle. She acquired no new land, and though the children, once grown, had all done some reading and knew some characters, they were far from having the means to pursue the imperial examinations. With no other choice, they could only take up the work of runners and peddlers.

It was not until after the great He-Huang war ended, when land was distributed door to door, that Jing Xiaoliu went to the countryside to recruit. He happened upon the Feng family's eldest son, in his thirties and about to be married, unable to borrow an official robe — so Jing Xiaoliu stripped off his own military officer's robe on the spot.

Madam Feng had four sons. When she heard Jing Xiaoliu was recruiting, she gave three of them to the Grand Marshal — all of the "Shi" generation, named Shuang, Lin, and Cong.

At the very start of the battle, the second Feng brother, to let his two younger brothers shelter in the safety of the horse path, volunteered to monitor the enemy from atop the wall. He was struck by a cannonball and killed instantly.

The third brother later defended the bastion wall together with the fifth. The moment raging fire sprayed up from below onto the wall, he shoved his younger brother aside, but was himself burned half to death.

He was still alive when they pulled him out, but Jing Xiaoliu was mentally prepared — burned like that, a man could not survive.

The Centarch withdrew. Jing Xiaoliu looked expressionlessly at Liao Huzi, his gaze making Liao Huzi's heart quail. "Tell me — how do you tell an old madam that she has lost both her sons?"

Liao Huzi was speechless. Then he saw Jing Xiaoliu point toward the door.

He knew he had come at the wrong time. Tactfully, he cupped his fists and withdrew, heading into the city to ask the other village soldiers about the matter.

He had just stepped out of the gate tower when he heard someone inside slam a fist violently onto the desk.

For Jing Xiaoliu, ever since Basang had led the Western Tribes Brigade onto the battlefield, this war that belonged to the civilian braves of East Pass had been over.

Before the battle, his entire Battalion Command comprised six hundred and thirty-four men, including grooms and veterinarians. Six hundred of them came from the twenty village wards of East Pass Town in Hehuang, selected during recruitment.

One hundred and twenty soldiers he had recruited personally; the rest had been recruited by other Centarchs. He had not worked alongside them for long, but he knew that every man was physically sound, mentally normal, without a criminal record, and free of vices like whoring or gambling — every last one a son of a good family that had been allotted land.

Only, back then, none of them yet knew that the price of holding onto that land would be so terribly high.

At this very moment, three hundred and eighty-four men of his Battalion Command still lived. Among them, twenty-six were like Feng Laosan and would die in the coming days, and another seventeen had lost hands or feet and would be sent home after the war.

And three more were lunatics now running wild through the streets of Zhuanglang City.

Jing Xiaoliu, who had no ties and nothing to lose, did not fear risking his life or dying — but this letter, filled with the names of soldiers killed and maimed, was to him far more terrifying than death.

Leading troops is hard. Recruiting troops is harder still.

Suddenly, a defender from the south wall came running to report: "General! The Grand Marshal — the Grand Marshal is coming from the south!"

This news instantly roused Jing Xiaoliu's spirits. He wanted to tell Liu Chengzong everything that had happened here, and at least fight for a little more reward silver for the families of the fallen soldiers.

Though he knew in his heart that the Marshal's Manor had set regulations for compensating fallen soldiers, and such a request might well be denied — but whether it succeeded had never been the point of trying.

Jing Xiaoliu led his two remaining Centarchs who could still move out of the city to the south to receive him. From afar, they saw the twenty-four columns of outriding scouts spread out, the winding army, and within the army the Grand Marshal's ceremonial banners and canopies — the very set that had once belonged to the Ningxia Regional Commander.

But before they could even approach the army, an outrider bearing a yellow command pennant galloped up and said, "The Grand Marshal summons only East Pass Battalion Commander Jing. The other officers, please withdraw to the roadside and wait."

Suspicion rose in Jing Xiaoliu's heart. What is this? Does the Grand Marshal think I defended poorly in this battle?

In a daze, he walked into the formation and was stunned to find that beneath the great central command banner, the man on horseback was not Liu Chengzong, but Liu Chengyun, clad in armor and smiling as he waved at him.

"Th-Third General?" Jing Xiaoliu looked left and right. He saw none of the personal guards who usually attended Liu Chengzong, but he did see the few men who had returned in triumph. He could not help but salute and ask, "The Grand Marshal?"

"Shh. Tell no one. You need only let the garrison believe the Grand Marshal has arrived. The city will receive him as usual, and the guards will escort me inside. This is a letter my brother gave you."

Chengyun smiled as he drew out the letter and handed it to Jing Xiaoliu. "My brother has already set out — Jiayu Pass!"

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Good afternoon! Wishing everyone a happy Mid-Autumn Festival in advance!