Chapter 712: Ushen

Cao Bianjiao forced his eyes open amid the jolting.

He saw the deep blue sky swaying overhead, huge clouds pressing low, and heard the clatter of horse hooves and the creak of wagon axles in his ears.

A searing pain, as if every bone were broken and every sinew snapped, stabbed through his mind, dragging an involuntary groan from his throat.

At once, he heard someone nearby catch the sound; the man spurred his horse forward and said, "Thirteen spear wounds and you still wake up — your life is damn tough!"

The speaker had a northern Shaanxi accent.

Cao Bianjiao turned his head and saw a face half-covered by an iron mask; the brow and eyes seemed familiar, but he could not recall who it was. His throat felt as though it were burning, and he rasped, "Water… where… where is this?"

The man waved a hand; a cavalryman tossed his reins to the wagon driver, vaulted cleanly from horseback onto the wagon, and opened a waterskin to pour water for him.

Only the man's movements were crude — Cao Bianjiao, who had survived thirteen spear wounds, was very nearly choked to death by this rough fellow's watering.

Amid Cao Bianjiao's unending coughing, he heard the iron-masked officer say, "This is the Ordos, beyond the border wall, out in the Gobi. Further ahead lies the Ushen tribe of Sechen Taiji."

But Cao Bianjiao did not hear the rest of his words before sinking back into unconsciousness.

Similar fragmented conversations occurred several times a day thereafter — sometimes he woke to the wagon's jolting, sometimes he opened his eyes to a felt tent in the Gobi, and the things spooned into his mouth were always the same few items.

Warm water, herbal decoctions, and a gruel of parched flour mixed with water.

Cao Bianjiao knew he had been taken captive.

After enduring several days like this, his condition stabilized and he arrived at the Ushen tribe. He lay in a felt tent every day recovering from his wounds; Sechen Taiji even dispatched two sturdy Mongol women from the tribe to tend his daily needs, and two Mongol physicians to watch over him day and night.

While feigning sleep, Cao Bianjiao eavesdropped on the physicians' talk. They said Sechen Taiji treated him so well because the Taiji wished to compile books but lacked paper.

Along with Cao Bianjiao, the Han general had delivered fifteen cartloads of yellow-weight paper and Yanchuan ink, and had also established an official brush-making workshop in the Ushen tribe, overseen by a brush artisan from the Works Office's Hundred Crafts Bureau, dedicated to producing rabbit-hair and wolf-hair brush tips.

The physician tending Cao Bianjiao said they had heard that the master artisan in charge of the brush workshop had formerly made brushes for the Ming princes in the Su vassal kingdom; because the Great Khan was fond of their lord Sechen Taiji, they too would soon be able to use such precious treasures.

Yellow-weight paper was in fact yellow hemp paper; as for "weight paper," that was the Fengxiang Prefecture region's term for paper sizing, the name originating from the practice of one catty per ream.

The standard for white-weight paper was one hundred sheets per catty; yellow-weight paper, being slightly thicker, had somewhat fewer sheets per ream.

The official workshops of Fengxiang Prefecture had a long history of papermaking, traceable to the Tang dynasty, when the court papers used for drafting imperial edicts were white hemp paper and yellow hemp paper.

After Li Longji's coup, he used only white hemp paper, valuing its pure color and the connotation of uprightness and incorruptibility.

This was, of course, no precious paper. Compared to the era's higher-quality, costlier varieties, yellow hemp paper held few advantages — its sheets were somewhat thick, the reverse side rough, and it bore two-finger-wide laid lines from the manufacturing process.

Its greatest strength was a tough, durable texture; so long as it stayed dry, it would not deteriorate. Even Tang-dynasty manuscripts, if properly preserved, remained as intact as new.

It was suited for compiling historical records, to be preserved for posterity.

Yellow hemp paper's preservative quality was not solely due to its tough texture; the insect-repelling manufacturing process was equally important.

It lay in the fact that they added Wang Mang… no, that they added amur cork tree during papermaking.

The amur cork tree is a tall tree; because of ancient writing conventions, it was sometimes also called "yellow calamity." Wang Mang, having usurped the throne and changed the official color to yellow, was likewise called the Yellow Usurper.

The fruit of the amur cork tree can be made into a yellow dye, while the inner bark is a medicinal ingredient, very bitter in taste, that clears heat, detoxifies, reduces inflammation, treats dysentery, and can also serve as an insect repellent.

This was a technique originating in the Tang dynasty, called "entering the vat": during hemp paper production, the fruit and inner bark of the amur cork tree were added, dyeing the paper yellow while imbuing it with a scent loathsome to insects, thereby achieving long-term preservation of the paper.

However, due to the times, the yellow hemp paper shipped by the Marshal's army was of very mediocre quality and rather poor appearance.

Under Liu Chengzong's rule, Shaanxi's populace was destitute, and Fengxiang Prefecture, having endured repeated wars, was even more so — the decline in papermaking quality was merely a small microcosm of the larger picture.

The paper mills made paper entirely from old clothes and cloth scraps. In the chaos of the age, the workers did not carefully pick out the thread ends; the raw materials were full of threads of every color, resulting in paper of impure hue, its pale yellow ground dotted with strange-colored silk flecks and specks of blue, red, and gray.

Yet the Marshal's army's sincerity in delivering goods was genuine: sending yellow-weight paper as a gift to the Ordos, the transport costs alone exceeded the paper's value.

It was at this time that Cao Bianjiao finally recalled who the iron-masked officer was.

That man was Lu Bin, a farmer from the village next to Liu Chengzong's home village, highly skilled in archery and horsemanship.

After Liu Chengzong rose in revolt, he joined the army and entered Yan'an Guard; in multiple battles, he nearly ambushed and slew Liu Chengzong, earning himself the official post of Chiliarch of Yan'an Guard.

Because a hole shot by a bandit's arrow beside his mouth had never healed properly — soup would leak out if he was not careful — he ordinarily wore an iron mask covering the lower half of his face.

Cao Bianjiao had met Lu Bin when he cooperated with Yang Yanchang to suppress the bandits.

That year, after the Battle of Pingliang ended and the Guanning Army was routed by Liu Chengzong, Cao Bianjiao had thought that men like Lu Bin under Yang Yanchang were all peerless fierce generals.

Thinking back on it now, those bastards had been putting on an act the entire time!

Cao Bianjiao's body had been operated on by the Marshal's headquarters' army physician; he also had multiple fractures and external wounds, and lay paralyzed on the couch, unable to move. Every day, the Mongol women carried his low couch outside so he could sun himself.

A full company under Lu Bin's command was garrisoned right in the Ushen tribe.

When he had nothing else to do, Cao Bianjiao silently observed these good-for-nothings.

They truly were good-for-nothings.

Every morning, the Ushen tribe would drive out a dozen or so sheep, slaughtered especially for these good-for-nothings' midday meal; sometimes that was not even enough, and they had to butcher a few more in the afternoon.

And those troops who had come from afar, apart from eating and drinking all day, did nothing but fly falcons and run hounds to herd horses, letting hunting dogs race everywhere and vultures circle the sky; they shot arrows and wrestled inside and outside the camp, opened stalls to sell arms and armor and repair military equipment — in short, they did no proper work at all.

There was even an old veteran covered in scars who opened a school, rigging a tattered army tent from a few large felt blankets; every day he beat gongs and drums teaching children to read and write.

Cao Bianjiao looked at that old soldier, fierce-faced and hulking, and thought to himself, judging by that mug, his calligraphy is probably worse than Zuo Liangyu's, yet he still has the gall to come out here and lead the young astray — figure out your own level of literacy first!

By this point, Cao Bianjiao was brimming with bewilderment and resentment.

First, he did not understand the reason Lu Bin was garrisoned here; second, he did not understand the reason Liu Chengzong had placed him here.

And third — he was craving meat.

Those good-for-nothings ate mutton soup and offal soup in alternating varieties every day, and someone even seemed to crouch near him while he sunbathed to eat; the aroma drilled straight into his nostrils as his stomach rumbled loudly.

While he, all day long, got nothing but plain water, parched flour, and plain water with parched flour.

Though the Marshal's army's parched flour was truly not bad — full of oil, full of sugar, good-tasting and energizing —

not being able to touch a single bit of meat or fat would make anyone curse heaven and earth.

Crucially, no one paid him any attention either; no one talked to him, and there was no word about what would happen after his defeat.

He even suspected for a time that Lu Bin and his men had come here solely to be his jailers.

This company of fighting men plus the Ushen tribe were his prison guards.

Until one ordinary noon, after the physician had once again plastered Cao Bianjiao all over with foul-smelling and unsightly herbal paste, and the sturdy women had carried him outside the felt tent as usual to sun himself, he heard the clatter of several horses' hooves and saw the familiar iron mask on Lu Bin's face.

"Don't move — just lie there. Your wounds still won't let you get up."

As soon as Cao Bianjiao saw him, he tried to struggle up, but pulled at his wound and ground his teeth in pain, yet stubbornly made no sound.

Lu Bin was travel-worn, his armor's fur collar full of windblown sand; he looked like he'd just returned from a long journey and hadn't even had time to tidy up.

A woman in the tent brought out a folding chair. Lu Bin sat beside Cao Bianjiao's sickbed, looking down at him from above, the corners of his eyes carrying the smile one gives a captive. "You're recovering quite fast. How do you feel?"

Cao Bianjiao stared blankly at the sky. "Still a bit wobbly."

"Normal. You lay in a cart for three days and three nights — bound to be wobbly for a few days."

Lu Bin smiled faintly. "Being alive at all is no small thing."

A very long silence.

Cao Bianjiao opened his mouth and asked, "My uncle..."

Expressionless, Lu Bin shook his head.

They were old acquaintances.

Years ago, Lu Bin had been placed by Liu the Lion as a guard officer at Yan'an Garrison. Due to his personal history, aside from his daily near-misses with Yang Yanchang in trying to take Liu Chengzong's head, he was also unusually zealous about genuine bandit suppression.

His home village, Old Temple Village at Black Dragon King Temple Mountain, had been wiped out by passing roving bandits led by a guide from a neighboring village that bore them a grudge.

The hole in Lu Bin's face had also been shot by a roving bandit's arrow as he fled for his life.

Thus, when he returned from the capital relief expedition and joined Yang Yanchang and the Cao uncle and nephew in suppressing bandits across Shanxi and Shaanxi, he had a measure of approval for the Cao family's harsh bandit-suppression style, and their relationship was somewhat better than with other guard officers.

Now, seeing Cao Bianjiao dejected and broken, Lu Bin sighed and said, "The Grand Marshal treated you with the utmost decency. I heard he even wrote to persuade you before the battle, wanting you to leave — this is reaping what you sowed."

Seeing Lu Bin's expression and hearing those words, Cao Bianjiao's face turned ashen, and he shut his eyes in agony.

In his heart, he had long expected this.

The "reaping what you sowed" Lu Bin spoke of made it sound as though the uncle and nephew had committed some unimaginably foolish blunder.

But in Cao Bianjiao's view, it was more like his uncle, worn out by years of the sovereign's relentless commands, had finally gotten what he wished for.

How many military officers under heaven are there? How many can die a good death?

To give one's all for the country and die a martyr on the battlefield — that is already the finest death under heaven.

So when this moment came, Cao Bianjiao was not struck by the immense grief he had imagined; his heart was only tangled in confusion.

Asking Lu Bin for an outcome had been nothing more than wishful thinking.

After a long while, just as Lu Bin was thinking he ought to offer some comfort, he heard Cao Bianjiao ask, "Then in the end, he was...?"

"General Cao Wenzhao wasn't as lucky as you."

Cao Bianjiao's initiative in asking dispelled Lu Bin's awkwardness and let him speak a little more easily. "You were hit by thirteen shots — a whole patch of small lead pellets on your armor — but they were all three-mace light shot from heavy arquebuses. That's the only reason you kept your life."

"He was hit only once, by a wall gun. He fell on the spot. Even his horse took one hit and dropped dead in an instant. It was quick — he felt no pain."

Having finished speaking of Cao Wenzhao, Lu Bin went on about others he knew. "I heard that General Ping'an was fiercely unyielding. A roaring-bead cannon shattered his right arm; he fell from his horse, got up, and still charged the line, but he stepped on a landmine laid by the Yanqing Brigade."

As he spoke, Lu Bin pointed upward and shook his head — meaning he'd been blown sky-high.

"General Pingding was the fiercest. He spurred his horse and broke through the left army's Xu Yong battalion defense line, attacking straight into the main artillery position. But he was surrounded and had no way out. To avoid capture, he lit a fire and ignited a powder keg — gone as well. He destroyed two of the Grand General cannons."

"General Feng Ju had bad luck from the start. His choice of opponent was a bit lacking — he attacked the Second Brigade's position. In the cavalry clash, he was struck twice by the mobile battalion cavalry's maces and taken alive."

After Lu Bin finished speaking of Cao Wenzhao's trusted subordinate generals, he turned to people he knew less well. "The Supreme Commander's personal battalion's Assistant Commander — Ding Zizhen, was it? He died too, a little later than General Cao. When the Grand Marshal launched the general assault, he had wanted to escort the Supreme Commander in breaking out. He abandoned his position and led troops to charge the line, but was struck head-on by cannon fire and killed."

"After Ding Zizhen died, a Battalion Commander named Zhang Tianlu led the routed troops, forced Hong Chengchou and three Military Defense Circuit intendants to surrender, and even had Ding Qirui tied up — quite a sorry sight."

Lu Bin had spoken at great length. Only then did he draw a deep breath, spread his hands, and say, "In short, among the living, aside from Zuo Liangyu's old troops, all officers from Battalion Commander up have been taken as prisoners to Xi'an Prefecture."

"As for the fallen officers and soldiers — except for your uncle — the Grand Marshal ordered the surrendered troops to collect the bodies. He had a burial site chosen and set the surrendered troops to building the graves, to keep them from being left exposed in the wilds for the vultures to pick at. It's in Ningxia. Someday, if you have the chance, you can go back and pay your respects."

In truth, Cao Bianjiao had not taken in much of what he said. At this moment, his mind was buzzing; the voices and faces of Cao Wenzhao, Ping'an, Pingding, and the others still echoed in his head.

Only when he heard this did Cao Bianjiao ask, "Then what of my uncle?"

"Placed in a coffin and sent into Shanxi. The Grand Marshal even wrote a memorial for General Cao, advising the court to grant generous posthumous compensation to officers who fought fiercely and perished in battle."

These, of course, were Lu Bin's prettified words.

In reality, Liu Chengzong's memorial and the sending of the coffin into Shanxi were entirely acts of saber-rattling intimidation — this was a fallen Regional Commander, the highest-ranking field officer of the Ming court.

Cao Bianjiao understood this meaning too, so his feelings were complicated, and he said nothing.

But Lu Bin could not bear the awkwardness of having nothing to say.

After thinking a moment, he suddenly laughed, clapped his hands, and said, "Right — do you know a man named Zhou Yijing?"

Cao Bianjiao nodded woodenly. "A Xi'an man. Passed the imperial exams in the fifth year of Chongzhen. Ningxia Regional Inspector, Right Garrison Assistant Commander."

"Right, that's him. After the battle, the Grand Marshal didn't bother with anyone else — just had them all sent back to Xi'an. But when he saw the roster, he met with him alone, issued a commission on the spot, appointed him Huaiyuan Colonel, and sent him to Taimeng Garrison as Assistant Commander."

Cao Bianjiao recognized every single word of what Lu Bin said, but strung together, he could not understand it at all.

As a Shanxi man, he was passingly familiar with the names of the Ordos tribes — he had at least heard of them.

But things like Tianshan, Taimeng Garrison — these were things he had never even heard of.

Completely in the dark, he could only guess and ask, "Is this... exile to Ü-Tsang?"

"What Ü-Tsang? Up north. Past Yarkent, there's a great mountain called Tianshan. The land of the Oirat on Tianshan's northern slopes — in ancient times it was called the Beiting Protectorate, you know? Now it's called the Tianshan Protectorate. That territory is ours now."

Cao Bianjiao lay on the sickbed, staring wide-eyed at the low-hanging clouds of the Mongol Plateau, so close they seemed within arm's reach.

Stunned, dazed, unable to comprehend.

As if he had shut down.

All these years following his uncle in suppressing bandits and quelling rebellions — armor never off, saddle never loosened — rolling through life and death, winning many times, losing those few times, killing many men, losing many close kin and dear friends beside him.

Yet his loyal, brave, righteous, and fierce devotion to serving the court had never wavered.

Until he heard Lu Bin say that Liu Chengzong, at the ancient Beiting Protectorate, had re-established the Tianshan Protectorate.

His heart did not waver — his entire worldview was deeply shaken.

He even wondered what on earth the court had been doing all these years, losing more and more territory, while Liu Chengzong was actually expanding the frontiers?

A sudden, indescribable feeling surged in his heart. He thought that if Zhou Yijing could be sent to Taimeng Garrison, then once his own wounds healed, might he also be sent to Taimeng Garrison? Leaving the chaos of the Central Plains behind — that would be a fine place to build merit and a career.

But in truth, Zhou Yijing had been sent to Taimeng Garrison for no other reason than that Liu the Lion thought his name paired well with Zhou Riqiang's.

Zhou Yijing handled negotiations on Monday, and when negotiations failed, six days later Zhou Qiang attacked on Sunday.

Of course, this was a joke only Liu Chengzong could understand. To anyone else, the two names shared nothing beyond the same surname — no connection whatsoever.

Cao Bianjiao finally sensed something was off. Frowning in puzzlement, he asked, "Other people go to Xi'an alive, get buried in Ningxia when dead — am I the only one dragged all the way to the Ordos? I get patched up and then shipped off to Taimeng Garrison too?"

"What about Marshal Zuo and the others? Were they hauled off to some other desolate frontier posts beyond the Wall?"

"Heh heh, I think you'd better not worry about that for now. Right now you can't go anywhere — you're stuck here with the Wushen tribe. This isn't house arrest or banishment."

Lu Bin let out a laugh at the mention of Zuo Liangyu's name, then looked at Cao Bianjiao and said seriously, "Originally, you were supposed to go to Xi'an Prefecture too. The jolting hardship of the prisoner escort alone would have killed you. You just have a lot of friends — someone saved you."

"Fr-friends?"

Since when, Cao Bianjiao wondered, did he have friends in the Marshal's Manor?

"The Prince of Han, Director of the Rites Office in the Marshal's Manor, pleaded for your life. The Second Brigade — that's my commander, General Ren — asked for you to be handed over to me, with orders to take good care of you."

Lu Bin spread his hands. "And because of that, while everyone else is out attacking cities, seizing territory, and earning battle merits, my two companies of troops are stuck garrisoning Sechen Taiji's Wushen and Besut tribes, hauling grain back and forth."

With that, he pointed at Cao Bianjiao. "General Cao, you've made my brothers suffer!"

Cao Bianjiao understood now.

The Prince of Han — never mind him. That Highness had impure motives.

A towering, upright man like him, Cao Bianjiao — how could he stay in the Han fief just to be used as breeding stock?

So it was that nuisance Ren Quan'er who had saved him.

Just as he was still processing the tangled emotions of being saved by Ren Quan'er, he heard Lu Bin laugh again. "As for Zuo Liang — Marshal Zuo, heh."

Cao Bianjiao noticed with bewilderment that whenever Lu Bin mentioned Zuo Liangyu, he couldn't help but laugh out loud, as if he'd been drugged.

Was Zuo Liangyu really that funny?

"His subordinate officers Xu Yong and Wang Yuncheng both surrendered. After switching sides, they even took part in the battle against you. It was Xu Yong's battalion that charged General Pingding. As for Marshal Zuo, he's right at the Grand Marshal's side at this very moment."

Nothing hard to understand there — perfectly normal. Cao Bianjiao didn't find any of this particularly amusing either.

Then he heard Lu Bin lower his voice. "I heard from a friend in the Tiger Guard Battalion that the Grand Marshal thinks Zuo Liangyu's calligraphy is quite good. He's planning to bring him into the cabinet as a Grand Secretary."

"Huh?"

Cao Bianjiao's brain seized up. First a baffled "Huh?", then a pause, and once it sank in — "Whaaat?"

Zuo Liangyu?

Good calligraphy?

Grand Secretary?

Cao Bianjiao mulled over those three phrases. No matter how you arranged them, they were nearly impossible to fit into a single sentence.

And yet, though Lu Bin was holding back laughter, he didn't look like he was joking — more like the matter itself had thoroughly amused him.

He nodded. "That's right. Zuo Liangyu is probably going to be Grand Secretary."