Chapter 9: Mizhi

Liu Chengzong was witnessing a great collapse.

He understood the normal world as one where, under society's rules, a person's ability was the measure for controlling their own life — the stronger the ability, the more effortlessly they lived.

But after this set of social rules collapsed, it was exactly the opposite: people hit dead ends without ever even seeing the checkpoints that tested their ability.

Farmers, long accustomed to being docile subjects, now couldn't pay their taxes even by borrowing grain, and could no longer farm.

Scholars, who once advanced their learning to sit the imperial exams and become officials, now had families going hungry at home, and could no longer study.

Frontier troops once guarded the border and drew rations; stationed soldiers could drill and take the field to earn merit. Now, staying in the ranks meant starving to death.

Even his father, an official, could no longer be an official — all because he spoke one plain truth: if taxes aren't remitted soon, a great disaster will break out.

Squad Leader Gao Xian, who had gone to a neighboring village to fetch his wife, returned in the latter half of the night. The frontier soldier on night watch said Gao came back with a stony face and ignored everyone. Later, during the watch, someone heard stifled sobbing.

When Liu Chengzong heard about it the next day, he had no wish to go ask what had happened — that would just be rubbing salt in the wound.

He figured that, eight or nine chances out of ten, the villagers had all fled the famine; otherwise, how could Gao not have brought his wife back?

But he went anyway, and didn't say much. This sort of thing didn't suit a lot of words — no amount of talk could conjure a wife for Gao Xian. So he first went to find Cao Yao.

From Cao Yao, he picked up a small clay jug. Inside the jug was two liang of sorghum liquor.

Then he went to plead with his elder brother for leave, asking to take Gao Xian's night watch shift himself so Gao could drink those two liang.

Squad Cao and Squad Liu were different. That squad was a bunch of live bandits, loosely managed — leaving Yuhe Fort was like taking to the hills all over again. They'd forgotten every bit of frontier army discipline. For night watch, they didn't use men; they set up little forked branches in four directions around the camp, ran four cotton threads back to the campfire, and hung bells on the threads.

Squad Liu's commander, Liu Chengzu, was just as Cao Yao had said: a genuine soldier fanatic. He was always so meticulous that the local officers were run off their feet. He'd scout out the camp terrain — its width, its length — every large house, small house, cave dwelling, wellhead, and crossroads, all thoroughly and clearly. At night, he'd post sentries front and rear and lay out a separate escape route.

By the book, and never tired of the tedium.

As for a squad leader wanting a sip of wine while resting at night? Forget having any wine to drink — even if there were wine, don't even think about it.

But this time was a special circumstance, and besides, Liu Chengzu also intended to train his younger brother in leading troops, so he permitted him to stand Gao Xian's night watch.

Only after all this was done did Liu Chengzong hand the wine — bought at the cost of twelve wild-goose-feather arrows — into Gao Xian's hands.

The truth was more or less what he'd imagined. There were still five households with grain stores at Seven-Eye Cave. They'd divided up the village land and planned to stubbornly hold on another year, refusing to believe Heaven would bring drought for a fourth year running.

But the household that had taken in Gao Xian's wife had eaten through their grain stores before the new year. They'd bundled up their belongings, led their ox, and headed east across the Yellow River into Shanxi to seek refuge with relatives.

The road was long and perilous, and no one knew where those Shanxi relatives were. Besides, with Shaanxi stricken by disaster and only a great river separating it from Shanxi, how much better off could Shanxi be? In the vast sea of humanity, they would likely never meet again.

Once they marched on, putting a bit more distance between themselves and Yuhe Fort, the travelers on the road grew more numerous.

Clusters of bankrupt peasants, mounted blade-wielders wrapped in sheepskin coats, southern merchants escorting trade goods.

Aside from the blade-wielders of one merchant caravan, Liu Chengzong didn't see a single one of these people — his elder brother Liu Chengzu had posted two mounted scouts two li ahead of the column. Their appearance, helmets on, armor clad, bows slung and hands on saber hilts, scared off most passersby.

Scouts let others know there was a military column marching behind. In these times, the government troops' conduct was vile; almost none refrained from harassing the common folk. The only difference was whether it was looting for provisions or killing people and burning villages.

The moment they appeared within visual range, no matter who it was, everyone chose to head for the hills.

Even at a spot barely a dozen li from Broken Gold Town, a roadside wine stall by the official highway — the moment the lame old proprietor spotted the two cavalrymen, he immediately grabbed his young daughter who helped at the stall, bundled up their meager valuables, and fled for the opposite riverbank.

By the time Liu Chengzong and the main body reached this desolate roadside stall, the old proprietor had long since waded across the river with his daughter. And even then, he feared he hadn't run far enough, and kept fleeing up the mountain on the far bank.

With a young girl in the family, he was terrified she'd be defiled by these government troops who saw every sow as a Diaochan.

The leader of the blade-wielders guarding the merchant caravan was the one Liu Chengzong spotted at this wine stall by the country highway.

The blade-wielders were acquaintances of theirs — old family soldiers of Shenmu Mobile Corps Commander Ai Wannian.

As the saying goes, "heroes of the rivers and lakes" — it's not that heroes roam the rivers and lakes, but that where there are rivers and lakes, there is soil for heroes to run rampant.

Across this vast land linked by yellow dirt roads, no hero of the rivers and lakes could compare to the reliability of a landlord's armed force.

The escort agencies and guard agencies that originated in the Zhengde era, the forebears of armed escorts, were mostly found in the great cities. But in northern Shaanxi, where the situation grew ever more chaotic — especially in Mizhi County near the border — if a merchant wanted to travel safely, hired escorts and thugs were unreliable. The best approach was to seek the protection of the Ai clan.

In Mizhi, there were two Ai lineages, both major surnames. The old was the Elder Ai clan; in the mid-Ming, the Younger Ai clan migrated here. They engaged in commerce and scholarship and were exceedingly wealthy.

They once purchased fifteen thousand mu of land in a single transaction. To this day, over ten members of the clan have passed the provincial examinations. In the two hundred years of the Ming, Shaanxi has produced no more than eight hundred presented scholars, and Shaanxi has ninety-six counties — yet the Ai clan alone accounts for six of those slots.

Many villages and locales here are directly named Ai: Ai East Village, Ai Hao Bay, Ai Family Flat, Ai Family Pass, West Ai Canal, and so on.

Now the clan flourishes. The idle former Vice-Prefect of Ganzhou Prefecture in Jiangxi, Ai Yingjia, lives at home. His third son, Ai Wannian, is the Shenmu Mobile Corps Commander, and they have thousands upon thousands of clansmen and tenant farmers.

Yet in the present circumstances, even they could not guarantee a merchant caravan would emerge utterly unscathed. They could only, to the greatest extent possible, mutually show face — spend money to avert disaster.

The old family soldiers came over to assess the situation. Realizing it was He Renlong who had disbanded the frontier troops he could no longer feed, they exchanged a few words and then left.

Not long after, two hired hands wrapped in sheepskin coats led over a goat. On the goat's back were slung two sacks of dry flatbread. They tied it up at the wine stall, said nothing else, and departed.

After this, six large carts laden with goods passed peacefully along the official highway, guided by the old family soldiers and a dozen or so young fellows.

Even so, the frontier soldiers inside and outside the wine stall, who had lit fires to stew and butcher the goat, still eyed the merchant caravan like a wolf pack eyeing prey — a sight that struck fear deep into one's bones.

"Stop staring, all of you. Those carts are loaded with tea leaves for sale beyond the passes. We can't eat it or use it. Once it's stewed, we'll eat the meat sent by Old Provincial Graduate Ai. This goat is seventy jin — after boning, that's over half a jin per man."

Liu Chengzu sat beneath the wine stall's signboard and said cheerfully to his men, "The Ai family has sent word to the Broken Gold Town Patrol Office. We don't need to detour. The road ahead to Suide today will be peaceful."

Squatting on the ground doing sums, Liu Chengzong watched his elder brother's single sentence draw the troops' gazes back to the mutton pot. He shook his head with a smile, stood, tossed aside his twig, and called for the cook to give two of the stripped-clean bones to Little Whirlwind to gnaw on.

As for Rat Extermination Bureau Director Mei Dianmei — she could just wait.

He had just been calculating how exactly to feed this unit.

Over these two days of travel, Liu Chengzong had conducted a comprehensive analysis of his current environment and his own prospects.

To eat their fill, they had to return to their old home in Yan'an Prefecture. But the old home wasn't safe. Bandits and roving rebels ran rampant everywhere. In the counties around Yan'an Prefecture — Yanchuan, Yanchang, Ganquan — there were traces of roving rebel activity.

There was no telling when the entire village might be plundered and overrun.

To protect the family, they had to hold armed force. These frontier soldiers were men delivered right into his hands.

The only problem was that he couldn't afford to feed them.

To sustain fifty frontier soldiers, at a bare minimum, twenty dan of grain per month.

Dan was a multi-use unit: ten sheng made one dou, ten dou made one dan.

In the drought-stricken northern Shaanxi of today, planting wheat yielded not a single grain. Planting drought-resistant broomcorn millet could barely yield four or five dou per mu. Liu Chengzong's family had only his old father and mother, no able-bodied laborers; all their fields were leased to tenant farmers.

The grain the tenants handed over had to go to pay taxes. What remained was only enough to feed seven or eight people.

Basically, if the two brothers went home and ate their fill, the family could produce no more grain.

Liu Chengzong calculated seriously — he couldn't afford it.

Still, he had to think of another way out.

While the mutton stewed, Liu Chengzu couldn't stay idle. He took his younger brother Liu Chengzong, along with squad leaders Tian Shoujing and Gao Xian, to survey the surrounding terrain, passing on his squad-leader command experience to them through word and deed.

The core idea was just one thing: an officer must not be lazy, must not covet comfort.

As Liu Chengzong quietly committed many key points to memory, he also reflected with emotion that his elder brother truly possessed an extraordinary passion for military matters.

A commander must oversee every detail, great or small — this principle is stated very clearly in the ancient military texts, and no general or officer fails to understand it. Especially after Qi Jiguang's military manuals were compiled by the court and distributed to the troops, those manuals even spelled out exactly how soldiers should buy vegetables.

But when it comes to actually putting it into practice, who can truly do it?

I'm afraid even He Renlong, who taught them, might not be able to carry it all out — yet Liu Chengzu was rigorously executing every bit of it.

By the time they returned, the mutton was done stewing. But before they could start eating, another travel-worn figure came down the official road from north to south.

This man had nerve. Riding a donkey and seeing government troops at the wine shop, he showed no fear. He simply dismounted, led the donkey forward, offered a salute, and quietly passed by.

But after just two steps, he was called to a halt.

Because the brothers Chengzu and Chengzong realized this young man leading a donkey and carrying a cudgel across his back was an old acquaintance — Li Hongji, the Yinchuan post-station runner who had once taught them horsemanship for a time.

For Liu Chengzong, it was even more intriguing. In his mind, this man was not called Li Hongji, but rather Li Zicheng, the Dashun Emperor who would later overthrow the Great Ming and storm into Beijing.