Chapter 2: Father, Mother, Uncle

Wanli? Wanli! Zhao Jin froze for a moment, then finally understood what era this was — he had arrived in the Ming Dynasty!

……

The physician they had called had seen Zhao Jin before and had determined that Zhao Jin did not have long to live. When summoned again, he was very impatient, thinking this was just a case of parents loving their child too deeply and that he could only try his best with a lost cause. He never expected that after taking the pulse, he would find everything normal except for some weakness.

The physician could not explain the reason either. He could only return the consultation fee, hold his nose and offer the platitude that surviving a great calamity must mean future blessings await, and then beat a disgraced retreat after He Cuihua cursed him a few times as a quack.

Three days later, Zhao Jin was able to get out of bed and walk around without anything unusual. Zhao Jin, who had been in a state of shock and confusion, finally sorted out his situation.

It was now the fifteenth day of the ninth month of the thirty-eighth year of the Wanli reign of the Great Ming. Converted to the Gregorian calendar, it should be early or mid-October now. In his previous life, Zhao Jin had once traveled to Xuzhou for business during this time of year and remembered the climate being very pleasant, only a bit hot at noon. He never expected this era to be so cold — it had already snowed lightly twice.

Father: Zhao Zhentang, thirty-eight years old, hereditary company commander of the Xuzhou Guard. Mother: He Cuihua, thirty-six years old, daughter of Butcher He from the west side of Xuzhou City. Uncle: Zhao Zhenxing, thirty-six years old. And himself: Zhao Jin, ten years old, the sole heir of the Zhao family.

Despite being a military officer of the sixth rank, Zhao Zhentang worked as an executioner within Xuzhou City. A few days earlier, Zhao Zhentang had taken Zhao Jin to watch an execution by beheading. The bloody scene had frightened the ten-year-old Zhao Jin so badly that he fainted. After the physician's diagnosis, it was said he would not live much longer — but then that unimaginable change occurred.

A company commander in a Ming guard battalion was a military officer of the principal sixth rank. A county magistrate was only of the seventh rank. This sixth-rank military officer sounded very illustrious, but in reality, it was not worth a single copper coin.

If one solely commanded a company post and had a small domain of one's own, there might be some power and tangible benefits. But the Xuzhou Guard was stationed to protect Xuzhou itself, and there were no battalion posts or company posts distributed in various locations at all. So Zhao Zhentang's title of company commander was nothing more than an empty name.

The Xuzhou Guard had been established by the founding emperor Zhu Yuanzhang when the Great Ming was first founded. Back then, it was said to have campaigned across the land and was renowned as an elite force. But over the past two hundred years, those once fierce generals and crack troops had degenerated into landlords and farmers. The guard post itself was military farm colony land. The imperial court had designated a large tract of land, and the military households of the guard cultivated it. The former officers became landlords who collected rent and managed the land, while the military households became farming tenants who tilled the land and paid grain taxes.

On paper, a company commander had one hundred soldiers under him, which meant one hundred farming households tilling the land. A landlord with one hundred households would be quite substantial, and life should certainly not be bad. But the accounts could not be calculated that way. First, military households also had to pay taxes. Moreover, besides the portion for the government, they also had to pay the guard commander and several battalion commanders. After these two deductions, there was nothing much left for the individual.

Not to mention that here in Xuzhou, because the Yellow River frequently flooded, the soil quality was extremely poor, and the harvests were no good either. The guard commander and the five battalion commanders had to be fed their fill. The company commanders and platoon commanders in the middle got no benefits and became little more than foremen leading laborers, barely able to maintain their own family's subsistence. Sometimes when the harvest was bad and the superiors pressed hard for payments, they even had to pay out of their own pockets. This company commander post had become a standard thankless hardship.

Zhao Zhentang and He Cuihua often grumbled about these matters and never avoided discussing them in front of Zhao Jin. A ten-year-old child truly could not understand, but the current Zhao Jin could analyze a great deal from it.

"Xiao Jin, go call your uncle to come home for dinner. It's cold outside, put on more clothes," He Cuihua called out from the kitchen. The aroma of food was already wafting out.

Zhao Jin answered, put on a padded jacket, and went out of the house. Walking through the courtyard, the monkey called out twice, as if greeting him. Zhao Jin instinctively nodded at the monkey, then immediately laughed at himself and quickened his pace out the door.

When he first saw this monkey, Zhao Jin had been quite baffled. He could not understand why a guard battalion company commander would keep a monkey. If one wanted a pet, raising a cat or a dog would be more normal than this, and far less trouble.

Zhao Jin quickly figured out the reason. His father, Zhao Zhentang, kept this monkey to study — to study how to better sever a human head. Every day, he could see Zhao Zhentang using his palm to probe the back of the monkey's neck, probably researching the distribution and proportions of the neck vertebrae.

Thinking of this, Zhao Jin turned his head to look at his family's residence. It was a two-courtyard compound, not very large in area, but very neat and orderly, clearly the dwelling of a well-to-do household. Zhao Jin also had an impression about this residence: his father, Zhao Zhentang, had bought it from a merchant. Although the merchant had sold it at a low price because he was in a hurry to move, it still must have cost quite a bit of silver.

A guard battalion company commander could at best manage to feed and clothe his whole family. How could he afford to live in such a fine residence? The reason the Zhao family was so comfortable was that Zhao Zhentang did not rely on the guard's farm colony land for a living, but had found a job for himself within Xuzhou City — executioner.

An executioner killed people and severed heads. Many considered this trade unlucky. Moreover, within the Department Magistrate's yamen, an executioner did not even count as a runner, was inferior even to a constable without official rank, and held extremely low status.

But this executioner post was a sought-after job, because after an execution by beheading, the yamen would give a red envelope, the criminal's relatives would give a red envelope, and even some people buying blood-soaked steamed buns would give a red envelope. Because an executioner carried a killing aura that warded off all evil spirits, some ritual occasions also required an executioner's presence, which was yet another source of income. Added up one by one, the silver earned each year was truly considerable.

For such a position, even if its status was low and it was unlucky, plenty of people still wanted to do it. However, eight years ago, the executioners of Xuzhou City had suddenly died violently one after another. At that time, no one dared to take on the job. Zhao Zhentang seized the opportunity, took out his meager savings, also borrowed some silver from his father-in-law, found connections and sent gifts, and secured this executioner position.

A sixth-rank military officer doing a base, unranked, lowly job — it was a loss of face, but their livelihood improved day by day.

Zhao Jin walked very slowly on the road. His childish face bore an expression of adult contemplation, which looked very incongruous upon closer inspection. Zhao Jin had been like this for the past few days, distracted and absent-minded all day long, which worried Zhao Zhentang and He Cuihua greatly, thinking their child had been frightened and had not yet fully recovered.

No one could have imagined that Zhao Jin was reminiscing — recalling everything he could possibly remember from this life. In this unfamiliar era and unfamiliar place, every detail recalled from this life would be of immense help to him.

Although he had only just arrived here, Zhao Jin felt no sense of strangeness. He liked the warmth of being cherished by his parents, liked the noisy bustle of a big family, liked this somewhat dilapidated and somewhat cold Xuzhou City. So Zhao Jin was very cautious, very meticulous, unwilling to overlook any detail.

The streets were very deserted now. It was almost lunchtime, and everyone had gone home to eat. Zhao Jin walked while thinking, turned two streets, and arrived at the back door of a shop. The back door was open, and it was equally deserted here. Having been here a few times before, Zhao Jin called out at the doorway: "Second Uncle, my mother told me to call you home for dinner."

After he called out, someone answered from inside, and Zhao Zhenxing walked out. Zhao Zhenxing was even taller than Zhao Zhentang, but his complexion was sallow, he was short of breath when walking, and his body was very weak. Zhao Jin knew that his uncle worked at this shop as a gatekeeper, doing odd jobs for wages. However, Zhao Jin could deduce that it was probably Zhao Zhentang who had helped find this job — people in the government office, regardless of their rank, still had this much face.

"Xiao Jin, are you feeling better?" Zhao Zhenxing smiled and rubbed Zhao Jin's head.

In that previous life, when he was an orphan, few people cared about him, and as an adult, he had to struggle entirely on his own. Zhao Jin was still very unaccustomed to having his head rubbed now and instinctively wanted to dodge. His body trembled slightly, but he held back and said with feigned childishness: "All better!"

"That's good, that's good." Zhao Zhenxing smiled and took Zhao Jin's hand, and the two walked back together. This gesture also made Zhao Jin very uncomfortable, but he endured it nonetheless — a child had to act like a child.

They turned onto the main street. It was noon, yet the street was desolate with hardly anyone in sight. Many of the shops along the street were closed and shuttered, with seizure strips pasted on them.

"Once the Jia Canal opened, our Xuzhou's marketplace was finished," Zhao Zhenxing let out a long sigh and said somewhat mournfully.