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"The authorities are showing mercy! Shipwrights conscripted to go beyond the pass will be exempt from taxes for three years! Bring your shipbuilding tools, every last one of them! If you botch the official ship-repair work and the lord blames you, watch out for the lives of your whole family!"
"Soldier, soldier! We old fellows are all veterans of Jilin Shipyard. This time, going beyond the pass, which river are we repairing ships on? Have the ship materials been prepared? What dimensions are we building to? If we use freshly felled timber to build ships, it won't be long before they split. That's the material being no good, and you can't blame our craftsmanship for it! Our craft was handed down from our ancestors and it's no poor thing. Look at the little boats along the Liao River—they were all built by us boatfolk."
"Hmm? You pack of old men really don't know how things are done! Asking this and that—don't tell me you're prying into military affairs, planning to collude with the Tatars and leak information?!"
"Ah! We wouldn't dare. We old men wouldn't dare."
"Then get lost and pack! At first light the day after tomorrow, you set out with us! Crack, crack!"
Li Fengtian narrowed his eyes and snapped several whip flowers through the air, driving away the old shipwrights who had gathered around to ask questions. Facing these old craftsmen whom the lord had specifically asked for, he was not too vicious; the whip never struck their bodies. After all, these people were nothing more than lowly artisan households, registered as craftsmen generation after generation, a rank beneath others. Only when Jilin Shipyard was abolished had they luckily been enrolled into the guard station and become the poorest farm households there. That status, compared with