The authorities

Jincheng was the administrative seat of the transplanted Langya Commandery.

Because Emperor Yuan, Sima Rui, had crossed south as the Prince of Langya, bringing over a thousand households from Langya with him, Langya Commandery-or Langya Kingdom-became the first transplanted commandery or kingdom established after Great Jin moved south of the Yangtze.

Initially, it had merely attached itself to Jincheng at the southern end of Jiangcheng County, possessing no actual territory. But when Huan Wen became Langya Interior Minister, the fellow's restless nature asserted itself. He liked not only planting trees but also meddling in affairs, and petitioned to give Langya Commandery a proper territorial foundation. The court therefore assigned Jiangcheng County to the transplanted commandery: a commandery in name, a county in reality. Its administrative seat remained in Jincheng.

The straight-line distance from the refugee camp where Liu Acheng and the others lived to Jincheng in the west was actually very short. But mountains were difficult to cross in those days, so they had to take a detour north along Jingkou Avenue or south along the Jurong road. Even so, a round trip could be made within a morning.

Thus Liu Jili, who knew Jingkou reasonably well, arrived early. He formally gave his ancestral commandery, his name, and the place where he had obtained residence under the white register because he had arrived two years earlier, then reported a fatal beating to the commandery offices.

To be fair, Jincheng did have a proper Bandit Office, and Great Jin's legal system was acknowledged by later generations as comprehensive... yes, the Two Jin and Northern and Southern Dynasties period saw major advances in Chinese law and institutions, which did not preclude certain other circumstances... moreover, Langya Commandery effectively consisted of a single county, a commandery in name and a county in reality. Reporting a crime to the commandery therefore followed the proper legal procedure. Its clerks dared not slight him, immediately inviting this son of the Liu Clan of Pengcheng inside to question him in detail and take his statement.

Yet after barely two sentences, the Bandit Office clerks began wondering whether the man before them had lost his mind!

There was no other reason: the incident had occurred inside a refugee camp... in these times, who bothered with cases inside aristocratic households, fortified manors, or refugee bands?

One had to understand that laws were laws and institutions were institutions, but there were also the country's fundamental circumstances and policies to consider!

Leaving everything else aside, what was Great Jin's fundamental policy?

Before the crossing of the Yangtze, who knew? Afterward, its guiding principle was "pacify through stillness, and Public Tranquility will follow of its own accord."

This fundamental policy had persisted since Wang Dao's time... bluntly put, it meant not stirring things up. On a grand scale, it meant no major construction projects, active defense rather than large northern expeditions. On a smaller scale, it meant leaving aristocratic clans and local magnates to govern themselves. Newly arrived aristocratic families passing over the estates of the Wu Region's established clans to claim land in Kuaiji, the White Register policy for refugees—all followed the same thread.

People of later generations would naturally find this policy strange. But for the Great Jin Court just after its flight south, regional conflicts, north-south conflicts, economic conflicts, and class conflicts had all reached a certain intensity. This policy genuinely saved its life.

Not only that, after Wang Dao, everyone who tried to accomplish anything failed and brought disaster upon themselves, seemingly proving the policy all the more correct.

Of course, Huan Wen's destruction of Cheng Han was an exception. It sent tremendous shock waves through the court in Jiankang. Everyone felt that refusing another northern expedition would be indefensible not only morally but also in terms of basic self-interest.

Besides, a little thought made it obvious: the emperor wanted to centralize power, the scholar-officials wanted a northern expedition, and lesser aristocratic families wanted a political way forward. Such desires were inevitable. Even without Huan Wen, this fundamental policy was destined to keep wavering: "Pacify through stillness, and Public Tranquility will follow of its own accord," followed by "utter stillness breeds the urge to move, and movement inevitably brings defeat." Once the Imperial Army lost, naturally it was back to "pacify through stillness" and then "Public Tranquility will follow of its own accord."

Whatever the case, thirty years after the crossing, this fundamental policy had permeated every aspect of Great Jin and become a tradition of sorts.

Administration and law were no exceptions.

A bandit entered your refugee camp, and you killed him. So what? Dig a hole and bury him yourselves... why report it to the authorities?

The fortified manors of the Way of the Five Pecks of Rice even sold military weapons. Did you see us interfering?

Yet this reasonably tidy man, who had declared his ancestral commandery and whose speech clearly suggested some education, sat there with his back slightly hunched. He seemed to understand nothing, yet also to understand everything, as he earnestly recounted the entire affair.

From his manner, it seemed that unless they dealt properly with this wretched case, he would head straight to Jiankang, beat the Grievance Drum, and petition the young emperor!

Of course, even when the court was in Luoyang, few who beat the Grievance Drum met a good end. That was only a joke... the real concern was that this man looked the part and claimed to belong to the Liu Clan of Pengcheng. If they refused him, what if he used aristocratic connections to take the matter higher?

After all, "higher" did not mean only the Grievance Drum in Jiankang. If he involved any top-tier aristocratic family of the second rank, and they in turn pointed the matter toward Interior Minister Yuan Zhi, then once Interior Minister Yuan consulted the statutes and asked a few questions, the blame would very likely fall on the Bandit Office for refusing to handle a case.

Should they hold their noses and do it? It was only a trip, after all.

But the more the fellow spoke, the harder the matter became. Household registration had never been issued, people were freezing and starving, refugees had fled into the mountains to become bandits... neither the people in that Refugee Camp nor those bandits even had registered domiciles. How were they supposed to process this?

Seeing how things stood, several Bandit Office clerks began whispering outside the office room:

"Has that fellow come here to toy with us?"

"Doesn't look like it. His clothes are tidy enough."

"What's tidy about them? He doesn't even have a Worthy's Cap. Just to follow some religion, he's abandoned proper dress and put on a crimson headscarf..."

"But his speech and manners are correct. He's definitely a legitimate son of an aristocratic family."

"So what? He's already on the white register, and the refugee camp he's staying in hasn't even been assigned registered domiciles. Obviously he came from the north and has no connections, or he'd have a title by now. I say he's just looking for trouble. Get a couple of rough fellows, give him a few blows, and drive him out. Pretend none of this happened!"

"Don't act rashly! There are two difficulties here. First, the Grand Commander is lying ill, so the timing is awkward, and this man's arrival is suspicious. Some person with connections reaching heaven might use this to set the forest ablaze. Second, if we really examine the law, refusing to handle it would indeed be our fault..."

"If someone wants to set the forest ablaze, they must be targeting Interior Minister Yuan. But our Interior Minister Yuan comes from such a powerful family, and has the closest marriage ties with both the Xie Clan and Yin Clan. Who would act against him? And this man-has he swallowed a tiger's gall?"

"What tiger's gall? Even if he fails to report it today, would we go out of our way to tell the Interior Minister? At most, we'd give him a couple of blows and drive him out."

"That's why we should fear the one chance in ten thousand. Besides, what do our Interior Minister Yuan's powerful connections have to do with us? If someone really sets the forest ablaze, that fellow inside and all of us would be disposed of with a single wave from above..."

"Then why not handle his case by the book? Send someone over with two sturdy soldiers, rule it a bandit attack, close the case, and have them dig a hole and bury the body on the spot. Wouldn't that settle it? All this guessing costs us time and effort too."

"I told you, those people have no registered domiciles. Both the dead man and the people who killed him are refugees who arrived this year. They haven't even been entered on the white register... the paperwork won't work. It's a damned nuisance!"

"If you ask me, there aren't so many twists and turns to this." At that moment, the commandery's Bandit Office Registrar emerged from a side room with his hands behind his back. Who knew how long he had been listening? "The refugees who returned with the Grand Commander this year have probably been waiting for relief without receiving any. Winter is coming, they can see no way to survive it, even their Refugee Commander has left, and bandits outside are watching them. They're anxious. Just then, they happened to kill a bandit, and an astute displaced aristocrat like the one inside decided to use this method to remind our commandery not to forget their household registration, their winter relief, or their seeds next spring."

Everyone hurried to salute him with clasped hands, but the Bandit Office Registrar, who looked only about thirty, waved them off.

"Then may I ask, honored registrar, how should we handle it if that is the case?" Seeing that their immediate superior had a clear opinion, an older subordinate promptly clasped his hands and requested instructions.

"Simple. Those matters are all the Household Office's responsibility. We'll send a formal document asking them to clarify these people's registration so we can handle the homicide. Once the fellow inside hears, he'll surely be pleased." The Bandit Office Registrar stroked his beard. "And it works out nicely. This Northern Chu fellow from some Liu Clan of Pengcheng happens to wear a crimson headscarf. The Household Office might be pleased to see him too."

The others could only laugh awkwardly. By now, they understood perfectly. Whether anyone above was trying to set the forest ablaze, they did not know. Their own registrar, however, had decided to light the fire first and give the newly arrived Household Office Registrar a show of strength.

The Household Office Registrar certainly had a background, but was their own Bandit Office Registrar any less well connected? And as Bandit Office clerks, could they possibly eat from one household while siding with another?

With that, the matter moved straight into execution. Someone promptly drafted a document to make trouble for the Household Office, while another clerk strode in proudly to inform the complainant, Liu Lang, that the court had its laws: no case could be opened for people without registered domiciles. They had already written to the Household Office. Once it issued registration, the Bandit Office would naturally investigate... until then, he should return and preserve the bandit's corpse properly.

Before he left, Liu Acheng had told Liu Jili that this was a matter of striking the date tree twice whether or not there were dates on it-a desperate attempt to survive, in which everything had to be tried. At worst, he would take a couple of blows and be driven out. Now they had written to the Household Office, producing an official document urging it to register the refugee camp. That was already tremendous progress. Why would he object?

He therefore agreed to "preserve the bandit's corpse properly," without knowing quite how he would do it, and headed straight back.

When he returned to camp, Liu Huzi had already left, and Liu Acheng was rearranging the personnel-even with fewer than a thousand people, they needed an organizational framework. It simply could not be excessive or bloated.

In the original refugee camp, group heads had naturally been the core, the backbone of management, bearing almost all its responsibilities. Their origins had therefore varied. Not all had been elected by their own groups; some had simply been sent by Liu Rengong from among his own clan relatives. Grandpa Liu San had been one such example.

Liu Acheng knew he lacked sufficient prestige and manpower, so he could only leave all the group-head positions to those below, allowing each group to elect its own. There was another issue, too: the camp's central problem had shifted. The most urgent task now was obtaining grain to survive winter, not maintaining internal stability. The group heads' duties remained important, of course, but theirs were no longer the most crucial positions.

Thus Liu Acheng, who had already worked out his plans, left those group heads alone and established three new groups.

One consisted of the Ruffian Youths and down-and-outs subdued the night before. This group would provide armed deterrence and handle miscellaneous work. It had twenty members, selected by Liu Dage, who did not know he was a bandit chief and would serve as their group head;

Another was the core group he had long intended to form, made up of honest, hardworking, able-bodied men. They were essentially those who had received ten feet of cloth during the earlier distribution and chosen to stay. Seventeen were gathered, then supplemented by a young hooligan recruited the day before. Liu Acheng counted himself among them but assigned Liu Jili the additional duty of leading the group, which likewise numbered twenty;

There was also a specialized fishing and hunting group, which would take over the equipment previously used to hunt the tiger and concentrate on hunting and fishing. It too was intended to have twenty members, but recruitment was incomplete, with only twelve or thirteen so far. An old hunter, Uncle Zhou, had been invited to lead it.

As for why he had not simply formed the latter two groups when dividing everyone up yesterday, rather than doing it all over again today-wasn't that troublesome?

The reason was simple. Without last night's events, those two groups could not have been established.

That was not to say Liu Acheng had no prestige at all. The Straw-Sandal Group and Straw-Mat Group had indeed left in their entirety, but everyone still remembered the distributions of meat and cloth. Yet with the camp's core departing and its population shrinking from three thousand to fewer than a thousand, people's hearts were naturally in extreme turmoil. Whatever he wanted to do, he first had to steady them.

Last night's affair had been a deliberate means of suppressing that turmoil, devised between him and Liu Jili.

The work had been rough, but with two or three corpses hung up and a dozen or so down-and-outs given their clothes back and made to swear obedience, the broad objective had been achieved.

Conversely, if establishing authority and steadying people's hearts was necessary, why not take it slowly? Buy some grain with silver, let the camp catch its breath, and then gradually organize a new structure?

Naturally, it was because Liu Acheng's fundamental objective was to "accumulate" grain for winter, not win hearts merely for the sake of winning hearts... accumulating grain was a simple matter of adding numbers. Every day earlier that they could begin producing and trading for grain was a day they had to seize. That was probably even more important than finding new sources of grain.

One could even say that surviving winter would probably depend not on what they did during winter, but on what their efforts achieved in these few days before it began.

Thus, once the three groups were formed and Liu Jili returned, he had scarcely settled onto his seat or given a rough report before Liu Acheng dragged him into a new round of commercial exploration.

Yes, it was precisely what Liu Acheng had previously discussed with Liu Jili: selling firewood.

Those words sounded absurd, but there was no alternative... destitute refugees had neither means of production nor tools. If they wanted to participate in society's production and distribution and exchange their work for some grain, what else could they do?

That was why poor people always wove mats, sold sandals, and became fishermen or woodcutters. Even more elaborate processing was beyond their reach.

Liu Acheng had gathered the mat-weaving and sandal-making artisans in advance, but they too needed to survive and had all followed Liu Rengong away. As the saying went, those beside mountains lived off mountains, and those beside water lived off water. The refugee camp backed onto mountains but did not border the great river, so it had no extensive fishing resources, only woodland to rely upon. Moreover, the group had stockpiled plenty of firewood while its numbers were still large. Selling firewood was their only choice.

"Our work over the next few days is simple. Pick out the good split wood, and we'll bundle it neatly to sell, then use the money to buy rice." Addressing several groups clearly burdened with too many women and children, Liu Acheng spoke concisely, though he had a few additional ideas. "Everyone knows how to do this, but good firewood doesn't just mean sturdy wood that burns a long time. Peachwood like this, for instance, rarely grows into useful timber and is often crooked, but we can still pick it out and gather it together. Likewise, turkey oak and pinewood both burn well, and plenty grows to usable size. Everyone knows they make good firewood. But pinewood smokes readily, while turkey oak doesn't, so keep them separate. We'll charge different prices when we sell them. Finally, sort the Mixed Firewood by size too..."

After explaining everything, Liu Acheng stayed to help sort the wood himself, while Liu Jili was instructed to count the woodpiles and determine what most consisted of, then use their locations to rearrange the campfires and the day and night patrol routes.

Liu Jili had no objection to these arrangements, whether reporting to the authorities earlier or being given the additional position of core group head. He believed all these tasks displayed his value. Without aristocratic status and social skills, one could not report a case to the commandery offices. Leading the most important group, inspecting woodpiles, moving campfires, and planning patrol routes would also rapidly enhance his authority in the refugee camp.

Even so, before leaving, he asked with some puzzlement, "Acheng, why must you sort the firewood yourself? Is it that important?"

Liu Jili actually knew how to ask humbly and take the initiative to learn?!

Liu Acheng, who had already removed his robe and squatted down to sort firewood, paused. For a moment he did not know how to explain and could only whistle. "It's like this: nothing stands up to earnest attention. I can't explain your question quickly, but take the Grass Sandals operation from before. If I hadn't learned to weave grass sandals myself, I could never have made it work... which pair had corners cut? Was pounding straw hard work? Where could you distinguish good craftsmanship from bad? If I'd never learned to weave sandals, I certainly couldn't have told. More than that, perhaps it was precisely because they knew I'd learned that those people didn't dare openly deceive me. You can't count on everyone being honest."

Listening attentively, Liu Jili actually nodded several times. "Exactly right. Even just to prevent those below from deceiving us, we ought to do the work ourselves... I'll inspect the woodpiles first and come back before evening to learn how to distinguish the firewood with you."

He looked positively eager.

However, Liu Jili ultimately had no time to sort wood that day. His work proved much more troublesome than expected, and the need to eat in the evening made it especially urgent. By the time he returned, he could only drink leftover porridge, as he had yesterday. Early the next morning, he accompanied Liu Acheng and seven or eight sturdy men carrying firewood to the market to investigate demand... with the weather turning colder, firewood did indeed prove a reliable trade. They sold all their Mixed Firewood in a single morning.

What followed was less encouraging. First, with winter approaching and more refugees struggling to make a living, grain prices had risen noticeably. The two Lius briefly hesitated over whether they should convert all their money into grain immediately.

That was not all. At noon, they sent the accompanying men back first, shouldered a load of pinewood deliberately set aside, and headed for Jiangcheng.

Liu Acheng's idea was simple: carve flowers onto firewood, so to speak. Even humble firewood could compete through differentiation. He would be a young man who took selling it seriously-for example, he imagined that communal kitchens at military garrison stations would not care that pinewood smoked. They would appreciate only how long it burned.

In that case, they could separate the turkey oak and sell it as superior firewood to aristocratic country estates, while supplying pinewood to the garrison as high-quality military fuel.

However, when they reached Jiangcheng and, through the Liu clan relatives who had arrived the other day, met Gao Jian's nephew Gao Heng, he blocked that route outright. "Please forgive me, my two Liu brothers. The Garrison Station has laborers assigned by the authorities, as well as attached slave retainers. Ordinarily, we send our own people to gather firewood."

The two Lius had nothing to say. They left the load of pinewood with Huzi's eldest sister and departed.

Nothing else happened that day, except that Liu Jili finally had a chance to help sort the firewood. Though frustrated, neither man lost heart. The next day, they continued selling wood along Jingkou Avenue and further increased their supply of mixed firewood.

Unfortunately, that afternoon, under Liu Jili's guidance, Liu Acheng located two or three aristocratic country estates and tried to sell the load of turkey oak at a premium. None bought it.

They too had their own slave retainers responsible for gathering firewood.

As the weather grew colder day by day and winter proper drew near, the two Lius reviewed their efforts. Both felt that selling firewood was a sound idea. They genuinely had no other means of earning money, and they had indeed opened a market for mixed wood. The problem was that merely selling mixed firewood offered nothing irreplaceable, nor had it produced the additional income they had imagined. That left them uneasy.

Whether to find a way to solicit handouts or change their approach and keep trying to earn more through differentiated firewood was a genuine dilemma.

In the end, Liu Acheng held firm and decided to ask about the Mixed Firewood trade in Jiangcheng tomorrow, while making some inquiries. If that still failed, they would try Jiankang the following day, where high officials and nobles congregated.

Here, beside the wooded mountains, wealthy households had their own slave retainers gather wood. Surely the high officials and nobles in Jiankang would not also send their retainers all the way out specifically for that purpose?

Thus another day passed, bringing them to the twenty-eighth day of the tenth month. The weather turned markedly colder, so much so that the men going out to sell firewood had to wrap sheets of strung-together rice straw around their clothes... one could only say that working people always found ways to stay alive.

Just after they had reached the Jiangcheng area and sold a dozen or so bundles of mixed firewood, Liu Dage came running in person to tell them that an official from the Langya Commandery offices had arrived at the camp shortly after they left-and his expression was none too pleasant.

Both Liu Acheng and Liu Jili found this somewhat unbelievable, but hurriedly swapped places with Liu Dage, leaving him to watch and sell the remaining firewood while they rushed back.

Hurrying as hard as they could, they finally returned to camp before noon and found someone waiting who distinctly astonished them both.

Likewise, upon seeing them return, the man immediately stood and stared at the crimson headscarves on their heads, his own face full of bewilderment. "Liu Acheng, Liu Jili, I didn't believe it at first... no, Liu Rengong and his son have both left, and all your relatives from the Liu Clan of Pengcheng have left too. Why haven't you two down-and-outs gone?"

"Brother Song, that I don't understand. Others may not understand, but surely you should." Liu Acheng gave a dry laugh, recovering first. "The Way of the Five Pecks of Rice admits people through five pecks of rice, seeking to bring salvation to those beyond saving. Now Liu Rengong and his son, obliged to do their utmost for their blood kin, have had no choice but to abandon this place. Aren't the thousand-odd women and children here precisely those beyond saving? That's why we two must do what we can to save them... Brother Song, although we haven't joined the faith, we and you are like Ziyun and Xiangru: different melodies achieving the same harmony."

The newly appointed Household Office Registrar of Langya Commandery-Lu Song, the Ordination Libationer of the neighboring Way of the Five Pecks of Rice-stared fixedly at the person before him, as though seeing this youth anew.

In former days, when Emperor Taizu was in Jingkou, he wore a coarse tunic and trousers and possessed no surplus wealth. He often carried firewood himself and held hemp sandals in his hands. The aristocratic clans all scorned him. Song alone recognized that he was extraordinary, marveled greatly at him, and repeatedly gave him robes and caps.

-New Book of Qi, Biographies, twenty-nine