Slave retainers

By late November, it was deep winter by any reckoning.

Liu Acheng and Liu Jili woke in Jiangcheng after daylight had fully broken, but neither intended to return straight to camp... For one thing, morale there had stabilized, and Liu Dage was enough to keep order and distribute grain. Even if some difficult matter arose, a little delay would make no difference. For another, now that they had a little money and grain to their names, they wanted to improve their quality of life.

Never mind anything else: carrying firewood into Jiankang every few days meant they had to get Grandpa Wang to make them new Hemp Sandals, didn't it?

In summer and autumn, they could bathe in the river, but in winter they needed hot water, didn't they? The camp had no shortage of firewood, but it had no walls to keep out the wind, either. Wiping themselves down in a shack was not the same as having a proper wash here.

They could even put up with not bathing-it was the dead of winter, after all-but they had to wash their hair!

Wang Meng picking lice while discussing the state of the realm with Huan Wen was one of this era's most celebrated anecdotes, but that man was Wang Meng, all right? Who were you?

Besides, as circumstances changed, Liu Cheng had developed a new idea. He needed to persuade Liu Jili first, and washing their hair provided the perfect opportunity.

"Invite Lord Ren back?" Liu Jili was bare-chested and leaning forward to keep his clothes dry. Naturally, the suggestion puzzled him. "Didn't we agree to wait until spring, after the authorities distributed seed, before inviting him back?"

"That was then; this is now." Holding a piece of hemp cloth soaked in hot water, Liu Cheng wrung it over the other man's head and explained with a smile.

"I know what you mean..." Liu Jili was plainly still displeased. "If Lord Ren's family goes back now, there's enough money and grain to get them through winter. But have you thought about what you told me back then? You said that if the two of us held those thousand people together, we could build up our standing. Now you want him back when we're only halfway done. Will that standing belong to him or to us? This isn't about money and grain. We agreed to build our reputation!"

"I have several reasons." Liu Cheng rinsed the cloth in the hot water, then went looking for soapberries. "Do you want to hear them?"

Liu Jili kept his head lowered and merely sighed. "You always have reasons... But Acheng, don't keep taking a mile when you're given an inch."

"If the reasons are sound, what's wrong with taking a mile?" Finding that the soaked soapberries had softened, Liu Cheng hurriedly crushed them into a paste with his fingers. "Let me ask you first, Brother Jili: haven't we already gained standing? Do the people of the Way of the Celestial Masters not know it was our work, or do the people in camp not know? Without the reputation we gained from this, we might never have made contact with the Way of the Celestial Masters in the first place. And Steward Qian-yes, we have leverage over him, but wasn't he also frightened by the prospect of the thousand people behind us starving to death? Even he knows what we're capable of."

"But who ever complains of having too much prestige?" Liu Jili could not resist raising his head to argue. "Honestly, if word of this reached Liu Agan and his son and made them acknowledge us, I'd accept it. I wouldn't mind letting Lord Ren return a little early."

"That brings me to my second reason." Liu Acheng turned, held the other man's head down, and carefully worked water mixed with soapberry paste into his hair. "Brother Jili, Liu Agan and his son's acknowledgment counts, but wouldn't Lord Ren and his son's acknowledgment count as well? And at this point, which would be more useful to us: winning over Lord Ren and his son, or winning over Liu Agan and his son?"

"Why can't we have both?" Keeping his head down and his eyes closed did nothing to stop Liu Jili's immediate rebuttal. "Being willing to deliver that Tiger Hide to Liu Huzi already leaves us with a clear conscience before heaven and earth. All he does is draw his bow and shoot arrows in the garrison town all day... If you ask me, once Liu Rengong knows his son has a future, he might not even want to come back to us."

"Because it isn't worth it." Liu Acheng ignored the long complaint that followed and raised his voice to cut him off.

"What isn't worth it?" Liu Jili's tone softened.

"Trying to have everything isn't worth it. It's like doing business..." Liu Cheng's earlier smile returned. "Brother Jili, over the past month and a half, we've made this work. We've already earned standing in Jiangcheng, with the Way of the Celestial Masters, and with Garrison Commander Gao. Spending another month or two doing the same thing won't earn us nearly as much. There's no need to keep dragging it out. If we hand the camp back to Lord Ren, we can free up our minds to seriously consider how to build a ladder to the Xie Clan... Isn't that right? If we win over Xie Eastern Mountain, we might go straight into office. And then, as you said, what if Liu Rengong refuses to return because his son has prospects? Yesterday, when Xie Eastern Mountain lectured on the Mao Commentary on the Book of Songs, wasn't that what 'All have a beginning; few can carry through to the end' meant? What we need to consider now is how to see the camp's affairs through from beginning to end. If we gain prospects of our own, Liu Rengong will still have to manage the camp. We mustn't put the branches before the roots."

Liu Jili seemed about to speak, then stopped. Instead, he lowered his head into the basin and rinsed it with hot water.

"There's something else, too. I don't know whether you've noticed." Liu Acheng picked up the cloth again and finally asked, "Life here in Jiangcheng is hard, and it's getting harder."

Liu Jili answered with silence once more.

Seeing this, Liu Acheng said nothing further and simply finished helping him wash his hair. Having already washed his own, he then turned away to put on the newly purchased unlined clothes he had prepared, pulled his old outfit over them, and went outside to find a long bench. He sat against the wall with his hair loose to bask in the sun... He certainly did not dare set off yet. His hair was so long, and there were no hair dryers in this era. Traveling with it soaking wet in the dead of winter might leave him with some lingering ailment.

Of course, only Liu Acheng was this fussy. Liu Huzi and even Liu Jili had always relied on their youth to do whatever they pleased. Liu Huzi had washed his hair that morning, too-the soapberries were ones Liu Acheng and the others had snagged from Steward Qian-but he went straight off to practice archery afterward, no different from an internet-addicted teenager of later ages.

As for Liu Jili, while Liu Acheng sat in the sun before the earthen wall, chatting with Liu Huzi's Elder Sister and asking about grain prices, that fellow vanished at some point... Who knew what he had gone off to do?

After quite a while, his hair was almost dry. He wrapped it in his Crimson Headscarf and prepared to leave, yet the man still had not returned. With no other choice, Liu Acheng went looking for him.

To be frank, Jiangcheng really was having a hard time. The local sanitation alone made that clear... Liu Acheng had visited a few days before winter began. Although the influx of Liu Surname clansmen had made the place chaotic, the roads had still been reasonably clean, without any unpleasant odors.

In little more than a month, it had become filthy and disorderly beyond recognition.

And this certainly was not because Liu Rengong was incompetent or unable to control his clansmen. He had managed everything perfectly well in the refugee camp. Why would things become worse once they had proper houses here?

From Liu Acheng's observations, the main reason was the ever-growing number of scattered refugees gathering in Jiangcheng... These refugees had neither clans to rely on nor old acquaintances to turn to, while Jiangcheng's capacity was limited. The earlier arrival of all those Lius had already crowded this little market town, which depended on the garrison town and the road into Jiankang. Where was there any room left for these people to survive?

Garrison Commander Gao was in the neighboring garrison town, and most of his officers were also surnamed Gao. Supply work, hauling goods, borrowing boats to fish on the river-if these opportunities were not given to the Gaos and Lius, were they supposed to go to these people instead?

Without work, resources, or even relatives, they lost their dignity within three to five days and were reduced to something little better than beggars.

Once they looked like beggars, even selling their sons and daughters became difficult, let alone maintaining hygiene.

This was another genuine reason Liu Acheng wanted Liu Rengong to return. When he told Liu Jili that life here was hard, he meant it... Put plainly, the situation was that bad. Earlier, he had thought their chances of surviving might be better in Jiangcheng than in camp, so he had let them come. Returning to camp now did not mean their own chances of survival would necessarily be higher there. Rather, if these Lius left, many people here would be able to live.

But there was no urgency yet. So far, the situation was still deteriorating slowly, not to the point where it would suddenly become impossible to handle.

In fact, quite a few individual households that had followed Liu Rengong here had already returned, and Liu Acheng had taken them in whenever possible.

Besides, there was another private reason, one Liu Acheng could not easily explain to Liu Jili: his dream of a fortified manor... After living through most of this winter, he did not know what Liu Jili felt, but he himself was becoming ever more aware of how difficult it was for such a large group to survive and develop.

A fortified manor was not built in a day. Even if the authorities really supplied seed and allowed them to clear land next spring, countless obstacles likely awaited them. Wasn't this precisely what it meant to blaze a trail in ragged clothes? And such an undertaking truly needed a seasoned hand like Liu Rengong to oversee it. Two young men finding an unconventional way to scrape through winter had already enjoyed heaven-sent luck. Could they really expect to lead these people in opening up wasteland?

So whether Xie Eastern Mountain suddenly offered them official posts was one matter. If Liu Rengong refused to return because Liu Huzi had a future, the camp would be in for quite a spectacle.

But the difficulties of this Fortified Manor dream could only be kept in his heart. They were not something he could voice.

He could only tell Liu Jili that if Xie An gave them official posts, they would no longer be able to manage the camp... Yet, thinking about it, what if Xie An really did give them posts? Could they honestly keep managing the camp then?

Lost in these wandering thoughts, Liu Acheng had already crossed Jiangcheng's market. He had not found his companion, but he heard a commotion toward the riverside garrison town and headed that way. Many of the onlookers knew him and moved aside of their own accord. Once they did, he found Liu Jili among them, watching.

"Acheng, look..." Arms folded, Liu Jili gestured with his chin.

"What happened?"

"People say winter is hard, so Garrison Commander Gao has driven out all the slave retainers and such he'd previously acquired for the Garrison Station. He wants to replace them with people from the Gao and Liu families... They refused to leave, but Garrison Commander Gao keeps strict military discipline, so he had them beaten out with clubs. Now they're kneeling outside the Garrison Station, crying and pleading." Even Liu Jili sounded helpless by the end.

"Not just the slave retainers." Someone beside them interjected. It was Grandpa Liu San, who had appeared at some unknown point. He, too, seemed saddened. "He drove out the labor draftees as well."

Liu Acheng froze, feeling deeply unsettled. He had almost blurted out, "Isn't sending labor draftees home a good thing?" But on second thought, what else could it be? Life must have become so hard that working in the garrison town for a hot meal spared their households a substantial expense. Their families could eat a little more, improving their chances of surviving winter. That was why they would rather endure beatings and stay here begging.

Yet those labor draftees were already on the yellow register. They were either locals or people who had been here long enough to undergo registration under the local land census. Whatever the case, they possessed land and homes of their own.

If even these people begged to stay in the garrison town for winter, what of this year's refugees?

At that thought, Liu Cheng felt an inexplicable wave of dejection... His own thousand people had once been driven to the end of their rope. He was already thinking of asking Liu Rengong back early to avoid the risks of spring. How could he concern himself with the forty or fifty thousand refugees in Jingkou this year? And if he truly let his thoughts range further, with the realm in chaos, Hebei must already have become a river of blood. Was he supposed to think about those people, too?

Great Jin's two capitals and twenty-one provinces rested on the shoulders of men like Xie An. If he built a fortified manor and saved ten thousand people over his lifetime, his conscience would already be clear before heaven and earth.

"Let me think some more about what you said while we were washing our hair." Just then, Liu Jili spoke in a rough voice. Perhaps he had remembered being driven out himself, with nowhere to go. "Acheng, let's ask Lord Ren to step forward and take these expelled slave retainers back to camp first... There are only a few dozen, and they're all able-bodied workers. We can still afford to feed them."

Naturally, Liu Acheng had nothing to say against that. Grandpa Liu San, however, plainly wanted to speak but hesitated.

"What do you think, Grandpa San?" Sharp-eyed, Liu Cheng naturally noticed the elder's unusual expression.

"What could I have to say?" Grandpa Liu San spread his hands. "You want to do a good deed. Could I stop you? It's just that, Acheng, I know you're clever and capable. These past few days, you've found connections with the Way of the Celestial Masters and Jiankang for the camp and laid in quite a bit of grain... But have you thought about it? There are so many people in Jingkou with nothing to eat. You can save these few dozen, but can you save even more? And winter is only halfway over. Things will only get harder. If you take these people in, then after a while other people from our home district hear of your reputation and return to our camp, but there's no extra grain left, are you going to shut our own people out because of these strangers?"

"Besides, is Garrison Commander Gao doing something wicked? He's driving them out to gather in our Liu people. You happen to have a little surplus for now, and you take in the people he expelled. What will outsiders say about Garrison Commander Gao and our Lord Ren? And what will they say about you?"

Liu Cheng found himself unable to refute him.

Even Liu Jili was at a loss for words.

Indeed, although Grandpa Liu San was usually a chatterbox, today's words were pearls of wisdom... Garrison Commander Gao was not a bad man, especially when he was doing this to save their clansmen. They could not saddle someone else with a bad reputation simply to do a good deed themselves! And winter truly was only halfway over. Things ahead were not merely likely to worsen; they were certain to.

Liu Acheng himself had understood this from the outset. Winter grain was a finite stockpile. As it was consumed, the situation would inevitably deteriorate faster and faster, to increasingly outrageous extremes.

"Then perhaps..." Liu Jili looked at Liu Acheng with some embarrassment, his meaning plain.

Yes, Grandpa Liu San's words had actually persuaded Liu Jili! And he accepted them wholeheartedly!

"No hurry." Liu Acheng, on the other hand, grew calm once he had thought it through. "Let's go back and tally the accounts, the people, the stored grain, the money and silk, and then decide."

Liu Jili could only nod.

And so, at noon, the two Lius left the rice they had received for their peachwood firewood at Liu Rengong's house and headed back to camp with empty carrying poles. Both plainly had something on their minds, and neither chatted along the way as they usually did. Only when they reached the fork where Liu Jili had previously gone fishing did Liu Acheng suddenly stop and ask his companion, "Brother Jili, do you still remember that time we met by the stream?"

"How could I forget?" Carrying his empty pole, Liu Jili shook his head with a bitter smile. "I doubt I'll forget it for the rest of my life."

"You remember, then." Liu Acheng continued, "I told you that I didn't even have a long robe back then. I was wearing a Coarse Tunic and Trousers while visiting Garrison Commander Gao and got looked down on. That was why Liu Huzi told me to steal your clothes."

"Liu Huzi is a bastard!" Though it had happened long ago and neither would still quibble over the clothes, Liu Jili could not help cursing at the memory.

"In fact, nobody looked down on me. Liu Huzi was young and oversensitive." Liu Acheng did not dispute his judgment of Liu Huzi's character. He merely spoke slowly, as though discussing an ordinary matter. "It was just a young slave retainer attached to the garrison town. When he collected the wooden plates and bowls, he gave me an extra glance because we were dressed alike and about the same age... And Gao Jian, being a military commander who respected Lord Ren, had that young slave retainer driven out when we left. I don't know whether he's alive or dead now... I truly don't. Even if I saw his corpse, or saw him alive, I wouldn't recognize him."

"All right. I understand what you mean." Liu Jili lowered his head. "But Grandpa San's words make excellent sense. Whatever we do, let Dage handle it. Have him quietly gather these people outside Jiangcheng and bring them back to camp without anyone finding out. We can discuss the rest afterward... How's that?"

Liu Cheng merely nodded.

Neither spoke again until they returned to camp. They assigned the camp's work with their usual composure, as though nothing at all had happened during this trip into Jiankang and their stay in Jiangcheng.

... Nothing happened ...

Emperor Taizu... while living South of the Yangtze, harbored ambitions for the whole realm. Though destitute, possessing only one robe and one padded jacket, even weaving mats and selling sandals, or playing the flute to entertain others, he invariably devoted all his strength to providing for men of honor. At the youthful age of fifteen, his followers numbered over a thousand.

-New Book of Qi, Basic Annals, Volume One: Emperor Gao, the Great Ancestor, Part One