For the next several days, Shao Shuyi was kept very busy.
By day, he followed Wu Youcai to learn the business; by night, he helped count the newly arrived celadon. Fortunately, Wang Sheng and the others did not seem to dare play any tricks. The celadon brought in this shipment was properly stored into the warehouse, sorted by category and neatly arranged, awaiting maritime merchants to come en masse and buy them up—according to the latest figures, the celadon in stock totaled seventeen thousand and twenty pieces.
Of course, that was only on the books. The ten thousand-odd pieces of celadon previously held in inventory had not been counted. Shao Shuyi had brought it up once, but Wang Sheng had refused on the pretext of a shortage of hands.
Shao Shuyi never brought it up a second time.
At the beginning of the fifth month, Shopkeeper Wang Sheng dispatched Wu Youcai to Chuzhou again, reportedly to transport back a second batch of celadon.
With that, the stocktaking was shelved entirely. The warehouse keeper was away, and many of the servants and hired hands had been reassigned elsewhere as well. Let it rest, then.
Days passed one after another. He had three meals every day and ate quite well, while the anticipated clash never materialized. Because of this, he discovered that he was actually becoming somewhat indulged in this relatively easy life, reluctant to seek change, feeling that continuing like this would not be bad either.
Fortunately, he still had his wits about him.
Standing atop the clouds of history to overlook the earth and piercing through layers of fog was the greatest advantage of a transmigrator in the first place. He knew full well that everything before his eyes would not last; it was all an illusion. Swept along by the great tide of the era, no one could remain aloof.
On the evening of the ninth day of the fifth month, Wang Huadu, who had been missing for a long time, finally showed up.
Shao Shuyi brought several flatbreads back from the kitchen to his quarters and handed them to Wang Huadu and a young man who had come with him.
"How did you spend this past half-month?" Shao Shuyi asked, somewhat puzzled.
Wang Huadu, who was wolfing down the flatbread, laughed heartily and said nonchalantly, "At first I stayed at your place. Once the grain ran out, I went and stayed for ten days with a woman I'm intimate with."
Shao Shuyi was rather impressed—quite a character! Taking a closer look at him, well, laugh if you will, but poor as the fellow was, Wang Huadu was rather handsome. That explained everything.
"She's a widow with an orphan, already having a hard time. You stayed a full ten days and ended up eating through whatever little she had left," the accompanying young man said, looking at Wang Huadu with no small irritation.
Wang Huadu turned a deaf ear to his words and merely said to Shao Shuyi, "Xiaohu, this is someone I got to know when I was in a postal courier household: Cheng Ji, an archer from the Crossroads Myriad Household Office. He's a bit older than you and me—twenty this year."
"Crossroads Myriad Household Office?" This was the second time Shao Shuyi had heard the name.
Wang Huadu seemed to want to explain, opening his mouth to say, "They're Suzhou troops," but had nothing more to add because he was not really clear on it himself. He could only give an awkward smile and look toward Cheng Ji.
Cheng Ji, meanwhile, was sizing up Shao Shuyi. After a moment, he shook his head and said, "Actually, they are Taicang troops..."
Surprisingly, Cheng Ji's ancestors were actually Liaodong "Han people."
After the rebellion of Li Tan was suppressed, Expeditionary Myriad Household Commander Chongxi, from the Khitan Donglü Jiu clan, was ordered to lead his forces to garrison Ju Prefecture, where he built Crossroads City as a military command—from then on, "Crossroads" became the unit's military designation.
Ten years later, the Crossroads Army took part in the war that conquered the Southern Song. After the war, the Mongol troops, Tammachi troops, Han troops, and Newly Adhered troops stationed within Southern Song territory were disbanded and reorganized into thirty-seven commands, each assigned a garrison. The Crossroads military designation was retained, with Pingjiang Circuit as its defense sector, bearing the full title of Crossroads Middle Myriad Household Office Garrisoning Pingjiang.
A Middle Myriad Household Office typically commanded five thousand soldiers. Together with the tens of thousands of dependents—young and old, men and women—who followed the army or relocated, they were distributed among one Disciplinary Office and ten Wing Chiliarchy Battalions under its jurisdiction. Each took its original station or recruitment ground as its military designation, namely the Zilai, Dongping, Daming, Guangping, Zhending, Dadu, Hejian New Army, Hejian Old Army, Jinan New Army, and Jinan Old Army Chiliarchy Battalions.
The offices of the Dadu Chiliarchy Battalion were in Suzhou, but its military households were in Taicang, and Cheng Ji was a soldier of that unit. Thus, he was truly not "Suzhou troops" as Wang Huadu had put it.
"So you're from a Taicang military household," Shao Shuyi nodded. "How many men are there in the Dadu Wing?"
"On the rolls, five hundred; in reality, about three hundred, mostly subsidiary military households, too feeble to fight," Cheng Ji sighed.
"Why is that?" Shao Shuyi asked with wide-eyed curiosity.
"From the darughachi and Myriad Household Commanders on down, officers are all hereditary. After a full sixty-year cycle of this, how could anyone fight?" Cheng Ji countered.
Shao Shuyi understood; it was much as he had guessed.
The military system of the Yuan dynasty had a deeply insidious flaw: the officers of the Myriad Household Offices and Guards (usually in the north) and Chiliarchy Battalions garrisoned in local areas were hereditary. Over time, abuses accumulated into a rotten quagmire. The soldiers were reduced to virtual slaves and beggars, neither fed nor clothed properly. Many owed usurious debts that could not be repaid even by mortgaging their sons and selling their daughters. Consequently, desertions grew by the day, morale was crushed, and combat effectiveness sank to abysmal depths.
Cheng Ji was clearly harboring a bellyful of resentment and could not help saying, "Seven years ago, when Zhangzhou was in turmoil and troops from various military offices across the Jiang-Huai region were drafted south for a joint suppression, the Crossroads troops went without provisions for more than forty days. Deserters were beyond counting, and even the commanding general killed himself. If not for an amnesty, I doubt a single soul would have come back."
Shao Shuyi was speechless. What an utter mess.
Still, that had nothing to do with him, so he merely asked, "Do you know martial arts?"
Cheng Ji examined him carefully and asked, "Among the several hundred men in the Dadu Chiliarchy Battalion, those capable of fighting on a battlefield are already few and far between. I do know a few moves, but—why do you want to learn?"
"The world is turbulent; it is merely for self-preservation," Shao Shuyi replied without concealment.
That reason was reasonable enough. Cheng Ji fell silent for a moment before saying, "I will teach you once every ten days. Just give me five sheng of rice each time. Some in the battalion steal and sell military gear. If you want some, I can find you a few pieces for cheap."
Before Shao Shuyi could answer, Wang Huadu jumped up and cried loudly, "Cheng the Second! The Great Capital Battalion has gotten to that state, and you're still staying?"
Cheng Ji grew even more silent. Only after a long while did he say, "This year, Myriad Household Commander Hao is garrisoning Jiading. When inspecting the military camp, seeing how exhausted and destitute the soldiers were, he went to the branch secretariat to petition for rations on everyone's behalf..."
"What use is that? Did he get any?" Wang Huadu mocked. "Whether it's military households or postal courier households, life just gets harder year by year; it never gets better. I think you've lost your mind to still cling to that wretched camp."
Cheng Ji only sighed and said no more.
Shao Shuyi raised a hand to stop Wang Huadu from heaping on more sarcasm, and instead consulted Cheng Ji about a few other matters.
"Myriad Household Commander Hao" was named Hao Tianlin, holding the senior fourth-rank post of General of Broad Prowess and Crossroads Army Myriad Household Commander. His father had died in the second year of Tianli (1329), after which he inherited his father's post as Crossroads Myriad Household Commander. His mother, née Shi, was the granddaughter of Shi Tianze, Prince of Zhenyang.
By regulation, the Myriad Household Commanders had to garrison various posts throughout their defense sectors on a rotating annual basis; this year, Hao Tianlin presided over the Jinan Old Army Chiliarchy Battalion in Jiading Subprefecture.
Closest to the Crossroads Army was the Lower Myriad Household Office of the Zhenjiang Navy Garrisoning Changqiao, which had originally been stationed in Zhenjiang Circuit before being moved to Changqiao in Pingjiang Circuit. Father and son Ning Yu and Ning Juren had served in turn as its Myriad Household Commanders, but it had gradually fallen into decline and now had few men or ships left, existing in name only.
As for the provincial capital Hangzhou, there were four Myriad Household Offices: Zhending (an Upper Myriad Household), Yidu (an Upper Myriad Household), Yingzhou (a Lower Myriad Household), and Shangdu New Army (a Lower Myriad Household), with twenty thousand troops on paper—an Upper Myriad Household had seven thousand men, a Middle Myriad Household five thousand, and a Lower Myriad Household three thousand.
Having learned all this, Shao Shuyi gained a preliminary picture of the Yuan military forces in Jiangzhe Province.
In short: a complete disaster.
Low morale, weak combat power, deficient numbers, poor equipment, and most soldiers had taken out predatory loans they could never pay back—how the hell were they supposed to fight?
Remembering how he had been chased like chickens and dogs by such soldiers that day, Shao Shuyi felt his face grow a bit warm.
Then again, they had weapons, and among several hundred men there were bound to be some who could fight; finishing off someone as defenseless as himself would have been effortless—that day, Cheng Ji had probably been among their ranks, hadn't he?
"I never imagined the world had fallen to such a state." Gathering his thoughts, Shao Shuyi sighed with emotion before looking back at Cheng Ji. "One day of instruction every ten days, for five sheng of rice. Agreed."
"Agreed," Cheng Ji said briskly, nodding without hesitation. "I brought some equipment out of camp and stored it at your place. Why don't we—"
"Tomorrow is my rest day, and I have nothing else to do, so going to my place sounds fine," Shao Shuyi said. "You can stay at my home for the night first."
"Up to you," Cheng Ji said indifferently.
Wang Huadu parted his lips as if wanting to say something.
Shao Shuyi patted him on the shoulder. "You phony Erke'un, watch and learn tomorrow. Don't let this chance slip by."
With that, he handed over the ten guan of Zhongtong chao he had received at the beginning of the month into Wang Huadu's hands and urged, "Don't walk back—take a boat. Buy some wine and food along the way, as much as you can manage."
"You trust me this much?" Wang Huadu smiled.
"Doubting back and forth—is that how a real man acts?" Shao Shuyi replied nonchalantly.
Of course, that was half truth and half pretense.
The true part was that this was indeed his character: he liked to treat people with sincerity. The false part was that these ten guan of notes meant little to him; since he had room and board provided at the celadon shop, losing them would not affect his daily life. Instead, it would allow him to see a person's true colors—no loss at all.
Wang Huadu was somewhat moved upon hearing this. Putting the notes away in silence, he joined Cheng Ji in finishing the flatbreads.
Having eaten their fill, the two took their leave.
Shao Shuyi had them take the granulated salt and jar of pickled vegetables along as well, then headed to the quarters of Shopkeeper Wang Sheng to notify him that he would be returning home the next day.
"One rest day every ten days—you are entitled to go home anyway. It is fine," Wang Sheng agreed, then asked, "The two who came just now..."
"They're my neighbors," Shao Shuyi said.
Wang Sheng stared at him for a moment and said, "Times are bad right now. On no account should you associate with shady characters; a single misstep could cost you your life."
"I understand," Shao Shuyi replied promptly.
Wang Sheng nodded and waved him off.
Shao Shuyi bowed, took his leave, and quietly breathed a sigh of relief.
Early on the morning of the tenth day of the fifth month, Shao Shuyi hurried eagerly to the kitchen, wolfed down three large bowls of noodles, and only then shouldered two dou of coarse round-grain rice to leisurely make his departure.
At the wharf, he found a cargo boat headed for Zhangjing, tossed the boatmen a few handfuls of round-grain rice, and squeezed aboard.
The journey passed without incident, and soon he could see Zhangjing's landmark structure, the Sea Transport Granary, rising in the distance.
Chapter 17