On the day Zhou Ziliang met with Sun Chuan, Shao Shuyi practiced archery for half the day at the small riverside courtyard.
At first Cheng Ji corrected a few of his movements, then let him practice on his own.
In the afternoon, he began teaching him the art of saber-and-shield combat—though for now it was only the basics.
Toward evening, just as Cheng Ji was leaving, Li Fu arrived with his two children.
Shao Shuyi put away his saber and shield, steam rising from his head as though from a steamer basket. Seeing this, he immediately called out: "Su Niang, take two salted fish down from the pole and cook them with the pickled vegetables. And cook rice for three more people."
"All right," came an answering voice from the kitchen.
Shao Shuyi turned his head and looked at Li Fu. "Have you made up your mind?"
Li Fu was silent for a moment, then said: "Now that it has come to this, the one thing I can't leave behind is—"
As he spoke, Su Niang's daughter Daohua had already come over and gently took the hands of Li Fu's two children, ready to lead them off to something good to eat.
Li Fu's son Sihai instinctively drew his hand back, lowering his head and saying nothing.
His daughter Rong Niang, however, stared fixedly at Daohua, and for a moment did not pull her hand away.
Shao Shuyi squatted down, looked at Sihai, and smiled. "Go play with Daohua. There's dried fruit in the kitchen—the three of you each take a handful and share it."
The little boy turned to look at his father, and seeing him give a slight nod, followed along.
The three children shuffled slowly into the kitchen, and then came the sound of them rummaging through everything.
"Young Master Shao, I—" Li Fu's eyes grew a little moist.
"Let the two children stay here for a few days first." Shao Shuyi patted his shoulder. "After a while, if you still want to send them to Qingyuan, that's up to you. As for yourself—"
"Young Master Shao, I can find work myself," Li Fu said.
Shao Shuyi was about to say something when he saw Wang Huadu, Yu Yuan, Liang Tai, and Kong Tie come back, the four of them.
Wang Huadu was covered in grime, and kept complaining loudly: "That big household over on the west end is building a house—they pay eight hundred wen for a day's hired labor, and even throw in a midday meal. Generous enough. From now on Baijianu and I will work there; there's no work at the docks anyway."
Yu Yuan and Liang Tai were clean all over, clearly just off work from the warehouse-inn; they had met up on the road and come back together, and now they exchanged greetings.
Shao Shuyi returned the greetings, and after learning that the two had already eaten, drew them over to sit and talk.
Kong Tie went over to the wall, where a short-handled axe and a double-ring saber leaned against it—both spoils taken from the Lake Tai water bandits, and of good quality.
He himself had an iron sword, handed down from the previous generation, which now hung at his waist.
Shao Shuyi had also bought an old bow, which now hung in his bedroom.
The bronze handgonne Yu Yuan had pestered shamelessly until he got it, and he treasured it dearly.
These were the main weapons of their four-man group. It didn't sound like much, but this was no armory—how could an ordinary commoner's household have so many killing tools? An outsider who didn't know them would surely conclude that Shao Shuyi's group were no law-abiding folk—and maybe they really weren't.
After picking up a ring-pommel saber and trying it out in his hands, Kong Tie turned around, looked at Li Fu, and asked: "Can you use one?"
Li Fu shook his head, his gaze fixed only on his son and daughter, who had just come out of the kitchen.
He noticed that his son's steps were a little lighter now; the boy held a piece of dried fruit in his hand and followed behind the two little girls.
"Foya, we're all brothers here—teach him when you have the time." Wang Huadu pointed at Li Fu as he spoke.
Liang Tai glanced at him, said nothing, and only grunted in acknowledgment.
"You're too honest." Wang Huadu threw an arm around Liang Tai's shoulders and laughed heartily.
He had grown quite fond of "bullying" Liang Tai, because the man didn't like to talk—a punch or a couple of knocks, and he'd only give a good-natured grin. But that didn't mean he was stupid; he understood a great many things in his heart, he just didn't say them.
"All right, let's get ready to eat." Shao Shuyi clapped his hands and rose to his feet.
He had no money now, but there was still plenty of rice at home. After renting this small courtyard, he had simply inherited the vegetable plot that came with it, and the melons and beans on the trellis outside the wall were his for the taking. Add to that the salt, cured chicken, and salted fish (Mid-Autumn gifts), and life was fairly comfortable—so they came over here to eat now and then.
Li Fu had already discussed it with him: he would bring his son and daughter to live here, so that they wouldn't be seized for labor service next year, or be forced to flee for lack of money to pay the kechai.
Tomorrow he would go home once more, to bring over everything worth taking; after that he would settle at Liujiagang for good and not return to Taicang.
The small courtyard Shao Shuyi rented was on the two-compound, four-bay plan—that is, three rooms to each compound.
Wang Huadu lived in the east room of the front courtyard. The west room was the kitchen for now; in the next couple of days it would be cleared out, and a reed shed would be set up in the courtyard as the new kitchen—which would make room to house another family.
The east room of the back courtyard was Shao Shuyi's own dwelling; the west room was still empty. If Kong Tie was willing to move in, it would be his—but he was still worried about his younger brothers and sisters at home, and for the time being did not want to come.
Before he knew it, it was the tenth month since his transmigration. He had already gained a firm foothold at Liujiagang and made the acquaintance of a few like-minded brothers, and had gained a little confidence about the future.
On the twenty-first, he and the scar-faced man took a boat together to Suzhou.
******
On the day Shao Shuyi left for Suzhou, Zhou Ziliang had already returned to his mistress's house.
A great battle promptly erupted. The Zhou forces surged ahead with tremendous spirit, drums beating and shouts ringing, but the other side was no easy foe either—though pummeled until they cried out again and again, they stubbornly held their defensive line.
As the saying goes: the first drumbeat rouses the courage, the second diminishes it, the third exhausts it. The Zhou forces had attacked long without breaking through. Just as their own lines were thrown into chaos and defeat seemed at hand, the other side suddenly beat a great retreat on the gongs and fled in rout—yet judging by their formation, it was plainly a feigned retreat.
Zhou Ziliang rolled off, thoroughly satisfied, and lay on the bed like a dead pig. Only after panting for a good while did he say: "Tomorrow Gouzi will come to Liujiagang. I have three boats I'll have him fix up."
The woman's eyes lit up. She pressed herself gently against Zhou Ziliang and rubbed against him slowly, saying in a coy voice: "So you do have a conscience after all."
Zhou Ziliang laughed heartily, pinched the woman's cheek, and said: "The boats aren't really in bad shape—they'll be done within ten days. I'm giving your brother fifteen ding of paper money; if he spends it carefully, he should still have a good deal left over."
"Mm." The woman embraced Zhou Ziliang, gentle as water.
The next day, the young man called Gouzi arrived as promised, gleefully pocketed the fifteen ding of paper money, and once outside, his eyes darting about, he looked at the several men who were chatting outside the courtyard gate.
A moment later, he drew Wang Wu off to one side and asked in a low voice: "Wang Wu, do you know anyone who repairs boats?"
"Of course I do." Wang Wu did not know what the other was after, but did not dare offend him, so his reply was quite polite.
"The young master has three canal boats that should reach Liujiagang today. Nothing seriously wrong with them—they still sail—he just wants them spruced up, so nothing goes wrong at a critical moment." Gouzi glanced left and right and said mysteriously: "He gave me ten ding of paper money for the repairs. You know how it is—I'm all right at eating, drinking, and having a good time, but I don't understand boat repair in the least. If I botch the young master's business, I won't come off well, and you lot would get a tongue-lashing too. How about this—I give you the money, and you find someone to do the repairs. What do you say?"
Wang Wu's heart stirred.
He knew about the three boats coming from Taicang—they were indeed due today, and after being spruced up at Liujiagang they would sail on to Xiashachang to take on cargo.
He just hadn't expected that the young master would hand such a matter to his old mistress's younger brother—it was a bit absurd.
Fortunately, Young Master Zhou still seemed to have some sense: the ten ding he'd given were just about right—that was about the going rate for repairs at a government boatyard.
Still, if he found a smaller boatyard, eight or nine ding would be enough, with a little left over.
So he put on a reluctant face and said: "Gouzi, this really isn't appropriate, is it?"
"It's fine." The moment Gouzi saw it might work, he grinned and said: "If the young master doesn't see you around, I'll just say I asked you for help. Nothing will come of it."
With that, he took out the ten ding of paper money directly and stuffed it into Wang Wu's hand. "I'm counting on you to handle this."
Wang Wu was about to decline once more, but saw that Gouzi had already run off humming a tune, so he could only quietly pocket the money, and after calling out a word to the other two, jogged all the way to the agreed-upon dock.
Toward evening, the three boats arrived as promised.
Wang Wu went straight aboard and led them to the Fei family boatyard, where after much persuasion he settled the repair for eight ding of paper money and arranged to collect the boats on the fifth day of the twelfth month.
The Fei family boatyard was full of half-built river boats and couldn't spare the manpower, so the next day it passed the job on to the smaller Qian family boatyard for seven ding of paper money.
The Qian family boatyard wasn't at all unhappy about it.
Seven ding of paper money was a low price, but not unacceptable. If they thought of some ways to cut costs, there should still be a small profit to be made.
There was nothing to be done about it—that was how small workshops were. If it were really a fat piece of meat, would it ever fall into your hands? And this was Liujiagang; over at the ports along the Yangtze, some craftsmen even farmed on the side, and couldn't easily get even a small chance like this boat-repair job.
All three boats were common canal grain-transport boats, accustomed to sailing the Yangtze and the Grand Canal, and of only two hundred liao.
This boat type was very distinctive: eight chi five cun wide (about 2.6 meters), yet six zhang five chi long (about 20 meters)—one could call it remarkably long and slender.
The main reason it ended up in this damn shape was policy restrictions.
In the early Yanyou era: "The powerful and influential, together with wealthy merchants and great traders, greedy for profit, built boats of three or four hundred or five hundred liao and sailed them on this river (the Huitong River, the northern stretch of the Grand Canal), so that they blocked the boats of officials and commoners alike."
To solve the canal congestion, the Yuan government simply took the blanket approach, setting up locks at Linqing and Gutou that were only nine chi wide, called narrow locks.
In this way, even though the southern stretch of the Grand Canal had no such narrow locks, if you wanted to travel the full length of the canal, your boat could be no more than nine chi wide.
And so an absurd situation arose.
To let boats pass through the locks, shipyards both north and south began building large numbers of canal grain-transport boats that were less than nine chi wide but reached an astonishing hundred chi in length—all of them five or six hundred liao.
But these boats brought a new problem: they were too long. "Once inside a lock they could not turn around, and they ran aground at every turn, blocking the other boats."
Only then did the Yuan government realize that the earlier rules had limited only the width and not the length...
So in the fourth year of the Taiding era (1327) they laid down regulations for canal grain-transport boats, and the resulting design was that of the three boats now belonging to the Zhou family.
Two of the three boats were moored on either side of Luhua Port, and the third on the Lou River outside, alongside Shao Shuyi's boat.
On the twenty-sixth of the eleventh month, after finishing work, Wang Huadu stopped by the Qian family boatyard, intending to have a look at the boats he'd been longing for.
Chapter 53