With everything tidied away, the two sides at last turned to the matter at hand.
Seeing how sincere the other man's manner was, Liu Zhi eased up somewhat, and came straight to the point, though he could not help feeling anxious still: "Wenzhen — Gao Jian's courtesy name — this old man has truly run out of options; that is why I sought you out. The Double Ninth Festival is almost here, and once it passes the weather will turn cold. But my clan has been bled dry. Never mind houses to ward off the cold, or clothing, bedding, and firewood — even our food for the winter falls far short, and I honestly do not know what to do! I know this is asking more than I have any right to ask, but of all the thirteen garrison towns of Jingkou, you are the only one I know! How does the court mean to settle us? How are we to get through? I beg you to instruct me."
"Ren Gong, I too drifted here from the north — how could I not know your hardships?" Gao Jian's face did not change; he seemed to have foreseen the question long before. "When you sent your eldest son to my gate the other day, I already knew what you wanted of me. And the kindness you showed at Pengcheng, when you relieved my whole clan, several hundred souls — dead, I could not forget it... You had not come to me before because I was keeping to this garrison post, and I truly did not know you had already reached this Southern Langya Commandery. Now that you have sought me out, of course I will help you with all my strength — otherwise, what face would I have to stand in this world?"
Everyone present grew more delighted still.
"But Ren Gong must understand one thing: I myself arrived only two years ahead of you. To help with all my strength is nothing, yet it may not avail you much." Gao Jian promptly added his caution. "Above all, considering the standing you command, Ren Gong — this move south must have brought a thousand-odd households following you to settle, has it not?"
By now Liu Zhi had relaxed a great deal; hearing this, he could only nod. "As if I did not know your difficulties here, Wenzhen! There really are eight or nine hundred households, several thousand souls... It is daunting just to think of it!"
Leaving aside the others in the room, Liu Huzi and Liu Cheng, the two youngest, could not help exchanging a glance, each thinking that Huzi's father was too honest by half. He actually came out with the plain count, eight or nine hundred households? This was about relief, mind you — claim a thousand-odd, and who could ever count them?
"If Ren Gong wishes to preserve so many of his townsmen, the only hope, naturally, lies in relief from the officials. But to speak frankly: though I am stationed at Jiangsheng, I have no ties within the Langya Commandery — I do not know them, and they know me still less. If they are to be set in motion, it can only be managed through the Grand Commander." Gao Jian wore the same unruffled expression as ever, and spoke as bluntly as ever. "In fact, you ought to know that the officials of Southern Xuzhou do not ignore the refugees entirely — they simply all crowd into Guangling and Guazhou Ferry, where the Grand Commander can see them."
"That stands to reason." Liu Zhi nodded and nodded, yet his nerves crept back. "But tell me, Wenzhen — what sort of man is this Grand Commander? Is he truly in Guangling? Would he be willing to save us?"
"He should be willing," Gao Jian said gravely. "The Grand Commander's family standing is in fact nothing lofty — his father and grandfather were mere commandery governors — and it was only in his generation that they took to discussing the Dark Learning to cultivate renown, winning the name of famed gentlemen... By rights, even his rise should have waited for the next generation, but who could help it that the Empress Dowager took up the regency from behind the curtain? That is how the Grand Commander rose so high. His saving grace is that he is a first-generation famed gentleman: he keeps a clear head, and he has seen the people's misery with his own eyes. In my humble view, whatever the matter, so long as it is laid out plainly before his face, he will not, as a rule, go out of his way to make things hard for anyone."
Liu Zhi breathed easier still, and with him his several sons relaxed as well.
Liu Cheng, though, seemed to have caught something else in it... Explain a matter to his face and he will not deliberately make trouble. But what if you never get to explain it to his face — while his men are flaying men and pulling out their sinews right on the Huai River? Would that not be just the same? And besides, if even a refugee commander off the Huai may be granted a face-to-face word, what about the close attendants at his side, who speak to him every day?
"Besides, I bear the duty of holding this ground and cannot well leave it; I can only recommend you by letter." Gao Jian went on with his instructions. "And while the Grand Commander is in Guangling, it would hardly be proper for me to put in that introduction — we must wait until he turns back to Jingkou."
Liu Zhi started inwardly, and hurried to ask: "It cannot be done just now?"
"Naturally not." Gao Jian's face remained as calm as ever, though toward the man before him he was clearly maintaining some extreme measure of forbearance and patience. "Ren Gong, the Grand Commander is on the Northern Expedition. True, Guangling and Mount Beigu are separated by no more than a river — yet that is the very foundation of whether the Grand Commander is on the Northern Expedition... And I am only the garrison commander of Jiangsheng, posted beside the defenders of Jiankang. How could I, while the Grand Commander is on campaign, go speaking to him about settling the refugees of the émigré Langya Commandery at Jingkou? We must wait until he is back on Mount Beigu."
Liu Ren Gong and his sons only half understood; Liu Cheng was already won over. Judging solely by this man's scattered displays so far today — character no less than ability and insight — he was first-rate. If one did not count Xie An, whom they had met on the road, he was the most formidable great-clan elite Liu Cheng had seen since crossing over into this world.
Of course — the most typical kind of such a man: a great-clan elite from the bottommost rung.
"Then when will the Grand Commander come back to Jiangnan?" Whether or not Liu Zhi had followed, he set aside his earlier confusion and pressed on.
"Rest assured, Ren Gong — at the soonest, three to five days from now; at the latest, early in the ninth month, he will be back." Gao Jian answered calmly. "Wait for word from me."
At this, Liu Ren Gong had even less to say.
It was Liu Huzi who looked faintly startled. "In that case, the Northern Expedition has already been lost?"
Gao Jian gave him a measuring look, then slowly shook his head. "Mind your words."
For the moment Liu Huzi had nothing to say either; he just stood there in a daze.
"If it comes to seeing the Grand Commander, I will do my utmost to arrange everything else properly for you, Ren Gong. Only the words spoken face to face cannot be made in your place — so there is one crucial point I must give you." Gao Jian turned once more to the man beside him. "I beg you to hold it fast in mind."
Liu Zhi pulled himself together and listened intently.
"When you stand before him, Ren Gong, say only this: a thousand households of refugees have attached themselves to you; you were destitute and helpless, yet could not bear to abandon them; you beg the Grand Commander to assign you ground to settle upon, and to have the local authorities provide lodging and relief for the winter. Beyond that, not one word more." Gao Jian's tone was earnest. "Do not speak of being plundered on the Huai. Do not speak of the Langya officials who abandoned you and went off to Guazhou Ferry. And above all, do not seize the chance to demand office or prospects."
"I know, I know. This old man is advanced in years, never held office in all his life, and is nearly in the grave. Having left his native soil behind, would he turn around and beg for rank? Would that not put the Grand Commander in a difficult position?" Liu Zhi, at least, had always known his own measure. "As for lodging complaints at such a moment — am I mad?"
"It is enough that you know it, Ren Gong — but I beg you, keep it firmly in mind." Gao Jian warned him gravely. "And let none of your sons and nephews imagine they may entertain hopes of their own either."
With that, Gao Jian's gaze swept across the Huzi brothers and Liu Cheng, and his tone grew graver still — plainly, these were the ones he truly meant to caution.
"You must understand: here in Jiangdong, ever since Emperor Yuan's southward crossing, those who have come are far too many. By the letter of the law, all scholars are alike; the court's documents acknowledge nothing beyond premier gates of the second grade and secondary gates. But in practice everything was sorted and layered long ago, rank upon rank — where is there a place left for the likes of us, drifting exiles? All we receive is a borrowed name on the white register, no call to serve as laborers, and a little face kept intact — nothing more.
"Some of this is ugly to hear, but it is the truth. For northerners like us to be acknowledged as scholars at all, for men of pedigree to be willing to bend their heads and exchange a word with us, is already remarkable — office, indeed? Press your demands, and the only thing you will win is humiliation! The Grand Commander himself is kindly and forbearing, granted; but among the clerks and officers about him there is not one who is easy to deal with — no lack of arrogant men from great families, and no lack of sharp-tongued men from humble ones. Offend any of them, and on the spot we will find ourselves unable to get a single thing done!"
So this was the line from the books: in the top grades there are no scholars of humble stock, and in the bottom grades no sons of great houses... As for drifting gentry like Liu Zhi — of the lowest grade to begin with, and stripped of their foundations — only their membership in the human race had not been revoked; in truth, every road to office was already closed.
Liu Cheng saw it all at once — and hardened his resolve at the same time. Whether others acknowledged it or not did not matter: he must grit his teeth and pass himself off as one of the Pengcheng Liu clan, pretending he had a grandfather who served the Great Jin as an official and a father who served Shi Zhao — only both were dead, and having served Shi Zhao, they were not the sort of thing one spoke of anyway.
In a sense, it was just as well that gentry of the bottommost rung could not hold office. Otherwise, if a real chance at office came and one did not press for it, people would grow suspicious instead.
"But... would not even a detachment commander do?" Of everyone present, Liu Huzi's ambitions were probably the highest, and his temperament the most flighty; heedless of his father's furious glare, he asked outright: "Then how did Uncle Gao come to be a garrison commander?"
For once, Gao Jian smiled bitterly. "Nephew, do you imagine this petty detachment command of mine was something I earned myself? True, the court means to mount the Northern Expedition and expand the Northern Garrison troops — but Jingkou alone holds four or five hundred thousand refugees on the white register, and men the likes of us are truly as common as cartloads and bushelfuls... Besides, they came before we did, on far firmer foundations."
"Then..."
"Do you remember, Ren Gong? That day I told you why I came south: my own elder brother Gao Rou summoned me. He reached Jingkou a dozen years and more before I did; he already had some name to him, and he set about learning pure conversation from the beginning, moving from Confucian learning into the Dark Learning, and a few years ago he finally established himself in Kuaiji — so far established that he could count Xi Linhai, son of the former Minister over the Masses Xi, as his neighbor... And even so, for recommending me into the Northern Garrison and making me this garrison commander, he was mocked by Kuaiji's leisured famed gentlemen, and gave up the face he had spent a dozen years and more building up." Gao Jian turned to Liu Zhi as he spoke, but by the end the words came hard. "Ren Gong, you have heaped great kindness on me. Had there been any way, how could I have cast off you and your young men? There was truly none... If the Huzi brothers were willing to start as chiefs of ten or chiefs of five and wait for a company commander's post to fall vacant, I would naturally take them for my own sons and nephews — but are they willing?"
The Liu brothers exchanged looks, each one's heart sinking. It was Liu Zhi who hurried to console them: "The north was in such chaos — just to have come through alive is already extraordinary. What talk is this of prospects? The white register suits me well enough; the thing to be now is a man of comfortable property. With you for our shield, I need not fear being plundered again. I ask only that the children live safe and sound."
If the Huzi brothers felt only more deflated, Liu Cheng found himself agreeing more and more. He had a point, hadn't he? First secure the resources to get through the winter; after the winter, head farther south or put up a fortified manor on the spot; wait for the company to go public... no — wait for them to get on their feet... He would attach himself to them and ladle himself a mouthful of the soup, and in a few years this Liu fellow would have scraped together some capital, gathered in refugees on the momentum, and put up an even bigger fortified manor farther south. Was that not satisfaction enough?
Why insist on becoming an official?
And soldiering was no good either!
Soldiering now, above all — nine times out of ten it would mean the Northern Expedition... He might be foggy on the small details of this history, but not the broad strokes: if Eastern Jin could win the Northern Expedition, where would the Battle of the Fei River have come from? And even such small gains as there were would be the doing of Huan Wen — the man who had only just destroyed Cheng Han!
And even Huan Wen, in the end, must have failed too!
With matters laid bare, Liu Zhi could hardly linger. Having promised over and over that he would make no trouble, and having sat a while longer, he took his leave.
Gao Jian did not press him to stay; he only asked once more exactly where they were lodging now, then rose at once to see them out.
Outside the hall, the laborers and bondservants who had earlier brought the dishes in and carried them off were already leading up the horses; on the mule hung several sacks of something — no telling whether salt or rice.
One could only say this Gao Jian truly had a conscience, and remembered old kindness.
Yet at the gate of the garrison town, as he watched the several men mount and was on the point of turning away, Liu Cheng heard clearly and saw plainly: this Garrison Commander Gao — who might well be called the savior of all these drifting exiles — suddenly turned his head, pointed at the youth who had earlier been stealing glances at Liu Cheng's ragged clothes in the hall, and said in an even voice: "Just now, in the hall, he did not keep the rules — clearing bowls and chopsticks, and gawking at my guests besides. Ten lashes, and put him out!"
Only now did Liu Cheng understand that the youth was a bondservant, not a hired laborer — otherwise, how could he have been turned out so easily?
In the afternoon, under a brilliant autumn sun, the party set out on the road home. By rights, now that the most troublesome matter of the trip had taken shape and the winter looked survivable, everyone ought to have been happy.
In fact, apart from Liu Zhi himself, who was visibly buoyant, the rest of them had all gone strangely blank and listless.
About halfway — not long after they left the Jingkou Road and turned toward Jurong — Liu Huzi, prompted by who knows what, spoke up of a sudden: "Father, if we are to see the Grand Commander, what gifts ought we to prepare?"
"Your eldest brother told Uncle Gao all about what happened on the Huai when he came last time. He knows we have no movable wealth left — he is certain to provide for us." Liu Zhi was quite untroubled.
"Even so, it can only help to prepare more gifts." Liu Huzi answered, knitting his brow. "No one takes offense at too many gifts — and this is the Grand Commander, after all."
"Of course more gifts would be better," Liu Zhi sighed. "But do we have any?"
"I say we hunt a tiger — take the skin and the bones for the Grand Commander." Liu Huzi hurried his idea out, and grew more excited as he spoke. "Did they not say he fell ill in Guangling? Tiger bone for his medicine — and tiger skin suits any circumstance whatsoever; winter best of all."
"If you could truly hunt a tiger, fine — and I know just what you are scheming. But by Uncle Gao's account, we may be called in to see the Grand Commander any day now. We are this poor — how are we to get hunting gear in order, and how long would that take? And even with the gear, how would you so easily find a tiger? To say nothing of how hard tiger hunting is in itself." Liu Huzi's eldest brother Liu Sheng could not help cutting in with mockery. "Suppose you catch no tiger, and take a swipe of claws first — what then?"
Liu Huzi's face darkened with displeasure, and he only muttered: "If we are called in to see the Grand Commander before I have so much as got the gear together, then naturally they will write my talk off as so much wind... But what if it did come off?"
Liu Ren Gong, and both of Huzi's elder brothers, could not be bothered with him; Liu Cheng, naturally, would not put in a word either.
So the rascal grew only more fidgety, glancing this way and that from the saddle, plainly out of patience.
And so it went, for who knows how long, until, just past a fork in the road, Liu Huzi suddenly reined in his horse again: "Father, you go on ahead — I just spotted a nest of bird eggs. I'll go and collect them; A Cheng can carry them back and we'll eat them tonight!"
Everyone thought he was making trouble over nothing; Liu Cheng thought the rascal was making trouble over nothing too. Fortunately, Liu Ren Gong was in good spirits today, while the two elder brothers were in poor ones — none of them had any mind to dress the fellow down, and all rode straight on ahead.
Liu Huzi, for his part, wheeled his horse about and, as expected, came to a halt beside a small path junction, where he pointed far off toward a spot where a stream went chattering by, and dropped his voice: "A Cheng, hunting is second nature to me — my eyes are sharp. Just now I saw what looked like a kudzu-cloth garment spread open and hanging in a tree on the bank over there. Someone must be feeling for fish or bathing there... Slip over quietly, take it, and we mount up and go straight off... Spare us going about in coarse short jackets and being laughed at as a family."
Liu Cheng froze for a moment — then, without a word, swung down from his horse and set off toward the spot.
Chapter 10