At supper, Liu Cheng was allotted a wooden bowl of fish soup, with a few slices of fish actually in it. Counting the noon meal, this was a genuine day of extra rations; at night he need not lie on the haystack drooling over thoughts of pickled greens stewed with tofu.
The mood in camp was none too bad either — thanks chiefly to the great store of coarse salt and vinegar cloth Ren Gong had brought back from Garrison Commander Gao. There was also a sack of coarse flour: word was that tomorrow Liu Zhi's whole household would be eating botuo, though no one knew quite what that was. And even Liu Jili, seizing his chance by presenting the fish, had won Ren Gong's approval to stay in the camp and help with the tiger hunt.
Best of all, the moment Liu Ren Gong returned that afternoon he had announced the good news: before long he would call on the Grand Commander to request official settlement... No one was to sit idle either — walls were to go up where walls needed going up, firewood stockpiled where firewood needed stockpiling, reed fluff and rice straw gathered to fill out their clothing; on no account must preparations for winter be delayed. With that the whole camp fell into a state of high spirits.
One could imagine there would still be setbacks, casualties, and toil ahead, but this winter looked like it could be gotten through; and once this winter was survived, seizing the chance to clear wasteland and sowing next year would all follow as a matter of course. In a word: things were looking up.
Though whether it was his imagination or not, Liu Cheng kept feeling that the Liu Zhi family was eyeing him rather more often than before... It wasn't as if he had eaten any more than usual, was it?
After the meal, Liu Cheng first begged a needle and thread from Liu Huzi's eldest sister and sewed that band back on for Liu Jili, then took the man back to his own haystack. At last the transmigrator had found someone plainly versed in, and genuinely concerned with, current affairs — someone with whom he could go over the military and political situation that was awkward to discuss outright in front of outsiders.
That's right: the fifth year of Yonghe — though he didn't know which Common Era year that came to, this much he knew; and he knew too that here in the Eastern Jin a little emperor had been on the throne some four or five years. What took him aback was that this ruler was still a child of eight or nine. That the young Empress Dowager Chu ruled from behind the lowered curtain he had learned earlier; but that the Prince of Kuaiji, Sima Yu, commanded the palace guards and also directed the Department of State Affairs as co-regent — that he was learning only now.
Honestly, Liu Cheng felt dazed to hear it — but it really was so. Empress Dowager Chu was the first empress dowager in Chinese history to rule from behind a lowered curtain in the literal sense; everyone who came after was copying her. And as for imperial princes serving as co-regents — surely that had always been a grand old Jin tradition?
All one could say was, thank heaven the court had not been split into an Eastern and a Western Palace with two dowagers, or the resemblance would have been altogether too close.
And before long he could pick out what was distinctive about the Eastern Jin. First came the classic tradition of eminent imperial in-laws, a thing Liu Cheng had heard about many times: the Grand Commander Chu Pou, who now held Jingkou and the Northern Garrison army, was in fact Empress Dowager Chu's own father; while the Chen Commandery Xie clan — a newly risen family whose name rang a bell at first hearing — who controlled the Western Garrison army in Jiangbei's Yuzhou (the Hefei direction), were the Empress Dowager's maternal kin. Standard imperial in-laws, every one... which must have been the political base on which Xie An and Xie Xuan would later stride onto history's stage as its protagonists. Imperial in-laws commanding armies outside, an imperial prince assisting in governance within — a balance struck between the two.
Then there was Huan Wen, heir to the independent-kingdom posture that Jingzhou upstream had maintained since the Eastern Jin's founding. This man had, only the year before last, destroyed Cheng-Han, which held the Shu region, and his prestige had swollen greatly; he had seized the moment to take control of Jiangzhou, and reportedly Jiaozhou besides. His very existence was the reason all these people downstream held together. The situation had settled into a kind of two-tier balance that looked fairly harmonious.
As for what came after, Liu Cheng needed no one to explain — he had heard it on the road until his ears grew calluses: everything, everything had changed with the death of one man this summer.
Shi Hu — a name every later-age netizen knew by heart, the byword for tyrants — had died this past May. His death directly triggered the collapse of the Shi Zhao regime and a new round of the free-for-all scramble in the north. And facing the total collapse of their old enemy, the Eastern Jin court, which styled itself the true succession, from top to bottom put the Northern Expedition on the agenda. That two-tier balance would soon be broken by the unavoidable Northern Expedition. Indeed, this had also "directly caused" Liu Cheng to go south alone and drift to Jingkou with the people of this camp.
"You came from the north. Do you know the situation up there?"
Just as Liu Cheng — who had been through a great deal today and had only just been schooled in "the great trend of the realm" — was settling to sleep soundly in his haystack, Liu Jili beside him began, of all things, to quiz him in return.
I know jack!
Liu Cheng jolted wide awake, and, helpless, could only screw up his courage and ask back: "What sort of situation does Brother Jili wish to know?"
"So the Shi Zhao Jie barbarians really cannot hold out?" Liu Jili asked in earnest.
"Inevitably so." Liu Cheng let out a breath and forced himself on. "Shi Hu was savage and cruel to that degree — ruling Han through Hu, a few lording it over the many. While he lived he had a stockpile of terror to draw on; once he died, the whole thing naturally split. It is past all saving."
"Then who will take his place?" Liu Jili pressed.
Liu Cheng cast his mind back carefully, pieced together a few impressions, and produced a logically sound answer: "No one can replace him in the short term — but plenty can carve him up and eat their share, setting themselves up as territorial lords... The Murong Xianbei can swallow Hebei; the Di of Fu can swallow Guanzhong, no? Then give it a few decades to settle who wins."
Liu Jili found this exceedingly strange and fired straight back: "You came from Hebei. The Di you mean must be Pu Hong of Fangtou. Where does this 'Fu Di' of yours come from, to be set against the Murong Xianbei?"
"The Di chieftain is surnamed Pu?" Liu Cheng's heart lurched, and he hurried to ask. "If it's only the one family, it must be Fu, surely? When I heard it, everyone said Fu — Fu written with the grass radical set over a 'fu.' Either you misheard or I've misremembered..."
"Grass-fu shall be king..." Liu Jili froze a moment, then started — and, remarkable to say, talked his own way through it first. "Could it be that on account of that prophecy they changed the grass-fu surname? I'd long heard that Pu Hong's family believed in the apocryphal prophecies."
"I only heard it said that way by others. Maybe they really did change their surname." Liu Cheng hurried to paper over the gap.
"So that's how it is." Liu Jili nodded — and, incredible as it seemed, reasoned it all out for himself. "Pu Hong and the Di of Fangtou seem to have submitted to the court in name the moment Shi Hu died, yet privately they're dabbling in prophecies and changing their surname — their ambition plainly undiminished. They came out of Guanzhong, so slipping into a Guanzhong left empty and setting up there is only reasonable... Only, what about the Qiang?"
"What Qiang?"
Liu Cheng's panic deepened. That Fu Jian's family were Di, that they would rise, that they would fight the Battle of Fei River — that much he knew. But which house of heroes were the Qiang supposed to be? The Five Barbarians and Sixteen Kingdoms had been such a tangle, and he was no history student; at most he had read a few web novels and watched a few videos. How could he possibly remember it clearly?
"Yao Yizhong and his Qiang at Setou, of course!" Liu Jili answered without missing a beat. "Yao Yizhong came out of Guanzhong with Pu... with Fu Hong to submit to Shi Zhao. One was settled at Setou, the other at Fangtou — the Two Heads, people called them. Every time an army marched they served as its left and right wings; they were always named together... Yao Yizhong must want to return to Guanxi too."
"Didn't you ask me who would win?" Liu Cheng hastened to muddy the waters. This Yao-someone he truly did not know — it was the first time he had even heard the name — so he could only guess that the man and the Qiang power behind him would be the losers. "I'd say Fu Hong has the greater talent and strategic vision. They can beat the Qiang."
"It's not that I think the Qiang inferior to the Di — they only want to get back to Guanzhong — but the Di do have the advantage, for Fangtou, which the Di hold, sits squarely on the Qiang's only road back to Guanzhong." In the darkness Liu Jili gave a low grunt and offered his view all the same. "But does the court simply ignore Guanzhong? Sima Xun, Governor of Liangzhou, is at Hanzhong — he is sure to send troops, no? And Huan the Western Campaigner — his troops are in Jingzhou; couldn't he take Guanzhong through Wuguan as well?"
"The Grand Commander is off campaigning in Qingzhou himself..." Liu Cheng was finally struck speechless.
Liu Jili choked on that at once and said no more. Liu Cheng, naturally, breathed easier and went back to sleep.
No telling how long it was before Liu Jili, still awake, called over from the other side of the haystack: "Say the Shi Zhao does fall apart — the armies remain. Can it be that no Han hero will come out to gather up the pieces? Shi Min holds the main strength of the palace armies; Li Nong has the Qihuo army. Will they not do?"
Liu Jili was not really expecting an answer — a soft snore had begun on the other side, and by the fellow's earlier line of thinking the answer had been given anyway: the Murong clan would win. And indeed, the snoring only hitched for a moment before rising again, slow and steady. Liu Jili said nothing more, turned over, and slept.
Early the next morning, Liu Huzi of all people came looking for them on his own, wanting only to talk on about the tiger hunt. Liu Jili did not hedge in the least — he had even prepared for it beforehand. And Liu Cheng was ready to use the moment to slip away... This business, he wanted no part of.
It was Liu A-Hu who was baffled instead: "Where are you off to, A-cheng?"
"To eat, naturally." Liu Cheng's heart was in a fluster.
"I've brought steamed millet rice." Liu Huzi pointed at the horse behind him. "New millet from Garrison Commander Gao — enough for the three of us on the road. The others will finish eating and gather up with us..."
"We don't need many men at first — what we need is a mule to carry things." Liu Jili put in from the side. "Today is chiefly for buying gear."
However tempting the new-millet rice, and no tiger to be touched today, Liu Cheng still feared being tangled in this business and protested at once: "They still need my help with the straw sandals, and today is market day again!"
"A true man's ambitions run a thousand li — how can you spend every day thinking of weaving mats and hawking sandals?" Liu Huzi was past exasperation. "Just leave that to Third Uncle!"
Liu Cheng was on the point of treating the man to another lecture on Liu Xuande when Liu Jili cut in yet again: "If your everyday weaving of sandals and selling of mats, A-cheng, are for the camp's livelihood, then the tiger hunt is right now the greatest matter of livelihood this camp has — for only the Grand Commander can settle and relieve so many people; everything else is so much empty talk. How can you say you will not go? And if you truly have ambition, and the weaving and hawking were only a way of muddling through your days, then now is when you ought to weigh the future of the camp's elders — otherwise, even if you join the army for the Northern Expedition someday, who will want you?"
Why must he lay out such piercing logic? And why call out his carefully built persona like that?
Liu Cheng felt powerless for a moment, yet had to admit the man was not merely cornering him with words — he genuinely had a point. If he wanted his own fortified manor someday, he would be counting on borrowing another's hen to lay his eggs; shoulder no responsibilities in the camp, and who would follow you?
And for the camp as it stood, the greatest task of all was to be ready for the call on the Grand Commander.
Cornered, he had no choice but to ask: "So where do we buy the gear? And where does the money come from?"
"Brother Jili said last night there's a market close by. We look at gear first — if the gear serves, the money will surely come." Seeing the man had stopped dithering, Liu Huzi waved a hand hastily. "Only let's settle it quickly — no time to waste."
With that, the few of them let the matter drop. First they went and fetched that poor mule, then set off along the highway out of the camp, dividing the millet balls among themselves as they walked. At the mouth of the valley, after a short wait, another seven or eight stout men with bows slung on their backs duly gathered. So Liu Jili led the way in front, Liu A-Hu rode in full martial splendor, Liu Cheng led the mule alongside, the other seven or eight followed behind, and off they strode, heads high.
This time they did not take the Jingkou Road north; following Liu Jili, they went south along the Jurong Road instead. But long before Jurong or Jincheng they turned east onto a small lane; after only a few li they bent once more to the south, went another seven or eight li, and climbed a low hill — whereupon their view opened all at once, and a rather large, fenced market came into sight.
Though still some way off, they could already see field paths crisscrossing on every side, people coming and going — plainly a bustling place.
From the saddle, Liu A-Hu praised it at once: "Good thing we have Brother Jili, or we'd never have known there was such a place here."
Almost by instinct, Liu Cheng grinned too: "Next time we could sell our straw sandals here..."
"You can't." Liu Jili turned back with a grave warning. "This is no roadside market, nor an official market — it is a private market. Every shop and every good inside is Master Du's personal property; even his own household's mats and straw sandals are sold here. How would he let yours in?"
Liu Cheng froze again — then saw it in a flash. From the moment he reached Jingkou he had been dreaming of a fortified manor; who could have guessed the nearest one was this close? And this grand! For a moment his spirits soared: he meant to observe and study it properly, and carry its excellent business experience forward someday. In fact, at those words even Liu Huzi and the able-bodied men following along had a change come over their eyes.
And as the party drew near the market, Liu Cheng at once noticed several odd things. For one, the women met on the road were too many — and mostly young women besides — and these women carried themselves with such easy, open poise that several of the able-bodied men could not stop stealing glances, while the women even teased their party of their own accord, wholly unlike the women who had fled from the Huai region. For another, there was altogether too much of that great red — crimson marks of every kind, on the people themselves and on the market's banners — so many that, walking further in, they found the merchants and goods-owners passing in and out, and the farmers coming and going, men and women alike, nearly every one wearing a crimson headcloth binding the hair.
While Liu Cheng was still muddled, Liu A-Hu suddenly had his realization and asked in a low voice from the saddle: "Brother Jili — is the master of this place of the Way of the Celestial Masters?"
"You are new arrivals, to be sure — but you don't know Master Du? He is the head of the Way of the Celestial Masters in Jingkou..." Liu Jili looked surprised in turn. "It is said the Prince of Kuaiji who administers the court, and many of the Wang and Xie young gentry of the day — including sons of the southern Shen, Gu, Zhang and Lu clans — all honor him as their teacher... We are only here to buy things. Do not make a stir, and do not speak his name."
Liu A-Hu was greatly alarmed.
"But don't worry overmuch." Liu Jili, resigned, comforted them again. "Master Du keeps a dozen or more of these estate markets across the Three Wu region, and he must make the rounds of high officials and nobles everywhere — paying calls, averting misfortune, offering blessings, conferring Daoist registers (lu). He keeps houses outside Iron-Urn City (Tiewengcheng) and within Jiankang besides. Where would he find time to come to this market?... Just take it as the private market of an ordinary fortified manor. Only under Master Du's name could so many weapons lie inside with no one coming to inspect them."
Only then did Liu Huzi relax.
Liu Cheng, on the other hand — knowing this to be a seat of the Way of the Celestial Masters — grew only more curious, and his focus was forever its own: "Brother Jili, how did Master Du's market estate come to be? Offerings from his followers?"
"Naturally so." Liu Jili nodded. "The faithful offer up grain, sons and daughters, fields and shops — people and property alike all enter the Dao... Though this estate here, I remember someone saying, was a gift to Master Du from the Wuxing Shen clan... which in a way still counts as an offering from the faithful, no?"
Liu Cheng clicked his tongue, feeling rather helpless. So that was how such a fortified manor was built — a method he plainly could not copy.
Liu Huzi thought more like a youngster: his heart settled at first, but after walking a while longer they met three or four young women in crimson headcloths coming toward them, first singing Wu-country songs none of them could make out, then pointing and teasing at their party as they passed. He truly could not hold it in, and once the women were by, he asked: "Brother Jili — people say that men and women entering the Dao must couple under a preceptor's guidance, and that the preceptors of the Dao keep upwards of a hundred wives and concubines at a stroke, and often hold grand gatherings where all decency is thrown off. Is there any truth in that?"
Liu Jili, resigned, swept his eyes around, then explained in a low voice to Liu Huzi and the crowd of red-faced able-bodied men: "Entering the Dao means first offering grain to take a master, and then an ordained preceptor guides men and women in coupling to dissolve their sins — that much is true. But as for a hundred wives and concubines, or gatherings without decency and the like... those are just the household courtesans of the extravagant great clans! It is all the same thing!"
At these words, not only did Liu Huzi blink and then catch on at once — even Liu Cheng saw it. Of course — how was this any different from the hundreds, even thousands, of household courtesans kept by the great clans who vied in extravagance, as every old story told? Besides, the great clans could hold office — could an ordained preceptor of the Celestial Masters do so? If you could hold an office on earth, would you need to become a Celestial Official inscribed on the heavenly registers?
Seen that way, were the preceptors of the Way of the Celestial Masters anything more than low-ranking great clansmen with money? No different from the petty overlords of an ordinary fortified manor.
At that thought, Liu Huzi's sense of novelty evaporated on the spot.
Liu Cheng thought further, and shook his head all the more. He was a transmigrator with no firsthand feel for great-clan life, and he was used to viewing things from the bottom rung... After all, if a difference had to be named: among the great clans, a beauty was merely an expendable in their games of urging wine; in the Way of the Celestial Masters, young women were the means of drawing able-bodied men in as bondservants — and that, in the end, would attract and unite the young and strong. Yes — unite.
Perfect strangers entering the Dao through ritual coupling, together with the orgies at the grassroots — this was probably not just indulgence and the sharing of sexual resources; it must also have been the most extreme, most unorthodox way of breaking down barriers and forging small-group identity. Some extreme little groups and cliques of later ages were not lacking in similar practices.
These were days when ritual law outside could hardly be called strict — and yet the teaching of propriety objectively existed, and, history being the judge, neither the Way of the Celestial Masters nor that so-called Wei-Jin free spirit had ever knocked it down; propriety was the final victor... So then: ritual law binding them outside, taxes, corvée, and the scourge of war pressing in, while inside even the most basic sense of shame was cast off, and small groups were forged through the exchange of body fluids and the pooling of goods — until within such a group, every member was someone you could stand naked before and lean on economically. Could such a small group fail to be solid?
Only — even the unlawful organizations of later ages covered the practice up when they used it, and the Way of the Celestial Masters shed these things in time. Clearly such arrangements had little staying power... A moment's thought said why: how were private family property and the will to work to be secured? Could genuine personal freedom and real love survive inside such a thing? And going by the lessons of history, these self-sealed little groups arrayed against secular law and tradition easily breed internal tyrants or degenerates of a yet more extreme kind — all the more when the group is religion through and through. It truly could not be taken as a road to the future.
But if one truly meant to build a fortified manor, it would truly be hard to compete with this.
Nor was that all. Done with the Celestial Masters, he thought of the court intelligence gathered from Liu Jili the night before, and found it stranger still — up north, a new crest of the Five Barbarians' upheaval, a free-for-all scramble; down south, an empress dowager behind the lowered curtain, a prince as co-regent, then great clans layered in clear ranks dividing the court clean among themselves, with Huan Wen rising upstream besides; and even among these few hundred thousand people of Jingkou there were the Grand Commander, the Northern Garrison army, high great clans and low great clans, refugees, fortified manors — and the Way of the Celestial Masters. Oh, and still to come: the Northern Expedition, and the tiger hunt — and the camp was supposed to be on the mend. Truly a scene of bursting vitality, the ten thousand things competing to flourish.
Only — amid all this dazzle, where was his own place? And when would his fortified manor ever be built? He could hardly wait!
While he was still thinking, the party had already arrived at the private market, and straight after Liu Jili they sought out several particular shops — first big nets and hemp rope, then blades, then bows and arrows. By the end Liu Huzi's brows were knitted tight; he walked straight out with his arms folded across his chest and told Liu Jili bluntly: "Brother Jili, some things are serviceable. But as for blades and bows — these are less presentable than the pieces I brought from the Huai. How are we to hunt a fierce tiger with them?"
Liu Jili was naturally embarrassed — and plainly wavered besides.
Now, Liu Cheng had held his tongue all this while because he knew nothing of such things; seeing the two men's reactions, he asked point-blank: "Brother Hu — to hunt a fierce tiger, what should we look for?"
"Spears first — long ones. And the bows must be stiff and strong, naturally." Liu A-Hu answered straight off. "As for ropes and such for the pit traps, those they are willing to sell."
"Then, Brother Jili — have they long spears and stiff bows here?" Liu Cheng nodded, and asked the other man.
"They are sure to have them," Liu Jili answered in a low voice. "But these are not things for common folk — and as I have said, this is Master Du's own private market. If they are unwilling to bring them out, what can we do?"
As he spoke he tipped his chin. The other two followed his glance — and sure enough, in the shop just behind them a big fellow in a crimson headcloth was chatting with a long-gowned steward in a crimson headcloth, all the while running their eyes over their party.
Clearly that long-gowned steward had been tipped off and had come over specially to keep the situation in hand; the shops inside this market were deliberately refusing to sell to their band of outsiders.
Seeing this, and hearing that, even Liu Huzi, once it sank in, deflated somewhat — plainly he too stood in awe of the Celestial Masters' name.
But Liu Cheng — who had already won himself over on the road, stripping the Way of the Celestial Masters of its mystery — thought nothing of it. He pushed the mule's lead into Liu Jili's hands, turned straight back into the shop, cupped his hands in salute to the two men within, and raised his voice at once: "Health to you, fellow Daoists! Might there be an ordained Celestial Official in residence here? We are men of the Pengcheng Liu clan. The gentleman outside is the direct grandson of Xi Gong, sometime Governor of Yanmen and General of the Household Who Protects the Xiongnu. Entrusted by Garrison Commander Gao of Jiangsheng, an old family friend, we are to hunt a tiger for Grand Commander Chu, to present at his Double Ninth audience — and so we hoped to find some sturdy gear in your honored establishment. If any such is on hand, we beg you to make us known to him."
The two men in the shop, watching a man dressed in a coarse short jacket and coarse trousers who until now had been as silent as any attendant lackey come walking in and hold forth so grandly, were at first taken aback and suspicious; halfway through they were plainly thrown into a fluster, hastily letting go of what they held and drawing themselves up to stand at attention; and by the time he finished, they were quite at a loss, glancing helplessly at one another.
Chapter 12