He had found the refugee group he could temporarily rely on and confirmed that he was a transmigrator with a heaven-sent head start, yet just one day later he ran into a trivial setback.
Actually, it was nothing more than this: one of the five important possessions he owned—his straw sandals—had been torn completely apart while he helped his companions catch mussels. They had ripped from end to end and could no longer be worn.
For a moment Liu Cheng panicked. The so-called journey from Pengcheng to Jiankang was nothing but the later Xuzhou to Nanjing—seven or eight hundred li! They had barely set out, and he had lost his sandals. How was he supposed to walk?
Would someone die because of this?
Of course, he panicked only briefly. A moment later he realized that when thousands of people were making a long journey together, straw sandals were consumables and there had to be a supply channel.
“A Cheng, go find Old Wang.” Seeing Liu Cheng coming from afar with the broken sandals in hand, the man who had spoken up about the white register the previous evening—now carrying a bundle of firewood by the roadside and feeding tender grass to his sheep—kindly reminded him. “I just saw him pass by. Follow him for a few dozen steps and call for Old Wang. He weaves fine straw juàn; all it takes is half a sheng of millet.”
“Thank you, Brother Qi.” Liu A Cheng was naturally delighted.
“Don’t bring out millet—trade these mussels.” Perhaps because the youth had called him “Brother Qi” so readily, when he came up close, Brother Qi saw the mussels and warned him again in a low voice. “They’re the same. Keep the grain for saving lives.”
Liu A Cheng looked back at the people still catching mussels. Since he had lost the sandals while doing communal work, he felt no embarrassment. After thanking him, he gathered a dozen or so mussels in some leaves, bypassed the man, and went ahead to call out.
Sure enough, when someone shouted for Old Wang, an old man with a grizzled beard and quite a few bits of straw in his hair came out of the column. Two children followed him and stopped by the roadside, and soon a woman pushed out a wheelbarrow.
Liu Cheng saw clearly that a string of straw sandals was tied to the wheelbarrow, and around the old man’s neck hung a half-finished pair of straw sandals on a hemp cord. He never stopped his hands, weaving even as he walked. Liu Cheng could not help but admire him, so he hurried over with the mussels and explained his purpose.
When Old Wang saw the mussels, he frowned and said with displeasure, “Don’t you have a millet pouch at your waist?”
“Is Old Wang still short of millet? The children are young, and we have to keep traveling. They need some meat, or their feet will swell.” Liu Cheng quickly put on a smile. “These were just caught. If we boil them in the evening, they won’t spoil.”
“I’m just afraid they’ll upset their stomachs, and then I’ll have to push them along.” Old Wang glanced at the two children curiously eyeing the mussels, shook his head, but in the end nodded. “Is it really true that without meat one’s feet swell easily? Very well. Take them to my daughter-in-law’s cart over there and have her put them in a clay jar. Leave the ruined juàn as well, and pick a smaller pair for yourself. Many people covet large juàn, not knowing that oversized juàn don’t fit and are more likely to break.”
Liu Cheng silently learned another word: the weavers’ term for this field-use footwear was juàn. Then he followed the man toward the center of the column and found a wheelbarrow with seven or eight pairs of juàn on it. Holding the mussels, he first cupped his hands toward the woman and said, “Mistress.” The greeting startled her into setting down the cart, clasping her hands, and standing there at a loss.
The youth paid no mind to this. In just two days he had grown used to it; among these common folk, many were not good with words.
He simply placed the mussels on the ground, then searched the cart for a small pair of juàn. They didn’t fit, so he chose a smaller pair. Just as he was about to put them on, he saw the woman placing the mussels into an empty clay jar, so he set the juàn down, raised a hand in greeting, and said, “Mistress, don’t worry. Let me get some water for the jar so the mussels don’t dry out in the sun.”
With that, still barefoot, he took the jar, scooped some water from the river where they had just been catching mussels, and returned to hand it to the woman. Only then did he try on the juàn. They fit perfectly, and delight showed on his face. At that moment, after setting down the jar, the woman turned and saw this. Though she still said nothing, she voluntarily pulled a length of something from the cart—whether hemp cord or dried hemp vine, he couldn’t tell—and handed it to him.
By the roadside, the youth bound the sandals and his feet securely, more pleased than ever. He thanked the woman and the frowning Old Wang repeatedly, then turned back to help, enduring the itchy irritation of the new shoes.
It was a small episode, not worth mentioning, but Liu A Cheng kept it in mind. That night, when they made camp, he even refrained from asking Old Liu San any more questions and instead pondered by the campfire.
The reason was simple. During the day, the young man had seen clearly that because Old Wang could weave juàn, he lacked no supplies on the road. The cart pushed by his daughter-in-law had not only far more millet than others, but also cloth, coins, vinegar, salt, and even a rusty short knife without a scabbard. All of it had presumably been traded for juàn. Whether the wheelbarrow had also been obtained that way was unknown.
What was this called?
This was the scarcity of skilled trades in a broad market.
Straw juàn were practically hard currency and a necessity. Even in Jiangnan, they would provide a stable source of income. The Grand Historian had said, “Without wealth, one must sell labor,” and that was true. But selling labor was not the same as selling one’s craft. Shouldn’t a penniless wretch whose body had not yet fully grown give up the daily work of a firewood-gathering laborer and start a business from handicraft?
Being a maker and seller of straw juàn and mats sounded far classier than being a woodcutter, didn’t it?
The only thing to consider was that they were fleeing for their lives. Could he find the spare time to learn such a skill? Would it affect his basic survival? If it delayed gathering firewood and catching mussels, what if Old Liu San refused to give him a second bowl of rice that evening?
But then he thought again: once they reached Jiangnan, wouldn’t he still have to worry about survival? Wouldn’t he still have to think about the next meal every day? If he was going to learn, he had better start early. Once he mastered it, he wouldn’t have to worry about the next meal at all.
Having figured that out, he stopped struggling with the idea. For the next two days, Liu A Cheng did not go directly to seek a master. Instead, while gathering firewood, he repeatedly observed and looked for a target.
There were quite a few people in the column who could weave juàn. Many made and mended their own whenever their juàn wore out, using whatever straw they could find. There were also several at Old Wang’s level whose work was good enough to sell—roughly one for every two or three hundred people. This was probably the result of a buyer’s market.
In fact, by observing the juàn weavers, Liu Cheng gained an unexpected harvest: he roughly estimated the size of the column and discerned its general composition.
The total was probably three or four thousand, including men, women, old, and young. The proportion of able-bodied adults was somewhat high, but this generally matched what people said about over a thousand households.
More specifically, the column was clearly stratified. At the core were the kin, servants, and retainers of Liu Zhi, also known as Lord Ren, including the grain escort led by his eldest son and the guard squad led by his youngest, around four or five hundred people. Then came his Liu clan kin, roughly a thousand. Finally came households of other surnames attached to the column, but they were mostly people from Pengcheng and Pei who had already been dependent on this family.
Returning to the present, after observing the situation, Liu A Cheng ultimately chose Old Wang. The reason was simple. First, he did not want to leave the group of people he already knew—literally, the companions who ate from the same campfire—and Old Wang’s group was not far from theirs. When camping, they were at most one campfire away. Second, he discovered that Old Wang’s son had not gone to the guard squad or anything like that; his son had truly died. This meant that when he went to learn to weave juàn, he could offer some explanation, and resistance might be less.
“Who wants to learn to weave juàn?” Another day passed. In the evening, beside a newly lit campfire, Old Wang, sitting on the ground twisting straw, looked the uninvited young man up and down.
“I am the one who wants to learn.” Liu Cheng was respectful and did not even sit down. “Old Wang, just call me A Cheng.”
“You just said that before settling in Jiangnan, all the juàn you weave will be mine?” Old Wang continued questioning him.
“Of course.”
“And you’ll pound straw for me too?”
“Naturally.”
“I won’t teach you.” Old Wang waved a hand in refusal.
“Why?” The transmigrator’s heart sank, but he still forced a smile.
“What reason could there be?” Old Wang pointed at a woman and two children by the fire watching a clay jar. “Weaving juàn isn’t difficult, and many people know how. If this were back in the village, or after we reached our destination, anyone could learn however they liked. It’s not like being a carpenter, where one has to apprentice to a master for years. But right now we’re on the road, watching over children. How could I have the heart to teach anyone? Let’s wait until we reach the place.”
The words were reasonable. The old man simply did not want complications on the road. Liu A Cheng had nothing to say, so he thanked him again, bowed, took his leave, and returned to his own campfire, thinking he would look for another household the next day.
However, at noon the next day, when the column reached a town, a commotion broke out and interrupted Liu A Cheng’s plans once more.
It was not that the local people resisted the refugees or anything like that. In fact, most of the locals had already left. Rather, when the officer stationed there distributed new supplies according to documents from Pengcheng, the grain given to the column became the same inferior kind Liu Cheng had received at the very beginning.
What was owed was eight sheng; what they handed over was seven sheng, mixed with sand and stones, and there wasn’t even the old excuse of a deduction for the sack any longer. It was a flat reduction.
Naturally, the people in the column were furious, and Liu Huzi led men on horseback with bows to clamor before the camp.
But it came to nothing. The local officer paid no attention at all, simply closing the camp gate and watching coldly from behind the fence. Then Liu Cheng saw Lord Ren appear for the first time. He looked fifty or sixty, with graying beard and hair. He brought his two older sons, directly drove his youngest son back, then sent his eldest son forward to salute and negotiate. Only after repeated pleas did they resume distributing grain.
To the transmigrator, this sort of thing was commonplace.
From the soldiers’ perspective, this place was already more than a hundred li from Pengcheng. Heaven was high and the Grand Commander far away. Could they expect these Great Jin soldiers to love the people as their own children? This was one of the darkest periods in Chinese history. The fact that they were willing to give seven sheng of grain already reflected the Grand Commander’s lingering prestige and the dignity of the imperial army, all right?
From the refugees’ side, so many people had abandoned their homes and livelihoods to come this far. The crops in the fields had already been cut early. Could they go back? Would they dare attack a camp or town with a crowd of women and children while Jin Northern Expedition troops were everywhere? If not, they had no choice but to endure.
So things were bound to turn out this way.
What the youth had not expected, however, was that this incident would deal a huge blow to the column’s morale. Or rather, what truly surprised Liu Cheng was that Lord Ren, though he knew to stop his youngest son and ask for grain to be reissued, did not promptly reassure the over a thousand households of Huai-region refugees who had followed him all this way. He let grumbling run rampant, and the day dragged on, delaying both the replenishment of firewood and the continuation of the journey.
That was not all. As evening approached, the cooks had barely finished collecting the grain when a light rain began to fall. In the wilderness, no one could even eat a hot meal, and the situation grew worse.
Many of the elders had noticed the weather that afternoon and warned that it might rain at night, but things had been so chaotic that no one bothered to keep order. They dragged on until the rain came, and then their belated reaction only deepened the column’s panic and resentment.
Of course, none of this had much to do with the transmigrator. He was just a youth who wrapped a futou around his head to look like an adult, and a late-summer drizzle was hardly enough to overwhelm him. Lord Ren’s outward strength and inward weakness as a refugee commander were not something an outsider like him could comment on. So he merely crouched under a tree with his companions, sheltering from the rain while eating ridiculously sour wild fruit and grimacing along with their complaints.
When Brother Qi mentioned for the third time that his sheep had been rained on and might fall ill, Old Wang unexpectedly came over on his own.
“Old Wang, you’re willing to teach me?” Liu Cheng was clearly surprised.
“We have no dinner to speak of, and nothing to do. There’s still light, so now is just the time to teach you. If you’re clever, you’ll learn it in one night.” Old Wang’s tone was still stiff.
Liu A Cheng guessed something. Perhaps today’s events had given the old man a sense of crisis, and he wanted to lower his posture within the column, especially since his family truly consisted of the old, the weak, women, and children. For the youth, however, it was only learning to weave juàn; there was nothing serious about it. He nodded readily, said a word to the companions around him, and followed.
Unlike the transmigrator’s group, which had been deliberately made up of stronger laborers and unmarried men, Old Wang’s group clearly leaned more toward women and children. Not only was Old Wang’s daughter-in-law there, holding two children with a worried face and looking at the sky, but many women and elders were also looking up. Even when grumbling, they did not shout loudly like the able-bodied men nearby; they muttered quietly.
What struck Liu A Cheng as novel was that he heard someone chanting an incantation for the first time. The person had broken off a branch and was chanting while holding it, making many women kneel in worship nearby, but he could not tell whether it was Buddhist chanting or Daoist recitation.
None of this, however, got in the way of learning to weave juàn. The craft was really quite simple. There were only three or four key technical points, and he quickly understood them. How to beat dry straw to soften it? How to begin by twisting straw into a thick rope to make the “core strand”? Then how to make several thin straw cords as the “warp cords”? Then how to continuously add straw to the core strand to lengthen it, so that warp and weft could interlace into a netlike structure? How to find a simple shoe mold and pull, squeeze, and beat it to shape the shoe? Finally, one might find some cattail to thread through as something like shoelaces.
And so, before dark, Liu A Cheng was holding a straw juàn that was slightly crooked in shape and whose core strand was a little loose in the middle, and he proudly proclaimed himself a glorious member of the skilled trades.
It is said that human joys and sorrows are not shared, and fates differ completely. While the column suffered a great setback and everyone was most depressed, Liu A Cheng succeeded in changing professions, and financial freedom seemed just around the corner. Over the next few days, perhaps by coincidence, the situation reversed.
Several clear days passed in succession. The column’s morale gradually recovered. The guard squad sent out to drive away beasts even found a wild persimmon grove, saving everyone two whole meals! For a time, laughter and joy filled the column, and everyone seemed to have forgotten that day. Only Liu A Cheng was vexed because the juàn he wove did not meet standards. In Old Wang’s words, A Cheng was clever and quick, learning at a glance, but his mind was never on the work when weaving. His work was always crude: either the core strand came apart in the middle, or the warp cords were too dense. If they were actually sold, they would break within two days, and the buyers would come back looking for him.
The youth still could not refute this.
In fact, over those days the column had stabilized, and he had relaxed somewhat. He became curious about everything: Buddhism and Daoism, oxen and horses, wheelbarrows, flute players, and the cities, forts, rivers, woods, and beasts they passed on the road.
It was as if only after acquiring a skill to rely on did this transmigrator dare to slowly and actively observe and adapt to this world.
So he could comfort himself: it was fine. He had mastered the basic skill; all that remained was proficiency. Making a fortune by weaving juàn was only a matter of time.
Soon, the column reached the Huai River.
There was no pontoon bridge over the Huai, but there were plenty of ferry boats. This time, the negotiation at the crossing went smoothly. The troops stationed there, after seeing the flag issued by the Grand Commander and inspecting the documents, almost immediately agreed, promising to distribute grain before letting them cross. Even the quality of the grain returned to what it had been at Pengcheng.
The refugees were naturally overjoyed. They lined up to receive grain, then followed the directions through the camp to the crossing behind it, preparing to board separately.
When they arrived at the crossing, the local officers seemed quite responsible, repeatedly questioning and checking out of concern that someone might be left behind. They did not allow boarding until nearly dusk, which caused the refugees to surge forward.
However, whether because the transmigrator was suspicious or because the eyes of this body were sharp, Liu Cheng suddenly noticed that every boat, large or small, had armed soldiers aboard besides the boatmen. These men were also watching the refugees boarding their respective boats. If they saw women and children carrying boxes, they looked pleased; if they saw a group of sturdy men, they cursed. Those carrying farm tools were not allowed onto small boats. Around the crossing, inside and out, people smiled and pointed at the refugees.
Not only that, but the first boats to set out also scattered far upstream and downstream.
Liu A Cheng immediately felt something was wrong, but if his guess was true, they were already caught in the trap. He was not someone with authority, so he could not speak plainly. Just before boarding, he improvised: he poured the remaining half sack of millet into the newly received sack, then right there at the crossing grabbed several large handfuls of gravel and put them into the old sack. He tied it tightly with dry hemp vine, then called his companions—mostly strong laborers—to the far edge of the crossing. Together they boarded a small boat that could carry only ten or so people. Such boats had only one soldier escorting them.
As expected, once out on the water, the boat veered strongly downstream. Just after passing the middle of the river, when the details of other boats could no longer be seen, the two boatmen suddenly laid their oars across the boat and let it drift downstream.
Then, under the bewildered gazes of most of the people aboard, the escorting soldier stood up with his knife, stretched out his other hand, and spoke without any preamble. He was blunt, even impatient:
“Pay up! Five hundred coins each!”
Chapter 2