Jincheng was the seat of the emigrant Langya Commandery.
Because Emperor Yuan, Sima Rui, had crossed south in his capacity as the Prince of Langya and brought over a thousand households of Langya commoners with him, Langya Commandery—or rather, the Principality of Langya—became the very first emigrant commandery or principality established after the Great Jin dynasty's southward crossing.
At first, it merely attached itself to Jincheng at the southern end of Jiangsheng County, devoid of any actual territory. But by the time Huan Wen served as the Administrator of Langya, that fellow's restless nature took over. Not only was he fond of planting trees, but he also loved meddling in administrative affairs, so he petitioned the court for Langya Commandery to be formally endowed with land. In response, the court transferred Jiangsheng County to the emigrant Langya Commandery—making it a commandery in name, but a county in reality—while its commandery seat remained in Jincheng.
As the crow flies, the distance from the refugee camp where Liu Cheng and the others stayed to Jincheng in the west was quite short. However, because traversing the intervening mountains was difficult in those days, one had to detour either via Jingkou Road to the north or Jurong Road to the south; even so, a round trip could easily be completed within a single morning.
Thus Liu Jili, who was reasonably familiar with Jingkou, arrived there early. He properly declared his ancestral seat, his name, and the registered domicile on the white register he had obtained two years earlier, then reported to the commandery office that someone had been killed.
Truth be told, Jincheng possessed a proper Banditry Section, and the legal institutions of the Great Jin were widely acknowledged by later generations to be well developed... Indeed, the Jin and Southern and Northern Dynasties period was an era of major advancement for Chinese law and institutions, which did not conflict with the messy realities of the time. Moreover, since Langya Commandery effectively encompassed only a single county—a commandery in name, a county in fact—coming to the commandery office to report a crime conformed entirely to legal procedure. The commandery clerks dared not be negligent; they immediately summoned this scion of the Pengcheng Liu clan inside, questioning and recording his testimony in detail.
Yet after barely two sentences, the Banditry Section clerks began to wonder if the informant standing before them had lost his mind.
For no other reason than the fact that the crime had occurred inside a refugee camp... In these times, who cared about incidents inside an aristocratic household, a fortified manor, or a refugee band?
One had to realize that law was law, and institutions were institutions, but beyond them lay the fundamental national conditions and national policies!
If nothing else, what was the Great Jin's fundamental national policy?
Before crossing the river, who knew? But after crossing south, everything hinged on one core principle: "Restrain through tranquility, and the multitude will settle on their own."
This was the fundamental national policy handed down since the days of Wang Dao... To put it bluntly, it meant not stirring up trouble. On a grand scale, it meant undertaking no major public works, adhering to an active defense, and avoiding large-scale northern expeditions; on a smaller scale, it meant leaving the aristocratic clans and local magnates to govern themselves. Everything—from incoming northern aristocrats bypassing the estates of local Wu gentry to seize land in Kuaiji, to the white register policy for displaced refugees—stemmed from this same philosophy.
To later generations, such a policy would naturally seem bizarre, but to the newly southern-relocated Jin court of that era, regional tensions, north-south conflicts, economic strains, and class divides had reached such a boiling point that this policy was genuinely a lifesaver.
Not only that: after Wang Dao, anyone who tried to accomplish anything failed without exception, bringing disaster upon themselves—which seemed to further validate the wisdom of this course.
Of course, Huan Wen's conquest of Cheng Han was an exception. It sent shockwaves through the court in Jiankang, leading everyone to feel that avoiding northern expeditions was no longer merely indefensible on moral grounds, but also unacceptable in terms of fundamental national interests.
Moreover, a little reflection made it obvious: emperors sought to centralize authority, scholar-officials yearned for northern expeditions, and lower-ranking gentry looked for political advancement. These were inevitable human desires. Thus, even without Huan Wen, this fundamental state policy was bound to swing incessantly—first "restrain through tranquility, and the multitude will settle on their own," then "reaching the extreme of stillness, thoughts turn to action, but action inevitably brings defeat," and once the imperial army met defeat, it was back to "restraining through tranquility" until "the multitude settled on their own" once more.
Regardless, for now, thirty years after the southward crossing, this state policy had permeated every aspect of the Great Jin and hardened into an entrenched tradition.
Administration and jurisprudence were no exceptions.
If bandits broke into your refugee camp and you killed them, then you killed them—just dig a pit and bury the corpse yourself... Why bother reporting it to the authorities?
Even the fortified manors of the Way of the Five Pecks of Rice were trafficking in military weapons—did you see us stepping in to stop them?
Yet this informant—reasonably well-dressed, armed with an ancestral pedigree, and speaking like an educated gentleman—simply sat there slightly hunched, as if he knew nothing, yet as if he knew everything, recounting the entire affair with painstaking earnestness.
From the look of him, if this wretched case was not properly handled, he might march off to Jiankang the very next moment, strike the Dengwen drum, and present an imperial petition directly to the young emperor!
Of course, back when the court was in Luoyang, few who struck the Dengwen drum ever met a good end; that was merely a jest... The real concern was that this man carried himself with dignity and claimed descent from the Pengcheng Liu clan. If they refused to take the case, what if he used aristocratic connections to make a scene with the higher-ups?
After all, going to the top did not require the Dengwen drum in Jiankang. If he managed to pull strings with any first-rate Second Rank aristocratic clan, who then leaned on Administrator Yuan Zhi, and Yuan Zhi consulted the statutes to inquire into the matter, the blame would surely fall square on the Banditry Section for dereliction of duty.
Should they just pinch their noses and process it? What was a single trip, after all?
Yet the more the fellow talked, the more tangled things became. Household registrations had never been issued; commoners were starving and freezing in displacement; refugees had fled into the mountains to turn to banditry... Neither the people in that refugee camp nor those bandits even possessed registered domiciles. How on earth were they supposed to handle the case?
Seeing this, several clerks from the Banditry Section could not help whispering amongst themselves outside the office:
"Could this fellow be making sport of us?"
"Doesn't look like it. His clothes are fairly neat."
"What's neat about them? He doesn't even have a jinxian cap. Just to show faith in the Dao, he abandoned proper attire and wears a crimson kerchief..."
"Still, his manner and speech are proper. He's definitely a legitimate scion of a great clan."
"So what if he's a scion of a great clan? He's on a white register, and the refugee camp where he stays hasn't even been granted household registration. It's obvious he came from the north with no connections, or else he'd have a noble rank by now. If you ask me, he's just stirring up trouble. Call a couple of rough fellows to beat him out with staves and be done with it—we can pretend this never happened!"
"We can't act rashly! There are two sticky points here. First, the Grand Commander lies sick over there, making this an awkward time. This man showed up under suspicious circumstances, and who knows if some powerful figure isn't using this affair to set the forest ablaze. Second, if we strictly follow the law, failing to act would indeed be our fault..."
"If someone wanted to set the forest ablaze, it would be aimed at Administrator Yuan. But our Administrator Yuan comes from such a profound lineage, and he holds the closest marital ties with both the Xie and Yin clans. Who would target him? Besides, who is this fellow? Has he eaten a tiger's gall?"
"What tiger's gall? If he can't get it reported today, could we actually volunteer to take it to the administrator? At most, he'll take two blows of a staff and get kicked out."
"That's why they say: better safe than sorry. Besides, what does Administrator Yuan's deep background have to do with us? If someone really sets the forest ablaze, that fellow inside and the rest of us will be wiped out with a single wave of a high official's hand..."
"Then why not just handle the case by the book? Send someone over with a couple of burly soldiers, rule it a bandit attack, close the case, and have them dig a pit on the spot to bury the man. Wouldn't that settle it? Why wear ourselves out standing here guessing?"
"I already told you, those people have no registered domicile. Both the dead man and the killers are refugees who arrived this year; they haven't even been entered on white registers... It won't pass muster on paper. It's a massive headache!"
"If you ask me, this matter isn't nearly so convoluted." Just then, the commandery's Director of the Banditry Section, who had evidently been listening for some time, strolled out from the side wing with his hands behind his back. "It's likely that the refugees who returned with the Grand Commander this year have received no relief. Seeing that they won't survive the winter, with even their refugee commander gone and outside bandits circling them, they're anxious. Having just killed a bandit, some clever displaced gentry member inside came up with this scheme to remind our commandery not to forget to issue their household registers, not to forget their winter relief, and not to forget to distribute seed grain to them next spring."
The crowd hurriedly bowed to greet him, but the director, who appeared only in his thirties, waved his hand to stop them.
"Then dare we ask Your Honor, how should we proceed?" Seeing that their immediate superior had a clear view, an older clerk promptly bowed and sought instructions.
"Simple. Such matters fall under the purview of the Civil Affairs Section. We'll issue a formal dispatch requesting Civil Affairs to clarify their household registers so that we can proceed to handle the homicide. When the man inside learns of this, he'll surely be delighted." The Director of the Banditry Section stroked his beard. "As it happens, this northern Chu fellow claiming to be from the Pengcheng Liu clan wears a crimson kerchief. Civil Affairs might be quite delighted to see him, too."
The clerks could only chuckle dryly. They realized full well that whether someone above intended to set the forest ablaze remained uncertain, but their own director had decided to strike a spark first, giving the newly arrived Director of the Civil Affairs Section a taste of his authority.
That Director of the Civil Affairs Section had a prestigious background, true, but was their own Banditry Section Director any less connected? And as clerks of the Banditry Section, could they possibly bite the hand that fed them?
With that, action was taken immediately. Not only was someone dispatched with official paperwork to cause trouble for Civil Affairs, but a clerk also marched proudly inside to inform the informant, Liu Lang, stating that under imperial statutes, cases could not be registered for those without official domicile. They had already sent a dispatch to the Civil Affairs Section, and once Civil Affairs assigned their registrations, the Banditry Section would naturally investigate the crime... Until then, he was instructed to return and properly preserve the bandit's corpse.
Before coming, Liu Cheng and Liu Jili had already agreed that this method was like shaking a jujube tree whether it bore fruit or not—a desperate struggle where they had to try everything. At worst, he would take a couple of blows from a staff and be thrown out. Now that a document had been dispatched to Civil Affairs urging them to register the refugee camp, it was already an astonishing breakthrough. Why would he object?
He readily agreed to "properly preserve the bandit's corpse," though heaven knew how he intended to preserve it, and departed straight for the camp.
By the time he returned, Liu Huzi had already left, and Liu Cheng was busy carrying out personnel adjustments. Even with fewer than a thousand people, the necessary organizational structure had to exist; it simply could not be bloated or redundant.
In the original refugee camp, the quartermasters were the natural core and backbone of management, shouldering nearly all administrative duties. Consequently, the previous quartermasters had varied origins: some were elected by their own units, while others had been appointed directly by Liu Ren Gong from his clan kin, much like Old Liu San had been.
Now in charge, Liu Cheng knew he lacked both sufficient prestige and manpower. He had no choice but to delegate the quartermaster positions downward, letting the units elect their own leaders. Furthermore, the camp's primary contradiction had shifted: the most urgent task now was securing food for the winter, not maintaining internal stability. While the duties of a quartermaster remained important, the position was no longer the most critical.
Therefore, having planned ahead, Liu Cheng left those quartermasters alone and established three new specialized squads.
One was composed of the ruffians and down-and-out commoners subdued the night before. Functioning as both a military deterrent and a general labor squad, it numbered twenty men. He appointed Tall Liu—who had no idea he was supposed to be a bandit chief—to select these men and serve as their quartermaster.
Another was the core squad he had long envisioned, consisting of honest, hardworking laborers—essentially the seventeen men who had received ten chi of cloth during the earlier distribution and chosen to stay, supplemented by one of the ruffians recruited back the day before. Liu Cheng counted himself among this squad's members, but appointed Liu Jili as its quartermaster, also bringing its strength to twenty men.
Finally, there was a specialized hunting-and-fishing squad. Liu Cheng planned to gather the gear previously used for the tiger hunt and concentrate on hunting and fishing. The squad was slated for twenty men, though currently only twelve or thirteen were assembled, with an old hunter, Uncle Zhou, appointed as quartermaster.
As for why he had not formed these latter two squads during the reorganization the previous day instead of waiting until today? Was it not adding unnecessary trouble?
The reason was simple: without the events of the previous night, these two squads could never have been established.
It was not that Liu Cheng lacked prestige altogether. Although the straw-sandal and straw-mat units had been disbanded, everyone still remembered the distribution of meat and cloth. However, with the camp's core leadership gone and the population plummeting from three thousand to fewer than a thousand, people's minds were naturally in turmoil. To accomplish anything, one first had to steady their hearts.
The incident the night before had been a deliberate measure concocted between him and Liu Jili to suppress unrest.
The execution had been crude, but with two or three corpses strung up and a dozen ruffians given back their clothes after swearing solemn oaths of obedience, the broad objective had been achieved.
Conversely, if establishing authority and steadying hearts was necessary, why could they not take things slowly? Why not buy a little grain with silver and wait until the camp caught its breath before gradually building a new structure?
That was because Liu Cheng's fundamental goal was to accumulate grain for the winter, not to win hearts for the sake of winning hearts... Stockpiling grain was a matter of simple numerical accumulation; being able to begin production and trade a single day earlier meant securing grain a single day earlier, which was perhaps even more vital than seeking new grain sources.
One might even say that surviving the winter depended not on what happened during the winter itself, but on the fruits of their labor in the few days before it set in.
Thus, as soon as these three squads were formed and Liu Jili returned—before his seat was even warm, having barely delivered a brief report—Liu Cheng pulled him into launching a new commercial exploration.
Indeed, it was what Liu Cheng had specifically mentioned to Liu Jili before: selling firewood.
Those words might sound absurd, but there was truly no alternative... Destitute refugees possessed neither means of production nor tools. If they wanted to participate in the distribution of social production and exchange their labor for grain, what else could they do?
The poor inevitably wove mats, peddled sandals, fished, or gathered firewood; even advanced processing was beyond their reach.
Now, the craftsmen who wove mats and sandals had been gathered early on by Liu Cheng, but because they needed to survive, they had all followed Liu Ren Gong away. As the saying went, those near the mountains lived off the mountains, and those near the water lived off the water. The refugee camp backed onto hills but did not border the Great River; lacking large-scale fishery resources, they had only the forested hills to rely on. Furthermore, when the band had been fully staffed, they had gathered a vast quantity of firewood, leaving them no choice but to sell it.
"For the next few days, everyone's work will be simple. Pick out the good firewood, tie it neatly into bundles, and we'll take it to sell for money to buy rice." Facing several units clearly overburdened with women and children, Liu Cheng kept his words concise, though he introduced a few twists. "Everyone knows how to gather firewood, but good firewood isn't just wood that's solid and burns long. Take peach wood, for instance: though few pieces grow straight and most are crooked, they can still be gathered together. Likewise, both oak and pine burn well and grow straight, so everyone knows they make good firewood. But pine smokes easily, while oak doesn't have that flaw, so they must be kept separate and sold at two different prices. Finally, the mixed kindling must also be sorted by size..."
After laying out the instructions, Liu Cheng personally stayed behind to help with the sorting, while Liu Jili was tasked with taking inventory of the woodpiles and their composition, adjusting the locations of bonfires and the day-and-night patrol routes based on where the piles stood.
Liu Jili had no objection to Liu Cheng's arrangements, including reporting to the authorities earlier and being entrusted with leading the core squad. He believed these tasks showcased his worth: without his aristocratic pedigree and social skills, no one could have reported the case to the commandery office; concurrently serving as the most vital quartermaster, inspecting woodpiles, moving bonfires, and mapping patrol routes would rapidly elevate his authority among the refugees.
Even so, before leaving, he still felt somewhat perplexed: "Ah Cheng, why are you personally sorting firewood? Is this so important?"
Liu Jili actually knew how to ask humbly and learn proactively?!
Liu Cheng, who had stripped off his outer robe and squatted down to sort firewood, paused for a moment. Not knowing how to explain it on short notice, he could only let out a chuckle.
"It's like this: in everything, seriousness makes all the difference. If you ask about this, I can't explain it all in a few words, but take the previous straw-sandal stall. Had I not personally learned how to weave straw sandals, it could never have gotten off the ground... Which pair had cut corners, whether pounding rice straw was heavy labor, where the craft showed its quality—had I never learned to weave sandals myself, I wouldn't have been able to tell. What's more, it was precisely because they knew I understood the craft that they didn't dare fool me. You can't count on everyone being honest."
Liu Jili listened attentively and nodded repeatedly. "Very true. If only to keep those below from cheating us, one should do it with one's own hands... I'll go inspect the woodpiles first, and before evening I'll return to help you sort the firewood."
From the look of him, he was brimming with drive.
However, Liu Jili never did manage to join the sorting that day. His task proved far more troublesome than imagined, especially with the pressing need to prepare the evening meal, leaving him rushed for time. When he finally returned, he could only drink leftover porridge just as he had yesterday. Early the next morning, he and Liu Cheng took seven or eight burly men carrying firewood to the market to survey the demand... With the weather turning cold, firewood was indeed a dependable commodity; within a single morning, all the mixed kindling was sold.
Yet what followed was far less encouraging. First, with the onset of winter and the growing influx of refugees seeking a livelihood, grain prices noticeably climbed, to the point where the two Lius briefly hesitated over whether they should convert all their cash into grain immediately.
Not only that, at midday they sent the laborers back while shouldering a specially reserved load of pine firewood themselves to head for Jiangsheng.
Liu Cheng's idea was straightforward: he wanted to refine the firewood trade, creating differentiated competition even in small bundles of fuel, playing the role of a meticulous young merchant. In his conception, large-scale communal kitchens like military garrison posts would not care about pine's tendency to smoke; they would only prize its long-burning quality.
That way, oak could be set aside as premium fuel to sell to aristocratic country estates, while pine could be supplied as high-grade firewood for military garrison provisions.
Yet when they arrived in Jiangsheng and met Gao Jian's nephew, Gao Heng, through the Liu kinsmen who had arrived the previous day, the young man bluntly closed that avenue: "Pardon me, brother Lius. The garrison post has laborers allocated by the authorities as well as dependent bondservants; they usually send their own people to gather firewood."
The two Lius were left speechless. Leaving the load of pine firewood for Huzi's elder sister, they took their leave.
Nothing more happened that day, except that Liu Jili finally had a chance to help sort firewood. Though frustrated, neither was discouraged. The next day, they continued selling wood along Jingkou Road and further increased their supply of mixed kindling.
Unfortunately, that afternoon, guided by Liu Jili, Liu Cheng sought out two or three aristocratic country estates hoping to sell the load of oak firewood at a premium, but failed each time.
Those households had their own bondservants responsible for gathering wood.
As the weather turned colder by the day and deep winter drew near, the two Lius took stock. They agreed that their concept of selling firewood was sound—besides this, they had no other way to generate income, and they had indeed opened up a market for mixed kindling. But the problem was that merely selling ordinary kindling offered no indispensability and failed to bring in the extra money they had envisioned, leaving them uneasy.
Whether they should seek handouts from wealthy patrons or adjust their approach to pursue differentiated fuel wood for higher earnings proved a difficult choice.
In the end, Liu Cheng held firm, deciding to steady the mixed kindling business in Jiangsheng the next day while scouting for opportunities. If that still bore no fruit, they would try Jiankang the day after, where the high officials and nobility congregated.
Out here, backing onto the hills, the great households had their own bondservants to gather firewood; surely the grandees and nobles inside Jiankang would not send their bondservants all the way out into the countryside just to collect fuel?
And so another day passed. On the twenty-eighth day of the tenth month, the weather turned noticeably frigid, so much so that the laborers going out to sell firewood had to wrap straw woven into sheets over their clothes... One could only say that working people always found a way to survive.
Just after they had sold a dozen bundles of mixed kindling around Jiangsheng, Tall Liu came running up in person to report that shortly after they had left, an official from the Langya Commandery office had arrived at the camp, looking rather grim.
Liu Cheng and Liu Jili found it hard to believe, but they quickly traded places with Tall Liu, leaving him to look after and sell the remaining firewood while the two of them hurried back.
Rushing with all their might, they finally returned to the camp before midday, where they found someone waiting who took them completely by surprise.
By contrast, when that person saw them return, he stood up at once and stared intently at the crimson kerchiefs on their heads, looking utterly bewildered. "Liu Cheng, Liu Jili... I wouldn't have believed it before... No, Liu Ren Gong and his son have left, and the kinsmen of your Pengcheng Liu clan have all left. Why haven't you two down-and-out commoners left?"
"Brother Song, I don't understand your question—others might not get it, but you of all people should." Liu Cheng gave a dry chuckle, being the first to recover his wits. "The Way of the Five Pecks of Rice requires five pecks of rice to enter the faith, all for the purpose of granting salvation to those beyond saving. Now, because Liu Ren Gong and his son had to look after their blood kin, they were forced to abandon this place. Aren't the thousand-odd women and children here precisely those beyond saving? That is why the two of us must do our utmost to save them... Brother Song, though we two have not entered the faith, we share the same spirit with you, much like Ziyun and Xiangru—different expressions of the same melody."
The newly appointed Director of the Langya Commandery Civil Affairs Section—none other than Lu Song, an ordained libationer of the neighboring Way of the Five Pecks of Rice—stared fixedly at the young man before him, as if seeing him for the very first time.
***
In former days, when Taizu was in Jingkou, he wore a coarse short jacket and gathered trousers, possessing no surplus wealth. He often shouldered firewood and carried straw sandals himself. The aristocratic clans all despised him, but Song alone recognized his extraordinary nature, marveling at him greatly and repeatedly presenting him with robes and caps.
—*New Qi*, Biography 29
Chapter 26