"Planned to start work?" Zhu Shiqing was taken aback. He muttered the words, still half-disbelieving, and pressed again: "So there's really nothing there at all?"
The question didn't seem meant for Xie Yuanhua. It sounded more like he was asking himself.
Xie Yuanhua hung his head, the folds piled on his face bunched tightly together.
He understood. He understood everything now.
Of these hills, Yangshan was probably the only one built in neat, orderly fashion; everywhere the eye could not reach, the weeds grew thick.
Zhu Shiqing's face darkened. He could not fathom how such a thing could happen.
Graft? Normal. Cutting corners? Normal.
But for fuck's sake, at least finish the job. Split the spoils between the two sides, fine—but then they had to put together a "model zone," and whenever visitors came, they would walk the higher-ups around a bit, then throw a grand banquet and see them off.
No wonder the earlier inspections had all come up clean. Zhu Shiqing could hardly be sure that when the county secretary had brought people to check in the past, he had ever walked to the very spot beneath Zhu's feet, or laid a hand on any of these permanent pillboxes.
Mockery and helplessness tangled in Zhu Shiqing's heart.
No point in wasting words. Zhu Shiqing just wanted to flee this den of trouble; the sooner he dropped this hot potato, the better.
If he really got entangled in this, it wouldn't be just his own head on the block—his uncle would suffer for it too.
With that thought, Zhu Shiqing simply recorded each detail on the spot in the notebook he carried with him, then called the two men over and made ready to leave.
"Sir, sir..." Xie Biao was reluctant to let it drop and hurriedly caught hold of Zhu Shiqing. "When you get back, if there's anything our corps can do to help, just give the order."
Zhu Shiqing gave a token nod, patted Xie Biao's shoulder without a word, turned, and led his men back.
He left the two Xies standing there frozen. The hospitality and bribery they had always relied on had gotten them nowhere with Zhu Shiqing this time. It seemed trouble really was coming.
Yet at bottom, the two Xies were not truly the dregs who ruin a country and its people. It was only that, seeing things from the bottom of society, they were still at a benighted, hidebound stage of understanding. In their own words, they did not believe the fortifications here would ever really be put to use.
China and Japan had not yet gone to full-scale war; the situation hung in a delicate standoff. Nanjing was the capital, after all. Even if fighting truly broke out, if it reached Nanjing, wouldn't that mean the nation was on the brink of extinction?
Then again—the common people might be benighted, but how did the elite up top compare?
...
Zhu Shiqing mounted a fast horse and led the two men toward Niushou Mountain.
As expected, the Xies had not lied. As a famous Buddhist mountain, Niushou had a scattering of temples standing among its ridges, and after nearly ten years of war and chaos most of them looked dilapidated. Beyond that, there was no other work on Niushou Mountain at all.
"Sir, this..." Zhao Qian looked flustered.
Fang Wenjian said nothing, but it was plain he was not calm either. Zhu Shiqing himself was panicking.
It was like a stadium suddenly collapsing and causing mass casualties: everyone connected to it—design, construction, oversight, emergency response—not one of them could escape blame.
This was a national defense project!
Cold sweat broke out on Zhu Shiqing. He spat out a "Let's go" and led the two on to Fangshan.
This time they bypassed the militia entirely and went straight to where the positions should have been.
Fangshan's situation was even worse than Yangshan's—even earthen pillboxes were pitifully few.
Nothing for it, nothing for it. Zhu Shiqing's heart went half cold, and the hand that took notes was trembling.
After a day of rushing about, the sky was darkening, and the three of them returned to Jiangning.
Just as Zhu Shiqing was still sorting through the day's events and wondering how to explain himself to Diao Yuxiu, trouble had already arrived.
Tonight these greasy middle-aged men had not gone home. They were gathered in a huddle in the inner room of the county government office; every light outside was out, and the inner room was frighteningly quiet. If Zhu Shiqing's horse had not come closer and closer, and Xu Gang had not opened the door for him, almost no one would have noticed there were people inside the county office at all.
Zhu Shiqing was a little muddled. Holding his horse with one hand, he asked, "Chief Xu, you're not going home to rest this late?"
Xu Gang waved his hand and gestured for him to lower his voice. He offered no explanation, only dragged Zhu Shiqing inside.
Once they were in the inner room, he saw some lamplight and several figures.
Ha! All of them familiar. Zhu Shiqing looked them over one by one—weren't these just the county's old smooth operators? The county magistrate, the Construction Section, the Finance Section, and the commander of the county security brigade—though this man rarely showed his face, so Zhu Shiqing only found him vaguely familiar—plus Civil Affairs Section chief Xu Gang, who had just led him in.
What was all this? Hadn't they said this morning that it was to be a private report? Zhu Shiqing was tongue-tied for a moment and did not greet any of his superiors.
The others were not ones to stand on ceremony either. They quickly cleared a place and had Zhu Shiqing sit down. The Construction Section chief was the most impatient and asked him point-blank:
"Brother Zhu, how did things go today? Did those young fellows handle the work smartly?"
The others crowded in as well. Zhu Shiqing felt awkward, unwilling to say it straight out, and first glanced at the county magistrate.
Diao Yuxiu was anxious too and quickly piled on assurances. "Speak freely, speak freely. Everyone sitting here is a longtime hand in our county, all people I, Diao, trust most."
Zhu Shiqing's eyes shifted. He understood: the innermost core of Jiangning County's little clique was probably all here.
"Elders, judging by what I saw today, I'm afraid we won't be able to finish on schedule." Zhu Shiqing shook his head and paused a moment. "I went through the fortifications at every site, one by one, and what I saw was quite shocking. Many places have not been started at all, and where work was done, the quantity is there but not the quality."
The moment he finished, the room fell silent. They had all probably expected an outcome like this. What they had not expected was how seriously the Nationalist government was taking this task.
After the last limited campaign was fought in the Shanghai area, the Nationalist government had ordered certain regions to begin work first and build fortifications against future trouble. But afterward, with all its energy poured into the northwest, many projects were left with no one following up and no one supervising. Plenty of local officials had scooped a fat sum out of the initial construction funds, and in the end there was not even a performance review.
This time it was essentially the same old trick. Only, at the county level, no one had truly seen that the times had changed—that since the end of last year the government's focus had shifted, and that there had even been a reshuffling within the government itself.
When some rise, others fall. Politics was a fight to the death; when the old was replaced by the new, there was struggle, and struggle meant settling scores afterward—meant someone was going to come off badly.
A talking point, a spectacle, and real results—the Nationalist government wanted them all.
Diao Yuxiu finished his third cigarette and came clean to Zhu Shiqing:
"Shiqing, word came this afternoon that inspections of the fortifications have already begun in the Zhejiang area, and several county magistrates have been shot. I know how things stand in our county—we certainly won't pass. I gathered you and the old brothers here tonight to work out a way out, to see how we get through this."
Damn it. Zhu Shiqing's chest tightened. He was about to be dragged aboard a pirate ship. If he'd known, he wouldn't have fucking come back. A herd of alpacas stampeded through his mind, and his face could not manage anything pleasant; his expression was grim as he probed:
"Come forward and confess on our own, and rush the work to completion—would that work?"
Diao Yuxiu lit another cigarette, took a hard drag, waved the smoke away, and smiled bitterly. "You think the higher-ups are Buddhists, handing out chances to repent and start over?"
If that wouldn't work, and nothing else would, then run. In this era, if you truly knew you were going to die, you found another place to make a living.
But plainly Diao Yuxiu would not be willing to give up the foundation he had built up over all these years.
Xu Gang spoke up. "Little Zhu, there is actually one other way."
"What way?"
"Go see your uncle. He's bound to have a way."
Zhu Shiqing blinked twice and understood at once. All that buildup, everyone gathered here wringing their hands—it had all been staged for his benefit. They had known all along that running away wouldn't work, and that turning themselves in wouldn't work either.
But what way could Sun Beifeng possibly have? Was his uncle really that resourceful?
Chapter 4