Stick with Uncle

But Jiangning County was no longer a place he could stay. He had to go. When something goes wrong in a place, the top official is punished first—that is the normal logic of it. But who gets swept up along the way and who is spared comes down to a matter of personal liking. With a trouble this size in his own Jiangning County, even if he walked away in one piece, it would be hard to keep himself clear of it. Later, when people brought it up, there would be no end of talk. But in a sea of people, where was he to go? Zhu Shiqing could not fool himself. As for hanging up his armor and going home to farm, he could not do it. No one at that hot-blooded age chooses to back away, and defiance ran in his blood besides. "Uncle Sun, I want to get out and see the world." Zhu Shiqing hesitated a moment, then said it word by word. "Get out? Where do you want to go?" "I hear things are unsettled in North China, and they're badly in need of men. I want to go north." "Hmph. You think running off to North China will get you a good post? You can't wrestle a man down or kill one, and you don't know the first thing about military theory or the handling of troops. Who would want you? You think they go in for gentleness and courtesy up in North China—that when trouble comes they'll first sit down and read your reports and your little poems?" Zhu Shiqing was struck dumb for a moment. At the critical moment—he had to admit it—at the critical moment, writing... really was no use. Damn it. If he had known, he would have gone to a military academy. What had been the point of that traditional private school... Sun Beifeng set down his tobacco pipe, saw that the rain was easing, shook the dust from his clothes, and muttered, "If you really want to make something of yourself, then for you the military-and-political road is the one with some hope in it, if you follow it to the end." With that, Sun Beifeng waved a hand to call the boatman over from a distance. Zhu Shiqing rose and followed, and the two of them climbed into the small boat. The boatman was dark-skinned and built almost too solidly. The chill of the day had not yet gone, and yet he wore only a short jacket, both arms bare. Before Uncle could say anything more, he was already working the oars. Another of Uncle's acquaintances, no doubt. Zhu Shiqing was truly envious. What was Uncle's knack? As for looks, he was nothing but an ordinary commoner—on the street, people probably took him for a rickshaw puller. As for manner of speaking, unless he opened his mouth for a sentence or two, who would guess that this old fellow knew so much? "Uncle Sun, you've never once told me what it is you actually do in the government." "Odd jobs." Sun Beifeng said it without thinking, and before Zhu Shiqing could react he burst out laughing himself, which set the boatman laughing too. The boatman could not help putting in, "Old Smoker, you won't even talk straight to your own boy. For an uncle, you're a bit too crooked." Sun Beifeng stifled his laughter. Before telling a story, a man had to take a pull at his pipe and blow out a cloud of smoke; only then was he satisfied. "Under the Nationalist government there are five Yuan—the Executive, Legislative, Judicial, Examination, and Control Yuan. Between them are six bureaus, and alongside them sections and offices. From the military angle, there is the Military Affairs Commission, the General Staff, the Training and Inspection Department, the army, navy, and air force commands, and so on. Your Uncle Sun is a special investigator in the Second Department of the General Staff." "I thought as much. You're with the military, Uncle Sun. Had I known, why would I ever have gone to Jiangning to suffer like that..." Zhu Shiqing was secretly startled. No wonder Uncle was so cocksure—he had a military background. That he was well informed went without saying. The so-called Second Department of the General Staff had as its main function the gathering and analysis of intelligence. Sun Beifeng's work, then, was mainly preliminary reconnaissance and survey for various missions, providing the General Staff with reference material for its plans and deployments. When necessary, he also carried out a share of inspection duties, going around to check how orders were being executed in the various regions. Of course, matters like the government's fortification projects had originally been pushed through by the administrative system first and had little to do with the military system; Sun Beifeng had no authority to step in directly. But given the nature of his present work, he was more than capable of protecting Zhu Shiqing. "Uncle, is what you do intelligence work? Does it need to be kept secret?" "Secret? I do investigation work, not spying. Open fights and hidden schemes—that's the game for those fellows in the Fuxing Society. Your uncle can hardly walk properly; you think I could run intelligence work?" "Then you're touring the whole country, Uncle. No wonder meeting you once is harder than meeting those big men in the central government..." "Don't go comparing your Uncle Sun to those big men. They fret over affairs of state every day; your uncle is just an errand runner—drawing maps here and there, acting as a liaison officer. If you don't want to work in Jiangning County anymore, come along and throw in with Uncle while there's still time. There are a few idle posts at the General Staff." The words sounded like a joke, but Sun Beifeng meant them, and Zhu Shiqing was truly tempted. Military and political, military and political—military first, politics after. And besides, the Nationalist government was itself a warlord government. Sun Beifeng, a man of revolutionary origins, always saw military power as the core of the whole power structure. These days, when you ran into a few people throwing their weight around, being a committeeman of the central government counted for less than having a band of men with seven or eight rifles carried on their shoulders—that was something solid. So bringing Zhu Shiqing back to his side had been one step in Sun Beifeng's plans all along. It was only that today's conversation meant the plan had to be moved up. Leave this green boy among those old hands, waiting to be hit by punishment from on high, and he might well come away with some scars on his nerves. As for Zhu Shiqing, he genuinely did not want to go back to Jiangning. Their aims differed and their paths did not run together. Three years of selling his life for them, a bellyful of promises, and in the end not a scrap of benefit; now at the last they wanted to tie him to their boat. It really was not decent. The two of them talked back and forth in the boat; when they ran out of things to say they helped the boatman row, and now and then stared at the high mountains on either bank. The current was swift today, and running with it the boat moved fast; in less than an hour they had passed Mufu Mountain. Mufu Mountain was imposing, rising in range upon range of peaks, and from a distance it was wreathed in white mist. "Yanziji is just ahead." The boatman pointed into the distance and made ready to bring the boat in to shore. "Much obliged, Boatman Liu." Sun Beifeng took brief leave of the boatman and led Zhu Shiqing off the boat. After they had walked a while on shore, he suddenly remembered something and added, "Oh, that's right—in future, when I'm not around, if you need to cross the river or go anywhere, look up this boatman. He's always moored at Xiaguan." "Uncle Sun, you've really made something of yourself—the boatman doesn't even call you 'sir'; he called you Old Smoker the whole way." Zhu Shiqing nodded and teased him. Sun Beifeng gave him a sidelong look. "Get out of here. What do you know? Boatman Liu was already ferrying passengers here when the two of us first came to Nanjing. Back then, when I went out to do a bit of business (robbing and looting), I depended on him to ferry me morning and night. And let me tell you, this world of ours isn't about fighting and killing—it's about favors and connections. They can save your little life when it counts!" "I know, Uncle Sun. I've got it all down." Yanziji was a place Sun Beifeng came to practically every few days. The General Staff set great store by the strategic position of the Mufu Mountain line. Sitting on the bank of the Yangtze with Baguazhou to the north, the place had a narrow channel and a fierce current—a vital waterway. Historically, Yanziji was also celebrated as the foremost rock of the ten-thousand-li Yangtze, and since ancient times it had been a key military town and crossing. In the contingency plans for war with Japan, Yanziji's place ranked among the foremost. The terrain at Yanziji was steep and hazardous, with sheer cliffs rising thick among the crags. Most of the village households were scattered over the gentler ground south of Yanziji, and the district office stood below the cliff wall. And it was worth noting that a unit in training was stationed at Yanziji at this time, designated the Reorganized 67th Division, which made Yanziji one of the few areas with armed forces beyond the local militia—and that was precisely what had brought Sun Beifeng here today.