Chapter Twelve: Shame

On the ninth day of the second month, the troops passed through Qingjian County before noon and entered the territory of Yanchuan by afternoon, quickly moving into the mountainous region where the borders of Qingjian, Yanchuan, Anding, and Fushi counties converged.

For Liu Chengzong and the others, it was as though one foot had already stepped into their homeland. Among the two squads of frontier soldiers, Liu’s squad was composed entirely of homeless refugees, while Cao’s squad consisted of Cao Yao’s old bandit comrades—there was not a single one with a clear destination.

For now, everyone simply followed Liu Chengzu wherever he went.

At most, they would rest one more night in the mountains; at their pace of sixty li per day, they would reach Xingpingli at the foot of Longwang Temple Mountain in Fushi County, Yan’an Prefecture, by tomorrow. Their first destination was Xingpingli, the hometown of the Liu brothers.

No one had any concrete plans yet; all they thought was to see how many people the family and clan could accommodate, attend to whatever work needed doing, and eat as necessary. If the clan could not arrange anything, their only recourse would be to ask their father, the scholar Liu, to inquire in the prefectural city of Yan’an.

If they could manage it, it would be best to form a small militia with the support of Fushi County or Yan’an Prefecture; if not, they could try to substitute for others in corvée labor, or take up jobs as grooms, patrolmen, or inn guards.

They could also consider joining the “civil braves,” the Ming dynasty’s official militia organization—or, failing that, the militias of wealthy landlords.

If none of these worked out, Liu Chengzu and Cao Yao, the two squad leaders, would have to split up, with one squad gathering intelligence in the towns and the other recuperating in the mountains—either seeking out wealthy households for food or hunting down bandits in the hills.

If it came to that, they would be completely cut off from ordinary society.

Their column wound through the valleys of northern Shaanxi, Liu Chengzong trailing on horseback, absentmindedly flicking his whip as he pondered how he might settle Cao Yao and the others upon returning home.

Suddenly, disorder broke out at the front of the column.

People craned their necks to look into the distance, prompting Liu Chengzong to lift the brim of his helmet, which had nearly fallen over his eyes.

On the far side of the undulating mountains, several columns of black smoke rose into the sky.

The moment he saw the black smoke, Liu Chengzong instinctively thought of a village being set ablaze.

A jolt raced up the back of his head; his whole body trembled as if electrified, the hair on his arms standing on end. He clenched his fists involuntarily, tying the tassel of his goose-feather saber and hooking it to his belt.

Liu Chengzong was no stranger to bloodshed, yet what he felt now was abnormal—he should have been afraid, but he was not, and that in itself was strange.

In hand-to-hand combat with cold weapons, even after a hundred battles, the hundred-and-first would still inspire fear.

Fear was not surprising, nor was it shameful; the purpose of drilling soldiers was to overcome the innate human terror of battle, to strengthen their resolve through discipline, formation, equipment, skill, and the power of the collective.

But at the sight of the black smoke, thinking of a burning village, then a towering granary, he felt a covetous urge to seize it for himself.

It was this excitement, not fear, that filled him with shame.

The black smoke instantly shattered the comforting rituals Liu Chengzong had built up in his mind about returning home.

His very way of thinking had changed.

The tassel—also known as the sword strap or hand cord—served the same function whether looped through the pommel, a hole in the hilt, or tied around the grip: to prevent a cavalryman’s saber from slipping during combat. In peacetime, both ends were tied together; in battle, the loop was slipped over the wrist.

He hung the strap at his left hip—a gesture of readiness. Drawing the saber meant thrusting his right hand through the left-side strap, so the sword hung from his wrist; even if he lost his grip in a melee, he would not lose the weapon.

After the founding of New China, cavalry referred to this strap as a “safety cord” for a time, but as firearms replaced sabers and peace returned, fears of injuring others or falling from horseback consigned the safety cord to history.

Having secured the hand strap, Liu Chengzong picked up his small bow, squeezed his mount’s flanks, and threaded his way through the ranks to the front, raising his bow to his elder brother, Liu Chengzu, and pointing ahead, “They’re burning the village.”

But before he could speak, Liu Chengzu, already in command, raised his hand. “Let the scouts climb the heights and observe. Report back as soon as you see anything—do not act rashly.”

“Pass the word: All men, don armor!”

Liu Chengzong said no more. He dismounted, removed his cat-cage helmet, and handed his steed, Cangbiao, to Xiaoshiliu to tie up somewhere safe. Then, together with two scouts, he rode ahead, glancing back once as he left.

On the dusty official road, the frontier soldiers dismounted, helping one another don armor and ready their arms.

There was no fear, nor much excitement on their faces—only a burning eagerness and anticipation, which somewhat eased Liu Chengzong’s sense of shame.

“So they’re all like me,” he thought.

Frontier troops in the Yansui Garrison lacked horses; these two disbanded squads from Yuhe Fort were even worse off—whether under Liu Chengzu or Cao Yao, their men had at most three horses among seven on foot.

A dozen or so warhorses—by the time they reached Fushi County, they might have to sell or even slaughter them for food just to survive.

The black smoke seemed close, but proved distant once they set off at a run. Liu Chengzong and his two scouts traversed the mountains, yet the smoke remained far; only after climbing the second ridge did the scene finally come into view.

Lying flat on the ridge, Liu Chengzong clenched his fists tightly—they had indeed encountered bandits.

It was a village nestled by a gully, flanked by low hills to the north and south. During periods of drought, it lay far from any river; the surrounding fields were parched and cracked, and dozens of farmhouses sprawled west to east. In the heart of the village stood an earthen-walled compound.

From his vantage, he could see clearly: within the chest-high yellow-earth walls stood a grand residence, three rooms wide and three rooms deep, with stables and granaries complete.

The fighting outside the wall was already drawing to a close.

Thick black smoke rose from both ends of the village; country lanes were strewn with corpses, while roving bandits, weapons and torches in hand, spread the flames further.

Amid the chaos, it was impossible to distinguish villagers from marauders—only those fleeing, those pursuing, those blocking, and those besieging, their cries a cacophony.

They were all in a killing frenzy.

An old man, hanging from a beam at the edge of a farmhouse, had not managed to end his life before two bandits leapt over the fence, dragged him down, and hacked his neck, splattering blood everywhere.

Within the earthen walls, the wealthy household had three or four dozen people—men gripping spears and guns atop the walls, women and children in the yard scrambling to haul bricks, tiles, and timber.

The bandits, armed with blades, clubs, and torches, surrounded the earthen compound, hurling insults and demands for surrender—dozens at least, with over a hundred more scattered through the village, looting, murdering, and raping house by house.

Here, “good family” referred not to virtue, but to fortune—only landlords qualified as respectable folk in these times in Shaanxi.

The bandits outside the walls shouted insults, and though Liu Chengzong, perched three hundred paces away on the ridge, could only catch fragments, he gathered that these were bandits with a mountain stronghold, even related by blood to the landlord within. They called him “Second Uncle”; the reason for the massacre was simple.

They had demanded grain and been refused.

At the village’s most crowded spot stood a white flag, scrawled with the character for “Eagle”—likely the bandit chief’s nickname.

Kinship meant nothing; the village was awash in blood.

None inside would open the gates until every last one of them was dead, while outside, the bandits acted with ruthless preparation. Their chief railed and cajoled at the front, while others gathered behind. Several fugitive soldiers in battered armor dropped the sacks from their shoulders, spilling a pile of stones, and began loading them into a wooden tube wedged against a tree trunk.

He recognized the contraption—a wooden cannon, about four feet long and as thick as a man’s embrace.

Yuhe Fort had cast-iron and bronze guns, but also wooden cannons cobbled together by fortress artisans for amusement; he knew well how dangerous they could be.

Wooden cannons could not be made large, lest they burst; compared to bowl-sized cannons, falconets, or the great red-barreled guns of Liaodong, they were toys. Yet, used as single-shot blunderbusses with a range of sixty or seventy meters, they were still potent threats.

“Hurry, report to my brother: Over a hundred bandits, at least six fugitive soldiers, one wooden cannon. The landlord’s earthen wall cannot hold.”

Liu Chengzong eyed the cannon’s fist-sized bore, then the thick wooden gates of the compound—he could already guess what would happen next.

Lying on the ridge, his mind was blank; he simply watched, gazing at how that yellow earth wall divided two worlds of different colors.

Outside the wall, the ragged throng wore rags, their true colors lost to mud and blood.

Inside, the anxious defenders wore clothes of bright fabrics and patterned weaves.

As the scouts mounted up to carry the message, a man with flowers in his hair, standing atop the wall, drew his bow with practiced skill and loosed an arrow—striking down the bandit chief below.

Three more arrows followed in quick succession, felling two more and wounding the armored fugitive soldier loading the cannon.

Cheers erupted atop the wall; the bandits below scattered in panic.

A mere three arrows had thrown the hundred-strong mob into chaos.

Witnessing this, Liu Chengzong clenched his fists anew, his eyes fixed on the scene outside the wall. The wounded fugitive, far from fleeing, seemed maddened by pain. Though unable to fight, he shoved aside comrades who tried to help and cursed at the cannon.

The wooden cannon was hoisted and, with a great rush, the mob surged toward the compound gate. With a thunderous roar and a cloud of smoke, all was chaos.

The deep furrow in Liu Chengzong’s brow finally relaxed.