Chapter Forty-Four: The Grave

Among the riders accompanying them was a farmer named Liu En. After confirming that Old Temple Village posed no further danger, he rode back to Xingpingli to deliver the news.

Liu Chengzong, together with Cai Zhongpan, Cao Yao, and Lu Bin, searched the ruins of the desolate village, haunted by wandering souls. They found a house, carried the bodies of its two former owners out into the courtyard, and, after eating, prepared to spend the night inside.

All three men from Black Dragon Mountain had endured enough in their lives to suppress their fear of death. Lu Bin, a survivor from the village itself, knew there was no time to return to Black Dragon Mountain for the night, nor did anyone care to make the trek again the next day. So they settled on staying. The weather was still cold, and even with the spring breeze, sleeping indoors was always preferable to the open fields.

For several days, Liu Chengzong remained in Old Temple Village, hauling bodies and digging graves amidst the ruins. Fortunately, the cool weather made the task less arduous, but with only twelve able-bodied men from Black Dragon Mountain available—busy with their own farm work—the sheer number of corpses left them hopelessly understaffed.

Help came unexpectedly. The smoke rising anew from Old Temple Village drew the attention of nearby settlements. The earliest arrivals were villagers from Dingjia Station. Their intentions were unclear, but Lu Bin chased them away after a heated exchange filled with curses and threats, tempers flaring until Cao Yao fired a warning shot to drive them off.

Later, groups from the more distant Songjia Gully and Papermill came, at first only strong men armed with bows and knives, watching from afar. Once they saw the people in the ruins were merely moving bodies and digging graves, they dared approach and inquire. Survivors from Old Temple Village among them reunited with Lu Bin and his brothers, embracing and weeping in relief.

With their help, the burial of the villagers came two days sooner. Four hundred and seventy-two unmarked graves lay scattered across the bleak fields, mere mounds of earth shivering in the wind, with the remaining villagers prostrate upon them, wailing in despair.

Those who came to help focused solely on granting the dead the dignity of burial, carrying them to the fields and lowering them into earth as best they could. The survivors' grief was palpable; who wouldn't fear such calamity befalling their own?

"What’s the point in crying? Can they even tell who’s buried under which mound? Might as well scatter some seeds while they're at it," Cao Yao remarked from afar on horseback. He had no interest in carrying bodies, having dug a few graves the first day but abstaining as soon as villagers arrived to help. He spent his days riding in circles, claiming to be on guard in case the bandits returned.

Liu Chengzong knew Cao, old scoundrel that he was, simply found the whole business unlucky and wanted no part in it. Now, he whispered in Liu’s ear with a mocking tone, "Look, not even a mat to cover them, few wrapped in cloth. If no one comes next year, I’ll bring the boys and plant grain over the whole lot—this land’s rich."

—

"Let’s worry about living to next year first," Liu Chengzong replied with a scowl. "The bandits have plenty of mules, and they’re hauling cannons. If they come back, we’ll never hold them off."

Liu Chengzong had deduced the presence of cannons. In the village’s strongest compound, he’d seen half a wall riddled with fist-sized holes and clusters of small marks. Only artillery could make such scars—mixed iron shot, a tactic favored by Ming artillerymen.

The marks left by cannonballs made the roving bandits seem all the more dangerous to him. Swords and bows could be resisted with armor, but firearms—even heavy armor couldn’t guarantee survival, let alone artillery.

Yet his discovery came as no surprise to Cao Yao. "I know—two Frangipani cannons, hauled on mules. When those bandits first arrived, I wanted to seize them, but there was no chance. Besides those big guns, they've got two flying mortars."

Liu had thought the bandits lucky to have just one cannon, but now learned they had two Frangipani guns and something new, prompting him to ask, "How did they get four cannons?"

"Flying mortars aren’t full cannons, more like three-eyed guns, mounted on poles. The front end is an iron bulb about a foot long. They fire cluster shells. Light the shell first, then the iron bulb, and the cluster bomb shoots out. The range is short but deadly—blasts a whole area, though sometimes they misfire."

Like… mortars?

Cao Yao’s explanation was vague, but Liu Chengzong’s other knowledge made it clear—a small mortar lobbing cluster shells in an arc. Many advantages, two drawbacks: short range and frequent misfires. Yet Liu saw these not as faults. Fifty paces was sufficient, and even if only one shell in ten exploded, the psychological impact far outweighed ten solid shots.

Break the formation, and who could fight?

"As for bandits with cannons, it’s not strange. It’s not the Jiajing era anymore—even Frangipani guns are a century old. Every fort along the nine borders has a dozen cannons. These bandits are deserters from everywhere—Yansui, Gansu, especially Guyuan. Those guys really rebelled."

Cao Yao grew more animated, explaining further to Liu Chengzong, "The court’s all about Red Barbarian cannons now. I figure they’re like the Huang Master cannon. The old Minister bought dozens from skilled makers in Fujian, brought them to Beijing. Those cannons are longer than you lying down, weigh two or three thousand pounds. You have to dig two pits to fire them, and after lighting, everyone jumps into the pits—or you’ll get concussed."

He finished with relish, "After seeing those, I’m not afraid of these little popguns."

—

"You should be," Liu Chengzong said earnestly. Who wouldn’t fear cannons? Cao was only boasting. "Even a Frangipani cannon scares me."

Cao Yao paused, gazing at the undulating mounds in the wasteland. "Lion, what do you think if I went around to the neighboring villages and we organized a self-defense alliance along Panlong Creek?"

"Panlong Creek self-defense? How would that work?"

"I’ve seen the irrigated fields—where there’s water, there’s harvest. North from Papermill, south to Black Dragon Mountain, forty li. Each village station four or five riders from our men, contribute ten bushels of grain a month. The border soldiers will have support, and if bandits come, we can relay for mutual aid and protect the villages together."

Liu Chengzong nodded, "If we can manage it, nothing could be better. I just fear others won’t agree…"

The tragedy of Old Temple Village had proven that isolated settlements couldn’t withstand bandit raids, and Captain Zhang had shown that government troops were unreliable. Even if Zhang had fought the bandits, it would have made no difference to the ghosts of Old Temple Village.

"Leave that to me, I’ll talk to them, but there’s no rush," Cao Yao replied, stroking his beard and gesturing to the surrounding land. "These people need to eat. Let’s pool together and buy the land of Old Temple Village."

—

Note:

The Huang Master cannon refers to the large bronze cannons from Luzon, commissioned by the Minister of War and Crown Prince’s Mentor Huang Kezuan in the forty-seventh year of the Wanli era. He funded the recruitment of sixteen skilled Luzon cannon makers from Tong’an, Fujian, who came to Beijing to cast cannons.

The Ming Dynasty’s Red Barbarian cannons arrived through four channels: Xu Guangqi’s initial purchase and import, Fujian’s reverse engineering of Dutch cannons recovered from shipwrecks, Huang Kezuan’s recruitment of craftsmen familiar with Spanish bronze cannons for imitation, and the dissemination of Western artillery theory by Xu Guangqi and others. The process was gradual, but the manufacturing techniques always remained rooted in local technology.