The next morning, the drill grounds at Chishan changed completely.
Several freshly posted red notices had appeared on the bulletin board beside the training field, near the main gate. Together, they listed nearly fifty military regulations.
“Do not insult or harass women or gers: anyone who makes lewd jokes at or harasses women or gers, or speaks rudely to the elderly and weak or shoves them, shall receive thirty strokes!
“Do not engage in forced buying or selling: when purchasing food, clothing, or other necessities from merchants or commoners, no one may use his authority to force a transaction, nor may anyone buy on credit and refuse to repay. Violators shall receive twenty lashes!
“Do not obstruct the filing of complaints. Do not damage crops. Do not seize civilians’ homes or property…”
The regulations covered every aspect of the soldiers’ daily training and conduct while on duty.
Those who could read were dumbfounded. Those who could not read had the contents read aloud to them, and in an instant, the entire camp seemed to explode.
The drill grounds boiled with discussion.
“Where did all these rules come from? We’re soldiers, not scholars sitting for the imperial exams. This isn’t allowed, that isn’t permitted—and every little thing earns either lashes or cudgel blows. Do they even see us as human beings?!”
“Exactly! They’re even meddling in whether we pay the shops. Why not give us more military pay instead? If everyone had enough to eat, who’d need to buy things on credit?”
“Hah! When the previous commander was here, there weren’t any of these useless rules. We could even take a farmer’s sheep, slaughter it, and eat it. The lord would only say the farmer had offered it as a gesture of respect to the soldiers. Forget punishment—he never even criticized us!”
“We’re all men. So what if we tease a young lady or a ger a few times? Soldier Zhang’s wife was snatched from somewhere, and now they even have children. If these rules had existed back then, how would any of us ever take a wife and raise a family?”
The soldiers shouted and argued until their faces flushed and their necks bulged. Several nearly leaped forward to tear the red notices from the bulletin board.
Among them, a tall, dark-skinned soldier folded his arms and let out a cold laugh. He kicked aside a stone at his feet.
“A new official always lights three fires to show his authority. Look at how worked up you all are! If the higher-ups didn’t put on some kind of show, how could the new Chief Drillmaster establish his authority and take control of a place as large as Chishan?
“But to keep the men beneath him in line, he’ll still have to rely on us soldiers in the end. Do you really think he dares do anything to us?”
Hearing this, the others’ anger eased somewhat, and they turned to ask, “You mean these rules are only for show—for outsiders to see?”
“Would anyone really be willing to serve if we had to follow every one of them? Every rule is so strict about protecting the people. Once no one is willing to enlist, I’d like to see whether they’ll force people into the army.
“If that happens, won’t we have two sides arguing with each other? Hmph, let’s see how they plan to end it! He’s nothing but a blacksmith who happened to catch the right wind and rise with it. Now that he’s finally gotten his moment, he’s certainly putting on airs.”
“Exactly!”
“They’ll definitely punish the first man who breaks the rules harshly. But if everyone keeps living as they did before, how could the government possibly deal with all of us? As the saying goes, the law does not punish the multitude.”
The soldier’s words were like a calming pill for the disorderly crowd. After mulling them over, everyone began laughing again.
“Blackie really has read a few books. He sees things more clearly and understands the twists and turns of those officials.”
“That’s right. From now on, we’ll have to rely on Brother Blackie to give us some pointers.”
“Setting everything else aside, we’re defeated soldiers now, and we’ve fallen from our former position. Naturally, our treatment isn’t as good as it was under the previous commander. But since things have come to this, us old hands need to stand together. Otherwise, we’ll only be bullied for nothing.”
The soldiers all nodded in agreement, striking a pose as though they were determined to defend their dignity. They gave every indication that if the new commander refused to show them any courtesy, they would make sure he received none from them either.
Inside the barracks, Duan Yan listened as one of his planted informants reported the soldiers’ reaction to the military regulations. He merely gave a faint, indifferent laugh.
“They won’t shed a tear until they see the coffin.”
He raised a hand. “Have the drill instructors call everyone together.”
His subordinate accepted the order and went out to make the arrangements. Duan Yan drank a cup of tea in the command room before leisurely making his way outside.
By the time he reached the drill grounds, the instructors had already assembled the soldiers into several formations. The field was filled with a dense mass of men.
Duan Yan stood on a slightly elevated platform and swept his gaze over them. Every soldier wore a long face, and even their posture was disgraceful. They stood swaying like stalks of rice in the wind.
“Those of you below, many of you are likely seeing me for the first time. But before today, quite a few of you should have heard that a new Chief Drillmaster would be coming to the drill grounds.
“I am no great talent, but I am your new Chief Drillmaster. My surname is Duan—Duan Yan. Take a good look at me. From now on, do not claim you do not know who I am.”
Duan Yan stood with his hands clasped behind his back, his tall figure straight against the wind. His sharp gaze passed repeatedly over the soldiers in the formations.
Every soldier he looked at felt colder than if they had been exposed to the bitter wind of the deepest winter.
“The government office has ordered that the two towns be treated equally. Since I have come here, I have brought along a copy of the military regulations from Yan Town for everyone. Those of you with quick eyes have probably already seen them on the bulletin board.
“However, to prevent anyone from claiming ignorance on the grounds that he cannot read after breaking the rules, all of you are present today. We will read through them once more for every soldier, so that no one can say the regulations were not properly communicated.”
After Duan Yan finished speaking, he raised a hand and had the drill instructor loudly read out every regulation, along with the punishment for violating each one.
The soldiers standing in the cold wind below were growing increasingly impatient. Once the instructor had finished reading the endless list of shackles, they assumed the formalities were finally over.
But then Duan Yan said, “The captain of the patrol unit, Constable Wang—you all know him. He’s an old acquaintance of yours. Since he is both your captain and someone familiar to you, he can serve as an example for everyone. That way, he won’t have eaten military rations all these years for nothing.”
Many of the soldiers below still did not know that Captain Wang had been thrown into prison the previous day, where he had already eaten two meals of prison food.
They were puzzled. Captain Wang was notorious for drinking and harassing people, so what kind of example could he possibly set for them? This blacksmith wanted to make an example of someone, yet he had not even chosen a decent candidate. Then again, perhaps Captain Wang had simply been too good at currying favor.
The soldiers secretly sneered at him, only to hear the man on the platform abruptly change direction.
“Captain Wang has violated several military regulations. Today, he will be punished publicly at the market entrance. All of you will go and observe. You can see for yourselves whether the punishment officials know what they are doing.”
The entire crowd fell silent. They exchanged startled glances.
Immediately afterward, the soldiers on the drill grounds were assembled and ordered to jog to the market entrance.
By then, quite a few civilians had gathered in the open space there. The snowfall was not heavy. Some people held umbrellas, while others did not, and the crowd was packed so tightly that it was difficult to see what was happening inside.
Duan Yan had long since ordered that a section with an unobstructed view be reserved at the market entrance for the soldiers.
Once they had formed ranks, the soldiers saw Captain Wang on the platform. His hands were bound behind him, and he was kneeling on the ground facing the many civilians gathered at the market entrance. Quite a few of them were people he had exploited and abused. Having to face them now made it nearly impossible for him to raise his head.
Hearing the commotion, he cast a sidelong glance at the soldiers from the drill grounds. When he saw that every last one of them had been brought over, he wished he could bury his head between his legs.
At that moment, the punishment official noticed Duan Yan and exchanged a glance with him. After receiving Duan Yan’s signal, his expression turned solemn, and he began the proceedings.
The punishment officer proclaimed loudly, “Wang Renbiao, for beating an innocent shop assistant in the street, harassing a respectable woman, and refusing to pay his debts… As a soldier and constable, he failed to uphold his duty and repeatedly abused his authority to bully others. For these multiple offenses, he is sentenced to fifty strokes of the rod and thirty lashes! The punishment shall be carried out at the marketplace as a warning to all!”
As soon as the words fell, a broad-shouldered punishment constable with a furious glare hefted a thick, sturdy thornwood rod and brought it down hard on Wang Renbiao.
The dull thuds of the blows rang out one after another. Wang Renbiao cried out miserably despite his wretched state, while the common folk below shouted their approval.
The soldiers watched as Wang Renbiao soon lost even the strength to scream. The sound of the rod striking his body made their hearts tremble with fear, and none of their faces looked well. Compared with the onlooking civilians around them, they were clearly a different breed altogether.
They were soldiers themselves, and they knew that every blow the punishment constable delivered landed squarely on Wang Renbiao’s flesh. This was no mere show. The man was clearly determined to punish him without the slightest regard for whether he lived or died.
The soldiers watching saw Wang Renbiao cough up blood and pass out, only to be revived by a splash of water before being beaten unconscious again. This happened several times. By the time the rod punishment ended, he was already battered beyond recognition and unconscious. Yet the thirty lashes were not spared on that account; they were administered in full.
By the end, even the soldiers at the back no longer dared to look up.
When Wang Renbiao was dragged away, the households he had bullied felt not the slightest sympathy. They merely spat in his direction.
He should have thought of this before! Until the blows and fists landed on one’s own body, one would never truly understand pain.
When the soldiers were led back to the drill grounds, every one of them seemed dazed. They were slow to recover from the sight of Wang Renbiao’s punishment. No one knew whether he was still breathing. Even if he was, his body was likely ruined.
Many had never before witnessed such severe punishment, and they were thoroughly cowed. The contempt they had previously shown Duan Yan was nowhere to be seen. They had mocked him as nothing more than a blacksmith who had stepped in dog droppings and gotten lucky, but these thunderous methods had left them trembling with fear.
“Wang Renbiao met this fate because of the sins he himself committed, and because he committed them before the military regulations were posted. His sentence has already been reduced considerably. Had every one of those offenses been counted in full, his punishment would have been far more severe. But now the military regulations have been made known to every soldier. From this day forward, anyone who breaks the rules will receive no further leniency. Punishment will be carried out in strict accordance with the regulations!”
After delivering those harsh words, Duan Yan continued unhurriedly, “That said, there is no need for the rest of you to be afraid. Do your duty as soldiers ought to, and conduct yourselves with integrity. The yamen will treat you well. You will not meet the fate Wang Renbiao met today.”
Most of the soldiers had been sufficiently chastened by this speech, but a small number were clearly unable to hold themselves back any longer.
“If you’re determined to torment soldiers to death, then I’m not afraid to say what I think!”
“Why should soldiers be subjected to such harsh military regulations? We joined the army and risked our lives to keep the town safe. What’s wrong with accepting a little support from the common people and enjoying a few benefits? They contribute nothing and get to enjoy everything. Where’s the fairness in that?”
Once someone stepped forward as the first to speak, others immediately followed.
“Punishing soldiers in the middle of a busy marketplace like this—what authority will soldiers and constables have left in front of the common people? We’ll be treated as less than barefoot old men!”
“You call this equal treatment? I say you simply don’t regard the soldiers of Chishan as human beings! We lost the war and were treated like slaves, beaten and punished at will, humiliated however people pleased. I’m done being a soldier!”
The soldiers spoke with such fury that the veins on their foreheads seemed ready to burst. Their eyes were bloodshot, and their chests heaved violently.
Duan Yan watched the chaos unfold without the slightest haste. Instead, he gave a soft laugh.
“With so many impassioned objections, I imagine these must be the very rats who repeatedly violated military discipline in the past. Otherwise, why would you be so anxious?”
“You claim to have risked your lives to defend the peace of the town. Then answer me this: where do the grain rations you eat and the wages you receive come from? They come from the common people, who work and farm tirelessly to pay their taxes to the yamen. The yamen then recruits and supports you to protect those very people!”
Duan Yan’s voice suddenly turned stern, and he shouted, “You’ve already received benefits and still find them insufficient, always thinking of bullying and exploiting the common households. You want every good thing in the world handed to you without shame! With conduct this rotten, you still have the nerve to care about authority? What authority do you have? All you possess is the shameless, thuggish manner of street hooligans, enough to disgust everyone!”
“Since someone has spoken up, that is all the better. I, Duan Yan, will make this clear today: if you find the military regulations too restrictive and no longer wish to serve, you may immediately surrender your military status and return to your hometown! The yamen will not retain or obstruct a single one of you. But let me also make this clear: anyone who leaves will never be recruited again for the rest of his life!”
“Then I won’t serve! Who cares about being a soldier under these conditions?”
“I never wanted to come in the first place! If the yamen hadn’t forced me, who would willingly take a post that puts his life on the edge of a blade?”
Several soldiers abruptly removed their sabers, stripped off their constable uniforms, and flung them viciously to the ground.
“Those who want to leave, hurry up and come with us! An opportunity this good doesn’t come often. We can go back to farming, sleep beside our wives and children on warm kang beds, and live like immortals. That’ll be a thousand times better than this!”
With that, they walked away arrogantly in full view of Duan Yan and the many soldiers gathered on the field.
Stirred up by their departure, the soldiers remaining on the drill grounds were thrown into confusion. They neither wanted to leave nor wished to stay.
In the end, some were tempted by those who had gone. They removed their sabers and, though they moved timidly, hurried away as fast as they could.
“I’ll give you three days. Those who wish to leave may do so. We will not retain a single one of you. Those who stay, however, had better pull yourselves together and prepare properly for training.”
After the great disturbance at the drill grounds, Duan Yan returned to the residence with snow covering his body.
Song Fengsui had gone to the marketplace with him earlier to watch the spectacle, but after taking one look, he found the scene too bloody and did not stay long. He went elsewhere instead. Along the way, he heard the common people praising their newly appointed Chief Drillmaster for his swift and decisive methods. At long last, the ordinary households of the town could hope for some peace.
When he saw that Duan Yan’s expression was grim upon his return, Song Fengsui guessed that the common people, who had long suffered at the soldiers’ hands, had been comforted by the punishment. But now that the soldiers had lost their power and were faced with ironclad regulations they could not endure, they were bound to cause trouble.
“How did it go? Was everything under control?”
Song Fengsui poured Duan Yan a cup of tea to calm his mind.
Duan Yan let out a breath of stale air. “A dozen or so left on the spot. I expect they were the ones who had caused the most trouble in the past. The moment they saw Wang Renbiao beaten half to death, they panicked. Once we returned to the drill grounds, they could no longer sit still.”
Song Fengsui nodded. “It’s better that they left of their own accord. It saves us the trouble of rooting them out one by one.”
“I only gave them three days to see how many more will leave. It’s a pity to lose soldiers when we already have so few, but it’s better to weed out the ones who are difficult to manage from the start. In the future, the military households here will certainly receive the same wages as those in our town. I don’t want to use generous benefits to support a group of good-for-nothings.”
“That’s right. With the snow falling day after day, if the roads aren’t cleared every few days, it’ll be difficult for anyone to get through.”
Song Fengsui continued, “Even if the county has learned that the two towns have merged and intends to attack and retake us before we can unite, the heavy snow will likely keep them from getting here.”
Duan Yan knew that the snow disaster would only grow worse. Though the calamity gave him a headache, it was just as Song Fengsui had said: in one sense, the snow disaster also protected the town, giving the two towns—having only just fought a war and still in the process of merging and settling in—a little time.
For the moment, then, there was no need to worry about disorder in the army. They had time to properly reorganize everything. Otherwise, how could they possibly have allowed the soldiers three days to decide freely whether to stay or leave?
Two days later, word came that, one after another, some soldiers had left their sabers and command tablets behind during the night and slipped away. They were all men who did not dare openly clash with the government office.
Duan Yan did not have the men at the drill ground pursue them. He merely crossed their names off the rolls.
Early on the third morning, Duan Yan and Song Fengsui had breakfast at the Song residence. They were just about to say they would make a trip to the drill ground when someone from the government office came hurrying over.
The Song residence was close to the government office, so whenever anything happened, reports arrived quickly.
Seeing that something was wrong, Duan Yan and Song Fengsui changed direction at once and followed the messenger to the government office.
Only after they arrived did they learn that, several days earlier, Song Wushen had assigned constables to call on the households and organize the people to go into the mountains to gather firewood for the winter.
Things had not gone smoothly from the start. With heavy snow falling day after day, the mountain paths were difficult to travel, nearly all of them covered to varying depths by snow. Bamboo and trees, crushed beneath the weight of the snow, were constantly snapping and falling from the mountainsides as well. The villagers were therefore unwilling to enter the mountains, thinking they would wait until the snow stopped before doing anything.
Since the matter was not yet an immediate emergency and the firewood in their homes had not been completely used up, the villagers naturally had no desire to find a solution in advance. Most people simply lacked the foresight to prepare for trouble before it came.
In the end, Tax Official Liu had personally stepped in and pushed the matter through. Though the villagers were reluctant, they had ultimately organized a group to enter the mountains and gather firewood.
Who could have expected that something would happen after only three or four days? People from Yuan Family Village and Dangzi Township were buried beneath the snow in the mountains. Those rescued quickly suffered only minor injuries, while those who were found too late lost their lives.
The villagers had already been unwilling to enter the mountains to gather firewood. Now that accidents had occurred, the villages erupted in an uproar.
“We haven’t even been frozen to death by this snow yet, and the government office is already working us to death! They don’t treat the people of Chishan as human beings!”
“I don’t believe the snow can keep falling all through the eleventh month and into the twelfth! Heaven doesn’t have that much snow to dump on just our patch of land. Why did they have to insist we go into the mountains to gather firewood right now?”
As they cursed, the subject gradually shifted to Chishan having changed hands. They said that the new people in charge did not even care for the soldiers and now intended to deliberately mistreat the common folk of Chishan.
Tax Official Liu had come forward to persuade them several times, but to no avail. The people below were making an intolerable commotion, throwing down their tools and insisting that they would never enter the mountains again.
Judging by the situation, if the disturbance continued, they might gather together and march straight to the government office to demand an explanation.
Before this, Tax Official Liu had not dared report the matter upward. He had suppressed it for some time. But there were naturally Song Wushen’s people among those traveling outside to conduct business, and the matter eventually reached his ears.
“The uproar is severe. I’d say there’s an eighty percent chance that those soldiers who returned to their villages are harboring resentment toward the government office and stirring up trouble among the villagers! They’re deliberately provoking conflict between the people and the government office, creating trouble as an act of retaliation!”
Tax Official Liu felt that he had failed to handle the matter properly. At the same time, he was furious at the villagers’ stupidity, and he could not stop shaking his head and sighing.
“In a year of disaster, what can you do without taking some risks?”
“The snow grows heavier by the day, and the households don’t even have enough firewood left to burn two cartloads. Those fools—the government office took the lead in having them gather firewood for the winter, and it wasn’t as if they were making them pay taxes to the office. They were doing it entirely for the people’s sake. How could they so easily let themselves be led around by the nose?”
He was frantic with worry and deeply frustrated by their lack of sense. The people in charge of Rock Town had not mistreated them in the slightest. They were exhausting themselves trying to help everyone through the difficult times, yet the villagers had turned around and cursed them until they were thoroughly disgraced.
One insult after another was thrown about, cursing everyone in the government office and even calling him a traitor who had sold out the town.
He had been the one overseeing the matter, so those above might well think that the villagers’ uproar was something he had deliberately instigated.
Yet the villagers below were cursing him too, saying that he fawned on those above while bullying those below, that he had sold the town to Rock Town, and that he was colluding with Rock Town to oppress the people of Chishan.
After discussing the matter for some time, Song Wushen said, “These are troubled times. Tax Official Liu cannot be blamed for what happened. Here’s what we’ll do: the government office will provide some money and provisions. Take the people from the household registry office with you and pay a visit to the families who suffered losses.”
“Xue Mu, take some men and keep watch. See whether you can catch the people inciting the villagers to cause trouble.”
After making these arrangements, Song Wushen looked toward Duan Yan.
Duan Yan’s brows shifted slightly as he assured him, “The matter at the drill ground will be settled soon!”
