Chapter 1339 – Mao Shisan
Word had it that some generals on the islands had taken their troops to join Li Jiucheng. In recent days, men kept arriving at Zhenjiang Fort and the scattered settlements of Dongjiang, inciting officers and soldiers to follow them to Shandong and fight. Without exception, these emissaries brought glinting silver—enough to make eyes go red with envy. Many gritted their teeth, took up sword and spear, and followed.
Mao Shisan was tempted. But being tempted was one thing; whether anyone actually wanted a stick-thin boy like him was quite another. Besides, crossing the sea to an unfamiliar Shandong to make war against the imperial court—he had no confidence in his heart. And the most pressing problem: no one could guarantee there would be food on the journey. If he starved to death halfway, what good was talk of silver?
He set aside the question of joining the army. The immediate fact was that his stomach was empty and demanded filling. Snow had fallen these past few days; by rights he should have huddled in the shed, moving as little as possible to conserve strength. But Mao Shisan truly could not hold out any longer. There was no food left at home.
He had been parentless since childhood, adopted by a fellow villager of his father's. The two of them depended on each other for survival. His stepfather drew a salary—though it went unpaid eleven months out of twelve. The various settlements of Dongjiang Town might look dilapidated, soldiers ragged and starving, indistinguishable from beggars—but this was a place where rice was precious as pearls and firewood costly as cinnamon bark. A single shi of rice cost several times—sometimes more than ten times—what it did in the capital, let alone Jiangnan.
Similar conditions plagued all the border garrisons. Because embezzling military pay had become the generals' primary path to wealth, they universally disliked grain and cloth, which were bulky and hard to convert to silver. They petitioned the court to ship silver instead. For the officials handling transport, moving far smaller volumes of silver was also more convenient than lugging bulky grain and cloth.
The influx of so much silver inevitably drove prices skyward. Thus, though soldiers at the various frontier posts nominally received wages above the national average, local prices ran several—even a dozen—times higher than elsewhere.
In Dongjiang, the situation was worse still. The garrison had to feed a large population, yet its jurisdiction sprawled across barren, frozen land where soldiers could scarcely farm to feed themselves. In years past, they had relied on grain shipped by the imperial court and Korea, though even then little reached common hands. Ordinarily they survived by fishing, hunting, and foraging for wild vegetables—half-starving, half-eating, muddling through somehow.
The generals, for their part, could profit by smuggling with the Manchus, extracting protection fees from smuggling merchants, and digging ginseng or hunting furs. But none of those revenues flowed to the rank-and-file military households. Instead, they only worsened the burden—history recorded that the mutiny against Commander Huang Long had been ignited, in part, by his forcing hunger- and cold-stricken soldiers to dig ginseng.
After Li Jiucheng's rebellion the previous year, most of the pay and merchant goods transported through Dengzhou had been cut off. Lives already spent in semi-starvation grew harder still. To some degree, this desperation became the very fuel that drove so many Dongjiang soldiers to cross the sea and join the rebellion.
Those with strength and daring had fled, one after another. What remained were the old, the weak, the sick, the disabled. Yesterday Mao Shisan's stepfather had been assigned an errand—he would eat at least one meal today; perhaps he would even bring home scraps tomorrow. But Mao Shisan was already dizzy with hunger. He could not wait until tomorrow.
He dragged his feeble body to the coast. No sign of life greeted him on the frozen shore, let alone the food he craved. His vision began to blur. In the distance a small boat seemed to be rowing toward him. His eyes clouded, his knees buckled, and the world went black.
A ball of fire blazed before Mao Shisan's eyes. He struggled to open them, but his eyelids were leaden. One thing, though, he knew with certainty: it was warm—warmer than sitting beside the hearth at home. In that warmth, a strange sense of safety settled over him. He felt less hungry, somehow, and desperately wanted to sleep. He recalled his stepfather, and many others, warning that one must never fall asleep outdoors in winter—once you slept, you would never wake again.
Yet he truly lacked the strength to lift his lids. If I die, I die. He drifted back into darkness.
When Mao Shisan woke, he lay in a cabin. He had not died after all—he had been pulled aboard a ship by a group of strange, short-haired people.
A young man with close-cropped hair and a short jacket busied himself nearby. According to him, a "Chief" had spotted Mao Shisan collapsed by the sea. It had been snowing at the time. Had the Chief not shown mercy, he would long since have frozen to death on that beach.
"You've been sleeping a day and a night. I've fed you sugar water several times," the young man said, "otherwise you'd already be dead. Here—drink a bowl of gruel."
Mao Shisan had no memory of the sugar water, but his body undeniably felt less weak.
"Come on, drink." The young man brought over a large bowl of something like mixed-grain porridge, steam curling from its surface. Mao Shisan had not seen real grain in ages. At the sight of that bowl, saliva flooded his mouth like a sluice gate opening; a word of thanks caught in his throat, unable to escape.
The gruel was thick with actual grain. The taste was unlike anything he had ever known—delicious beyond description. That alone calmed his nerves slightly. When he tried to rise, however, he discovered it was not easy. He seemed to be sleeping in some kind of net.
"Eat one bowl first. I'll bring you more later. You were badly starved—too much too fast and you'll bloat. Don't hurry to get out of bed. Rest a while; the Chief wants to see you."
The young attendant's manner was kind. Judging by age, he was not much older than Mao Shisan himself, yet he exuded a capable air that seemed beyond his years.
"Once you're on the Chief's boat, just wait to enjoy blessings." At last the youth offered a cryptic smile. "Best everyone understands a thing or two—to be mentally prepared for what lies ahead."
After lunch, Xue Ziliang "received" Mao Shisan. The boy had never heard of the bald-headed raiders, but this Chief Xue was plainly a high official aboard the ship—though where these people hailed from, he could not fathom. He had seen Ming officials; none dressed like this. Korean officials wore robes patterned after the Ming style. But Chief Xue spoke proper Chinese—closer to Liaodong Mandarin, in fact. His attire differed from the Tartars', and there was no Manchu queue on his head. Moreover, the Tartars could scarcely build a decent boat for themselves; they certainly would not possess a vessel as fine as this.
Though he could not puzzle out their origins, at least on this ship he had food and clothing. Not only was there delicious gruel to fill his belly, but someone had changed him into a fresh set of clothes—garments without a single patch, close-fitting and warm.
After a few exchanges, he came to understand that Chief Xue was, at the very least, not a bad man. Xue Ziliang was amiable, put on no airs of officialdom, and when he learned Mao Shisan was a military household of Dongjiang Town, he expressed considerable indignation, railing against the imperial court at length. By the standards of this era, Mao Shisan was the equivalent of a junior-high-school student, with pitifully little experience. A few kind words from the old fox Xue Ziliang made him want to spill every secret of his heart.
"So your family are military households of this Zhenjiang Fort?"
"Replying to the Master: before Marshal Mao recovered Zhenjiang Fort, the little one lived here with my stepfather. Except for going to Lushun Fort, I haven't been anywhere else."
"Then tell me—what do military households in Dongjiang usually rely on for a living? The court's pay silver alone probably won't keep you alive."
"Who says it isn't so? The pay silver never reaches our hands. We're called military households, but we don't have any land to farm. Besides, growing crops in Liaodong isn't easy—the weather's wretched cold. A few years back we relied on grain shipped by the court and Korea, but not much fell to us. Usually we survive by a bit of fishing, a bit of hunting, digging up wild vegetables—muddling along, half-starved and half-full."
"After Marshal Mao was killed by Governor-General Yuan, some said he died unjustly. Unjust or not, we little folk don't understand these things—but the days have gotten harder and harder. The generals kill each other; many brothers died in the fighting, before and after. We're neither household servants nor personal soldiers, so we don't know what's going on. Just that there's no money and no food. Whatever little grain and pay exists gets reserved for the combat troops and the household retainers. To be honest with the Chief—if the little one hadn't gone more than two months without proper grain, I'd never have risked going out in the dead of winter to look for food."
"You're close to the Yalu here. I've heard Korea also hates the Tartars bitterly and is a tributary of the Ming. Why not cross the river to scrounge food in Korea? At least you might manage for a while."
"The Master doesn't know. Korea guards against the Tartars, true—but they guard against us just the same. It's not easy growing grain in our territory as it is. Korea used to provide Dongjiang with plenty of grain, weapons, and ships. How willing could they be to give more? They can't even feed themselves. These past years, just hunting and fishing along the border has caused constant clashes. Large groups can go out; but a lone person like the little one, crossing the river and running into Koreans, would be beaten to death just the same. Besides, we have to watch for Tartars. Fall into Tartar hands and you're dead—or worse, you lose a layer of skin."
"There seem to be many forests around here. Are there big trees in the woods—enough to build ships?"
"There are. When the weather warms, people go into the mountains to log. They float the timber down the river to the fort, then tie it into rafts. But there's too much of the stuff; it can't all be used. Lately I've only heard talk about building more warships, so a lot's been cut. Mind you, folks in the fort have been secretly sneaking logs out for themselves." He lowered his voice. "I've heard they want to build boats to go join Marshal Li."
So Li Jiucheng commands considerable esteem in Dongjiang, Xue Ziliang mused. They didn't yet know that Kong Youde and Li Jiucheng had already been defeated. But that was hardly surprising—how much news could a military-household boy in a backwater like Zhenjiang Fort possibly receive?
"Marshal Li was once Vice Commander of Dongjiang. His prestige here is high."
"I've heard Dongjiang Town is now presided over by Governor Huang. He's supposed to be a great loyal subject. Yet soldiers below are still willing to follow Li Jiucheng into rebellion?"
"Whether Governor Huang is loyal or not, the little one doesn't know. We small people only ask to eat a few full meals. After Marshal Huang came—still no food to eat. Master, you are my great benefactor. Otherwise, the little one would have perished long ago."
"So the military households of Dongjiang do it purely for a mouthful of food."
"Who says otherwise? The Tartars are too cruel—fall into their hands and you're worse off than a pig or a dog. But the court doesn't want us either. Everyone says we only take grain and pay without fighting. In all conscience—how much rice from the court does a small military household like me eat in a year? We're like beggars; we can't send troops out to fight either." Mao Shisan had started, despite himself, to voice his grievances.