Chapter 1714 - Entering the City

The friends thought about it but came up with no good ideas. They talked idly, wandering aimlessly through the streets. It was still early. Guangzhou's leisure class was still sleeping in, and shops along the streets hadn't fully taken down their shutter boards. Only the street food stalls were steaming hot, already selling various snacks and refreshments to the laborers who had come out early to work.

"What are we doing today?" Li Ziyu asked. "If not studying, how about looking at gongzai shu?" He meant comic books.

Zeng Juan felt uninterested. "The latest volume of Romance of the Three Kingdoms hasn't arrived, and I've read all the earlier ones."

"Can't you pick some others? Chronicles of the Eastern Zhou Kingdoms isn't bad."

"The stories don't connect, there are too many people, and the names are hard to remember," Zeng Juan said indifferently. "And there are too few stories about stratagems. The strategists just wag their tongues—say a few sentences and an enemy state withdraws its troops. Fake as hell..."

"That's where you don't understand. Strategy must be viewed from the general trend of the world. It's much more complex than just fire attacks or water attacks..." Li Ziyu, being older and having read more, had strong opinions on this and wanted to peddle his "insight."

Unfortunately, Zeng Juan and Zhang Yu weren't interested. Zhang Yu suggested going to the Great World to see what "new gadgets" had appeared.

"Recently the river has been full of Australian ships. They say lots of fresh things have been brought in. Why not take Brother Zeng to see if there are any opportunities for profit?"

Zeng Juan was young after all; his low spirits lasted only a moment. Hearing there were fresh things to see, he perked up again.

The three walked together toward the Great East Gate, chatting idly. Li Ziyu mentioned Senior Wu from the community school, saying he hadn't come to school for a long time—rumor had it he had latched onto a noble patron.

"Him? He's hooked up with a Fake Baldy named Master Huang and become a 'talent in Baldy Studies.' Not only is he thick with the Yuyuan Society people, he's become a guest of honor of Master Liang."

"They say the Yuyuan Society people have already pulled strings for him. He's winning consecutive victories in the child examinations this time; he'll probably bag a xiucai degree in this session."

"Senior Wu hasn't had it easy..." Zeng Juan said casually. But his heart felt uncomfortable. Wu Ming's relationship with them wasn't bad; reasonably he should be happy for him at this news. Yet his heart felt inexplicably clogged.

"In this world, you have to cling to powers and nobles!" Li Ziyu suddenly became indignant. "Moral articles—all bullshit lies!"

Li Ziyu's sudden cynicism surprised Zhang Yu. But Zeng Juan knew that Li Ziyu's uncle had originally arranged a position for him in the local guard—getting a salary for free—but someone with connections to officials had snatched it away first. Li Ziyu held a grudge about this and had been cursing that "the country is finished" behind people's backs for days.

The three sighed and strolled until they were near the Great East Gate. Suddenly Zhang Yu said, "Strange. Why are there so few people on the street?"

Once he said it, they realized the street was quite deserted. They hadn't seen many farmers entering the city to sell vegetables or carry out night soil—normally this was the peak time for such traffic.

While they were puzzled, a commotion suddenly erupted on the street ahead. Someone ran back toward them, looking tense. The street became chaotic for a moment. The three thought some high official was entering the city and the road was being cleared, but there was no gong sounding "Soldiers and Civilians Clear the Way." Just as they hesitated, they heard someone shouting in a low voice: "Make way! Make way!" Then came the sound of chaotic footsteps—quite a few people, it sounded like. Then someone shouted rapidly: "Quick! Quick!"

Zhang Yu understood that voice clearly—it was the "New Speech" spoken by the Australians!

In Guangzhou, the common tongue was Cantonese; officials from outside mostly spoke Mandarin. The only ones who spoke New Speech were the Australians and their subordinates. But these few phrases were spoken with perfect accent and enunciation—absolutely not something capable of being uttered by laborers working for the Australians on construction sites or in shops.

Li Ziyu and Zeng Juan also realized something was wrong. Their faces instantly turned pale. Li Ziyu reacted fastest, whispering, "Run! Let's hide in the alley!"

Disregarding scholar's dignity, they hiked up their robes and scurried into a nearby narrow alley. Zeng Juan wanted to run deeper, but Li Ziyu grabbed him and whispered, "Don't run! Hide first!"

The three crouched down, ignoring the stench of urine, and hid behind several urine buckets at the alley mouth to watch.

They saw the hurried footsteps on the street approaching. Listening to the sound, there were at least several hundred people. What was happening? Was it a troop mutiny? Army mutinies were no rarity in the Ming dynasty; once chaos started, burning, killing, and raping were all on the menu—soldiers turned into living demons in an instant.

Thinking of this, Zhang Yu felt his whole body trembling. Li Ziyu's hand, touching his, was ice cold.

In a moment, the street was empty of people, leaving only abandoned vegetable baskets, night-soil buckets, and a few shoes. Then, squad after squad of soldiers in blue-grey short jackets ran past the alley mouth carrying bird-guns. Bright short swords were fixed to the barrels, flashing chilling light in the sun. The soldiers wore iron helmets; their faces couldn't be seen clearly, but to Zhang Yu they all seemed to have fierce eyes—hideous in the extreme.

Zhang Yu felt his bladder heavy, desperate to pee. A clattering sound of chattering teeth came to his ears—it was Zeng Juan. Li Ziyu was white as a sheet.

It took quite a while for the soldiers on the street to pass. Li Ziyu signaled with his eyes, and the three hunched over and ran like smoke deeper into the alley along the wall base.

They ran over two li in one breath before stopping, still shaken. Li Ziyu stammered, "It's, it's, it's the Bald Thieves!" In his panic he couldn't even speak smoothly.

That the soldiers passing on the street were Australians was beyond dispute: the men all had short hair and short clothes, the few commands heard were in New Speech, and most critical were the fire-guns with bayonets attached—a sharp weapon of war possessed by no other faction.

Zhang Yu was still in shock. "Aust... Australians... aren't they doing business... at the Great World? How, how..." The Australians' burning of the Five Rams Post Station when they last came to the city walls wasn't many years ago, but in recent years their image had been one of peaceful, friendly merchants. Now that they suddenly bared their claws and teeth, it was truly hard to adjust.

"I saw long ago they had disloyal hearts..." Li Ziyu wanted to say more, but Zeng Juan cut him off. "Forget that! What do we do now? Big, big, big soldiers entering the city!"

The three instantly panicked. Once the Bald Thieves entered the city, there was no guarantee they wouldn't "pillage for three days"—the time-honored method for rebels to reward their subordinates. And what the Australians did in the townships during the Pearl River Estuary Campaign years ago could hardly be called "leaving the people untouched"—many ships carrying loot and captives seized from the countryside had passed Bai'etan.

Thinking of the legendary "rows of corpses hanging on trees," all three lost their courage. Zhang Yu said helplessly, "Maybe we should go home first..."

Zeng Juan agreed. "Yes! Let's go home first and see which way the wind blows. My dad probably doesn't know yet; he had just taken down the shutter boards when I left..." At this, his face turned white—when a city was breached, often the local riffraff would start looting and raping before the incoming soldiers even made a move.

"Yes, yes, let's go back first!" Li Ziyu said, then suddenly remembered his family was a hereditary military household, and his uncle held the title of Thousand-Household of the Guangzhou Forward Guard. When the Bald Thieves settled accounts, wouldn't that mean raiding the house and exterminating the clan?

He shook like a sieve, mumbling, "If only Shixin could come back! He's defected to the Baldies!" Then, thinking that Zhang Yu was the Australians' "Authorized Supplier" and must have deep relations with them, he suddenly made a deep bow and implored, "Brother Zhang, save me!"

Startled, Zhang Yu said, "Brother Ziyu! What's wrong?"

"I beg you, Brother, for the sake of our fellowship as classmates, save me—save my whole family!" Li Ziyu pleaded piteously, so sincere he nearly knelt on the spot.

Zhang Yu was baffled. In terms of connections, status, and wealth in Guangzhou city, Li Ziyu was the top among them. Being friends with them carried a hint of "condescending to associate." Usually it was classmates begging him, never him begging others. This sudden servile plea shocked Zhang Yu greatly.

"Brother knows my family is of the Guangzhou Forward Guard military household..." Hearing this, Zhang Yu suddenly understood. He and Zeng Juan were small commoners; as long as they survived the initial chaos, the Australians would never trouble them. But the Li family were hereditary military, and his uncle was a Thousand-Household... Once the Australians entered the city, a "purge" was inevitable—they had all heard of the Australians' methods in the countryside.

"...Brother is a supplier to the Australians now and is looked upon with favor by the True Baldies. When the Australians enter the city they will surely leave you untouched..." It turned out Li Ziyu wanted to bring his whole family to take refuge in the walnut cookie shop.

In the past, Zhang Yu's vanity would have burst, but right now how could he dare agree? After all, his family only supplied the Great World and had no special relationship with that True Baldy—he hadn't seen Chief Hong again since that one time.

Zhang Yu hesitated. "This... my family only supplies the Great World... we have no deep friendship with the Australians..."

Li Ziyu wanted to say more, but someone else ran up behind them, shouting as he ran: "Put up the shutter boards! Soldiers on the street!"

Before his voice faded, the relatively quiet street instantly fell into chaos. Shops that had opened were in turmoil; owners stumbled out screaming for apprentices to pack up stalls and put up shutters. Amid a clatter of banging boards, the shutters just taken down were put back up.

Scared out of their wits, the three friends forgot all about "countermeasures" and scattered to run for their lives.

(End of Chapter)