Chapter 2937: Tianjin Wei (16)

"A pity, though, that this business of building machines eats such a monstrous quantity of money! The people down south keep their wits about them most tightly: they will sell us machines ready-made, and not one breath will they spare on teaching us how the machines are made. Not even—"

Han Zhaoxian sighed with no little regret.

He paused, his fingertips unconsciously worrying the little wooden cross at his waist, and a strain of stifled grievance entered his voice. "—even when a machine breaks down and the work halts, we can only stand about waiting for them to send a man to mend it. A month and more, there and back — think how many days lost, how much labor thrown away! A while ago we could wait no longer; we asked several of the Fathers for help, took a small machine apart, and measured and mapped it piece by piece. It cost us enormous pains and a great many Western instruments, but at last we had our drawings, and we handed them over to clever smiths to build of the very best refined iron and refined copper—"

His voice held a thread of unwillingness, and puzzlement with it. "As for the construction inside that machine, when you look it over closely there is really nothing out of the ordinary — every piece can be understood. But when we came to trace the gourd from the pattern, dimension for dimension, and had skilled craftsmen build it with their own hands, it simply was not the same thing. Either it would not turn, or it had no strength in it; it would not run at all—"

Li Luoyou, listening at the side, thought to himself: if only it were that simple! He understood the Australians' machines far, far better than these men did — tracing the gourd from the pattern was useless for this. But his face betrayed nothing. He gave a slight nod and sighed, in step with the other's words.

At the talk of machine-mending and the passing on of crafts, Xu Guangqi was reminded of something and asked, unhurried: "Last time, the south said they would help us train a few apprentices, to learn machine repair and the diagnosing of machine ailments in particular. Has that matter come to anything since?"

Han Zhaoxian bowed to reply. "To answer Your Excellency: the candidates have all been chosen — mostly sons of Christian families and able young men from the colonist households. Within days they will have their affairs in order and set out for the south to learn the trade." He paused, then added, "Those chosen all have some letters and a bit of arithmetic; they ought to learn the faster for it."

"Oh?" Xu Guangqi gave a slight nod, then pressed the question, his tone grave. "And the tuition? Has the south made any further demands?"

"Their side says there is no separate tuition to pay — under the earlier machine supply contract it was included from the start. We need only bear the apprentices' board and lodging for their six months in the south. Even that sum is modest."

At this, Xu Guangqi's expression eased, and expectation entered his voice as he gave his charge: "Go back and impress it once more upon those twelve apprentices. When they reach the south, they are to follow their masters with all reverence and singleness of heart — no straying attention, no idleness. In the machinery arts of the Australians, let them learn what they can and master what they can. When their studies are done and they return, whether at mending machines or copying them, great things await them — and they will help us hold up the workshops of Tianjin."

Here he slowed his tone, to reassure: "As for their households, the yamen will see to them — food, clothing, lodging, travel; nothing need they fret over. Let them set their hearts at ease and learn."

"Rest assured, Your Excellency — I have already spoken all of this to them, one by one. For those with families, the settling money was delivered into their own hands. Every man of them is single-minded in his seeking; none dares slack." Han Zhaoxian received the charge respectfully. Then his voice paused; he seemed to hesitate, and reported: "Only, one matter: among the twelve chosen there is one eunuch. Your student fears... fears it may offend the rules, and fears too that the south may take exception."

Xu Guangqi's face showed not the slightest change. He waved a hand, his tone open and kindly. "A eunuch is no obstacle. If his temper is steady and his heart set upright, if he is willing to learn with his whole mind and sweat at the work, he will make something of himself — and we shall not treat him meanly."

He paused, then went on: "Men who can read and write and know their arithmetic are far too few these days. To find men both willing to learn and able to learn is no easy thing. Whatever their origin, each one of them counts; we may let no talent lie buried, and still less hold up our great undertaking."

Han Zhaoxian bowed in assent. "Your student takes Your Excellency's instruction to heart. I will go at once and charge those apprentices again — no man willing to learn shall be left in the dark earth."

Li Luoyou was moved; he clasped his hands and sighed: "Your Excellency's breadth of spirit compels admiration indeed. Common officials cannot flee the Nameless Whites fast enough — they look on them as floodwater and savage beasts. Only Your Excellency shows such mercy and forbearance, willing to open a road out for them."

Xu Guangqi shook his head slowly, his tone mild yet earnest, his eyes brimming with compassion. "You weigh your words too heavily, sir. The Nameless Whites are people too, no lower than any other man. Most of them were driven to the end of their road, forced by sheer livelihood to harden their hearts, sever their ties with the world of dust, and become eunuchs. They never won places serving in the palaces; they drifted without anchor, surviving hand to mouth in the streets. Their days have been bitter; they have caught every manner of habit, and some have done outright wrong. But they are not beyond saving. Let someone teach them well and set their old habits straight, and they become men of use."

Here he turned the thread of his discourse: "Besides, there is a measure of talent among them — men of every trade under the sun: some who know carpentry, some who can forge iron, some versed in arithmetic and able to keep accounts. In these years of reclamation and workshop-keeping in Tianjin, I have dug from their number no few craftsmen of superb hand; some can even help manage the hundred affairs of the workshops, not a whit inferior to ordinary men. Now is precisely the hour we need hands — why should two characters, 'eunuch,' bury such usable talent?"

He sighed softly; his look held feeling, and with it an open, fearless candor.

"A year or two past, when I gathered these Nameless Whites to Tianjin and settled them, many good friends around me rose to counsel against it. All said: by assembling ten thousand and more eunuch vagabonds with neither home nor trade, you draw every eye in the realm; murmurs at court can hardly be avoided — and worse, small men may seize the opening to chase the wind and clutch at shadows, weave a net of charges, and whip up calamity out of nothing."

His gaze was calm and level; his voice carried no haste.

"This old man has passed his threescore and ten. Fame, rank, and riches long ago faded to me — what is left to scheme for? I do these things only to break land and further husbandry, to set up workshops, to settle the drifting poor, and to strengthen the roots and nurse the vigor of this region. With a heart that harbors no private aim, I do not fear the wind of gossip. The Son of Heaven who reigns today is enlightened; in judging men and affairs he has his own clear discernment, and he will see that this intent of mine is for the public and not for myself. Let the petty men at court wag their tongues as they will, spinning slander and launching attacks — I need only keep my own heart and do real work, and then my conscience is clear. And I trust His Majesty will render fair judgment in his own time, and will not lightly believe floating words and hollow talk."

Li Luoyou thought to himself: that remains to be seen. But there was no need to say it aloud. By the sound of it, the Nameless Whites Xu had taken in were no few. A question soon settled the count: Gegu had already taken in more than ten thousand, and still they came, trickling in. Apart from those who went into the mills to work or down into the fields to farm, a good number had been sent to cut channels, dress the fields, and fire the brick kilns.

"You have seen with your own eyes how things stand here. The mending of rivers and the dredging of channels is the first order of business — scarcely a day passes without work upon them." Xu Guangqi pointed toward the channels that laced and crossed in the distance. "Once a channel is dug, it must be lined and buttressed with brick and stone, stretch by stretch. At present the brick and tile kilns are most starved for hands — firing the green bricks, carting earth, drawing the kilns: all of it heavy labor. These Nameless Whites, adrift in the market towns, were thin and frail creatures to begin with, but feed a man his fill of rice and the strength will come of itself. And here on the reclamation lands — cutting ditches, mending channels, banking dikes and slope-works — hands are wanted at every turn. Such men have no home, no household; they stand alone in the world; they can bear hard labor and do not flinch at hardship or danger, and they are more easily kept in hand than civilian laborers hired up on the spur of the moment. Were we to requisition the colonist households for this work at every turn, we should certainly miss the farming seasons and let the fields run to waste. With all these Nameless Whites ready to hand, we fill the hard-labor posts exactly as they need filling — and both sides are the better for it."

They left the spinning mill and walked east along the riverbank; on either side the noise gradually swelled.

The roar of machinery from the mill still hummed faintly in his ears, but another sound had already taken its place — the dull bite of mattocks in earth, the clatter of stone on stone, overseers bawling in coarse voices, and the long-drawn work chants of the laborers, rising and falling, mingled into one disorderly symphony of labor. Li Luoyou lifted his eyes: ahead, a newly opened channel lay under construction, winding like a long serpent from the riverbank out toward the distant fields, its far end beyond sight.

The ditch was already sunk to better than half a man's height, its flanks heaped with fresh-turned earth, black layered on yellow, reeking of wet soil. Standing thick in the channel bottom were two or three hundred men, all in the same gray short jackets, straw ropes knotted at their waists, barefoot in the muck and water. Some swung mattocks at the clay, some shoveled earth into baskets, some worked the windlasses, hauling one heavy basket after another up the rails along the slope. The sunlight fell on them and laid bare the sweat soaked through their backs, stroke after stroke, as if brushed on with a brush dipped in water.

Li Luoyou could not help but slow his steps.

He saw their faces. Waxen yellow, cheekbones jutting, eyes sunk deep in their sockets, scarcely an ounce of spare flesh among them. Their ages were hard to reckon: some looked barely twenty, yet the stubble along their jaws was already streaked white; others were plainly still young, but their backs had begun to stoop. Only the eyes were all alike — call it numbness, call it resignation — fixed on the work in their hands: mattock raised and dropped, shovel lifted and emptied, mechanical and silent, like puppets drawn along by an invisible thread.

Every few dozen paces along the channel's edge stood an overseer in a blue short jacket, rattan in hand, his gaze sweeping back and forth across the workers. One overseer spied men slacking at the windlass rope and walked over; the rattan whistled once through the air, cutting out a sharp note, his mouth barking something too far off to catch. The men on the rope instantly quickened their pace, half running up the slope, the ropes over their shoulders drawn bar-taut, sweat streaming down their necks.

Farther off, at the channel's bend, stood a dozen-odd soldiers, sabers at their hips, long spears in hand. They paced to and fro, eyes sweeping the works from time to time, as if standing watch against something.

Li Luoyou stood at the roadside and watched a good long while. His heart was already clear as daylight.

Saoye, following behind him, had seen it too. His lips moved several times, as if he meant to speak; but one glance at Li Luoyou's face and he swallowed the words back down.

Han Zhaoxian noticed him studying the channel and stepped forward to explain. "This channel is newly cut. Work began the moment spring opened, so as to break through before summer sets in — for once the flood season arrives, we could neither draw water to flush the alkali nor drain the water that stands in the fields. Saline-alkali land is no easy thing to tame. Digging the salts out, leading water in to irrigate — it looks simple enough, but the doing of it is bitter work. In winter the frozen ground is hard as stone; one stroke of the mattock and the shock of it splits the flesh between thumb and forefinger. In summer the sun roasts a man until he cannot draw breath. Only in spring and autumn can we push the work. Once this channel runs through, it will wash the salt from several hundred mu."

Li Luoyou nodded and said nothing.

He moved his gaze off the sweat-drenched laborers and let it fall on the green and growing fields beyond: farmland flat as spread cloth, channels in trim order, roads level, villages tidy. All this flourishing scene had been dug out inch by inch — by these men steeped in mud and water, scorched under the fierce sun, enduring beneath the overseers' rattans.

And yet had they not been gathered into Gegu, they would likely still be on the streets of the capital this very day, scratching for food in the refuse heaps, waiting to die along the roadside. A castrated body cannot even be hired out for coolie work: what wharf would take on a "neither-man-nor-woman" wreck to shoulder sacks? What grain shop would have a creature with a piping voice to carry its goods? That they had lived long enough to walk to Gegu was already the utmost of their fortune. Here, drudges though they were, they had at least a mouthful of rice, a life still in them, a garment to cover their bodies. As for being worked to death, or sickening, or crushed — that was ill fortune, and could be blamed on no one.

He drew back his gaze, straightened his robes, and said to Han Zhaoxian at his side: "Come — let us look at the rest."

(End of chapter)