Chapter 67

"My forefathers were craft-officials, line after line of them. In the Sui they followed their commander and were granted land at Yizhou, and the whole house moved to the northwest. By the late Tang, with the years of war one after another, the northwest could no longer be held, and what was left of the clan had no choice but to go back to our old home in Jinzhou and settle afresh. That was a hundred years ago and more. In the northwest our forefathers fired kilns with the army, using whatever the ground gave them, and learned a fine set of skills from the craftsmen who'd come there from every side. When they came back they went on making their living by it, generation after generation. Those songs you couldn't follow, my lord, are the old Yizhou airs. We all learned them from the old craftsmen of our families."

Wu Xing told the tale of his house easily and well, with none of the rough swagger of hauling the kiln. He poured Zhuo Siheng another cup of wine, and filled Pan Guangling's again too.

"So that's it. Your skills are all handed down, then. But I've heard the most important thing in a porcelain kiln is 'first the fire, second the clay, third the fine work,' and that human hands come last of all. However good the skill, it still depends on the kiln having the right season and the right ground. Your forefathers came back from the northwest with a bodyful of skill, and must have spent a long time getting used to the local soil and water before they could fire out the secret of the crag kiln's hard, unbreakable ware again." Zhuo Siheng drank his wine off, and looked at the flat-mouthed wine-dish of crag-kiln make as he said it slowly.

From the first, Wu Xing had felt a respect for this young official who, new as he was, could speak the kiln trade's own talk. Hearing him now name the three roots of porcelain-making, he was won over altogether. "Were you an official of the Ministry of Works before, my lord, or of the Palace Maintenance Office, over the imperial and official kilns? How do you know it all in such detail?"

Pan Guangling laughed aloud. "Don't go guessing wild. His lordship was a top graduate. He was an imperial attendant-drafter in the Hanlin Academy. When would he ever have done piddling little jobs like that?"

Zhuo Siheng thought: there's no end of piddling little things at the emperor's side. He'd gladly do some real work. Otherwise he'd not have had to turn a hundred books to pick up even this shallow scrap of knowledge, and even what he'd said here was only the barest understanding.

What weighed on him was that even such shallow stuff, said aloud, could startle and delight Wu Xing. It showed how the officials here had never once cared whether the crag kiln lived or died.

"Jinzhou's soil and water must be different from old Yizhou's. Do you know how your forefathers changed their skills to meet the season and the ground, and made the thing anew?" Zhuo Siheng turned the talk back to business.

"My grandfather and my father both told me it took the family three or four generations to work out the new way. It was all because Yizhou lay in the northwest, where the kaolin clay is dry and loose to begin with, so you can grind and use it straight off with no standing. But dry as the north slope of Futing is, it's still beside the sea, and there's mountain rain all year round, so the kaolin here has to be dried in the shade and left to weather on its own a while before it's any good." Wu Xing couldn't help a sigh here. "The ways were all worked out by those before us. We who came after only learned them, and have made nothing new of our own. But then Yi'an Commandery in Yuezhou brought out the An kiln, and Mishan Commandery in Qingzhou the Mi kiln, and even the Huai kiln over Jiangzhou way, left idle a hundred years, is thriving now. Jinzhou used to use our ware everywhere. But these twenty or thirty years, the prefectures and commanderies round about have had their local governments help their kilns along, better and better, until they take orders from the official kilns, and even here in Jinzhou people have started using their ware instead of ours. It isn't that we want to sit and eat up what our forebears built. Officer Pan has come many times, and has spoken to Lord He for us. The last vice-prefect, Du Han, came and looked too. But it was only a few questions, and he carried off a plate or two, and to the day he left his post there was never any more word. Now the porcelain in the Jinzhou prefecture offices is all brought in from outside. We've taken our improved ware up to offer time and again, and it's like throwing a pebble into the sea. Not a shadow of it to be seen."

Zhuo Siheng listened in silence through Pan Guangling's helpless sighing. He'd seen the official porcelain at the prefecture feast, all fine Huai-kiln celadon, pale and clear and smooth, like jade and like a chime-stone. Fine pieces, truly. He Mengchun did have an eye. What porcelain the government used was no great matter in itself. But to care nothing even for your own locality's farming and crafts was to sit idle in a post and shirk the work.

He was about to ask what the works had improved these two years and whether it had come to anything, when a kiln-man came in, bowed to Zhuo Siheng, and said to Wu Xing with plain displeasure, "Boss, Song the Third is here."

"Let him rest the night here as usual. The goods come out of the kiln today and cool tomorrow, and then we'll load his pack-train." Wu Xing seemed not to care much for the man either, but a trade tie meant he had to deal with him. "I've Lord Zhuo to talk with today, so I'll not keep the guest company."

"That's what we said too. But Song the Third heard the new vice-prefect was here and insisted on coming to pay his respects, else people might say the Song house did business with no manners and no sense of the done thing. Listen to him talk. Is there a family under heaven better at worming in and greasing palms than theirs..."

The kiln-man's grumbling was cut off by a hard look from Wu Xing. Zhuo Siheng said mildly from the side, "Let's see him, by all means. By the sound of it the man buys from your works? Let me talk with him. I might learn more, and see whether I can help the works at all." Sometimes you could see from the buyer's side what the sellers themselves missed.

Wu Xing hesitated, but agreed. He only said, "There's no sense in our Vice-Prefect going to see him. Have him come and pay his respects. Fetch a chair and lay another setting."

Song the Third came in, in a trim, capable robe of slate-blue, its hem still stained with the moss-mud of the mountain road. His face too was reddish-dark from always traveling the wild tracks. He was about thirty, shrewd and able all over as a trader, and his smile was true and plain, so that he put Zhuo Siheng in mind of Xiao Yong.

While they'd waited, Zhuo Siheng had heard from Pan Guangling and Wu Xing who the man was.

His name wasn't really Song the Third. His proper name was Song Yunhe, a fine, scholarly-sounding name. He was the third younger brother of the head of this generation of the Jiangnan Song house, which was why the kiln-men who disliked him called him so.

The Song house of Jiangnan was the first among the merchant houses of the southern dynasty. "Wealth beyond counting" did not say how rich they were, and "trades spread wide" did not say how many their businesses were. All over Jiangnan you saw the Song firm's signs, and in every trade there was some dealing in money or goods with them. Jinzhou was rich in produce, tea best known of all, and of the teas the most famous were the rock tea and the white tea. Pan Guangling said all of Jinzhou's rock tea came from the south slope of Futing Mountain, and that here it was all Song property and Song tea gardens. Song Yunhe was the Song house's manager over the whole of Jinzhou's tea trade. He saw to things himself, down to small matters like packing and jarring the tea for transport, which he had to check with his own eyes before he was easy. So every three months he came over Futing Mountain from Yongming Commandery to the works in Anhua Commandery, to see whether the fired jars met the mark, then carried them back himself, buying other things along the way.

Something puzzled Zhuo Siheng that he couldn't put in order just yet. He decided to gather more before he judged. By now Song Yunhe had made his bow, and Zhuo Siheng courteously waved him to a seat, then drank the cup raised to him and said with a smile, "In the north I only ever saw southern traders. I never saw so great a merchant."

"We petty traders count it honor enough to be asked to the same table as your lordship. It's all thanks to your lordship's kindness and warmth. How else would such good luck fall to me, to share a cup of country wine and a little pleasant talk?"

Song Yunhe's talk was well-judged, all courtesies, but neither cringing nor proud, and with a warm, open goodwill. Zhuo Siheng couldn't help thinking: no wonder all the money south of here ends up in their hands.

But with this man seated, Wu Xing went quiet, his face flat, as if there were just one more breathing body at the table.

Pan Guangling had given the reason earlier. The crag kiln's days grew worse by the day, and the Song gardens' nearby orders were the biggest trade they had. So whenever the Song house beat the price down, they had to swallow it. In truth Wu Xing knew well enough: if it weren't for the low price, with so many other choices round about, why would a house as great as the Song order here of all places?

Was it truly only the low price?

Yes, why was it?

Zhuo Siheng was no trader, and couldn't put himself in a merchant's place to think. But in all he'd seen of life these years, from the great weather of court and the politics of the realm down to the small change of household and kitchen, there was always a thing's true nature working its way from the inside out into what showed on the surface. That working was often steered by men, and by other things besides, so that in the end what showed did not match the real cause.

To strike through that surface, you had to learn more and think more.

"I've brought rock tea from our own gardens, all of it from old trees in the few best hollows, small in yield. You've just arrived, my lord. Why not try something fresh?" Song Yunhe pressed his wares warmly and politely. Zhuo Siheng listened with great care, and even put in a question or two about how rock tea was grown, which Song Yunhe answered one by one.

Zhuo Siheng seemed to show more curiosity about rock tea than Song Yunhe had looked for, and the man said at once that if his lordship cared to honor them, he might go back to Yongming Commandery with him the next day, once the goods were counted, and see their tea gardens.

"Our lord came here on purpose to inspect the works. How can he go running off to another commandery with you?" Pan Guangling didn't wait for Zhuo Siheng to speak, and raised his voice at once. But catching Zhuo Siheng's look turned on him, a hundred times sterner than usual, he knew in a flash he'd spoken wrong and shut his mouth.

Drawing his eyes back from the blunt, quick-tongued Pan Guangling, Zhuo Siheng turned a mild and friendly smile on Song Yunhe. "Then it's settled. Thank you, Manager Song, for taking the trouble to guide me. I may hold an office, but I'm far from familiar with the lie of the land and the ways and goods of Jinzhou's many parts. I'll trouble you, with all you've seen and known, to explain a little for me, so I can widen my eyes. It would never do, come my report of duty three years on, to still know only the court and nothing of common business."

Song Yunhe had asked Zhuo Siheng to his tea gardens for no selfless reason, and had his own plans. Seeing him so willing, he was inwardly relieved, and said over and over that he dared not take such credit. Seeing that Wu Xing's and Pan Guangling's faces were both none too good, he said no more of it, and only raised his cup to invite the two of them to drink with him to Zhuo Siheng, and wish the trip a smooth one.

That night the works gave Zhuo Siheng a place to sleep. His face had been cold from the moment he came into the room. Pan Guangling knew it was for cutting in earlier, and when Chen Rong went to fetch hot water he owned his fault to Zhuo Siheng of his own accord. "Calm yourself, my lord. I shouldn't have spoken out of turn for you. I was wrong."

Zhuo Siheng wasn't truly so angry. But he felt that soft urging alone would not always do, and that a stern hand was needed now and then, to make Pan Guangling see that in many things he himself would give him room, but other people would not. So he brought out the sternest tone of his life. "Quite the official airs you have, deciding things for me! Let me ask you. What did I say to you before we came?"

Seeing Zhuo Siheng truly angered, Pan Guangling quailed, and his voice shook. "My lord told me never to be hasty, to think before I speak in all things..."

"And what did I give you?"

"My lord gave me a copy of the Han Feizi and a belt of tanned oxhide." Not waiting to be asked more, Pan Guangling went on. "My lord's meaning was to use the book's old story to urge me on. The Han Feizi says, 'Ximen Bao was hasty by nature, so he wore a soft leather thong to calm himself. Dong Anyu was slow of heart, so he wore a taut bowstring to spur himself.' My lord, like Ximen Bao, gave me a soft belt, to have me remember that to be an official who does good for a place, as Ximen Bao did, I must not only feel the people's urgency as my own, but learn to move between haste and calm at will, and not let my nature be all heat and no depth, and spoil the work."

"If you know it so well, why don't you do it?" When Zhuo Siheng put on a cold face to dress a man down, he truly did look the part of an official from the emperor's side, with an air steeped in the majesty of the throne that made men shrink without knowing why.

Pan Guangling wasn't making excuses for himself. He only said, from the heart, "I was afraid Song the Third had some other plan, and wanted to draw you away, so you couldn't do your work here, and the business of the kiln would suffer."

"You're not the only one anxious for this place. And even if you were, you still shouldn't open your mouth before your thoughts are in order. Don't answer that way again. Once more, and I'll treat you as just another underling of the six offices. Coming with me on my rounds will be out of the question, and if we meet in the yamen I'll do no more than nod and ask after business, and not say a word to you beyond that."

Pan Guangling was near tears with urgency. Never in his life had he so admired a man, and he longed only to learn more of the way of serving and of carrying himself, to do good one day for the people and a worthy work for his corner of the land. To hear this burned him through with regret, and he swore never to do it again.

So on the road the next day Pan Guangling was uncommonly quiet. Even when Song Yunhe kindly urged him to drink or rest, he answered with no more than a nod or a shake of the head. Zhuo Siheng, watching, hardly knew whether to laugh or sigh.

But he had no mind to spare for that either. Mild and courteous as Song Yunhe's talk was, he was better at drawing a man out than many who'd knocked about officialdom. Zhuo Siheng managed every time to follow the man's lead, let slip a little of his own situation, and win back some word in return, never coming off the worse.

Song Yunhe found that this young official, mild and scholarly on the face of it, had a hidden edge. A few times he'd nearly been led into saying this and that, and he thought it better to change tack, speak freely of old acquaintances, and feel out whether the man had any backing or ties.

"How do your commandery's Prefect He and Administrator Cui fare, I wonder?" In a pause at a rest-stop, Song Yunhe checked his pack-train, had tea made for Zhuo Siheng and Pan Guangling at the mountain post along the way, and went on to the old friends in Anhua. "Prefect He and I met once, back when he was in Jiangnan. Administrator Cui I don't know well, but that son of mine was frightened of him at the very sight."

Seeing him bring out his own family trifles with a chuckle, and drag in Zhuo Siheng's own superior, Zhuo Siheng followed the thread on. "I'm newly come, and know only that Prefect He is brilliant with the brush and Administrator Cui deep in bronze-and-stone learning. A pity I've had no dealings with them before. So Administrator Cui is an old family friend of yours, Manager Song?"

"Old family friend, nothing. He was once a teacher to that good-for-nothing son of mine." Song Yunhe laughed. "My boy's a rascal. We trading folk always want one child who'll read and rise in the world, and I set my sights too high for a while, never weighing what my own son was worth, and sent him to the Jiangxiang Academy, famous the world over. Who'd have known the boy was a hopeless scamp who couldn't take the hard grind of study. I had to bring him home to learn a little of trade from me. When my son was studying there a few years back, Administrator Cui happened to be the superintendent of the Jiangxiang Academy. I'm ashamed to say, when I took my boy home I had to make him no end of apologies, and I daresay after these years apart he still remembers the sorry sight I made."

"So Administrator Cui was superintendent of the Jiangxiang Academy. No wonder he knows the classics and letters through and through, and can bring out an allusion or a precedent without a pause. The Jiangxiang Academy is such a place of learning and good teaching. I've met a good many palace graduates from there at court, and no doubt many are Administrator Cui's students. Yet for years he's bent his back in this southeastern corner, doing good for the people here, keeping to the scholar's way of ordering the world. He's a model, truly."

Pan Guangling saw nothing in it. But Chen Rong turned his head a little to look at Zhuo Siheng as he spoke.

He seemed quite calm, no different from ordinary idle talk, and his words were as near to elegant as could be, with no flaw to pick.

But somehow it seemed a little unlike his usual self.

"That it is. I went for the name myself. You must know the Jiangxiang Academy is truly hard to get into. Ever since it turned out a top graduate in the ninth year of Zhenyuan, reading families have flocked to it all the harder. Who wouldn't fight to send a child there to make a name? I heard of it that year too, and hurried to send my boy, hoping to borrow a little shine from the academy and the new top graduate. I can only sigh that my worthless son had no gift and no head for study, and had to stay and eat this hard-earned bread with me. Administrator Cui turned out a top graduate as superintendent, but that was the top graduate's own doing, just as your lordship's own honor was won by your own striving. The way I see it, unless Administrator Cui had the art of turning stone to gold, he could teach out a hundred top graduates and still never teach mine to any honor. A mouse's son is best left to dig his hole in peace!"

With that the two of them looked at each other and laughed aloud at the drollery of his self-mockery.

When Zhuo Siheng's bright, warm laughter had died away, Chen Rong, in that calm, mellow voice of his, said very softly but clearly, as if to himself, or as if going on sharing Song Yunhe's musings on the way of the world:

"What a coincidence this is."