Chapter 29

The Emperor, and everyone who knew Chang Lianfang, had heard the story of Chen Dasheng and Chang Lianfang more times than they could count.

Back then it had been "Brother Scabby" this and "Brother Scabby" that. So this was Scabby.

The name reminded the Emperor of something. He asked, smiling: "That name rings a bell. Were you once under old General Tan Shilin?"

Chen Dasheng froze. The Emperor knew even a small thing like this? It was a long moment before he nodded. "Yes. I served under old General Tan a month and a half," he said, puzzled. "Your Majesty knows even that?"

When he said it, everyone but the seven of them laughed.

This Tan Shilin was Tan Shiyuan's uncle, a concubine-born younger brother of Tan Shouyi. At leading troops and fighting he was middling among the Tans. But as a man he was better than most of them. He had fewer airs, was easy with everyone, and went about all day smiling and free.

He had one well-known quirk, and everyone took it for a joke. When a battle got tight, he'd send for someone to work a rite. Monks and Daoists were always around him. The rite was only the start. After it, he'd hand out lucky names to whoever he saw. Before a fight it was usually "Great Victory" or "Great Valor." If they won, he made it "Victory Again" or "Valor Again." If they lost, "Victory Wanted" or "Valor Wanted."

Anyone who'd stood near him got a name. Later a censor even complained. How could you change the name a man's parents gave him? The old general took the rod and a scolding for it.

After that he still gave out names. He just no longer made anyone use them. The men heard him out, went by the name for that one battle, and forgot it after.

The Emperor stroked his beard, pleased. "That old fellow! Say what you like, he never mends that habit. But you, why don't you go by your old name? See, one change of name and our little Hua'er couldn't find his Brother Scabby."

Everyone laughed. Chen Dasheng only blinked. "My father said it sounded better than Scabby," he mumbled, "so I go by this..."

More laughter. When it died down, Chang Lianfang pulled himself together, walked to the Emperor's side, and sat. But his face was dark, and he didn't hide it.

Too much had happened in one day. He'd seen a darkness he'd never let himself imagine. He'd played the passer-by, crouching outside a tent to goad a prince. He'd galloped to catch the funeral train so people would see his face. He'd led his guards around hunting for wine, to give himself an alibi. Li Jinggui kicked him. He kicked back hard. He wanted no one, and sat there dull and far away.

Zheng Aman curled his lip at Li Jinggui. The two moved aside and left him alone too.

None of this escaped the Emperor. But he understood the boy. He leaned over and laid his big hand on the boy's head. "I know your father's mind. You're grown now. A year or two more and you may be a father yourself. Then you'll know our hearts."

The old earl wanted his son in the light. He wanted him to grow up straight and rising, like a good roof-beam. The boy needn't see any darkness. He needn't fight to the death against grey things. He needn't learn the world's crooked turns only to find the road up is rough. He need only be steady, and an honest, open man.

For this was the youngest son, so hard to keep, who had lived.

Chang Lianfang was quiet a long time, head bowed. Then he nodded, and looked back at Zheng Aman and the others. They'd all been given up as hostages once, and they all carried a knot in the heart.

That knot bound them. It bled them inside and never stopped. And still they had to act as if they didn't care, proud in front of others, laughing, cursing, scornful of it all. But just now, looking again at Chen Dasheng and his men, they understood something.

The Emperor saw them understand. He nodded, satisfied, and shot Zeng Anbang a smug look.

Dull as he was, Zeng Anbang knew how to flatter. He cupped his hands at once. "A parent's heart suffers more than the child's. The child is hurt, the father aches. It doesn't show on the skin, but it cuts to the heart. He'll lie awake night after night. Your Majesty is wise! Earl Chang has a loving father's heart too."

For this man to come out with words like that was no small thing. General Zeng, after all, was one who swung a golden-melon mace.

Chen Dasheng and his men knelt and listened with relish. Not understanding didn't matter. They just found it interesting. What a sorry lot these grand officials were, they thought. Not one of them talked like a human being.

He was still wondering what book-learning the big-bearded man beside him was peddling when he heard the Emperor. "So, then, let it be so. Chen Dasheng, you and..."

But before the Emperor finished, Chang Lianfang sprang up. He begged pardon for the rudeness, dashed out for no clear reason, and in a moment came tearing back, dragging a man with him.

The man wore the plain round-collared robe of an official at that day's funeral. The soup-stains at his mouth weren't wiped clean yet.

He came in, looked round at everyone, and bowed. Then he slipped to a spot out of the Emperor's sight. Quick as anything, he drew a document-pouch from his sleeve, then paper and brush. He opened to a page, pricked up his ears, and got ready to write. Then he listened, silent.

A court historian. These were the officials who set down the great affairs of state, wrote the dynasty's history, and recorded an emperor's words and deeds. The strangest creatures in the whole government.

Chang Lianfang went over to Zhang Minwang and his friend, chin up, smug, looking at the sky. Zhang Minwang quietly gave him a thumbs-up.

Our Emperor, ennobling old soldiers. A fine thing like this ought to go in the histories, and be praised for a thousand years.

Seeing his foster son drag a historian in, the Emperor smiled. He wasn't used to these men. This one was a regular field-mouse, drifting around him like a ghost every day, ready to write down even a fart.

So... he'd have to think of new words. This was meant to teach later generations. The phrasing had to be nice, the tone grand, and it had to show an emperor's broad heart...

A good while later, the Emperor cleared his throat and called their names.

"Chen Dasheng, Yu Qingguan, Tong Jintai, Ma Ergu, Hu Yougui, Cui Erdian, Guan Si'er. Step forward and hear your investiture..."

How would they know what "hearing your investiture" meant? They looked, blank, to Chang Lianfang, one of their own.

Quick-witted, Chang Lianfang ran over and knelt. He put a hand on Chen Dasheng's head and pressed it to the ground. "Your servants are here!"

An emperor after all: speaking of these men, he had even the order of their sabers right, not one out of place.

The old blades all knelt before him. The Emperor nodded, and said gravely: "In the old days they called me a traitor. They said my house had eaten the sovereign's grain for generations, and enjoyed his favor, and was the first ingrate and rebel of all. But why did I rebel?

"From its founding, the old dynasty handed out titles without end. From one duke and one marquis it went on and on, until it fell and its clans were wiped out. A mighty realm! Millions of common people, made to keep more than a hundred thousand nobles and imperial kin. One Yangwei prefect could hold a fief of ten thousand households. The father and brothers of a lowly consort would think nothing of a fief that ate four counties.

"Think, you men. Four counties' people, keeping a prefect and keeping a consort's kin, and taxes on top! Levies! Corvée! Layer on layer of it. Was there any way left to live?!"

Slowly they knelt and cried together, "Our sovereign is wise," and listened to the sacred words.

But the Emperor didn't care whether they listened or not. He even looked careless and loose. "When people can't live, of course they rebel. And back then, was I the only one? There were rebels beyond counting. I only had the better luck..."

Zhang Minwang gave a soft cough. The Emperor waved a careless hand and laughed. "I'm telling the truth. Why hide it? You couldn't hide it anyway. Let it be."

Then he looked at Chen Dasheng and the rest. "You old soldiers. From the day I raised my troops, you went before me and behind me, your battle-robes soaked in blood. And now that I've taken the throne, out comes that old joke: the general climbs to the Hall of Clouds, while the old soldier goes home alone, his broken body wrapped in rags. So I'll make you my Gate Marquises..."

The people around drew a sharp breath. How many marquises were there at court now? And hadn't His Majesty just faulted the old dynasty for handing out titles too freely?

But His Majesty went on: "Don't read too much into it. This Gate Marquis is only a name, a mark of my respect for old soldiers. And you must respect and care for such old soldiers from now on too. That is the way of mercy in our Liang!"

Zeng Anbang heard it and the blood rushed to his head. Who among them had no old soldier he couldn't forget? He kowtowed hard, and said through tears: "My sovereign's upright heart has set the order of things. His heart holds mercy and pities all living souls. And so Heaven lent its aid, and sent down its judgment, and helped my wise sovereign to the throne..."

Chen Dasheng gaped at the big-bearded man beside him. How grand, he thought. Men who've read books are so grand...

He couldn't follow it. But the master up there was smiling so sweetly. If only he could do this too. Learn this, and he'd draw a salary of two hundred dan of grain a year, three hundred dan... on up to two thousand dan. Then he'd never again have to kneel and beg for an accounting.

When Zeng Anbang had wept and wailed to the end, His Majesty stroked his beard. "Minister Zeng, your words go too far..."

Zeng Anbang kowtowed. "Every word comes from the bottom of my heart..."

This one was hooked on talking. The Emperor didn't care to play the scene out with him. He coughed and looked at Chen Dasheng and the rest. "More than ten years of war, and your old deeds can no longer be traced. I make you empty marquises to show respect, but that does nothing for your living. So I grant you the right, from this day, to eat from one bronze cauldron!"

Chen Dasheng and the rest stood dumb, not knowing what had happened. But Chang Lianfang was at their side. All worked up, he pressed Chen Dasheng's head to the ground again and cried: "Quick! Thank His Majesty for his grace!!"

"...his grace!"

That much they'd caught. They hurried to kowtow their thanks, though they didn't understand what they'd been given.

It was this: from lowly old soldiers, from despised commoners, they had just stepped into the first rank of the nobility.

The Book of Rites said the Son of Heaven might eat from nine bronze cauldrons and eight tureens, and the lesser nobles fewer, by degrees. The lowest noble of all ate from one cauldron and one tureen.

Chen Dasheng and the rest had once held a Resolute Captaincy. But that was an empty honorary rank with no office attached. It carried a yearly stipend, but who knew whose hands that had fallen into. Their real posts had been no more than a common soldier's, and even a common soldier's small pay never reached them whole.

What the Tan house had done, in the eyes of those above, was only greed too naked to look at. Still, no one thought it a great crime. Down the ages the powerful had all been the same. The private troops they raised were slaves. The soldiers they levied from their fiefs were tenants farming their land. And men like Chen Dasheng, tricked into it, were the same.

You couldn't prove you'd been tricked. The Tan house held the contract. You were their slave, and any merit on you was theirs, of course.

The Martial Emperor had his own selfish angle too. He was thinking of the old statutes and the merit-reward laws.

By Chen Dasheng's account, they'd had battle-deeds long ago. So that first deed alone could cancel a slave's status. From then they were free men, and his, Yang Zao's, own.

What's more, he'd once handed out a batch of honorary ranks. That was a whole-army reward, and everyone knew it. The Tan house wouldn't dare pocket that. And if they'd owned the rank, then the yearly stipend and the silver pay, they'd taken every bit of it, never a share short.

The Emperor had paid in real silver and gold.

The shabby-poor are always bitter against the world.

That pack of beasts in their house had another charge on them too: forging military orders, and passing false ones.

But the crime was hard to pursue. The Tan army was called the sovereign's, but it was a Tan private army by origin. To go after it now would drag in too much, past all sorting out one by one. It could only be pared down and dissolved slowly, from here on.

To stir it up would set every minister trembling. Truly not worth it.

There was no sense, for a few old blades, in going after a house of merit whose whole line had backed his rebellion. In a word, a muddled account. Let it be.

At bottom, his revenge was for Tan Shize's death. The whole Tan house together weighed less in his heart than Tan Shize alone.

So the blades that had wronged Tan Shize had wronged him, and slapped his own face.

To ennoble them like this was mercy enough. And having bought his good name, the Emperor went a step further. "Me, now, I'm a pauper. I daren't do as they did before, giving wildly the moment I open my mouth. I'd like to give, but I've nothing to give. The realm is only just recovering. Later, slowly.

"A few days back I glanced at the honorary ranks the Ministry of Rites sent up. That Resolute Captaincy of yours is the last batch. From now on it's likely an empty title, worth nothing. And my old blades must move with the times. So, Chen Dasheng! I make you a real sixth-grade Commander's Recorder of the guard garrison, and the other six seventh-grade Commander's Registrars."

"Thunk!"

Chang Lianfang pressed Chen Dasheng's head to the ground again. He was a little dizzy.

But Zeng Anbang said, his face odd: "Reporting to Your Majesty, the twenty-seven guard garrisons are all at full complement in every office. How, how is your servant to arrange it?"

The Emperor cocked a careless brow. "Then add one. An Imperial Long Saber Garrison. Twenty-eight sounds good, an even number. Give them a courtyard from your side, close to the south gate, with a little drill-ground to move about in. Don't go blunting my blades' teeth! And go back and send Xiaoshan to me. He can look after these men."

Zeng Anbang hurried to say yes.

Hear that. The Emperor said "look after," not "manage." The word gave Zeng Anbang a lot to chew on. Looking at these filthy, stinking few, he grew wildly envious.

What was this, if not high favor? All their scrambling and jostling, wasn't it for just this? A pity his own neck was too thin. An old blade he could never be. In his heart he truly admired them.

This Xiaoshan was in fact named Guo Qian, courtesy Xiaoshan. He was the guard garrison's Assistant Commander-in-Chief, only a grade below Zeng Anbang, but with more real power inside the garrison than Zeng had. He just wasn't here today, not attending the Emperor, so Zeng Anbang had been called instead.

Even so, the Emperor still wasn't done. Seeing the honest boys had no idea what had happened, he laughed out loud and went on. "So, besides your posts, I'll have men pick each of you a hundred mu of hereditary land near Yanjing."

The earlier words they hadn't followed. This they did. His Majesty the master was giving them land!!

Day in and day out they'd heard people say that once you won merit, the court gave you land. Who'd have thought it was true?

A few thunks, and in dead earnest the foolish few thanked the Emperor, kowtowing pits into the ground.

The Emperor was tickled into laughing, and the historian in the corner smiled down at his page too.

The Emperor slapped his own thigh. He felt rather like a man playing the lute to an ox, and could only shake his head and smile. "Didn't I say so, ai, and it's my own fault for not putting it right. I should have told them the land first! Ha. Well, since you know what's solid, I'll give you the solid. You didn't follow the honors, so here's the next thing, the upkeep allowance, the only one in all three armies. Oh, 'upkeep allowance' means the real money spent to keep meritorious old soldiers.

"You've served the realm. From this day the realm keeps you, of course. Only, Liang is newly founded and the treasury has no money. So from today I'll pay this out of my own purse..."

How poor must a realm be, for its emperor to pay from his own pocket.

The onlookers hurried to kneel and beg pardon. But the Emperor waved a hand. "You needn't say all that tiresome stuff. I do this for a reason: to tell everyone under heaven that whoever serves the realm, noble, minister, commoner, or these old soldiers, no matter how hard the times, I honor the debt."

This was the Emperor buying the bones for a thousand in gold. How could they dare stop him? It was only seven old soldiers, two or three hundred taels a man a year.

But those two or three hundred taels shook Chen Dasheng and the rest to the core.

They heard the Emperor above them: "As long as you live, I'll keep you. And if I don't outlive you, my children and grandchildren will keep you..."

Zeng Anbang listened, sweat on his brow, and thought: the Tan house has lost badly. After this one stroke, their army's heart is gone, and they'll never dare do this plundering so lightly again. A general who loses his army's heart, you can see how that ends. His Majesty's aim this time is a great one.

The Emperor was still scattering gold up there. "From this day, each year, each man gets an upkeep of fifty taels of silver, to hire servants and the like. Every year: two bolts each of fine silk and satin, ten bolts of coarse cloth, five of fine cotton, twenty jin of cotton wadding. Shoes, two pairs a month. Clothes for the four seasons, two sets a season. Each month, thirty jin of pork, three chickens and three ducks each. Each day, three sheng of polished rice, a jin of white flour, a jin of beancurd, three jin of vegetables, two sticks of yellow wax, ten jin of charcoal in summer and forty in winter..."

The faces of Chen Dasheng and the rest grew brighter and brighter, their eyes shining. This, this was His Majesty the master keeping them from now on?

But Zhang Minwang, who knew the inner palace, listened with his heart twisting.

He thought: Your Majesty, what is this you're giving? This is the yearly and monthly allowance of a low-ranking palace consort. No wonder it comes off your tongue so smooth.

Chang Lianfang looked at his foster brother, glad at heart. He didn't know that his brother Chen Dasheng's style and title now ran like this:

Chen: Gate Marquis (empty honor), Imperial Long Saber Guard (unit), sixth-grade Commander's Recorder (real post), eats from two bronze vessels (one cauldron, one tureen), low martial noble, the Emperor's little concubine (upkeep allowance), Lord Dasheng.

For all that long list, the Emperor had really given nothing much. It was all empty names. But after living through such a hard road, Chen Dasheng and the rest had at least an empty name now.

A man lives his whole life, and isn't it all just for face?

From this day, at least, they were people.

---

The twenty-fifth of the eleventh month, first year of Yong'an. A lucky day, all things most auspicious.

The weather was turning colder these days. So Qi Qian'er took five jin of black bean-paste and ten jin of salt from home, and asked Brother Wanquan to have the camp soldiers, when they had time, go up the nearby hills and get dry firewood to lay in for winter.

She knew this was a famine year. Charcoal she dared not hope for, but dry firewood could be had. She hadn't expected that for that little bit of goods, the infirmary camp's kitchen would send four men outright and cut her ten whole days of firewood. The east room of the house was stacked two rooms full.

It had turned cold. So each morning Qi Qian'er put out the yard-kitchen stove first thing, and moved to the main hall to warm the east room's stove-fire.

Once that fire was lit, the new kang in the east room was warm, and the old lady didn't want to go out anymore.

Grandmother and granddaughter now wore clean, neat house-clothes. They were cast-offs of the Huo estate's old stewardess, but what of it. The old lady took them for a great lady's clothes, and she was a great lady now too. Even the rich old dame back in their old village had never had three new layers, inside and out, like this.

And she used scented hair-oil. Every five days Qian'er gave her a good soak and scrub, till her neck was the same color as her face.

What a life. She'd die content tomorrow. Only that pack of camp women out there envied her. Hmph! Sour as anything!

That one day she'd gone out in the fine outfit, and ever after she had an answer for whatever Madam Qiao said. Day in, day out I begged her, make me new clothes, make me new clothes. Three years, and I never wore a single stitch off her.

My granddaughter-in-law wasn't three days in the house before she laid out my burial clothes. Who's dutiful, one look tells you. So now Madam Qiao couldn't go out either. The old lady sought out the very circle Qiao sat in and planted herself there. Not to hit her. Only to sit and show off.

An old lady with someone to care for her, and one without, you can tell at a glance.

Qi Qian'er was used to caring for herself and the house, and she couldn't stand the old lady's handiwork. Great coarse stitches, truly. Sweep a kang and the old lady never minded the corners, just scrabbled round the middle, and Qian'er would have to do it over.

Nothing for it. Every morning early, Qi Qian'er baked two cakes soft enough for the old lady to bite. Salt she had plenty of, so she tucked a handful of salty beans into the old lady's pocket, and led her by the hand to Guo née Yang's place to brag.

In a world like this, in the circle Qi Qian'er lived in, an old lady with three layers on and not one patch was the grandest of the grand.

So at first the old lady went out puffed with pride every day. She was too stingy to share a single salty bean, and only let the others listen to her brag.

By the old rule, the old lady would sit down first. Only now she couldn't sit just anywhere, not in the new clothes.

Qi Qian'er had to lay a little patchwork cushion for her before she'd sit. Once she was seated and Qian'er had gone, she'd lift her clothes, layer by layer, to show them off: her fine-cloth underclothes, her lined jacket, her snow-white socks, her fine-cloth pleated skirt. Hateful past bearing.

Clothes shown, her mouth didn't rest either. My granddaughter-in-law gave me a pair of rosewood kang-cabinets. My granddaughter-in-law gave me a hardwood wardrobe. Isn't this ring my granddaughter-in-law gave me pretty?

Hateful past bearing. So every time Qi Qian'er left, the aunties would each find a chance and scatter in a hurry.

Before long the old lady would come back put out. She'd sit on the kang and say nothing. Pressed hard, she'd lift her head and mutter: "The thunderstruck ones won't play with me. As if I cared!"

Qi Qian'er didn't spare her. Every time she'd scold: "What do I pack you food for each time? Can't you give them a bit first, and then brag?"

At which the old lady only hated it more: "Why should I? They never gave me any before!"

Fine. No one to play with, then stay home. Or go herd sheep with Wanquan.

Then the old lady bragged to Wanquan, and bragged to the old soldiers, till they too got tired of humoring her.

Like today. Ahem. The old lady, forced to stay home, wouldn't go out for anything. She was hiding her shame.

What a hateful-to-man, loathed-by-dog mood it was.

Today the old lady's hair was smoothed sleek too, with the little ruyi-patterned brow-band Qian'er had just made her. On top a dark front-buttoned jacket, below a dark jacket-skirt, and over it a camel sleeveless vest edged in green. She wore fewer bangles now, just the one. Qian'er said to rotate them every six days, a new one each day. That was true class.

That was the word for it. Class.

As for Qi Qian'er, she now wore a full black head-cloth all day. Asked about it, she'd say her father had just died, and though she'd married out in hot mourning, she still had to wear a plain head-cloth a while to do her duty.

Nonsense. The old lady knew full well. That was her thin, baby-fine hair, shaved clean by Qian'er, so she looked like a little nun now. Duty, my foot.

The old lady dared not cross the one who held the power. She only dared mutter.

More than ten days settled in now. Grain no worry, clothes no lack, body not cold. And a few days back the rosewood furniture had come, Qi Qian'er's so-called dowry, along with all the household odds the old earl sent besides. The old lady was dizzy with joy, and said her one line every day: I'll go and die tomorrow.

How could Qi Qian'er bear to let her die? So every day she dressed her up to please her.

Over the years the old lady had got together a mule, two donkeys, and three carts of junk besides. A great house's old lady, indeed.

The junk was what the old lady had picked up on the road, stripped from dead soldiers, swept up from villages gone empty.

A poor family's old lady will pick up even a scrap of paper.

So Qi Qian'er sat on the kang with her, sorting it. The too-filthy things they'd boil once at the big pot, then wash again, and dry, and mend what needed mending. What was too far gone, they'd cut the good parts from with scissors and patch into door-curtains, chair-cushions, patching-squares.

Even the leftover rag-strips weren't thrown out. They braided them into cloth-plaits and cloth-ropes, wound them round beast-bridles, wrapped them round windlass-handles. The two of them threw nothing away. They sat warm on the kang, hands and feet never still.

Qi Qian'er muttered at the old lady as she worked.

"Granny! That red piece is for the door-curtain, don't go sewing it onto the seat-cushion! Aiya, put it down! Put it down!!"

The old lady wouldn't have it: "My things. I'll sew them where I please!!"

True enough. Hers!

Qi Qian'er, cross: "Then give me back my kang-cabinet..."

The old lady curled her lip and tossed the heap of red cloth back to Qi Qian'er. She was about to grumble, when they heard someone knocking hard at the gate.

Wanquan was shouting out there: "Granny! Come out quick, our Scabby's had great honor! You've had great honor! Scabby's wife has had great honor! Great honor! Someone's come from the palace!!!"