Jiang Zhen and Jiang Bao each wore a small pack on their back. The larger items — clothes, shoes — were loaded onto the cart. They carried their brushes, ink, and writing supplies on their persons, and they leaned on walking staffs with an air of comfortable familiarity. Thanks to Hua Jie’s connections, the schools throughout Wuzhou all included some medical instruction, and Hua Jie had frequently brought the students along to treat the sick in villages and small settlements.

These two had been on trips before. Young as they were, they had some experience of the world. Along the way they chatted and laughed; around them were a dozen or so young people of similar age — either schoolmates or Zhù Ying’s attendants — all familiar faces. Even those they didn’t know well had grown close enough by the time they’d been walking together for a while.

Zhù Ying would sometimes dismount to walk a stretch alongside them, checking on how they were doing. When they grew tired, they would take turns resting on the horses and mules for a bit.

Marching is still faster than making medical rounds, after all. By the time they made camp in the evening, the young men and women all had blisters — more or fewer — on their feet. Everyone sat around the fire, using the firelight to lance their blisters. Jiang Zhen said, “The fire isn’t bright enough.”

Jiang Bao stuck a thick piece of kindling into the fire and stirred it around until the flame burned a bit higher. “That’s better.”

Jiang Zhen looked up and noticed some of the boys in the group hadn’t moved yet. Curious, she said, “Don’t you have blisters?”

The tallest boy said, “I just went to check — the hot water over there isn’t ready yet. And even once it is, it should go first to Grandma and the others who have worked hardest. I can wait. After you’ve lanced your blisters, walking will be rough, so you shouldn’t be the ones hauling the water.”

Jiang Zhen felt a twinge of regret. “We should have gotten the water ready first. Let’s take turns — today you all carry the water, tomorrow we will.”

The boy flashed a grin. “Deal.”

Zhù Qingye stood outside holding the medicine pouch, listening to their exchange with a faint smile, then pushed open the door and walked in. “You’re all pretty capable, aren’t you — here, some medicine for you.”

The boy came over to take it, giving her a word of thanks. “Thank you, Elder Sister.”

Zhù Qingye said, “Get yourselves sorted and rest early — there’s more road to cover tomorrow.”

The boy asked, “What about you and the others, Elder Sister?”

Zhù Qingye said, “We’re well used to this — a bit of road like this is nothing.”

The young people looked at her with both admiration and mild embarrassment. Zhù Qingye smiled and went off to report to Zhù Ying. Zhù Ying said, “Not bad at all. Slowly, slowly — there will be plenty of hardships ahead for them.”

Zhù Qingye asked, “Grandma, are you really going to send them even further west?”

Zhù Ying said, “Yes.”

Zhù Qingye said, “But they only know a little Xi Ka — they hardly know any Ji Ma at all. How will they manage?”

For various reasons, most of the people in Zhù County spoke “Wuzhou Common Speech.” Beyond that, people also used Qi Xia in daily conversation. The Hua Pa dialect was known because of the proximity to the Yi Gan family, and since the Lu Guo and Xi Jin families were both in Wuzhou, people could manage a few words of those as well. Xi Ka was spoken far less, and Ji Ma, being even farther away, was even less understood.

Going west meant that the chieftains had been killed. If they didn’t want to cultivate another batch of chieftains, but rather wanted to govern directly, they absolutely needed people with command of those “foreign languages.” Young children like Jiang Zhen and Jiang Bao were not yet very useful for this purpose.

Zhù Ying shot her a glance. Zhù Qingye’s heart gave a small lurch, but she pressed on: “I’m worried about them! Teacher, they’re worried too.” She had grown up before Hua Jie’s eyes over these past decade-plus of years, and she looked on Jiang Zhen and Jiang Bao as younger sisters. Besides, the two Jiangs had quietly asked her to look out for them, so she couldn’t help asking a few more questions.

Zhù Ying said, “Of course there are things they can do.”

Hearing that vague half-assurance, Zhù Qingye grew even more worried, and in the middle of the night she went to peek at the sleeping quarters where Jiang Zhen and the others were — a whole row of girls sleeping soundly, peacefully, without a care in the world. She thought: I wonder what on earth you’ll be assigned to do.

The group arrived at Gan County’s magistrate’s office to find Zhù Lian and Jiang Wan and the others all present.

Zhù Qingye looked curiously at Jiang Wan — everyone had already tacitly accepted that she would be the county magistrate of the newly established county. Why was she still at Gan County? Zhù Lian’s presence was less surprising; while Gan County was a key staging point for the westward advance, and with Zhù Ying not yet back, he still had to be here coordinating the logistics and supplies.

Zhù Lian and Jiang Wan stepped forward to report to Zhù Ying. “Zhù Qingjun has conscripted two thousand men along the way — all able-bodied. Additionally, Lu Danqing and the others have each gathered anywhere from several hundred to over a thousand local troops. We come now to request instructions on how to arrange for them.”

Jiang Zhen and Jiang Bao had barely arrived before hearing this excellent news; their eyes lit up with excitement, and some already had their hands reaching for the document pouches at their waists. When they’d been summoned, they had a rough sense of their responsibilities, and in fact any literate and numerate person conscripted for this purpose would know roughly what they were expected to do.

New people had arrived — which meant they could start doing clerical work, running messages, and relaying orders. With real work to do, the young men and women all straightened up.

But Zhù Ying’s expression was somewhat grave. “How many people in total?”

Zhù Lian said, “There are already over four thousand at present. Their supplies will need to be reassessed.”

Jiang Wan hastily added, “We didn’t force them to join. Once the chieftains were killed and the human sacrifices abolished — even before the land distribution began — people were volunteering as guides on their own. There were genuine losses among the soldiers, and the supply convoys sometimes couldn’t keep up, so we also needed laborers to carry provisions. More and more people kept coming…”

After that, scribes and the like had followed to restore order in the villages. Once people saw the land being distributed and grain rations being handed out, and saw that those who had been conscripted were fed and not beaten, more and more were willing to “join the campaign.” Some among them had old scores to settle, new grudges to avenge, some were looking for a way to survive, and others felt that Zhù Qingjun and the others had saved them and wanted to repay the kindness.

Jiang Wan said, “As more and more people arrived — none of them with household or land registries — and with too few people on hand below me, these matters piled up and began to hold back everything else. When the opportunity came to escort the wounded back to recover, I thought to come in person to report and seek guidance, so I would know how to proceed when I returned.”

Zhù Ying first pointed to Jiang Zhen and the others and said to Zhù Qingye, “Go and get them settled too.”

Jiang Zhen edged half a step forward. “Grandma~”

“Go.”

Zhù Qingye swiftly pulled one, then grabbed the other, and whisked the whole group of young men and women away to be assigned their quarters.

Zhù Ying then turned to Jiang Wan. “Tell me the details — where all these new troops are, how many, how they’ve been used…”

Jiang Wan said, “The Captain said they can’t be called soldiers yet — at most ‘recruits’ — they still need training. So she selected only five hundred able-bodied ones as general-purpose workers; the rest refused to disperse. The Captain said we’ll need troop reinforcements going forward, but just absorbing them like this won’t be effective — they still need to be trained…”

Jiang Wan laid out the situation in full. Jiang Zhen and the others had followed Zhù Qingye back — they were impatient; they’d tossed their luggage into their rooms without even putting it away properly and run straight back.

They arrived just in time to catch those last words. Jiang Zhen quietly asked Zhù Qingye, “Why is it being arranged this way?”

Zhù Ying glanced at her. Jiang Zhen shrank back slightly.

Zhù Ying said, “Didn’t you see it at home too? How long did we train our troops before we sent them into battle?”

She began to explain. Jiang Zhen and the others were glad — their mothers had always said Zhù Ying was an exceptional person who would generously teach skills that others kept closely guarded. Yet she herself had not had much interaction with Zhù Ying before now, as Zhù Ying rarely visited the school and didn’t teach very often.

Now that Zhù Ying had begun to teach, she quickly started writing things down.

Simply having the right height, age, and sex — and being handed a weapon — does not make someone a soldier. They must be trained. At minimum there must be some discipline: knowing to follow orders, knowing when to advance and when to fall back, and so on. A mass of bodies alone is not enough; such a force might hold its own in a fight that’s already going well, but at the first setback it would collapse and scatter. Training is absolutely essential.

That is why chieftains of every clan — regardless of tribe — who rashly led a force out to face the court’s regular armies were finished. That earlier clash between the “tribal peoples” and the court officials had been the same: the court suffered enormous losses, but the devastation the “tribal peoples” endured was what made the Sparrow clan’s grandfather-in-law carry his resentment and fear to his grave.

Besides, they now suddenly had four thousand extra people. When Zhù Ying had originally calculated her troop strength, she’d counted roughly five thousand per county — at full stretch she had prepared supplies for only ten thousand. Now they had gained nearly half that number again without warning, and one could foresee that such numbers would only grow. These people’s provisioning was a major problem.

Although these people would have been eating at home too, eating at home is an entirely different matter from eating several hundred li away from home — a difference that involved transportation, spoilage, and all manner of related issues.

Zhù Qingye’s decision not to roll all the able-bodied men into an unstoppable snowball and charge them at the enemy was correct. Zhù Qingjun and Lu Danqing and the others also had no time right now to stop and train new recruits.

Then Zhù Ying expanded the lesson further. “And that is why throughout history, no matter how enormous a roving insurgency’s momentum at the start, as long as it lacks a stable base of territory for reinforcement, within a few years its most experienced veterans keep getting killed off, and even the most courageous of armies is ground down to nothing.”

Zhù Ying spoke; Jiang Zhen and the others took notes below.

With the situation laid out clearly, the solution followed naturally. “Transfer Lin Feng here — to train the troops. Zhù Lian, Jiang Wan — you go back west and continue supporting Qingjun.”

Zhù Lian asked, “What about here?” He said it without ceremony: “We’ve taken away all the trained people. What you’re left with here are all these green hands — that won’t be enough.”

Zhù Ying said, “I’ll transfer Wu Ren here.”

Back at the manor, there was still Zhao Su, Xiang Le, and the others. Dealing with pressure from Jiang Zheng’s side, they could just barely hold things together.

Everyone received their orders.

……

Zhù Lian was still uneasy. Gan County was already not very well staffed; he would need to divide a portion to Jiang Wan, and whatever he kept for himself he’d need to use to assemble the skeleton of a new prefecture. How many experienced hands would be left for Zhù Ying?

He sent Jiang Wan on ahead, while he and the rest stayed a few more days. “You go first and hold things together. I’ll take another look here. If these young ones are still too raw, I’ll divide half my experienced people and leave them behind. The home base is too important — can’t hollow it out completely. I’ll spare some from my lot.”

Jiang Wan said, “Then your people won’t be enough either. I can still spare two people from my side. Oh — I also ran into two very bright and capable Xi Ka people. They can’t read, but their minds are sharp enough, and they can serve in a pinch. Actually, for some things you don’t strictly need literacy — illiterate local people can be used too.”

Zhù Lian said, “I understand the logic — but what we need is to bring these people into the household registries. Even now our record-keeping is quite rough; there are people scattered all through the wilds who can’t all be fully documented. If we don’t even do the rough accounting that we manage now, can this territory really be called Grandma’s? What Grandma wants is registered households — a people who come at one call. You just focus on your work. I’ll spare some experienced hands and bring some of the young ones along on the road — teach them as we go. That’s how all apprentices learn! Off you go!”

Jiang Wan had no choice but to set out with her husband.

Zhù Lian held on for several more days until Wu Ren arrived to take over.

Not wanting to trouble Zhù Ying over it, he went to take a look himself first — to be mentally prepared.

Then he got a surprise. “What is this?”

Beside Wu Ren stood a young girl, about twelve or thirteen, who looked very much like Wu Ren. Zhù Lian thought to himself: did you go off and secretly have a child?

Nearby, Lin Feng strode over and clapped Zhù Lian on the shoulder. “Lian, good to see you again! I brought more people with me! Where do we stay?”

Zhù Lian held him off. “Let the teacher decide. Hey, Little Wu — that’s your…”

Wu Ren said matter-of-factly, “This is my child.”

Zhù Lian, feeling slightly unsteady on his feet, led them in. “That, the child — Teacher may ask — we’ve never heard of her before, during the campaign. You. The whole situation.”

Wu Ren looked at him blankly, then said, “It is precisely during the campaign that I brought her along to help. A’Bao and the others are about the same age as her — if they can do things, she can too. She can read and calculate — she can manage.”

In front of Zhù Ying, Zhù Ying set Lin Feng aside first, as expected, and turned her interest to Wu Ren. “Where did this one come from?”

Wu Ren said, “This is my child.”

Fortunately, Zhù Ying was not Zhù Lian — she asked directly, “Who gave birth to her?” By her reckoning, Wu Ren should have gone up into the mountains some ten-odd years ago; if something had happened, Hua Jie would have told her.

Wu Ren smiled. “She was adopted from my younger brother. Third Sister-in-law wanted to adopt a son, and the Old Madam looked things over and asked me what I was thinking about for my own future. I gave it some thought, went home and said something about it, and my father, mother, and brother all said the Old Madam had kindly brought it to our attention. The family was going to adopt a son for me too — but I thought, I’m not good with children.

Yet the girls raised in our household have all turned out remarkably well! If it were only a nephew, I’d have to grit my teeth and raise him anyway. But since there’s a niece, things are much easier! I just follow the model already in place — there’s a template to go by! She’ll definitely be raised well!”

You really are a genius, Zhù Lian thought.

And yet, come to think of it, it genuinely made sense. Where in the world was there a better place to raise a girl well than at Zhù Ying’s side?

Zhù Ying beckoned to the little girl, who came forward quite naturally and gave a curtsy. Zhù Ying took her hand and asked, “What is your name?”

“Wu Shuang,” the girl said, in a clear, bright voice.

Wu Ren said, “She’s the second child. Her older brother came first, and the moment she was born her father said the family was now complete — both a son and a daughter — so he gave her this name.”

“Very fitting.” Zhù Ying said. She also asked whether Wu Shuang knew any dialects, or Qi Xia, or Xi Ka.

Wu Shuang said, “Grandmother had me learn a little Qi Xia. I haven’t learned Xi Ka yet.”

“Good — you’ll slowly pick some up. You’ll need it to talk to people here.”

She took out a set of writing implements, placed them in a document bag, and gave them to the young girl Wu Shuang. Then she told Wu Ren to take his niece to rest first. “You go with her to begin with. Once you’re more comfortable with the language, you’ll be going out on assignments with A’Bao and the others.”

Wu Ren asked no questions about what assignments, and readily agreed. “Prefect Zhao also sent along some additional helpers with me — he was worried you might be short-handed.”

Zhù Ying smiled. “Very good.” In Zhao Su’s care were Wuzhou’s largest and best schools — it seemed he and Hua Jie had been working hard all along.

Seeing all this, Zhù Lian finally set his mind at ease. The following day he came to take his leave of Zhù Ying. Zhù Ying said, “Take care of yourself. Make sure to prepare for winter — this winter, we are not stopping.”

“Yes.”

After seeing Zhù Lian off, Wu Ren came shuffling along at Zhù Ying’s side. “My Lord, what do you need me to do next?”

Zhù Ying said, “In addition to managing military supply transfers and registering the newly annexed people — you now have two tasks. First, the new recruits. Second, a women’s regiment.”

“What?” The sound came from Lin Feng.

Zhù Ying didn’t look at him; she continued to speak to Wu Ren. “The recruits need to be trained. The battles ahead will stretch on for another two years; relying solely on Zhù County, Gan County, and Lin Feng’s small force of personal troops — even if we win, if the soldiers are depleted, governing the territory will be extremely difficult. Since the newly annexed lands can provide capable people, let’s use them. But training and maintaining soldiers costs money. And beyond that, cavalry in particular is enormously expensive — that will all need to be carefully coordinated.”

“Yes.”

“And I want to conscript women soldiers.”

Up to now, things had been mixed. In Zhù Ying’s view, men and women were equally useful. By custom and practicality alike, men were somewhat stronger, and male soldiers had always outnumbered female ones. Even in Zhù Qingjun’s unit, roughly half were male soldiers. And Lin Feng was the sort who didn’t especially like leading women soldiers — his units leaned heavily male.

But Wu Ren adopting a niece had sparked a thought in Zhù Ying: why not form a dedicated women’s regiment?

“Women soldiers are agile. I already know how to raise girls well — why not gather more of them together and raise them?”

Lin Feng said quietly, “Well then… I’m really not very good at leading women soldiers.” Anywhere else, you’d never get women soldiers at all — they’d be bullied into tears without a second thought. But Wuzhou was different; Wuzhou’s women were fierce — even more so than those from Fulu County — and especially prone to sticking together and arguing you into the ground. Thankfully there was no one like that Zhou Wai here; that one was a virtuoso of unreasonable reasoning, and she gave people a tremendous headache.

Zhù Ying said, “You don’t need to lead them. I’ll lead them personally.”

Lin Feng let out an enormous sigh of relief. “So I’ll take the rest. Oh my, if the court finds out you’re specifically training women soldiers, they’re going to be furious — hahaha!” He laughed with gleeful abandon and not an ounce of care, with a hint of schadenfreude, as though he and the court had some deep-seated feud.

Zhù Ying said, “Let them be angry if they want.”

Wu Ren and the others also burst out laughing; Jiang Bao even clapped her hands and said, “Why should we care about pleasing it?”

Zhù Ying said, “All right — let’s get to work. Jiang Zhen, Jiang Bao — you two start by helping Little Shuang.”

She also issued an order: throughout Zhù County, Gan County, and all newly annexed territories, women were also eligible to enlist. She set the standards — age between twelve and twenty, with specific requirements for height and strength, and so on. She would recruit a total of eight hundred, no particular reason for that number; she simply couldn’t afford to maintain more than that.

Zhù Ying moved her command post into the new recruits’ camp, eating and living alongside them.

On the other front, Zhù Qingjun and the others kept advancing without pause. After the autumn harvest the weather gradually cooled — the most pleasant time of the year. In one sustained push through the New Year, which neither the Ji Ma nor the Xi Ka people celebrated, and which Zhù Qingjun and Su Zhe and the others were likewise too busy to observe, within those several months they managed to seize an entire prefecture’s worth of territory.

At this point, Wuzhou’s fighting vanguard had arrived at the Ji Ma people’s very doorstep.

Three thousand li away in the capital, the “circuitously delivered” memorial had also arrived.

Xian Jing read the memorial and laughed in exasperation. “Is she feigning ignorance while knowing exactly what she’s doing? Roads impassable? Wuzhou’s local goods are selling just fine in the capital — what exactly does she think she’s up to?”

Zheng Xi said, with sardonic airs, “It’s not what she wants to do — it’s what she doesn’t want to do. She’s handed us a ready-made excuse: she doesn’t want to tear the face off things outright.”

Xian Jing gave a cold laugh. “She certainly has nerve!”

Chen Meng said, “This is the Grand Secretariat — not a place for bickering and venting! It appears Gu Tong and the others acted on their own initiative; this was not her intention. Let us simply allow the ‘roads’ to be ‘opened’ again. Wuzhou cannot be allowed to slip from our hands, nor can we allow it to fall into disorder on our watch — if it did, history would look badly upon all of us.

Jiang Zheng has had a hard enough time these past two years. Being placed there to watch over Zi Zhang is a thankless job for anyone sent there. Let’s transfer him back — there are plenty of other places that need capable officials to stabilize things.”

But Zheng Xi voiced an objection. “Jiang Zheng should hold off for now. Zhù Zi Zhang has gone quiet, but that doesn’t mean she’s only up to one thing. Moreover, the court’s expenditures have been considerable of late, and the revenues of the south cannot be ignored. Jiyuan Prefecture, where Zhù Zi Zhang has managed affairs for many years, has a strong foundation — this is not the moment to create disruptions. Let Jiang Zheng, that capable and able official, guard it for a few more years. Zhù Zi Zhang won’t stay silent forever. Wait until something shows — then move Jiang Zheng. As for the roads — those do need to be opened. The gazette — give it to her.”