“Get up! Stop cowering!” Li Yuanji kicked the young servant. “Get up and cut some reeds!”

“Huh?” Achen scrambled up, still looking bewildered. “Cut reeds?”

“Cut several bundles and tie them together as floats. We’ll hold onto them and swim across!” Li Yuanji pointed to the northern bank opposite. “It’s not far now. Even if we drift, we’ll make it to shore—better than sitting here waiting to drown!”

Moreover, they were soaked through, and the river wind was strong and cold. As their initial shock subsided, they felt the bone-chilling cold, their fingertips slowly growing numb. If they didn’t move quickly, they would only freeze to death, and their strength would continue to fade.

They both carried sabers, which would suffice for cutting reeds. Achen was still reluctant, bending to work while muttering complaints: “This servant can’t swim,” “The water’s so cold, it’ll freeze a lowly person to death,” “They say there are water monsters in the river that specifically devour young boys and girls.” Li Yuanji couldn’t be bothered to waste energy scolding him and ignored it all.

However, when the young servant seriously called out “Fourteenth Prince” twice and made a request, Li Yuanji could no longer ignore him. Achen pleaded: “Your Highness, please give this servant a new name?”

“A new name?” At a time like this, why suddenly think of such a trivial matter?

“This servant’s name… is too unlucky,” the young servant said with a bitter face. “How about changing it to ‘Afu’ [meaning float]? Or… ‘Afei’ [meaning fly]?”

Li Yuanji stared at him, still undecided whether to burst out laughing or kick him again, when suddenly, from far away, a woman’s laughter carried across the river.

The laughter came on the wind, intermittent but unmistakable. Li Yuanji raised his head to look for its source and saw a small boat drifting down from upstream. There were also two people aboard—as they drew closer, he could see it was a man and a woman. The man handled the pole while the woman worked the oar, and the small boat moved smoothly and gracefully under their control as if flying across the water’s surface.

Achen immediately started shouting “Help!” again, but after just a few cries, the small boat had already reached the sandbar. The tall man working the pole guided it precisely to where Li Yuanji’s boat had run aground. Though the boat swayed slightly with the current’s impact, it remained steady overall, its movement entirely under the man’s control.

They were a boatman couple in their forties, both with large, rough hands and darkened, weathered skin, wearing coarse hemp shirts and straw sandals with bare calves. The boatwoman had her head wrapped in cloth and laughed heartily:

“Which family’s young masters are you, stealing a boat to play foolishly on the river? Such bold guts! We watched you from upstream—no skill, courting death! What a waste of a good boat!”

“Good lady!” Achen hurriedly clasped his hands and smiled ingratiatingly. “Heaven has opened its eyes and sent us savior bodhisattvas! This is my Fourteenth Young Lord, who brought this servant out… for recreation, wanting to cross to the north bank! We would be eternally grateful if the good lady could give us passage!”

Despite Li Yuanji’s usual pride in his status and discomfort with begging others, in this situation, he could only maintain a straight face and slightly bow his head in a gesture of humility. The boatwoman glanced at him and said with a laugh:

“To be honest with your Fourteenth Young Lord, my husband and I have been salvaging goods and saving people on this Wei River, doing business without capital, for two or three years now. This stretch of river is most deceptive—looking calm and peaceful while full of hidden currents underneath. Every year we get outsiders who don’t know its depths, capsizing their boats and losing goods and lives. These past two years, some folks even set up a private dock on the south bank, making things even better! Only we two, growing up by the river and skilled in swimming, come out when we’re short on money to look around, saving people we meet and salvaging goods we find! When we rescue poor folk with nothing to repay us, we let it be, counting it as good karma. But for noble young masters like you… hehehe…”

Her eyes swept over the bundle tied to Achen’s chest, showing seven or eight teeth in her smile, appearing quite white against her dark face. The package Achen carried had been specially prepared before leaving the Prince of Wu’s mansion, containing flint and tinder and dried food—surely soaked through by now—as well as several strings of cash. They had brought money knowing they might need to pay for information.

Like now—Li Yuanji sighed and nodded to Achen. The young servant asked gloomily: “How much does the lady want?”

“How much, you ask?” The boatwoman struck her oar, the sound of wood striking metal rising above the waves. “So young, yet learning from those who value money over life! We two are just kind-hearted, not wanting to create evil karma. If this were fifteen years ago in the lawless times, who would waste effort saving people? My man’s strong arms could take you one by one, strip off your clothes and belongings, push you into the river to feed the fish—guess how many bones lie at the bottom of this river?”

“That was fifteen years ago,” Li Yuanji cut in coldly. “Since you grew up by the river as locals, surely you’ve been allocated land and established a household by now? Bandits can kill and rob and then flee, but can you? Would you abandon your newly cultivated permanent fields? Is it Buddhist compassion that makes you take money instead of lives, or fear of victims and officials pursuing you?”

The boatwoman looked at her husband and burst out laughing:

“My dear, look at this child, talking big like he knows everything! Doesn’t he remind you of old Wang’s second son from the military commissioner’s household?”

The man, who had maintained a gloomy silence, merely coughed once, his expression still blank, looking quite intimidating.

“Alright, alright,” the boatwoman said to Li Yuanji with a laugh, “I can see you’re a clever young man, not easily fooled. Have him spread out the valuables from the package—we’ll take half and leave half for your Fourteenth Young Lord. Two lives at stake—you’re not losing out.”

“Take us to the north bank,” Li Yuanji added.

“Of course! It’s much closer to the north bank from here. Do you take us for fools, working harder to go further?”

I’ve grown quite capable, Li Yuanji silently congratulated himself while watching Achen untie the package and pay. Here I am, a golden branch and jade leaf of the imperial family, haggling with such rural folk… What an achievement to be proud of.

The boatman couple was efficient and straightforward. After taking the money, they called the two aboard, and with one push of the man’s long pole, the small boat left the rocky shoal, flying nimbly toward the north bank.

This wooden boat was slightly larger than the one Li Yuanji had taken from the private dock, comfortable enough for four people, with a cabin in the middle that one could duck into. Li Yuanji didn’t want to enter the cabin and stood at the bow, taking a deep breath. He happened to glance at the boatman’s left hand and was startled.

It was a wooden prosthetic hand. The lower part was hidden in his sleeve, with the top carved into a fist shape, fitting perfectly into the pole handle, providing a stable grip. With his right hand also on the pole, one couldn’t tell it was a prosthetic from a distance.

This fierce-looking boatman was a one-handed invalid.

“How did… that happen?” Li Yuanji asked before he could stop himself, immediately realizing his impropriety—he was being too nosy. The boatman only gave a cold snort, ignoring him. The boatwoman at the stern, working the oar, answered instead:

“You’re asking about my man’s ‘lucky hand’? Hehe, if he hadn’t been determined enough to cut it off himself back then, how would he be alive today? Of the young men from neighboring households who were conscripted to fight in wars and transport supplies, we were lucky if one in ten came back! All thanks to this lucky hand! I’ve been thinking, maybe I should cut off our son’s hand too?”

Li Yuanji had heard of commoners mutilating themselves to avoid military service before but had dismissed it as strange hearsay. Now seeing it firsthand, his heart filled with mixed emotions, leaving him speechless.

“Say, Fourteenth Young Lord,” the boatwoman asked again, “the north bank isn’t far now—where exactly do you want to land? There are several proper docks and ferry crossings nearby…”

“Have you seen two men and a woman this morning—one man very strong, with a foreign maiden wearing a veiled hat—crossing to the north bank?” Li Yuanji asked. “Or perhaps a day or two earlier, a foreign merchant with a Han maiden crossing the river?”

[Note: Regarding the “permanent fields” and “lucky hand” mentioned in this chapter. The “Equal Field System” of the early Tang dynasty, found in history textbooks, was the economic foundation of Tang’s early prosperity. The court distributed vast tracts of abandoned land from the late Sui chaos to self-cultivating farmers according to regulations, organizing them for production, then having these farmers pay rent and taxes and serve in the military. This was an idealized governance model that lasted… four or five generations ╮（╯＿╰）╭ We won’t discuss what happened after that yet.

According to the Equal Field Decree of the Wude era, healthy men between 21-60 years old were granted one qing (100 mu) of land by the court, of which twenty mu was “permanent field” that could be passed down to descendants; eighty mu was “mouth share field” that had to be returned to the court for redistribution after death. Thus, people generally valued the “permanent fields” most. Additionally, officials, those with military merit, the elderly and disabled, widows, and various other categories could receive land according to public regulations, details omitted.

There was always a gap between paper regulations and practical implementation. In some densely populated areas with better quality farmland in the early Tang, there wasn’t enough land to distribute, and “hundred mu per adult male” existed mostly on paper. However, according to modern scholars’ research, medieval per capita production capacity was limited, and it wasn’t realistic for one person to farm a hundred mu (even with the most efficient tools and oxen)—roughly thirty mu per household was the effective farming limit.

Regarding the “lucky hand,” Tang Huiyao Volume 39 discusses punishment severity: “In the seventh month of the sixteenth year, an imperial decree stated: Henceforth, those who harm themselves shall be punished according to law and still be subject to labor service. (Original note) Since the late Sui political chaos, levies were numerous and people could barely survive, so they would mutilate their bodies, calling it ‘lucky hand lucky foot’ to avoid military service. These unruly practices haven’t been eliminated among the desperate, hence this rule was established.” During the Zhenguan era, this self-mutilation phenomenon was partly due to frequent military service requirements and partly due to social and psychological factors from centuries of chaos—later generations found it difficult to judge right from wrong. It’s like how even after the Qing dynasty fell and the Republic was established, many parents still willingly had their sons castrated to become eunuchs—who can reason with that…

Medieval and earlier social psychology tended to revere “sacrificing life for righteousness” and readily resort to bloodshed. Li Shimin himself would draw his sword and attempt self-harm in public when deeply distressed. An even more famous custom was northern grassland nomads cutting their faces, ears, and chests at respected elders’ funerals. The “Princes Mourning” mural in Mogao Cave 65 at Dunhuang is practically a large-scale suicide scene broadcast = =]