Deep winter had arrived, and the New Year was approaching. Minglan planned to give herself a couplet as a gift: the upper line reading “Predicts All Things with Divine Accuracy,” the lower line reading “An Oracle of Iron Conviction,” and the banner inscription — “Half Immortal.”
After that day’s persuasion, Changwu had set out for Jinling the very next morning. In such uncertain times, having an additional armed man to guard the household was always welcome. The Jinling Regional Military Commander’s Office and the five surrounding garrison units all deeply lamented their shortage of capable fighters, so Changwu was naturally received with great enthusiasm. After five consecutive banquets of fat geese and large ducks in his honor, Changwu took a leave of absence and returned briefly to Yuhang.
“Sister, you really did talk nonsense, didn’t you? I knew the south had no fighting! I have been perched on Jinling’s city walls for all these days and not a single thing has happened. Although — the wealthy households in Jinling, hearing of the chaos outside, have all been scared half to death, so in half a month’s time they have already levied the city-defense contribution twice. And look here — I even received fifty taels of silver.” Changwu tossed a heavy, gold-thread embroidered pouch onto the table, smiling ruefully. For those who lived off their soldier’s pay, this was a considerable sum — but for a Sheng family son, it was hardly remarkable.
Li Shi saw that her son’s words still carried hints of wanting to go north, and was so anxious that in the middle of winter she broke into a sweat.
“Second Cousin-brother, please do not be hasty,” Minglan said languidly. “Think about it — the fighting only started last month. Refugees travel on two legs, which are no match for horses. Wait a while longer!”
“Is that so…?” Changwu stared at Minglan with eyes full of doubt.
Minglan gave a vigorous nod, then drew on an inspiring precedent in the manner of a professional storyteller: “Think of that time when Emperor Wuzong led his army personally to campaign against the Uriangkhai tribes! In the dead of winter, when even the water froze to ice, he led a hundred thousand troops and waited in the ancient city of Nurgan for a full two months — calm and unshaken! He lured the Uriangkhai into complacency, coaxed them to send out all the elite forces of several tribes, and then in a single stroke, Emperor Wuzong annihilated them entirely! Second Cousin-brother, you are a man who can face one enemy or a thousand enemies, and may one day need to face ten thousand. Patience is the single most important quality!”
The power of a good example is limitless. Changwu was so thoroughly persuaded that he headed back to Jinling that very evening. At dinner, Li Shi piled extra food into Minglan’s bowl one after another. Yun’er — who as a pregnant woman had priority claim to both chicken legs — placed them both on Minglan’s plate instead.
“Niece-in-law, you are simply indulging her!” Sheng Lao said with a smile at the corners of her lips. “This little girl wins people over purely with that mouth of hers.”
Sheng Wei’s expression was thoughtful and serious: “Not entirely. I believe the girl’s words have merit. Over these past few days, I have gone around to the villages and townships, invited the elders and heads of the great households and families to tea, and asked them not to be lavish with their New Year celebrations but to store more grain and firewood in case of need — things are in turmoil outside, after all.”
Sheng Wei’s instincts were sound — and sure enough, some time later, Changwu sent word back: the refugees had come.
King Jing had been plotting rebellion for many years and urgently needed enormous amounts of silver and grain as military provisions. For years he had been extorting the common people on a massive scale, and his officials and underlings had followed his example, draining the people to their bones. It happened to be deep winter, with heavy snowfall drifting down like goose feathers. The people were starving and freezing, and enduring hardship beyond all endurance. The displaced and destitute masses had no choice but to flee the Anhui region, and so the tide of refugees swelled enormously, pouring into Jiangsu, Henan, Hubei, Jiangxi, and Zhejiang.
In the last month of the first year of the Chongde reign, five hundred thousand refugees from Anhui gathered beneath the walls of Jinling. The official storehouses were opened to distribute grain; the city’s wealthy households opened large congee kitchens and gave out firewood and charcoal, sheltering the refugees in civilian dwellings outside the city walls for the winter.
Changwu finally had work to do. Fearing that the refugees might stir up trouble, the military escorted and maintained order at every opening of the city gates to deliver aid, working without rest day and night. Yuhang too, in the first month of the second year of the Chongde reign, received its first wave of refugees.
Fortunately, the Sheng family had prepared in advance. Together with several other great families in the county, they hastily erected many temporary shelters to give the refugees a place to stay, dispensing congee twice a day and distributing whatever old padded quilts and cotton clothes were no longer needed to help them through the winter.
Minglan had also gone out once in a carriage-sedan with Li Shi to look, and was despondent for a long time afterward. A child raised in the material comfort of the modern world could barely imagine what she saw: great flurries of snow falling like goose down, the ground thick with frost, and many of the elderly and children dressed in only single layers of thin clothing, shivering beside tiny fires, their skin darkened to a purple color from the cold. Children with frostbite all over their hands and faces, hollow eyes staring vacantly at the bowl of cold, thin congee as though it were their only hope.
Inside the shelters there were no great cries — only the sparse and scattered sounds of weeping. Mothers held their children who were burning with fever, too weak even to cry, their faint little voices calling out for food. It wrung Minglan’s heart into a knot.
“…In my home village, there was a flood. All the fields were submerged, the harvest was lost, there was nothing to eat. My younger brother fell ill, and my parents had no other way — so they sold me.” Xiaotao recalled the blurred memories of her past and spoke with calm composure. “I heard the village elders say that life in this dynasty is considered good by comparison. Every family has its own land and owes no rent. In the great upheavals of the previous dynasty, ordinary people owned no land at all — it all belonged to the great households. The moment any natural disaster struck and they could not pay their land rent, they had to sell their sons and daughters, starve, and freeze.”
Minglan gave a small nod. The later a dynasty lasted, the more severely its land was concentrated in the hands of the few. When the farmers had nothing left to live on, the dynasty fell and everything began again.
Qinsang’s mood was low as well. She said quietly: “My family originally had over ten mu of land. In years of good weather, we got by well enough. But then a county magistrate came who found excuses to extort money from people every single day. He also took a fancy to a girl from our village called Yinhua and wanted to take her as a concubine. Her family refused, so he had her father and brothers arrested and charged them with being unruly subjects who refused to pay grain taxes. They were thrown into prison and tortured. The very next day Yinhua entered the county magistrate’s household. Yet her father and brothers could not endure the torture and died in prison. When the villagers went to argue the case, the magistrate’s steward said — it was done and over with, and they should not look for trouble. Later, Yinhua threw herself headlong into the wall of the county yamen and died.”
Minglan’s heart was filled with grief. It was truly said: a county magistrate can destroy a family; a prefect can annihilate a clan. In this era, the happiness of ordinary people was like a thin sheet of paper — any stroke of natural or man-made disaster could tear through it. Minglan could not help feeling that she had been fortunate in the family she was born into.
“But what did that have to do with your family?” Luzhi, who had been listening all this while, had missed the point.
“Yinhua was my brother’s betrothed who had not yet come to our home.”
Everyone fell silent.
Qinsang stirred the charcoal in the brazier. The firelight softened her placid face: “My brother was so angry he wanted to fight them. He was beaten bloody by the yamen runners and driven away. Father was so enraged he fell ill. With two men in the household needing medical treatment and no one left to work the fields, there was no money for it all. Grandmother said we must not sell the land — once the men recovered, they would need to farm again. So I was sold instead. Sold along with me were Yinhua’s younger brother and sister — I do not know where they are now.”
Danju asked softly: “Do you still remember what that county magistrate was called?”
Qinsang shook her head; the flower ornaments in her twin buns quivered gently: “I do not remember. I was only five or six years old at the time. I only know that when I left, the village head and the community elder were discussing how to pool some silver together and make sure the village produced a licentiate — so that when people were bullied in the future, there would be someone with standing who could speak up. …I heard later that the county magistrate was reported to his superiors, had his property confiscated, was removed from office, and was sentenced to military exile. I was glad to hear it. But Yinhua’s family was already destroyed — their house and fields had all gone to ruin, and there was no one left to speak of them.”
The room fell into a heavy, sorrowful silence. After a long while, Qinsang brightened again and said with a smile: “Two years ago, the family sent a letter through someone. Things at home have gradually gotten better. My two elder brothers have both taken wives, my younger brother is studying, and my father and mother said that once things are more comfortable, they will redeem me. I told them there was no need — I am fine here. I earn two qian of silver a month, more than my father or brothers. I save it all to bring home and use to buy more land.”
Minglan had been listening quietly all this while. Now she could not help asking: “Your family preferred to sell you rather than sell the land. Do you resent them for it?”
Qinsang smiled, a faint flush coming to her face: “I did resent them for a while. But then I thought it through. With land, a father, and brothers, there is still hope. And Mother asked around extensively before selling me. My fate is a good one — I was brought into this household, where no one beats or scolds me, and I have the great fortune of serving you, young miss. All these years I have eaten well and dressed well, and all the sisters have been kind to me. What is there to resent?”
Minglan could not help being struck by this. Among the maidservants of Muxuanzhai, Qinsang was neither the most capable nor the most striking in appearance or temperament — she lacked both Yancao’s thoroughness and Luzhi’s quick efficiency — so her monthly wages and rewards ranked lower than the others. Yet listening to her, Minglan heard nothing but deep contentment with her life, and when she spoke of her family, the longing and tenderness were unmistakable. A person so warm-natured and honest as this was truly a rare find.
For the first time, Minglan had glimpsed the simple goodness of the common people at the very bottom of society. They were like the soil underfoot — humble, yet solid. Minglan’s heart was moved, and she smiled: “If your family truly gets back on its feet, you do not need to pay silver to redeem yourself — I will release you freely. I am sure your parents will have found you a good husband by then. When that time comes, I will add a dowry gift to send you off with!”
Qinsang’s face went as red as rouge. She stamped her foot in flustered indignation: “Young miss! How can you say such things? I am going to tell Nanny Fang on you!”
Laughter finally swept away the gloom. After reporting to the Elder, Minglan took out one quarter of all the pocket money she had saved over the years — and the maidservants also pooled what loose silver they had — and used it all to buy grain and padded quilts to distribute to the refugees.
“You have spent away all the savings from these years, and now your heart feels at ease? As if your little contribution is going to change things — people are still freezing to death out there,” Sheng Lao said, studying Minglan with a half-smile.
Minglan gave a serious nod: “Your granddaughter knows it is a drop in the bucket. But to do what is within my power to do — that is enough.”
She heard Changwu say that once spring arrived, the government would make arrangements: those who wished to return to their home regions would be helped to go back, and those who had nowhere to return to would be assigned to clear and cultivate new land and settle there. She could only hope they survived this one winter.
The Elder held her small granddaughter close, a gentle smile on her face, and sighed softly: “You little fool.”
In the first month of the second year of the Chongde reign, bandit gangs in eastern Anhui, western Zhejiang, southern Jiangsu, and western Jiangsu grew to be a serious scourge — they frequently robbed the refugees fleeing for their lives and attacked poorly defended towns and cities, burning and killing wherever they went. With nowhere to go, a great number of refugees also turned bandit themselves.
Changwu and a group of his passionate fellow soldiers petitioned several times for permission to lead the garrison troops out of the city to suppress the bandits. Every time, they were blocked by the Jinling Prefect and the Regional Military Commander. With fighting on all sides outside, they were hard-pressed simply to hold the gates of Jinling closed — who would dare open them to go bandit-hunting?
After several petitions were all rejected, Changwu took a leave of absence in exasperation and came home.
“How many times have I told you — do not go glaring and scowling at your superiors! Keep your temper in check! Official circles are not easy to navigate!” Sheng Wei, worried that his son had antagonized his commanding officer, launched into a scolding the moment he walked through the door.
“Father! How could I act like that?! My brothers were pounding the table and throwing wine cups at Commander Hu in protest — I was the one who said nothing!” Changwu stiffened his neck, his face flushing a deep red: “That is precisely why I took leave and came home! Otherwise I would have no face to show my brothers!”
Minglan consoled him from the side: “Second Cousin-brother, do not be upset. You are not one of the officers directly under Jinling’s command — it was correct of you not to say more. Oh, by the way — how does the fighting outside stand now? I see that our part of the south still seems relatively peaceful. Has King Jing’s march northward been going smoothly?”
“He is dreaming!” Changwu’s expression was one of complete contempt. “That mob of his made a great deal of noise, but they are a useless rabble. They had barely entered Shandong before they were defeated. Their main force was cut in half; the rear half retreated to Xuzhou and was ambushed in a mountain valley. The front half fled to Zhuangzhou, and that is probably done for as well.”
At these words, the mood in the room lifted visibly. Sheng Wei and Changsong exchanged a relieved smile. Sheng Lao counted his prayer beads with a gentle smile. Li Shi pressed her palms together and chanted the name of Amitabha. The Shi woman moved cheerfully around the room arranging tea and refreshments. Ran gave a quiet “hm” and whispered to Minglan: “That King Jing really is useless!”
Minglan patted her chest, sat down at the table, poured herself a cup of tea, and drank it slowly.
Changwu paced anxiously around the room in two large circles, then let out a long, despairing sigh: “Minglan, sister — I have to admit you were right. I did not need to go back to the capital. The way I see it, King Jing will not make it to the capital before he falls apart! The people earning merit now are those suppressing the rebellion. If I had only known sooner, I would have gone to join the army from the very start!”
Sheng Wei, seeing his son’s dejection, changed the subject: “I wonder which great army is suppressing the rebellion this time.”
Changwu dropped into a chair: “It seems His Majesty had long been on his guard against the south. These past months, while ostensibly focused on the capital’s security, he had secretly transferred half the Five-Army Camp forces to train in the capital’s outskirts. After the northern frontier erupted, the Emperor still did not deploy that force — it was only after King Jing raised his banner that the army secretly marched south and ambushed the rebels at Xuzhou.”
This eased Changwu’s feelings somewhat. His own Zhongwei Guard fell under the Qian Camp’s jurisdiction, so even if he had been in the capital, it would not have been his turn to march on the campaign.
“The Five-Army Camp? Is that not under the command of Grand General Gan?” Sheng Wei had conducted several business transactions with the military and had some knowledge of its affairs.
Changwu shook his head: “It is not Grand General Gan — it is a general newly promoted by the Emperor. A man of noble connections in the capital as well, I hear, and one the Emperor had taken a strong liking to when he was still only a prince. This campaign was his chance to be elevated.” Changwu paused. “He has quite a future ahead of him, it seems.”
Minglan’s eyes brightened. She smiled and poured herself another half cup of tea: “Is that so? This general certainly has good judgment.”
Back when the Eighth Prince was among the imperial sons, he was — one could honestly say — the coldest stock among cold stocks. Not as cultured as the Third Prince, not as martial as the Fourth, not as high-born as the Fifth, not as charming as the Sixth, and not as doted upon as the late Emperor’s youngest sons. Only his humble birth mother was arguably in the top position. And yet someone had thought to invest in this overlooked prospect — truly, a man who could give the elder Buffett himself a run for his money.
Sheng Wei was also greatly intrigued, and was privately calculating how to establish a connection with this rising new power in the military: “And who is this person? Has anyone heard of him before?”
Changwu seemed to have resigned himself at last and sighed: “I hear…he is called Gu Tingye.”
The Sheng family members present looked at one another in complete blankness. None of them had ever heard the name.
Minglan held a mouthful of tea in her mouth, stared at her teacup for the better part of a quarter-hour, then swallowed with difficulty, and asked with careful caution: “This person…how is it that no one has heard of him before? Second Cousin-brother, even if military officers need not grind up through the years of seniority the way civil officials do, can someone really be promoted from a common soldier directly to a general in one single step?”
A hen becomes a duck in the blink of an eye! Just a couple months ago he was a jianghu brotherhood leader sailing with canal smugglers on the river — how has he already become the Great General Who Suppresses Rebellion? Military-civilian cooperation indeed.
Changwu’s spirits surged at once. Since the King of Jing’s rebellion began, he — the one with actual experience and credentials — had been guided and corrected at every turn by his younger cousin-sister. He’d had no choice but to admit she was right every time. Today he had finally caught a chance to put on a display of an elder brother’s superior knowledge.
He let out a long breath and said loudly: “Sister, this you do not know. General Gu, in his early years, held a seventh-rank post in one of the Senior Twelve Guard Camp units.”
“That is only an honorary posting — plenty of young men with noble and powerful connections in the capital have one. How is it that they have not all become great generals?” Minglan nearly laughed out loud. Her supposed would-be suitor, the Honorable Liang Han, also held such a posting.
Changwu’s tone carried no small measure of envy as he relayed the military report from Jinling: “What matters is this: this General Gu enjoys deep Imperial favor. Since the Emperor ascended the throne, he has already been awarded the fifth-rank post of Provost in the Capital Guard Commandant’s Office. And his command of the army to suppress the rebellion was also undertaken under a secret imperial edict issued in advance.”
Minglan had no words left. She clicked her tongue, gave a dry laugh, walked over and refilled Changwu’s tea, and looked at him with perfect meekness: “Second Cousin-brother, you really do know so much. No wonder Father often praises Second Cousin-brother for his keen insight.”
Changwu grinned broadly and felt his mood lift considerably. This little cousin-sister was always so endearing in this particular way. If her future husband ever dares to treat her poorly, he will personally deliver a resounding beating in her defense.