Isolated town in northern border region

The first thing Xiao Lie did upon returning to Cangwu City was to walk into the engineering branch classroom, place his bundle beside the podium, spread out a piece of paper, and write a notice.

The notice was short, only four lines, but each line seemed carefully weighed before being written; the ink was even, the strokes steady, without a trace of hesitation. As he finished the first line, the morning light streamed in from above the eaves, falling on the words and casting a damp, reflective glow on the ink. He waited for the reflection to fade naturally before beginning the second line, then the third, and the fourth.

When he finished writing the last word, the tip of his pen paused on the paper for a moment, as if using that pause to press the unwritten words of the entire notice into the cracks of the paper, before lifting it up, blowing on the ink, and handing it to Zhou Xun. Zhou Xun took it, glanced at it, his brow twitched slightly, but he said nothing, turned around, and went out to post the notice at the city gate.

The notice read in four lines: "The five northern prefectures, along with Yongzhou and Qingzhou, shall be autonomous from this day forward. They shall remain part of the Great Chu territory and shall not be subject to the laws of the National Assembly. During the period of autonomy, all government affairs shall continue as before, schools shall remain open, and workshops shall continue to operate. Those who disagree may do as they please."

On the first day the notice was posted, the city gate was packed with people. Some stood on tiptoe to look, some asked literate people nearby to read it aloud, some silently read it several times before turning away without saying a word, and some stood in front of the notice, looking at it repeatedly, as if to confirm that the order of the four lines of text had not been misunderstood due to their own interpretation. After reading it, a man dressed in shorts squatted on the steps of the city gate, chewed a mouthful of dry rations, chewed for a long time before swallowing, then stood up, dusted off the dirt on his backside, and walked away. His steps were more steady than when he came, like a wedge that had found its place and was pushing itself into that crack.

When the news reached the capital's parliament, the purple-robed official was presiding over a meeting. After listening to the messenger's report, he remained seated, tapping his fingers lightly on the table, as if unsure how to continue the rhythm. His gaze fell upon the unopened new official document before him, bearing the Cui family crest on its cover. He reached out, opened the document, read a couple of lines, then set it down, saying to those present, "He's gone. But he said he's still in Great Chu."

Someone in the seats on the right chimed in: "What does autonomy mean? Being free from the constraints of parliamentary laws—what's the difference between that and independence?"

Another voice said, "He claims to still be in Great Chu, but in reality, he's removed the northern frontier from the chessboard. He wants to shut himself off and play his own game."

The official in purple robes picked up the document again and read it through, but didn't reply. He remained silent for a long time, as if giving the conclusion, which hadn't yet been fully digested, enough time to process. Then he spoke, his tone flatter than before, like a slope gradually smoothing its angle as it descends from its peak: "It's good he's gone. His things remain. Those people will take care of them for him."

After saying this, he put the Cui family's official documents back on the table and continued to chair the interrupted meeting. But when he said the word "just right," his voice was softer than usual, like a floor being gently trodden on, its subtle deformation recording the weight.

Over the next two months, it was as if a floodgate had been opened in the southern states.

The engineering schools and workshops that Xiao Lie left in the south were like fields that hadn't been harvested yet, being swept away by hands pouring in from all directions. The Cui family sent people to take over the largest steam engine workshop in Qingzhou, driving out all the original craftsmen and replacing them with their own accountants and foremen. The Cui family's plaque was replaced at the workshop entrance, the characters painted in gold, gleaming dazzlingly in the sunlight.

Some of the expelled craftsmen squatted in the alley opposite the workshop, some gripped the handles of their toolboxes until their knuckles turned white, and others sat against the wall, taking out the half-torn employment contract again for a glance before folding it up and putting it back in their pockets. They watched the workshop's doors open from morning till night, the steam engine humming, the chimney billowing smoke, and ironware sliding off the assembly line one piece at a time. But the people going in were different each time, their expressions changing from earnest to numb, like a row of ornaments being dragged along the same chain, moving back and forth along a fixed track, no one caring whether they had chosen the direction they were moving in.

The Zhao family converted a public school in the county town into their own private school. The sign that read "Engineering Branch" at the school gate was removed and thrown into the well in the backyard, replaced with the four characters "Zhao Family School". The original students stood at the gate looking at the new sign. Some walked away with their heads down, some were chased away by the manager after standing for a while, and some looked at the sign again and again, as if trying to use their eyes to retrieve the words that had been thrown into the well, but all they could retrieve were their own reflections on the surface of the well.

The Sun family took over the transportation line at a canal dock. The laborers who used to make a living carrying loads at the dock were required to sign new contracts. The new contracts stated "payment per piece," but the price per piece was 30% less than before. If they didn't sign, someone else would take their place. The laborers squatted in several circles on the dock. Some clutched the edge of the contract and read it over and over again. Someone whispered, "It wasn't like this when the Prince was here." Someone next to them replied, "But the Prince is gone." That sentence was short, and no one followed it.

The most glaring change was in wages. Workshops that retained the techniques taught by Xiao Lie increased their production efficiency several times over, but wages did not increase accordingly. The Cui family's accountant posted a new settlement sheet on the blackboard at the workshop entrance, which read "Piece-rate system implemented, more work, more pay," but the calculation example written in small print below showed that the pay for each piece was much less than when Xiao Lie was there.

Someone compared the new and old settlement sheets and found that for the same day's work, the new method only paid 60% of the old method's wage. He stood in front of the blackboard for the time it takes for an incense stick to burn, holding two sheets of paper. After reading them, he didn't complain or curse; he simply folded the two sheets together, put them in his pocket, and returned to his workstation to continue working. When he was grinding the iron plate, the sparks from the grinding wheel were a few times larger than usual, as if the brightness of those sparks was replacing something he couldn't directly express.

In another workshop, the accountant changed the "food and lodging included" to "food and lodging will be deducted from wages." The artisans who had fled from northern Xinjiang discovered at the end of the month that their wages had been completely withheld. Some confronted the accountant, who pulled out the contract, pointed to the small print, and said, "It's in black and white; you yourselves put your fingerprints on it."

The craftsman stood at the door of the accounting office for a long time, as if he hadn't understood the meaning of those words. He stood there for about three breaths, then turned around and went back into the workshop. He picked up the hammer and continued to hammer the still unformed iron plate in front of him. Each blow was heavier than the last, and the sound of the hammer hitting the iron plate echoed repeatedly under the dome of the workshop, like a hammer using its increasing strength to confirm how much longer it could hammer.

In the teahouses of the South, people began to say the same things at different tables.

A tea drinker wearing an old felt hat finished his tea, turned the bowl upside down on the table, and said to the person next to him, "Haven't you figured out those bandit raids yet?" The person next to him asked, "Figure out what?" The tea drinker in the old felt hat tapped the table twice with his knuckles and said, "Those bandits wore armor provided by the imperial court, used knives forged by aristocratic families, and flew the banner of Luo Daniu. Luo Daniu is imprisoned in the capital. Don't you know who's keeping those bandits?"

The person next to him fell silent. He looked down at the bowl of tea in front of him that he hadn't drunk yet. A few tea leaves floated in the tea soup, their edges slowly unfolding, like a tea leaf transitioning from a curled state to a relaxed state. Before it could fully unfold, it was already pressed to the bottom of the bowl by its own weight.

At another table, someone chimed in, "Everyone said the King of Northern Frontier was protecting Luo Daniu, but now, Luo Daniu is still imprisoned in the capital, while the King of Northern Frontier has gone back to the Northern Frontier himself. Have those bandits quieted down? No. Who has quieted down? The schools, the workshops, and the places where poor people learn to write."

The teahouse fell silent for a moment. Then someone broke the silence, like a stone thrown into water, its sinking process abruptly interrupted: "When the prince was here, we got our full wages. He's gone, those powerful families came, and our wages were deducted, our food and lodging were taken from our pay. After a month's work, we didn't even have enough to buy rice. The master craftsmen the prince trained had their arms broken and were thrown out, their schools burned down, their books thrown into wells. Tell me, in this world, who cares about letting us live a good life?"

No one answered him. But the people sitting at the table exchanged glances, then one of them downed his tea in one gulp, stood up, and walked out. He walked slowly, his back not straight, but not too hunched either, as if he were re-measuring how far he should walk that day with his stride.

At the same time, news spread from the former territory of Chen.

The cousin of Yuan Jia, the last emperor of Chen—the child raised by Jiang Jun in a villa in Jing—raised a flag within the former territory of Chen. Embroidered on the flag was the old emblem of Chen: a white crane with outstretched wings, carrying a plum blossom in its beak. He brought back three hundred secretly trained personal guards from Jing and contacted his former followers scattered across the countryside when Chen fell. These followers gathered as quickly as rain fell on a parched riverbed. In less than half a month, Yuan Jia recaptured three counties in the former Chen territory. The people of those counties saw the flag with the white crane and plum blossom on the city gates. Some stood on the city walls, watching the flag slowly approach from afar, and whispered, "Chen is coming again."

But the news that truly unsettled the Chu court came later—the Jing Kingdom, under the pretext of "protecting the remnants of the Chen Kingdom from the ravages of war," dispatched a 3,000-strong "guard army" to the former Chen territory. These 3,000 men did not wear the standard Jing Kingdom armor, but instead wore dark gray cloth armor; however, anyone with discerning eyes could immediately recognize them as Jiang Jun's personal guards. They were stationed at the intersection of three official roads between the former Chen territory and the southern border of Chu, setting up checkpoints, inspecting passing merchants, and posting a notice stating, "All Jing Kingdom merchants are exempt from tolls." The notice did not bear the official seal of the Jing Kingdom, but instead a private seal that no one had ever seen before. The characters on the seal were small, but anyone standing on tiptoe to see could read the four characters "Jiang Clan of Jing Kingdom" in the smallest print at the bottom.

The reactions of the Yan and Shu states were more subtle. They did not send troops, set up roadblocks, or make any public statements, but they did something that merchants in southern Chu noticed first—cloths from Yan, medicinal herbs from Shu, and ironware from Jing suddenly appeared at the border markets of Chu, priced at more than half the price of goods produced in Chu itself.

Coarse cloth that originally sold for 100 coins a bolt was sold for 60 coins by merchants from Yan. Dried ginger that originally sold for 50 coins a pound was sold for 30 coins by merchants from Shu. When ironware from Jing was transported from the south, it filled three large ships, and each shipment was 30% cheaper than the local blacksmith shops in Chu. The goods were snapped up as soon as they arrived, bought not only by peddlers and laborers, but also by small businesses and shops under powerful families. Some people did the math after buying and found that their costs were lower than buying goods from their own state, so when the next shipment arrived, even more people bought it.

The local workshops in Chu were beginning to falter. Those older workshops that still retained Xiao Lie's techniques were efficient and low-cost, managing to barely stay afloat. But those workshops, taken over by powerful families and only capable of imitation without improvement, were already struggling to maintain profits by squeezing wages. Now, even those meager profits were being eroded by cheaper imported goods. An ironware workshop in southern Qingzhou closed down after three consecutive months of losses. As the door panels were removed, they hit the ground, kicking up a layer of dust. The dismissed craftsmen squatted at the workshop entrance, watching the panels being carried away. One stood up, dusted his hands, glanced north, said nothing, and turned to leave.

I don't know when it started, but the voices that were originally scattered in various places began to converge in the same direction. Some people said in teahouses, "When the King of the Northern Frontier was alive, the wages were paid in full," some people said at the docks, "When the King was alive, there was an engineering school at the docks," and some people said on the ridges of the fields, "When the King was alive, we cultivated our own land"—all of these sentences began with "when the King was alive" and ended with dissatisfaction with the present.

One evening, on the city wall of a county town in southern Qingzhou, two soldiers on night watch leaned against the battlements, chatting idly. The younger one glanced south, but the distance was shrouded in darkness, and nothing could be seen. He looked away and asked in a low voice, "Do you think the Prince will return?"

The older one didn't answer immediately. He switched the spear in his other hand, his gaze fixed on the fields outside the city walls being swallowed by twilight. After a moment of silence, he spoke: "He didn't say he wouldn't come back. He said he'd return after he finished his business."

The young soldier asked, "What is he doing?"

The older soldier didn't reply. He looked at a closed ironware shop at the foot of the city wall. A seal was pasted on the shop door, bearing the Cui family's seal. The seal fluttered slightly in the evening breeze before being reattached, like a marker repeatedly confirming that it was still in place. He looked at it for a while, then said, "We can't really say for sure what he's doing. But we know he's still doing it, and that's enough."

After saying this, he leaned his spear back against the battlement, turned around and walked down from the city gate. After a few steps, he stopped and said without turning his head, "He will come back."

The twilight on the city wall was turning from gray-blue to dark gray, swallowing his last few words without making a sound.