by Jeannie Lin
“No force could have taken Changsha so quickly.”
It was the largest city in the province and protected by a large, well-equipped garrison of soldiers. The gates appeared barricaded, and the banners continued to fly overhead. The surrounding area was clear of any enemy encampments, but we were alone on the road, which in itself was a sign of trouble. When I had last come to Changsha, the roads were crowded with the various wagons from farmers and merchants bringing their goods to the thriving market.
Fortifications at the river entry points had been increased. War junks clogged the waterways, and the city’s cannons were trained upon the water. I wondered if Lady Su had intended to sail her fleet down the river from the north. But the size of it had been small compared to the force before me. Lady Su’s rebel fleet had been sufficient to guard the juncture of the waterways, but I doubted it was strong enough to attack the city.
As we neared, I considered the sheer size of the capital. Changsha was protected by a high wall made of stone. Nothing less than a full-scale army of thousands could take it.
But some accounts claimed the rebel army had grown to that size.
A small number of people had gathered at the front of the main city gate. They had fled from the nearby villages to seek protection in the capital. I asked of Linhua village, but no one had news.
“All the villages nearby have emptied,” one farmer told me. He had come with his wife and two children. “The rebels are raiding every place they encounter for supplies.”
For a moment, I considered continuing on to our village. I had to know if my family was safe.
“If they fled, they’ll be inside,” Chang-wei pointed out. “We must be patient.”
At noon, the gates crept open. An armed regiment waited on the other side to search the refugees for weapons. Even the smallest of daggers was confiscated.
When the soldiers reached us, Chang-wei spoke before the search could begin. “I’m an imperial official with the Ministry of Science. I must speak with the governor.”
“Do you have any identification papers?”
“They were stolen. By a rebel faction that took us captive.”
That wasn’t entirely true, as I’d seen Chang-wei remove any means of identification from his person, but the statement certainly captured the guard’s attention. Unfortunately, it also made the soldiers wary of us.
“I have a firearm in my possession,” Chang-wei said calmly when they began to pat down his robe.
They seized the gun and clamped shackles over our wrists.
“Perhaps you should have gotten rid of the foreigner’s weapon once we reached the city,” I whispered sharply as we were lead to the administrative compound.
“It got us an audience quickly, didn’t it?” he returned, jaw tight.
What it did was get us an audience with the rats in the prison block. The soldiers locked us into adjacent cells where they left us alone.
Chang-wei propped himself in the corner, eyes closed, while I was too restless to sit still.
“Refugees have come from the surrounding villages.” I paced from one end of my cell to the other. “My family could be here in the city, but they have no idea I’ve returned.”
“Then they’re safe. For the moment, at least.” His eyes were still closed.
“Are you meditating?” I demanded, my temper starting to simmer.
“Just trying to think. It’s hard to do so with you there distracting me.” He opened one eye to peer at me. “You’re pretty when you’re agitated.”
The compliment, thrown out so carelessly, was out of place for Chang-wei. My pulse skipped, but I couldn’t think of anything else to do but scowl at him.
He merely shut his eye and settled back against the wall for a long wait.
“I just wish I knew for certain,” I said with a sigh, finally allowing myself to sink down onto the stone floor. “Do you know this all started in Changsha?”
It had been a long journey being dragged away from home, then out to sea, then back again.
“Do you regret any of it?” Chang-wei asked.
I let my head fall onto my arm, face tilted to regard him. When I had come to pawn Father’s mystery box, I didn’t know that Chen Chang-wei even existed other than as a name in my past.
“No,” I said finally. “I was locked away before. The world had become small around me.”
And now it was a vast and endless place of cities and oceans and foreign lands. I didn’t know what the future would bring, but I would face it with my eyes open.
“I suppose you are locked away once more,” he said, glancing at the cage around us. The corner of his mouth twisted wryly.
“This? This is just temporary. Aren’t you going to build some clever device to get us out?”
Chang-wei held out his hands, still clamped in irons, and turned them over to display two empty palms. “For you, I’d try.”
Even now he could make me smile. He came over to the wall of bars that separated us. We sat shoulder to shoulder waiting for what would come next.
Less than an hour had passed when someone came to stand before our cells. We shot to our feet at his arrival, and my cheeks flushed hot at being found in such an intimate pose.
The man was dressed in a dark robe and an official’s cap decorated with a peacock’s feather. A minor functionary.
“What is your name, sir?” he asked.
“Chen Chang-wei.”
To my surprise, the official turned to me and asked the same.
“Jin Soling.”
I looked questioningly over at Chang-wei as the functionary took a scroll from beneath his arm and unrolled it to scan through the contents.
Chang-wei returned my look with a shrug of his shoulders, then addressed the newcomer. “I am an official of the sixth rank in the Ministry of Science,” he began, straightening his shoulders with authority. “If there is any doubt of who I am, I request an audience with your governor during which I can present myself formally and prove my claim.”
The functionary looked up from his scroll. “There is no need, sir. We know who you are.” He rolled up the scroll and bowed at the waist at the prescribed angle. “We received a message from the crown prince two days ago asking of your whereabouts.” His bow to me was not as low, but still notably respectful. “His Imperial Highness asked about you as well, Miss Jin.”
Chapter Twenty-seven
Without further delay, we were released from the prison and led into the main fortress.
The functionary introduced himself to us as Zuo Zongtang, the governor’s chief adviser.
“We wondered why the crown prince would send someone from the Ministry of Science here, but then we started hearing about the march of the ghost army.”
“Ghost army?” It was the first I had heard of it.
“Yes, miss.” Zuo turned to address me directly. He had a manner that was efficient without appearing abrupt. “The rebels have taken several walled cities in the region, but we cannot figure out how. Reports from any survivors of the attacks have been confused. There are stories of storms and floods, thunder and lightning and the earth splitting. One moment they’re facing a hundred men. In the next, there’s suddenly a thousand. All we know is that cities with formidable defenses have fallen after brief and brutal battles.”
“We heard nothing of this in Shanghai,” Chang-wei replied, frowning.
“It’s all happened very quickly. Faster than the relay stations can send the news.”
“And what news there is has been very confused,” I remarked.
I glanced over at Chang-wei, who gave me a knowing look. Had the imperial government been trying to hide reports of their defeat from the rest of the empire?
We reached a set of stone steps and began to climb high up into the fortifications. A war council had assembled atop a
tower overlooking the surrounding landscape. From all four directions, the area looked clear.
A group of distinguished-looking men was gathered around a table. High-ranking officials and generals, from the look of them. The two of us were still in rumpled clothing and covered by a layer of dust from the road.
Zuo made the necessary introductions, and I undertook a round of bowing and greeting that left me dizzy.
“We apologize for our mistake.” The Governor addressed Chang-wei as he spoke. “If any offense was taken, please know that it was not intentional. When the message spoke of an imperial engineer, we thought your arrival would be more . . . auspicious.”
“My arrival here is a matter of coincidence,” Chang-wei admitted. “I had informed His Imperial Highness of my intentions to travel to this region. But now that it appears your city is in danger, I swear to provide as much service as I can.”
They went on to relay what they knew. The rebels had been steadily sweeping northward, ravaging villages and cities like a swarm of locusts. Their numbers were growing, and they had gathered an ample supply of gunpowder and weaponry.
“Upon taking a city, all officials are promptly executed and citizenry conscripted into their army or into work camps,” one of the head generals reported. He looked about the table. “We know that defeat means death.”
I paled at the grim report. “Excuse me, sirs. But if this humble servant may ask if the village of Linhua has survived?”
The men looked at me as if I were a horse that had started talking. I immediately felt foolish and small for worrying about my family.
Chang-wei came to my aid. “Forgive us. We have come far searching for my companion’s family. They may be one of the many refugees sheltered within your walls. If I may trouble you to assist her?”
“I can do so.” Zuo once again stepped forward. “If you will come with me, miss.”
Chang-wei gave me a reassuring nod as the governor’s assistant directed me back toward the stairs. As I turned to go, I could hear the discussion resuming behind me. Despite the warnings that they would soon be under attack, the scouts had only seen small bands of rebels. There was no sign of a massive army that would be required to defeat the city militia and breach the walls.
As Chang-wei’s voice faded, I felt hollow, as if something vital had been taken away from me. We had been side by side for a long time now. Long enough for me to feel a sharp tug in my chest as I was led away.
He’d fallen in so quickly with the city authorities. Chang-wei was loyal to the empire, without question. From the moment he had spoken to the war council, his fate had become tied with theirs and also to the fate of this city.
I would find my family, and we could flee or hide or be forgotten among the sea of refugees from the countryside. For Chang-wei, from here out, to fail was also to die.
***
“We kept record of all the arrivals,” Zuo explained to me once he’d led me down to the administrative offices. “But the process became less orderly as time went by and more refugees poured in. There was the matter of the approaching army as well as unrest within the city that needed immediate attention.”
He lifted a heavy book from the shelf and set it onto a desk. Flipping to the last recorded page, he traced the columns with a finger.
“Linhua village. We took in twenty-four from Linhua—that is all it says here. They were resettled in the northwestern section of the city.”
Relief flooded into me. There was some hope my family was among them, or if not, the villagers would at least know where they had gone. Everyone knew everyone in our village.
I thanked him graciously. Zuo took note of the exact ward where the refugees had been placed before directing me out into the yamen courtyard.
A mechanized sedan chair awaited us there. I looked around for a driver, but Zuo helped me onto the seat before climbing up beside me.
“The northwest section,” he murmured to himself.
In one hand, he held a slip of paper on which he’d written several coordinates. The control board looked like an abacus with wooden beads that slid along thin copper wires. But rather than forming columns like they did on a counting abacus, the paths crisscrossed over the board like a maze.
Zuo moved one of the beads into a position near the upper left corner of the board. The rotors beneath the sedan whirred to life, and we sailed through the streets, passing pedestrians and horse-drawn carts to our left and right.
I noticed more yellow strips of paper plastered onto the walls and street corners than I had seen the last time I was in the city. Motorized cleaners hopped along the street tearing them down.
“Filthy propaganda,” Zuo muttered. “The automatons remove them and the next morning those scoundrels put them up again.”
“Scoundrels?”
“There are citizens within these walls who support the rebel cause. Those are the enemies we must watch, Miss Jin. The ones from within.”
“Is there a large enough contingent for them to launch an attack from inside?”
“That is certainly a threat we have considered,” Zuo admitted. “We don’t have enough constables to scour the city and have had to recruit volunteers.”
I was surprised by Zuo’s openness. Bureaucrats were known to paint a pretty picture when caught in dire circumstances. It was bad luck to bear unfortunate news.
Zuo seemed a capable administrator, and I felt bad for taking him away from his duties. When I suggested he allow me to search for my family on my own, he wouldn’t hear of it.
“I can’t leave a proper lady to wander the streets without an escort. The increase in population has caused several problems to emerge. Temporary shelters were erected along the main streets, but our clerks could not keep track of every name nor where they’re squatting. These conditions have bred a certain degree of lawlessness in the refugee wards.”
Zuo took over the control knobs now that the sedan had reached its prescribed destination.
“We’ll go to one of the local teahouses. Many have been converted to temporary shelters.”
We passed by a house with a red strip plastered over the front gate. At first I thought it might be more anti-imperial propaganda, but then we passed another one. This one appeared as if it had been boarded up.
“What are those?” I asked.
“Sick houses. Infection spreads easily with so many living in close quarters; an unfortunate consequence of taking in so many from the countryside.”
He spoke without condemnation. It was yet another detail to be handled. I was about to ask Zuo what sort of sickness they were suffering from when the sedan stopped across the street from a three-story building.
The upper floors were packed with people. Clothing hung from the balconies, and even the entranceway was crowded with squatters.
I dreaded having to disturb so many people to search for my family, but to my good fortune, a familiar face emerged from the teahouse.
“Old Man Lo!”
I climbed down from the sedan and raced toward him. The elderly physician started when he saw me.
“Soling, child!”
I reached out to clasp his arm. “I’m so happy to have found you. Do you know where my family is?”
My directness could have been seen as impolite. Physician Lo was my mentor, but it had always been a quiet, formal association.
Lo took no issue with it. “All here,” he said, waving in a general direction with one hand. “They will be happy to see you.”
I took his medicine bag from him, much as I always had, and brought him back to the sedan.
“Merchant Hu came back and said you had disappeared,” Lo recounted. “Then a week later, a message arrived—an imperial message!”
He inspected the automated sedan as well as Zuo in his official’s cap and robe. The two men exchanged perfunctory bows.
“I suppose it was all true, then,” Lo murmured.
I helped him up into the transport. It managed to carry the three of us, but the churning of the gears was markedly more labored.
“Is my family well? They knew I would come back for them, didn’t they?”
Lo told of how the entire village had packed up at once to flee from the approaching army. Those with branches of family in other areas went to rejoin their kin while the rest came to Changsha.
“It hasn’t been easy here,” he admitted.
I could see where families had camped out in alleyways and alongside the street on bamboo mats. According to Secretary Zuo, the city was large enough to accommodate them, but supplies of fresh water and food were low.
“Able-bodied men were immediately conscripted into the militia. Some of them no more than boys,” Lo said.
“Tian?”
“Heavens, no. Your brother was too young. But there were fourteen-, fifteen-year-olds conscripted.”
“A necessary measure,” Zuo said defensively. “There are many civil tasks that require manpower. Policing the streets, for one. The youngest won’t be sent to battle unless there is no other way.”
There was another door plastered with a red strip. I squinted at the writing on it but couldn’t make it out.
“It’s worse in the neighboring ward.” Zuo tilted his head toward the blocked gate. “We believe it started with stray dogs scavenging in the alleyways.”
“Dogs?”
“Mad dog sickness,” Physician Lo explained.
I was confused. I knew that particular sickness could be spread to people, but why would entire residences need to be condemned?
Ahead of us, a lone boy stood at the street corner with his shoulders slouched, seemingly absorbed by some pattern in the road. Even from afar, I recognized the slight slouch in this stance. My heart swelled.
“Tian!”
I begged Zuo to stop the sedan. By the time my brother turned to us, I was already running toward him. I caught him up in my arms and squeezed tight.
“Soling,” he squeaked out.
It was a long time before I let him go, and when I did, it was only so I could take a good look at him.
