Chapter 1: The Night Granary Raid

At the end of the alley, a cart lay overturned in the middle of the road, rice spilled across the ground.

Zhao Dazhu braced his shoulder against the front of the cart. "Miss, we can't get through."

"Push through."

Jiang Jin stepped up onto the overturned shaft and jumped over. On the ground, a half-grown boy lay on his belly, scooping rice into his arms. When he saw her land, he clutched the rice tight and ran.

"Every grain shop in the city has shut." Zhao Dazhu kept his voice low. "They say it's soldiers routed from the north. They've crossed the Qingshi River."

"Good." Jiang Jin walked on. "The messier it is, the less anyone will bother checking carts."

Two carts, one ahead and one behind, ground over broken tiles as they pushed forward. The street was packed with people, all fleeing outward. She alone walked against the flow.

Two streets later, seven or eight men stepped across in front of them.

The man in front wore a half-worn brown shirt, a wooden Jiang family token hanging at his waist.

"Eldest Miss." He cupped his hands, his smile thin. "The Matriarch has given orders. No cart or horse of the household is to move today. These two carts of yours—"

"Wang Gui." Jiang Jin cut him off. "You're stopping me?"

"I wouldn't dare. The Matriarch has spoken. I don't dare disobey."

"The carts were part of my mother's dowry." Jiang Jin said. "The shop was mortgaged. The carts were not. It's in black and white in the accounts. Go and look."

The smile on Wang Gui's face stiffened. "Eldest Miss, you're joking. We're all one family. Why divide things so clearly?"

"Can't divide them clearly?" Jiang Jin took a step forward. "On the fifteenth of last month, you drew thirty dan from the east warehouse. The account recorded it as 'grave repairs.' Where is this grave you repaired?"

Wang Gui's throat bobbed.

"I urge you to go back, Eldest Miss." He lowered his voice. "The Matriarch has already sent men to Qingshi City. That business with Sun Douzi — you'll go for nothing."

Jiang Jin smiled.

"Qingshi City. Sun Douzi." She nodded. "Fine. Go back and thank the Matriarch for me."

Wang Gui froze. "Thank her for what?"

"I was just wondering whose hands those four hundred dan had fallen into." Jiang Jin said. "If you hadn't mentioned it, I'd have had to guess one by one."

Wang Gui's face went a shade paler.

"Eldest Miss—"

"Get out of the way." Jiang Jin said.

The seven or eight men stood stiff where they were. In the end, none of them dared truly stop her. The carts rolled over their shadows and went straight out of the city.

Qingshi City was thirty li from the city. By the official road, two hours.

Six people, two carts. Zhao Dazhu drove the front cart. The four servants behind each carried a sharpened wooden staff.

"Miss." Zhao Dazhu turned his head as he drove. "If the Matriarch has already sent word to Sun Douzi, what do we use to open that warehouse?"

"This." Jiang Jin took a ledger from her breast, flipped two pages, then took out a copper seal.

Zhao Dazhu's eyes widened. "The Master's seal?"

"He slipped it to me the day he died." Jiang Jin weighed the seal in her palm. "She doesn't know."

"A seal may not be enough." Zhao Dazhu said in a muffled voice. "It's an official warehouse. If Sun Douzi wants to curry favor with the Matriarch, he'll shrug off all responsibility."

"Then let him do his own arithmetic." Jiang Jin closed the ledger. "Let him work out whether currying favor with the Matriarch is worth more, or whether not having me take this ledger to the county is worth more."

By dusk, the official warehouse outside Qingshi City stood on a bend of the river. Some thirty warehouse buildings stretched in a row, a thatched shelter set up in front of them.

Sun Douzi was counting money under the shelter.

Silver in fifty-tael ingots. Three of them laid out. He was tucking them into his sleeve when he looked up and saw two carts come in. His face darkened.

"Well, Eldest Miss." He stood up, pressing his sleeve down. "It's already dark. You still came?"

"To collect grain." Jiang Jin got down from the cart. "Four hundred dan. Not one dan less."

"Oh my." Sun Douzi leaned against the warehouse door. "The Matriarch sent someone the day before yesterday, saying the Jiang family's internal affairs aren't settled, and no one is to touch anything. Manager Liu of Guangsheng Trading House also sent word. Eldest Miss, I'm only a warehouse keeper. Don't make this hard for me."

"Internal affairs of the Jiang family?" Jiang Jin set the ledger on the stone platform. "Then whose account is this?"

"This—"

"Three days ago. Qingshi City. Four hundred dan." Jiang Jin pointed. "Who wrote this?"

Sun Douzi stepped back half a step, his face twitching. "Eldest Miss, I'm just a warehouse keeper. How would I recognize these characters..."

"How much did you take?" Jiang Jin asked suddenly.

"What?"

"How much did the Matriarch promise you?" Jiang Jin lifted her eyelids. "Fifty taels? Or three ingots?"

Sun Douzi's hand tightened at his sleeve.

"Eldest Miss, watch your words."

"My father's seal is here." Jiang Jin pressed the seal onto the ledger, her voice not loud. "With the seal of the head of the Jiang family, I order you to open the warehouse. Open it, and I'll pretend I never saw this account. Don't open it—"

"What if I don't?"

"I'll give those four hundred dan away to the people outside."

Sun Douzi laughed out loud. "Eldest Miss, what people are outside?"

Jiang Jin turned her head and nodded to Zhao Dazhu.

Zhao Dazhu threw back the cover of the rear cart. Two sacks on the cart tipped over with a rush, white rice pouring all over the ground.

He shouted at the top of his lungs: "The Jiang family is opening its grain! One dou per person! No charge!"

On that river bend, there were plenty of refugees squatting, waiting for dawn to travel on. At that shout, dozens of people under the thatched shelters all lifted their heads.

"One dou per person! First come, first served!" Zhao Dazhu shouted again. "The Jiang family's eldest miss is giving out grain!"

Under the shelters, everything erupted.

People surged toward the warehouse door. Sun Douzi's face turned green. "Eldest Miss! Are you mad!"

"Open the door." Jiang Jin said.

"I can't! This is an official—"

"Open the door." Jiang Jin pushed the seal forward. "I am the head of the Jiang family. The four hundred dan in that warehouse are my Jiang family's grain. If I give away my own grain, whose law am I breaking?"

More and more people surged forward. The front of the warehouse door packed into a knot. Someone began ramming the door.

Sun Douzi shrank back, his hand fumbling for the key at his waist.

"Eldest Miss, can you bear the weight of this chaos?"

"I can." Jiang Jin said. "You can't."

The key clanged to the ground.

The door opened.

The flow of people rushed inward. Jiang Jin's people did not scramble. They only guarded the two carts stopped at the warehouse door, stacking sack after sack onto them.

Zhao Dazhu counted as he stacked: "One, two, three..."

"No need to count." Jiang Jin stood beside the cart. "Until they're full."

"And the rest?"

Jiang Jin jumped onto the bluestone in front of the warehouse and raised a hand.

"Lend carts! Lend hands!" she shouted. "Push one cart to the west ferry crossing, get one dou of rice! If you have a cart, five dou per cart!"

The crowd went quiet for an instant, then exploded.

"Me! I have a cart!"

"I have three here!"

"I'll push! I'll push!"

Jiang Jin turned back to Zhao Dazhu. "The rest, hire people to haul it all away. Every dan, every grain, take it to the ferry crossing."

"How many people will that take?"

"As many as there are, hire them all." Jiang Jin said. "In any case, I won't leave a single grain of this rice for them."

Sun Douzi crouched in the corner by the wall, clutching his head, not daring to make a sound.

Jiang Jin walked over and crouched down.

"The silver?"

"What silver..."

"Three ingots." Jiang Jin held out her hand. "Will you take them out of your sleeve yourself, or shall I search you?"

Sun Douzi shuddered and set the three ingots on the ground.

"Eldest Miss, this was given by the Matriarch. I have old folks at home—"

"My father's coffin also has old folks at home." Jiang Jin tucked the ingots into her sleeve. "I'll record this money in the account. When the Matriarch asks later, tell her I robbed you."

Sun Douzi choked.

"One more thing." Jiang Jin stood up. "Wang Gui sent you word, saying I was coming to make trouble, and told you to tie me up and send me back. Did you say that or not?"

"...I said it."

"Good." Jiang Jin glanced at the wide-open warehouse door. "When the county people come later, tell them the truth: the Jiang family's eldest miss raided the warehouse at night and robbed four hundred dan. Do you understand?"

Sun Douzi opened his mouth. "Eldest Miss, you are..."

"I'm saving you a beating." Jiang Jin turned back. "Are the carts loaded?"

"Full!" Zhao Dazhu shouted.

"Go."

As the carts came out of the warehouse door, wind rose on the river bend.

The wind carried a scorched smell.

Zhao Dazhu stopped the cart, sniffing. "Miss, what's that smell?"

Jiang Jin raised her head toward the city. On the walls of Qingshi City, a stretch had turned red.

It was not lamplight. It was fire.

"The northern soldiers!" someone screamed on the river bend. "The city has fallen!"

The crowd burst into panic at once. People who had just been fighting for rice clutched their rice sacks and ran downstream. The hired carters panicked too. Several carts tipped, rice spilling across the road.

"Miss!" Zhao Dazhu gripped the cart handles tight. "We can't go back!"

Jiang Jin did not move. She stood beside the cart, looking at that stretch of fire.

The firelight lit her face, half bright, half dark.

"We're not going back." she said.

"Then... then where do we go?"

"North."

"North?" Zhao Dazhu's voice cracked. "There's a war in the north!"

"I know." Jiang Jin pressed her hand to a grain sack. "Where there's war, grain is worth the most."

Wind rose again, whipping chaff from the river bend into her face.

Jiang Jin suddenly lowered her head and looked at her own hands.

These hands had calluses on the palms from gripping a blade, and marks at the base of the thumb from working an abacus. This body had never held a blade, and had never touched an abacus.

Three days ago, these hands had still belonged to someone else.

Three days ago, she had still been in another place, in a room white as paper, listening to a voice grow farther and farther away. She had died.

When she opened her eyes again, it was a woodshed, dust falling from the roof beams, her body burning with fever. An old servant had lain weeping by her pillow, calling her "Eldest Miss" over and over.

At that time, she had only had time to think one thing — live.

"Miss!" Zhao Dazhu shouted again. "What do we do?"

Jiang Jin raised her head.

"Four hundred dan of grain, six people." she said. "In this chaotic world, if you have people and grain, you lack nothing."

"But we have no soldiers!"

"Without money and grain, that's when you have no soldiers." Jiang Jin climbed onto the grain cart. "A starving man — one dou of rice can buy his life."

She sat steady and lifted her chin toward the firelight.

"Let's go."

"Where?"

"Where there are people." she said. "Four hundred dan is too little. Go back, and settle the Jiang family's little fortune, item by item, all of it clear."

The carts ground over the gravel of the river bend, creaking.

Jiang Jin sat on the rice sacks, wind blowing her sleeves full.

Three days ago, she was someone else.

Three days from now, she would be the dealer.

The convoy went north. After half a li, a rider suddenly chased up from behind.

The man on the horse shouted: "Is that the Jiang family's eldest miss ahead?"

Zhao Dazhu swung the cart across. "Who are you?"

The man reined in his horse, panting, and took a sheet of paper from his breast.

"A notice from the county office." He held the paper out. "The county magistrate has fled. The soldiers in the city say each ward is to defend itself."

Jiang Jin took the paper. The firelight was too dim; she could not make out the characters.

"There's also a message by word of mouth." The man wiped his sweat. "That general from the north says whoever supplies him three thousand dan of grain, he'll make that person grain officer of Qingshi City."

Jiang Jin held the paper and said nothing.

Zhao Dazhu asked in a low voice beside her: "Miss, three thousand dan... we only have four hundred."

Jiang Jin folded the paper and tucked it into her sleeve.

"Four hundred dan can buy three thousand dan."

"Buy it with what?"

Jiang Jin smiled and raised a finger, pointing at the dark official road behind them.

"With people."