Chapter 2: Лагерь беженцев: готовимся к войне

Jiang Jin crouched before the earthen stove, scraping the last half handful of millet from the bottom of the pot with a wooden spoon.

The door plank slammed open with a bang. Wind thick with dust poured in, scattering sparks from the stove across the floor.

Jiang Xing stood in the doorway, a kicked-over winnowing basket at her feet, vegetable greens that had dried for half a day scattered all over the ground. She ground her shoe sole over them twice more.

"Oh, still making porridge?" She planted her hands on her hips, her voice sharp enough to cut tile. "My mother says the household is short on grain. Look at you — three meals a day, never missing one, eating better than anyone."

Jiang Jin did not lift her head. She tapped the wooden spoon against the rim of the pot.

"I'm talking to you!" Jiang Xing stepped forward and kicked the firewood pile beside the stove apart. "Gone mute?"

"I dug the kudzu root. I chopped the firewood. I carried the water." Jiang Jin finally raised her eyes. "If you want to eat, first tell me which of those three you did."

Jiang Xing's face flushed, then she gave a cold laugh. "You live in my family's house, you burn my family's stove, and you dare keep accounts with me?"

"This shed is a broken hovel no one wanted in the refugee camp. I built the stove myself, stacking stones." Jiang Jin poured the porridge into a coarse bowl, picked it up, and took a sip. "If you want to keep accounts, first return that half sack of bran your mother took to Wang Laoshuan's house."

Jiang Xing's face went white in a flash.

The curtain lifted, and Madam Liu came in, dragging Jiang Xing behind her in one pull. "How can your heart be so black, girl? She's a year younger than you. She's your sister!"

"She kicked in my door, ground my dried greens under her foot, and tried to take my bowl." Jiang Jin set the bowl down. "Auntie, I don't recognize this sister. I only recognize what's right."

Madam Liu could not keep face, and her voice rose too. "In this house, I decide! Your father has gone out to look for work. There's this little grain left in the house, and it has to be saved for the people who can work. You wander the slopes all day — can you wander grain out of them?"

"I can."

Jiang Jin took a cloth bundle from her breast and tossed it onto the stone table. The bundle fell open: three field mice, skinned and cleaned, a string of shriveled wild scallions, and half a handful of blackish grass seeds.

"Trapped on the slope. Field mice trade for coarse rice. Grass seeds cook mixed in, enough to feed me for three days." She pushed the bundle toward Madam Liu. "You eat your millet. I'll eat my meat. From today on, I won't touch a single grain of the household's food. Will that do, or not?"

Madam Liu's lips moved, but she said nothing.

Behind her, Jiang Xing could not hold back. "Who knows where you stole them from!"

"Stole?" Jiang Jin smiled and wiped the rim of the bowl. "If things have gone missing in this camp, go ask around — yesterday Wang Laoshuan's house lost half a sack of bran, the day before Widow Li lost a handful of salt, and the house before that, Liu Er's family's pickled vegetable jar was scraped to the bottom. Xing, you tell me — who stole them?"

Jiang Xing shrank back half a step, the tendons in her neck standing taut.

Madam Liu hurried to smooth things over. "Enough, enough, what is one family arguing for..."

"If we're one family, let's speak like one family." Jiang Jin set the bowl down, her voice not loud. "Auntie, this camp has more than three hundred mouths, and the grain is nearly gone. What do you all plan to do?"

"What else can we do?" Madam Liu curled her lip. "Wait for your father to come back and decide then."

"By the time my father comes back, the barbarians will be here too."

The room went quiet for an instant.

Jiang Xing let out a snort of laughter. "Who are you trying to scare? The barbarians are in the north, more than a hundred li away."

Jiang Jin ignored her and only looked at Madam Liu. "The group that fled down from the north the day before yesterday wore single layers of clothing, the soles of their shoes worn through, their feet covered in mud. They didn't take the main road. They cut over the mountain paths and ran for two days and two nights. Taking the mountain paths means there are soldiers on the main road. They said the barbarians rob any grain they see and seize any person they see, pushing south village by village."

She drank the last mouthful of porridge and set the bowl upside down on the table.

"Ten days at most, and they'll reach Black Stone Gully."

The open ground in the middle of the camp had once been the yard of a ruined temple. The stone roller was still there. Thirty or so people had gathered around it, crouching and standing.

Jiang Jin set the three field mice on the stone roller.

"I'll trade this for one statement. The barbarians' scouts have crossed the north mouth of Black Stone Gully. Thirty li south of there — within ten days, they'll be here for certain."

The crowd exploded.

Wang Laoshuan leaned on his crutch and shuffled two steps forward. "Girl, how do you know so precisely?"

"The people who fled down said it. I worked it out myself too." Jiang Jin crouched and drew in the dirt with a twig. "They came from the north, robbing as they walked, twenty li a day, and they still have to rest their feet and wait for the carts behind them. Thirty li of ground, ten days — that's enough."

"Then what do we do?" someone shouted.

"Two roads." Jiang Jin snapped the twig in two. "One, run south. Run wherever you can get to. When the grain is eaten, the people scatter. The other, stay, and hold this camp."

"Hold it?" A man in the back row scoffed. "Hold it with what? With hoes?"

"Yes. With hoes."

Jiang Jin walked to the stone roller and picked up a sharpened wooden staff.

"The barbarians are cavalry. Their horses are fast. But once a horse gets into a narrow lane or a ditch, it can't run. This camp has earthen slopes on three sides and a river ditch on one. Dig the ditch deeper, plant the slopes full of sharp stakes, and the horses can't charge in. If men charge in, they rely on this." She stabbed the wooden staff into the ground. "One staff is no use. Ten side by side, thrust forward together — stab the horses' legs, stab men's waists."

The open ground fell silent.

Zhao Dazhu pushed his way out of the crowd, in his twenties, broad and heavy-set, a strip of cloth still wrapped around his arm. "You make it sound easy. More than three hundred people — who listens to you?"

"I don't ask anyone to listen to me." Jiang Jin stuck the wooden staff in the dirt. "I control the grain."

"What does that mean?"

"Starting tomorrow, the camp's grain is gathered together. Two meals a day. Those who work get two bowls. Those who don't work get one bowl. Those who lie around playing dead get none."

At those words, it was like stabbing a hornet's nest.

"On what grounds? The grain is my own family's stores!"

"I have five mouths old and young in my family — on what grounds should I share with a slip of a girl like you!"

Jiang Jin waited until they had shouted themselves out, then spoke. "When the barbarians come, can your family's little grain be kept? Can you guard your own door alone? When they rob grain, will they ask what your surname is?"

No one answered.

"I won't take it for nothing." She turned and pointed at the wall of the ruined temple. "How many people each family sends out, how much work they do, how many bowls of rice they get — I'll keep the account, written in charcoal on the wall, where anyone can see it. The old, the young, and the sick count as half a share. Widow Li's family has two children — count as one and a half shares. Wang Laoshuan's legs are bad — he watches the grain storehouse, count as a full share."

In the crowd, Widow Li suddenly lifted her head, her eyes reddening.

"This isn't fair!" Jiang Xing pushed in from behind the crowd, her face flushed red. "Who do you think you are? A slip of a girl, and you want to control more than three hundred people? My mother said it — you just want to seize power!"

"I don't control people. I control grain." Jiang Jin looked at her. "If you want to control it, you do it. Can you keep accounts? Do you know how much more than three hundred mouths eat in a day? Do you know how many people each family sent out?"

Jiang Xing choked.

"You don't know." Jiang Jin picked up the twig. "I'll tell you. Three hundred and twenty-one mouths. One hundred and forty-seven who can work. Two meals a day, two bowls of thin porridge at each meal — sixty jin of coarse grain a day. What the camp has in store now, I went around and felt it out last night — two thousand jin at the very most. Forty days, and it's gone."

There was not a sound on the open ground.

Zhao Dazhu stared at her for a long moment, then suddenly stripped off his outer coat and threw it to the ground. "I'll give fifteen men. They'll take your orders."

Before dawn, the sound of digging rose from the river ditch below the slope.

Jiang Jin stood in the ditch with her trouser legs rolled up, a hemp rope in her hand. "Five chi wide, four chi deep. Plant sharp stakes in the bottom of the ditch, slanted toward the north. If a horse falls in, its legs break first."

Zhao Dazhu led fifteen strong young men, hoes and spades going down together.

"Stop!" Jiang Jin jumped up onto the edge of the ditch. "You can't dig like that. The ditch wall has to slope — sloped, it's easy to climb, and our own people can run in and out easily. The outer edge has to be steep — steep, and a horse charging down will flip."

"Who did you learn all this from?" Zhao Dazhu wiped his sweat.

"From dead men." Jiang Jin did not explain further. "Among the people who fled down from the north, there was an old soldier. I traded him two field mice for half a night of his talk."

Zhao Dazhu let out a laugh and asked no more.

At the other end of the slope, twenty or so men were sharpening wooden stakes. Jiang Jin walked over, picked one up, looked at it, and shook her head. "Too thin. As thick as a bowl's mouth, as tall as a man, one end sharpened, driven slanting into the earth, the point toward the north, two chi off the ground. When a horse slams into it, it goes through the belly."

"Two chi?"

"Two chi." She showed the height with her hand. "Higher, and a horse slips under it. Lower, and it's no use against men."

Jiang Xing had wandered onto the slope at some point, hugging one arm, her mouth curled. "Keep fussing. Fuss until the barbarians come, and let's see you stab horse swords with wooden sticks."

No one paid her any attention.

Jiang Jin did not lift her head either. She only shouted once: "Zhao Dazhu, divide those twenty newcomers into three teams. One team digs the ditch, one team sharpens stakes, one team follows Wang Laoshuan and learns how to beat the gong — if the barbarians come at night, at the sound of the gong, everyone goes up the slope. No running wild."

"Beat the gong?" Zhao Dazhu froze.

"Once people panic, it's over." Jiang Jin stabbed the wooden stake in her hand into the ground. "Panicked, they'll trample their own. Three beats of the gong, retreat up the slope. Five beats, crouch down and don't move. Practice for three days, until you can do it with your eyes shut."

The sun rose overhead. The ditch had been dug for some thirty zhang, and more than two hundred wooden stakes had been planted.

Jiang Xing had stood on the slope for half the day. Suddenly she shouted at the top of her voice: "Jiang Jin! My mother told you to go back and cook!"

"The pot is on the stove, the rice is in the vat, your hands are on your own body." Jiang Jin did not turn her head. "If you can't cook, go hungry."

A few men around them laughed under their breath.

Jiang Xing's face turned the color of pig's liver. She stamped her foot and walked away.

Zhao Dazhu came over and lowered his voice. "That sister of yours will trip you up sooner or later."

"Let her trip." Jiang Jin pressed the last wooden stake firm with her foot and straightened her waist. "I'll do my work."

At noon on the third day, two young men ran back from the north. The moment they entered the camp, they collapsed on the ground, and only after drinking half a ladle of water could they speak.

"At the north mouth of Black Stone Gully... there's a barbarian grain convoy."

The open ground filled with people at once.

Jiang Jin crouched down. "How many?"

"Twenty or so, all carrying blades. A dozen or more great carts, the carts covered with matting, we couldn't see what was loaded, but the ruts were deep, pressed solid." The young man panted. "And a dozen or more sheep, herded along."

"Which road are they taking?"

"The one through Black Stone Gully. The gully is narrow, earthen cliffs on both sides. The carts can only pass one after another."

Jiang Jin said nothing. She drew on the ground with a twig.

Zhao Dazhu crouched beside her and watched. "What are you thinking of doing?"

"Twenty men, a dozen or more carts of grain." Jiang Jin paused with the twig. "Enough to feed our camp for two months."

All around fell silent, so silent you could hear the wind scraping over the earthen slope.

Wang Laoshuan was the first to shake his head. "Girl, those are barbarians! They have blades. What do we have? Wooden sticks!"

"They're driving carts. We'll lie in ambush." Jiang Jin tapped the diagram on the ground. "The gully is narrow, the carts one after another, strung out in a line front to back. Block the front, and the back can't retreat. They won't expect a crowd of refugees to dare lay a hand on them."

"What if..."

"There is no what if." Jiang Jin stood up, looking at the circle of people who had gathered around. "We have sixty who can fight. They have twenty. We're in the dark. They're in the light. They've driven carts for half a day, men tired and horses spent. We've eaten our fill and slept our fill, rested and waiting for tired men."

Zhao Dazhu stared at the diagram on the ground, then suddenly lifted his head. "And after we rob them? The barbarians won't let that pass, will they?"

"Rob them and go. Scatter the grain and hide it in three mountain caves. The men scatter back to the camp." Jiang Jin said. "When they lose grain, the first thing they'll do is report up. By the time those above send soldiers to investigate, it'll be ten days to half a month. In those ten days, we'll have eaten half the grain."

Someone in the crowd swallowed.

Jiang Jin planted the twig in the ground and raised her head.

"Tomorrow at noon. Black Stone Gully. We rob the first score."