Chapter 3: Ambush at Blackstone Gully

They set out only when night had fallen completely.

Sixty people. Thirty wooden clubs, twenty woodcutting knives, ten coils of hemp rope. The clubs had been sharpened for three days, their tips hardened over fire, hard enough to pierce a shoe sole.

"One more time." Jiang Jin crouched on the slope, counting the things off one by one. "Clubs go for the legs, not the body. Once a man is down, tie him. Don't waste strength on a second blow."

Wang Laoshuan crouched beside her, rubbing his hands over and over. "Girl, I have never killed a man in my life."

"You won't need to today either," Jiang Jin said. "You just push the rocks."

"What if... what if a rock kills someone?"

"Then that's his luck."

Before dawn, the men were already in place. The grass on both sides of the gully rose to their waists; sixty men lay hidden in it, none of them daring to move. Wind poured in through the mouth of the gully, carrying the smell of earth.

When the sun had climbed overhead, bells rang from the far end of the gully.

"They're coming." Zhao Dazhu's throat tightened.

Jiang Jin pressed a hand to his shoulder. "Wait."

The first cart entered the gully. The driver was a dark-faced man, his whip cracking again and again. The second cart and the third followed, wheels grinding over loose stone, creaking and groaning.

"Count them," Jiang Jin said under her breath.

"Ten... twelve... fourteen." Zhao Dazhu's palms were slick with sweat. "Fifteen carts."

"And three riders at the back."

Three horses brought up the rear. The men on them carried sabers on their backs and swayed along, not even bothering to raise their heads.

When half the convoy had passed and the front reached the bend, a wheel jammed for a moment.

"Push."

With a rumble from the slope, a dozen great rocks rolled down and landed exactly at the narrowest point of the gully's mouth. The shaft of the first cart snapped with a crack, and sacks tumbled all over the ground.

"The rear!" Jiang Jin shouted.

Another rain of rocks fell at the tail of the gully. The last cart was smashed over, its wheels spinning toward the sky.

The three horses panicked. One threw its rider, who crashed onto the pile of rocks.

"Attack!"

Sixty men rose from the grass and charged down the slope.

The dark-faced man reacted fastest. He pulled a knife from beneath his cart and let out a roar. That roar woke the rest of them; seven or eight barbarians gathered behind the carts, blades turned outward.

"Long clubs!" Jiang Jin shouted from the slope. "Go for the legs! Don't get close!"

Four sharpened clubs thrust out together and struck the dark-faced man square in the shin. He howled and dropped to his knees, his knife falling from his hand.

The men behind him panicked. Some ran for the tail of the gully and were blocked by the rocks; some tried to climb the slope and were driven back down by clubs after two steps.

"Tie them!" Jiang Jin charged down. "Hands, feet—tie them and throw them aside!"

Zhao Dazhu split a sack with one swing of his axe. Golden millet poured out, running down off the cart bed.

"Damn it..." He grabbed a handful of grain, his hand shaking. "It's really grain."

Wang Laoshuan crouched on the ground, his face white as paper, his lips trembling. "I... I hit one of them."

"Good hit." Jiang Jin threw him a rope. "Tie them up."

In the time it took an incense stick to burn, seventeen of the twenty barbarians were bound, and three were dead. On their own side, two refugees had died, and seven were wounded.

Jiang Jin crouched down to look at the two dead men. One was Liu Er, from the east end of the village. The other was a man from elsewhere; no one knew his name.

"Carry them back," she said.

"Carry them back for what?" Zhao Dazhu said urgently. "We can't stay in this place long."

"To bury them." Jiang Jin stood up. "The dead have to be buried. Only then will the living be willing to follow you."

Fifteen carts of grain could not be hauled away in one trip. Jiang Jin had the carts unloaded and the sacks carried on shoulders, trip after trip, around to the back of the mountain.

When the last load was moved, she looked back at the gully.

"What about those seventeen?" Zhao Dazhu asked.

"Untie them. Let them walk back."

Zhao Dazhu stared at her. "Let them go? Once they get back and report it, won't the barbarians come for revenge?"

"They lost the grain. If the men don't return either, their superiors will have to send someone out to look for them." Jiang Jin hoisted the last sack of grain onto her shoulder. "If the men go back, the report travels fast. It goes up, the superiors send troops, and back and forth that takes ten days to half a month. Those ten days are ours."

Zhao Dazhu turned it over in his mind, then suddenly laughed. "That brain of yours..."

"Take the horses too."

At dusk, at the entrance to the camp.

Madam Liu stood at the road, seven or eight women behind her, and Jiang Yao as well. Jiang Yao held a piece of flatbread, nibbling at it and smiling. "Mother, I told you. She won't come back."

Madam Liu spat. "Dead is cleaner. Saves her from coaxing all the men in the village off to die."

One woman asked in a small voice, "Sister-in-law, what about my man, then?"

"If anything happens to your husband, you go settle accounts with her." Madam Liu raised a hand and pointed at the road. "She took sixty men out. How many can come back?"

The words had barely left her mouth when a line of people came up from below the slope.

Zhao Dazhu led them, two sacks of millet on his shoulders. With every step he took, the sacks swayed.

The smile froze on Madam Liu's face.

The second man, the third man... sack after sack of grain was carried up from below the slope. The carriers were covered in dirt, but the sacks on their shoulders bulged full, bending their backs under the weight.

Jiang Yao's flatbread fell to the ground.

"This..." Madam Liu took two steps forward. "Where did this come from?"

No one answered her.

Jiang Jin came up last, blood on her face. It was not her own.

Madam Liu blocked her path. "Jiang Jin, stop right there. All this grain—where did it come from?"

"Stole it."

"Stole..." Madam Liu's voice changed pitch. "Stole it from whom?"

"The barbarians."

The whole circle of people went silent. Someone drew a sharp breath. Someone stepped back.

Madam Liu took a long moment to recover, then suddenly changed her face completely. "Oh my, my daughter really is capable." She reached out to pull at a sack on a cart. "There's so much of it, we must divide it up quickly. Our household has so many mouths..."

Jiang Jin slapped her hand away with one smack.

"Who is your daughter?"

Madam Liu's hand froze in midair.

"Divide the grain." Jiang Jin turned her head to Zhao Dazhu. "Call everyone here. Not one person missing."

On the open ground at the center of the camp, fifteen carts' worth of grain was piled up. Torches were planted in a circle around it, bright as day.

More than a hundred people from the whole camp stood around in a ring.

Jiang Jin stood before the pile of grain, a wooden club set at her feet.

"Sixty went out today. Fifty-eight came back," she said. "Two died: Liu Er, and a man whose name we don't know. Their shares will not be short by one portion. Send them to their families."

No one spoke.

"The rest will be divided by work done." Jiang Jin planted the club on the ground with a thud. "Those who carried the carts get three shares. Those who stood on the slope get two shares. Those who stayed in camp to watch the children get one share."

A murmur rose from the crowd.

Madam Liu pushed her way forward. "On what grounds? I wasn't idle in camp either!"

"You get one share." Jiang Jin did not even look at her.

"What good is one share? There are five mouths in our family!"

"Then how many men did your family send out to carry grain?" Jiang Jin raised her eyes. "Not one. Your husband slept until noon today. I saw it."

Someone nearby laughed out loud.

Madam Liu's face flushed crimson. She turned and pushed Jiang Yao. "Yao'er, say something!"

Jiang Yao shrank her neck down and stepped back half a step, her eyes fixed on the pile of grain on the ground, not daring to say a single word.

"One more thing." Jiang Jin held the club crosswise. "From today on, the camp will have three rules."

"First: those who work, eat. Those who don't work get not one bite."

"Second: grain belongs to everyone. It is divided by head count. Anyone who hoards it in secret will be driven out."

"Third..." She paused and swept her gaze around the circle. "If anyone leaks one word outside, saying the grain is here with us, when the barbarians come, the first to die will be his family."

The torches crackled. Among more than a hundred people, not one dared make a sound.

Wang Laoshuan's wife suddenly burst into tears and threw herself at Jiang Jin's feet. "My family... my family got six shares..."

"He carried three cartloads. Six shares."

The woman hugged the sack and wept, unable to speak.

Madam Liu stood in the crowd, her face turning blue one moment and white the next, and turned to leave.

"Aunt Liu."

Madam Liu froze.

"Your family's share—I will have it delivered to your door." Jiang Jin put the club away. "Next time, if you want more, send your son out with me."

Without looking back, Madam Liu dragged Jiang Yao away in quick steps.

As the crowd dispersed, Zhao Dazhu leaned in close and lowered his voice. "Girl, you really offended that woman badly today."

"She never liked me to begin with."

"She can wag her tongue behind your back."

"Let her wag it." Jiang Jin looked at the fire. "The grain is in my hands. She can wag until the sky breaks, and it will do her no good."

Late into the night, some households in the camp were still awake. Steam rose from the stoves. For the first time, someone was cooking dry rice.

Jiang Jin sat beside the fire, chewing a hard piece of flatbread. Zhao Dazhu, Wang Laoshuan, and a few of the leaders sat around her in a circle.

"Girl, we have grain now. What do we do next?" Zhao Dazhu asked. "The barbarians lost fifteen carts. Won't they come to investigate?"

"Ten days," Jiang Jin said. "Half a month at most. They report it upward, their superiors send men, and the road there and back takes half a month."

"And after half a month?"

"After half a month, we have to be harder than we are now."

Wang Laoshuan shook his head. "Sixty men with wooden clubs—can they be harder than barbarian soldiers?"

"No." Jiang Jin swallowed the flatbread. "So we have to drill."

"Drill what?"

Jiang Jin stood up, picked up a half-burned wooden club, and drew three lines in the dirt beside the fire.

"Sixty men, divided into three squads. Twenty to a squad, each squad responsible for one stretch."

"Up before dawn. Form ranks first. If the ranks aren't straight, no one eats."

Someone muttered, "What's the use of standing in ranks?"

"Did you see it in the gully today?" Jiang Jin raised her head. "I shouted 'Attack,' and sixty men charged down, scattered like spilled beans. If the gully hadn't been narrow, half the barbarians would have gotten away."

No one answered.

"Raiding grain relies on ambush. Defending the camp relies on formation." Jiang Jin drove the club into the earth. "When I call for ranks, you stand in a line within thirty breaths. Whoever fails to stand straight loses his share tonight."

Zhao Dazhu grinned. "Thirty breaths? Let me try."

"No need to try." Jiang Jin watched the fire, its light dancing on her face. "Tomorrow at the hour of the rabbit, before dawn, everyone who can hold a club comes to the open ground."

"Drill until when?" Wang Laoshuan asked.

"Until I say 'form ranks' and you are all lined up within thirty breaths."

She raised her head and swept her gaze around the circle of people.

"Three days."

"In three days, I will take you to hit a second place."

A spark burst in the fire. Wang Laoshuan opened his mouth, but in the end he said nothing, and bent his head to turn over his sack of grain.

On the distant slope, a horse suddenly neighed.

Zhao Dazhu shot to his feet. "Who's there?"

Jiang Jin stood up too, her hand on her wooden club.

The slope was pitch black. Nothing could be seen.

After a long moment, a sound came on the wind—very far away, very faint, as if someone had whistled.

"Someone's there," Zhao Dazhu said in a low voice.

Jiang Jin stared into that darkness.

"Before the hour of the rabbit tomorrow," she said, "dig three trenches across the road at the camp entrance."