The Sorceress' Revolt
Author: Toriumi Jinzō
Translator: Ainikki the Archivist
Ko Biji's Story
Part Two: Salt Smugglers
The sun was rising.
The salt smugglers loaded bags of salt from a warehouse onto a horse-drawn cart and pulled them out. They didn’t touch anything inside the estate. After they were done loading up, the salt smugglers traveled to a nearby estate and set up camp. Tanshi went with them.
Ryū Gen was Tanshi's master of the
staff. He'd taught Tanshi the weapon back when Tanshi was in the temple.
Tanshi and Ryū Gen sat across from one
another at a low table set in the estate's courtyard, reunited for the
first time in two years. There was good food and rice wine laid out on
the table for them. Two of Ryū Gen's guards stood nearby, shadowed by
trees but not exactly hiding. They just wanted Tanshi to know that they
were there.
The governor and the high-ranked
officials from the Imperial Court were dead. An incident like this
couldn't be swept under the rug, nor could it be undone. The attack
would be reported to the prefectural office, and they would send a
messenger on a fast horse to the Imperial Palace.
Still, the salt smugglers weren't overly
afraid of retribution. Even if the Imperial Court wiped out this band,
there were so many salt smugglers scattered in so many places throughout
the nation that even the full force of the Imperial Army wouldn't be
able to wipe them all out. This resilience was possible thanks to the
salt smugglers' robust trade network, which facilitated communication
across distances. The common people liked salt smugglers enough not to
report them to authorities, and they could even take shelter among them
if needed. Ryū Gen and men like him put expensive salt into the hands of
the poor and earned their unending gratitude.
***
Ryū Gen savored his rice wine. "You've
grown strong and skilled, Tanshi," he said. "That was a splendid battle.
You have truly mastered your weapon."
"All I did was swing my pewter staff
around a little," Tanshi said, scratching the back of his neck and
looking down.
"Don't be so modest. Has your knowledge
of women improved as well?"
"Um..." Tanshi blushed.
"I guess not," Ryū Gen said. "I suppose
I'll have to teach you about that next."
Tanshi smiled. "You really don't need to
do that."
"Don't be silly, young man; of course I
do. If you don't know how to wield the staff your parents gave you,
you'll never attract a woman."
Tanshi dissembled. It was strange for
Ryū Gen to encourage a monk to fraternize with women. But Tanshi liked
and respected Ryū Gen, so he didn't tell the man in plain terms that he
wasn't interested.
"And how long are you planning to be a
wandering monk?" Ryū Gen asked.
"I abandoned the temple. After the head
priest passed away, I had no reason to stay."
"Oh." Ryū Gen nodded. He understood
Tanshi's reason for leaving the temple. "Well, then. How about you join
up with us instead?"
Tanshi couldn't remain a wandering monk
forever, now that he had no temple to belong to. Ryū Gen wasn't trying
to recruit Tanshi so much as he was trying to take him in.
"Um, that is, sir, I'd like to, but..."
Tanshi continued to dissemble.
When Ryū Gen spoke again, his tone was
solemn. "I remember that when you were little, you got picked on a lot
at the temple. So did I when I was young. I'm like you in that I never
knew my parents. I always thought of you like the little brother I never
had."
Tanshi's heart swelled with emotion.
"Master Ryū Gen..." Ryū Gen was the only person in his life who had
always treated him with kindness. Even his foster father, Jiun, had
moderated his own brand of kindness with discipline.
***
Tanshi met Ryū Gen when he was ten years
old. He had been sent on an errand for Jiun into the city of Sicheng.
He'd completed the errand and was returning to the temple when he saw
Ryū Gen teaching the uses of the staff in a vacant lot behind a
building. Ryū Gen had noticed Tanshi standing there, entranced by his
movements, and invited the boy to join in the practice.
"Hey, kid!" Ryū Gen called out. "Want to
try this out? You look pretty strong."
"Isn't it expensive? There must be a
teaching fee..."
"I couldn't charge a monk money. It
wouldn't be right."
"Really?"
"Of course. In exchange for training,
I'll ask you to lead prayers for us once a month. Sound good?"
"It does," Tanshi said. "If you're
sure..."
Ryū Gen lived on his own in a ramshackle
house. He was poor, but his skill with weapons and way of speaking were
educated. He was a common warrior in appearance, but there seemed to be
more to him than met the eye. His surname was puzzling. It was possibly
borrowed from Liu Bei, the Emperor from the Three Kingdoms period.1
Come to think of it, their beards looked exactly the same.
There was a reason why Tanshi wanted to
learn the staff so badly. Rumored to have been born from an egg, he was
despised and bullied by senior monks as a junior disciple from an early
age. Tanshi wanted the bullying to stop, and he thought that the best
way to do that was to become stronger.
Tanshi broke down his problem into
pieces like a scholar. Since he was constantly being picked on and
singled out, the first thing he needed to do was work harder and better
than everyone else, so that there would be no reason to single him out.
This worked, to an extent; the senior monks admired his diligence in
front of Jiun, but when his foster father was absent, the ill-treatment
continued. He mastered academic disciplines and received the same
result.
Since diligence and intelligence were
insufficient, Tanshi next decided to focus on physical strength. That
was why learning the staff was such an attractive idea. Already used to
hard physical work and the disciplining of his own mind, Tanshi's
technique improved by leaps and bounds at the start. He hid the fact
that he was learning the staff from everyone at the temple, explaining
his absences by saying that he was practicing meditation on the
mountain.
Physical strength would mean nothing
unless Tanshi had occasion to demonstrate it to the senior monks that
tormented him. Tanshi understood this, but he also bided his time.
Showing off his skills too soon might backfire.
As it turned out, it took a long time
for Tanshi to get the perfect opportunity to show off his skills--almost
five years. But when that opportunity presented itself, Tanshi was
ready.
***
When Tanshi was fifteen years old, one
of the senior monks absconded with the wife of the leader of an armed
band of ruffians. The jilted husband stormed into the Yinghui Mountain
Temple with a spear in his hand.
"Come on out, you adulterous bastard!
I'll crush your balls!" the leader of the ruffians boomed out,
brandishing his spear at the offending monk.
The senior monk fled toward head priest
Jiun's quarters. He slipped past Juin, and the leader of the ruffians
prepared to run Jiun through for being in the way.
Tanshi was nearby. He put himself
between Jiun and the ruffian and seized the spear as it came down,
wrenching it from the ruffian's hands. The ruffian flew into a panic
that matched the senior monk's previous terror and ran from the temple.
None of the senior monks gave Tanshi any
trouble after that day.
In an act of sincere gratitude, Jiun
presented his own pewter staff to Tanshi as a gift. The pewter staff was
originally a shoulder-high cane carried by monks so that they could
chase out poisonous snakes and vermin from underfoot when they traveled.
Over time, this original purpose was all but lost to temple tradition.
Jiun knew the pewter staff as a ceremonial tool that was used as a
rhythmic instrument during chanting and prayer recitation. Usage of
pewter staffs was tightly regulated, since monks weren't generally
supposed to use weapons.
"The pewter staff is a sacred tool. In
place of a spearhead is the symbol of the gods. Think of it as an eagle,
watching over and protecting you from above, wherever you choose to
roam."
Jiun had told Tanshi to use the pewter
staff for defense. He'd never given permission for Tanshi to use it as a
weapon. Even so, he used the pewter staff in his training sessions with
Ryū Gen.
Ryū Gen's fighting style was unique. It
wasn't traditional staff training, but a blend of those techniques with
Shaolin Kung Fu. In practice, this meant that more usual straight
strikes with the staff were taught alongside sweeping circular motions
of the body. Mobility, too, was important: jumping and twisting to avoid
danger was part of the training.
The pewter staff that Tanshi had
received from Jiun was mostly wood, with iron bound at either end. After
he left the temple and became a wandering monk, he asked a blacksmith to
embed a steel core and connect the two iron pieces that topped both
ends. The pewter staff was designed to be a tool, not a weapon.
It had been two years since Ryū Gen and
Tanshi had last seen one another, and Tanshi was surprised to find his
staff master leading a band of salt smugglers.
"Salt is a treasure given equally to us
all by the creator of all things," Ryū Gen said. "People cannot live
without salt. The government has put salt production under its control
and raised taxes one after another to use it as a national revenue
source. Most of the government's income comes from salt, now. It would
be understandable if it were used for the benefit of the people, but
hmm... all the money the government makes disappears into the pockets of
rich imperial officials, used for entertainment and luxuries. That's why
we buy salt from the Khitans and the Tangut2
and sell it to the people." His voice rose as he spoke, swelling with
passion--or anger. "We sell it at a tenth of the cost, and it's
high-quality salt. It's a far cry from the salt mixed with sand that the
government sells. What's more, there's a policy that anyone who buys or
sells black salt will be beheaded! Think about it, Tanshi. The Emperor
and the Imperial Court created the salt smugglers more than anyone else
did. We will sell salt, and we will cut down the merciless who deprive
and bully the weak and defenseless."
"Master?" Tanshi asked.
Tanshi's brief interruption made Ryū Gen
aware of just how agitated he was becoming. He calmed himself, then
said, "I'm sorry. But it's important, what we do. We have allies
everywhere. Government officials, soldiers, scholars, wealthy people,
and people from all the other classes. Believe it or not, this villa is
the property of Fan Zhongyan."3
"What? Isn't he the Vice Chancellor of
the Imperial Court?"
Ryū Gen gave Tanshi an enigmatic smile.
"Well... we've spread our influence, you could say. Our force is large
and well-armed enough to compete with the Imperial Army. The Emperor
does nothing but make the people cry. I'm the son of a farmer, you know,
but my parents couldn't pay the taxes one year. I'll never forget the
sight of them being beheaded by a government official. I cursed this
hellish world... I hugged my mother's head and wept and swore that
someday I would avenge her..."
When Tanshi had led prayers to pay for
his staff training from Ryū Gen, Ryū Gen had asked Tanshi to pray for
the souls of his parents. Now he knew why.
Ryū Gen's eyes gleamed with tears,
shining white in the light of the sun.
"I must ask for your forgiveness,"
Tanshi said. "When you left without saying a word, I didn't understand,
and held a grudge. I'm sorry."
Ryū Gen laughed good-naturedly. "I
couldn't say goodbye to you because I was planning to be a salt
smuggler. We all have regrets. Well, then, drink up," Ryū Gen said,
offering Tanshi a full bottle of rice wine.
Tanshi gratefully accepted,
smiling.
"During my travels, I stained my hands
with blood, and I condemned others to hell. I can no longer call myself
a monk."
"Don't worry about that," Ryū Gen
said. "This world isn't fit for humans to live in. All we can do
is try to find a gap or a hole in the hell that surrounds us, and win
free." This was a different philosophy than Tanshi's, to be sure, and
Tanshi envied this free-spirited way of thinking. Ryū Gen accepted the
reality of the world, but his unusually strong sense of justice prompted
him to change things.
"What kind of country is Khitan?" Tanshi
asked.
Khitan was where the Chinese people had
come from originally. The Khitans were a Mongol people. Abaoji4
unified the neighboring tribes and established the Khitan state after
the fall of the Tang Dynasty (916 CE). It was renamed Liao (937 CE),
but was called Khitan again later (982 CE). Since the Zhou Dynasty
(1020 BCE to 256 BCE), the sixteen prefectures of Yanyun5
that were part of Khitan had been a treasure trove of resources and a
permanent settling place for the wandering desert people who colonized
them. The sixteen prefectures were part of Hebei and Shanxi to the
north.
In the year 1004 CE, the current
Emperor's father, Emperor Zhenzong, invaded Khitan in large numbers to
take over the territory. He and his army failed, and in the end, the
Emperor had no choice but to settle the matter diplomatically. The
disputed territory was ceded to Khitan in return for peace, mutual aid,
and trade deals. Every year, Khitan would receive 200,000 bolts of silk
and 100,000 taels6 of silver
from the Song Dynasty.
The Chanyuan Treaty cemented Khitan as
an independent nation. Many people were unhappy about this, not least
later Chinese Emperors. Emperor Sejong of the latter part of the Song Dynasty, Taejong of the Northern Song Dynasty, and others tried several
times to recapture the lost territory, but their efforts ended in failure. The
loss of the sixteen prefectures of Yanyun was an unbearable humiliation
for the Chinese people, and recapturing it was a long-cherished desire
of the ruling dynasty.
At the time of the Chanyuan Treaty, Ryū
Gen was just an eleven-year-old poor peasant's son, but his blood boiled with
humiliation and anger. He could not forgive the Imperial Court, which
had become subservient to protect itself, leaving aside the poor
commoners they were meant to rule. Angered by the Song Dynasty's
capitulation, Ryū Gen decided to strike back at the Khitans in his own
way. He worked hard to learn martial arts and weapons, and eventually
became a salt smuggler, which was his ultimate goal.
***
Ryū Gen spoke with passionate intensity.
"I buy black salt from the Khitans and the Tangut people, but I also
purchase horses in secret. There are not many good horses in this
country. They'll come in handy if and when we ever have to fight off a
foreign invasion. Think about it all, Tanshi. With the way things are
going, the Song Dynasty is going to be obliterated. Empress Dowager Liu
takes advantage of the fact that the Emperor is a child, and is as
stupid as Empress Wu Zetian.
"Then there's Ding Wei, the grand
councilor that advises our Emperor, who deposed Wang Qinruo and usurped
his place during the previous Emperor's reign.7
He does whatever he wants, corrupt or not, under the aegis of
Empress Dowager Liu's protection.
"Then there is Lei Yungong, the eunuch
who stepped on his fellows to rise to where he is.8
They are the people in power, and they increase their influence by
illegally exploiting the common people while cracking down on us. They
go after the little guys because they aren't tough enough to go after
people who can defend themselves.
"It's true that there are some good
people in the Imperial Court, like Fan Zhongyan and Wen Yanbo,9
but Ding Wei thwarts all their attempts at improvement and reform."
This happened later, but Fan Zhongyan
penned the work On Yueyang Tower to express his ideals of
government service. The descriptive prose piece was composed at the
invitation of Teng Zongliang, who had rebuilt the famed ancient tower of
Yueyang Lou. The tower was built by a city gate by the side of Dongting
Lake, and was known as one of the three great towers in southern China,
due to their association with famous literary works.
On Yueyang Tower contains a
very famous line on the role of scholar-officials in China, which
describes their ideal state of mind: "They were the first to worry about
the worries of others, and the last to enjoy the world's joys." These
lines sum up the scholar-official's idealized self-image of self-denial
and loyal service. He was a role model for the intellectuals of the Song Dynasty, and he'd also achieved great military success and fame before
rising to become the Prime Minister of the entire nation.
***
"Something else bothers me," Ryū Gen said. "They're minting coins in
iron instead of copper, and iron's in short supply everywhere right
now."
China was rich in coal and had advanced
iron smelting technology. The invention of briquettes at the end of the
Tang Dynasty further streamlined iron smelting and increased
productivity. After the development of the monetary economy (as opposed
to barter), only copper coins were made. This led to a shortage of
copper, so iron coins were created as a substitute. Ryū Gen was trying
to make machines out of iron and increase the sturdiness and length of
life out of the machines he'd already made, so he took the scarcity of
iron as a personal offense, as if the universe was trying to thwart him.
Ryū Gen held out his bowl of rice wine.
"Tanshi. Now that we've found each other again, let's be sworn brothers.
For real this time."
Tanshi's eyes lit up. "All right." He
held out his own bowl of rice wine, imitating Ryū Gen. They crossed
arms, making a sort of angled cross pattern, as Ryū Gen drank from
Tanshi's bowl and Tanshi drank from Ryū Gen's.
"Is it good?" Ryū Gen asked.
"It’s perfect." Tanshi gulped down all
the rice wine in the bowl. He smiled, and Ryū Gen smiled back.
"It's hard for me to believe that a
person like you could go from being a monk to a salt smuggler." He
sighed. "What sad times we live in. Well, then..." He frowned. "Wait a
second."
"I have nowhere to be at the moment,"
Tanshi said. Then he realized what he'd said and lowered his eyes. He
was supposed to be on a quest, after all, and that quest had nothing to
do with salt smugglers.
"What's wrong?" Ryū Gen asked.
Tanshi was at a loss for a reply. He
believed that if he spoke, his quest would be rejected or misunderstood.
"This is a conversation between
brothers," Ryū Gen said. "Speak."
"There's... something I really want to do,"
Tanshi said.
"Then I'll help you do it, whatever it
is."
Tanshi fixed a serious gaze on Ryū Gen.
"I am looking for the Way of Shattering Earth."
Ryū Gen stared at Tanshi for a long
time, as if what he'd said was unbelievable.
"It's something I've been thinking about
since I was a child," Tanshi said. "That's why I left the temple,
really."
"So you were always planning to discard
your monk's robes?"
"That doesn't matter, does it?"
"I don't understand," Ryū Gen said.
Tanshi was a smart young man. He should know that the Way of Shattering
Earth didn't actually exist. Ryū Gen had heard stories of people with
supernatural abilities, but he'd never encountered a single one; such
people were not part of his experience. The magic tricks of street
performers were just that: tricks to deceive the gullible. "Do you truly
believe that the Way of Shattering Earth is real?"
"I want to become stronger," Tanshi
said.
"You are strong," Ryū Gen said.
"No one who wields the staff as you do could call themselves weak." He
laughed.
"I was born from a bird's egg. If it's
true, then I should be able to develop other abilities as well, right?''
"That's stupid. If it were true, someone
else would have already found the way you seek." He pointed to the sky.
There was a flock of crows passing by overhead. "And if you were really
born from a bird's egg, you would have taken flight and soared with them
long ago."
Tanshi's face fell.
"Tanshi... do you want to become a
sorcerer, like in the stories? Because those are just stories. I've
never met a sorcerer. No one I know has met a sorcerer. If they exist,
they live away from people. Their powers in the stories are monstrous or
cruel or beast-like. You're a human, Tanshi, not a bird or a
shapeshifting fox."
"But there are things in the world that
are beyond people's comprehension," Tanshi insisted. "The night after
Jiun passed away, there was a thunderstorm. A man appeared before me as
I was reciting prayers."
Ryū Gen raised an eyebrow. "Go on."
"I saw it all very clearly. The man
yelled at the thunder for making too much noise, and was struck by
lightning and died on the spot. That was the anger of the thunder
god."
"No, it was a coincidence," Ryū Gen
said.
When Tanshi spoke again, he sounded
angry. "No, no, no! There are some things that can't be explained
by logic. The prediction of natural disasters. Healing illness through
magic. Begging for rain through prayer... and there
are sorcerers. Some people are born with special qualities. To predict the future and live forever and ever... everyone wants to do
that. Who says that a few people haven't done it already?"
"The world is not about to reform itself
to match your expectations."
"But you understood how awful the world
was when you were just a child," Tanshi said. "I've seen it now, too. I
feel like all I can do in this world as an ordinary person is wait to
die in some horrible way. How could I ever be satisfied with that? How can anyone?"
"I have no right to preach to the
choir," Ryū Gen said, "but didn't the Buddha provide a path for people
to transcend the fear of death and embrace the ephemerality of all
living things?"
"I am not the Buddha," Tanshi said. "I
can't escape from worldly desires and aspirations. I'm just a person,
and I want a better answer."
Ryū Gen frowned severely. Tanshi was set
on this way of thinking, and he didn't know how to change his
mind. "Are you so afraid of death?"
"No, I'm not. I'm not afraid. I want to
challenge my own destiny."
At Tanshi's sudden declaration, Ryū Gen
stood up. Tanshi also stood up. They had just been reunited and sworn
brotherhood to one another, but they didn't understand each other. Not
at all.
They glared, radiating tension. Ryū Gen
was the first to regain his composure; he sat back down quietly. Tanshi
turned his back on him and walked away, toward the forest that
surrounded the estate.
Ryū Gen stood up again, stunned at
Tanshi's stubbornness. He followed him a little distance.
The sun was up: just risen over the
courtyard.
"Tanshi," Ryū Gen said. "You can come
back here at any time. You are always welcome."
Tears glistened in the corners of
Tanshi's eyes and didn't fall. "Please forgive me. This is something I
have to do."
They didn't say goodbye, but they
forgave each other, even if they could not understand. The loneliness of
belonging to the same world where all the rules were different based on
individual perspective cut them both. They disagreed on the fundamental
framework of reality, and not even old friendship could bridge that gap.
Tanshi felt hollowed out and alone in
the world as he walked away.
Translator's Notes
1 Liu Bei (Chinese: 劉備) was a Chinese warlord
in the late Eastern Han Dynasty who later became the founding emperor
of Shu Han, one of the Three Kingdoms of China.
↩
2 The Tangut people (Chinese: 党項) were a
Sino-Tibetan people who founded and inhabited the Western Xia Dynasty.
After the collapse of Tang Dynasty, the Tanguts established the
Western Xia. They spoke the Tangut language, not Chinese. Western Xia
was annihilated by the Mongol Empire in 1227, most of its written
records and architecture were destroyed. Today the Tangut language and
its unique script are extinct; only fragments of Tangut literature
remain. ↩
3 范仲淹: Fan Zhongyan (5 September 989 – 19
June 1052), courtesy name Xiwen (希文), was a Chinese military
strategist, philosopher, poet, and politician of the Song Dynasty.
After serving the central government for several decades, Fan was
appointed Vice Chancellor over the entire Song empire.
↩
4 耶律阿保機: Abaoji, posthumously known by his
temple name as the Emperor Taizu of Liao, was a Khitan leader and the
founding emperor of the Liao Dynasty of China, ruling from 916 to 926.
↩
5 燕云十六州: The Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun
comprise a historical region in northern China along the Great Wall in
present-day Beijing, Tianjin, and part of northern Hebei and Shanxi.
It was a site of constant military and political conflict between
various dynasties from the end of the Tang Dynasty until the
establishment of the Yuan Dynasty.↩
6 Taels are a part of the Chinese system of
weights and currency. The Chinese tael was standardized to 50 grams in
1959.↩
7 氶想丁謂: Ding Wei (c. 966 – June 1037) was a
Song Dynasty chancellor who dominated the courts during Emperor
Zhenzong's later reign and Emperor Renzong's early reign.
Ding Wei's opponent Wang Zeng (王曾) claimed that Ding was considered
one of the "Five Devils", along with Wang Qinruo, Lin Te (林特), Chen
Pengnian (陳彭年) and Liu Chenggui (劉承珪), a group of high-ranking
ministers unpopular at the time. In the centuries to follow, Ding Wei
has almost always been portrayed as a treacherous minister in popular
fiction.↩
8 雷允恭: Lei Yungong (died 23 July 1022) was a
Song Dynasty palace eunuch who rose to power after foiling fellow
eunuch Zhou Huaizheng's coup. He dominated court politics following
Emperor Zhenzong's death by associating with the powerful grand
councilor Ding Wei. However, just a few months later he was beaten to
death for illegally moving Emperor Zhenzong's burial site to acquire
treasures. ↩
9 Wen Yanbo (23 October 1006 – 16 June 1097 CE), courtesy
name Kuanfu, was a scholar-official of the Song Dynasty who served
four emperors over more than five decades. He was a grand councilor
and a primary advisor during Emperor Renzong's reign. ↩
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