Chapter 8: Wind and Snow

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Qingchun’s father set out on the road to Xiuchi and never returned. His mother remarried, and although his uncle’s family took him in for half a year, they could not continue to support him.

In fact, Qingchun’s uncle and aunt had already done all they could.

Under the Equal-Field system of the Great Sui dynasty, when a family lost its male head and the mother remarried, the household was considered without a male adult. All the family’s land would automatically revert to the government for redistribution.

If Qingchun wanted to inherit the land, he would have to wait two years until he came of age and then register with the authorities.

Of course, the land returned would no longer be the original holdings.

During the Daye era, as the household registration system gradually broke down, the flaws of the Equal-Field system, which depended heavily on the integrity of local officials, began to manifest.

Take Qingchun’s village as an example: with the sharp population decline, the government could not promptly update registrations and had to allow relatives to inherit. But with too few laborers and unchanged taxes, as land holdings increased, the pressure only grew heavier. Unable to bear it, many farming households went bankrupt, while wealthy families colluded with officials to seize land.

Thus, many families sank into slavery or became vagrants.

Qingchun’s uncle’s family had no choice but to sell Qingchun to a wealthy villager as a slave. It can be said that this child had suffered hardship since childhood.

In the autumn of the sixth year of Daye, the villagers rose in protest against taxes and accidentally killed a tax official’s son, leading the entire village to flee into the mountains.

The wealthy villagers, lacking compassion, ultimately met their comeuppance soon after entering the mountains.

Qingchun narrowly escaped and happened to see Li Po leaving. With nowhere else to turn, he followed him.

Li Po asked why, coming from a poor family connected to the villagers, he did not stay with them.

Qingchun replied that the leaders were no good people and it would be better if they were all dead...

Though vague and unconvincing, Li Po understood.

In these chaotic times, so-called grassroots heroes who stood out were rarely honorable men.

That a child would rather follow a stranger of unknown origin through the wilderness than stay with the villagers suggested a bitter story, one Li Po could partly sympathize with.

He did not press further. Outside the mountains, conditions were not good, but not as terrible as he had imagined.

They struggled to have enough to eat, but it was not quite a lawless age.

For him, this was a mixed blessing.

The good part was that once outside, he might avoid armed conflict and find a livelihood to keep himself fed and clothed.

The bad part was that he had to rack his brains to forge an identity.

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Moreover, now he had another person with him, who, by the child’s own words, was still under slave status.

Slavery, whether on the northern steppes or in the southern Great Sui, was a common reality.

The difference lay perhaps in that slaves on the northern steppes were little better than cattle or sheep, whereas under the Great Sui, slaves had some survival rights and limited freedoms.

At this moment, Li Po had no interest in distinguishing civilization from barbarism; he only knew that bringing along someone else’s slave, now turned a vagrant, would add many complications to their journey.

Still, he decided to bring the boy out of the mountains. In truth, his only reason was that he found the child somewhat agreeable.

The two climbed up to the mountain ridge, and Li Po looked down. A sizable village came into view.

Built against the mountain, surrounded by sparse vegetation, a stream wound nearby.

A decent place...

“Teacher, that’s our... village...”

Having followed Li Po only briefly, the boy now used a term that made Li Po feel awkward. When did he become a teacher?

Qingchun was pleased to have thought of that name; it was the closest expression of his feelings aside from calling his parents.

Looking at the vague village below, Qingchun scratched his head, his statement turning into a question.

Though distant, the damage was clear—the village looked ravaged, as if struck by a fire.

No doubt, this was the consequence of the villagers killing the tax official.

Li Po wondered why, if the village was destroyed, the authorities did not pursue the fugitives into the mountains.

According to Qingchun, if one followed the stream outside the village, it would lead to Mayi City, the seat of Mayi Commandery.

Adjacent to Mayi Commandery was Yanmen Commandery. Both once belonged to the jurisdiction of Dai Prefecture, which was abolished during the Daye era when the central government replaced prefectures with commanderies and counties—thus streamlining the administrative levels from three to two.

Li Po had some knowledge of this, as several old soldiers had served in the Sui army, enlisting at the end of Emperor Wen’s reign. Though their understanding of the reforms from Emperor Wen’s late years to the Daye era was partial, they grasped the major changes.

However, this superficial knowledge would not make Li Po’s upcoming journey any easier.

After gazing at the mountain village for some time, Li Po spoke: “Once we’re out, we’ll call each other brothers. If anyone asks, say we came here looking for relatives.”

“Okay,” Qingchun murmured, clutching a short knife tightly. “Teacher, when will you teach me to use the knife?”

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Li Po looked absentmindedly at the village below. “Use a knife? What do you want to do?”

“Learn the skill... so that if anyone hits me, I can kill them.”

“How old are you, spouting talk of fighting and killing?”

“I’m not little anymore... Once I have the skill, I’ll hunt and can support you, Teacher.”

“Hmm, that sounds reasonable. But didn’t you say you can’t hunt freely in the forest?”

“Those with skill do whatever they want. If I hunt, no one dares to say a word.”

...

As they spoke, the boy’s reserved nature became clear—it wasn’t that he was mute, but that he simply lacked topics.

The fierce spirit of the northern folk gradually showed in his words and actions.

This made Li Po somewhat regret picking up this child in the forest, disturbing the peace of his own mind.

As the saying goes, hope can tire a horse. By the time they reached the foot of the mountain, dusk was falling.

The two entered the village in the dark. The village had indeed suffered a great fire; rubble lay everywhere, and the smell of smoke and burning still lingered.

Li Po knew well this was no place to linger.

Someone might come to investigate at any time.

Originally, Li Po had planned only to search the village for anything useful before moving on to find shelter elsewhere.

But fate intervened, and the two ended up staying in this ruined village.

Because the first heavy snow of winter finally arrived.

As misfortune piled upon misfortune, Qingchun, young and frail, who had struggled through days in the forest, became feverish that night from exhaustion and fear.

The north wind howled, snow fell thick and fast, and the northern winter revealed its savage face.

Snow fell for most of the day, and the temperature plummeted.