As the setting sun dipped below the horizon, Shao Shuyi walked westward along the Lou River toward his home.
Passing the East First Du, he encountered another scene of utter turmoil.
A shrill, wretched scream seemed to tear through the evening sky. "In the first month, the authorities detained my boat, claiming it was for the Summer Transport. For months, I could neither ship cargo nor fish; I have no way to survive. Now you want me to prepare tribute tools and deckhand rations? The expenses are enormous; I truly cannot bear it! After years of transporting grain, I have long been destitute, my walls bare. My wife has been pawned off to others—I’ve abandoned all dignity just hoping to raise my two children. Yet you won’t even leave me this path to live. What arrears? I have nothing left!"
Reaching the peak of his agitation, the man let out a despairing cry. Tears streaming down his face, he raised a large axe, charged toward the boat moored by the riverbank, and began to hack at it with all his might. Wood chips flew through the air, mingling with his flying tears.
Hearing the noise, Shao Shuyi quickened his pace and drew closer, only to see four or five burly men rush forward and pin the man to the ground.
The man struggled ceaselessly, continuing to sob. "This boat is a curse, a curse! If there were no boat, the Transport Office wouldn't repeatedly select me to go to sea, and I wouldn't have lost my family and fortune. Let me destroy it!"
"You scoundrel!" A brand-new leather boot stepped onto his face, grinding down hard. Only then did the owner of the boot speak. "Li Fu, I know you have grievances. But in these times, who doesn't have grievances? Since I became the Township Head, I have paid out over three hundred ingots in compensation and sold off many of the mulberry fields and acres handed down by my ancestors. I was supposed to step down after one year and wash my hands of this business, but the prefecture and county offices forced me to serve another year. You are wronged? I am even more wronged! I’ll tell you the truth today: if you don’t hand over two ingots in notes, I will dismantle your house and sell your two children. I mean what I say."
Li Fu’s crying lessened slightly, but his eyes slowly turned glassy.
The men holding him took away the axe and slowly released their grip. Li Fu did not get up; he just lay there on the ground, dazed and stupefied.
An official standing beside the Township Head saw this and sighed. "Enough. The Summer Transport is crucial. Since he must go to sea, let us wait until he returns. There will be a sum of freight money issued then; I will say a word, and the bureau officials can deduct it directly."The Township Head's tense expression relaxed slightly.
After a moment, he kicked Li Fu. "Useless thing, get up."
Li Fu’s eyes slowly regained their focus. Escaping the immediate calamity seemed to restore a trace of vitality to him. As for paying the tax arrears later, that was a problem for another day. In this world, if one could survive one more day, one did—there was no use thinking too far ahead.
Shao Shuyi quietly slipped behind the crowd and whispered to a bystander, "Didn't they say they would collect the arrears at the end of the month? Why act now?"
"How could the authorities have that kind of patience?" the man whispered back. "Tomorrow was supposed to be the deadline, but some people have fled with their families. The authorities couldn't sit still, so they asked the archers from the Inspection Office to come down to the countryside to press for the arrears. Speaking of Li Fu, it’s truly a sin. In earlier years, people sold their boats and fled, or falsely registered their boats under others' names to escape the corvée duties. Li Fu counts as one of the law-abiding ones, yet he ends up the most miserable—worse off than those who sold their boats and dodged the draft."
Shao Shuyi was stunned. It truly validated the saying: in the final years of a dynasty, those who are loyal and patriotic die the most miserable deaths!
"So the dates for collecting arrears are different in each Du?" he asked subconsciously.
"Yes," the man sighed. "The times are bad, and the number of households in arrears is growing daily. My family barely managed to pay in full; we have almost nothing left. The Du Head is not a good person either; he helps the Township Head bully us and will do anything. If we really compare, Master Chen of the Second Du is better. He held out for a long time, allowing the debtors to pay the Household Levy at the end of the month. However—"
"However what?" Shao Shuyi asked.
"It has to be paid sooner or later. If you don't pay, they arrest people. It’s unspeakably tragic."
"During the Spring and Summer Transport, the maritime ship households risk their lives treading the seas. Why are they arresting people in the rear? Won't that affect morale?"
"You have little experience. Which year hasn't had a few cases like this? The elders say that Emperor Wuzong (Külüg Khan, r. 1307–1311) treated us maritime ship households the best, yet it was precisely during Wuzong's reign that while the ship households transported grain at the front, the government arrested their families and threw them in prison at the rear."
"And after the arrest?"
"Pay the arrears and get out. Whatever suffering the family endures is unavoidable; many die of illness in prison."
"Is there no other way?" Shao Shuyi asked.
"What way could there be? Unless one sells oneself into slavery, and even then, one must find a good master."
Shao Shuyi fell silent.
In his view, that path was not necessarily safe either. Nowadays, even the gentry and powerful commoners couldn't guarantee they would keep their family estates. If the situation continued to deteriorate, who could say the officials and nobles wouldn't meet with disaster? The phenomenon where "officials can no longer make a living" happens at the end of dynasties, and this was especially true for the Great Yuan.
But then again, what could you do?
For the moment, seeking shelter with officials or the great gentry was the best option; the bailiffs wouldn't dare trouble them for a while. But failing to pay arrears meant certain imprisonment and a high risk of death.
This screwed-up situation wasn't even about right or wrong. It didn't have much to do with the Du Head or the Township Head personally, because to meet tax quotas, they themselves were losing everything—perfectly good gentry and wealthy households were forced to sell fields and assets, or even flee with their families.
This was systemic oppression, the embodiment of the Yuan court's failed governance. Everyone was swept up in it, forced to hurt one another. The only solution was to smash the old order and start over.
Shao Shuyi left the crowd.
On the way home, he saw soldiers from the Inspection Office carrying swords and bows. There were only a mere thirty of them, and they didn't look particularly capable in combat, but they were more than enough to deal with the maritime ship households, who were as loose as scattered sand. True, there were over ten thousand ship households, but they were dispersed across multiple Myriad-Household Commanderies; specific to any given village or township, the numbers were few.
Thirty archers, plus twenty or so bailiffs, were enough to pose a lethal threat to him.
Some things had to be accelerated.
After returning home, Shao Shuyi, famished to the point where his chest was practically sticking to his spine, immediately began to cook.
He didn't plan to skimp anymore. After washing the rice, he casually chopped some vegetables, sprinkled in some salt, and boiled them all together in a pot of vegetable rice.
After eating three large bowls in a row, he gently rubbed his slightly distended belly, feeling very satisfied.
He had thought it through: if he had to flee in the future, carrying this grain would be strenuous. With his small frame, which hadn't fully developed yet, traveling light was already tiring, let alone carrying supplies.
He should prepare some paper notes. They would be useful when running away, at least allowing him to hold out a little longer while waiting for a turn of events.
But his heart was still heavy.
The world was just this cruel. No one was deliberately making things difficult for him, and no one was deliberately mocking him just to wait for him to dramatically prove them wrong.
There was only numbness, the indifference of each sweeping the snow from their own door. At most, seeing the misery of others might evoke a sense of shared sorrow—like a fox mourning the death of a rabbit—and a few sighs.
In this world, you couldn't even find a specific object for your hatred; it could only be directed at the broad, abstract concept of the "Yuan Court."
With a sigh, Shao Shuyi decided to start saving himself starting tomorrow. It would be his final effort before fleeing, given that running away to an unfamiliar place might not end well either.
From the tenth day of the month onward, the weather was gloomy for several days in a row.
Shao Shuyi worked day laborer for four days, earning two strings and five hundred wen in notes.
On the tenth day, a ship arrived from Ganpu transporting knives, porcelain, and rattan. He carried goods all day and earned six hundred wen.
On the eleventh day, he moved Goryeo celadon, Goryeo bronzeware, and Silla lacquer at the wharf, earning six hundred wen.
[TN: Goryeo — The Korean kingdom that ruled most of the peninsula during this period; Silla — An earlier Korean kingdom.]
On the twelfth day, a Muslim merchant returned from overseas with two whole shiploads of spices, pearls, shark skin, and other exotic treasures waiting to be moved. He earned six hundred wen.
On the last day, he went to help with odd jobs at a wealthy household that was holding a wedding. The work was light, yet it was the most profitable day, earning him seven hundred wen.
After these four busy days, he nearly collapsed from exhaustion.
He had to admit, not only could his body not withstand long-term coolie labor, but his mind couldn't take it either.
He was not, after all, a person of this era. What the people of this time considered customary, he found to be suffering; he really couldn't out-compete these people. If he kept grinding like this, he would be riddled with injuries and illness before he hit thirty. Would he have money for medical treatment then? Keep dreaming.
On the fourteenth day, just as Shao Shuyi gritted his teeth and prepared to go out to continue accumulating "travel expenses," a large group of officials and bailiffs appeared outside the east end of the village.
They were extremely savage, directly commandeering the home of Squire Wu, the wealthiest man in the village, for their lodging. They drove his family out, causing a chaotic scene of flying chickens and leaping dogs. The officials then broke down the door of Old Liu’s house, right next to the Wu residence. Before long, Old Liu’s entire family was dragged out, weeping and wailing in utter misery.
An officer shouted loudly at them. Because Shao was some distance away, he only heard the gist of it: if the Liu family could pay their arrears, they would be fine; if not, they would be taken away today and put in the cangue for public display.
Shao Shuyi felt his gut clench tightly.
Seeing two archers from the Inspection Office start heading toward the west, he hesitated for barely a second. He darted straight back into the inner room, looked at the remaining dou and a few sheng of rice, gritted his teeth, and hoisted it onto his back. Then he opened the back door and slipped out.
He ran fast, his lungs heaving like bellows.
He leaped over a shallow ditch, stumbling slightly upon landing and nearly twisting his ankle.
Dense branches tore at his clothes, but he paid them no mind and kept moving forward.
After running dozens of paces, he crossed a small wooden bridge and hid in the reed marshes by the riverbank.
Only then did he realize how wretched he looked: his clothes were tattered, his right ankle was uncomfortable, and there were tiny cuts on the back of his hands and even his face from the reed leaves, oozing traces of blood.
He carefully parted the reeds and gazed at the opposite bank of the small river, where his home and the village he had grown up in lay.
The shouting, crying, and cursing in the village grew louder, interspersed with the sounds of doors being smashed and chests being ransacked.
Shao Shuyi sighed inwardly and turned away from the riverbank.
But he didn't know where to go either. The world was vast and boundless, yet for a moment, there seemed to be nowhere for him to hide.