Chapter Two: Doors Left Unlocked at Night

Yuhe Fort was a fine place, situated where the Wuding and Yuxi rivers converged north of Yan’an’s prefecture city. In northern Shaanxi, anywhere with a river was a good place to settle.

Seventy li to the north lay Yulin City, the seat of the Yansui Garrison; ninety li to the south was Silver River Post in Mizhi County. The official military road with its strategic purpose had fallen into disrepair over the years, and wild tumbleweeds had sprung up on either side of the broad dirt track.

Last autumn, famine refugees passed along this road, stripping the ground bare—nothing was left behind.

As night fell, Yuhe Fort, nestled against the mountains, resembled a giant spider lurking in shadow, the desolate fields and the rolling sandy ridges west of the river forming the tattered strands of its broken web.

On a narrow path outside the walls, the dust-covered families of border soldiers crouched beneath the trees, wrapped in filthy, threadbare coats, clutching bowls of broth brewed from the tender shoots of wild trees. Their eyes were hollow, unfocused, and numb.

There were no chickens, no dogs, barely even people in the villages beyond the walls. In the spring, the settlements were silent as corpses frozen to death months earlier, rigidly sprawled outside the fortress.

It was not only in times of good governance and peace that people slept with their doors unbarred; abject poverty could do the same—no one had anything worth stealing.

Rounding the narrow path, one could see the parched moat of Yuhe Fort close at hand.

Every year, reports requesting funds from Yulin for repairs to the city walls were submitted; every year, those pleas vanished into silence. The last time the fortress was reinforced was in the fourth year of the Wanli reign, seizing the momentum when Marshal Qi Jiguang was strengthening the defenses at Jizhen to clad the thirty-foot earthen walls in brick.

Since then, whether it was the Tatar raids in the second year of the Tianqi era or the corner of the wall collapsing after three years of relentless rain, not a single tael of silver had been approved for repairs.

Now, the dried-up moat and two outer earth trenches formed three empty ditches. The wooden palisades and chevaux-de-frise at their bottoms were all rotten, the breaches in the rammed-earth animal walls near the fortress patched haphazardly with timber, and the sunken southwestern ramparts bore clear scars.

It was as if war had only just departed.

Yet, in truth, Yuhe Fort had not seen the enemy for a full seven years.

Commander He Renlong had gone to Yulin City before the New Year to petition the general’s office for rations and had yet to return. The guards at the gate were listless—until they caught sight of the wild geese on the back of the red-bannered steed, which finally stirred their interest.

“Well! The Lion’s shot down some geese?”

The gatekeepers gathered around, swallowing hard as they eyed the two wild geese tied to the horse’s rump, peppering the rider with questions.

To bring back game from the clear rivers and hills outside was a rare event; a dozen or so retainers left the fort each day, and for ten days running, few had returned with so much as a scrap.

Even when something was brought back, it was not always game. In the first month, someone stole a goat from who knows where—it still had a bell around its neck.

Yesterday, a retainer, too ashamed to return empty-handed, caught two sand monks.

Sand monks were small desert lizards, about the length of a man’s palm. No one knew how to eat them, so in the end they were given to Meidianmei, the captain of Yuhe Fort’s rat-hunting squad.

Meidianmei was a seven-year-old calico cat. The year she was born, Yuhe Fort’s extermination team was still an elite force of sixteen cats, with seven siblings in her own litter. Then the rat plague struck, and her entire family died in the line of duty, along with many townsfolk. She alone survived those hard times, and after the unit’s reduction, she inherited her mother’s office, taking on the crucial post of rat-hunting captain.

In the days when the border soldiers of Yuhe Fort could still get by, her monthly pay was three dried Yuxi carp, plus bonuses in the form of field mice—a life of ease.

Now, Meidianmei was among the most senior of Yuhe Fort’s garrison. Though hunger had thinned her frame, she remained quick and agile, her bearing undiminished.

The little whirlwind, starved to desperation, had tried many times to beg for food from the extermination squad, only to be beaten back. He still bore three scratch marks at the corner of his eye.

After Liu Chengzong took up his post as a retainer, one of his routine duties besides drills was to feed the cats and walk the dogs. He and Captain Mei forged a deep camaraderie; whenever the rat squad struck, a mouse would always appear on Liu’s windowsill that same day, sometimes with an extra portion courtesy of the little whirlwind.

Not anymore—now, when people themselves went hungry, who could spare a thought for cats?

Guard Captain He Yong’s personal troops stood with the gate sentries. They, too, were young men surnamed He from Mizhi, and after a few words of greeting, one said, “I’ll bring you the goose feathers tonight,” and carried off the two wild geese, delighted, to report to the captain.

Goose feathers, like goose down, were ordinary fletching material, not worth much. But for someone like Liu Chengzong, who often made his own arrows, it was a valuable resource.

Inside Yuhe Fort, torches cast their flickering shadows along the wall. On the inner slope, a few men beckoned to him. He recognized them as his elder brother Liu Chengzu, squad leader Tian Shoujing, and Gao Xian.

Liu Chengzu, his blood brother four years his senior and now twenty-two, had been recruited along with him in the seventh year of the Tianqi reign by He Renlong to serve as retainers at Yuhe Fort.

Last year, a squad leader named Zhang Wu deserted with his men. The Liu brothers were ordered to recruit refugee conscripts to fill the ranks. On their return, Liu Chengzu was promoted to squad leader, filling Zhang Wu’s vacancy as if the defection had never happened.

Recruitment was absurdly easy. Disaster was everywhere; refugees filled the land, and soldiering at least offered half a ration.

Constant hunger was hard to bear, but still better than starving outright.

Who didn’t want to live?

As for deserters, they had their own paths. Armored and armed, trained in the arts of war, some ended up as bandits—perhaps dying violently, perhaps never wanting for food again.

Tian Shoujing and Gao Xian had both refused to follow Zhang Wu and remained with the border troops. The former hailed from Fushi County in Yan’an Prefecture, just a few mountains away from Liu’s home; the latter was from Ansai County, a bit farther off.

They had both been ordinary soldiers, but after the influx of new recruits, were promoted to squad leaders.

With one desertion and one promotion, the number of border soldiers at Yuhe Fort remained unchanged, but their quality had dropped a rung.

“Shot some geese?”

Liu Chengzu sat on the slope, pointing to a wooden basket beside him. “You must be starving. I saved you some food.”

At the mention, Liu Chengzong’s stomach growled in protest, and without ceremony, he sat down, lifted the lid, and began devouring the golden millet rice inside.

Millet resembled small rice grains. Though cold, a layer of mutton fat had congealed on top, imparting a strong, gamy aroma, but to a starving man, it was fragrant beyond compare.

So fragrant, it made him want to weep.

He had joined the army because disaster had struck his family, though the Liu clan of Dragon King Temple Mountain had managed well enough; otherwise, they could hardly have afforded to educate and train two sons for over a decade. Before becoming border troops, they had known hunger, but rarely went unfed for days.

Squad leaders were not imperial officials, nor did they receive stipends now, but they were still guaranteed rations. Liu Chengzong often relied on his brother for meals, scraping by as best he could.

“Managed to shoot two, but my double-shot technique was off... The third arrow didn’t even clear the bow. By the time I nocked it, the flock had flown out of range,” Liu said between mouthfuls, suddenly remembering something else. He rose, bowl in hand, and retrieved a clay jar from his horse. “Brother Shoujing, I found a mirror and half a candle—still usable. See if anyone who went out burning the fields has any beans left. I’ll trade for a handful or two.”

Their rations came in two forms: daily and monthly. Daily rations were like travel allowances, only issued for missions over forty li from base, and those were usually given in full.

Last autumn, a detachment from Yuhe Fort rode out to burn the wilds beyond the border. None dared eat their field rations, and some still had leftovers even now.

“Alright, I’ll ask around,” Tian Shoujing replied, glancing at the red-maned horse at the foot of the slope and grinning. “You feeding that Red Banner? What’s wrong with the name ‘Three-Fats’? Ever since you changed it, it’s lost weight!”

It was a jest, but Liu Chengzong, his mouth full of millet, was in no mood for banter. He gulped water from his canteen, swallowed his food, and turned to his brother.

“It’s no big deal if the horse is thin.” In the wavering torchlight, a rare gravity marked Liu Chengzong’s face. “Brother, we have to think of something. I couldn’t even draw the bow properly today while hunting.

If this goes on, all our martial training will go to waste.”