Hao Meng’s caravan - Jinhai

 

In the morning, as we prepare to leave White Plains, I’m staggered by the chaos.  This is nothing like the army.  The families argue about what order they’re going to travel in, as Yao Lin says they do every morning.  Some of the merchants haven’t bothered to stock up on water and we have to wait while fill their barrels.  One family has failed to water its horses.  After a couple of hours, a horse begins to look distressed and has to be switched out and replaced with one of my spares.  A child falls off the back of a wagon.  I sweep him up and let him ride on Blaze for a while before returning him to his family.  This leads to other children begging for rides as well.   Women hop down from one wagon and climb into another so they can gossip.  We stop at noon for a lengthy lunch.  I can only imagine what Shao Ru would say about it all.

As the latest recruit, I naturally get the worst job:  bringing up the rear.  No surprise there.  I see that apart from the Yao and Zhong wagons, all the others are driven by servants, as the merchants prefer to avoid the dust and heat of the road.  Hao Meng reappears in the mid-afternoon to guide us to the camping place, a wide space off the main road.  The camp is a total mess:  horses picketed haphazardly, wagons not in a defensible position, servants busy scurrying to feed their masters rather than tending to the animals. 

There’s a stream nearby.  Yao Lin, Lei Qing and I see to our horses and then while supper’s being prepared, I do what I can to water and settle the other travelers’ neglected animals.  A harassed-looking servant rushes up waving his arms.

“Young Master, Young Master, please don’t trouble, this work is for us humble ones.”

“The horses should be seen to first,” I say, frowning.

He rolls his eyes and makes a gesture of helplessness.  “What can we do, Young Master?  Our masters want to be fed first, the horses must wait.”

An arrogant young voice says, “You!”

The servant flinches and an exasperated expression crosses his face.  He and I both turn to see a boy of about Yao Lin’s age standing with his arms folded.  He’s very handsome, richly-dressed, bejeweled.  Behind him hovers another kid of about the same age, also well-dressed but disastrously lacking his friend’s looks and self-assurance.

“Saddle two horses,” orders the first lad.

“Young Master Zhu, we can’t …..” begins the servant, bowing as low as it’s possible to go.

Young Master Zhu cuts him off.  “Do as you’re bloody well told.”

“You should reconsider, Young Master Zhu,” I say politely, “The horses are tired and need to rest.”

He looks me up and down insolently.  His gaze lingers on my earring.  “And who the fuck are you?” he asks.

“My name is Zhao Jing.” I say, bowing.  He doesn’t return the salute.

“It’s none of your fucking business.”  He turns to the servant.  “Get those horses saddled.”

The other boy sniggers annoyingly.  He has the profile of an ornamental carp.  The servant scurries to obey.  I can only watch as two tired horses are saddled, mounted and ridden off with much whooping and shouting.  The servant looks at me and sighs.

“What can we do?  That young one’s a demon's cub.”

“Does this happen often?”

He nods.  “The young men get bored.  So in the evening, they take the horses and go joy-riding.  Their fathers do nothing.  We servants can do nothing.”

Still sighing, he picks up a bucket and starts off towards the stream. 

That evening round the camp-fire, I pick Yao Lin’s brains.  The arrogant Young Master Zhu is the offspring of Zhu Min’s first wife, now deceased.  The carp-faced boy is one Fang Tian, only son of the family next in importance to the Zhus.  These two are the nucleus of a band of teenagers who amuse themselves by harassing both the travelers and their escort.  The joy-riding’s a regular occurrence. 

“Everybody’s fed-up with them and everybody’s complained,” Yao Lin explains, “But Zhu Yu’s the eldest son.  His father just hums and haws but never does anything.  And Madam Zhu can’t interfere because he’s not her child.”

“What about the other fathers?”

“They don’t dare go up against the Zhus.  Zhu Min’s too rich and influential.”

“And Hao Meng?”

“He’s not here during the day so he can’t keep an eye on things.  And the Fu brothers have given up in disgust.”

I soon get a nasty taste of the disruption the teenagers are causing.  A couple of days later as we’re all yawning round the camp-fires at breakfast, we’re startled by a series of explosions, followed by the sound of panicking horses.  The sounds are coming from an area where a number of horses are picketed together.  As we rush over, several animals gallop frantically past and scatter. 

“Firecrackers!  The little shits!”  Hao Meng’s beside me, breathing heavily.  There are three horses still tethered; they’re kicking and struggling, bleeding wounds on their legs.  One has a dangling forefoot.

Hao Meng swears lengthily and obscenely.  I get in among the panicky animals, trying to calm them down.  Yao Lin joins me, as other people rush up and make the situation worse by yelling and shouting.  The horses belong to two secondary families, the heads of which are flapping about like deranged chickens.  Yao Lin and I lead two of the animals away, leaving behind the one with the broken leg.  Hao Meng draws his sword.

I’ve seen injured horses killed before, but it’s not something anyone who loves horses wants to see too often.  So I avert my eyes as Hao Meng dispatches the injured animal with a swift slash.  The smell of blood fills the air and the chattering crowd falls silent.  My eye falls on the little knot of teenagers who are gathered at a distance, grinning and nudging one another.  Zhu Yu’s in the middle, his arms folded, a satisfied look on his face.

Zhu Min’s among the crowd.  Hao Meng strides over, wiping his sword.

“I don’t think there’s much doubt who’s responsible for this,” he says to Zhu Min, loud enough for everyone to hear.

“W – well, we can’t jump to conclusions without proof,” Zhu Min stutters.  He looks round at the crowd.  “Did anyone see anything?”

Of course, no-one did.  Hao Meng turns away in disgust.

“What about my horse?” an aggrieved man pipes up.  He’s very thin, with a large wart on one cheekbone.  “I’ve only got three to pull the wagon now.”

“You can take one of my spares,” I say, “They’re not up to much, but it’ll do till we get to the next town.”

“That’s very good of you, Young Master, but I demand compensation,” says the thin man, “We all know this wasn’t an accident.”

A mutter of agreement comes from the crowd.  Zhu Min fumbles in his sleeve, pulls out a money-bag and counts some pieces of silver into the thin man’s palm.

“Let’s take this as closing the incident,” he says.

“My horses are injured too,” another man protests.  Zhu Min counts out more money.  I can’t believe my eyes.  “Does he always do this?” I ask Hao Meng.  “Buy his son out of trouble?”

“Yup.  Anything rather than face the lad down.”

The thin man raises his complaining voice again.  “What about the runaways?”

“We’ll get after them,” Hao Meng says.  “You’ll have to wait till we get back.”

The Fu brothers are left to guard the encampment.  Hao Meng, the three backsides and I ride out to recapture the missing animals.  Luckily the escapees have only gone as far as the next patch of grass.  All the same, it’s nearly noon by the time we get under way and the mood of the caravan’s surly.

Riding at the back, I get to see what’s going on up ahead.  It doesn’t take long before I notice teenagers jumping down from their family wagons and running up to climb into the second wagon from the head of the column.  I urge Blaze up alongside Yao Lin.  “Who’s in the second wagon from the front?”

“Give you one guess.  Zhu Yu.  He’s got a wagon to himself.  Well, his younger brother shares it with him.  They all go in there to plot.”

“Younger brother?”

“Madam Zhu’s eldest, Zhu Huang.  He’s eleven or twelve.  Quiet kid, very timid.  He’s not one of the gang.”

That evening, I take a stroll to where the Zhu wagons are parked.  There are three of them.  One’s the main family wagon.  Outside, a young girl and a small boy are playing, while an elderly servant’s cooking supper over the camp-fire.  The second wagon’s padlocked and has no windows.  I’m guessing it contains merchandise.  The third must be Zhu Yu’s.  The child sitting huddled on the steps looks up timidly as I approach.  He’s thin and pale and looks younger than eleven or twelve.

I stop and bow, smiling.  “You must be Second Young Master Zhu.  I’m Zhao Jing.  I’m pleased to meet you.”

He scrambles to his feet and bows in return.  The wagon door slams open and Zhu Yu comes out.  He has a wine-jar in one hand and his handsome face is flushed.

“Fuck off,” he says, “You’re hired help.  You can’t talk to us.”

I bow and smile.  “Good evening, Young Master Zhu.  As it happens, I can talk to whomever I like.”

“I’ll have you fired,” he says.

“You can try,” I reply.  “I don’t think you’ll get much change out of Hao Meng.”

“He’ll do what my father tells him.  And my father will do what I tell him.”  He takes a swig from the bottle.  Wine runs down his chin and he wipes it off with his sleeve.

“Well, after today’s little incident, you’d be well advised not to test your father too far.” I say.  “You’re not stupid.  Think about it.”

And with that, I bow and move off.  Behind me, I hear Zhu Yu say angrily, “I forbid you from talking to him again, brat, do you hear?”

The child’s voice replies plaintively, “I didn’t talk to him, Ah-Yu, really I didn’t.”

I turn.  Zhu Yu stares at me for a moment then spins round with a swish of his robes and disappears into the wagon.  The child resumes his huddled position on the wagon steps.

Where have I seen that combination of arrogance and defiance before?

It comes to me in the middle of the night, discomfortingly. 

Yu Kang.

Two days later, we wake to find that all the live chickens the travelers are carrying have been let out during the night.  The two backsides supposed to be on guard-duty have seen nothing.  One chicken has been killed and eaten by the grey dog, now sleeping it off under the Yao wagon in a welter of feathers.  We spend two hours rounding up the others and Hao Meng increases the number of night guards to four, which means we’ll all be losing sleep.

By this time, I’ve got a good idea of who the troublemakers are.  Apart from Zhu Yu and Fang Tian, there are two brothers called Wan and a lad called Lai Xue.  From what Yao Lin says, Zhu Yu’s the mastermind, but doesn’t get his hands dirty.  It’s the others who carry out his orders. 

“I’ve never been part of their group, because we didn’t socialize with the Zhus back home,” Yao Lin explains.  “All those guys shared a tutor – or rather several tutors, because they all ended up resigning one after another.  You can guess why.  Lai Xue’s younger than the others.  He’s not a bad kid, he’s just weird.  And you’ve got to admit that Zhu Yu’s a charismatic kind of a guy.  They all admire him.”

That evening as I’m massaging Yao Yuhan’s legs, he says, “I heard your conversation earlier.  I should warn you, there’s more to Zhu Yu than meets the eye.  One reason the Zhus are moving to the capital is because a servant was badly beaten by Zhu Yu and subsequently died.”

“But he’s only sixteen,” I exclaim.

“He takes after his mother.   Luo Zhenya, Zhu Min’s first wife.  Very beautiful - that’s where the lad gets his looks.  But spoiled, jealous, cruel and violent.  She led Zhu Min by the nose.  If she didn’t get her way, there was no peace in the house.”

“When did she die?”

“When the boy was a year old.  Zhu Min decided to marry a second wife – the present Madam Zhu.  Luo Zhenya threatened to kill herself.  She made life so unbearable that he went on a hunting trip to escape and while he was away she poisoned herself.  It was a ploy to bring him to heel.  She sent a letter telling him what she’d done, expecting him to rush back, but the letter didn’t find him in time.  Either the servants delayed sending it or else they couldn’t find him out in the countryside.  Perhaps they didn’t try very hard.  In any case, the whole plot misfired and by the time he got back, she was dead.  I think the guilt he feels is one of the reasons why he’s spoiled the boy so badly and is so lenient with him now.”

I think about this later as I stand watch over the sleeping encampment.  Inevitably, groups of troublemakers occurred from time to time in the army and Shan’s way of dealing with it was to break the group up.  Not much can be done about Zhu Yu himself, but maybe the gang of cronies can be split up.

Nothing happens for a week.  The Fu brothers and the backsides are all grumbling about the extra guard-duty, so Hao Meng’s forced to reduce the number of night guards to two again.   It’s the perfect opportunity for Zhu Yu to pull another trick.  Putting myself in his very expensive boots, I reckon I’d choose a night when the backsides are on guard, since everybody knows they spend their entire watch dozing by the fire.  So I decide to patrol the camp secretly myself.  The third time I do this, it pays off. 

It’s a moonlit night.  I’m walking round the encampment, sticking to the shadows because the moonlight’s so bright you could read a book by it, when I see two muffled figures behaving suspiciously.  They haven’t the wit to avoid the moonlight and I can hear stifled giggling.  They’re both carrying large objects.  I fall silently in behind.  They’re heading for the Yao wagon.  This is a miscalculation, because a sudden growl comes from under the wagon and one of the dark figures yelps and drops his burden.  There’s the sound of pottery shattering and an unpleasantly familiar smell reaches my nose.  The little devils are carrying full chamber-pots.  Running in, I aim a smart blow at the stomach of one of the pranksters.  He tumbles over with a yell and the second chamber pot hits the ground.   Spinning round, I thump the other boy, who’s trying to tug his robe out of the grey dog’s teeth.  Then grabbing each culprit by the lapels, I knock their heads together. 

Hearing the rumpus, Yao Lin comes scrambling out of the wagon in his undergarments.

“Ah-Lin, get some rope,” I say.

“What’s that smell?” he exclaims with an expression of disgust.  “Ah, don’t answer.”

We tie the two moaning pranksters to the wagon-wheel.  I pull the covering away to reveal the faces of the Wan brothers, who, though not twins, are difficult to tell apart.  I’m pleased to see they’re looking very sorry for themselves.  They’ll both have black eyes tomorrow.  One has received the full contents of a chamber-pot over his robes.

“Well, well,” I say, “Look who we have here.”

“Untie us!” one of the lads cries, adding childishly, “Or I’ll tell my father on you.”

“What’s going on?” Hao Meng’s voice says behind me.  He’s pulling on his trousers and his torso’s bare.  No-one else seems to have heard anything, or if they have, they’re keeping their heads down.

“These two were sneaking round our wagon with full chamber-pots,” Yao Lin says indignantly.

“Were they now?” Hao Meng finishes tying the cord of his trousers and squats in front of the two lads, who have fallen guiltily silent.  “And just what were you planning to do, hmmm?”

“N-nothing,” says one of the boys.  “We were j-just emptying the pots.”

“And you came all the way over here to do that in the middle of the night?  I see.  So, Young Master Zhao, what do you think we should do with them?”  Hao Meng straightens up with a grunt.

“I think a night in the open air would get rid of some of the smell.”

“Good idea.  Carry on.”

As he walks away, one of the lads stammers in dismay, “You c-can’t do that!”

“Watch me,” I say.  “If you think you can go on harassing the people in this caravan and getting away with it, believe me, you’re wrong.  Don’t bother trying to escape.  That dog bites.”

As we climb back into our wagon, Yao Lin’s chuckling under his breath.

“That was brilliant,” he says.  “Is this why you’ve been patrolling on your nights off?”

“Yep.  These kids are going to learn that following Zhu Yu’s orders isn’t a good way to go.”

”Let me know if I can help,” he says happily, rolling himself up in his quilt.

We’re wakened by loud voices in the morning, but when we turn out, blinking in the daylight, the noise isn’t coming from our captives, who are in a very sorry state.  Instead, the exclamations and angry questions are coming from elsewhere in the caravan.  A bunch of people come into view, led by Hao Meng.  He stops in front of the Wan brothers, hands on hips, and says, “So, it seems a lot of people got visits from you last night.”

It turns out that chamber-pots have been emptied over the steps of several of the other wagons, an unwelcome surprise for the emerging occupants.

The Wan brothers gulp and one of them blurts out, “It wasn’t us.”

Hao Meng squats menacingly again.  “Who was it then?”

The crowd parts to reveal the thin man with the wart, whose face is working painfully.  “Elder son, younger son, what have you done?”

“Sir Wan,” Hao Meng says, straightening up and turning round, “Your sons were caught here last night with bad intentions.”  He kicks at the broken remains of the chamber-pots.  The smell, not improved by the passing of a night, is enough to tell anyone what’s happened.  One of the lads cries out, “Dad, the other stuff – it wasn’t us.”

“Well, who was it then?” Hao Meng asks again.

They fall silent.  One of them bites his lip.

“Very well,” says Hao Meng, “I’m going to ask Young Master Zhao to release you and you’re going to get buckets of water and clean up the mess, under my personal supervision.”

Trying hard to keep a straight face, I untie the Wan brothers, noting with satisfaction that the black eyes are coming along nicely.  Hao Meng seizes them by the back of the collar and hustles them away.  There are some poorly-concealed smiles among the crowd, along with a general murmur of satisfaction.  Zhu Yu isn’t there, but I see Fang Tian hurrying away with a panicky expression.  And as the crowd drifts off, I notice a thin boy with a delicate face, who sees me looking at him and darts away.

“That’s Lai Xue,” Yao Lin says in my ear.  “I’ll bet he and Fang Tian were involved in this too.”

“We’ll have a word with him.  If we can prise him away, Fang Tian and Zhu Yu will be isolated.”

“Fang Tian’s always stuck really close to Zhu Yu.  I mean, really close, since they were kids.  It’s almost like he worships Zhu Yu.”

“Well, there’s only so much we can do.  But if we can stop these pranks, that’ll be something.”

The public punishment of the Wan brothers pays dividends.  It cheers the caravan up no end.  For the time being at least, the lads are forbidden from leaving the family wagon or consorting with their friends.  Their black eyes are a painful reminder of the consequences of obeying Zhu Yu.

A little while later, Yao Lin and I corner Lai Xue and have a little chat with him.

“I’m guessing,” I say, “That you were involved in the great chamber-pot escapade.  Am I right?”

We’ve got him pressed up against our wagon, Yao Lin on one side and me on the other.  But his reaction’s unexpected.  He’s perfectly composed.

“Yes, I was.  But I’m not going to do it any more.  Zhu Yu’s insane.  It all started out with harmless jokes, you know, just to pass the time and make the trip less boring.  But then that horse was killed.  It’ll be a person next.”

“Why did you get in with them in the first place?”

“Well, you know what it’s like.  We shared tutors, back home. We used to play pranks all the time and we carried on once we got on the road.  But I don’t even like those guys.  I just used to make money out of them.”

“Make…. ?"

“I used to do all their classwork and make them pay for it.”

We stare at him.  Defensively, he says, “Well, I didn’t see why I should do it for free.  Can I go now?”

As we watch him walk away, Yao Lin scratches his head and says, “I told you he was weird.”

To everyone’s relief, midnight pranks cease as we travel onwards.  Only the joy-riding continues, but I can’t do anything about that.  I don’t have the authority.  I can only watch.