38. The Iron Fist Made Manifest

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It was easy enough to see that the “piece of meat” represented by Zhang Xun of Changzhou had already attracted plenty of hungry eyes. Those urging him to enter government service were no longer merely one or two people.

On the personal level, his relatives, friends, and old acquaintances all hoped to put someone they knew to use. On the larger level, the Southern Song court was still functioning, and was straining to uncover the last reserves of wartime potential from the prefectures and counties under its rule that still had anything left to give.

Li Zhu of Wuxi had been mobilized, and Zhao Huai of Liyang had been mobilized as well. Whether they were old men was beside the point. What mattered was that, as great local gentry and members of powerful clans, they possessed considerable influence and wealth.

By employing Li Zhu, the court could mobilize a portion of Wuxi’s wealth and manpower and turn it into part of the Song state’s military and political strength. The same was true of employing Zhao Huai and Zhao Jin.

The manpower and financial resources of the Zhao family of Liyang were swiftly seized by the court. Recruiting an army of twenty thousand would normally have been extremely difficult, but once Zhao Huai stepped forward, those twenty thousand could be gathered in an instant. Since the court was seriously behind on military pay, the army would, for the time being, be maintained entirely with the Zhao family’s money.

When the time came to fight, the court could issue a round of rewards. In effect, apart from surrendering an official post, the Song government would have paid almost no visible cost at all.

Things like this were happening continually in the two Zhejiang circuits, Fujian, the two Guang regions, and Jiangxi. Rather than say that the court was appointing a grand old team of aging loyalists, it would be more accurate to say that the Song regime was wringing the last drop of strength from these old men.

Once the old men who still retained some loyalty to the Song, or some remnant of moral shame, had been drained dry, whom would the Song regime squeeze next?

The younger generation had received little favor from the Song in the first place. They had never witnessed the appearance of a wise and benevolent Song ruler, nor had they formed any bond of gratitude with the court. Their innate sense of belonging to the Song was therefore ordinary at best, and the court probably knew perfectly well that it could not command the younger generation.

By this point, everything had become grotesquely distorted.

At the end of a dynasty, even the most absurd-looking events have traces leading to them. They are all, in their own way, perfectly reasonable and normal.

Even so, the letter reminded Zhang Xun that the court now seemed determined to exploit the last scraps of national strength by any means necessary. His own piece of meat was already on the table; it was only a question of whether the knife would fall sooner or later.

So long as the Zhang family still had some oil to be squeezed out of it, the court’s later methods might not remain quite so tender.

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This was not a matter of any particular person or group seeking to bring Zhang Xun down. It was the entire violent machinery of the Song court, making the inevitable choice to prolong its own life. It was still struggling like a cornered beast, clutching at any straw that might save it until the moment it finally drowned.

The “people’s strength” of Changzhou—or, more precisely, of Wujin and Jinling Counties—would have to be squeezed a little further before the Song’s violent machinery could be satisfied and move on to its next target.

In a sense, this was the iron fist.

Do not imagine that the iron fist has nothing to do with you. The moment Zhang Xun bowed his head, conscription would begin in Changzhou, and able-bodied men would be dragged into the army. You might be lying contentedly at home one moment, only to be hauled into a military camp the next, handed a fire-hardened club, and taken to Dingjia Islet, where you would lose your life in bewildering fashion amid the fire and water of hundreds of thousands of men.

By the time you realized that the iron fist had struck you, you would already have become the price that had to be paid.

In short, even if Zhang Xun once again refused Zhao Huai’s appointment this time, the court could still turn its attention to Zhang Cheng. Zhang Cheng was now a core official in the middle ranks of the court. Given his position, there would be no problem in dispatching him directly as Vice Pacification Commissioner for Western Zhejiang and Governor of Pingjiang Prefecture.

Once Zhang Cheng was sent out, recruiting soldiers, levying grain, capturing enemy scouts, and repairing fortifications would all be unavoidable duties. If the court ordered him to raise twenty or thirty thousand troops, how would he do it? Naturally, he would return to Changzhou, first bringing along the several hundred local archers and clansmen attached to the Zhang family, then using the family’s thousands of granaries of grain to recruit the starving.

Money would be spent, every available man would be dragged into service, and then, following Jia Sidao’s footsteps, they would be sent to Dingjia Islet for another round of slaughter.

So this time Zhang Xun had to cough up at least a little gold for Zhao Huai. If he produced nothing at all, Zhao Huai might not mind, but the court certainly would.

With that thought, Zhang Xun took up his brush and wrote a reply. He still had to deal with the summer grain being transported to Runzhou for the court. That was an urgent matter of state as well. If preparations were not completed properly, the imperial army would have nothing to eat when it marched on Xiangyang.

If the matter was of supreme national importance, then he would use another matter of supreme national importance to suppress it. Which military situation was not urgent? There was no way to rank them; they were all urgent.

Once he had a reason, Zhang Xun continued writing. He hoped that Zhao Huai would recommend a brave and capable man to come to Changzhou and serve as Vice Military Commander of Changzhou, first recruiting two or three thousand troops and preparing to march with them to Jiankang for garrison duty later.

Although he had not produced the gold for twenty thousand men, he had at least produced enough for three thousand. The pressure from the court would shift elsewhere for a short while. If he could delay it by a day, that was one more day gained.

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When Zhao Huai received the reply, he did not think so deeply about it. Hearing that Zhang Xun truly had urgent military business and had to assist Lu Xiufu, he could only accept the situation with resignation. He was not the iron fist. He merely wanted his daughter-in-law’s younger brother to come forward and serve. Helping the iron fist in the process was nothing more than a side effect.

Since Zhang Xun had promised to help him, as Transport Commissioner, recruit three thousand men, Zhao Huai could not let the opportunity pass. Zhao Huai’s uncle, Zhao Kui, had spent many years serving on the frontier and had earned widespread gratitude and trust. He had quite a number of old military associates.

After Zhao Kui’s death, however, those men had scattered in all directions. The most prominent among them was Liu Zheng, who had served both Zhao Fang and Zhao Kui across two generations and had been a senior general at the front.

With Zhao Kui standing before him, Liu Zheng naturally remained secure and served with complete devotion. Later, when Zhao Kui died, Liu Zheng had no one left to protect him. Blow after blow came from the court, and at last he hardened his heart and defected to the Mongols.

His defection carried away more than half of Zhao Kui’s old capital. This was one reason Zhao Huai and Zhao Jin soon resigned from office and returned home after Zhao Kui’s death. They no longer had military commanders under them and could no longer travel everywhere plugging the Song regime’s leaks.

Yet even a starving camel is bigger than a horse. Although Liu Zheng had taken more than three hundred thousand soldiers and civilians from Luzhou and presented the Mongols with a great prize, a few sparks had nevertheless survived for the brothers Zhao Huai and Zhao Jin.

That was how Ma Yong came before Zhang Xun. By his own account, ten-odd years earlier he had been a minor soldier fleeing south from the north. He had followed Liu Zheng while troops were being stationed in Sichuan. Later, when Liu Zheng surrendered to the Yuan, Ma Yong and a group of comrades refused to submit. They slipped out of the city under cover of night and went over to Zhao Huai, who was then in the Jinghu region.

Unfortunately, Zhao Huai retired and returned home not long afterward. Ma Yong, once a vigorous young man of seventeen or eighteen, proud and high-spirited, had languished through the years and become a middle-aged man now past thirty.

Fortunately, the court had recently recalled Zhao Huai to service as a general, and he had already recommended Ma Yong for the rank of Gentleman of Martial Merit and appointed him Vice Military Commander of Changzhou. Bringing more than twenty companions with him, Ma Yong came before Zhang Xun to “await orders.”

It was a ridiculous sight. Zhang Xun himself held neither office nor official rank, yet a Vice Military Commander now served beneath his banner.

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