Chinese Generals Summoning System

Chapter 25: The Imperial Edict of the Great Jin Court

Liu Ji never expected to run into someone from his mother’s family in this market town on the border between Yongzhou and Wanzhou—especially Chen Baocai, the steward with whom he’d met only once before. Liu Ji later learned from Chen Baocai that Chen Qi, the legitimate son of Chen Ta—the current head of the Chen family—had become a military commander in Qi County. The able-bodied young men among the disaster-stricken refugees in the town were all new recruits that Chen Qi had sent Chen Baocai to recruit in Wan Prefecture. Chen Qi was, in fact, Liu Ji’s uncle—though Liu Ji’s mother, Chen Min, and Chen Qi were half-siblings (sharing the same father but different mothers), whereas Liu Ji’s other uncle, Chen Yan, was a full brother to Chen Min. The mother of Chen Yan and Chen Min—that is, Liu Ji’s biological maternal grandmother—was merely a concubine of Chen Ta, the current head of the Chen family, and had passed away many years earlier. At the time of her death, Chen Min had not yet married Liu Hao. Although Chen Ta, the current head of the Chen family, was Liu Ji’s maternal grandfather, Liu Ji could not recall ever having met him. He had even seen his biological uncle, Chen Yan, only once as a child—at the funeral of his mother, Chen Min—and he had never met his other uncle, Chen Qi, either. Liu Ji had heard from his father, Liu Hao, that his mother had been nothing more than a neglected concubine’s daughter in the Chen family. Otherwise, the Chen family—a local powerbroker—would never have married their daughter to a small landowner like Liu Hao for a substantial dowry; daughters from such powerful families typically married into other powerful families or distinguished clans. Liu Ji’s family had fled to Qi County in Changping Commandery, Yongzhou, to seek refuge with relatives, primarily to stay with Liu Ji’s maternal uncle, Chen Yan. Although Chen Yan was also born of a concubine, Chen Ta, the head of the Chen family, treated him quite well. After all, although Chen Ta had a harem of wives and concubines, he had only two sons—though he had fathered more than a dozen daughters. Currently, half of the Chen family’s shops in Qi County were managed by Chen Yan, while the other half were managed by Chen Qi. As the heir apparent to the Chen family, Chen Qi also oversaw the family’s several thousand mu of farmland. Originally, Chen Qi had not joined the military. However, as the Great Jin court observed that the bandit menace across the country was growing increasingly severe—and that the imperial army’s campaigns against the bandits were making no progress, with the problem actually worsening the more they tried to suppress it—the court ordered the prefects, governors, and county magistrates throughout the Great Jin to form local militias under the jurisdiction of their respective prefectures, counties, and districts to eradicate the banditry in their regions. As for the military expenses of these local forces, a portion of the local tax revenue could be set aside for this purpose. It should be noted that previously, local officials of the Great Jin Dynasty—namely the prefects, governors, and county magistrates—held no military authority. Now that this imperial edict had been issued, it effectively allowed these local officials to legitimately command large armies. Ambitious individuals began to emerge at this time, particularly from the great and minor aristocratic clans of the Great Jin Dynasty; virtually all local officials throughout the empire were appointed from among members of these clans. Virtually all the aristocratic families recognized that the Great Jin Dynasty was clearly in decline, and at this juncture, they began devising their own strategies. This imperial edict effectively allowed the aristocratic families to control more military forces, enabling them to secure greater benefits for their clans amid the impending era of turmoil. Some particularly powerful families had even begun to harbor ambitions of replacing the imperial house of the Great Jin Dynasty. In Qi County, the Chen family could only be considered a powerful local clan. There were over a dozen such clans in the county; the family of Wang Ji, the county magistrate of Qi County, was the most prominent. Nearly half of the county’s farmland was registered under the Wang family’s name, and the Wang family had long since transcended the status of a mere powerful local clan to become a true aristocratic family. Apart from differences in influence and power, the most notable distinction between powerful local clans and distinguished families is that the latter often have members who hold official positions—and have done so for generations. After the imperial edict from the Great Jin court was issued, Wang Ji, the magistrate of Qi County, began recruiting troops throughout the county. At this point, Chen Qi voluntarily placed himself under Wang Ji’s command, offering the Chen family’s financial support to help Wang Ji raise an army. Chen Qi’s motive was to secure some military authority for the Chen family amid the turmoil and to seek shelter under the protection of the powerful Wang family. Wang Ji took the opportunity to appoint Chen Qi as a military commander of Qi County, allowing him to recruit and maintain his own troops—though, of course, Chen Qi’s forces were required to obey Wang Ji’s orders. Wang Ji had already appointed more than a dozen such commanders within Qi County; aside from a few members of the Wang family, the rest were drawn from the various powerful clans of the county. Now, all the powerful families in Qi County were recruiting troops. Chen Qi had barely managed to muster a little over 180 men from the Chen family’s collateral branches, household servants, and tenant farmers; after that, he could recruit virtually no one else in Qi County. As for the disaster-stricken refugees from other regions who had fled to Qi County, the vast majority of the able-bodied young men among them had been forcibly conscripted by the Wang family and incorporated into their private army. A “Xiaowei” was authorized to command a unit of 1,000 troops, yet Chen Qi had not even managed to muster one-fifth of that number. In the end, it was Chen Qi’s half-brother, Chen Yan, who suggested recruiting able-bodied young men from Wan Prefecture, which had been struck by famine—and that is how the steward Chen Baocai came to make this trip to Wan Prefecture. Upon hearing that Liu Ji and his father, Liu Hao, had become separated after encountering marauding bandits, Chen Baocai couldn’t help but offer words of comfort: “Cousin, Mr. Liu is a man of good fortune—he is sure to be protected by heaven. I’m certain he’ll make it to Qi County to reunite with you! Cousin, please join our group tomorrow as we return to Qi County. As long as I, Chen Baocai, am here, I will ensure nothing happens to you.” Hua Xiong, who had been standing behind Liu Ji the whole time, couldn’t help but curl his lip and let out a soft, cold snort upon hearing Chen Baocai’s words. Liu Ji said with a smile, “Uncle Chen, I’d be grateful for your help! By the way, Uncle Chen, what brought you here to see me?” “I was so happy to see you, Young Master, that I completely forgot I came to buy grain! Young Master, this time I brought twenty Chen family retainers with me, and together we’ve recruited 606 disaster victims within Wan Prefecture—442 of them are able-bodied young men, and the rest are family members of some of those men.” After a pause, Chen Baocai sighed and said, “But there are too many of us—the grain we brought from home isn’t nearly enough to feed over 600 people. We’ve already run out. The disaster victims told me there was a group stationed in this courtyard, so I came to see if I could buy some grain here. As long as we can hold out until tonight, we’ll be able to buy grain in a nearby county town tomorrow morning. I never imagined this group would actually be yours, Cousin!” Liu Ji smiled and nodded. “Don’t worry, Uncle Chen. We’re all family. I still have some grain here—just send someone over to carry it away!” Chen Baocai nodded and said, “Cousin, I won’t stand on ceremony. The able-bodied young men among these disaster victims are vital to our Chen family—they are the very foundation for our family’s continued survival in Qi County. If they run out of food and something goes wrong, it’ll be a real problem!” Chen Baocai then glanced at Hua Xiong standing behind Liu Ji, as well as Chen Hao, Yue Yi, and Gong Du in the courtyard. Thinking of You Tong and Liu Pi waiting outside the gate, he furrowed his brow and asked Liu Ji, “Cousin, who are these warriors by your side?” Although Chen Baocai’s martial arts skills were nothing to write home about, he did possess some discernment. The men accompanying Liu Ji were clearly no ordinary folk—one could tell just by looking at the exquisite iron armor they wore. After all, even the entire Chen family possessed only 19 sets of iron armor, and at a glance, their quality clearly paled in comparison to the armor worn by the men accompanying Liu Ji. “Uncle Chen, these are all retainers of the Liu family—they all came to serve under my command by a stroke of luck!”