Undercover - In China - Book 7

Part 30 - Wooden Oxen

When we were ready to leave, we found Ming Ruo's cart completely filled with scrolls and all our baggage dumped onto the street. Kongming had found more scrolls he wanted to keep, but he had gone to discuss the retreat with Lord Guan.  Soon afterward, Ming Ruo showed up with Kongming's two-wheeled cart. It was almost identical to our cart but lighter. 

 Dr Zhang was so angry, he dumped Kongming's stuff on the road and we reloaded our luggage, and the bails of hay (food for the horses). Then we helped Ming Ruo load Kongming's cart. I was not feeling well. I lay down on the back of the carriage feeling dizzy and exhausted. 

 All day, Xuande's men were helping citizens leave the city and, by nightfall most of the citizens had gone. Most of them walked but the families of officials and wealthy merchants were carried in carriages, palanquins and ox carts. The poorer people carried everything dangling from shoulder poles, even babies. Men piled bags of grain, weapons, tools and wounded soldiers onto wheel barrows with a shelf on each side of a large cartwheel and two shafts that extended in front and behind. Dr Zhang told us the wheels were of a standard design to make them interchangeable and explained that the wheel barrows were called "wooden oxen" and could be used on narrow trails impassable for two-wheeled carts. Bags were piled on both shelves until the top of the wheel was almost completely hidden and then the wheel barrow was hauled away by two men, one pushing while the other pulled at a loop of rope attached to the front. Late in the day, Kongming had not returned and we started to worry. 

 I had to use the latrine. My diarrhea I was so bad I was unable to leave the pit toilet for some time. When I staggered back to the carriage, it was dark and there were few lantern lights. There was no sign of Licia, or Miguel, or Dr Zhang, so I stretched out on the back of the carriage, pulled some empty rice sacks over myself and fell asleep. I figured they would find me when they left Xinye.

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 It was eerily silent when I woke up, shivering with the cold, but feeling much better. For a moment I thought I had gone blind. I sat up and stared out into utter blackness, rubbing my eyes and peering into the shadows until I made out a faint pink light and the horse harnessed to the carriage and munching on a pile of hay. It was the only living creature in sight. I was angry. Why had everyone left without me?

The sound of a sad melody played on a stringed instrument came from the top of the nearby gate tower, barely visible in the dim light. I groped up the stone steps, trying to look in all directions at once in case it was a trap. A single lantern lit the scene above the city gate. An awning, suspended from the guard house, sheltered a musician playing a long, horizontal harp, like a zither. The man was dressed in a tall hat and an elaborate ceremonial costume. I recognized Kongming.

He turned to look at me with a wry grin and said something in Mandarin which I could not understand. I suddenly realized that I had fallen asleep on Kongming's cart by mistake. 

 'Where is everyone?' I asked in English. He guessed what I meant and pointed to a steep rocky hill sticking out of the farmland like a broken tooth outlined against the pre dawn sky. I looked around. A few forlorn banners hung limply in the still air but there wasn't a soldier in sight. The city seemed deserted. I shivered.

Kongming took me into the empty guard house, where it was a little warmer, and poured hot tea into a cup for me. I felt better after we ate hot rice porridge and then we went back outside. Kongming strummed a few notes on his musical instrument and showed me how to play. It took me a while to figure there were only five musical notes on the Chinese scale (like the black notes on a piano) so I taught him Old MacDonald had a Farm. It was the first performance of the song in China. He joined me in the chorus and we were still bawling out 'Old MacDonald had a Farm, Ee-I, Ee-I, Oh,' just after dawn, when some of Cho Cho's scouts appeared. 

 Kongming indicated I should wave a fan made with large feathers. As they rode closer, Kongming shouted at them in Mandarin and beckoned. The scouts argued amongst themselves before riding away. 

 Kongming continued playing until a larger group of horsemen, with richly coloured banners, approached but stopped out of cross-bow range. Kongming stood up and bowed to them before carrying his instrument down to his cart. 

 We trotted across the empty city, through the east gate and turned onto a road that led behind the rocky hill.   There, we left Kongming's cart, with the soldiers guarding Dr Zhang's cart, and climbed a rough track to the top of the hill. 

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