Training

The next day, at dawn.

Every man on the Red Headband Gang’s rolls stood assembled on the training ground at the gang’s home base.

“Uuaah— so sleepy.”
“What the hell is this crap at dawn? I’m not even sober yet.”
“Urgh… my gut’s burning. I need something for this hangover. Anyone want to go get one after?”

Every one of them had a complaint of his own to throw in. Some still reeked of drink, and a good half stood there disheveled, the sleep not yet wiped out of their eyes.

A few days earlier the new boss had indeed announced that he would put them through martial arts training. But not one of them had dreamed it would be at the crack of dawn, before the sun was even up. Half of them were grumbling, but nobody left his place.

There was only one reason: what had happened on that training ground over the past few days was still far too vivid in their heads.

He snapped a man’s arms and legs just for talking back. Mouth off for nothing and I could end up the same.
They say one of the traders got his head taken off.
Young as he is, for sheer ruthlessness he seems worse than Black Leopard.

Fear of Yang Mujin was what held every last one of them in place. And while they muttered the time away, their eyes went to a mountain of something or other heaped at one side of the training ground.

“What are those?”
“Pack baskets and shovels, by the look of it.”
“They weren’t there yesterday, were they?”
“Probably not? Is there building work on or something?”

Bamboo baskets fitted with shoulder straps, and shovels, stacked in heaps; at a glance there had to be a good few hundred of them. They had been promised martial arts training, so they could hardly help wondering what any of it was for.

They were still trying to guess what was coming when two men walked onto the training ground, Yang Mujin with the heavy iron spear slung across his back and the deputy boss, Duho, at his side.

“…”
“…”

The men on the training ground shut their mouths at the sight of them, as though they had agreed on it beforehand. The complaints of a moment ago died away, and the air grew tense.

I looked slowly over the men gathered on the training ground.

They were in no kind of state. One had a hand clamped over his mouth, fighting down nausea from the drink; another, from whatever he had been up to all night, had eyes sunk hollow and a face gone blue. One more covered a yawn with his hand, though with his jaw cranked open that wide he was hiding it from nobody.

Truly a sight to behold.

To think these are the men of the unorthodox sect that carved Qingzhou up and ate it between them.

A sigh came out of me on its own. Third-rate was one thing, but surely this was going too far. Calling them proper martial artists at all would have been embarrassing. They were in far worse shape than I had thought, and naturally the problem sat all the heavier on me for it.

It’s fine. This is what you expected.

When I absorbed the Great Saber Gang’s territory I had watched my men fight and guessed roughly that it would come to this. It was only that the state of them was worse than I had reckoned. But it was fine. Bodies can be built, and minds remake themselves along the way.

I pointed at the heap of pack baskets and shovels.

“Every man take one pack basket and one shovel and follow me.”

I took up a basket and a shovel myself and walked off the training ground, and the men gathered theirs and came after me. We left Qingzhou behind and headed for a mountain nearby.

As we went, I put our situation in order in my head once more.

We have half a year left.

It was precious time, bought by ceding part of my territory to the Black Water Gang and the Blood Wind Gang, and I could not spend a scrap of it carelessly. Inside half a year I had to raise our fighting strength by the most efficient means there were.

There was only one answer for that.

Strength and stamina.

Most of the Red Headband Gang’s members are third-rate martial artists. The ones who can run their internal energy properly can be counted on one hand, and even they are crude past describing. In a bottom-rung fight like that, a dogfight in plain words, overwhelming power and stamina that never runs out do far more work than complicated forms or shallow internal energy. Arm strength enough to knock aside the other man’s blade; endurance enough to throw one more punch when you are spent and gasping.

That is what divides the living from the dead.

Which was why we had come to the mountain.

First of all, we build the body.

Grow the strength and the stamina, and build confidence on top of that. Confidence becomes momentum, and momentum is the single greatest factor deciding who wins and who loses in a fight between third-raters.

Above all, building the body does not depend much on talent. Learning an internal-energy heart method and martial arts takes keen comprehension and instinct. Muscle does not. You only have to sweat honestly.

Endure, hold on with persistence, and you are certain to be repaid. It is one of the few fields where the result follows the effort.

By the time I had run the plan through my head one more time, we had reached the foot of the mountain. I turned to the men.

“From now on, you fill your pack baskets to the top with earth. Execute.”
“Earth? Weren’t we going to be taught martial arts?”

The rest nodded along with the man who had asked and looked at me.

I did not answer him. I only said it again, in a voice with no rise or fall in it.

“When the Boss speaks, you do not entertain questions. You simply do it. I will say it again. You fill your pack baskets to the top with earth. Execute.”

The men flinched, then set their baskets down, hesitating over it. Discipline, my foot; they were a rabble and nothing more. Since words clearly had their limit here, there was nothing for it but to show them instead.

I took the iron spear in my right hand.

“The Boss does not like being made to say a thing twice. You move quickly. If there is anyone among you slow as a grub…”

— Whirl!

I swung the spear lightly on the diagonal and drew it back. Every man there put a hand to his neck in the same instant. They must all have seen the same vision of their heads coming off.

“The Boss will have no choice but to take a hand. I hope no such misfortune arises. Is that understood?”
“Yes!”
“Understood!”

After that they moved visibly faster. They set their baskets on the ground and shovelled earth into them. I watched for anyone slacking and found nobody; every one of them threw himself at the digging like a madman. The rod really is the only medicine for men who will not listen.

— SHUNK! SHUNK! SHUNK! SHUNK!

For a while the whole place was nothing but the sound of digging. Before very long every man had his basket filled with earth, and I was satisfied with how fast the work had gone.

“Every man shoulders his pack basket.”

This time not one of them raised an objection; they all groaned and hauled the baskets onto their shoulders.

“You tag the red flag halfway up the mountain and come back.”
“Ugh!”
“Guh!”

They all sucked in a breath at that. The climb was enough to leave a man winded with nothing on his back at all, so the thought of doing it under a basket packed full of earth must have made the breath catch in their throats.

I let the reaction pass as though I had not seen it, and went on.

“It will not happen, I am sure, but if anyone should try the trick of turning back partway without reaching the flag…”

— Thud!

I gripped the spear and drove it into the ground.

“You know well enough what will happen.”

A few faces stiffened at that, which told me some of them really had been meaning to turn back partway, and would have if I had not spoken. And on whose say-so? That was absolutely not happening.

I looked at the men a moment, then called out, short.

“Move out.”
“Move out!”

— Rummmble.

The men shouldered their baskets and started up the mountain. Duho watched the column of two hundred-odd of them go up all at once and shook his head.

“I’m fairly confident about working the boys hard myself, but I never once imagined he’d wreck them like this. Our Young Master must have been a demon in his past life.”

There was something oddly bright about his face, so I asked.

“Do you like training that much? Your face is positively glowing.”
“What are you on about? Do I like training?”
“Don’t worry. I thought as much, so I had yours made ready too.”

I handed Duho a pack basket and a shovel.

Duho took them and asked, as though he could not credit it.

“Why are you giving this to me?”

I answered flatly.

“Because it’s yours.”
“Huh? What do you mean—”
“Exactly what it sounds like. It’s yours. You’re the deputy boss, at least in name — shouldn’t you be setting an example?”

“No, hold on. Wasn’t I exempt, Young Master?”

Duho looked at me with very pitiful, very earnest eyes.

So the lad had it completely wrong.

“When did I ever say that?”
“Uh… no, you never did say that.”
“Right? So you’d better start digging, hadn’t you?”
“Damn it.”

Duho spat a curse and set to digging. I picked up a shovel myself and filled my own pack basket with earth.

Naturally, I was no exception.

About two hours later.

The men came down the mountain one and two at a time, faces wrung out. The state of them was past describing. Faces and bodies were plastered with earth, and their clothes were soaked through with sweat and clinging to them.

Duho, mixed in among them, lay sprawled flat on his back on the ground with his face screwed up.

“Uuurgh… my legs… somebody help…”

He could still wail like a mourner, so he must have life in him yet. The rest of them did not look to have the strength left to speak. Every inch the deputy boss. They do say the position makes the man. Our Duho’s stamina was in a class of its own.

After groaning for a good while, Duho caught sight of me standing there perfectly fine and shook his head.

“That mad Young Master… he carried the iron spear as well, and not only did he come down first, how is he that spotless?”

Behind him, the men nodded as one.

I cleared the lad’s doubt up for him easily enough.

“It’s because this was lighter than usual. I train with twice this weight and more.”
“Damn, he’s a straight-up monster.”
“Hardly a monster for that much. I’ll have you and the rest of the boys lifting this like it’s nothing.”
“…”
“…”

For some reason neither Duho nor the men had an answer. Surely they were not all overcome with gratitude. No. They were not. Their faces had curdled.

“You seem to think it can’t be done. It can. Follow my instructions and half a year is more than enough.”
“I wasn’t thinking that…?”

I ignored that and went on.

“So — back up we go.”

— Thwip!

Duho’s head snapped toward me, and every other head with it. Two hundred-odd of them turning at once was a sight that gave even me a slight chill.

Duho asked.

“Might I have misheard you?”

Misheard, my foot. He had heard every word of it. If he wanted to play ignorant, I would just have to say it again.

“The mountain. Back up it, I said.”
“…I think we might need to rest a bit longer.”
“No, you can do it. Believe in yourself.”
“This isn’t something belief is going to solve. Right now you could beat me to death and I still couldn’t move.”

Two hundred-odd heads nodded up and down at once behind him. Good to see them so united. Training together really does breed loyalty between men, it seems. Not bad at all.

“No. From what I can see, our boys have better strength and stamina than I thought. So this time we’re not stopping halfway — we go all the way to the summit, tag that, and come down.”
“…”
“…”

Duho and the men alike shut their mouths. They must have realized they would be dragged straight off the moment they answered.

Hm… If they would not move on their own, there was nothing for it but to make them move. I picked up my basket and my spear.

“Any man who comes in behind me gets no breakfast.”

The words were barely out before Duho and the men, who had been lying there, scrambled to their feet, shouldered their baskets and ran for the mountain.

I watched them go and nodded. See.

You can do it when you try.