Chapter 87: The Current State of Survival

Zhen Qian’s retreat to Luquan County was neither his own wish nor the decree of fate.

Many people in later generations may not know Luquan County, but mention Jingxing or Xibaipo, and few would be unaware. Xibaipo: a modern revolutionary base, the command center for the three great campaigns of Liaoshen, Huaihai, and Pingjin, the site where the historic Second Plenary Session of the Seventh Central Committee and the National Land Conference were held, leading to the liberation of all China. Thus, it earned the reputation: “New China starts here,” and “China’s fate was decided in this village.”

Xibaipo was originally called “Baibu,” founded in the Tang dynasty, named for the lush cypresses on the ridge behind the village. Its location lies at the intersection of the North China Plain and the Taihang Mountains, nestled in a sunlit, horseshoe-shaped valley, surrounded on three sides by mountains and bordered by water. The west faces the Taihang Mountains; the east overlooks the central Hebei Plain, only ninety kilometers from Shijiazhuang, the strategic hub of North China (although Shijiazhuang did not exist in the Tang dynasty).

Economically, Xibaipo and its surroundings boasted dense villages, often only a kilometer or two apart, distributed along the Hutuo River, beside fertile banks and broad fields, yielding ample grains with both rice and wheat harvests. Yet this prosperity came later; in the Tang dynasty, the region was far from wealthy, especially in the late Tang, as land annexation grew severe, countless small farmers lost their land and became tenants under powerful clans.

Jingxing: Known as the fifth pass among the Eight Passes of Taihang, and the sixth fortress among the Nine Fortresses of the world, it was a crucial thoroughfare in Hebei, a strategic point contested by armies throughout history, a hub for material exchange among the three provinces of Hebei, Shanxi, and Shaanxi, and a key military, economic, and cultural center in western North China. It was the main battlefield in Han Xin’s famed “Backs to the Water” battle and the renowned Hundred Regiments Battle.

Jingxing boasts an even older history, tracing back to the Paleolithic age, famed as “the world’s perilous fortress,” and “the place armies always fight for.”

Xibaipo lies over twenty li east of Xiantai Village, hidden in a small mountain valley. Jingxing is somewhat farther, below Xiantai Village, but the straight-line distance on the map is no more than thirty li. Crossing several mountains from Xiantai, one can reach the rear of Jingxing directly.

Upon arriving in the Tang dynasty, Zhen Qian’s first thought was the dream of wealth. A fantastical era unfolded before him; why should others who traveled through time make fortunes, while he could not? Yet reality soon poured cold water on his dreams. The late Tang was hardly a time for quietly amassing riches—when survival itself was uncertain, what use was money?

Better to be a dog in peaceful times than a person in chaos; fleeing immediately became the best option—but where to run?

The bountiful land of Sichuan was ideal, the undeveloped Jiangnan exuded the charm of delicate beauty, and overseas was a barren wilderness; seizing an island could turn one into a local ruler. Yet he lacked any foundation, and navigation technology would not advance until the late Tang and Five Dynasties. These were mere pipe dreams.

Without even the ability to protect himself, Zhen Qian’s first thought was not to make glass for profit or invent gunpowder to dominate, but to lay low and hide in Luquan County, like a turtle withdrawing into its shell.

He pondered for over half a month before devising a bold, risky plan: the first step was to split from the Zhen family.

The An Lushan Rebellion was inevitable, and he had no power to submit memorials. Even if he could reach heaven itself, Emperor Xuanzong would not know who Zhen Qian was. Instead, it might invite death upon himself.

Zhen Qian despised undertaking anything uncertain; for now, the only course was to strengthen his own position, to meet any change with calm. Waiting passively for the outbreak of the An Lushan Rebellion would only hasten his demise.

Later generations claimed that up to sixty or seventy percent of the population perished during the An Lushan Rebellion. The Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Government records: “That year, the Ministry of Revenue reported: more than 2.9 million households, over 16.9 million people.” Many historians believe the population of the Tang dynasty at its peak during the Tianbao era was 80.5 million, with most estimates around eighty or ninety million. After the An Lushan Rebellion, only about sixteen million remained. In eight years, the entire Tang dynasty lost fifty to sixty million people—a mortality rate of seventy to eighty percent!

A terrifying fact.

In truth, it is not so surprising. After the wars at the end of the Sui dynasty, the early Tang census counted only around three million people.

Throughout Chinese history, great turmoil often resulted in one out of three, one out of six, or even one out of ten surviving; such catastrophes occurred every two or three centuries, so it’s hardly unexpected.

Historians may have exaggerated, and some population was hidden during the chaos, but beyond statistics, the records are filled with vivid descriptions such as “a thousand miles of red earth, corpses everywhere.” Cao Cao’s poem says: “White bones exposed in the wild, a thousand miles without a rooster’s crow”—not mere idle talk. Given ancient productivity, transportation, and healthcare, even those who fled their homes likely faced mortality rates unimaginable today.

Consider the human meat mills of Huang Chao, cannibalism under Zhu Jie at the end of the Sui, the “two-legged sheep” of the Sixteen Kingdoms and Northern and Southern Dynasties, and piles of human heads built as monuments. These were not inventions of later generations; they abounded in antiquity. Even the Eastern Han, famed for benevolence under Emperor Guangwu, saw many massacres during unification. The notorious butcher Wu Han was his general; when returning to his hometown of Nanyang, the bloodthirsty soldiers spared neither kin nor countrymen, even turning relatives into rebels.

The north was the epicenter of the An Lushan Rebellion; afterwards, Hebei, Guandong, Henan, and the capital region were devastated, nine out of ten homes empty. Population was not only the basis of productivity, but the foundation of a feudal dynasty’s power. Without people, any reign would inevitably slide from prosperity to decline.

Xiantai Village was not Zhen Qian’s refuge, but a stepping stone for his escape. The survival instinct drives people to seek benefit and avoid harm—nothing shameful in that.

Other time travelers all thrived, but when it was his turn, his very life was at risk, living each day in fear.

His terror stemmed not only from the impending An Lushan Rebellion, but also from the lack of human rights under imperial rule.

A ruined family at the hands of a prefect, extermination by a county magistrate—these were not empty threats, though later generations would struggle to comprehend.

In ancient times, local officials held all powers—administration, taxation, justice, education. If a magistrate disliked a subject, he could easily ruin him, even destroy his family.

Stories in “Three Words and Two Slaps” tell of a local tyrant, Lu the scholar, who offended the county magistrate and nearly lost his life as a result. In the Tongzhi era of the Qing, Yang Naiwu, a newly qualified scholar in Yuhang County, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, offended the magistrate Liu Xitong and his son, was falsely accused of murder, sent to prison, and nearly killed. Such examples abound.

The late Tang bureaucracy, corrupted by Li Linfu and Yang Guozhong, was rife with collusion, deception, extortion, decadence—the so-called “what the ruler likes, the official excels at.” Reverse selection plagued the bureaucracy, and the early Tang’s diligence and clear governance were long gone.