Chief Armaments Master of the Ming Dynasty

Beneath the surface of their orders, the couriers' attitude towards Lin Fan softened slightly.

Even the short-tempered Uncle Wang would unconsciously scoop some more food from the bottom when handed a bowl of thick, watery porridge.

But Lin Fan knew that all of this was built on a fragile balance.

The balancing weights were the grain that Li Zicheng had somehow acquired, the old knife at his waist that was growing ever brighter, his silent yet increasingly oppressive presence, and... that bag of rough gunpowder blanks, hidden somewhere, symbolizing danger and possibility.

Two days before the deadline, several suspicious-looking people appeared on the post road.

He was neither a messenger nor a merchant; he wore a tattered fur coat and a headscarf, leading several equally thin mules and horses, with bulging sacks on their backs.

They lingered outside the post station, their eyes darting around, whispering amongst themselves.

Li Zicheng took two older and steady couriers with him to negotiate.

The voice was very low and could not be heard clearly.

After a while, Li Zicheng returned, looking rather grim.

He asked Uncle Wang to scoop out a few bowls of mixed grains from the already empty grain sack, and then took two worn sheepskin rugs and handed them to the people outside.

The men took the items, looked them over, seemed dissatisfied, muttered a few more words, and finally led their mules and horses away, disappearing at the end of the official road.

"Did they come from the north?" a courier asked in a low voice.

Li Zicheng did not answer, but stared in the direction where those people disappeared, his brows furrowed.

To the north, it's even more desolate and chaotic.

These people are probably more than just refugees.

The atmosphere grew even more somber.

While drawing water from the well, Lin Fan overheard two couriers whispering to each other.

"...They're probably spies who prey on the wealthy..."

"Look at the bags on that mule, they look like..."

Shh! Don't talk nonsense!

They prey on the wealthy.

Lin Fan silently repeated the word in his mind.

In Shaanxi during the late Ming Dynasty, this often meant that starving people who could no longer survive began to take organized action, robbing the granaries of wealthy households, which was the prelude to larger-scale unrest.

The day before the deadline, at dusk.

Li Zicheng summoned Lin Fan to a secluded spot behind the stable where hay was piled up.

The setting sun cast a long shadow over him, making the lines of his face appear particularly hard and cold in the shadows.

"That thing," he said bluntly, his voice low and his gaze sharp as a knife, "how do we make it ring?"

They arrived as expected.

Lin Fan was prepared, but his heart still skipped a beat.

He carefully considered his words: "A fuse is needed. Roll the powdered saltpeter tightly in cotton paper or fine cloth, preferably soaked in a little... oil, let it dry completely, and it will burn stably after being lit, delaying the loading of the powder. Alternatively, use an extremely thin bamboo tube filled with a fast-burning agent. But both require experimentation and are extremely dangerous; if done incorrectly, you might injure yourself before even igniting the enemy."

Li Zicheng listened, his face expressionless, but his gaze deepened.

"If I give you something, how long will it take to get it out? I don't need much, just two or three pieces will be enough."

Lin Fan estimated: "If all the materials are ready, one or two hours should be enough, but... we'll need a place to test it, and it won't be a small operation."

Li Zicheng fell silent, gazing at the distant, desolate mountain plains stained blood-red by the setting sun.

After a long pause, he finally said, "I understand. You can go back now."

Lin Fan turned and left. After taking a few steps, he heard Li Zicheng's deep voice behind him, as if talking to himself, yet also as if speaking to him:

"In this world, nothing that makes a sound can scare people anymore."

Lin Fan did not stop walking, but his heart skipped a beat.

He understood the chill behind those words.

That night, outside the warehouse, the wind and snow started again.

This time, the wind seemed to carry faint, uneasy sounds from afar, like howling or some kind of dull impact.

No one in the inn could sleep soundly; they all lay awake, listening to the wind and the approaching, unknown commotion.

The deadline has arrived.

……

The entire Yinchuan Post Station was like a beast of burden, holding its breath and waiting to be slaughtered, huddled in the harsh cold of early spring in the north.

The couriers had been gathered by Li Zicheng in the front yard early on.

No one spoke; their faces were blue from the cold, their eyes filled with fear, numbness, and a hint of ferocity born of being driven to the brink.

Some people instinctively reached for the short sticks or machetes hidden in their clothes, while others shrank back, not daring to look in the direction of the post station's gate.

Li Zicheng stood beside the dry well, still wearing the faded uniform of a post station clerk, the old scabbard at his waist worn smooth and shiny.

He didn't look at the crowd; his gaze was fixed on the compacted earth, as if he were counting the cracks on it.

His face was darker than usual, his cheekbones were prominent, and his lips were pressed into a hard, straight line.

Lin Fan stood at the edge of the crowd, trying his best not to attract attention.

His hands were tucked into his sleeves, his fingertips were icy cold.

He could feel something unusual in his arms—there were two extremely rudimentary "fuses" that he had hastily made overnight.

It was called a fuse, but it was actually just a fine, tough cotton paper that they found, wrapped with preliminarily purified nitrate powder, and then a fine paper twist that had been soaked in the thinnest oil they could find and dried in the shade.

It hasn't been tested, so who knows how effective it will be?

There was also a small paper packet containing gunpowder powder that he had further ground and mixed by hand the previous night, carefully wrapped in multiple layers of oil paper.

Time passed slowly, and the sun climbed higher with difficulty, but the light remained dim.

The official road was empty, with only yellow dust and withered grass swirling in the wind.

"What if... they're not coming?" someone muttered softly, their voice tinged with both hope and a deeper fear.

Not coming often means a worse outcome.

Li Zicheng raised his head and looked towards the end of the official road, his eyes sharp.

"Wait," he said, only two words.

About half an hour later, just as everyone's tense nerves began to weaken from the long wait and the cold, a figure finally appeared at the end of the official road.

Not two, not several, but a small team.

There were about ten of them, all riding horses. Although the horses were also thin, they were much more spirited than the post horses at the post station.

The leader was not the two weasel-faced officials from last time, but a middle-aged man wearing a blue cotton robe, a worn sheepskin vest, and a warm hat. He had fair skin, a short mustache, and shrewd, calculating eyes.

Behind him followed seven or eight yamen runners and two or three servants, each with their hands on their waist knives and their expressions unfriendly.

There were no officials who had come before in the procession, nor were there any large carts used for moving things.

This commotion doesn't look like they're here to move things to pay taxes; it looks more like they're here to... arrest people, or do something else.

The couriers stirred, instinctively retreating while involuntarily glancing at Li Zicheng.

Li Zicheng's facial muscles twitched slightly. He took a few steps towards the group of people, stopped inside the post station gate, clasped his hands in a fist salute, and spoke in a voice that was neither too loud nor too soft:

"May I ask your name, sir? Have you come today regarding the relief funds?"

The pale-faced middle-aged man reined in his horse, looked down at Li Zicheng, glanced at the sallow-faced, emaciated, and nervous postmen behind him, and curled his lips into a cold smile.

"My surname is Wu, and I am a clerk in the Revenue Department of the County Government."

He pointed at Li Zicheng with the tip of his riding crop, and spoke slowly and deliberately, in his usual official tone:

"The courier Li Zicheng... Yes, I've heard of you. The relief silver and the horse price silver, with interest, amount to 123 taels and 7 mace. Today is the last day."

More than one hundred taels!

For the post station, which was already in debt and struggling to even feed itself, this was undoubtedly an astronomical figure.