A divine healer, a general, a young marquis! Who can rival them!

On the afternoon of May 17th, 237 people entered the gate from the north.

Leading the way was a man in his fifties. As he entered the gate, his legs buckled, and he knelt on the ground. He wasn't kneeling to anyone; he simply couldn't stand. Behind him followed more than twenty women and eleven children, the youngest of whom was being carried; he was two years old and had been born on the grasslands.

Six people didn't know the way and had to be helped in by their companions. Their eyesight had been damaged by the wind and sand on the grassland.

Of the 237 people, more than 160 were wearing barbarian fur coats. The soldiers guarding the gate initially refused to let them go, until a woman inside called out "Da Cheng!"

This deal started with the sixty-one barbarians who were on the verge of death seventeen days ago.

Of the wounded prisoners captured in the battle against the main force of the barbarians in April, 320 remained in the camp. Among them, 61 were seriously wounded, suffering from broken bones, pierced abdomens, burns, and festering arrow wounds, and had been bedridden from February to May.

On the third day of the fifth lunar month, Cui Ting spread the medicine booklet on the table.

"General, these sixty-one men consume three times the amount of medicine as the wounded soldiers in our camp every day."

"I've seen the accounts."

"The brothers have something to say," Cui Ting said bluntly, "More than two thousand of us are buried under Qing Shi Kou."

"That's right," Yang Hu said. "Now that you've said that, the medicine will be given as usual."

Why?

"Because they died here, there are only sixty-one corpses," Yang Hu said. "If they are sent back alive, it will be sixty-one people returning to sixty-one tents."

He pushed the list of sixty-one people over.

"I need you to do something. Ask that old man and those forty-seven men from the supply train to come and identify which department each of the sixty-one people belongs to. Make sure they are identified and write their names down."

After two days of research, Cui Ting identified nineteen departments.

Yang Hu wrote nineteen letters. These letters were not delivered to the royal court.

Each letter contained only one thing: So-and-so from your department is with me, alive, where is he injured, who is treating him, and how many more days he will be bedridden. The letters were delivered separately by the two staff members from the milk exchange department, going from department to department.

The night the third letter was sent out, Cui Ting entered the tent.

"General, I have something to say that I must say."

"speak."

"Unauthorized communication with the enemy," Cui Ting said. "Those eight words are enough."

The lamp on the table did not move.

"General, do you still remember that petition in Volume Five? The irrefutable evidence was sent up, but there wasn't even a reply from the capital," Cui Ting said. "General, you sent nineteen letters to the north. If any one of those nineteen letters fell into the hands of someone with ulterior motives, they could pin a single word on you without altering a single character."

"You're right," Yang Hu said, "That's why we need to keep accounts."

"Bookkeeping?"

"From today onwards, all communications with the north shall be documented in duplicate." Yang Hu spread out the paper. "Make a copy of every letter sent out and keep it in the camp. For every item returned, record the date, the person who handled it, and which unit it came from. The Military Law Department shall send two people to be present to sign the document; not a single instance shall be missed."

Cui Ting was taken aback: "Military Law Department? The general himself invited the Military Law Department to keep an eye on him?"

"They're not targeting me, they're targeting these papers," Yang Hu said. "And there's something else: I'm not waiting for anyone to ask about these accounts; I'm sending them to the capital myself. I send one battle report, and one account book follows. If they want to make a fuss about this, they'll have to send them before I do."

Cui Ting put down his pen and after a long pause said, "He can't hand it over. He doesn't know what we want in exchange."

"He found out very quickly," Yang Hu said. "But what he saw was an account book that had already been submitted. The account book had names, dates, and signatures. Anyone who wanted to manipulate this would have to cross out each of those names first."

On May 11th, the messenger arrived.

This time there were twelve riders. When they reached the gate, thirty paces away, he dismounted first.

"The Khan did not send me." That was the first thing he said.

"Who sent that official?"

"Seven ministries," the envoy said. "Nineteen letters, received by nineteen ministries. Seven of them met and discussed for three days, and their conclusion was: they want people."

"I need people too," Yang Hu said. "Last autumn, 1,146 people were abducted from three border counties, and their names are known."

"We can't gather them all," the messenger said. "They're scattered across various tribes; some have passed through three hands, and some are already dead."

"We'll exchange whatever we can gather," Yang Hu said. "One for one. They send a high-ranking official over, and I'll send a wounded soldier back with me. First come, first served, no order of priority."

"What about the ones that aren't fully exchanged?" the envoy asked. "You need 1,146, but the seven ministries can't even scrape together 300. What about the remaining 800-odd?"

"Write it down in the book. Write down how much was exchanged today and how much is still owed, one by one," Yang Hu said. "This debt is not settled."

"So what if we don't sell them?"

"I will remember this for the rest of my life: even after I died, this booklet was still there."

The messenger stared at him for a long time.

"Aren't you afraid we'll send you a fake?"

"I'm afraid," Yang Hu said. "So for every person who comes back, I have to ask them their place of origin, how many people are in their family, and what month they were abducted. I write down the answers in both my own records. Any falsehoods won't pass the first three questions."

"Aren't you afraid that the sixty-one men you sent back will come riding back and attack you?"

"Those with broken legs can't mount a horse," Yang Hu said. "Those who can mount a horse will have to stay in their tents for two months. They know exactly who provided their daily dressings during those two months."

The messenger's hand squeezed the riding whip.

"Doctor, you're not exchanging prisoners."

"What did you say, sir?"

"You're stuffing one person into each tent."

"Should the adult change?"

"Change."

The first batch arrived on May 14th, consisting of forty-nine people. The second batch arrived on May 16th, consisting of eighty-one people.

The batch on May 17th was the largest, with 107 pieces.

Two hundred and thirty-seven people.

Those who returned were examined one by one and questioned three times. After the questions were answered, a register was made: name, place of origin, year and month of capture, which tribe they were exchanged from, and who handled them. Two copies were made, one for the camp and one sealed and sent to the capital.

When they got to the ninetieth or so, Su Heng's hand got tired from taking notes, so she looked up and asked a question.

"General, what should we write about the nineteen who refuse to return?"

Yang Hu stopped writing.

The messenger reported clearly that of the nineteen women: four had married, six had children who had gone to live with their mothers on the other side, and nine had their own tents and sheep on the other side.

"Write it down exactly as instructed," Yang Hu said. "Write the name, and then write: Unwilling to return, staying in the North, in a certain unit in a certain month of a certain year."

"Why is this point even necessary?"

"Because later people will ask where those 1,146 people went," Yang Hu said. "Only those whose names are on this list will come back. Those whose names aren't on the list will be forgotten after three years."

On the day the messenger left, he handed something over outside the gate.

It was a piece of wood about the length of a palm, with grooves of varying depths carved on one side, some of which had a small pit next to them.

"What is this?"

"Keep a record," the messenger said. "We don't use paper. How many sheep, how many people, and when each family contributed are all recorded here. This piece records the number of people exchanged in these seven departments; keep it. If you can't find the discrepancies later, bring this to me."

Yang Hu turned the wood over to examine the carvings.

"Is 'one' a single person?"

"One dish is one bite," the messenger said. "The ones with small pits are women."

"This piece of wood, sir, is more reliable than my two documents."

"It's more stable than paper." The messenger mounted his horse. "Paper will burn, but this won't. Even if it's carved incorrectly, there's no way to correct it, and any corrections will be obvious."

He turned his horse around, took a few steps, and then turned back.

"I have reported the events of the past three days to the Khan."

"What did the Khan say?"

"He neither nodded nor shook his head," the messenger said. "The seven ministries were the ones that nodded."

That night, Yang Hu put the carved wood into a box and placed it with the four bone arrows from April.