Chapter 43 — The Limits of an Age
Blade of Dawn · Page 3 of 4
"Ancestor, you can't demand too much of those commoners and serfs," Rebecca said after a moment's thought, by way of explanation. "Most of them have no learning at all. Apart from the work in the fields and the mines that their fathers and grandfathers did before them, they simply can't master anything else, anything more complicated. The great majority of these people have never pitched a tent in their lives—and you've even specified the dimensions and functions of the tents, not to mention the layout of the whole camp. It's too complicated for them."
Gao Yang shook his head. "Is it really that complicated?"
Hedy nodded slightly. "Only armies pitch camp so strictly. These commoners and serfs can't manage it."
"No, it's not complicated at all. I've broken down every step they need to take to the most basic level. Each person only needs to do one thing—drive a nail, or tie a rope, or saw a piece of wood. They don't need to know the layout of the whole camp at all. What they have to do is no more complicated than hard labor," Gao Yang looked at Rebecca and Hedy. "Do you really think commoners and serfs are so stupid they can't even manage that?"
Hedy and Rebecca exchanged glances. They could see that Gao Yang was most displeased, but they had not yet grasped where the crux of the problem lay. As for Gao Yang's question—to the two of them, and to Hedy especially, it was simply a matter of course.
Of course commoners and serfs were stupid.
They had been born in this age and raised in this age, and neither of them was a far-traveled, richly gifted enlightenment thinker; it was impossible for them to see or understand much beyond their time.
In fact, Hedy and Rebecca were already extreme progressives, freaks among the nobles of their day. Hedy never allowed the knights or soldiers of her house to plunder the property of commoners and serfs at will, and she sought ways to ensure that everyone on her domain could fill their bellies. Rebecca had even broken the iron law of serfdom for life, arranging for them a path of advancement to become free citizens; she permitted commoners and serfs to move freely within her domain, and allowed commoners to trade as they pleased...
Each of these scattered measures could be called a challenge to convention, but the shackles on their thinking as a whole still kept them from breaking through one fixed assumption: commoners and serfs were inferior.
Perhaps they did not think so themselves, but things in the subconscious cannot be denied merely by denying them aloud.
Gao Yang of course knew this too, so he had not called his two grand-nieces over to scold them or to give them some sort of ideological awakening. Nor was he naive enough to think that a few words from him could turn the commoners and serfs in this camp into clear-headed, motivated, spirited citizens.
This would be a long process, and for now he only needed these people to complete the work he had assigned as quickly as possible.
"Gather everyone—commoners, serfs, soldiers, all of them," Gao Yang ordered. "While it's still light."
Those at work and those at rest were quickly assembled, and even Amber, who had been regaling Betty with tales of her adventure in the mountain vault, came over curiously, with a bewildered-looking Betty at her side.
Everyone wondered what this man from the Mystic Origin Sect of seven hundred years ago wanted, and even Hedy and Rebecca were at a loss.
As for the commoners and serfs, they merely obeyed the order with numb indifference and gathered together—commoners in one cluster, serfs in another, with the soldiers standing by to keep order.
Many assumed that their "new lord" had issued yet another order—and quite possibly one even more convoluted than those elaborate "tent-pitching regulations"—so a few faces fell into gloom. They had thought that once the work was done, they would finally be allowed to sleep.