Chapter Seven: The Official Horse

During the Ming Dynasty, both the military and government offices required vast numbers of horses. The breeding and supply of government horses was a matter of great importance, directly affecting the strength of the Ming army and the smooth running of government affairs. The Ming court always attached significant importance to the management of these official horses.

At first, the system for keeping government horses was entirely state-run, but in the twenty-eighth year of the Hongwu reign, a small-scale trial of private stewardship began. In the early Yongle years, the Beiping Imperial Stables were renamed the Beijing Imperial Stables, and their state-run pastures were converted to private stewardship as well. The Beijing Imperial Stables were then tasked with overseeing the horse administration of the eight prefectures around the capital: Shuntian, Baoding, Hejian, Zhending, Shunde, Guangping, Daming, and Yongping.

In the sixth year of the Hongzhi era, the Ming court decreed that the "tax-free grain horse-keeping system" would be implemented in these eight prefectures. For every fifty mu of land, a household would be given a stallion to raise, and for every hundred mu, a mare.

As a small county under Baoding Prefecture, Qingdu naturally had to implement this system among its population. Although the Zhou family owned only eight mu of land, they could not escape this duty. Along with five other households in similar circumstances, they pooled together around forty to fifty mu and jointly raised a single mare. The six households took turns caring for the horse, each for three years at a time. Just a month ago, it had become the Zhou family’s turn.

Technically, a household should only have to host a mare if they had a full hundred mu, but in Baiyue Village there were wealthy families like the Chens and the Yues. Each owned hundreds of mu, but through their connections with the authorities, they managed to avoid raising even a single government horse. "The poor pay the grain, the rich enjoy the shade"—such was the way of things. Thus, it fell to those with only a few dozen mu to take on the burden of raising a mare.

While these peasant households were exempt from paying grain tax, the cost of feeding a government horse far exceeded any tax savings. Using the horse for farm work was out of the question; if anyone reported such a thing, punishment was swift. The horse had to be cared for meticulously, and every three years, the household was required to deliver a foal. Failure to produce a foal meant a fine of six taels of silver. If the horse was found to be underweight or sickly, there were further fines; if the horse died, the penalty was ten taels.

If misfortune struck—if the mare failed to foal or died—where could an ordinary peasant family find the silver to pay such fines? Often, it meant selling the house and land, or even their children, to survive.

On the other hand, if the mare produced more than one foal in three years, the government would buy the extra foals at five taels apiece.

Therefore, government horses were treated with utmost care, earning the nickname "Master Horse" among the people.

Of the four main rooms in the Zhou household, the westernmost had been converted into a stable. This room had once belonged to Zhou Lüyun, Zhou Zhi’s sister, who now had to sleep next door at a neighbor’s house.

Zhou Zhi entered the stable, carefully inspecting the horse. The mare, glossy black and healthy—if not exactly fat, then certainly spirited—had been fed by Zhou Zhi alone these past days. As soon as he entered, the mare neighed excitedly and affectionately, welcoming him.

Zhou Zhi prepared the feed: chopped rice straw mixed with black beans, millet husks, and a little millet flour. There was no help for it; this horse had to be treated almost like an ancestor, its life often more precious than that of its human caretakers. In fact, the food given to the horse was better than what the family ate. And since the black mare was now pregnant—having conceived a foal just two weeks prior—there was absolutely no room for carelessness.

The mare buried its head in the trough, eating leisurely. Zhou Zhi took the opportunity to brush its coat until it gleamed.

According to government regulations, there was a supervisor for every ten horses, and a chief for every fifty. These officials were responsible for overseeing the privately raised government horses. Every ten days, the supervisor would visit Zhou Zhi’s home to check the mare’s health, keep records, and report to the chief. If anything was amiss, the family would be reprimanded or fined, depending on the severity.

After half an hour, the horse left the trough. Zhou Zhi hurried to fetch a bucket of warm water, prepared by his sister Zhou Lüyun, who cared for the horse’s well-being as much as he did.

After eating and drinking, the black mare looked gratefully at Zhou Zhi before lying down to rest and nurture her unborn foal.

When everything was settled, Zhou Zhi spent another half hour chopping more feed, working until he was drenched in sweat.

Outside, a bright moon hung in the southeastern sky, casting a silvery glow that illuminated the stable. Zhou Zhi crouched in a corner, picked up a stalk of straw, and began to draw characters on the ground.

Earlier, he had wagered with Chen Wenju about the Thousand Character Classic. As a graduate of a well-known university in his previous life, Zhou Zhi was very familiar with the children’s primers of the Ming—Thousand Character Classic, Three Character Classic, Hundred Family Surnames, and Mengqiu. He might not have memorized them, but he could recite them fluently.

However, all those texts had been in simplified script in his previous life, while here in Ming times, everything was written in traditional characters. Zhou Zhi found some of the more complex characters difficult to write smoothly, so now he took the opportunity to practice and recall them.

The family was too poor for paper and ink, so he could only write and draw on the ground. In his previous life, Zhou Zhi had been a calligraphy enthusiast, skilled at neat small regular script. He had admired the calligraphy of Zhao Mengfu and Guan Daosheng above all.

As for the Four Books and Five Classics needed for the civil examinations, Zhou Zhi had read most of them in his previous life, though only superficially. He had never studied essay composition or the eight-legged essay, so he was completely unfamiliar with those forms.

Now, having crossed into the mid-Ming era, in this golden age of the civil service exams, official appointments were strictly reserved for those who passed them. Zhou Zhi knew that if he wanted to make something of himself, he must take the exams.

From what he’d gathered in his previous life, passing the county-level exam to become a licentiate in Ming times was far harder than getting into a top university later on. And with his family’s poverty—truly a household of the destitute, with barely a home to their name—how could they afford the costly entrance fees? For Zhou Zhi, attending school would be a real challenge.

Though the north was not so renowned for producing scholars as the south, Baoding Prefecture, thanks to its location, still had its share of candidates. But Qingdu County, being remote and far from the prefectural capital, had not produced a single successful candidate in years.

Zhou Zhi had crossed over into this era, to such a place, and into such a humble family—his prospects were not promising. Still, he was optimistic: the body he now inhabited, though thin, was healthy and strong, and not bad-looking. At least he was not born into a class of outcasts—prostitutes, actors, official servants, or soldiers—who were barred from the exams. And as someone who had grown up in a rural northern village in his previous life, he was well acquainted with the ways of country life, which was some comfort.

Zhou Zhi often thought, after all, how many people were as lucky as he—to have a second chance at life? Everything was still bearable; though the road ahead was uncertain, he had resolved to take the exams, even if it had to be step by step.

Just as he was absorbed in his writing, a rough voice suddenly rang out beside him: "Hey! Xiao Zhi, practicing your characters again?" At the same time, a heavy slap landed on his shoulder.

Without needing to look, Zhou Zhi knew it was Zhang Hudan.