The Ancient Ship

The Ancient Ship
Zhang Wei

The classic bestselling Chinese novel spanning four decades following the creation of the People's Republic in 1949, translated into English for the first time.Originally published in 1987, two years before the Tiananmen Square protests, The Ancient Ship immediately caused a sensation in China. Wei’s award-winning first novel is the story of three generations of the Sui, Zhao, and Li families living in the fictional northern town of Wali during the troubled years of China’s post-liberation.Wei vividly depicts the changes in Wali, where most people have made their livelihood by simply cooking and selling noodles. Once the home to large sailing ships that travelled along the Luqing River, Wali is now left with an unearthed hull of an ancient wooden ship.The ship stands as a metaphor for China, mirrored in the lives of the townspeople, who in the course of the narrative face such defining moments in history as the Land Reform Movement, the famine of 1959-1961, the Great Leap Forward, the Anti-Rightist Campaign, and the Cultural Revolution. A bold examination of a society in turmoil, a study in human nature, the struggle of oppressed people to control their own fate, and the clash between tradition and modernization, The Ancient Ship is a revolutionary work of Chinese fiction that speaks to people across the globe.

The Ancient Ship

Zhang Wei

Translated by Howard Goldblatt

Table of Contents

Cover Page (#u7aac0f90-7d8e-5ebe-8b5c-5ca59d51fac5)

Title Page (#u92a7662e-7f49-5ad3-b699-a28454be1aaa)

ONE (#u5566bc48-ff8e-517d-b110-a023c457da82)

TWO (#udb489bef-3ded-5dce-84bc-08f90f99ffdc)

THREE (#ua8ce8182-bcfa-5a36-a1e5-9a47f2aaa9c9)

FOUR (#u5685a53e-7b08-5e73-bed9-07ecf5159f66)

FIVE (#uf0efc9fa-d544-5f52-b7f6-769880f211e0)

SIX (#ufbd8599a-bfb2-58d6-b308-9e26ab8e8cd3)

SEVEN (#u7ecf38f6-b39d-5a8b-9944-dc72572d12f0)

EIGHT (#litres_trial_promo)

NINE (#litres_trial_promo)

TEN (#litres_trial_promo)

ELEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

TWELVE (#litres_trial_promo)

THIRTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

FOURTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

FIFTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

SIXTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

SEVENTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

EIGHTEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

NINETEEN (#litres_trial_promo)

TWENTY (#litres_trial_promo)

TWENTY-ONE (#litres_trial_promo)

TWENTY-TWO (#litres_trial_promo)

TWENTY-THREE (#litres_trial_promo)

TWENTY-FOUR (#litres_trial_promo)

TWENTY-FIVE (#litres_trial_promo)

TWENTY-SIX (#litres_trial_promo)

TWENTY-SEVEN (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Author (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)

About the Publisher (#litres_trial_promo)

ONE (#ulink_34eff745-94cd-5eee-9080-dae1780dee39)

Many great walls have risen on our land. They are almost as old as our history. We have built high walls and stored up vast quantities of grain in order to survive. That is why so many lofty structures have snaked across our dark soil and over our barren mountain ranges.

We have shed pools of blood at the bases of our walls to nourish the grass that grows there. In the Warring States Period the stately Great Wall of Qi reached the Ji River to the west and nearly all the way east to the ocean; at one time it split the Shandong Peninsula in two, north and south. But like so many walls before it, the Great Wall of Qi crumbled out of existence. Here is how the Kuadi Gazetteer describes it: “The Great Wall of Qi originates in Pingyin County in the northwest prefecture of Jizhou and follows the river across the northern ridge of Mount Tai. It winds through Jizhou and Zizhou, north of Bocheng County in southwestern Yanzhou, and continues on to the ocean at Langya Terrace in Mizhou.” If you keep heading in that direction in search of other old walls, you will not find many relics. The capital of Qi was at Linzi. From the middle of the ninth century BCE emissaries bringing tribute to the throne entered the capital via Bogu. Then in the year 221 BCE the First Emperor of Qin vanquished the Qi, who had held sway for more than 630 years. Both the Qin and the Han continued to utilize the Great Wall of Qi, which did not fall into disuse until the Wei and the Jin dynasties. It stood for more than a thousand years. The source of the Luqing River is in Guyang Mountain, where another wall once existed; whether or not it was part of the Great Wall of Qi has never been determined, despite attempts by archaeologists to find evidence.

From there the searchers followed the river north for four hundred li to the strategically important town of Wali on the river’s lower reaches. The most conspicuous site there was a squat rammed-earth wall that encircled the town. Mortar showed at the base. Squared corners, which rose above the wall, were made of bricks that had darkened to the color of iron and were still in fine condition. The surveyors, reluctant to leave, stood at the base to touch the bricks and gaze at the battlements. And it was during this northern expedition that they made a startling archaeological discovery: the ancient city of Donglaizi, which had stood in the vicinity of Wali. There they found a tall earthen mound, the last remaining section of a city wall. What both amused and distressed them was the realization that generations of residents had used the mound as a kiln to fire bricks. A stone monument, with an inscription in gold, had been erected atop the now abandoned kiln, stating that it had once been the site of a wall surrounding the city-state of Donglaizi; it was considered an important protected cultural artifact. The loss to Wali was patently clear, but the discovery served as proof that their town had once existed within the walled city-state of Donglaizi. Undeniably, that is where their ancestors had lived, and by using a bit of imagination they could conjure up glimpses of armor glinting in bright sunlight and could almost hear the whinnying of warhorses. Their excitement was dulled somewhat by disappointment, for what they should have found was a towering city wall and not just an earthen mound.

The current wall, whose bricks had darkened to the color of iron, trumpeted the former glories of the town of Wali. The Luqing River, while narrow and shallow now, had once been the scene of rapids cascading between distant banks. The old, stepped riverbed told the history of the decline of a once great river. An abandoned pier still stood at the edge of town, hinting at the sight of multimasted ships lining up to put in at this major river port. It was where ships’ crews rested up before continuing their journey. Grand fairs were held each year on the town’s temple grounds, and what sailors likely recalled most fondly as they sailed up and down the river was the bustle and jostling attendant on those annual temple fairs.

One of the riverbanks was dotted with old structures that looked like dilapidated fortresses. When the weather was bad and the river flowed past them, these old fortresses seemed shrouded in gloom. The farther you looked down the bank the smaller the structures became, until they virtually disappeared. But winds across the river brought rumbling sounds, louder and louder, crisper and clearer, emanating from within the walls of those fortresses, which created sound and harbored life. Then you walked up close and discovered that most of their roofs had caved in and that their portals were blocked. But not all of them. Two or three were still alive, and if you were to go inside, you would be surprised by what you saw: enormous millstones that turned, slowly, patiently, kept in motion by pairs of aging oxen, revolutions with no beginnings and no ends. Moss covered the ground in spots that the animals’ hooves missed. An old man sitting on a stool kept his eye on a millstone, getting up at regular intervals to feed a ladleful of mung beans into the eye of the stone. These structures had once belonged to a network of mills, all lined up on the riverbank; from inside the rumblings sounded like distant thunder.

For every mill by the river there was a processing room where glass noodles were made. Wali had once produced the most famous glass noodles in the area; in the early years of the twentieth century, a massive factory had stood on the bank of the river, producing the White Dragon brand of noodles, which was known far and wide. Sailing ships navigated the river, the sound of their signals and churning oars filling the air even late into the night. Many of them brought mung beans and charcoal to town and left carrying glass noodles. Now hardly any of the mills remained in operation on the riverbank, and only a few rooms continued to produce glass noodles. It was a wonder that those ramshackle mills had survived the passage of time, standing opposite the distant crumbling wall in the twilight, as if waiting for something, or as if recounting something else.

Many generations of people had lived and multiplied on this walled stretch of land, which was neither particularly large nor especially small. The town’s squat buildings and narrow lanes were evidence of the crowded conditions in which the townspeople lived. But no matter how many people there might be, or how chaotic their lives, a clear picture of the town’s makeup appeared when you focused on clans, on lineage, as it were. Bloodlines provided powerful links. The people’s fathers, grandfathers, great-grandfathers, and beyond—or, in the opposite direction, sons, grandsons, and great-grandsons—formed patterns like grapes on a vine.

Three clans made up most of the town’s population: the Sui, the Zhao, and the Li, with the Sui clan enjoying more prosperity than either of the other two, for which residents credited the family’s robust vitality. In the people’s memory, the Sui clan’s fortunes were tied to their noodle business, which had begun as a tiny enterprise. The height of prosperity was reached in Sui Hengde’s day—he had built a factory that occupied land on both sides of the river; by then he was also operating noodle shops and money-lending ventures in several large cities in the south and northeast. He had two sons, Sui Yingzhi and Sui Buzhao. As children the brothers studied at home with a tutor, but when they grew older, Yingzhi was sent to Qingdao for a Western education, while Buzhao spent much of his time strolling aimlessly down by the pier until his brother returned. Buzhao was often heard to say that one day he’d board a ship and head out to sea. At first Yingzhi did not believe him, but his fears mounted, until one day he reported his concern to his father, who punished his younger son by smacking his hand with a ruler. As he rubbed his hand, Buzhao glared at his father, who saw in that look that nothing he did was going to change the boy’s mind. “That’s that,” he said, and abandoned the ruler. Then, late one night, strong winds and the rumble of thunder startled Yingzhi out of a deep sleep. He climbed out of bed to look outside and discovered that his brother was gone.

Sui Yingzhi suffered from remorse over the disappearance of his young brother for most of his life. When his father died, he took the reins of the vast family holdings. His own family included two sons and a daughter. Like his father, he made sure that his children received an education and, from time to time, employed the ruler to ensure discipline. This period, spanning the 1930s and 1940s, witnessed the beginning of the Sui family’s decline. Sui Yingzhi’s life would end in a sad fashion, and in the days before his death he would find himself envying his brother, but too late…

Buzhao sailed the seas for most of his adult life, not returning home until a few years before his brother’s death. He hardly recognized the town, and it certainly did not recognize him. He swayed as he walked down the streets of Wali as if they were an extension of his ship’s decks. When he drank, the liquor dribbled through his beard down to his pants. How could someone like that be an heir to the Sui fortune? Morbidly thin, when he walked his calves rubbed against each other; his face had an unhealthy pallor and his eyes were dull gray. What came out of his mouth was unadulterated nonsense and unbridled boasts. He’d traveled the world over the decades he’d been gone, from the South Seas to the Pacific Ocean, under the guidance, he said, of the great Ming dynasty sea captain Zheng He. “Uncle Zheng was a good man!” he proclaimed with a sigh. But, of course, no one believed a word of it. He spun yarns about life and death on the open sea, often drawing a crowd of curious youngsters. Men sail by following an ancient navigational handbook, Classic of the Waterway, he told his audience, who listened raptly, hardly blinking, and he roared with laughter as he regaled them with descriptions of the fine women on the southern seacoasts…The man is destined for a bad end, the townspeople concluded. And the Sui clan will die out.

The year Sui Buzhao returned home ought to have been entered into the town’s chronicles. For that spring a bolt of lightning struck the old temple late one night, and as people ran to save it, flames lit up all of Wali. Something inside exploded like a bomb, and the old folks informed the crowd that it must have been the platform holding the monk’s sutras. The old cypress edifice seemed to be alive, its juices flowing like blood; it shrieked as it burned. Crows flew into the sky with the smoke as the frame supporting the great bell crashed to the floor. The fire roared, almost but not quite drowning out soft moans, high one moment and low the next, like the lingering echoes of the great bell or the distant strains of an ox horn. What petrified the people was how the flames rose and fell in concert with the sound.