Fong was about to ask why when the archeologist beat him to the punch. “You always leap ahead, Zhong Fong.” He wiped the tears from his cheeks with a fine linen handkerchief. “I may get to that in time. Working on the Qin Dynasty warriors teaches patience, if nothing else. Do you know your history, Zhong Fong?” Before Fong could reply, he continued, “Qin Shi Huang declared himself China’s first emperor in 221 BC – this is his tomb. He must have been quite a man. He defeated the six major warring states of China and ascended a throne that he built. He quashed all resistance from the nobles and set to work unifying a land mass that had never been unified before. He established the civil service system complete with examinations and meritocracy, which lasted over two thousand years, right up to the fall of the Manchu government in 1911. He codified weights and measures to permit commerce in the country. He standardized the written language that you and I use to this day. True, he burned any books that were in opposition to his rule, but then again the world has a long tradition of book burners, doesn’t it?”
Dr. Roung reached into his pants pocket and took out a greenish-bronze coin. “He instituted the use of currency. This bronze ban liang coin was his creation. We found thousands of them in the pits. They were good for commerce – and taxes, of course. So much easier to collect money than rice. Qin Shi Huang built the Great Wall to keep them away from us. More recently, you, Fong, from me. And he raised a great army by the use of this clever little invention.” From his pocket he produced the small bronze statuette of the frontquarters of a horse that Fong had seen on the desk. He must have palmed it before they left the office. Fong wondered how he’d missed that. “He gave a half to each of his generals. They could only raise troops when they were met by the emperor’s man who had the other half that fit his. In a time of limited communication it allowed the emperor to control the most important communications – those that led to the raising of troops – of potential insurrection.”
Fong noticed the delicate way Dr. Roung handled the bronze and thought he saw a subtle further fall in the man’s features. He resisted the impulse to reach into his own pocket and touch Chu Shi’s statuette. Then he thought about “potential insurrection” – and a rogue in Beijing.
“Of course, Qin Shi Huang’s achievements required huge taxes and hundreds of thousands, maybe even a million, forced labourers. We are sure that more than seven hundred thousand artisans and workers worked on the tomb for thirty-six years. But on some level it was worth it, don’t you think?” The archeologist turned toward the lines of soldiers in the pit. Fong followed his gaze. “A creation that withstands the very movement of time.”
Fong found it both beautiful and appalling. An achievement, no doubt. But at what cost? Over seven hundred thousand lives dedicated to what? Fong felt Dr. Roung’s cold hand on his shoulder again. “Let’s not start here. I think I know how you would best be introduced to my terra-cotta warriors, Zhong Fong.”
With that, he flicked off the switch and the place went ghostly dark.
Fong followed the archeologist out of the building and down a back alley. The night air was quick and chilled. A desert night. Fong found himself happy that Dr. Roung was setting a fast pace in his walk.
They moved through the silent dark for more than half an hour before the man stopped in front of a large, corrugated metal building. He pulled out a set of industrial keys and opened the sheet-metal door. The interior smelled of things old and dusty. Then Dr. Roung hit the light switch. No soft folding light here. High-intensity overhead beams turned night into a glaring day. And brought to life a tableau of a world in pitched battle between birth and decay.
Fong stepped forward without invitation. The huge space was littered with partially completed terra-cotta warriors. Many seemed as if they were trying to rise from the dust, pulling limbs still caught by the very time of the Earth. Others lay on their sides as if arms and parts of legs were being sucked down into the ground. Then heaps of body parts. And finally, a pile twice Fong’s height and maybe twenty feet wide of stacked heads. Some looking wistfully toward the harsh light as if the false sun could rejuvenate their long-lost lives, while others were bidding their final adieus to a cruel world.
Fong turned and saw the archeologist sitting at a large glass-topped table. On the surface were thousands of shards of fired clay. Dr. Roung moved his hands above the pieces as he had done with the shredded bits of map in his office. Even in the cold light, Fong couldn’t deny the beauty of the man’s arched back and long tapered fingers. The man’s left hand reached out and snatched a piece from the table and snapped it perfectly into place with another piece that was by his side. He turned to Fong, a simple smile on his face.
“This man is happy here,” Fong thought. “He should never have ventured out of doors.”
“There are millions of pieces yet to be fitted.” That seemed an immensely pleasing fact to the archeologist. “Each of the pits was covered by a heavy wooden roof. They all collapsed. From the char marks, we surmise that they were burned. Probably by the rebels who ended the Qin Dynasty’s short-lived rule. Well, the roof beams smashed all the figures. The kneeling ones, often archers, were least damaged. Things were in pieces, you might say. Beijing called on my services. No. They needed my services.” He nodded at Fong, “As they have now called on your services.” Fong nodded back.
“We call this place the fitting room – apt, don’t you think.” He pushed back his seat and crossed to a computer on a side table. As he typed he said, “Every piece is coded. Each side of each piece carries a sub-code. When we find a match we enter it in the computer and the computer helps find similar shards that might fit what we now have. But the final fitting can’t be done by machine. It needs a human hand. It needs talent.” He finished his entry and looked at Fong. Then he raised a single finger and pointed to a side room.
Fong followed.
In the room was a fully completed figure. Naked. Partially painted. “We use a glue made from sharks’ lungs to keep any flakes of the original paint in place. Then we make old-style pigments from minerals and bind them with animal blood and egg white. Charcoal is used to tint the hair, hemp for soles of the shoes and braided hair for the archers. The torsos and limbs are generic; there are thirty-two different styles, but the faces are unique. No two match. Of all the mysteries here, and yes, Fong, there are some extremely interesting mysteries here, the fact that Qin Shi Huang went to the trouble of giving each soldier an individual face stands out as most interesting to me. Of course, that’s just my opinion. Others find the seven unidentified skeletons more interesting. Personally, I assume that they were the emperor’s children. Some people find the fact that in the great pit there are two generals most interesting. I don’t. I find it very Chinese. Grant neither full power. Make both go through the emperor. Balance the power between the two to keep each in check – very Chinese.”
“In boxes,” Fong thought.
“I have something else to show you.”
The man headed toward the far door. Fong followed. This time they entered the night air only briefly before Dr. Roung opened the door of a late model Toyota Santana and told Fong to climb in. They drove. The wind was full of desert sand. A cold scraping eternity. They had left the tourist’s Xian behind and were racing along a dirt road.
Then they were in country.
Twenty minutes later Dr. Roung pulled the car to the side of the road and took a large flashlight from the glove compartment.