Chapter 21: The Vote
Hao stood on the crate in the commons and told fifty-one households that the world they knew was over.
He did it well. Better than I could have. He laid out the facts without softening them and without dramatizing them. The Lord of the Western Reaches had expanded into Qinghe territory. A military commander named Xu had offered Hekou a supply contract in exchange for protection status. The flags on the fence were the visible sign of that arrangement. The terms were better than anything the Lord of Qinghe had offered. No conscription. Flat tax. Protection from the Prefect’s collectors.
He said all of this standing straight, voice steady, looking people in the eyes the way he always did. And the village listened the way it always listened to Hao. With trust.
Then the questions started.
“Who decided this?” Zhao Ping. Standing near the front, arms crossed, the same posture he’d held during the tax collector’s visit. “Who agreed to put foreign flags on our fence without asking the people who live behind it?”
“The flags were placed by Western Reaches soldiers while Liang was on the mining expedition,” Hao said. “I accepted the supplies they left because refusing a military column seemed unwise. The contract itself hasn’t been signed. That’s why we’re here.”
“So we have a choice,” Zhao Ping said.
I stepped forward. “You have a choice between two options. Neither of them is independence.”
The commons went quiet.