The Lost Tomb : Sea Of Sands

Chapter 148: The Essence of Power

They slept in one room, all crowded together. Li Cu had the privilege of sleeping on the bed, along with the leader and the merchant who had arrived in the middle of the night. The others slept on the ground, which once again confirmed Li Cu's assumption that these people were poor. Since no one stayed up talking, Li Cu slept well through the entire night and woke up just after five in the morning. Luckily, these people didn't snore, and seemed to sleep like the dead.

It was strange waking up so early, and he figured it was because he was thinking about the things from before. Just as he went to sit up and look around, the others also got up and went to buy breakfast. They came back with flat rice noodles, which they said were a local specialty. Li Cu found that they were quite delicious.

Just as he got up to wash, he remembered one thing and said to the others, "Can you give me your names? I can't call you if something happens."

They all looked at each other, and the leader said, "When something happens, just call for help. We'll all save you. You don't need to know us on an individual basis. We have nothing to discuss with you."

Li Cu frowned, still finding it very strange. Although he could use his face to indicate who he was talking to in some situations, this kind of feeling was still very uncomfortable.

But what the leader said was reasonable. With their present situation, there didn't seem to be a need for him to communicate with any of them alone.

After breakfast, the merchant went out to contact the grave robbers, and the others got in the car with Li Cu and started wandering around the mountain.

This wasn't a remote mountain area, as there were always small villages and settlements interspersed throughout. In some places, there was only a small river between one village and the next, and other than the farmland, there were patches of wild forest outside the villages. These forests weren't big, so there weren't any large trees. The thickest ones were only as wide as a wrist, but they were strangely dense. There were many branches that were intertwined among the bushes, forming small patches of forest that separated the farmland.

The concrete village road almost stretched all the way to the bottom of the mountain depressions, and they drove through one village after another. When they reached a hill halfway up the mountain, they would stop to take a closer look at the mountain topography.

There was almost nothing to talk about the entire way. The leader had said before that he would teach Li Cu something, and at this point, Li Cu wondered if it was how to burn gas. What was the point of driving all this way? Li Cu finally broke down on the fourth hill and asked the leader. The other man told him that the mountain topography here had been destroyed by farming, and all the hill protrusions had been shoveled into stepped fields. He couldn't tell what it originally looked like, so there was no way to teach him anything.

The way to find the tomb here was to go mountain by mountain and use the Luoyang shovel, but they obviously didn't have time for that.

When they reached the sixth village, they decided to go back. At this time, the merchant called and told them he expected to start tonight.

The leader told Li Cu that they weren't grave robbers, so these jobs were often done by real grave robbers. In the past, they had connections with most of Changsha's grave robbers, so these people could easily be used as long as they had economic interests. But because of their struggle with Zhang Qilin's family, these grave robbing syndicates had also suffered a decline, and they ended up having to carry out such acts themselves.

Even if they didn't participate, they still had to monitor those people at the site. The merchant said that these grave robbers weren't veterans, just a group of poor people in Changsha who were taking advantage of the civil strife between the collectivized grave robbers. Most of those in the grave robbing business were like this, so the success rate wasn't high. They may not only have to monitor the scene, but have to take emergency measures as well.

The other party's plan was very crude. They would transport several pumps overnight, and block the roads out of the village with stones to prevent cars from passing through. It would take four hours to pump the water out of the pond, after which they would pour the contents of the red jars into black waterproof bags and transport them away.

This plan required a modified off-road truck that could traverse a sixty-degree slope. Like this, they wouldn't have to rob the tomb, and could drive directly from somebody's field to the unobstructed road, and then go to the forest farm in the west, where there was a forest ranger's cement house. There, they could sort out the loot and divide the money. Two Santanas [1] would be prepared, and the truck would be abandoned in the forest farm. Each group would take a Santana and part ways at the mountain, and the people who went into the pond would have nothing more to do with them. Li Cu figured they'd abandon the car on the outskirts of the county closest to the national highway, and then make their way across the fields in the dark to the highway, where a local minibus would pick them up.

This would prevent the off-road truck from being tracked by traffic cameras when it entered the mountain, as well as the Santana as it left the mountain. As long as they got to the national highway within three minutes without being noticed, then they would basically be untraceable, and it would become an unsolved case.

Li Cu listened to their plan and found it very interesting. There were many key points, and all the people involved were small-fry.

For example, the merchants in the antique market— and even the local minibus routes— were also controlled by them, and that included some of the unlicensed minibus drivers, too.

These small-fries had almost no power or ability, but they were the core members of their organization, which made things very convenient.

"These small-fries are the basis of power, and can make something go in the direction you want without you ever having to know. Those at the top are actually the most powerless. Even if you're an emperor, it's not like you know how your order gets executed down the chain of command. Throughout Chinese history, those at the top have never lacked the power to do good." Li Cu told his thoughts to the leader, who explained to him: "But China lacks a conscientious executor of power, so many things get worse and worse. For example, you might control ten generals yourself, but your opponent controls all the squad leaders in the army. Basically, your opponent owns the army."

Li Cu suddenly felt enlightened after listening to this. In fact, people never thought about the essence of power. Positions of power were as worthless as paper money. Moreover, the distribution of power in primitive society was very simple: "I only listen to your orders because I can't beat you." But when a leader had four or five men, his military authority had basically reached its limit. At this time, four or five men could easily work together to kill the leader.

But that seldom happened back then, because everyone's self interests would give rise to contests. Everyone's self interests— together with those of the other staff and leaders— would form a complex network of interests. Suspicion and prevention would make everyone hope that interpersonal relationships would continue to be stable.

They were afraid that their interests would be diminished if their interpersonal relationships were chaotic, so everyone maintained such relationships with only small fluctuations. As a result, power was soon formed.

****************************************

Note:

[1] Santana is a type of car made by Volkswagen.