猾褢

The Classic of Southern Mountains: three hundred and forty li east is Mount Yaoguang. Jade on its sunny side, gold on its shaded side. A beast lives there, shaped like a human but with a boar's bristles. It dens and hibernates through winter. Its name is Huahuai. Its call sounds like chopping wood. When it appears, the county faces a great yao. The creature is awkward to picture: a human frame covered in stiff pig bristles. It lives in caves and sleeps through the cold. Its voice is the steady knock of an axe — zhuo mu, again and again, in rhythm. Then comes the line that matters: when it appears, the county faces a great yao. Yao means corvée — forced labor. See Huahuai, and this county will be stripped of its men. Almost every "when it appears" omen in the Shan Hai Jing points to natural disaster: flood, drought, locusts, plague. Huahuai is one of the very few that predicts a social event — and not war, but labor service. That choice is worth sitting with. Whoever wrote this knew that for ordinary people the worst thing is rarely the weather. Weather you can run from. A conscription order you cannot. Your name goes on the register, and you go. Qin built the Great Wall; Sui dug the Grand Canal. The histories say "a million men were levied." At the county level that is thousands of households. So Huahuai is not a monster. It is a siren. It appears, and someone is about to be taken away. Look at the body again: human shape, pig bristles, a hole in the ground, a winter spent unconscious. Put together, it reads like a description of a half-human, half-livestock condition — people used as draft animals. That may not be what the original author intended, but next to the word yao, it is hard not to hear it. Its call is the sound of chopping wood. Chopping wood is what building palaces, boats, and bridges sounds like. It is what corvée sounds like. A beast in a cave, wearing a man's shape, making the noise of an axe — and then every man in the county is gone. It may be the quietest and heaviest omen in the whole book.

เขาหยาวกวงมีสัตว์ตัวหนึ่ง ร่างเหมือนคนแต่มีขนแข็งเหมือนหมูป่า อยู่ถ้ำ จำศีลหน้าหนาว เสียงร้องเหมือนคนผ่าไม้ ชื่อฮวาฮวาย "เห็นเมื่อไร ตำบลนั้นต้องเกณฑ์แรงงานใหญ่" — ในบรรดาลางร้ายของซานไห่จิง ส่วนใหญ่บอกน้ำท่วม ภัยแล้ง ตั๊กแตนระบาด แต่ตัวนี้บอก "การเกณฑ์แรงงาน" ซึ่งเป็นภัยที่คนธรรมดาหนีไม่ได้

Gunung Yaoguang ada binatang berbadan manusia tapi berbulu babi hutan. Tinggal dalam gua, tidur musim sejuk. Bunyinya macam orang memotong kayu. "Muncul, daerah kena kerja paksa besar." Kebanyakan petanda dalam Shan Hai Jing ialah bencana alam. Yang ini beritahu kerja paksa — bencana yang orang biasa tak boleh lari.

Núi Nghiêu Quang có thú mình người, lông cứng như lợn rừng. Sống trong hang, ngủ đông. Tiếng kêu như chặt gỗ. "Xuất hiện thì huyện phải chịu lao dịch lớn." Phần lớn điềm báo trong Sơn Hải Kinh là thiên tai. Con này báo lao dịch — thứ dân thường không chạy được.

Gunung Yaoguang ada binatang berbadan manusia, berbulu kasar seperti babi hutan. Tinggal di gua, tidur musim dingin. Suaranya seperti orang memotong kayu. "Muncul, daerah kena kerja paksa besar." Kebanyakan pertanda di Shan Hai Jing adalah bencana alam. Yang ini pertanda kerja paksa — bencana yang orang biasa tak bisa hindari.