Chapter Ninety-Three: A Plan Born of a Fall

“You know, your young Director Wu isn’t bad at all. You kids have come along in a good era. Do you know what kind of conditions we were working under when we filmed Romance of the Three Kingdoms?”

As a veteran of the entertainment world, Teacher Zhang was in the tent passing on his experience to a group of youngsters. That was the artistic way of putting it. In plain language, they were just shooting the breeze.

“What kind of conditions?”

“Yeah, tell us about it.”

Since there was nothing else to do, the young people were all quite eager.

“You were living in palaces, weren’t you? How nice is that! Back in our day, a lot of us slept in cattle sheds and horse stalls. In winter, the cold was beyond belief!”

“It was that miserable?”

“Yeah, Teacher Zhang, aren’t you exaggerating a bit?”

“Exaggerating?” Teacher Zhang stared, then went on, “Do you know how much I made back then just for wielding a halberd?”

“No idea. At least it must have been eight hundred or a thousand, right?”

“That would have been wonderful!” Teacher Zhang sighed deeply. “Back then, I was actually one of the lucky ones, because I was paid a monthly salary. I got three hundred and eighty a month, and that made the others green with envy. Was Tang Guoqiang famous or not? At the time, he was only getting two hundred and fifty per episode. It wasn’t just him; a lot of people were paid that rate. Later, when we sat down and thought about it, we realized we were all two-fifty!”

“Hahahaha...”

Once that came out, how could anyone not laugh? So even those famous old-name stars and big shots had their embarrassing pasts too.

Teacher Zhang smiled along with them. Those years had been hard, yes, but they had also been interesting; looking back on them, they made for a rather special experience.

Though the total investment in Romance of the Three Kingdoms had been enormous, the cast and crew were paid shockingly little. Then again, wages were low across the board at the time. If a production of that scale were made now, or in the years ahead, there would be no way to film it at all.

If there was time for chatting and joking around, that could only mean the shoot wasn’t busy. In fact, the entire production of The Great Emperor Han Wu had already come to a halt.

It had to stop. There was no other choice, all because of the problem of riding without stirrups.

It was truly too difficult. Not a single actor could pull it off. Without stirrups, none of them dared let the horse go faster than five kilometers an hour.

Was there really no one who could ride that way? There was.

At the beginning, Wu Xiang had gone looking for a great many instructors, among them fellow Mongolians, who were exceptionally skilled riders. But most of them were just boys—young lads, each of them not very old.

These days, things were better in some ways. People still herded livestock in the old manner in some places and came on horseback, but in later years everyone would be riding motorcycles and driving cars, and fewer and fewer people rode horses. Even so, once Mongolian boys grew up, they didn’t ride much either, so their skills had declined sharply. Only the ten- or twelve-year-olds still possessed superb horsemanship.

They really didn’t need stirrups at all; a simple saddle pad was enough, and when they ran, they were full of spirit.

So it wasn’t as if Wu Xiang had shot no horseback scenes. He had filmed those Mongolian boys acting as Xiongnu, but only in small-scale scenes. For grand battlefield sequences, they simply weren’t enough.

Not only did the Mongolian boys lend a hand, Wu Xiang also got in touch through Colonel Huang with China’s renowned Hongshan Military Horse Ranch, as well as China’s last cavalry unit, the First Battalion of the Inner Mongolian Cavalry, stationed on the Bayannur grasslands.

Wu Xiang had already arranged all of this. He had thought that with those people as instructors, everyone ought to be able to learn at least something. He never expected the lack of stirrups to be quite so difficult. The soldiers from the cavalry battalion actually had extensive experience in filming for television and film, but the moment they heard Wu Xiang’s requirement, they said flatly that the crew would never learn it, because even they couldn’t perform many techniques without stirrups.

In fact, all other period productions, no matter which dynasty they depicted, had stirrups. Without them, shooting simply wasn’t possible. The Assassination of Qin, Hero—all of them had stirrups. Those were works by major directors, with an eye for detail, and even they used stirrups.

There was one way to solve the problem: use more close-ups. From the standpoint of shot design, that was no trouble at all. In wide shots, if viewers noticed it, so be it. Besides, not many people understood how important that little thing really was.

But that wouldn’t work for Wu Xiang this time, because in his script the stirrup was directly tied to the story. His version made the point that in the era of Emperor Wu of Han, our infantry equipment was better than the Xiongnu’s, but in cavalry we suffered a huge disadvantage because their horsemanship was superior. That carried symbolic meaning, and it was deeply connected to the overall plot. It could not be changed.

So Wu Xiang couldn’t shoot it that way. He was also planning to film truly vast battle scenes, with both close-ups and long shots, and stirrups absolutely could not appear.

“Hey, the director’s back!”

“He really is back?”

“Nothing serious, I hope?”

Why was Wu Xiang “back”? The crew came out to welcome him. Wu Xiang was both director and investor; everyone had to give him face.

“Oh my, that fall was no joke.”

“Xiangzi, are you all right?”

There was Wu Xiang, just getting out of the car. No need to say anything about his clothes. Around his neck was a white collar support, one arm was bound up in bandages, and his face was covered with all kinds of adhesive tape. He looked like a mummy. Clearly, he had been injured.

He had fallen off a horse.

Wu Xiang was unwilling to accept defeat. He had gone up himself to try riding without stirrups, and that was the result. Of course, the fool had done himself in by pushing the speed higher. He thought he had gained control, but the moment he sped up, down he went.

Still, Wu Xiang had a good build and quick reflexes. Everyone who saw it at the time thought he was going to be killed.

But there was one benefit to having no stirrups: you couldn’t get caught in the saddle. That kept Wu Xiang from being hurt even worse.

“I’m fine!” Wu Xiang shouted, declaring that he had no problems at all.

“That’s good. That’s good.”

“Xiangzi, in my opinion, we should just shoot the thing normally.”

“That’s right. Why be so faithful to history? The way it was filmed before is the way it should be filmed now.”

These were all reasonable suggestions, genuinely reasonable ones. But would Wu Xiang agree?

“Brothers, sisters, I’ve got it figured out! We can shoot it. We can film without stirrups, but we’ll have to wait a bit longer!”

Wu Xiang was brimming with confidence. From his expression, he didn’t seem to be joking at all.

Wu Xiang had a solution?

Many people found it hard to believe, and many were even afraid. You were already battered to that state; the pay on this production wasn’t much to begin with. If you got yourself hurt like that, wouldn’t it be too much of a loss?

People’s hearts were beginning to waver, but Wu Xiang remained utterly unmoved, because he really had found a way. He had found a possible solution to the problem, but...

“Everyone should keep learning to ride well with the soldiers. Don’t be lazy.”

He added that one more line.

And the moment he said it, everyone was bewildered.

What was this guy talking about?

Weren’t they supposed to be filming scenes without stirrups? Then why were they still training horsemanship with stirrups?

That evening there will be another chapter. Please vote and please bookmark it. Many thanks!