Only once in his life had Sergeant Third Class Liu Yun ever worn leather shoes. That was as a Szechwan peasant boy in the year of the bountiful crops. His father had made enough money that season to buy him a pair of shiny black shoes. Liu could still remember how smooth and bright they felt on his stubble-tough soles.
But that was nearly 20 years ago. Bad years had come—years of poor crops, high taxes, heavy cares about his own growing household. As youth and man Liu knew only the cloth sandals of his Szechwan neighbors.
War had come too, like...
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