Chapter 173: The Great Jin's Predicament

The twenty-ninth year of Dading, Jin Zhongdu, the Guozijian Printing Workshop.

This printing workshop was not large, but its location was extremely important—it was responsible for engraving the official Di Bao issued nationwide by the court, which served as the main channel for officials in various regions to understand court dynamics. Since Wanyan Jing ascended the throne, the content of the Di Bao had been lukewarm: the Emperor's sacrifices, appointments and dismissals of ministers, grain prices in various regions, and minor border conflicts. But for this issue of the Di Bao, all the local officials who received the sample pages were stunned.

The headline on the front page used bold, enlarged regular script, twelve characters, each the size of a thumbnail—"The Great Jin Orthodoxy, subdues the Southern Barbarians, suppresses the Northern Hu, the Mandate of Heaven lies herein."

The opening paragraph of the main text had a tone so resonant it seemed less like a Di Bao and more like a pre-war manifesto: "The Great Jin established the state a hundred years ago, inheriting the orthodoxy of Liao and Song, occupying the strategic advantage of the Central Plains, exerting power within the seas, and virtue reaching the four directions. Now, to the south, the remnants of Zhao Song falsely claim a Northern Expedition, wishing to spy on our former lands in Henan; to the north, bandits from the grasslands usurp the title of New Ming, bewitching the masses with demonic arts, and nibbling away at our vassals. These two thieves respond to each other from north and south, wishing to disrupt our Great Jin state..."

The entire text did not mention a single word of "fear." Not only was there no fear, but the perilous situation of fighting on two fronts was packaged as a glory—"The Great Jin, with the army of one nation, faces enemies from two sides; this is precisely the time when Heaven bestows a great task upon the Great Jin." The article's ending was even more impassioned, calling on the entire nation's military and civilians to "jointly face the national crisis and together defend the state," and announcing that rewards for generals and soldiers who established merit at the border would be doubled, and that families of loyal martyrs who sacrificed their lives on the front lines would be exempted from taxes for three years.

The drafting of this Di Bao was handled by several old Hanlin academicians from the Hanlin Academy. The draft was revised back and forth six times, and every version was personally approved by Tuodan Yi. His requirements were clear: first, no one must see that the Great Jin was afraid; second, no one must see that the Great Jin was strategically passive; third, readers of this Di Bao must feel that the Great Jin was not being pincered from north and south, but was actively confronting two ignorant clowns who did not know death.

"Write the New Ming Party as 'grassland bandits' and 'bewitching the masses with demonic arts'," Tuodan Yi told the Hanlin academicians when approving the final draft, "not because we truly feel this way, but because only by saying this can the common people understand. If you tell them that organization has standardized military equipment, a political commissar system, and a cross-regional supply chain, they simply cannot comprehend it. There are only two things they can understand—demonic arts and bandits."

"What about the south?" a young Hanlin asked. "The Southern Song Northern Expedition, how do we write about that?"

Tuodan Yi sneered coldly: "Write that they 'falsely claim a Northern Expedition, wishing to spy on former lands.' Emphasize the two words 'former lands'—the more you emphasize that it is their former land, the more the people of the Great Jin will feel that they want to steal the home we have lived in for decades. Additionally, add a sentence saying that Han Tuozhou is manipulated behind the scenes by treacherous merchants who want to profit from the national crisis by waging war. What do the people hate? They hate corrupt officials, they hate treacherous merchants, and they hate outsiders stealing their family's belongings. Put these three points together for them."

At the same time the Di Bao was issued, another set of more secretive propaganda machinery was activated. In teahouses in major cities like Zhongdu, Kaifeng, Taiyuan, and Jinan, a batch of the same "storytellers" appeared. These people were not government officials, but the stories they told all shared a common theme—the Great Jin Orthodoxy. Some told heroic stories of the Jurchen ancestor Wanyan Aguda rising with two thousand five hundred cavalry to destroy Liao; others told how the newly emerged power on the grasslands burned, killed, and plundered, how they hanged nobles by the roadside, and how they confiscated all pastures and redistributed them. The former type of story was used to inspire pride, the latter to manufacture fear.

Meanwhile, Wanyan Jing made a meaningful gesture in the court. During a grand court session, in front of the entire court of civil and military officials, he personally opened the "Jin Shilu" and read aloud a passage of the oath taken by Jin Taizu Wanyan Aguda when he rose to rebel against Liao. After reading, he closed the book and said a passage of words to the ministers in the hall.

"In those days, Taizu rose from Anchu Hu Water with two thousand five hundred cavalry, facing a Liao state with a million troops. Everyone said the Jurchens could not defeat the Khitans, just as today some say the Great Jin cannot stop the Northern Hu and Southern Barbarians. But Taizu won, because the Jurchens possessed something the Khitans did not—we had nowhere to retreat. Anchu Hu Water is our home; if we retreat one step, our home is gone. Today is the same. The Central Plains are the Great Jin's home, the northern border is the Great Jin's home, every inch of land is the Great Jin's home. If the Southern Barbarians want to snatch and the Northern Hu want to occupy, let them try. The Great Jin is not afraid."

This speech was recorded in full and spread across the country via the Di Bao. In front of Confucian temples, military temples, and City God temples in various regions, notices copying this speech were posted. In certain prefectures and counties in Hebei, local officials even organized the people to burn incense and take oaths in front of the City God temples, the content being "swear to die to defend the Great Jin state, absolutely not letting the Southern Barbarians or Northern Hu step one foot into our home."

This combination of moves produced immediate results. In the teahouses of Zhongdu City, common people had already begun to spontaneously curse the Southern Song as "Southern Barbarians taking advantage of a fire to steal," and curse that New Ming Party as "demonic thieves who burn, kill, and plunder on the grasslands." Some young and impetuous sons of the Eight Banners even ran to the Ministry of War to sign up for the army, saying they wanted to "fight the demonic thieves in the north with real swords and guns." Wanyan Anguo had to set up a special reception point at the entrance of the Privy Council to handle the enlistment applications of these hot-blooded youths.

This top-down nationalist mobilization appeared boiling on the surface. But beneath the boiling water, someone was very clear-headed.

That night, Tuodan Yi was alone in the study of his residence, flipping through public opinion reports returned from various regions. From start to finish, his expression grew increasingly solemn. His wife brought in a bowl of hot soup, saw his brows tightly furrowed, and couldn't help asking, "Didn't the Di Bao go out? Aren't the teahouses saying the response is very good? What are you still worrying about?"

Tuodan Yi put down the report and rubbed his brow.

"Worry about what?" he gave a bitter smile. "I worry that—if one day, these people who believe 'the Great Jin is invincible' discover that their court is actually not as confident as written in the Di Bao, what will they do?"

He flipped the report to the last page, where there was a tiny record buried under layers of reports from various prefectures and counties, coming from a small county in Linhuang Prefecture, Shangjing Circuit. The content of the record was very simple: one night, someone brushed a line of words on the city wall with white lime; at dawn, the garrison discovered it, and it took half an hour to wipe it off.

The words written were—"Red flags roll wildly in the west wind."

No one knew who wrote it. Nor did anyone know where this person learned these six characters.

Tuodan Yi stared at this record for a long time, his fingers tapping lightly on the table. Outside the window, the night in Zhongdu was quiet as usual; the night watchman struck the wooden clapper and walked from the depths of the streets and alleys, everything operating peacefully under the order of the Great Jin dynasty. But in some corner of this vast empire, an eye had already opened, silently watching all of this.

He was certain that eye was not the Southern Song. The Southern Song was too far away, and too slow. That eye came from the north, from that land which the Di Bao lightly referred to as "grassland bandits."

He suddenly remembered the words Wanyan Honglie had spoken to him during their last private conversation. That day, Zhao Wang had drunk some wine and said things he would not normally say. He said, "Tuodan my lord, do you know what I fear most about the New Ming Party?"

"What?"

"After they win, the people are not afraid of them." Wanyan Honglie turned his wine cup three times. "They follow them."