Chapter 11: A Nine-Generation Blood Feud

In ancient times, twenty-five households formed a li, and each li established its own she.

The so-called she was, in truth, an altar for offering sacrifices to the earth god.

The she of Diwu Li sat beneath that great camphor tree — a modest building, plain and ordinary, without the slightest halo of sanctity, appearing instead quite rustic. Its inner walls were blackened by a century of unbroken incense smoke, and having gone several years without repair, the outer plaster had cracked open in fissures.

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When Diwu Lun stepped inside the li she, he did not see the "Earth Lord" he had imagined; instead, mulberry-wood spirit tablets of every manner of deity and great power rushed at his eyes — over a score of them in all.

Looking closely, he saw that the one placed at the very center was none other than "the River Count of Jing."

The Jing River cuts across Liewei Commandery. This river has a foul temper and may fairly be called a budget version of the Yellow River — its waters carry enormous loads of silt and are exceptionally turbid, so floods occur constantly. Just the year before last, the Jing shifted its course at Changping Post north of Changling, breaching the dikes in neighboring Shiwei Commandery and sweeping away countless commoners' fields and homes.

After that, the people remained haunted by fear, revering and dreading the Jing in equal measure — small wonder they were so diligent in their offerings.

And according to the elders of the li, someone had once seen the River Count upon the Jing: "He had a human body and a dragon's face, and wore a crown upon his head."

The description sounded familiar to Diwu Lun, and he thought to himself, "Could this be the precursor of the Dragon King of the Jing River?"

Beside the River Count of Jing, he also spotted a familiar figure.

"Chi You!?"

It was indeed the two characters "Chi You." Diwu Ba bowed toward that tablet and said, "According to the clan elders, this is the God of Arms our family worshipped back when we lived in Qi."

Although they had migrated into Guanzhong two hundred years ago, as outside settlers the eight clans of Linqu Township still preserved certain Qi characteristics — such as a strange dialect slightly different from the Qin accent, and customs they could not bear to abandon, like sacrificing to the Eight Lords of Qi. Even their festival dates differed from those of the native locals.

Diwu Lun merely thought to himself that when he had money later, he would expand the li she a little, get some bronze, and fashion a statue of Chi You — a human body with ox hooves, four eyes and six hands, eight limbs and eight toes...

The third deity given chief offerings was the Son of the Red Emperor — that is, Han Gaozu, Liu Bang.

Diwu Ba felt no psychological burden about sacrificing to Liu Bang, with whom his own family had a "nine-generation blood feud": "Rumor has it that the year before last, it was only thanks to the Gaozu Temple at Changling manifesting its power that the Jing River did not flow south, sparing Linqu Township from disaster. So we included him in the offerings. To keep the Xin officials from thinking we are pining for the Former Han and plotting rebellion, we call him only 'Son of the Red Emperor,' never 'Emperor Gao.'"

Besides these three, there were also various lesser deities enshrined as accompanying sacrifices — such as the Lord of Chengguo Canal, the Mountain Duke, the She Master, and the Divine Soul. There were also renowned ministers connected to the locality, such as the King of Di, Chancellor Xiao He, and Han Yanshou, all incorporated into the sacrificial system. As for the Grand One, Heaven and Earth, and the like — those were not deities that a small, humble household like theirs was qualified to worship.

Diwu Lun now understood the logic behind it: never mind whether they came from Qi or Qin, whether they were human gods or ghosts and monsters — just bow to them all; who knew which one might manifest its power?

"And what if it doesn't work? What if the harvest is still poor after all the offerings?"

"Then we swap in a new batch to sacrifice to. There's no shortage of gods and immortals, after all — they can't just eat the offerings and do nothing." Diwu Ba said this as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

……

Repairing the li she was no difficult task — the work was relatively light. Where everyone truly needed to exert themselves was on the ancestral hall to the left of the li she.

This was Diwu Lun's idea. The ancestral shrine had originally been set up inside his family's fortified compound, where only close paternal relatives within the five degrees of mourning were entitled to worship. Now they were building a new shrine outside to sacrifice to the ancestors, so that all the clansmen of the entire li, and even kinsmen from other li, could come and pay their respects.

When the ancestral hall was nearly finished and Diwu Lun followed Diwu Ba inside to move the ancestral tablets, he discovered that besides the Qi Kings Tian Rong and Tian Guang, his family also worshipped Tian Heng.

Diwu Ba went further and revealed a great secret: "Our original founding ancestor was, in truth, Lord Tian, taboo name Heng!"

That was a very long story.

"According to the clan elders, during the Chu-Han conflict, when the state of Qi was destroyed by the Son of the Red Emperor — Liu Bang — the Qi King Tian Guang was defeated and killed in battle, and his clansmen were divided into eight groups and relocated in succession to Guanzhong. Lord Tian, however, took five hundred stalwart warriors and fled to an island to hold out in defiance."

"Later, Lord Tian accepted Emperor Gao's summons to surrender. When he was thirty li from Chang'an, overcome by shame, he said that he had come only to let the Son of Heaven glimpse his freshly severed head, then drew his blade and killed himself. His dying wish was only that his five hundred stalwart warriors be spared."

When word reached them that Tian Heng was dead, the five hundred stalwart warriors left on the island also raised their swords and cut their own throats — not a single one survived. Their blood stained the azure sea crimson. A man of honor dies for the one who knows his worth — the story carried the very spirit of the Warring States, and simply hearing it struck one with tremendous force.

According to Diwu Ba's account, their distant ancestor was a son of Tian Heng by a concubine. Fearing implication, the clan concealed his identity and smuggled him westward among the descendants of Tian Guang...

Diwu Lun knew that this kind of retrospective account, pieced together by descendants centuries after the migration, was a muddled affair — he might as well take it as true for now.

He therefore bowed with great reverence toward Tian Heng's tablet, treating Tian Heng as a "heroic ancestor." Telling this solemn and stirring tale more often, even turning it into an epic, would be just the thing to bind the hearts of the clansmen together.

At this point, Diwu Lun recalled something: "Grandfather, I have heard that the present Son of Heaven is also descended from the Tian clan of Qi."

Did that not make him and Wang Mang... kinsmen?

Diwu Ba's smile turned rather strange. "Ten years ago, when the Xin replaced the Han, I thought the same thing."

"I even went to ask a student from the Imperial Academy in the commandery about it."

"And that student told me that the founding ancestor of the Xin Son of Heaven was Tian An, the King of Jibei during the Chu-Han conflict — enfeoffed by Xiang Yu."

Tian Heng and his two brothers, on the other hand, were the first in Qi to rise up in response to Chen Sheng and Wu Guang, and considered themselves to have rendered great service. Later, when Xiang Yu presided over the enfeoffments, he resented them for not coming to his aid at Julu and so split Qi into three.

With the fiery tempers Tian Heng and his brothers had, how could they endure that? So they attacked and killed that unlucky fellow Tian An, firing the first shot in the resistance against Xiang Yu, drawing the full might of the Hegemon-King of Western Chu's main army, and smoothly allowing Old Liu in the west to send Han Xin secretly through Chencang to pick the peach...

What happened after that needs no further telling.

Only, no one could have foreseen that Tian An's descendants would change their surname to Wang, and that by the time the line reached Wang Zhengjun, she would become the Empress of Emperor Yuan of Han, whereupon the family soared to prominence — producing five Grand Marshals and ten Marquises in a single clan. Riding the momentum of his four paternal uncles and the Empress Dowager, Wang Mang overturned the house of Han and took possession of all under Heaven.

Now that his descendants had risen to glory, Tian An was posthumously enfeoffed as "King Min of Jibei" and entered the Xin Dynasty's ancestral temple for sacrifices.

At last, the relationship between the imperial house and the Diwu clan was sorted out.

Diwu Lun understood at once why, after Wang Mang supplanted the Han, he lavishly rewarded those sharing his surname — the Yao, Gui, Chen, Tian, and Wang clans across the realm were all classified as imperial kinsmen, and several were even enfeoffed as Marquises — yet the First through Eighth clans of Linqu Township got nothing. So this old grudge was the reason!

Well, well — Diwu Lun could only say well, well.

"What kinship is there to claim? It's already generous that Wang Mang hasn't settled old scores and exacted a 'nine-generation blood feud' upon our family according to the Gongyang Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals!"

……

After the ancestral hall was completed, Diwu Lun led the li folk in building a broad platform behind the li she and the hall. No one knew what it was for; Diwu Lun only said that when the autumn she festival came, it would be used to "entertain the gods."

He also had them set many wooden stumps in the open ground — three rows of twelve in all. They were certainly not for people to stand on while watching plays; once covered with wheat-straw mats for kneeling and sitting, and with a layer of sand sprinkled on the stumps and a wooden stick placed on each, they would become a crude little classroom. Development must not neglect education, after all.

On the other side of the great camphor tree, another project was underway — a peaked-roof structure had been raised, clearly a granary at a glance, but the young master had not yet said what it was actually to be used for.

And the low-lying ground at the edge of the li she was the li's great cesspit, where all human and animal waste was concentrated. Diwu Lun had people build a ventilated latrine on each side of the pit, one for men and one for women, and he also told everyone: you can do without a roof, but you must have walls.

Though the work was plentiful, the li folk had received great kindness during the autumn plowing and planting of winter wheat, when they were lent oxen and iron plows. Now that Diwu Lun summoned them, they turned out in full force with hearts set on repaying the favor — ramming earth, molding adobe, firing tiles. With everyone pitching in, progress was quite swift.

All the grain was provided by the main clan, and what was cooked was golden-yellow dry millet rice, not thin gruel, ensuring that no one worked on an empty stomach.

Diwu Ge, who managed the grain stores, grew frantic: "Young Master, this is no way to live!"

Pointing at several fellows who were wolfing down their food, he said, "Those lot dawdle and shirk when it's time to work, but when it's time to eat, they charge to the front with gusto, bowl after bowl. If we let everyone eat their fill, the family's surplus grain really will be devoured entirely!"

Diwu Ge, as steward, was the stingiest of all. Seeing the young master squander the family fortune like this, he was frantic with worry. All he could think was that if Diwu Lun had not resigned from the Filial and Fraternal post, he would still have an income of several bolts of silk a year. Now look! Everything was gone — just eating through their stores until the mountain was bare!

He could not help glancing at the old family head, hoping Diwu Ba would make a decision.

But these past few days, Diwu Ba had paid no attention to any matter at all, merely watching with a faint smile as his grandson scratched his head in thought. He wanted to see whether Diwu Lun could manage the clansmen and li folk on his own.

After a moment's thought, Diwu Lun said, "Grandfather, isn't the li further divided below into squads and files? I wish to summon all the Sergeants and Corporals here."

The squad-and-file system had existed since the Qin and Han, and the Xin Dynasty adopted it wholesale — if a neighbor within the same squad or file committed a crime, everyone was subject to collective punishment. Strange, wasn't it, that at such a time the court, which had always loathed Qin governance, suddenly stopped insisting on Confucian rule by virtue.

"And once you've gathered them, what then?" Diwu Ba told Diwu Lun not to rush, and to lay out his plan for him.

Diwu Lun's idea was this: after assembling the Sergeants and Corporals, he would announce that from today onward, every laborer must bring his own bowl and bamboo tube, switching to a mess-hall style of food distribution — lining up, one ladle per man.

"The Sergeants and Corporals each get two ladles of food, and they'll be made to keep an eye on the able-bodied men in their own squads and files. Before every meal, the single hardest-working man will be singled out and given an extra ladle. With oversight, and with rewards, we might just put a stop to the deadbeats passing themselves off as workers."

Diwu Lun even took the trouble to explain the idiom about the deadbeat who faked his way into the royal orchestra, then waited for his grandfather to praise him.

But after hearing him out, Diwu Ba looked somewhat disappointed. He shook his head. "Lun'er, if you had been born a few decades earlier and gone to the Western Regions, what sort of post could you have held in the armies of the Western Regions Protector General and Colonel Chen Tang?"

The old man answered his own question: "Your skill in handling people and affairs is superb, and with your sharp mind — you know a little of everything — serving as a staff advisor to the army, or even as a civil Chief Clerk, would be well within your ability."

"But when it comes to commanding troops, given your present ability to manage and employ men…"

Facing Diwu Lun's expectant gaze, Diwu Ba merely extended his little finger, pointed it at his grandson, and said: "Probably, you'd only make a minor Platoon Commander leading fifty men at most!"

……

PS: Recommending Ni Bai Fo's new book, I Really Do Have Only One Wife — looks like a sweet-romance story.

I've been reading Old Fo's novels for many years now, and he recently did a crossover with me in his new book. If you're interested, go take a look.