Chapter 196: Pacify Within, Repel Without

"The edict to Weicheng Commandery should have arrived by now. I hope Diwu Lun will not fail my heavy trust and high expectations — guard the river defenses well, and protect Yuancheng."

In the Shoucheng Chamber of Chang'an, in just a little over half a month, the Emperor Wang Mang's hair had turned completely white. Though he was already an old man of sixty-seven, this was far too swift.

The reason Wang Mang had grown so anxious that his beard and hair all whitened was still the successive explosions of crisis in the east and south, which utterly shattered his extravagant hope that "five hundred years after Confucius, peace would return to the realm."

As for the Red Eyebrow bandits, Wang Mang was practically helpless. The General of Renewal and the Grand Preceptor had just thrown away over a hundred thousand troops, and no new army could be raised in a short time. He could only let the Grand Preceptor Wang temporarily hold Luoyang and guard the natural strongholds of Hulao and Aocang.

But Wang Mang no longer trusted the Grand Preceptor Wang, and hastily summoned his courtiers, intending to send a trusted aide to Luoyang to oversee him. In the end, it was Ai Zhang — the very man who had gained his place among the Eleven Dukes by presenting the golden casket — who stepped forward. This swindler of Imperial Academy background began citing classics and precedents, reaching all the way back to the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors of high antiquity.

"Your Majesty, in the time of the Yellow Emperor, our august ancestor, Zhong Huangzhi served as general and defeated and slew Chiyou. Now your servant also holds the concurrent post of Zhong Huangzhi. I wish to pacify Shandong for Your Majesty!"

What connection could unverifiable events from the Yellow Emperor's era possibly have with the present? Any ordinary emperor would have delivered a stern rebuke, but for Wang Mang, such strained and far-fetched reasoning proved exceptionally effective. He actually approved Ai Zhang's request and ordered him to depart for Luoyang at once.

Before leaving, Ai Zhang also asked Wang Mang to let him take along the able men and strongmen conscripted from the common folk a few years earlier for the campaign against the Xiongnu — the very men Diwu Lun had seen with his own eyes: those who flew on gliding wings, the maker of army ration pills that let one go ten days without food, the master bridge-builder, and the rest. That group had been assigned as logistics troops and sent to the northern frontier, but in the end no war with the Xiongnu ever broke out, so they had idled on the state's payroll for several years. Now, Wang Mang and Ai Zhang, clutching at any remedy in desperation, were even dragging this lot onto the battlefield.

Affairs in the east could only be handled this way for the time being. As for the rebellion in the southern Vanguard, Wang Mang did have someone on whom to vent his rage.

The Li Tong brothers had already plotted rebellion, and the Liu clan of Chongling had already raised troops. Although most of the Vanguard's forces had followed Yan You to suppress the Greenwood and more than half had died of illness, they had at least tightly besieged the Li clan's fortified manor and ironworks, fighting back and forth. Wang Mang sent men to sternly reprimand Yan You, while also having Li Tong's father, Li Shou — who served as Director of the Clan under the State Preceptor — arrested.

Li Shou had gotten wind of it beforehand and tried to flee, but like his son, he stood nine chi tall, a crane among chickens far too conspicuous, and was recognized by the Master of Fates of the Five Majesties before he could leave the city. After his arrest, he flatly denied any knowledge of the Li family's treason, insisting it was all the younger generation's idea and that he himself knew nothing at all, even asking whether it was still possible for him to denounce his own son.

How could Wang Mang believe that? He had every member of the Li family in Chang'an thrown into prison and executed. Li Shou was so tall that after his head was cut off, his suspended body still hung considerably longer than an ordinary man's.

The Master of Fates of the Five Majesties wanted to expand the case and draw the matter toward the State Preceptor Duke Liu Xin. From the Zhen clan's treason in the Shijianguo era, to the Crown Prince case, and now to this, Liu Xin had been implicated in treason three times. Add to that his family's status as imperial kinsmen of the House of Han and his mastery of prophetic texts, and he was very likely the hidden mastermind behind all three great treason cases.

For Chen Chong, having had the bad luck of failing to bring down Diwu Lun, he could only turn his spearpoint toward Liu Xin. He was wholeheartedly supporting Wang Mang's sons by concubines to rise to power, and the Crown Prince faction — especially those of high virtue and prestige — still had to be purged completely.

Yet Wang Mang, who had shown not the slightest mercy even to his own sons, proved exceptionally hesitant when it came to Liu Xin. In the end, he declared that the State Preceptor Duke had known nothing of the affair, that at most he was guilty of employing men unwisely. Liu Xin was completely stripped of real authority, but still retained the titles of State Preceptor and Upper Duke.

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Amid these affairs, Wang Mang also made several agonizing decisions.

"Last year, I ordered the transfer of grain and coin from across the realm to You and Bing provinces, each commandery contributing in the millions, intending to strike the Xiongnu. Now let all of that be halted."

The war against the Xiongnu, which had tormented him for over a decade since he supplanted the Han — he would fight it no more.

"Last year, I ordered the Governor of Yizhou to strike the Gouding once more. Now let all the troops of Ba and Shu be withdrawn."

The Gouding campaign, fought three times, in which over a hundred thousand soldiers had died of plague — the campaign was over.

Furthermore, on the Longyou front, he ordered the Governor of Yongzhou to abandon the effort to recover the Western Sea Commandery, which the Qiang had retaken. One of the Four Seas was missing — Wang Mang swallowed the humiliation.

Finally, on the Hexi front, he completely ceased all attempts to contact and encourage Li Chong, the Protector-General of the Western Regions, who had been trapped in Kucha for several years by the Xiongnu and the kings of the Western Regions. They would simply have to be left to their fate.

For Wang Mang, making these decisions was exceedingly difficult.

He had been born in an age of Han decline. Though he came from the Wang clan's maternal-relatives background, his father had died early, and he had gained no advantage from his aunt Wang Zhengjun. If one spoke of wealth, rank, debauchery, and sensual pleasures, which of his uncles and cousins did not surpass him?

What truly won him some measure of respect and standing were the classics and his identity as a Confucian scholar.

Wang Mang had always been diligent in body and broad in learning, honoring the worthy and respecting the learned, winning the praise and support of the Confucian community. Yet there were things in his heart that, had the Han Confucians learned of them, would surely have led them to denounce him as a heretic who had abandoned the true path.

Although Confucianism had provided Emperor Wu of Han with the public-opinion weapon of "a vendetta lasting nine generations," the fundamental character of Han Confucians remained anti-war.

Especially after Emperor Wu of Han had driven the realm to its last gasp, the Confucians went even further down the path of saying no to all foreign campaigns. From the Discourses on Salt and Iron in Emperor Zhao of Han's time, when the Worthies and Men of Letters denounced everything of Emperor Wu's era as utterly worthless and even advocated a return to the marriage-alliance policies of Emperors Wen and Jing.

By the time of Emperor Xuan of Han, famous ministers of the Qilin Pavilion such as Xiao Wangzhi and Wei Xiang were also passive toward foreign affairs and dismissed Emperor Xuan's management of the Western Regions.

As for Kuang Heng and others in Emperor Yuan of Han's time, when Chen Tang returned with the severed head of Zhizhi Chanyu, they even tried to hide it away and were unwilling to publicize it widely.

Wang Mang, who had packaged himself as a pure Confucian, was different from them. He and Chen Tang were friends despite the great difference in age, bosom friends who saw eye to eye. Chen Tang had always been greedy for money, accepting bribes and doing favors for people as a matter of routine. But for Wang Mang, with whom he got along so well, this money-grubber Chen Tang did not take a single coin, freely helping him to right a wrong: "Mang's father died early, and he alone was not enfeoffed. His mother, Mingjun, has supported the Empress Dowager with her own hands, an especially arduous service — he ought to be enfeoffed!"

Wang Mang's title as Marquis of Xindu, aside from his painstaking efforts to curry favor with his uncles, could be said to owe much to the power of Chen, General of the Archers Who Shoot by Sound. Wang Mang was deeply grateful for this. In Chen Tang's later years, when he lost his office and title over the Changling mausoleum case under Emperor Cheng of Han and was even imprisoned for a time, utterly destitute, Wang Mang often visited him.

The two would sit in the courtyard, sharing wine at the same table, and Wang Mang would listen with rapt attention as Chen Tang recounted the deeds of crossing perilous obstacles to pursue Zhizhi Chanyu all those years ago.

The heroic passion of campaigns across the yellow sands and vast deserts, the triumphant return of the soldiers, the pride of presenting a famous king's severed head at the Cassia Palace and hanging it from the Northern Tower — along with the words "Those who dare offend the mighty Han, however distant, shall be put to death" — were, through Chen Tang's telling, deeply engraved in the young Wang Mang's heart.

Of course, after Wang Mang supplanted the Han, he quietly changed those words to "Those who dare offend the Great Xin, however distant, shall be put to death."

After becoming Emperor, Wang Mang immediately re-enfeoffed as marquises all the descendants of the pioneering heroes of the Emperors Xuan and Yuan eras, who had been coldly treated and obstructed by Confucian officials under the Han.

"Chen Tang, Fu Jiezi, and Gan Yanshou performed great deeds, yet their fame went unrecognized and their rewards were meager. This was an injustice! The courtesies the former dynasty owed these heroes shall be made up by me! So that your names may once more spread their might for ten thousand li!"

And the wars against the surrounding barbarians also sprang from this pride and self-esteem he held as an emperor of the Central Xia.

"The various Xia possess ritual propriety; the barbarians do not. The affairs of the Former Han prove that the Rong and Di can never be won over by ritual, but must be subdued by force! They must be made to bow their heads and come as guests, willing to guard the border fiefs and declare themselves subjects for generations to come."

Beyond this, Wang Mang had also seen that the proliferation of refugees at the end of the Han was entirely due to insufficient land. He had once issued the Royal Land Decree, attempting to restore the well-field system to solve the land problem, but it proved utterly impossible to implement, meeting resistance at every turn. He could only change his approach.

"Since the land of the Central Plains is insufficient, why not seize land from the surrounding barbarians and settle the refugees there?"

The New Qin heartland had once been Rong and Di territory as well — was it not now filled with cattle and sheep, prosperous and peaceful? Expand the borders of the Central Xia, and ultimately achieve the transformation of the barbarians by the Xia!

A pity that what was conceived well in the mind was not obeyed by the hands and feet in actual practice. The combat strength of the Xin armies was, to put it mildly, indescribable. Over more than ten years, they had won only a single campaign against the Lower Gouli; all the rest had been defeat after defeat.

By the end, the campaigns against the surrounding barbarians had strayed far from Wang Mang's original intent and become wars fought for face: how could a majestic Celestial Dynasty be unable to subdue petty barbarian states with populations of only a few hundred thousand? Would that not make them a laughingstock?

Until today, seeing the domestic turmoil grow fiercer with each passing year, Wang Mang could only reluctantly issue the edict.

"Cease repelling the external, and concentrate on pacifying the internal!"

After racing full speed in one direction for over a decade, he had finally slammed on the brakes and prepared to turn around. Who knew if it was still in time?

What dissatisfied Wang Mang even more was a certain opinion circulating in court and country, which was fond of comparing the present situation to the end of the Qin dynasty. After all, the First Emperor of Qin had campaigned north against the Xiongnu and south against the Yi and Yue — and Wang Mang had done the same. At the end of Qin, the realm was in upheaval, with the noble houses of the Six Kingdoms and the commoner masses rising in rebellion together. Now, the surviving clans of the Former Han and the Greenwood were showing signs of collusion — it was much the same.

Most terrifying of all was the Red Eyebrow Army. The courtiers all feared that after defeating the dynasty's main forces, they would seize cities and territory, then, emulating Chen Sheng and Wu Guang, march west to threaten Luoyang. If they joined forces with the Greenwood in the south — red matched with green — they would likely be even harder to deal with.

But just in the last third of the tenth month, the Grand Preceptor Wang Kuang in Luoyang sent back a piece of good news: "The Red Eyebrows have scattered!"

"Scattered?"

Wang Mang and his ministers, who had already steeled themselves for the loss of all commanderies and counties east of Luoyang, all felt as if they had been granted a great amnesty. Examining the memorial closely, Wang Kuang merely said that the Red Eyebrows seemed to have had an internal falling-out. The three Red Eyebrow divisions that had fought at Chengchang had each gone their separate ways.

The Mount Tai Red Eyebrows under Fan Chong had gathered a host of a hundred thousand and were returning east to Mount Tai, passing through Lu Commandery, seemingly intending to move toward Chengyang and Langya.

The Liangshan Red Eyebrows under Dong Xian, second only to him in strength, had begun moving south with tens of thousands of men, raiding Jiping Commandery, their objective clearly set on Dingtao.

Finally, there was the Great River Red Eyebrows under Chi Zhaoping. She had led her twenty to thirty thousand followers north, seizing Dong'e and other places in Shouliang Commandery, and was lingering along the new course of the Yellow River, showing every sign of crossing the river and pressing north.

It could hardly be called good news, really, but at least the pressure had been shifted onto the local provinces and commanderies, giving the central court a moment to catch its breath.

Wang Mang immediately issued an order: "Grand Marshal Dong Zhong shall train troops and practice archery at the Central Army's Northern Rampart, drilling in martial skills; Minister Over the Masses Wang Xun shall levy over a hundred thousand troops from Guanzhong and Longyou to garrison Luoyang, joining forces with Grand Preceptor Kuang."

This army was still being conscripted; by the time they reached Luoyang, it would likely be the beginning of the fourth year of Dihuang. As for whether to strike the southern Greenwood bandits or the eastern Red Eyebrow bandits first, they would see which posed the greater threat before deciding.

No matter what, Wang Mang seemed to see his ideals, which had nearly collapsed into utter ruin, suddenly regain boundless vitality.

The white-haired, white-bearded Wang Mang once again felt heartfelt gratitude toward the August Heaven, the Grand Unity, the Supreme God — it seemed He still watched over him.

"Mend the pen after the sheep are lost."

"There is still time!"

……

Meanwhile, far away in Ji Province, Diwu Lun's side learned even earlier than the imperial court that the Red Eyebrow Army, who had drawn the world's astonished gaze by holding a hand of excellent cards, in a round where they should have shone brilliantly, worthy of Chen Sheng and Wu Guang, had instead chosen to…

Discard their cards and pass!

"The Chang'an court will surely be overjoyed. At the very least, Your Majesty will not face the predicament of Chen and Wu's soldiers reaching the River Xi."

But Diwu Lun could not bring himself to feel very happy. The Red Eyebrows' casual strategy had clearly bought the Xin Dynasty another breath of life, and it also left him a little awkward — how much longer would he have to keep playing this loyal minister of the Great Xin?

Geng Chun, for his part, felt both joy and worry. The joy was that the Red Eyebrows had not joined forces to march west; only the Liangshan Red Eyebrows were raiding Jiping, which somewhat lessened the pressure on Dingtao, where his father was stationed. The worry was that even with these tens of thousands of men under Dong Xian, his father Geng Ai could not handle them, and could at most hole up in Dingtao and wait for the scarlet tide outside the walls to withdraw on its own.

On Diwu Lun's side, however, dealing with Chi Zhaoping's force moving north toward Shouliang did not require such passivity. After receiving Wang Mang's appointment making him concurrently the Company Commander of Shouliang, Diwu Lun immediately set out on another county inspection tour, heading to his new jurisdiction to arrange winter defenses.

The six counties left to Shouliang on the north bank of the Yellow River also lay within the Yellow River flood zone; only because the terrain was slightly higher was the disaster less severe — by the standards of the lower Yellow River, it was not bad. But what Diwu Lun saw along the way was vastly different from the prosperity and stability of Wei Commandery.

After leaving the borders of Yuancheng County, the countryside stretched desolate, distant trees shivering in the autumn wind. Many hamlets lay abandoned and forsaken; in the fields, not even overwintering wheat or beans had been planted — the land was left directly to fallow, wild grasses growing thick over the fields. Now and then a few human figures stirred, but at the sight of Diwu Lun's carriage passing by, they fled in alarm.

Diwu Lun questioned his subordinate clerks and learned that the imperial army had never come here. It was early this year, when the Red Eyebrow Chi Zhaoping attacked Yuancheng, that they had passed through this place.

Though it is said that bandits pass through like a comb and soldiers like a fine-toothed rake — the former being slightly better than the latter — still the havoc was not small, and the destruction to the region was immense. Of the locals who survived, some had followed the Red Eyebrows away, others had thrown in their lot with powerful families, seeking safety near fortified manors. Only a portion remained, struggling to survive on land where the chaos of war had made them miss the farming season.

This burden of keeping them alive now also weighed upon the shoulders of Company Commander Diwu.

The first place Diwu Lun reached was Dongwuyang County, over a hundred li east of Yuancheng, the closest to the Yellow River's new course. Ma Yuan had already garrisoned his troops here.

Before he had even arrived, the local powerful Xie clan had already rounded up the local officials and prominent surnames to come welcome him. The scale of it reminded Diwu Lun of the way Zhang Chun's family had acted back when he left Xin Qinzhong.

"We have longed for Lord Diwu as one longs for sweet rain!"

The Xie clan and the local powerful families, supporting their elderly and carrying their young, all prostrated themselves the moment they saw Diwu Lun.

Those tears, those trembling lips — none of it was feigned. It was a heartfelt welcome for Diwu Lun's arrival. Without Diwu Lun even needing to apply both kindness and authority, the Xie and other powerful families pledged to contribute money and men to assist Diwu Lun in strengthening the river defenses.

Zhang Yu, who accompanied Diwu Lun as a runner and had now grown into an adult, spoke the truth: "This attitude is utterly different from the cold reception the Wei powerful families gave when the commandery governor first entered Weicheng."

"No surprise there." Diwu Lun smiled. He knew the reason why.

It was not because the Shouliang powerful families were wiser, nor because their consciences had awakened, and still less because Diwu Lun had suddenly acquired some personal magnetism that made powerful families, with a mere shake of his mighty frame, eagerly offer up money and grain.

It was because this time, he had come with blades and soldiers, with a reputation for being able to defend a commandery's peace — and also because…

Standing atop the walls of Dongwuyang, Diwu Lun gazed toward the distant new course of the Yellow River. Ma Yuan led his troops in strict defense on the northern bank. And on the southern bank, cut off by the floodwaters, a large force was also massing, searching for a place to cross the river. They had no banners, their figures a chaotic throng, but if one drew close enough, one could see the Red Eyebrows upon their foreheads, vivid as fresh blood! His gaze held both admiration and regret.

"They have been here!"