Chapter 198: A Single Grain

"This isn't like Boyu at all."

Ma Yuan knew his son-in-law well: Diwu Lun always handled matters without alarm, preferring to advance step by step, consolidating each gain — just as he had done when he wiped out the Li clan of Wu'an and brought Wei Commandery under control. So why, over the killing of a single subordinate clerk, had he suddenly flown into a rage and raised troops?

Diwu Lun, seeing that his feigned fury had been spotted by his father-in-law, withdrew with him into his private quarters for a confidential talk.

"I had hoped to win over Wulou and bring them into my service, but since their chieftain Zhang Wen rejected my goodwill and resolved to resist by force, then battle is the only option!"

"And this fight cannot be delayed — it must be won swiftly. Otherwise, the consequences will be unthinkable."

The eastern border of his jurisdiction relied on nothing but the Yellow River as a natural barrier. Once the depths of winter sealed it in ice, the Red Eyebrows' tens of thousands could cross the river as easily as walking on level ground. If by then Wulou remained undestroyed and joined forces with them, Diwu Lun would be caught between two foes. And from there westward for several hundred li, all the way to Yecheng, the land was open plain with no defensible terrain. A single defeat could let the Red Eyebrows punch straight through, and over a year's careful work would be ruined in a day.

That was why the Wulou bandits were a thorn in his eye, a spike in his flesh — no hidden peril could be left to fester. He had to exploit a narrow window of time and annihilate them within these two months.

That was the reason Diwu Lun had abruptly erupted in rage: to raise an army that would fight with absolute resolve.

Ma Yuan understood. He nodded and said, "Perfect. We can use the Wulou bandits to drill our troops and see what fighting strength the retainers of the two commanderies' powerful families really possess. Those two thousand Gengshi defeated soldiers under Geng Boshan must be pulled in as well. At Chengchang, the Red Eyebrows battered the spirit right out of them — now they tremble and shrink back at the sight of a red eyebrow. Let them fight other mountain bandits first to stiffen their courage."

Diwu Lun said, "In this campaign, I shall personally take command in the field. Victory must be total."

Victory must be total — so that the powerful families of Shouliang and all of Hebei would see that Diwu Lun had the strength to crush bandits and protect them, and so that the Copper Horse and other rebel armies rampaging through the commanderies would learn that Lord Diwu was not to be trifled with and would steer clear of his territory from now on.

"Still calling themselves Wulou? Why not just call themselves One Tower."

Diwu Lun cursed inwardly: "I must make the Five Schools, Five Streamers, and the rest of those bandit armies in Ji Province understand — north of the great river, there is room for only one 'Five'!"

…

In the final ten days of the tenth month of the third year of Dihuang, while the Red Eyebrows and the Hebei rebel armies were still locked in bitter struggle against the powerful families and the reactionary forces of the government, in the south, the Greenwood men merged with the armed forces of the Nanyang powerful families without the slightest friction. They massacred the people of Tangzi Village and, together with the Han troops, laid siege to the strategic town of Huyang County.

But in Liu Xiu's eyes, this joining of forces was far from pleasant. Powerful families and refugee bandits who had once been as hostile as fire and water were now working side by side — truly a nest of snakes and rats, with friction and clashes breaking out every day.

"Why should we have to hand over the spoils we seized to the Greenwood?"

Sure enough, several sons of the Chongling Liu clan came indignantly to Liu Xiu and Liu Xuan, demanding an explanation.

Liu Xuan, styled Shenggong, had joined the Greenwood early and enjoyed greater trust there. He explained, "The Greenwood men are our guests — how can we slight them?"

The Chongling men were unconvinced: "We're all fighting the government — what distinction between host and guest? Our efforts are no less than the Greenwood's. Why is the division of spoils so unfair?"

Liu Xuan was left speechless. It was Liu Xiu who stepped forward to placate the crowd, promising that their own spoils would not be touched and that he would give his entire share to the Greenwood. Only then did the Chongling men disperse, though some still grumbled on Liu Xiu's behalf.

Compared to Liu Xuan, who bowed and scraped before the Greenwood chieftains, Liu Xiu remained neither servile nor arrogant. Among the Greenwood leaders were no few vicious, murderous thugs; showing too much weakness would make them think the Han troops could be bullied.

But for the sake of the larger cause, no matter how difficult or humiliating the alliance, they had to endure it.

Fortunately, after they continued their advance north and captured Huyang County, Liu Xiu gained the full support of the local powerful family, his maternal relatives the Fan clan. His uncle Fan Hong raised a revolt in support while the Greenwood and Han troops besieged the county seat, enabling the Han troops to take the city smoothly.

The Greenwood men plundered inside Huyang, but then they discovered that the Fan clan estate outside the city was even wealthier. Their eyes grew greedy, and they were about to raid and pillage it when the chieftain Ma Wu shouted them down.

Ma Wu set his swarthy face hard, glaring as he berated this shortsighted bunch who still thought of themselves as roving bandits: "I am a man of Huyang County. Since childhood, I have revered the name and standing of the Fan family, father and son. Their household practices propriety, righteousness, and benevolent virtue throughout this district. If our army dares to offend them, we will surely enrage the people of Huyang."

The Fan family, for their part, proved quite generous, providing grain and fodder to reward the Greenwood and Han troops. Gazing at the distant Fan clan estate — its layered halls and lofty towers, its sluices and irrigation channels, its fishponds and grazing livestock, everything from grain to textiles forming a self-contained system, a small independent domain once the gates were shut — Liu Xiu could not help sighing: nothing here had changed.

Liu Xiu had lost his father as a child and was raised by his uncle, but the greatest influence on his character had been his maternal grandfather, Fan Zhong. He remembered his grandfather as a man of far-reaching plans, who laid out the family's course in spans of ten or twenty years.

For example, when he wanted to start a lacquer business, he planted catalpa and lacquer trees a full decade in advance. Those who sought quick gains mocked and ridiculed him — until the catalpas and lacquer trees matured, and the Fan family used them to build a business that made them the wealthiest in the region, with assets reaching the millions. Yet they did not grow cruel with riches; instead, they relieved their clan and extended kindness throughout the district, earning great prestige.

Now that accumulated virtue and prestige were manifesting as they aided Liu Xiu. Families who had received the Fan clan's kindness sent their sons, bearing their own weapons, to join Liu Xiu's ranks — over two thousand men, doubling the size of this Han detachment. Now, at least, he no longer had to worry at any moment about being swallowed up in a violent takeover by the scheming Greenwood chieftains.

"For a year's plan, nothing beats planting grain; for a ten-year plan, nothing beats planting trees."

Liu Xiu deeply remembered this saying his grandfather had cherished most. He and his elder brother had prepared for the Han restoration in just this way. Only after they actually raised the banner did he realize that no matter how thorough the planning, rebellion was still a rushed, chaotic affair — too many unforeseen events, no solid ground beneath one's feet.

By the first ten days of the eleventh month, when Liu Xiu and the Greenwood forces advanced to Xindu County, they found that his elder brother had already taken it.

After Liu Yan captured Xinye, his in-law Deng Chen had brought two thousand men of the Deng clan troops to join the Han army, and Yin Shi, the legitimate son of the Yin clan, had also responded, leading the clan's young men. The Yin family head, left with no choice, had to comply.

With the support of the Yin and Deng clans, Liu Bosheng's main Han force now numbered over ten thousand. Though it was a hastily assembled coalition of powerful-family troops, its show of strength was still immense.

Wang Mang had always taken great care with his old fief, leaving a thousand commandery troops garrisoned there. But when the Han army massed over ten thousand men and attacked, those troops either surrendered or fled — for news of the Red Eyebrows' great victory at Chengchang had already reached the south, and from officials down to common soldiers, no one had the stomach to fight.

The residence of the Marquis of Xindu, decorated with austere simplicity yet not without elegance and solemnity, was looted bare by the Han troops. Liu Yan even had his soldiers relieve themselves wherever they pleased in the halls and bedchambers where Wang Mang had once dwelt and slept.

"Wang Mang once destroyed the family home of Zhai Yi, a loyal servant of the Han restoration, and flooded it with filth. Today, let him taste what it is like to have his own home treated the same way."

Liu Yan was in high spirits. After the soldiers had stripped the place of valuables like silk and cloth, he personally set the fire, burning the Marquis of Xindu's residence to the ground. Sword in hand, he stood watching with pleasure as the dragon of flame rampaged through the compound.

Just like Chi Zhaoping, who was single-mindedly bent on digging up Wang Mang's ancestral graves in Yuancheng, Liu Yan, nursing over a decade of pent-up hatred for his fallen kingdom, needed an outlet for his rage.

When he noticed his younger brother had come to his side, Liu Yan pointed at his handiwork and laughed: "Think back to those years, when Wang Mang was sent back to his fief. He shut his gates and kept to himself here. When his son killed a slave, he forced the boy to take his own life, and he presented a jade sword-guard to a worthy man to fish for fame and praise. The world was deceived by him."

"And because his name first rose at Xindu, he gave his usurping dynasty the name 'Xin.'"

This was, in fact, a mistaken rumor, but Liu Yan believed it. He raised his hand and shouted, "Since Wang Mang's foundation began here at Xindu, then the destruction of the Xin shall also begin from this very place!"

Yet as Liu Xiu watched from the side, he saw that his elder brother, who had always fancied himself a second Han Gaozu, at this moment, his face flushed crimson by the firelight —

"Why does he look exactly like Xiang Yu instead?"

…

The Han troops and the Greenwood Army were encamped in Xindu. Wang Mang's old residence had been reduced to a field of rubble.

Gazing at this utterly ruined mound, Liu Xiu recalled that in the second year of Dihuang, Diwu Lun had come here to escort several Xin princes and princesses back to the capital. Though Liu Xiu had been unable to meet him in person, he had sent a man to catch up and exchange fine jade. Liu Xiu had given Diwu Lun a nine-ear jade, which the man had not cared for in the slightest, simply tossing it aside at his old home. As for the jade sword-guard Diwu Lun had given in return, Liu Xiu had fitted it onto his own blade.

In just over a year, the realm, which had still been in a rough sort of peace back then, had undergone so many violent upheavals. Liu Xiu suddenly wondered: if Diwu Lun knew that he had risen in revolt, what would he think?

His elder brother believed that Diwu Lun had thoroughly become Wang Mang's hawk and hound — not only had he suppressed the Han restoration cause in Wei Commandery, he had also fought a bloody battle against the Red Eyebrows to defend Wang Mang's ancestral home at Yuancheng.

Yuancheng in Wei and Xindu in Nanyang — one was the ancestral home, the other the place where the dragon first rose. Both held extraordinary political symbolism, like the two kidneys of the Xin Dynasty, carefully guarded. Now that his elder brother had crushed this one at Xindu, once word reached the court, Wang Mang would surely be in such pain he could neither eat nor sleep. Would it cause the court to focus all its attention on Nanyang?

"It shouldn't come to that." Liu Xiu shook his head and muttered to himself, "We've only just raised our troops — how could we be mentioned in the same breath as the Red Eyebrows east of the passes?"

At that moment, Liu Yan returned, staggering drunk and supported by Zhu You. He assigned Liu Xiu to guard the camp while he himself, introduced by Ma Wu, went over to the Greenwood Army to discuss important matters with Wang Feng of the Xin, Liao Zhan of Pinglin, and the others.

"Wenshu, do you still remember Dou Rong, the man you told me to be wary of?"

Liu Yan laughed. "He was ordered by Yan You to move north from the Jianghan region, supposedly to intercept the Greenwood the Xin troops. Instead, he kept drifting and never advanced. Only after the Greenwood forces broke through Sui County and moved north, and then heard that we had risen, did Dou Rong, upon getting the news, directly lead his four thousand-plus men in a full retreat to Wancheng. He dares not fight us!"

Liu Xiu, however, sensed something amiss: "When I was in Lord Yan's army, among all the units, only Cen Peng of Jiyang and Dou Rong had troops that were truly disciplined. What's more, Dou Rong is a man even Diwu Boyu has praised highly — he understands warfare and is skilled in strategy. We absolutely must not let down our guard!"

"Probably the epidemic in his army still hasn't subsided."

Liu Yan could not fathom what Dou Rong was really planning either, but they had no intention of stalling here. The Li Tong brothers were still trapped in Wancheng, holding out in their fortified manor and iron mine like beasts at bay, counting on them for rescue. It was largely thanks to the Li family's sacrifice that the troops of the Forward Command had been pinned down at Wancheng, allowing the Han army to capture several counties at its leisure.

"The next step: continue advancing north along the Yu River. You take the Deng clan troops and attack Yuyang, while I join the Greenwood forces to besiege Jiyang."

Jiyang County was the southern gateway to Wancheng. Once it fell, the commandery seat would have no defensible terrain left. Even better, that Cen Peng, the Jiyang Commandant whom Liu Xiu had described as understanding warfare and good at employing men, had already been transferred south by Yan You.

The plan had already been settled between Liu Yan and the Greenwood commanders — there was no changing it now.

Liu Xiu had little say in the matter, but he possessed some military instinct, and he could not shake the feeling that Dou Rong's withdrawal this time was a deliberate ploy to lure the Han troops and the Greenwood forces further forward, stretching their battle line so that the decisive contest would be fought beneath the walls of Wancheng.

Seeing the advance go so smoothly while his younger brother still frowned unhappily, Liu Yan told him a piece of news worth celebrating.

"When I was in Xinye, I called on the Yin clan together with Wei Qing — Deng Chen. What we settled was not only the Yin family contributing two thousand retainers to the Han army."

"There was one more matter — a great event in your life!"

Liu Xiu looked up in stunned surprise. Liu Yan understood his brother best and had long since seen through his heart; he had also heard the old stories from Deng Yu in Xinye. No wonder Liu Xiu, at twenty-eight, was in no hurry to take a wife!

Liu Yan had always done things with crisp decision, unlike his brother who would hesitate endlessly. He made the call — better to seize the day than wait for a chosen one — and on the spot he dragged the Deng family into acting as matchmakers and went to the Yin clan to propose marriage!

A few years earlier, the Yin family would still have hoped for a marriage alliance with the powerful and influential noble houses currently in favor, looking down on the Liu family, those leftover heirs of a fallen dynasty with no one holding high office. But circumstances were stronger than pride. The Yin clan had also heard that the imperial army had suffered a great defeat east of the passes, and with the Liu brothers on the verge of success, they had no choice but to consent to the marriage proposal under Liu Yan's half-coercive pressure, with his blade barely concealed.

"The gift-offering, the name-asking, the auspice-seeking, the betrothal gifts — your elder brother has handled all of it for you… Yin Lihua — so that is the name of the Yin clan's virtuous daughter my little brother has been coveting all this time."

Liu Bosheng looked at his brother, so overjoyed he seemed stupefied. Wenshu was always composed; it was exceedingly rare to see such an expression on his face. It seemed he had indeed done the right thing. Laughing heartily, he clapped him on the shoulder and said, "As for the two remaining rites — once we have taken Wancheng and reestablished the Han altars, you can see to them yourself!"

To hold office, one ought to be Bearer of the Gilded Mace; to take a wife, one must have Yin Lihua.

Those two ideals, once so impossibly distant, were now both on the verge of realization. If the Han could be restored and his elder brother became Emperor, Liu Xiu felt that, without presuming to reach for the Three Excellencies, he could at the very least secure a post among the Nine Ministers. As for the latter, it was even closer at hand.

Liu Xiu was so immersed in this delightful surprise that for a moment he could not even spare any worry for the fierce battles to come. He simply said:

"Once this battle is over, I will go back to Chongling and marry!"