Chapter 213: A Loyal Subject of the Great Xin

The memorial Diwu Lun submitted to Wang Mang did indeed contain good news, but he did not report a great victory in full detail — he held back a little, keeping a trick up his sleeve.

"This battle was a victory, but it must be a pyrrhic victory!" That was the outline Diwu Lun set when he had Huang Chang and the others draft the report.

By now, the Xin was already sliding toward collapse. He had been able to defeat the Red Eyebrows not because of the title "Grand Governor of Wei Commandery," but because he was Diwu Lun.

Wang Mang could no longer give local grandees any substantive reward — only useless promotions in rank or adding the word "Grand" to a general's title, which had no practical effect and would only make Diwu Lun's persona as a loyal subject of the Great Xin stand out more and more, making it harder for him to break away when the day came.

What was more, given Wang Mang's temperament, you expected him to give something? You'd be lucky if he didn't turn around and demand things from you!

And so in Diwu Lun's memorial, the Red Eyebrows who had taken part in the battle went from sixty or seventy thousand to twenty or thirty thousand, and they had only been driven back across the river by a stroke of luck — the threat remained. He could not let Wang Mang think his strength was too great and order him to cross the river, sweep through Yan Province, and set out at once tomorrow...

He could not even mention capturing over ten thousand Red Eyebrows to work for him — Wang Mang might demand he present the captives, a thousand at a time.

He also had to lament his difficulties: this battle was a case of killing a thousand of the enemy at the cost of eight hundred of his own — Diwu Lun's actual casualties really were eight hundred dead and a thousand wounded.

Diwu Lun did not worry about anyone in his own camp sending secret reports. After all, the officials of Shouliang Commandery — the Deputy Governor, the Sub-Prefects, all of them — were on the far bank of the great river and had been killed by the Red Eyebrows the year before.

And the only man in Shouliang who could communicate with the court, the Marquis of Yangping, Wang Mo, had been attacked and killed by "Red Eyebrows" after meeting Diwu Lun once.

Weicheng Commandery was tightly controlled by Diwu Lun. He conspired with the Military Section Clerk Chai Rong to jointly sideline the Sub-Prefect Shi Xiong, who was supposed to oversee military affairs. Any letter Shi Xiong sent to Chang'an, Diwu Lun would intercept, open, and read — and if it did not suit him...

"Then it was robbed by bandits on the road!"

There was also the Ximen clan, who on the surface now bowed and scraped before him. Diwu Lun had rapped them on the knuckles as well, so that they dared not recklessly pass news to the alchemist Ximen Junhui, who served under the General of the Guard Wang She at court.

All these measures were taken for one purpose: to make Wang Mang treat him as though he did not exist.

But for all his calculations, he still missed a move. Diwu Lun could control the channels of information within his commandery, but he could not control those outside it!

While he was there modestly claiming a minor victory, his neighbors were busy reporting his merits for him.

Take Gu Gong, the Regional Chief of Pinghe (Qinghe). When he heard the Red Eyebrows had been driven back, he was overjoyed and eagerly petitioned on Diwu Lun's behalf, painting Diwu Lun's victory in the most magnificent strokes based on hearsay. Finally, he took the chance to ask the court to issue Diwu Lun an order to send reinforcements to Qinghe — Gu Gong could barely hold on under the harassment of the Copper Horses and other Hebei righteous armies.

Then there was the Regional Chief of Zhiting, Wang Mang's cousin Wang Hong. Word had it that after Dong Xian of the Liangshan Red Eyebrows seized Dingtao, his next step was to march on Puyang with a hundred thousand troops. Wang Hong was so terrified he nearly took poison again, and so he begged Diwu Lun to come to his aid — back in the day, he had also helped Diwu Lun take Yecheng.

Diwu Lun readily agreed, and promptly sent men to occupy the two counties of the State of Wei and Dunqiu, which belonged to Zhiting Commandery north of the great river's new course, to help his ally consolidate the river defenses. As for the other side of the river defenses, that was none of his damn business. The militia were all disbanded and sent home — spring plowing and farming to secure the harvest came first.

Wang Hong could only simultaneously lodge complaints and report Diwu Lun's merits, hoping Wang Mang would issue an edict to Diwu Lun ordering the Wei troops to cross the river and defend Puyang!

Comparing Diwu Lun's memorial with those of his neighbors, Wang Mang sank into deep thought, and the Master of Fates of the Five Majesties, Chen Chong, seized the moment to offer his counsel from the side:

"Your Majesty."

"Is this Diwu Lun being too self-effacing?"

"Or is he simply too slick?"

To his surprise, Wang Mang was not angered but rather pleased. "Since we have the memorials of neighboring commanderies as corroboration, it seems Diwu Lun's great victory is genuine!"

And not a false claim of merit, like the General of Renewal's "Great Victory at Youyan."

In this instance, Diwu Lun's cleverness had outsmarted itself. Wang Mang ultimately set aside Diwu Lun's own memorial and chose to believe the accounts of others.

He could not afford not to believe them, for the court desperately needed a victory!

Wang Mang was quite adept at propaganda. Back when he fell from power after a political defeat, he had made his comeback on the strength of several hundred memorials from worthies and scholars proclaiming his innocence, and his successful usurpation of the Han was intimately tied to his manipulation of public opinion.

He could pass off a little wild pheasant from Ba-Shu as the white pheasant offered by the Yueshang clan in the Zhou dynasty, the first such occurrence since the Duke of Zhou. When Zhai Yi raised troops in opposition, Wang Mang was able to dispatch esteemed scholar-officials like Huan Tan down to the commanderies and counties to speak on his behalf and suppress dissent.

Though fires blazed everywhere across the realm and the signs of total collapse were already apparent, what the officials in Chang'an heard was still that everything was getting better.

On the front line, Grand General Yan You had exterminated fifty thousand bandits and held Wancheng like a tiger. The Wave-Water Grand General Dou Rong had cut through the enemy lines, advancing into Yingchuan with plans to envelop the bandits from the flank — victory was in sight!

In Nan Commandery, the two bandit forces of Tian Rong and Qin Feng, under pressure from government troops, had been forced to band together and come to the walls of Jiangling to offer an armed surrender...

The great Red Eyebrow bandit Fan Chong, in fear of our imperial army's sharp edge, had fled eastward in panic, hoping to return to his old home in Ju City.

Dingtao... the fall of Dingtao simply could not be whitewashed, so Wang Mang pretended it had never happened. Geng Ai had given his life for the state in loyal service; his title was inherited by his son, Geng Chun.

Even defeats could be scrubbed clean and turned into victories, let alone Diwu Lun's case. The court lavished praise: the Grand Governor of Weicheng, the General Who Pacifies the Red, had used troops with divine skill, annihilating a hundred thousand Red Eyebrow bandits — the Yellow River was blocked by their corpses!

With this great victory announced, all Chang'an celebrated. The hundred officials fawned, saying the bandits would soon be swept clean. And though the Master of Fates of the Five Majesties, Chen Chong, could not bear to see Diwu Lun win, he too seized the moment to flatter Wang Mang, submitting a memorial of dazzling brilliance.

"Your Majesty upholds the Grand Plan of Heaven, your heart in accord with the precious tortoise, receiving the primordial mandate, able to foreknow success and failure, all answering to omens and divinations — this is what is called being a match for Heaven."

"A sovereign who is a match for Heaven, by his very thoughts can shift the qi; by his spoken word can make things move of their own accord; by his governance can make the hundred surnames willingly submit to transformation. Earlier, when the Son of Heaven issued an edict making Diwu Lun concurrently the Regional Chief of Shouliang, the assembled ministers were much perplexed. Yet your servant Chong, bowing as he read the edict and secretly reckoning the hour, only then realized in astonishment: the moment Your Majesty's sage thought first stirred, the rebel captives were already at a disadvantage; when the edict's text first went forth, the rebel captives suffered a great defeat; when the decree was first issued, the bandit captives threw themselves into the river. Though Diwu Lun has meritorious service, he had not yet even fully engaged his edge. The reason the Red Eyebrows' defeat was already sealed lies chiefly in Your Majesty's sage thought!"

The soldiers gave their lives, and Diwu Lun's command was proper and meritorious, to be sure — but the greatest merit still lay in a single word from the Emperor!

In sum: Diwu Lun was loyal and devoted to the state; the Son of Heaven excelled at employing men, brilliant and martial; all was auspicious, all was auspicious.

Every other defeat, lost territory, and destroyed army was covered up by the good news from the banks of the Yellow River. It had to be covered up — otherwise, disaster would follow!

Since such a great victory had been won, Diwu Lun naturally could not go unrewarded. In his delight, Wang Mang promoted him once more.

"Appointed as Governor of Yan Province, rank equal to the Upper Dukes!"

Governor of Yan Province — as the name implied, he was to oversee Yan Province. Had Diwu Lun known, he would likely have spat blood.

This Yan Province of the Xin Dynasty comprised eight commanderies: Juye (Shanyang), Zhiting (Dong), Shouliang, Chenliu, Jiping (Jiyin), Taishan, Youyan (Dongping), and Juling (Chengyang). However...

Taishan was the Red Eyebrows' main base; every institution from commandery down to county had been swept clean, utterly obliterated. Youyan was the site of the Great Victory at Chengchang — the imperial army had massacred it once, then the Red Eyebrows came through again; it had long been a wasteland for a thousand li. Jiping had just been taken by Dong Xian, the fires still burning, while Juye was currently under his attack. Farther away, Juling was Fan Chong's hometown, and he was gleefully marching back there with over a hundred thousand men.

Moreover, Wang Hong of Zhiting Commandery, pressed by bandits, could barely protect himself. All things considered, apart from the half of Shouliang Commandery Diwu Lun already held in his grasp, only Chenliu was still relatively intact. The rest had almost all been smashed into a rotten wasteland by the Red Eyebrows.

Wang Mang was true to form — he never made a losing deal. He was counting on Diwu Lun to redouble his efforts, bring his own provisions, and, relying on nothing but the title of Governor of Yan Province, take the few thousand mobile troops left after his men were stationed across various places and pacify the entire two-hundred-thousand-strong main force of the Red Eyebrows for the court!

Oh, and just as expected, he promoted Diwu Lun's military rank, adding a single character. From now on, he would be the "Grand General Who Pacifies the Red!"

The court had its own regulations. Since Diwu Lun had been promoted, he naturally could no longer serve as Grand Governor or Regional Chief. Wang Mang was not so muddled as to parachute another official in from above; instead, he promoted from among Diwu Lun's subordinates. Ma Yuan was appointed Grand Governor of Weicheng, and Geng Chun was appointed Regional Chief of Shouliang.

In Wang Mang's view, the Ma clan of Maoling and the Geng clan of Songzi were both loyal subjects of the Great Xin. The Governor of Yang Province, Ma Yu, and the Grand Governor of Jiping, Geng Ai, had both died at their posts, giving their all for the state. The brothers and sons of loyal ministers ought to be loyal ministers as well.

And so Diwu Lun was left with the empty title of Governor of Yan Province, leaving people unsure whether this was a reward or a punishment.

Wang Mang, it seemed, also felt this was insufficient to comfort the heart of a meritorious subject, and so he made a decisive move.

"I wish to enfeoff Diwu Lun as an Upper Duke!"

It should be noted that the Xin Dynasty's system of nobility differed from that of the Qin and Han; it revived the five ranks of the Zhou dynasty. From top to bottom, Duke, Marquis, Earl, Viscount, and Baron each held their place. In the early years of Wang Mang's Shijianguo reign, apart from enfeoffing his own sons and grandsons as dukes, among the outer-surname ministers there were only eleven Upper Dukes — these were the core faction that had helped him usurp the Han: the Four Supports, the Three Dukes, and the Four Generals. Liu Xin and others were among them.

Of course, mixed in among them were also a certain spirit-medium who had presented the golden casket, a cake-seller, and a gatekeeper.

Later, as the old ministers died off one after another — and ducal rank ended with the holder and was not passed to descendants — outer-surname dukes gradually became rare. It was not until the year before last, when the General of Renewal Lian Dan and the Grand Preceptor won the "Great Victory at Youyan," that Wang Mang, in his delight, enfeoffed the two of them as dukes. But before the memorial could even be sent out, the great victory turned into a great defeat, and the matter was dropped.

Now, however, Diwu Lun had defeated the Red Eyebrows — albeit the weakest of their three branches — and it was the best news Wang Mang had heard since the start of the year. Though the assembled ministers all said Diwu Lun was far too young to be abruptly rewarded with high rank, Wang Mang's mind was made up. He merely ordered the State Preceptor and Duke Liu Xin to take the lead in deliberating his ducal title.

According to the Xin Dynasty's custom, a fine character was chosen and combined with "Xin" — for instance, Liu Xin was the Duke Who Gladdens Xin, and Ai Zhang was the Duke Who Beautifies Xin.

Which character to use — a matter of symbolism and propriety, a major affair of court — was still under debate. But Diwu Lun's victory would not change the greater currents of the realm. Though Wang Mang suppressed and concealed the bad news from every commandery, these petty tricks with official language could not help reality in the slightest. The bandits swarming the empire still had to be exterminated!

Wang Mang thus, building on last year's precedent, once more proclaimed a general amnesty and issued an edict: "Wang Kuang, Ai Zhang, and Diwu Lun shall suppress the bandits of Qing, Xu, and Yan provinces; Grand Preceptor Wang Xun and the rest shall suppress the foul rebels of the Front Column. Let it be clearly proclaimed that those who come and surrender shall not be killed, and this covenant shall stand unchanged. If the swarm of bandits remain deluded and refuse to disperse, I shall dispatch the Grand Minister of Works, Duke Longxin Wang Yi, leading a host of a million to annihilate them utterly!"

Now, at last, Wang Mang was finally willing to unleash the man he had kept hidden away for over a decade — the Great Xin's strongest general, the divinely resourceful Grand Minister of Works, Wang Yi!

But the problem was, with the court losing army after army, where would this million-strong host come from?

The answer: they were scraping it together.

"Guanzhong and Longyou, with over eight hundred thousand households — levy one man from every two households, conscript a grand army of four hundred thousand. Complete recruitment by the second month, assemble by the third, march out in early summer, and deliver them to the Grand Minister of Works to exterminate the bandits!"

…

While the Xin's "million-strong host" was being recruited, from Chang'an to the Six Lieutenancies, everywhere was utter chaos, and the Diwu clan did not escape it.

There was one place that remained quiet. Opposite Xuanming Ward, where Diwu Lun had once lived with his teacher Yang Xiong, stood Mingguang Palace, now renamed "Ding'an Lodge." Inside, Yin Lihua — sent to the palace as the kin of rebels — knelt on the floor, enduring her new mistress's scrutiny.

"So you are the unwed bride of Liu Bosheng of the Front Column? What is your surname and given name?"

The reporting official had gotten it wrong. Yin Lihua answered with extreme caution:

"This lowly slave was once the unwed bride of Liu Bosheng's younger brother."

"Once" indeed. From the day she and her family were sent to Chang'an as spoils of war, her status had changed: she was a lowly slave, a captive. The floor tiles were icy cold. Yin Lihua, who had always sat above others receiving their obeisance, now wore a palace slave's garb, head bowed and ears obedient.

The Yin clan's luck was quite good. Unlike the Li clan — though Li Tong and his brother escaped, all sixty-four members of their family were executed in the marketplace of Chang'an.

The Yin family head had voluntarily opened Xinye's gates and surrendered, and the Emperor showed clemency: they were not executed, only reduced to slaves. The men were sent to Shanglin to mint coins, while the women entered the Lateral Courts to do washing and weaving, their hands in cold water every day. The Yin young lady's once fair and tender hands were now swollen and red from the cold; she could only weep in secret. She was beginning to taste the bitterness of this world.

The Lateral Courts were strictly managed. Though they sometimes suffered beatings from the matrons, at least no one violated them. A few days ago, it was said that Wang Mang's son, Wang Xing — the one Diwu Lun had escorted from Xindu to Chang'an — had taken an interest in Yin Lihua and wished to have her transferred to his residence, but someone with greater authority intercepted the move.

And so Yin Lihua was brought to this Ding'an Lodge, its great gates always shut, shrouded in mystery. Whether this was fortune or calamity, she could not tell.

"Raise your head."

Yin Lihua lifted her eyes slightly and saw her new mistress: a woman dressed in plain, unadorned robes. It was Wang Mang's daughter, the Princess of Huanghuang. Not yet thirty, in the full bloom of her beauty, yet she seemed to be in perpetual mourning — for her mother, for her elder brothers, and for the fallen dynasty.

Hearing that the "wives and daughters of Han-restoration rebels" had been delivered to Chang'an, the Princess of Huanghuang — with what thoughts, none could say — had asked for Yin Lihua. Seeing her pearly teeth and bright eyes, her pleasing features, and her dignified, proper bearing, the Princess felt a touch of pity and only sighed: "A fine young lady from a good family, reduced to slavery. Very well, from now on you will attend upon me."

"Yes. This lowly slave kowtows in thanks to the Eldest Princess…" Yin Lihua secretly breathed a sigh of relief. It seemed she had met a kind mistress.

"Inside Ding'an Lodge, do not use that title. Only here, and here alone…"

Wang Yan said with deep emotion: "I am not the Eldest Princess of the Xin. I am only a widow of the Han!"

…

PS: Chapter 2 at 18:00.