Chapter 230: Traditional Art

Diwu Lun had long known that playing political tricks to create checks and balances was Wang Mang's traditional art, but this time he truly witnessed the sublime artistry of that skill.

For a battle that would decide the dynasty's survival, Wang Mang had actually sent Liangqiu Ci, a man with whom he had a personal grudge, to serve as his second-in-command.

Think back carefully over past defeats: for the Xiongnu campaign, Lian Dan and Han Wei were sent; to suppress the Red Eyebrows, Lian Dan and Wang Kuang were paired; to strike the Han troops, Dou Rong and Zhen Fu… What kind of divine pairings were these?

Diwu Lun did not know that, historically, Wang Mang had even made Wang Yi and Yan You — those sworn enemies — partner up to fight a war.

He truly wanted to confront Wang Mang face to face and ask: what on earth was he thinking? From the perspective of statecraft, having rival opinions churn against each other is necessary, but you cannot simply take that courtly set of tricks and transplant it wholesale into the army to stir up chaos, can you?

But at the very least, Diwu Lun also welcomed someone he had long been waiting for.

"Let it be known to the Duke of Weixin…"

Diba Jiao had not seen Diwu Lun for nearly five years. Meeting again today, he was rather stirred. He who had been so silver-tongued when mediating between Geng Yan and Diqi Biao now found himself stumbling over his words.

Diwu Lun was also very happy to see Diba Jiao again. Setting aside the children of the Righteous School, among the adults, his clan had produced no great talents — only Diba Jiao, to whom he had yielded his Imperial Academy place back then, was passable.

He heard that during the time Diwu Ba had been "invited" by Wang Mang to the Northern Watchtower Mansions in Chang'an, Linqu Township had been leaderless for a while. It was Diba Jiao, who had recovered from illness in Hexi and made his way back by a roundabout route, and Diqi Biao, whom Diwu Lun had sent, who had managed the overall situation — one handling civil affairs, the other military.

Diwu Lun then smiled and said, "When no outsiders are around, call me Clan Head. Among our own people, there's no need to stand on ceremony."

"Yes, Clan Head."

Diba Jiao continued recounting the court's conscription that he had witnessed: "The Emperor's edict said one man from every three households or one from every two, drafting able-bodied youths of the right age, but in practice it was not so fixed. By the time the edict reached the villages and townships, it was purely decided by power and influence. All those forcibly conscripted were poor commoners without power or money, or passersby from other regions grabbed to make up the numbers. This conscription quota was huge and even harder to carry out, so the roads were cut off and travelers grew scarce. Men dared not go outside; some fled to hide in other places, only to be seized halfway by another commandery to fill their quota. Even clinging to the powerful was not much use, so they had no choice but to take to the wilds as bandits."

This sort of situation was the Great Xin's traditional art; even without Diba Jiao saying it, Diwu Lun could guess seven or eight parts out of ten. His main purpose was to test Diba Jiao.

"Even households that didn't have a man seized still had to scrape together grain to supply the conscripts from county to commandery. Apportioned to each household, it came to about ten-plus shi of millet. Yet of what actually became rations for the conscripts, I fear not one part in ten survived — it was all embezzled at every intermediate point. The conscripts could only march on with empty stomachs. So long as they could fudge the numbers to satisfy their superiors, no one questioned the methods used. Who cared that the poor masses were brutally trampled and had nowhere to cry out their grievances?"

The Xin Dynasty had not been without anti-corruption campaigns, but by now, even Wang Mang could no longer stir things. Diwu Lun understood perfectly. He only looked at Diba Jiao and smiled. "Jizheng, you are not the same as you were before."

Diba Jiao smiled bitterly and showed Diwu Lun the little finger he had lost to frostbite in the Western Sea. "I did not endure these hardships for nothing."

"By the way, where is Liu Long, Liu Yuanbo, who was exiled together with you back then?" Diwu Lun still remembered that man with the thoroughly ruddy face.

Diba Jiao said, "When the Western Sea was breached by the Qiang, I fled north to Hexi, while Liu Long went east, reaching Longyou. I have not seen him for many years."

Speaking of Longyou, Wei Ao, who was supposed to have arrived at Chang'an with the Tianshui conscripts, had also been long delayed. Who knew what had happened over there? Surely the powerful families of Longyou had not taken up arms to resist the corvée?

Matters too far away were beyond Diwu Lun's control. He simply singled out Diba Jiao and had him follow on an inspection tour of the camp.

The great camp where the conscripts from each commandery assembled was still set at Hongmen. After completing this round of inspection, Diwu Lun, who had been quite happy at Diba Jiao's return, now had a thoroughly black expression.

"Four years have passed, and nothing has changed!"

…

The "troops" handed over to Diwu Lun this time were even worse than the Boar-Rush Braves he had received four years ago.

The Boar-Rush Braves had at least been gathered into camp, divided into officers, squads, and files — they were merely scattered and disorderly. But the men assembled now were still at the initial conscript stage.

Diwu Lun was very experienced. He did not even glance at the polished and orderly portion that the officials paraded out. He directly led troops to force his way deep into the camp, and sure enough, he came upon an utterly wretched scene.

Progress was out of the question; things had regressed considerably. The conscripts' plight was even worse than four years ago.

In every camp there were dozens, even over a hundred conscripts. As for their clothing, apart from a few tattered rags worn below to barely cover their shame, their upper bodies were all clad in extremely thin straw rain capes. Many had neither shoes nor socks, all of them barefoot.

As for their color, baked by the sun and caked with mud, their entire bodies were a swarthy black, their true skin impossible to see. Only the whites of their eyes flickered. The grime caked on their necks, if scraped off, would probably weigh several taels.

As for their condition, they were skin and bones, thin as withered timber. To describe them with the phrase "swan-like forms and vegetable complexions" would be an understatement. They huddled together eating their meal. Diwu Lun walked over, grabbed a handful and tasted it. Good heavens — he tasted hardly any grain; his mouth was full of coarse chaff and husks, and between his teeth came the fine sound of grit being chewed.

Was this not exactly the kind of "grain" that Diwu Lun had once partnered with Geng Chun to deliver from Wei to the imperial army?

Diwu Lun was an old hand at double standards. This sort of pig feed — others could eat it, but the troops he was about to take over could not.

"How did it come to this?" Diwu Lun questioned the official in charge.

"These men are either refugees who entered the Pass and answered the recruitment call just to eat, and they were already in this state before they came; or they are men from Bing Province, from Zengshan and Weirong, who have traveled a long road and are naturally even thinner." The officials always wore expressions of pure innocence. "In any case, the daily rations are supplied on time."

"You call this food?" Diwu Lun had his men hold the official down and ordered Diqi Biao to grab several handfuls of the grit-laden, chaff-mixed meal and stuff it into that official's mouth, making them watch as he struggled to swallow it, like a force-fed duck.

The grain officer could only choke it down with difficulty, his throat scraped raw by the sand, and begged for mercy: "Duke of Weixin, this petty man has been wronged…"

Another grain officer was seized. Why had it come to this? Diwu Lun of course knew.

Last year, several hundred thousand refugees entered the Pass. The Emperor, to his credit, had a kind heart and appointed relief officials so the starving would not die. Yet after embezzlement at every level, very little gruel reached the refugees' hands, so that two or three out of every ten actually starved to death!

Those who did not starve were driven by desperation. Many took bribes from locals to serve as conscripts in their place. Yet on the road, as the conscripts were herded from commanderies and counties to the assembly point, countless still died. Corrupt officials seized their rations, forced them to march, flogged and abused them, abandoned the sick — you could not imagine anything they did not do.

Once in camp, they still went hungry. After this Hongmen great camp received the conscripts, it treated them as prisoners, locking them inside the camp. Their food, drink, and daily lives were utterly neglected; sickness and death were left to happen as they might. Meanwhile, officials at every level seized the chance to feast on empty payrolls.

"Falsely reporting the number of troops received, embezzling military funds and provisions, letting soldiers starve, stealing and selling soldiers' bedding and clothing, heedless of soldiers freezing." Diwu Lun could casually rattle off the things they were likely doing.

And when, three days later, the tally of conscripts assembled at the great camp was finally produced, Diwu Lun was truly in awe.

"Fewer than forty thousand men, yet they managed to consume the grain for eighty thousand!"

This was no ordinary battle, but a fight that would decide the survival of the Xin.

Diwu Lun looked toward his deputy, Liangqiu Ci, who had been inexplicably appointed "Assistant General" by Wang Mang. "General Liangqiu, back in the Boar-Rush Braves camp, the empty slots were no more than two or three out of ten, were they not?"

"Men's hearts are not what they were, not what they were."

Liangqiu Ci showed not a trace of shame. Back in the army, he had counted as an official "with a conscience." Though he could not compare to Diwu Lun or Dou Rong, he was still more "benevolent" than most officials. The conscripts who died under his watch were certainly no more than under others.

Diwu Lun said with a cheerful smile, "The various camps have not yet been organized into ranks and files. The only ones with an opportunity to embezzle are the overseeing officers at each level. Killing all of them would certainly wrong some. In my view, it would be better to kill in proportion to the grain they skimmed."

This move was simply too bizarrely ruthless. Not only were Grand Marshal Dong Zhong and Liangqiu Ci struck dumb, even Diwu Lun's own subordinates were stunned.

Especially Ren Guang, who had himself once been a grain officer!

Diwu Lun swept his gaze over the crowd. In that moment, his expression was truly as ruthless and fierce as an owl's!

"For those who skimmed one-third of the army grain, kill one-third of that camp's officers."

"For those who embezzled half the army grain, kill half of that camp's officers. What do you say!?"

…

Several dozen grain officers' heads were impaled above the camp gate, their mouths all gaping wide at the sky, the spearpoints thrusting out from between their jaws.

Liangqiu Ci's teeth chattered. He was seeing a familiar scene once more, a sight that made his heart palpitate. This was exactly the move Diwu Lun had relied on to seize control of the Boar-Rush Braves back then.

One brilliant trick can take you anywhere. Diwu Lun had vented the conscripts' pent-up fury, then dispatched trusted clansmen from Wei or Linqu Township to take over the posts. He named Ren Guang to personally oversee the overall coordination, with Diba Jiao assisting — learn from this, Wang Mang: this is what it means to have rival opinions churn and mutually supervise.

Ren Guang felt the head on his thick neck and resolved to apply one hundred percent of his energy. Better to have his subordinates groan with resentment than fail to satisfy Diwu Lun.

Though many parasites had been rooted out and the headcount clarified, Diwu Lun still demanded that grain be supplied according to the figure for eighty thousand men.

His reasoning to Grand Marshal Dong Zhong was that the soldiers had a long road ahead and the rations could not get any worse: "This is a long, hard march. If you don't want the troops to scatter halfway, then for eighty thousand men's grain, I want every last zhong delivered to the Hongmen encampment, not a single measure short!"

Dong Zhong proved quite cooperative, agreeing to report the situation upward and personally negotiate with the Steward of Words (Grand Minister of Agriculture) to make sure they stopped their embezzling for the next few days.

By the time this was settled and the conscripts had eaten a full meal, five days of the fifth month had already passed. Of the twenty days Wang Mang had granted Diwu Lun, only three-quarters remained.

What could be done in the remaining half-month? Nothing more than scattering the eight hundred soldiers from Wei and assigning them in as junior officers and squad leaders. At the very least, the ranks had to be set in order — that alone would take at least ten days. There was simply no time to drill them on gongs, drums, banners, and signals. It seemed this army would be hard-pressed to take shape.

Diwu Lun reflected darkly: "Troops like these — if I truly had to lead them to the front lines and pit them against the Greenwood men and Han troops, who have already fought battle after battle, I fear it would be yet another catastrophic rout."

Diwu Lun could only aim for the bare minimum: in the ten-odd days remaining, keep these forty thousand conscripts from losing any more men, win their hearts, fire their resolve, and after a fortnight of full meals, ensure they at least had the strength to charge with him to the walls of Chang'an!

Liangqiu Ci, for his part, had been thoroughly intimidated by Diwu Lun's wanton execution of the grain clerks. That night, when Diwu Lun summoned him and Grand Marshal Dong Zhong, who oversaw logistics, for a council of war, Liangqiu Ci made a point of arriving early and prostrated himself before Diwu Lun's desk.

"Duke Weixin, this post of Assistant General — it was truly His Majesty's obstinate whim, not at all what I desired."

Liangqiu Ci had his grievances too. Back in New Qinzhong, when he had tried to cover up his incompetence and failure to contain the bandits, Diwu Lun had stabbed him in the back and kicked him off the bridge, and he had been stripped of rank and reduced to a commoner.

After that, Liangqiu Ci dusted off his great-grandfather Liangqiu He's "Liangqiu Commentary on the Changes," hoping to make a living through Confucian scholarship. It happened that the court was temporarily lacking an Erudite for the Liangqiu Yi tradition, and a prominent Confucian with old ties to his family recommended Liangqiu Ci. Though in the end he did not receive the appointment, he did enter the palace once, which brought his name back to the Emperor's attention.

He was then given the post of Grandee Remonstrant. The Emperor believed Liangqiu Ci had seen battle and had rendered great merit in exterminating Lu Fang, and so often consulted him.

As it turned out, just when the realm was falling into chaos, Wang Mang — who knows what got into his head — appointed Liangqiu Ci, who had not touched a sword in years, as a general. He could not refuse; he could only steel himself and take up the post.

Liangqiu Ci began to speak of old times with Diwu Lun: "When you first entered the army camp, Duke Weixin, I never made things difficult for you, did I?"

Diwu Lun nodded. Liangqiu Ci had been a decent enough superior, and had even taught him a good deal of "know-how" for surviving in the military.

"In New Qinzhong, when we campaigned together against Lu Fang, whenever you had any achievement, I never failed to report it upward. I would never have dared claim credit for myself."

It was precisely because of that that Diwu Lun had been enfeoffed as a "Nan" and had caught Wang Mang's eye.

Diwu Lun smiled. "Put that way, General Liangqiu, you were something of a benefactor to me."

"I wouldn't dare," Liangqiu Ci said hastily. "In the matter of my dismissal for misconduct, I have never dared resent anyone else. It was entirely brought on by my own moment of folly."

"Duke Weixin, do you still remember what I said when I was arrested?"

Diwu Lun certainly did not remember, but Liangqiu Ci remembered with perfect clarity: "I said, I only hope that Boyu can go far, and not end up like me — the high aspirations of youth worn away, the mind clouded by power and wealth, grown mediocre and incompetent."

He bowed deeply to Diwu Lun. "Duke Weixin has indeed become a pillar of the Xin, a mainstay upon whom His Majesty relies, and yet your uprightness and integrity remain unchanged. Toward those corrupt officers in the army who feed on the flesh and blood of men, you still harbor deep loathing. This humble official is much gratified."

Since Liangqiu Ci had come to make peace, Diwu Lun had no desire to hold a grudge, so long as the man behaved. He said, "General Liangqiu, who among men is without fault? To err and be able to reform — no greater good exists! The regrets you had in New Qinzhong can surely be redressed before long."

"You and I, working together, can achieve great deeds!"

Liangqiu Ci, however, was somewhat uneasy. Thinking Diwu Lun meant the southern campaign against the Greenwood, he asked apprehensively, "Duke Weixin, this southern expedition — what odds of victory would you give it?"

Diwu Lun shook his head and did not answer. Just then, Dong Zhong arrived. He came in sighing: "Duke Weixin, the grain matter is easily settled, and blades and arrows are still sufficient, but as for armor — truly, even if we emptied the state arsenals, we could not meet your requirements."

Dong Zhong explained that Grand Minister of Works Wang Yi, who had marched east ahead of them, had virtually emptied the Guanzhong armories, leaving Diwu Lun only scrap metal and junk. They could hardly strip the equipment from the Northern Army, the Southern Army, and the Gentlemen Guards, could they? Though those forces together numbered tens of thousands and were superbly equipped, Wang Mang had only allowed one or two of their battalions to accompany Wang Yi; the rest were all kept near Chang'an on garrison duty.

The Emperor was now utterly devoid of any sense of security; anything that touched his sensitive nerves would be met with suspicion.

So after Liangqiu Ci took his leave, Dong Zhong found an excuse to linger. He too asked Diwu Lun in a low voice, "Duke Weixin, given the present situation, if you were to march south with these forty thousand troops, what odds of victory would you give?"

Diwu Lun smiled. "That depends on whether the Grand Minister of Works wins or loses over there."

"I oversee the conscription, so I happen to know: the troops the Grand Minister of Works raised, aside from a few tens of thousands of his own veteran core, are mostly conscripts scraped together. They drilled for less than two months before setting out."

The men sent by the other commanderies were much the same. That is to say, of the four hundred thousand under Wang Yi's command, those truly capable of fighting a pitched battle probably numbered only a few tens of thousands. The rest were just making up the numbers.

Then why bring so many — to cheer from the sidelines? Was this Wang Yi, acclaimed as the realm's foremost general, simply out of practice, or was his reputation all hollow?

"Is the Grand Marshal implying... you don't fancy the Grand Minister of Works' chances of victory?" Diwu Lun found this intriguing. Why was Dong Zhong telling him this?

Dong Zhong gave a slight nod, then suddenly raised his head and, in a lowered voice, asked Diwu Lun a question in return.

"That silk letter the State Preceptor gave you earlier — how far have you gotten with it, Duke Weixin?"

Well, well — so it was you!

The contact Diwu Lun had been waiting for all this time had been circling right beside him!

He began to reassess this Grand Marshal, whose looks were said to bear some resemblance to his kinsman Dong Xian. The name was no misnomer.

Dong Zhong, Dong Zhong — truly, his loyalty was beyond words!

"I've read it."

Diwu Lun understood: if he wanted to find out just how many people Liu Xin, Dong Zhong, and the others had drawn into the conspiracy, and what their next move was, he had no choice but to "actively" join in as well.

"In office, one devises for the office. As a senior duke, in all matters one must act for the good of the realm."

Diwu Lun looked at Dong Zhong, the ominous lines on his face — marks of one who brings doom to his masters — more pronounced than ever. "And therefore, to sweep clean the vermin and petty men who plague the court — that too is our duty!"

PS: (Alliance Leader bonus chapter 3/17)

Tomorrow's update at 13:00.