Chapter 240: I Cursed Him for You

The twenty-fifth of the fifth month was the auspicious day Wang Mang had chosen. By all reason, on this day at Duling, his Empress Shi should have mounted her phoenix carriage and begun her journey toward Chang'an, while Wang Mang, his hair dyed black, would receive her between the twin stairways of the palace.

It was a day for all within the Pass to celebrate, for ten thousand common folk to share in joy — and at the same time, Diwu Lun, loyal minister of the Great Xin, was to march south to suppress the usurper who had proclaimed himself emperor at Wancheng.

All that had been perfect was now ruined. In a single night, the situation had plunged headlong. Of the eleven Senior Dukes, three had rebelled in one breath. Though those two fools Wang She and Dong Zhong had already been arrested, Liu Xin was still at large.

They had barely quelled the turmoil within the city when that young commander Diwu, on whom Wang Mang had placed such high hopes, also openly revolted. He killed the envoy Wang Ye sent to him, and without even the pretense of "purging evil ministers from His Majesty's side," raised his troops in open, torchlit rebellion against the Emperor, denouncing him as a Jie or a Zhou!

"Repaying kindness with betrayal — great treachery masquerading as loyalty!" Wang Mang was so enraged he could find no words to curse Diwu Lun, while Diwu Lun's grandfather Diwu Ba and his senior fellow apprentice Wang Long had also vanished without a trace.

Diwu Lun's declaration of war had already been flung before Wang Mang's desk. Every line stabbed at his heart. The words that in peacetime the assembled ministers glossed over, that the high officials dared not utter — that declaration cursed them all, one by one.

Yet what truly made Wang Mang so furious he coughed blood was not only the content, but the names signed at the end of the declaration.

Apart from Feng Yan, whom Wang Mang did not recognize at all, the other signature on the declaration was especially glaring!

"Yang Xiong!?"

At the hour of the cockcrow on the twenty-fifth, in Baling County — which Wang Mang had renamed "Shuizhang" — Yang Xiong's disciple Wang Long was soaked to the skin. He had no time to change, and stared fixedly, dripping wet, at the declaration before him.

The news that Diwu Lun would rise in revolt today had not been told to his senior fellow apprentice in advance. In such matters, apart from one's confidants, the fewer who knew the better — otherwise it would easily leak. Only when he sent men to fish Diwu Ba out of the murky waters of Chang'an did he also send word next door to the Northern Watchtower mansions, telling Wang Long to flee at once.

Wang Long was stunned, yet not entirely surprised. He had once been ordered by Wang Mang to the Wei region to summon Diwu Lun to court, and had accompanied him all the way west. He could see that this fellow disciple of his, in all he did, hardly resembled what a "loyal minister" ought to be.

He therefore changed his clothes and left the city. All along the road the day before, he saw only the Northern Army troops stationed around Chang'an hastily assembling, rushing eastward under imperial decree. Wang Long skirted around them. By the time he reached the confluence of the Ba and Wei rivers, he found that the infantry battalion, timid as mice, had already gathered up every boat in the area, clearly intending to hold the river line against the approaching "rebel army."

In his desperation, Wang Long simply swam across.

The Ba River is a major waterway within the Pass, a main tributary of the Wei — deep and broad. That crossing was no easy swim.

When he was encountered by Diwu Lun's roving cavalry patrol and brought back to Baling County for an audience, Diwu Lun was both surprised and delighted. "I never knew Wenshan was such a strong swimmer."

"I learned it a few years ago in Shu, because I heard the Master was good at swimming."

It was also on the journey to Shu, bearing his teacher's coffin, that Wang Long, relying on memory, silently wrote out the essay Yang Xiong had completed on his deathbed — the one he had burned so as not to implicate his disciples — and later passed it on to Diwu Lun for his perusal.

But he never imagined that when Diwu Lun ordered Feng Yan to compose the declaration against Wang Mang, he not only set the topic like an examination essay, but also required Feng Yan to incorporate lines from Yang Xiong's final written testament into it.

In the past, Feng Yan, always proud, would certainly have refused. But when he first met Diwu Lun at Xinfeng, he had said he greatly admired Yang Xiong. Moreover, he had come to realize with a start that for over a year, he had completely misread Diwu Lun's intentions. At the moment of raising troops, he was still clamoring about restoring the Han, and feared this might displease Diwu Lun. Eager to curry favor, he agreed at once.

"It should have been you, Wenshan, who wrote it, but the matter came up too suddenly." Diwu Lun also found it regrettable.

"I am skilled at fu poetry, not political argument. That the Master's words and phrases are here within it — that is enough."

Wang Long, however, thought the declaration was already excellently done. Gazing at those familiar lines, he seemed to see that night five years ago, when, under the pressure of the Master of Fates of the Five Majesties, Wang Mang demanded that Yang Xiong write an essay extolling the northern campaign against the Xiongnu.

And Yang Xiong, his breast full of indignation, recovered the freedom of his youth, his brush racing and galloping without restraint! Not only was the writing magnificent, gentle, and refined, but the political views were sharp and piercing — utterly unlike the Master's past works.

On the last day of his life, Yang Xiong reflected on his past and in one stroke overturned his praise of Wang Mang in "Denouncing Qin and Extolling the Xin." He bitterly denounced the New Policies and made this prophecy: "Of old, Qin burned the Odes and Documents to establish its private doctrines; the Xin recites the Six Arts to gloss over treacherous words. The Xin's grip is no less than Qin's. Though it has established a calendar of thirty-six thousand years, I fear they travel different roads to the same destination — both shall meet their end in destruction!"

This line, too, stood out prominently in the text!

And like the core of this declaration, what Yang Xiong opposed was never Wang Mang's usurpation of the Han throne, nor did he ever regard him as a traitorous minister. He never regretted his initial support for Wang Mang, for he too had been a victim of the dark politics of the late Han.

Yang Xiong's anger was at his failure to live up to his promise — that after Wang Mang became Emperor, his reach exceeded his grasp, he failed to accomplish what he had pledged, and threw the realm into utter chaos!

And what was more, among the signatures at the end of the essay, there was actually Yang Xiong!

Wang Long's hand trembled slightly. He wanted to touch that name, yet feared his wet hand would smudge the ink. He wiped his fingers on his clothes several times, but they were again dampened by tears. A grown man of full stature, he wept beyond all control.

Diwu Lun patted the weeping Wang Long on the shoulder, raised his head to look at the sky crimsoned by the campfires, and sighed with deep emotion:

"Master, that night — so as not to implicate us — those words you could not bring yourself to curse aloud."

"Your disciple Diwu Lun has now pointed straight at his nose and cursed them all for Wang Mang to hear!"

Back then, Diwu Lun was of the humblest station. Even with fury in his heart, he could do nothing. He could only carry Yang Xiong's high expectation that he was "a man of the realm," and silently bury that hatred deep within.

But now — at Xinfeng's Hongmen, axes and sickles are raised; along the banks of the Ba, banners flutter. Through this declaration, Diwu Lun's spittle has sprayed across the old man's face. How satisfying!

"The Master's spirit in Heaven can be comforted by this."

And in the future, even if Diwu Lun intends to elevate Yang Xiong — who for three generations had no sons and left no descendants — to the status of a "Confucian Sage," this declaration, passed off as "Yang Xiong's testament," will be more than enough to cover over the black mark of Yang Ziyun's "Denouncing Qin and Extolling the Xin," and make it all seem reasoned and justified!

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But such thoughts were still far too early. Diwu Lun merely pointed at the firelight upon the Ba River and said to Wang Long: "Wenshan, the situation now does not permit optimism."

If Diwu Lun had risen in revolt first, catching Wang Mang off guard, at this very moment Ba Bridge would certainly have been taken.

But one must still blame those worthless teammates. Wang Mang discovered the conspiracy of Wang She, Dong Zhong, and Liu Xin first, giving the Xin a full half-day's extra time to react. At the same moment Wang Ye went to Xinfeng to trick Diwu Lun into entering the capital, the various regiments of the Northern Army had already received orders to assemble eastward, to guard against any contingency.

It was this fatal half-day gap that pinned Diwu Lun's main army at the banks of the Ba River.

And what he had never anticipated was that the Northern Army on the opposite bank, the finest troops under Heaven, would be so utterly craven. Before Diwu Lun could "cross Ba Bridge by night," they directly set the bridge ablaze!

Meanwhile, on the other side, though Wang Mang was so enraged by Diwu Lun's declaration that he coughed blood, he did not faint outright. Instead, he issued several urgent orders in rapid succession.

At daybreak on the twenty-fifth, just as the sky began to lighten, the General of the Peaceful Beginning, Shi Chen — one of the "Four Generals" — rode east at full gallop with three thousand Changshui Hu cavalry, bearing the Emperor's edict.

Shi Chen was the father of Wang Mang's intended Empress Shi, a descendant of the Shi clan, the favored maternal relatives who enjoyed great trust under Emperor Xuan of Han. It should have been a day of great rejoicing, but Diwu Lun's rebellion had thrown it all into chaos.

At this point, what marriage could there be? He had no time to escort his daughter into the capital, but was swiftly appointed and rushed to the front lines.

The deadly thing was, this front line was a mere forty li from Chang'an!

When Shi Chen reached Zhi Road, what he saw was Ba Bridge, still smoking.

Ba Bridge had already suffered a disaster over a year ago. To secure this most vital transport artery leading to the eastern part of the Pass, Wang Mang had mobilized corvée laborers to replace the all-wood bridge structure with stone piers, over which wooden planks were laid.

The new bridge, rebuilt over several months, had now been burned again in a single night. After burning all night, the flames had gradually subsided. The planks were nearly all consumed by the fire, leaving only a few dozen blackened piers standing in the water.

Shi Chen was quite astonished and immediately questioned the General of the Van, Wang Sheng, who was in charge of this sector: "Lord Chongxin, His Majesty ordered the Northern Army regiments to attack eastward and destroy Diwu Lun's rebel forces. Why was this bridge burned?"

Wang Sheng was originally a peddler selling flatbreads north of Chang'an city, scraping by from day to day. On the eve of the Great Xin's founding, the village headman suddenly sought him out and sent him to the palace. Wang Sheng was nearly frightened to death, thinking he was to be castrated and made a eunuch.

Instead, it turned out that physiognomists were examining their features one by one according to illustrated charts, and asking for their birth dates and hours.

As it happened, the golden casket presented by Ai Zhang had precisely prophesied the names "Wang Xing" and "Wang Sheng" among Wang Mang's ministers. Wang Mang thus searched according to the diagrams, seeking in Chang'an by the appearance foretold in the divination. In the end, this stroke of fortune fell upon Wang Sheng's head.

A seller of flatbreads in the morning, Lord Chongxin by evening — the speed of his meteoric rise was truly enviable, and also absurd.

Now, with no great generals under his command, Wang Mang had appointed Wang Sheng to the infantry camp. He had only arrived the day before. Upon learning that Diwu Lun had already risen in revolt and was about to attack Baling, and that the Magistrate of Baling was seeking his help, Wang Sheng did not hesitate for an instant. He immediately withdrew the garrison troops from the eastern bank to the western bank, and would not go to their aid even if beaten to death.

And when Diwu Lun's main army seized Baling County and began sending roving cavalry patrols to scout the situation at Ba Bridge, intending to cross by night, who could have guessed that a mere few dozen patrol riders would so terrify Wang Sheng that he decided to go all the way — and gave the order to burn the bridge!

That was how the scene before them came to be, but Wang Sheng refused to admit it, saying only: "General of the Ningshi, this was the rebels setting the fire — they fear our army crossing the river to attack!"

Wang Sheng was soon proven wrong. Though the bridge was simply gone, before daybreak Diwu Lun dispatched Geng Yan to attempt fording the river several times from spots where the infantry camp's defenses were weaker.

It was high summer, the season when rivers swell. The Ba River was a major watercourse of the Guanzhong region; even at its narrowest it exceeded a hundred paces, and at its shallowest midstream a man would still be submerged. Slipping across alone on foot, as Wang Long had done, was easy, but a large body of troops could not cross so readily.

Diwu Lun's great army attempted the crossing several times that night, but each time they were spotted by the Northern Army troops guarding the bank, and the forced crossing failed.

The root of it was still that the soldiers were too poor in quality. Expecting raw recruits to brave the arrows from the opposite bank and wade the swift currents in a feint attack — that was hardly realistic.

If every man were as thoroughly trained and high in morale as the eight hundred officers and soldiers Diwu Lun had brought with him, a mere Ba River would be nothing to speak of. But he was also loath to mass those men and use them together — once the junior officers were all pulled out, command over the remaining thirty thousand would collapse entirely.

As the various regiments of the Northern Army arrived one after another, the window for a forced crossing had passed, and the two sides could only face off across the Ba River.

Although Wang Mang had ordered the Northern Army to "take the offensive and exterminate the rebels," since the bridge was already burned, the Ningshi General Shi Chen simply went with the flow and set up defenses along the Ba River bank.

On the west bank of the Ba, stretching a hundred li from north to south, there were four defensive sectors:

Furthest north was the Tiger Pen. Wang Mang had already transferred four thousand men of the Shooting-Sound Battalion to guard it, tasked with watching both the lower Ba River and the Eastern Wei Bridge.

Next, directly facing the Ba Bridge, was Zhi Road, where over ten thousand men of the infantry battalions and assorted irregulars were stationed.

Further south lay Nanling County on the White Deer Plain. Three thousand men of the Leap Cavalry Battalion had already shifted there from Xiadu.

Furthest south was Lantian County, where three thousand men of the Garrison Cavalry Battalion, led by the Army Overseer Kong Ren, had been waiting days earlier to rendezvous with Diwu Lun — only to receive, instead, word of his rebellion.

Behind these four forces, three thousand Changshui Hu horsemen, come up from Kunming Pond, had entered Duling County to support any of the four sectors at need.

Thus, on the outskirts of Chang'an, only five thousand men of the Central Rampart Battalion remained on guard, along with another two thousand of the Shooting-Sound Battalion holding the Western and Central Wei Bridges.

"General of the Ningshi, with the troops we have, we can only defend, not attack!"

The cake-selling general Wang Sheng forcefully stated his view — it was by no means cowardice on his part, but that the Northern Army was truly short of troops. Better to face off across the river with the rebels for the time being.

"We might as well pin the rebels down. After a long spell with no success, they will disperse on their own! Wait a few more days, and the loyalist forces from the various commanderies will arrive."

The problem was that the commandery troops and able-bodied men of the Guanzhong commanderies had already been conscripted in large part and followed the Grand Minister of Works Wang Yi on his expedition to Yingchuan — so where were these loyalist forces supposed to come from?

Though he knew stalling was no good plan, Shi Chen was no veteran general either. And because the Northern Army had only just had its colonels replaced, its morale was low and its soldiers fearful. Under such conditions, an offensive was impossible. At his wits' end, he could only let things be...

But Diwu Lun on the opposite bank was not about to wait idly with them. Another two hours later, at sunrise, the thirty-thousand-strong "rebel army" poured out in full force. Across a front of several dozen li north to south on the east bank of the Ba, they raised a clamor everywhere, making as if to attempt another forced crossing. Even Diwu Lun's great banner moved, sending the Northern Army regiments into a tense state, staring fixedly at every stretch of the river.

This feint continued the whole morning. But twenty li north of Baling County, relying on boats and timber gathered in Xinfeng and Baling, a force of three thousand men was laboriously crossing another river — wider, deeper, but with not a single government soldier guarding the opposite bank.

Geng Yan, who had been repeatedly thwarted at the Ba River, was once more entrusted with a critical task. Taking Wang Long and the troops with him, while Diwu Lun's main army hammered at the Ba and raised a din, he turned in another direction — crossing the Wei to the north!

What tactics could not solve, leave to strategy.

This was the decision Diwu Lun made when he saw his great army blocked at the Ba River. It was just as Geng Yan had said: Grand General Diwu truly played the game of military stratagem rather well.

The tombs north of the Wei, from east to west, were arrayed in a single line: from Diwu Lun's old home of Changling, all the way to Maoling at the far western end. This string of places was the "kindling" Diwu Lun had spent years stacking up — building his reputation, making friends and hosting banquets, laying the groundwork several years in advance.

"All that's missing is a single spark to set them ablaze!"

"Bozhao, Wenshan — you two are to cross north at once and link up with the Seventh Biao and Diba Jiao, who are heading for Linqu Village. From Changling to Maoling, within three days, I want every county rising in revolt. I want Wang Mang, inside the Shoucheng Hall, to see the beacon fires of the Five Tombs north of the Wei!"

This was Diwu Lun's strategy: the countryside encircling the cities.

"Use the Five Tombs to encircle Chang'an!"

PS: Sorry it's a bit late. For the New Year period I'll keep up two updates a day, but the timing will be a bit more irregular.

(Chapter 2 at 18:00.)