Chapter 273: A Worthy Opponent

"He contributed to driving out Wang Mang — Colonel Cheng has merit."

Diwu Lun's tone shifted, turning stern: "But merit is merit, and fault is fault!"

If Dou Rong had not spoken those words, it might have been fine — but once he brought it up, Diwu Lun had no choice but to punish Cheng Zhong immediately. With the great rout at Kunyang, plenty of defeated Xin officers would likely flee west to seek refuge here in the days ahead — after all, their home region was Guanzhong.

If word of this got out — that Dou Rong, who shared an unbreakable friendship with Diwu Lun, came to surrender but was attacked by Diwu Lun's troops and barely survived — it would be like a thousand-li steed coming to offer its service, only for you to slaughter it and stuff its meat into horse sausages. Diwu Lun's reputation would be ruined, and not just among surrendering soldiers and officers — recruiting worthy men would also be severely hampered.

Besides, he was just about to reorganize the Yue Cavalry Battalion — wasn't this the perfect excuse?

Diwu Lun issued his order at once: "I ordered the Yue Cavalry Battalion to cross the Longshou Canal and strike the enemy's flank. Cheng Zhong received the order but disobeyed it, allowing Tian Kuang to flee back to Linjin — that is the first fault. Cheng Zhong also commanded poorly and nearly wounded Duke of Zhou by mistake — that is the second fault. For these two faults combined, he is stripped of his rank as Colonel, reduced to a common soldier, and the Yue Cavalry Battalion shall temporarily be placed under the acting command of Grand Governor of the Master Commandant's Office, Jing Sunqing."

In truth, Cheng Zhong was rather wronged. He had genuinely wanted to earn merit, but his men were all bullies at home and cowards abroad, refusing to obey orders. In his impatience, Cheng Zhong had misapplied his strength.

But with the battle still not over, Diwu Lun could only punish the officer, not the soldiers — otherwise they might very well stage a mutiny. The Yue Cavalry Battalion would first be handed to Jing Dan, who appeared mild-mannered but was inwardly full of stratagems, to manage. Once this battle was over and the unit was broken up, it could then be handed to a hard man for reorganization.

These were extraordinary times; there was no need to enforce a strict separation of civil and military roles. What Diwu Lun needed were men of talent who could govern the people with the brush and command troops on horseback with the sword.

As for Dou Rong, Diwu Lun was more cautious. After all, Duke of Zhou Dou had been a marquis under the Xin, and also the "Grand General of the Waves," no lower in rank than his own "Grand General Who Pacifies the Red Eyebrows." The two had long been regarded as equals. If Diwu Lun gave him a high position, the meritorious officers, new to him, would not accept it; if the position was too low, it would seem an insult.

Thus, although Dou Rong kept saying, "I am willing to be a common foot soldier under the General's command,"

Diwu Lun still did not rush to take him into his fold. Instead, he first honored him as a guest, treating Dou Rong as an equal in courtesy — other matters could wait until later.

The two had not seen each other for many years. Now Diwu Lun had men bathe Dou Rong and change his clothes, preparing a meal with wine to wash the dust of travel from him. During the meal, he also inquired about the war situation in the south — above all, the Battle of Kunyang: how exactly had it been fought?

The moment Dou Rong heard the word "Kunyang," his heart fluttered with an involuntary panic. He bowed his head and said, "I wonder who among the General's retinue is skilled in reading the stars? On the first day of the sixth month, south of Kunyang, a meteor truly did fall from the night sky. Though it harmed no one, it still unsettled both armies."

So there really was a meteorite!

Diwu Lun set down his chopsticks and focused intently, listening as Dou Rong recounted the events of that day.

When he heard Dou Rong describe how Liu Xiu, leading a mere three thousand reinforcements, launched an assault against Wang Yi's great army, a force a hundred times his size — taking heads by the hundreds and thousands, winning victory after victory, his courage swelling until every man fought as if he were worth a hundred — and how in one stroke he routed the Xin army, the fleeing soldiers trampling one another, their dead strewn across more than a hundred li — even Diwu Lun felt his blood surge, and he could not help but silently exclaim in his heart:

"A true hero!"

Though he did not know how far this diverged from the original history, Liu Xiu had indeed fought a battle at Kunyang that shook the realm, and together with Diwu Lun — one in the east, one in the west — he had laid the foundation for the Xin Dynasty's destruction.

With this, Liu Xiu's standing among the Greenwood would likely skyrocket. Diwu Lun recalled the letter he had asked Yin Lihua to write, his plan to lure Liu Xiu into the Pass for a "reunion" — it would probably come to nothing now, and had instead made him a laughingstock.

It seemed he would never have the chance, after all, to sit face to face with Liu Xiu, green plums warming the wine, and speak those words: "The heroes of the realm — only Wenshu and Lun!"

It was Dou Rong, instead — this honest man — who unexpectedly offered flattery to Diwu Lun: "I, for one, believe that Liu Wenshu's lucky victory was still thanks to the General's aid."

Diwu Lun was amused. "Oh? I was in Chang'an at the time — how could I have aided him?"

Dou Rong smiled. "It was the General who first raised the righteous banner in the name of punishing the tyrant. Wang Mang sent an envoy to recall Wang Yi only after that. Had Wang Yi's mind not been thrown into turmoil, had he not shifted his troops to return north, the Greenwood could never have seized the chaos to strike — how else could they have won such a great victory?"

A cultured man truly knew how to make words pleasing. Dou Rong merely said: "When King Zhou of Shang held the hunt at Li, the Eastern Yi rebelled, and he dispatched Fei Lian to campaign against them. If the Eastern Yi had defeated Fei Lian, but King Wu had already conquered Yin first, then the one who overthrew Yin-Shang would be King Wu, not the Eastern Yi."

So, in other words — the fall of the Xin and Wang Mang was my scheme? The Battle of Kunyang was under my command? Diwu Lun let it pass with a laugh.

Now that the Xin forces at Kunyang and Luyang had either been defeated or withdrawn, the Greenwood had no rivals left in Jing and Yu provinces. They would likely sweep through every commandery, securing territory by mere proclamation. With that, Wancheng, which had held out for half a year, would become a dead end!

This was something Diwu Lun, amid his busyness, often found himself worrying about. Yan You and Cen Peng were trapped defending Wancheng — what had become of them now?

Wancheng was beyond his power to save. His only hope was that Yan You, Master Erudite — who shared a teacher-student bond with him and had once served as his matchmaker for marriage — could emerge unharmed. Best of all would be if he swallowed his pride a little and surrendered to the Greenwood alongside Cen Peng, preserving his useful body. To be born into such an age — as long as one could stay alive, there was no shame in it…

But that was only wishful thinking. With Kong Ren and his ilk holding Wu Pass, Diwu Lun could not even send a messenger through. He could only pull his thoughts back from distant places to what was near at hand, and give Dou Rong his first assignment after his surrender.

"I would like to ask Duke of Zhou to write a letter, have it shot into the city on an arrow, and inform them of the Xin army's defeat at Kunyang — to persuade Tian Kuang to surrender!"

…

Tian Kuang's face was marked by prematurely white eyebrows, though his beard and hair were still black. But after his defeat in the do-or-die battle arrayed outside the city against Diwu Lun, in just one night his hair had gained many white strands. He had not slept a wink the entire night.

Faced with his subordinates' proposal to defend Linjin to the death and send men to break through and beg Grand Chancellor Wang Xun for help, Tian Kuang shook his head. "That old man Wang Xun will not come to the rescue."

Ever since Wang Xun had crossed the river at Fengling Ford ten days ago, his seventy-thousand-strong army had swiftly seized control of the major cities and towns east of the river. He had also burned both pontoon bridges — at Fengling Ford and Puban Pass. This was clearly a move to make Hedong his foothold, the posture of a man guarding a grave of dry bones!

"He sits on the opposite bank watching who wins and who loses. He might even send an envoy to negotiate peace with Diwu Lun — east of the river, west of the river, dividing the realm along the river to rule!"

That morning, Dou Rong's letter urging surrender had been shot into the city. It said that Wang Yi's entire army had been wiped out, that he had fled alone to Luoyang, barely able to save himself — that the Xin Dynasty's last hope of retaking Guanzhong was gone. Tian Kuang's subordinates all wore bitter faces. When it came down to it, was Tian Kuang the only loyal minister left in the Great Xin? If that was the case, then perhaps it was better to…

"Surrender?"

That word had never been among Tian Kuang's choices.

"Because my achievements matched Diwu Lun's — we both routed the Red Eyebrows and won fame across a province — yet our circumstances were vastly different. He came from behind and overtook me, and for that I was deeply resentful."

"Two months ago, when Diwu Lun crossed the river from Puban, I was on good terms with Chen Chong and had men carefully count his numbers, deliberately making an enemy of him."

"And when the Son of Heaven summoned us, Lun answered with rebellion, while I answered with obedience — in every instance, I took the opposite course from Lun."

Tian Kuang's attitude toward Wang Mang was not the blind loyalty born of gratitude that Ju Wuba displayed, nor was it like Yan You's helpless sense of duty, unable to turn back. His insistence on holding the Xin banner high was more a kind of stubbornness — a political naivety.

"Back when we were both ministers of the Xin, I already felt shame at being ranked beneath Diwu Lun. If I surrendered now, wouldn't I choke to death on my own resentment? Rather than suffer humiliation, better to end it cleanly with death. Let my diehard loyalty to the Xin make posterity remember Diwu Lun's treachery!"

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Tian Kuang's obstinacy was not swayed by a single lost battle. As he prepared for suicide, his heart was still full of grievances.

"What has brought me to this day is no fault of my generalship."

This was the difference between Yan You and Tian Kuang. Yan You saw war as a whole — Dao, Heaven, Earth, General, Law. If you lost, it was certainly because some aspect had gone wrong.

Tian Kuang, however, fixed his gaze only on the "General." He prided himself on lacking nothing in wisdom, trustworthiness, benevolence, courage, and strictness — in every respect, he considered himself superior to Diwu Lun.

"Two months ago, Diwu Boyu said something like, 'A skilled drinker makes no vaunting boasts; as for how I command troops, within a few months, Marquis of Scalding Soup will know for himself.' Yesterday I saw it — Diwu Lun is nothing but a mediocre general."

But if he was a mediocre general, why had he lost?

It was ill fortune, it was betrayal by Grand Chancellor Wang Xun — there were many reasons, none of them, in any case, lying with himself.

But no matter how unwilling he was, he had to accept the fate of the vanquished.

Since the Han dynasty, from feudal princes to ministers and generals, suicide had been common — cutting one's throat, drinking poison, hanging, stabbing oneself, drowning, fasting to death, self-immolation, holding one's breath. Tian Kuang chose to stab himself.

"Present my head to Diwu Lun, and ask him to spare the officers and men who fought alongside me — allow them to lay down their armor and return to their fields."

His clothes were already loosened, the sharp blade pressed against the pit of his heart. One thrust, and his life would end!

Tian Kuang drew a deep breath. "And tell him this for me: After Tian Kuang dies, I shall go to the Yellow Springs and recruit my old subordinates from Qingzhou and the Master Commandant's Office. I will wait for him below! When the day comes that Diwu Lun is defeated in battle and dies, and we meet again at the Yellow Springs, we shall array our troops in the same strength, form our lines, and fight another battle. Tian Kuang will never lose to him!"

…

Upon hearing of Tian Kuang's death, Diwu Lun sighed with emotion, but also felt that this was perhaps the best ending for the man. After all, a fellow who was naturally at odds with him would be hard to win over — and even harder to employ with confidence.

Tian Kuang's subordinates could not bear to sever his head. They cleaned his corpse, dressed him in a full suit of armor, and carried him out. Had it not been for the certainty that he no longer breathed, with those white eyebrows still furrowed, he looked almost as though he were still alive.

After Tian Kuang's death, over fifty people in the city followed him in suicide, and when you add those death-sworn men willing to crouch for days in the Shangyan Mountain well channels, it's clear this man won genuine loyalty whether governing a commandery or leading troops.

The reason he lost — aside from standing on the wrong side of the times and being dragged down by the Xin Dynasty's collapse, which led to mass desertion and collapsed morale — was, like Dou Rong, running into pig teammates.

Yet under all these adverse conditions, Tian Kuang still handed Diwu Lun's forces their first defeat, delaying him for at least half a month, forcing Diwu Lun to concentrate most of his troops in Hexi, and even letting Wang Xun enter Hedong first, postponing Diwu Lun's plan to quickly open a line of communication with Wei Commandery.

In battle Tian Kuang lost, but strategically, he truly caused Diwu Lun enormous trouble — at least in this one corner of Hexi, calling them "well-matched opponents" is entirely fair.

Thinking further back: if Tian Kuang had been kept in Qingzhou by Wang Mang back then, he might well have become a regional power in his own right later on — let him develop, and he'd have been a formidable foe.

But as for Tian Kuang's dying words, full of unwillingness, Diwu Lun only smiled and let them pass.

"Fight again below the Yellow Springs? The Marquis of Boiling Soup will have quite a wait."

"I inherited it from my grandfather — I'm destined for a long life!"

At this point, even the local strongman Li Bai, who had turned informant, actually asked Jing Dan to plead with Diwu Lun, hoping Tian Kuang could be given a proper burial.

"He may not have recognized the times, but the Marquis of Boiling Soup was a fine Grand Governor."

As Diwu Lun's gaze turned toward him, Li Bai guessed what he meant to say and added: "But not so fine that the families of Hexi would accompany him in being buried alive for the Xin!"

Exactly — the strong families' first priority was keeping the clan alive; any "betrayal" had its righteous justification.

Now it was Diwu Lun's turn to sit in Tian Kuang's seat. Tian Kuang had raised the wrong banner, and in outsiders' eyes, Diwu Lun, neither Xin nor Han, was dancing on a knife's edge too!

With Linjin's surrender, taking the entire Shiwei Commandery was only a matter of time. The situation in Guanzhong was now treacherous and shifting — what force of arms could gain had reached its limit; next it would come down to diplomacy and stratagems.

"How is Feng Yan's mission in Longyou progressing?"

Long Slope — its road twists and spirals upward, not easy to cross. So it is with news, and so it is with people.

In mid-June, just as Diwu Lun was grinding out a hard victory in Shiwei, Feng Yan had only just arrived with Liu Gong at the heart of the Longyou power: Chengji County in Tianshui Commandery.

The scenery before him was already utterly different from Longdong: on the high ridges stood stretches of low, gnarled birch forest, and vast grasslands like emerald waves blanketing the whole of Long Mountain. Herders in plain clothes drove great herds of spirited, galloping horses — whether Qiang or Hu, one couldn't tell. Away from the flatlands and towns, it was mostly half-farming, half-herding. Every traveler on the road rode with bow slung and sword at the belt — truly a region of fierce, martial folk. No wonder that for two hundred years under the Han, elite soldiers and great generals mostly came from the six commanderies.

The foremost clan of Chengji County had once been the Li Guang family, but ever since Li Ling surrendered to the Xiongnu, the Li had faded. Over a hundred years, the Wei clan had risen suddenly to become the local overlords, and Liu Ying was also brought to the Wei family's estate to be settled.

But Feng Yan noticed that these Longyou noble estates were nothing like the Guanzhong great families' competitive extravagance — instead they had a plain, austere quality. What interested them were matters of the bow, the horse, and the hunt.

And it was here that Feng Yan began the most difficult persuasion campaign of his entire life.

Because he ran into that man — the military advisor under Wei Ao, the one who had single-handedly orchestrated Liu Ying's journey west: Fang Wang!

The Longyou weather in June was scorching, even worse than Chang'an. Feng Yan, who couldn't take the heat, was drenched in sweat, fanning himself rapidly with his beloved bianmian fan. Fang Wang, meanwhile, waved his palm-leaf fan with slow, unhurried movements.

The two had never met before. After exchanging names and formalities at their meeting, the moment their eyes met, each instinctively sensed that the other was a man of his own kind: an itinerant strategist!

For a moment, it felt very much like one old fox meeting another — truly well-matched opponents!

Fang Wang had indeed earlier strongly advocated installing Liu Ying to unite the various Longyou factions, extending their influence beyond this one corner — but he did not support immediately proclaiming him emperor.

Moreover, he was skeptical of the false reports that "Wang Yi defeated the Greenwood at Kunyang and the Gengshi regime is already destroyed."

And the strategy Fang Wang had proposed in Wei Ao's ear came down to a single word: "Stall!"

"In my view, the Crown Prince need not rush to proclaim himself emperor."

Fang Wang waved his palm-leaf fan, watching Feng Yan's expression, and said with a smile:

"Better to first declare himself king!"

PS: Chapter 3 at 18:00.