Chapter 285: Kings and Nobles, Generals and Ministers

Mount Mangdang stretches for a hundred li, its pines and cypresses dense and dark green, dotted with many mounds and hillocks — these are the tombs of Han-dynasty princes and kings, the most famous of which is the tomb of King Xiao of Liang.

Far from the tomb area, Dong Xian and Fan Chong's meeting was underway. As for the Greenwood Gengshi Emperor's summons to surrender, saying he could be made a marquis, Dong Xian scoffed at it.

I raised troops earlier, I made my name earlier, and the forces under my command are said to be a hundred thousand, no less than yours — why should I bow my head to the Greenwood?

So the idea of setting up his own emperor had sprouted in his mind. Weren't those clever scholars and literati always saying "the people's hearts long for Han"? Fine — Dong Xian had even already picked out a Han emperor candidate for the Red Eyebrows.

"Here on Mount Mangdang there is a great tomb, the tomb of King Xiao of Liang — cut into the mountain to form the enclosure, bored through rock to make the vault, a truly magnificent sight."

At the mention of a tomb, Fan Chong's eyes suddenly lit up, but he said nothing, only listening as Dong Xian continued.

"The descendants of King Xiao of Liang enjoy considerable prestige in the Liang region and are deeply supported by the common people; they were only deposed by Wang Mang, their family line severed."

Dong Xian said, "Liu Yong of Suiyang is the eighth-generation grandson of King Xiao of Liang. He has now recruited the bold men of the various commanderies and commands tens of thousands of crack armored troops. If he can also gain the support of the Red Eyebrows' several hundred thousand, we can set up the King of Liang as Emperor — and you and I can both become men of rank!"

"As Chen Sheng and Wu Guang put it, are kings and nobles, generals and ministers born into their kind? Elder Fan, what do you say?"

Allying with Liu Yong was, in Dong Xian's view, the best path for the Red Eyebrows right now. With the Red Eyebrows' strength, plus Liu Yong's bloodline and title, the powerful clans would be willing to cooperate. It would be enough to control Yan Province, Qing Province, and Xu Province, splitting the lands east of the passes evenly with the Greenwood Han and contending for the realm!

But faced with this temptation, Fan Chong did not respond at once. He merely drank the wine in his cup, and only after a long while did he sigh with feeling: "This wine is truly delicious. It's from that King of Liang, Liu Yong, isn't it?"

"Exactly — it comes from the King of Liang's cellars."

Dong Xian thought Fan Chong was simply fond of the cup: "As long as the Elder is willing to join forces with Liang, fine wine like this can be drunk every day!"

Dong Xian knew this from experience. Only after allying with the King of Liang did he realize that the thirty-odd years of his past life had been lived like a dog! Liu Yong married his own younger sister to Dong Xian, and Dong Xian, once a mere fisherman, found himself embracing a delicate Liu-clan "Princess" — so overjoyed he lost all sense of direction. The fine foods and tender delicacies in the Liang palace also left him quite satisfied, and he even began learning to appreciate the refined music of bells and chimes, while wholeheartedly devising plans for Liu Yong.

But Dong Xian did not realize that Fan Chong and he were utterly different men.

Fan Chong raised his eyes: "And the two or three hundred thousand brothers and sisters under my command — can they drink it too?"

"This…" For a moment Dong Xian did not grasp Fan Chong's meaning. How could that be possible? Those who could rise into the upper ranks were only a scant few. Take the "Mount Liang Red Eyebrows" under his own command, for example — in half a year, the chieftains had transformed themselves into County Magistrates and men of wealth and rank, while the ordinary Red Eyebrows, numbering as many as a hundred thousand, had become servants to be ordered about. Compared to before, they had merely changed masters for whom they toiled.

Fan Chong spoke slowly: "You know my background — I come from humble origins, never learned to read or reckon. From my youth I worked as a tenant farmer, tilling land for others. Later, unable to bear the harsh taxes and corvée, I rose in revolt, and more and more people followed me. What were we seeking? Nothing more than a little less harsh taxation and forced labor, a life that let a person survive."

"Last year we routed the Xin army in a great battle and made our might known. I thought no one could make trouble for us anymore, so I let everyone disperse and return to their home villages."

"But many who went back to their villages found that everything was the same as before."

"The good fields were still held by the powerful clans. The moment you laid down your blade, those people wanted to make you pick up a farming tool and go on breaking your back for them."

"Those who scattered and returned home were either killed by the powerful clans, or killed the powerful clans and became powerful clans themselves. Even more people came back to Mount Dongtai to seek me out, saying that without the Red Eyebrows, they could not go on living."

"What could I do? I could only smear my brows red again and lead everyone in a struggle to survive."

Fan Chong had also tried to return to his hometown of Ju County, but his hometown regarded the Red Eyebrows as bandits and rebels and refused to accept them. Only then did he understand: from the moment they threw down their farming tools, killed officials, and rose in revolt, they no longer had a native soil.

The people under him were racked with hunger and could only move toward places where there was grain. And so, under Fan Chong's leadership, they fought their way through three provinces and several commanderies in one sweep. The Red Eyebrows began to grow accustomed to this kind of life — producing nothing, roaming everywhere killing officials and powerful clans, robbing the rich to aid the poor.

As their leader, Fan Chong had only one simple wish.

"I don't want to be any king or noble, general or minister."

"I just want the people under me to all have their fill."

Of course, this was limited only to those who had joined the Red Eyebrows, and did not include the common folk they harmed in their roving rampages — Fan Chong was not that broadly benevolent.

This was the greatest problem plaguing Fan Chong. He knew the old days were bad; he led the people in struggle, killing those deeply hated officials and powerful magnates — but he did not know how to let them live good days!

Fan Chong had no education, nor did he trust the literati, and he was even more hostile to the great clans and powerful families. He could only act blindly, following instinct.

All he knew was that if they did not want to fall apart and go back to being slaughtered at others' whim, the Red Eyebrows had to keep moving forward. Perhaps at the next place, they would find the answer he so diligently sought?

But the answer offered by the King of Liang and Dong Xian was not one Fan Chong liked.

"The Red Eyebrows' food is earned by the blades in their own hands, not by the charity of the King of Liang or any other king."

"If you want to set up an emperor, go set one up yourselves."

Fan Chong looked at Dong Xian, who had already thoroughly become one of the "kings and nobles, generals and ministers," content with his fine clothes and rich food, having forgotten why he had risen in revolt — and poured the wine out onto the ground.

"Red Eyebrows do not fight Red Eyebrows. This Liang region — I'm not crossing it!"

…

Suiyang (Shangqiu) was not far from Mount Mangdang. In just two days, Liu Yong was awaiting Dong Xian's return and immediately hurried out to greet him.

"General Dong, how did the meeting with Fan Chong go?"

Liu Yong was serious about proclaiming himself emperor. Although Gengshi was willing to enfeoff him as "King of Liang," after allying with Dong Xian, Liu Yong's ambitions no longer stopped there.

His ancestor, King Xiao of Liang, Liu Wu, was the full younger brother of Emperor Jing of Han. Before the Rebellion of the Seven Kingdoms, Emperor Jing had once taken the King of Liang's hand and said: "After my ten thousand autumns and a thousand years, I shall pass the throne to you, King of Liang."

As a result, the King of Liang was tricked into fighting the Wu and Chu rebels with all his might at Suiyang, buying time for Zhou Yafu to suppress the rebellion. Afterward, the black-hearted Emperor Jing turned ruthless and disavowed his words, leaving King Xiao of Liang utterly furious. Though he once raised the banners and drums of a Son of Heaven, labored to scheme for the throne, and even sent men to assassinate ministers who opposed his succession, in the end he was harshly struck down by Emperor Jing and died in despair.

The Liang kingdom was divided into five, its power greatly diminished, and it never again harbored presumptuous hopes — but Liu Yong felt that he, for his part, could afford to entertain such hopes once more.

He only needed the Red Eyebrows to join him, and his troop strength and numbers, even the territory he could control, would surpass Gengshi. When that time came, could they not settle who was superior?

Yet Dong Xian, his face dark, reported that the meeting had gone poorly — he simply could not understand what was going on in Fan Chong's head!

"This man Fan Chong harbors no grand ambitions, and can hardly accomplish great things," Dong Xian pronounced with finality. Who ever heard of someone who had been in arms for years still wanting to mingle as equals with the rank and file, with neither banners nor official ranks? In his view, that Fan Chong's following could be so united, and had not scattered and collapsed along the way, was nothing short of a miracle.

Liu Yong, however, still wanted to try to win him over. If fine food, tender delicacies, and the rank of nobility were useless, then he would switch tactics and tempt him with beauty — he had more than one younger sister, after all: "That being the case, where is Fan Chong heading?"

Dong Xian said irritably, "He won't enter Liang. Pei Commandery has also been eaten clean, so he can only go south to Wufu Commandery north of the Huai to forage for food. He'll likely stay there until the autumn harvest."

But the next day, news reported from Mount Mangdang made Liu Yong instantly fly into a towering rage, and he abandoned any thought of further recruiting Fan Chong.

"Before Fan Chong headed south, he sent men to locate the tomb of King Xiao of Liang, led his followers there in person to excavate it, broke open the coffins, stripped the corpses bare, and plundered the gold and treasures!"

"What!"

Hearing that his ancestors' graves had been dug up, Liu Yong nearly vomited blood in fury. If Fan Chong didn't want to cooperate, so be it — there was no grudge between them, no enmity; why dig up his ancestral tombs?

The official who guarded the tombs came to lament tearfully: "The tomb of King Xiao was originally a revered and august sepulcher, its pines, cypresses, catalpas, and mulberries all due solemn respect. Now, defiled by the Red Eyebrows, wherever they passed they rampaged and destroyed — not a skeleton remains unexposed!"

"The gold, jade, and jewels on the bodies of the dead, bound with silk cords and ribbons, were cut away with blades and carried off."

"The burial goods — bells, tripods, drums, feast tables, wine vessels, and the like — were also dug out, rinsed with water, and turned into pots and pans for the scoundrels to boil beans and cook their meals, or even melted down to make weapons."

"Fan Chong had the hundreds and thousands of slave corpses buried with the dead properly re-interred, but dug out the bones of successive Liang kings, consorts, and princes that lay properly within their nested coffins, and scattered them recklessly all over the mountain."

"And among them, a consort of a Liang king who had been interred in a jade burial suit, even a hundred years after burial, was still as though alive — and so the Red Eyebrows… the Red Eyebrow scoundrels, right before her face, committed all manner of obscene outrages!"

Appalling, hair-raising — Liu Yong listened, stupefied, his hands already trembling with rage. Dong Xian, too, was utterly dumbfounded.

Suppressing with effort the fury that made him want to lead his troops at once into a death battle with Fan Chong, Liu Yong bowed to Dong Xian with clasped hands: "The Liang region remains jointly ruled by King Dong and King Liang. You and I are as close as one family, and this will not change because of the villain Fan's lawless deeds."

The King of Liang's faction, because of this baffling affair, was now locked in a death feud with the Red Eyebrows. Liu Yong had already thought of a perfect scheme.

"Kill with a borrowed sword!"

"Proclaiming myself emperor must be postponed. I will temporarily accept the Gengshi Emperor's title of King of Liang."

"Then I will sow discord between the Red Eyebrows and Gengshi."

"Use the Red Eyebrows to strike the Greenwood men, then let the Greenwood men bleed the Red Eyebrows dry!"

Dong Xian no longer spoke of the brotherhood of raising troops together or the bonds of the Chengchang campaign. He was now King Dong, and had no wish to be Dong the Giant or Elder Dong again.

"I too am ashamed to stand in the same ranks as the Red Eyebrows."

Their Red Eyebrow name truly made many Liang-land magnates deeply wary. They could only choose one path — the commoners or the elite.

From now on, the Red Eyebrows might well be enemies, so they needed a new emblem to sever all ties with them.

"Bah!" Dong Xian spat into his palm and wiped the red clay from his eyebrows. Then he called for ochre earth, grabbed a handful, and smeared it across his neck!

From this day forward, this would be the mark of his, King Dong's, forces.

"We are the Red-Neck Army!"

It was also early in the seventh month. Liu Xiu, who had already overrun the entire Yingchuan commandery alongside Ma Wu, Wang Chang, and others and was about to advance on Luoyang as the vanguard, received an order from the Gengshi Emperor summoning him to Kunyang for an audience.

Only on the journey south did Liu Xiu learn, to his shock, that because a "Western Han" had been established in the west, Liu Xuan, in a fury, had advanced the campaign against Guanzhong. He had sent Liu Xiu's elder brother, Liu Bosheng, with an expanded force of six divisions, nearly thirty thousand men, to Wu Pass, aiming to retake Chang'an and strike west against Longyou. They had already set out.

This did not match Liu Xiu's own plans, and it made him furrow his brow deeply. Though entering the Pass had always been his brother's dream, was this not also a deliberate ploy by Gengshi, hoping he and the "Western Han" would bleed each other dry?

A moment later, however, Liu Xiu laughed.

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"Diwu Lun is in Guanzhong, and he is an old acquaintance of mine. He has already driven out Wang Mang and yielded Chang'an, which shows he has no desire to usurp the imperial capital. If I can write a letter asking Diwu Lun to assist my brother, why worry that Longyou will not fall?"

Liu Xiu did not yet know that Diwu Lun had already declared himself king. In his heart, he still thought of drawing Diwu Lun into their faction to jointly aid his brother. If Bosheng could join forces with Diwu Lun in Guanzhong and gain his support, following the path of Emperor Gao would be no difficult matter...

By the time Liu Xiu arrived outside the already emptied city of Kunyang, a letter from Guanzhong — which had passed through who knows how many factions and been smuggled past countless passes — showed that he and Diwu Lun were thinking exactly the same thing.

Liu Xiu wanted Diwu Lun, and Diwu Lun wanted him too!

Liu Xiu was quite delighted that Yin Lihua was under Diwu Lun's "protection," and he suspected nothing amiss. What gave Liu Xiu considerable pause, however, was Diwu Lun's proposal that he come to Guanzhong for a "reunion."

Though Gengshi was infuriated by the Western Han in Longyou, he would never permit both brothers to enter the Pass together. That was precisely why he had sent someone to dispatch Liu Xiu to Liang-land. This return to Kunyang was to receive his orders in an imperial audience. Should he accept an assignment to Liang-land, where fortune and calamity were both unknown, or should he enter Guanzhong to join his brother and win Diwu Lun over to their side? It was truly a dilemma. His own defiance and departure would inevitably cause a rupture between Gengshi and Liu Bosheng. And would the heroes he had gathered in Yingchuan be willing to flee far away with him?

Moreover, the recruiting intent Diwu Lun revealed in the letter also made Liu Xiu suddenly realize that he might have underestimated Diwu Lun's ambition...

But soon Liu Xiu had no time to worry about this, for he discovered that the letter had already been opened before he read it — the sealing clay was even broken off!

Liu Xiu instantly grew highly alert. He looked toward Fu Jun, who had been left behind to guard the camp due to severe wounds from the Battle of Kunyang: "Who touched this letter before me?!"

Fu Jun said, "Because of the chaos of war, the man Diwu Lun sent did not know where the General was and only managed to inquire his way to Kunyang. He made a difficult journey here and was even seized as a spy. Fortunately, it was General Li Yi who was inspecting the camp that day. He read the letter, laughed heartily, and a moment later had it sent over. We kept it properly sealed and dared not look at it."

"Li Yi?" He was one of the thirteen cavalry commanders who had followed Liu Xiu out of Kunyang to seek reinforcements. Because, under Liu Xiu's auspices, Li Yi's younger sister had married Li Tong, in the eyes of Liu Xiu's trusted men, the Li clan of Wancheng were all their own people.

Liu Xiu, however, knew full well that Li Yi was different! This man had always been very close to the Greenwood chieftains and frequently curried favor with the Gengshi Emperor — and he still did, even after the victory at Kunyang.

Liu Xiu immediately went to Li Yi's tent. "Where is General Li now? I have a matter to thank him for in person."

He was told: "General Li went south yesterday to welcome His Majesty the Gengshi Emperor's honored arrival."

Liu Xiu knew at once that things were dire. In an instant, cold sweat streamed down his back.

"Disaster!"

PS: Tomorrow's update will be at 13:00.