Chapter 325: Befriend the Distant, Attack the Near

Wang Zun, courtesy name Zichun, was of a prominent family from Baling and usually resided in Chang'an.

When Diwu Lun first entered the capital, Wang Zun observed him and concluded that this man, having come to the capital yet withdrawn again, had no future, and chose to wait.

Later, when Liu Bosheng arrived, Wang Zun deemed him a true hero, threw himself wholeheartedly into his service, and offered the scheme of partitioning the Shanglin Park to trade for grain contributions from the powerful families. Liu Bosheng gladly adopted it and drank this poisoned chalice in one gulp...

Although it did help him win the support of some powerful families, this affair could not reverse Liu Bosheng's defeat and death. And the registers of the several dozen families who had carved up the Shanglin Park became a list that Diwu Lun could use to settle scores at any time once he marched south!

Although the Wei army, obeying Diwu Lun's order of "no war in winter," contented itself with controlling Xinfeng, Hongmen, and Lantian and had yet to sweep over them, with the outcome of the Changping Lodge banquet spreading, the thirty-three prominent families north of the Wei River who "might rebel" had already met disaster — let alone them.

Some had left with the Greenwood men, others still wished to go north of the Wei to beg for mercy, but more were at a loss, and began to furiously blame Wang Zun for leading them to pledge allegiance to Liu Bosheng.

"We are the fish and flesh on another's chopping block. As things stand, even if you gentlemen went before Diwu Lun and kowtowed until your foreheads split and wept until your tears ran dry, you would not earn a shred of his pity."

Wang Zun, however, was calm: "My family home is in Baling. If Diwu Lun attacks, my family will be the first to bear the brunt!"

"With no retreat left for any of your families, each of you should hold out in your fortified manors while I go to the Western Han to seek aid."

He also had old ties with Wei Ao, and hurried west, arriving at Chencang in the first ten days of the tenth month, where he prostrated himself before Grand General Wei.

Wei Ao was as courteous to worthy men as ever, calling him "Zichun" at every turn, and even personally brushed the dust of the journey from his clothes.

But the Western Han military advisor Fang Wang was far less kindly, and said coldly: "Wang Zichun, was the dried venison of Shanglin Park not tasty enough, or were the fish of Kunming Pool not fat enough, that you, as the Jingzhao Yin of the Greenwood Han, come to pay respects under this humble eave of Longyou?"

This was a taunt, but Wang Zun did not grow angry. He merely argued forcefully: "The reason I welcomed Liu Bosheng and toiled with him, not shirking arrows and stones — was it out of greed for rank and emolument, or for the garden lands of Shanglin Park? It was simply that men yearn for their old lords. My late father received generous Han favor in life and served as Governor of Shang Commandery, and I wished to repay but one ten-thousandth of it."

"Greenwood Han and Western Han are both Han. The Yuantong Emperor and the Gengshi Emperor both bear the Liu surname and are descendants of the Exalted Emperor. Whichever side I serve, I am a Han subject, and what I hold is a Han seal. That is always better than surrendering to Diwu Lun!"

Fang Wang, however, pointed to the flat Zhou Plain outside and retorted: "Can King Xie of Zhou and King Ping of Zhou be considered the same?"

He was referring to the period after the fall of the Western Zhou, when two Zhou kings reigned concurrently.

Fang Wang said: "Marquis Wen of Jin once said, 'Heaven has no two suns, a state has no two kings.' Although King Xie was a brother of the former king, he did not receive the recognition of the feudal lords yet presumptuously declared himself king — this was in truth rebellion. The Son of Heaven was obliged to chastise him, and so attacked and executed him. At that time, King Xie defied the mandate — would any feudal lord have said, 'Serving King Xie and serving the Son of Heaven are both serving as Zhou subjects'?"

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Wang Zun was momentarily speechless, and could only say that the powerful families south of the Wei had followed the wrong man, that now they knew who the true Son of Heaven was, and were willing to offer their registers and maps to the Yuantong Emperor.

Wei Ao had him withdraw to rest, and with a troubled face asked Fang Wang: "Master, the current situation has diverged far too greatly from what we anticipated."

According to their expectations, Liu Bosheng, a hero of the southern lands, should have been able to fight Diwu Lun to a draw, slowly grinding on for half a year or more, while Longyou took the opportunity to develop.

They had never imagined that Liu Bosheng would be defeated and dead within a month of entering the Pass, his forces withdrawing to Hanzhong, while Diwu Lun, riding the prestige of his great victory, began to leisurely and methodically purge his internal enemies.

At this juncture, Longyou, still hoping to straddle both sides and aid whoever was losing, found itself in a rather awkward position. Its hand had already been extended to attack Beidi and had grasped a few things in its palm; it had also taken in Lai Xi — after all, he had old ties with Wei Ao and was a fierce general.

But how to handle relations with the King of Wei next became the difficult question before them.

"If we accede to the urgent pleas of the powerful families south of the Wei and send troops east, that means open war with Diwu Lun!"

But Longyou currently lacked the confidence to continue expanding east. Its seemingly vast territory in fact held very little population. Take Dunhuang Commandery, for example — the entire commandery had no more than thirty thousand people, fewer than a single county north of the Wei. It could provide neither soldiers nor grain, at most supplementing horses — but the one thing Longyou had no shortage of was horses...

The negative effects of Fang Wang's favorite strategy of "pacifying by proclamation" were beginning to show.

"The Qiang people in the Jincheng Commandery area are killing officials and rebelling every few days, and the Qiang chieftains of the Western Sea also wish to return to Hehuang and are constantly encroaching eastward."

"The Right Division of the Xiongnu has also begun to appear along the border walls of the four Hexi commanderies, raiding frequently."

Reports of crisis from every region flew in like snowflakes. Longyou could neither manage them nor ignore them, and instead found its energies sapped. Wei Ao had to carefully handle relations with the Qiang and Hu, as he still hoped to make use of them.

Thus, Longyou was currently more than capable of defending itself but somewhat lacking in offensive capacity. Just attacking Beidi Commandery had required dispatching over ten thousand troops, with his uncle Wei Cui personally taking the field. Now, were they truly to exhaust all their strength and advance on Chang'an for the sake of the powerful families south of the Wei?

"Chang'an is Diwu Lun's trap," Fang Wang said with certainty.

"Liu Bosheng fell for the ruse. We absolutely must not repeat that mistake."

Wei Ao said: "Then what does the master mean... peace?"

To negotiate peace would be to sit by and watch Diwu Lun seize the lands south of the Wei, while handing over Lai Xi and restoring their former friendly relations.

But after these months of observation, Diwu Lun's intention to establish his own independent power was abundantly clear. One could no longer delude oneself that he could be placated by the various Han regimes and content to be a mere vassal king.

Fang Wang shook his head: "A battle between the Western Han and Diwu Wei is inevitable, at the latest by the start of spring, but we can defend and must not attack. Better to placate the heroes south of the Wei, let them hold out stubbornly in their fortified manors and tie down Diwu Lun."

"And Longyou must deal with the Qiang and Hu vassal states early, recruit their cavalry into the ranks, and prepare to fight Diwu Lun in Youfufeng and Beidi! To defend Long, one must first defend Yong!"

"That seems the only course," Wei Ao still felt lament and regret. This Diwu Lun — how could he harbor such enormous ambition?

"We must also do one more thing," Fang Wang lowered his voice and proposed: "It must not be known to Liu Xin."

"What is it?"

Fang Wang said: "Dispatch an envoy to Nanyang, to make contact with the Gengshi Emperor."

Wei Ao was greatly astonished: "Did the master not just say that King Ping of Zhou and King Xie of Zhou could not coexist?"

Fang Wang's mind turned swiftly: "That just now was to intimidate Wang Zun. One time is not another. If faced with the Quanrong or the barbarian Chu, the two Zhous would probably have no choice but to face the foe together."

"We previously thought the Greenwood Han was strong and Diwu Lun weak, and wished to make the King of Wei a lip to the east, blocking the invaders from east of the Pass. But as we see now, Diwu Lun has already usurped ten commanderies, all fertile and rich lands. His population and soldiery far exceed ours. And the Greenwood Han's most renowned general, Liu Bosheng, broke his lance on the Wei. Even if the Gengshi Emperor secretly rejoices, he should also clearly see who his greatest enemy is!"

"Have you not heard what Wang Zun said, Liu Bosheng's dying words? This realm — rather give it to a brother than to a foe of the state. Brothers may quarrel within the walls but unite against insult from without — that is the meaning of this. We should send an envoy, bypassing via Wudu and Hanzhong, to escort Lai Xi back to Nanyang. Use the argument that the various Han are kin and cannot be abandoned, while the Diwu jackal can never be sated! Strike Wei from both sides!"

Calculating carefully, Liu Xuan was of the same generation as Emperor Cheng of Han. According to the lineage, the Northern Han's "Liu Ziyu" was his nephew, and Liu Ying, as the adopted son of Emperor Ping of Han, was Liu Xuan's great-great-grandson...

Would the state letter then have to address him as "Imperial Great-Great-Granduncle"? Moreover, you are an emperor and I am an emperor — one stroke cannot write two Han characters, so how could they possibly reach an agreement?

Fang Wang, however, laughed: "Longyou is the Longyou of the Wei clan, not the Longyou of Liu Ying. We need only draft the letter in the name of the outer subject Wei Jimeng. The Grand General can even make empty promises..."

He said darkly: "Upholding the Yuantong reign was Liu Xin's obstinate act alone, not the wish of the Wei clan or Longyou. At the time, we did not know the whereabouts of the Nanyang Son of Heaven and merely acted to calm people's hearts. In the future, we can discard Liu Ying, demote him to a princely rank, and together become subjects of the Gengshi Emperor!"

As the man who had first proposed upholding Liu Ying, yet now unhesitatingly cast aside this foolish emperor — these political strategists were indeed ruthless. Wei Ao nodded: "Long ago, when the Zhou dynasty fell and the Warring States contended, the realm was torn asunder, and it took several generations to achieve stability. Are the arts of vertical and horizontal alliances to revive in our present day?"

"Master, this strategy is precisely 'befriend the distant and attack the near'!"

Perhaps it was a meeting of minds between kindred schemers, or pure coincidence, but Diwu Lun's "Minister of Guests," Feng Yan, after Diwu Lun's victory over Liu Bosheng, just as he was about to draw the world's sidelong attention and could no longer hide his light, proposed a similar strategy — even half a month earlier than Fang Wang!

"Befriend the distant and attack the near — every inch gained is the King's inch, every foot gained is the King's foot."

"Looking across the realm, the one who has not answered the Han call and wishes to stand independent is Gongsun Shu of Yizhou. He too is pressed by the Western Han to the north and borders the Greenwood Han to the east. Did Your Majesty not once have a passing acquaintance with Gongsun Ziyang, and even have a senior fellow apprentice serving as an official in Shu? Why not send an envoy to establish ties!"

Feng Yan was referring to Wang Long, who had been to Shu, but Diwu Lun could not bear to let his own senior fellow apprentice suffer hardship, and so happily appointed Feng Yan.

"This matter concerns the survival of our state — none but Master Feng can undertake it personally!"

Thus came this trek that Feng Yan would later deeply regret. Diwu Lun appointed Yu Kuang, a subordinate of the surrendered general Deng Ye, as Colonel, granted him gold, and had him act as a double agent, pretending to be one of Liu Bosheng's defeated troops retreating south in disarray, while Feng Yan changed his clothes and mingled among them.

His only companions were Yu Kuang and a dozen Wei soldier-suicides — all of them Nanyang men who had followed Ren Guang to escort Cen Peng's son north, so their accents would not give them away. After reaching the lands south of the Wei, relying on Yu Kuang, they quickly blended into a unit of Greenwood troops.

After losing Liu Bosheng, the last shred of order among the Greenwood men who had entered the Pass vanished completely. They became outright roving bandits and stragglers; the "Han soldiers" reverted to brigands, sustaining themselves along the way by plundering the countryside.

They too wanted to return directly to Nanyang, but the Wei army's Seventh Biao had already seized Lantian and cut off their route, so they could only take the Ziwu Valley trail and go first to Hanzhong.

The Ziwu Valley had been constructed during Wang Mang's reign. It was extremely narrow and long, stretching nearly seven hundred Han li from end to end. Because it straddled the Qinling Mountains, a climatic divide, the scenery split in two: the northern stretch was all towering peaks and rugged ridges, precipitous and forceful, the trees mostly withered deciduous forest, a vista of bleak desolation.

The southern stretch was a realm of jagged rocks piercing the sky, exquisitely beautiful and steep, with craggy hillocks everywhere. The vegetation took on a wholly southern character, and even in winter the pines and cypresses remained lush and green.

Feng Yan, however, was in no mood to appreciate it. As a rhetorician of the Vertical-and-Horizontal school, it was easy enough to move his lips and tongue, but when it came to actually carrying out an envoy's mission, he discovered how hard it was. The bare-ridge trails of Ziwu Valley twisted and wound around the mountains; within a hundred paces one would circle the crags in countless bends. Sometimes after trudging two whole days, they found they had merely gone from the foot of a mountain to its slope.

The hardest stretches were where the plank roads hung in midair. Looking up, one saw the high peaks where the six dragons turn back the sun; gazing down, one beheld rushing torrents that churn and reverse their course. A hundred zhang above the ground, men and horses had to advance on wooden plank roads, which creaked and groaned under the weight, even swaying when a gust of wind struck. There were pack mules ahead that lost their footing at a broken section and plunged down, leaving behind only a burst of panicked cries and the dull, heavy thud of weight hitting the ground.

A road of seven hundred li, and it took them a full fifteen days to traverse it!

Only when the southern mouth of the valley was right before his eyes did Feng Yan look back with a palpitating heart, clutch his chest, and sigh to himself: "No wonder, when I set out, someone proposed that we press our victory to take Weinan, carry five days' grain, enter through the Ziwu Valley, follow the Qinling south, and reach Hanzhong in under ten days to seize the commandery in one stroke — and the King merely smiled and dismissed it."

"A few dozen of us found it this punishing — how much worse for a large body of troops?"

Diwu Lun had personally walked this road and knew its perils. Feng Yan and his party were lucky there was not much rain; if the heavens had been unkind, the plank roads and bridges along the way would have been washed away by floods, trapping them in the valley for over a month, and being forced to retreat would have been routine.

Such a natural barrier was truly an attacker's nightmare; indeed, there was no need to rush.

And the General of Liu Jia, King of Hanzhong, was guarding the southern mouth of the Ziwu Valley. This man was named Jia Fu. He ordered every person passing the checkpoint to be thoroughly inspected — especially their accents!

Anyone without a Nanyang accent was treated as a spy, seized for hard labor, or even killed without it being an injustice!

This brought fresh misery to many powerful and wealthy households who had fled from Weinan to join the King of Hanzhong — they were slaughtered all over again. It was only because Feng Yan had urgently crammed on the local dialect that he avoided giving himself away.

After entering Hanzhong, the landscape turned entirely southern, the mountain forests still a sweep of green. Liu Jia had governed Hanzhong well and had somewhat restored order, but the various Greenwood remnant units that had withdrawn from Weinan threw the place into chaos again. Feng Yan and his party put up near Xicheng and began slowly inquiring about another route south into Ba-Shu.

"To Ba-Shu?"

A defeated soldier, hearing Yu Kuang ask about this, was so enraged that he slammed the wine he had been offered onto the table.

"We just retreated back here from Shu in defeat!"

It turned out that just as Liu Bosheng was pushing into the Guanzhong region, the Gengshi Emperor Liu Xuan had also appointed an Inspector of Yizhou, who entered Ba-Shu from Hanzhong to offer amnesty. Who would have thought that upon reaching the Sword Pavilion, he would be routed by Gongsun Shu's army and flee back in disarray along the Stone Ox Road.

It was only by penetrating deep into Hanzhong that Feng Yan learned, close to the source, of "old news" that had occurred on the first day of the tenth month and was still unknown in Guanzhong.

"That Gongsun Shu has already proclaimed himself King!"

What King?

"King of Shu!"

…

And far away in Chengdu, the "King of Shu" Gongsun Shu, after pacifying the three commanderies of Shu, Ba, and Guanghan and entering the Brocade Official City, received a stratagem from his chief advisor, a man named Li Xiong, who presented it to His Majesty the King of Shu.

"Great King, you rose from Daojiang, comforted the common people, safeguarded a region's peace, and then routed the Greenwood troops invading Shu. By this, your might has shaken the province of Yi."

"Now the realm is in turmoil, and every common fellow spouts reckless opinions. General, you hold three commanderies, your territory stretching a thousand li — ten times that of Tang and Wu. With strategic terrain and a multitude of followers, if you exert your prestige and virtue to seize the moment granted by Heaven…"

"Now you have also changed your title, to steady the people, establishing yourself as King of Shu, with your capital at Chengdu."

"But the Kingdom of Shu is still not secure. To the northwest lies the Western Han, which desires to seize Wudu and grip our throat. To the north, we are hemmed in by the Greenwood Han, who occupy Hanzhong — like a sword hanging over our heads."

Li Xiong said: "If you wish to take Wudu and Hanzhong, unify Yizhou, and achieve hegemony, you might as well dispatch an envoy to befriend the distant and attack the near — form an alliance with the King of Wei, Diwu Lun, and mutually recognize each other's kingship!"

…

PS: Tomorrow's update at 18:00.