Chapter 412: Grasp the Large, Let Go of the Small

"Over the past year, the situation in Hebei has been tangled and complex. Liu Ziyu actually became the Copper Horse Emperor. The King of Zhending's power swelled, then rapidly shrank. The King of Guangyang joins whoever is strongest…"

This was the King of Wei's assessment of the local warlords after he personally arrived in Hebei. But as for the most miserable faction, Diwu Lun was quite willing to award that prize to Liu Lin.

It was he who had installed Liu Ziyu, and at first he possessed the momentum to hold the Son of Heaven and command Hebei. Yet on his path of eastward expansion, he ran into the Copper Horses, whose fighting strength was no trifle, and he could not expand a single step. Instead, quite a few of his own commanderies and counties fell.

In the end, Liu Ziyu, whom he had propped up with his own hands, also fled. After Liu Lin lost this trump card, the King of Zhending, Geng Chun, and Ma Yuan attacked him from north and south. Within a few months, his territory was completely lost. Now only his stronghold of Handan remains, along with Xiangguo City, which is controlled by the great magnates of Zhao.

As one of the "Five Capitals" of Wang Mang's era, Handan not only had a flourishing economy but also city defenses that were easy to hold and hard to storm. During the Warring States, "Besieging Wei to Rescue Zhao" and the Battle of Handan were both major engagements that decided the realm's balance of power. Whether it was the once-mighty Wei Wu soldiers or the Qin army, whose morale was surging after the Battle of Changping, both choked beneath this city's walls.

So the siege of Handan was a long, drawn-out task. Diwu Lun had brought a large number of craftsmen from Guanzhong to build new siege equipment; what remained was to endure with patience.

The King of Wei set his main camp on Mount Mafu outside Handan. As an extension of the Taihang range and the highest point within the Handan metropolitan region, it was majestic, beautiful, and wondrous, its ridges stretching for several dozen li — a natural defensive screen for Handan.

Stationing the army here could cut off any enemy forces coming to aid from the north — if anyone was still willing to come to the rescue of the King of Zhao, Liu Lin.

And yet, you wouldn't guess it — after the scouts were sent out, they discovered there really was a detachment roaming the vicinity, drawing close to this place. It too flew a "Liu" banner, but it had not come to rescue Liu Lin. On the contrary, it had come to surrender to Diwu Lun!

"Surnamed Liu? A descendant of the Prince of Zhongshan Jing?"

After the Wei army marched north to Handan, quite a few heroes of Zhao came to offer allegiance. Diwu Lun did not have the time to receive each one. But as soon as he heard the name this man reported, the King of Wei's expression shifted slightly, and he made an exception, granting the surrenderer an audience.

The man who appeared was twenty-six or twenty-seven, of striking bearing, over seven chi tall, with very large earlobes and hands that reached nearly to his knees…

He kowtowed to Diwu Lun, somewhat nervous, and stammered out his identity.

Now, it is said that Emperor the Classic of Filial Piety had fourteen sons. The seventh son was Liu Sheng, the Prince of Zhongshan Jing. Sheng begat Liu Zhen, Marquis of Lucheng Village… and so it passed down to the seventh generation, who was Liu Jian, Marquis of Anguo.

According to Liu Jian's own account, his family had lost its noble title in the previous generation. But it happened that Wang Mang had become Duke Who Pacifies the Han, and to win hearts, he treated the Liu imperial clan with extreme generosity, adopting a policy of "reviving extinguished states and restoring severed lines." In barely a year's time, Wang Mang restored the princely and marquis titles of over forty members of the Liu imperial clan. Liu Jian became Marquis of Anguo during that period, with his fief in Zhongshan.

It was only after Wang Mang supplanted the Han and founded the Xin that his true face was revealed. All Liu princes and marquises "had their ranks lowered to viscount, received the stipends of solitary ministers, and later were all stripped of their titles." After going full circle, they were once again ordinary magnates without noble rank.

But their economic power remained. These local powerholders' feelings toward Wang Mang turned from gratitude to hatred, and their figures could be found among the anti-Xin armies everywhere.

This Liu Jian had also taken part in last year's anti-Xin uprising: "This humble one joined the King of Zhao, Liu Lin, and recovered the status of Marquis of Anguo. But Anguo is located in Zhongshan, which is the King of Zhending's territory, and he would not permit this humble one to return. So I could only hold an empty title, leading my retainers to farm military colonies by the shores of Dalu Marsh in Julu Commandery."

But what he never expected was that internal strife would erupt within the Northern Han, and the pond fish suffered the calamity. The single township of territory Liu Jian still held was overrun by a detached Copper Horse division, and his grain was seized. Seeing that this Emperor Sixing, Liu Ziyu, relied on the Copper Horse chieftains yet paid no heed to their appeals, in a fit of rage, heedless of his own surname, he simply fled south to submit to Wei.

Diwu Lun had his men take a tally: this Liu Jian had brought barely a hundred men with him — truly paltry.

Yet he was the first Liu marquis in Hebei to come and surrender!

Diwu Lun did not rush to a conclusion. The handling of Liu Jian would set a precedent for how the State of Wei would treat the Liu clan everywhere. He therefore summoned the ministers accompanying the army to his field headquarters, wanting to hear their opinions.

Huang Chang, the Director of Rectitude under the Chancellor, held that since Liu Jian had brought only a hundred-odd men to surrender, they should give him a little silk as a reward and send him off to be a man of wealth.

Fu Long, who had placed second in the civil service examinations and was now serving as an Usher in the Bureau of Tributary Affairs, had a different view: "Your Majesty, this minister believes we should make an exception. According to the rule that one who surrenders a county is enfeoffed as a Count, we should grant Liu Jian the rank of Count. And we should have men spread word of this widely throughout Hebei, recording it in grand terms. In the future, when our army marches north, we can also order Liu Jian to accompany the army, while his followers are dispersed and resettled."

Diwu Lun did not step in himself, but told the two to explain their respective reasons and discuss the issue more deeply — they were not to merely scratch the surface.

Huang Chang, having received the order, looked toward Fu Long: "Bowen, do you intend to use this as an example to recruit and pacify the various Liu clans of Hebei? But His Majesty has come to Ji Province in person precisely to extinguish the Han! The Liu clans regard Wei as a national enemy, irreconcilable under the same sky. How can you take the isolated case of Liu Jian and assume those people can be used by us?"

"Those surnamed Liu are not necessarily loyal to the House of Han." Fu Long corrected this fixed notion of Huang Chang's: "In the early Han, mindful of the Qin's fault in having no enfeoffed branches, they emulated the Zhou dynasty, enfeoffing kinsmen by marriage and blood to screen the House of Han. The design was that if the center ever came under threat, the vassal kingdoms and princely marquises would unite in purpose to suppress rebellion and uphold the Liu orthodoxy."

"Yet from the time of Emperor Wen, the feudal lords were in constant turmoil. Even after Emperor Wu, there were still the treasonous plots of the Prince of Yan La and the Prince of Guangling Li, and the princely marquises grew estranged from the court. By the time Wang Mang supplanted the Han, there were even large numbers of the Liu clan openly stepping forward to support him!"

Not to mention the State Preceptor Duke Liu Xin — many Liu imperial kinsmen forgot their ancestors. After receiving petty favors, they felt Wang Mang treated them better than the Han Emperors had, and one after another they took the field for Wang Mang, contributing greatly in the process of his becoming Duke Who Pacifies the Han and Acting Emperor.

Later on, quite a few shameless Lius went even further, turning their elbows outward, lauding Wang Mang's achievements as enough to shake past and present, and branding those who raised troops to punish Wang Mang as traitors and national brigands. There were even those who swore with conviction that the Exalted Emperor had sent a dream, saying he willingly passed the realm to Wang Mang…

Farces erupted one after another in the last years of the Great Han. In the end, the descendants of Liu Bang actually helped an outsider usurp the Great Han's realm. If Han Gao knew this in the nether springs, he would likely be angered back to life.

"Among the Liu clan, those who aided Wang Mang in supplanting the Han account for one or two in ten. Those who raised troops in opposition account for one in ten. Those who stood by in bewilderment, indifferent to the matter — these are the most numerous, roughly seven in ten. To such people, what are ancestors, lineage, or dynastic legitimacy, compared to the urgency of immediate profit?"

Fu Long pointed out the crux of the matter: "We might as well use this insignificant Liu Jian as horse bones, to tell the various Lius of You and Ji provinces: though His Majesty intends to extinguish the Han, he does not plan to exterminate all the Lius!"

"In the whole of Ji Province, during the Former Han there were eight commanderies and kingdoms, ninety-six counties in total, and thirty-five princely marquisates were enfeoffed — over one-third. Although most of the princely marquises, like Liu Jian's family, have lost their marquis titles, the population and wealth of the counties remain in their hands. The Copper Horse Army may claim to occupy several commanderies, but when it comes to specific counties and townships, the various Lius and the Hebei magnates can still hold out in their forts and stockades, resisting the Copper Horses and watching how the situation develops."

"This minister has heard that the Copper Horses' rampages have also inflicted no small losses on the various Lius and the powerful families of Hebei. That is why there are cases like Liu Jian, who would rather submit to Wei. If the various Lius see that His Majesty rewards those who surrender, they will surely abandon Liu Ziyu entirely and come over in submission. Conquering Hebei can then be done with half the effort for twice the result."

After Fu Long finished speaking, Huang Chang laughed coldly in his heart. He felt that though this young man had long been famed for talent, his time in officialdom was still short, and he still could not guess the King of Wei's thoughts.

So he counterattacked: "Bowen only mentioned the conduct of the various Lius when the New supplanted the Han, but you forgot their actions at the end of the Xin! Wang Mang, one could say, was magnanimous toward the Liu clan, yet those who nursed hatred in their hearts were not few. Liu Bosheng, Liu Lin, Liu Yang, and others are all like this — insatiably greedy. Right now the various Lius, pressed by the Copper Horses, come to submit. But afterward, if they feel dissatisfied, they will turn and bite!"

In Huang Chang's view, Wang Mang's mistake back then was precisely being too merciful to the various Lius. He only stripped their political status but did not uproot them from the localities where they were entrenched, thus planting countless hidden perils.

Fu Long could now see the meaning Huang Chang had left unspoken: "Director of Rectitude, if we cry out for the death and destruction of the Hebei Liu clan, we may drive them into the arms of Liu Ziyu and the Copper Horses."

If the Liu clans of You and Ji shared a common hatred and united around Liu Ziyu, and the magnates' armed forces combined with the Copper Horse Army, the Hebei campaign might drag on much longer and cost the Wei army far greater sacrifices.

Yet Huang Chang believed such sacrifices were worth it. The various Lius were already subordinate to the Northern Han and hostile to Wei — what harm in helping them make up their minds to be loyal to Liu Ziyu? Fu Long was right: in Ji Province's eight commanderies, over thirty counties were controlled by the various Lius. All the more reason to take advantage of this chaotic age and eradicate them completely!

Fu Long's face paled dramatically. Ignoring Huang Chang, he looked only at Diwu Lun: "Your Majesty, even the tyrannical Qin did not exterminate the royal houses of the Six States. Why not emulate King Wu of Zhou, who generously treated the two kings and three honored guests, and all under Heaven submitted?"

Huang Chang laughed: "Your Majesty, even if one treated the Yin clan as generously as the Zhou dynasty did, Wu Geng rebelled when he was going to rebel — and rebel he did!"

Seeing that the two were about to leave the concrete matter behind, dragging in this and that, and quarreling all the way to fundamental worldviews, Diwu Lun called a halt to the debate.

"The words of both ministers — I shall adopt them in combination."

Even setting aside the struggle principle of "making one's enemies as few as possible," Diwu Lun, in his heart, had never believed that bloodline and surname carried original sin. Narrow clan-ism had no future. From the Xia to the Xin, dynastic changes had never involved great massacres of the preceding royal house, and he would certainly not reverse the course of history on this.

"Then let it be as Bowen says: specially enfeoff Liu Jian as a Count. Henceforth, when members of the Liu clan come to submit, they shall be treated equally with all others. Those who offer counties may all receive the ranks of Count or Viscount."

But Huang Chang's proposal could not be ignored either. The King of Wei had struck hard against the magnates in Wei Commandery and Guanzhong; even fence-sitting prominent families had false accusations heaped upon them in great judicial purges, branding them as rebels so their lands could be seized and distributed to soldiers. How could he suddenly turn soft-hearted and lenient upon arriving in Hebei?

But the Hebei campaign was about short-term military victory. Diwu Lun was far more concerned with the Red Eyebrow Republic and the King of Wu, Liu Xiu, in the south, and wanted to end the war here as quickly as possible.

Uprooting the local Liu clans, on the other hand, was a long-term task. For now, he must grasp the large and let go of the small: first destroy the great powers — Liu Ziyu, the King of Zhending, the King of Zhao. The flesh they left behind would be enough to fill Diwu Lun's belly. As for the remaining small flies, without the great feudal lords to mold them into a lump, they would be easier to smash one by one… You ask how to frame charges after the war? Just as Emperor Wu of Han stripped over a hundred marquises in one breath — if you want to bring charges, what worry is there for lack of pretexts!

In this world, there is no clan that bears original sin and must be utterly annihilated. But neither does it mean that a clan's bloodline makes it inherently superior. The Liu clan, and the clan Diwu Lun had changed to "Wu," were nothing more than people who, relying on having a good ancestor or good relative, had each taken advantage for several centuries. Now that the House of Han's allotted span was exhausted, the Liu clan's temple sacrifices would sooner or later become field laborers.

"What Wang Mang failed to finish back then — I will complete!"

…

Diwu Lun assigned Fu Long full authority to handle the recruitment and pacification of the various Lius of Hebei and the weakening of resistance forces. When the King of Wei went to the walls of Handan to inspect the siege operations, the local commander, Geng Chun, already knew of the matter and congratulated Diwu Lun: "When the Hebei Lius hear that Liu Jian has been enfeoffed as a Count, I fear they will all abandon the Northern Han and Liu Ziyu and come submit to Your Majesty!"

"Boshan, do you truly think what I care about is the mere various Lius?" Diwu Lun shook his head with a smile.

Only after Geng Chun deliberately guessed wrong twice did he "happen" to hit upon the King of Wei's true purpose.

"Yong Chi rose in arms with the Exalted Emperor of Han, yet betrayed him several times and was hated by Liu Bang. When Liu Bang ascended the imperial throne, the generals had not yet been enfeoffed, and men harbored resentment. Liu Bang, following Zhang Liang's counsel, first enfeoffed Yong Chi as a marquis. Thereupon all the generals rejoiced, saying: 'If Yong Chi can be a marquis, we have nothing to worry about.'"

Geng Chun said: "The magnates and prominent families of Hebei do not care for the Copper Horses. Compared to Liu Ziyu, Your Majesty is better able to guarantee the restoration of order in Ji Province. Thus, those wishing to come over are very many. Yet they also worry that, having once served the King of Zhao or the King of Zhending, Your Majesty might not accept them."

"Now that Your Majesty has enfeoffed a surrendering Liu imperial clansman as a Count, it will undoubtedly have the same effect as Liu Bang enfeoffing Yong Chi. When the great families see that even the Lius can receive fair reward and amnesty, their doubts will vanish completely!"

Diwu Lun nodded. In Guanzhong, he had relied on refugees and commoners enlisting in the army to defeat the magnates' armed forces of Longyou. But here in Hebei, fighting as the away side against the enemy, it was vastly different from the home ground.

He had been one step slower than Liu Ziyu. The common people had largely transformed into a million-strong roving band, rallying around the mystically posturing Liu Ziyu, firmly believing this Son of Heaven was a "true dragon." And the scoundrel was outrageously generous, handing out commanderies and counties at will — Diwu Lun could not guarantee he could offer the chieftains greater benefits.

"No help for it. Since we cannot win over the common people, we can only make use of the 'common people'!"

As expected, within days of this news spreading, the powerful families of Hebei who came to join Diwu Lun with their retainers and troops increased day by day. Even the "Grand Marshal" of Northern Han, Li Yu — a great clan of Zhao — led several thousand men to surrender.

To pledge allegiance, very well — the King of Wei would let bygones be bygones for everyone's past. There was only one requirement.

Diwu Lun raised his hand and pointed at the towering walls of Handan. They were covered in layers of bloodstains, but many times more blood would be needed to breach them!

"As the vanguard, scale the walls first in my assault!"