Chapter 427: Tiles and Jade

Originally, Wu Han had looked down on the Tongma bandits quite a bit, thinking of them as mere plundering brigands — the sort who, in victory, refuse to share credit, and in defeat, refuse to aid one another, lacking men who would die for duty and honor. That was why he had been able to lead the Yuyang shock cavalry on a thousand-li rampage without meeting any real resistance.

Yet after catching up to this larger group of Tongma, Wu Han suddenly realized that the bandits, who had been focused solely on fleeing for their lives, had turned and struck back as if gone mad.

"The false emperor Liu Ziyu must be among them!"

Far from fearing this, Wu Han was delighted. He raised his ring-pommel saber and shouted, "Liu Ziyu's head is worth a thousand gold as a reward! Over at the King of Wei's side, there are countless gold cakes waiting to be claimed! Today is the season for enfeoffment — gentlemen, do your utmost!"

His men, not much for standing on ceremony, burst out laughing. "General, you really are short on letters — it should be the winter for enfeoffment!"

The Yuyang shock cavalry felt no innate sense of belonging or loyalty toward the King of Wei, but toward gold and silk — that was a different matter entirely!

In an instant, the men roared their assent and formed the Wild Goose Wing formation, honed through years of border warfare against the Xiongnu and Wuhuan, charging forth at a gallop. Rolling hoofbeats and keen blades merged with the moonlight, and where they fell, they blossomed into bloodlight.

The ground outside the hamlet was slick — half mire, half unmelted ice and snow — which greatly hampered the horses' speed. Fortunately, most of the Tongma had broken out traveling light, without armor, so that even when the Yuyang shock cavalry's charge was not fast, so long as a blade or lance tip grazed an enemy beside the horse, it could still inflict terrible wounds.

Wu Han held his saber in his right hand and leveled his lance with his left. At the final moment, he drove the lance tip home, piercing a luckless Tongma soldier and leaving the lance embedded in the man's chest.

The impact of the collision numbed his shoulder. Immediately after, he was confronted by a terrified face before his horse — a Tongma soldier, hands trembling, the blade of his halberd angled and aimed straight at the horse's neck.

Wu Han reacted with lightning speed. He clamped his legs, making the horse veer slightly, then swung his blade. He missed the neck, but cleaved the man's arm clean off, from shoulder to armpit!

By this point, the saber's edge was so badly chipped and curled it was useless. Wu Han flung the blade away and drew a hatchet!

He came from humble origins. As a young man he had been a woodcutter and had swung an axe for many years. After working his way up to Precinct Chief, when he had to chop off bandits' heads, the hatchet blade was the handiest tool. Even to this day, Wu Han always kept a spare on his horse — familiar in the hand! Built to take abuse!

In that brief pause, an arrow struck his thick armor with a crack. Wu Han whipped his head around, like a fierce tiger, and fixed his eyes on the archer standing atop the hamlet's low wall, drawing his bow. He immediately spurred his horse and charged straight at him!

When the Yuyang shock cavalry's horses reached the low wall, they all reared up sharply, unwilling to jump — but Wu Han simply urged his horse over in one bound and brought his hatchet down, splitting the archer's skull just as the man was frantically stringing his bow.

Battle makes men afraid, makes them terrified — yet sometimes, one also falls into a state called "battle frenzy." Past and future vanish together; only this scene, this moment, the here and now, remain. Fear and thought cease to exist. There is only slaughter.

Wu Han was not very good at controlling this emotion. When the killing fervor took him, he found it hard to stop. Trusting in his thick armor, he slew any man who blocked his path. Where his hatchet fell, the Tongma who tried to stop him had their hands broken and heads split, and Wu Han's hatchet blade became slick with brain matter and bone fragments.

His subordinates were the same. Following their fierce and fearless leader, the Yuyang shock cavalry punched through the Tongma's fragile battle line. Why fear the enemy's sluggish dagger-axes and lances? They swung their blades from horseback as if dancing lightly and singing joyously, laughing long and loud into the night!

But as the fighting on the perimeter ended and the Tongma fell back into the village hamlet, the battle shifted to the narrow lanes and alleys, and the cavalry's advantage began to dissolve.

In his fervor, Wu Han charged into the hamlet, only for a Tongma soldier who suddenly burst from an alley mouth to strike his horse's belly with a dagger-axe, bringing his beloved mount crashing to the ground.

Wu Ziyan fell heavily from the horse. His knee struck the ground first, sending a searing, bone-deep pain through him — he could even hear the sound of bone breaking!

Wu Han endured the terrible pain. Even kneeling on the ground, he still struck back and killed the Tongma soldier, but found that his left leg could barely move.

"What am I doing?"

The pain also jolted him awake. Wu Han braced himself against the wall and hobbled away from the battlefield. Supported by the Yuyang shock cavalry who came to his aid, he returned to his command position outside the hamlet. He had the riders who had not joined the fight set up a perimeter defense, wary that their "gold cake," Liu Ziyu, might once again slip away in the chaos.

Thanks to Wu Han's sudden awakening at the final moment, the Tongma indeed broke out from the hamlet's southern side, and a fierce engagement erupted. Whether it was his imagination or not, he also heard a woman's voice.

By the time Wu Han limped over to investigate, the fighting had just ended. Around the carriage, the ground was strewn with fallen Tongma. The carriage itself was bristling with arrows, many of which had pierced straight through the carriage body. Blood dripped steadily from the carriage floor.

From within the sealed carriage came the sound of a child sobbing.

When Wu Han used his saber to lift the carriage curtain, the first thing he saw was a child slumped inside, wailing loudly — seven or eight years old. Though the child's face was smeared with stove ash, when Wu Han reached out his iron palm and wiped it away, fair skin was revealed beneath. Clearly, this was a child from a wealthy and noble family.

At least a dozen arrows had penetrated the carriage, yet this child had survived — not by luck, but because the woman seated with him in the carriage had shielded him with her body at the final moment. Three arrows had driven into her from the back and shoulder. When she was turned over, she was young in years. One arrow had pierced through her ribcage and out the other side — that was the cause of her death.

She had stopped breathing. This must be the family of a Tongma chieftain, he thought. The child was crying too hard to be questioned clearly. Wu Han turned his head and looked at the Yuyang shock cavalry, asking irritably:

"Who loosed the arrows?"

"Plenty of force behind them!"

No one admitted to it. The battered Yuyang shock cavalry were still laughing and joking, none of them truly caring about the deaths they had caused.

They had ridden south for a thousand li. Across the lands of Hebei, You, and Ji provinces, they had seen countless dead — women, children, men, the elderly. Some had been killed when the Yuyang shock cavalry seized grain; others had long since gone cold by the time they passed, their bodies being gnawed by wild dogs.

The dead before their eyes were merely one among the tens of thousands, the hundreds of thousands, of victims in this war sweeping the northern provinces.

However, when Wu Han interrogated the captured Tongma chieftains and learned that this "mother and son" were in fact sister and brother, he could no longer remain calm.

"The false emperor's Empress and Crown Prince?"

The boy was the son of the King of Zhending, adopted as Crown Prince by the childless Liu Ziyu. He would have to be carefully looked after.

The King of Bohai, Dongshan Huangtu, had died protecting the carriage. Who knew how much gold his head was worth.

A particularly dull-witted Yuyang shock cavalryman even asked: since Liu Ziyu's head was worth a thousand gold as a reward, was his Empress worth five hundred gold? Should they take her head?

"Take your mother's!"

If Wu Han's leg weren't crippled, he would have given the man who said that a solid kick to the backside. If he remembered correctly, this false emperor's Empress was also a relative of the Wei Chancellor of the Left, Geng Chun. The woman was dead, and that was that — it would be best to preserve the body properly.

And what made Wu Han even more frantic was yet to come. Several captured chieftains confessed that Liu Ziyu was actually still at Xia Quyang, with over twenty thousand men still under his command, preparing for a death match against the King of Wei, who had been left behind by the main army!

Wu Han was shocked. He immediately ordered a horse brought over, intending to lead his men back. But the injury to his left leg made riding impossible. The Yuyang shock cavalry urged Wu Han to rest and recover — they would go west to assess the situation. But Wu Han cursed them: "The King of Wei enfeoffed me as a marquis and appointed me Assistant General. Now he is in peril, and I lie here wounded and immobile — this is not the conduct of a man who would die for duty and honor!"

Besides, if something untoward happened to the King of Wei, would the rewards promised to the Yuyang shock cavalry still count?

Wu Han therefore rose in a surge of determination, binding his wounds, and asked, "Where is the supply cart that hauls the armor? Quickly, bring it over. I will ride back in the cart."

The Yuyang shock cavalry's armor-wearing rate was not low, but the armor was all heavy, linked lamellar plates, and the helmets were of the Yan region style — extremely heavy. Wearing such cumbersome armor on a long-distance march on foot would undoubtedly be a tremendous test of both man and horse's stamina. If they arrived at the destination with men and warhorses too exhausted to fight, that would be a joke.

Therefore, the Yuyang shock cavalry generally traveled light, only donning their helmets and armor when nearing the battlefield.

After a battle, they would even strip it off again. Wu Han's army had several dozen carts specifically for hauling armor.

Tonight, however, the pursuit had been too urgent. Wu Han had also lost many of his subordinates. The armor was on their bodies, but the supply carts carrying the armor had vanished without a trace.

Growing desperate, Wu Han ordered his men to right the carriage that Liu Ziyu's "Empress" and "Crown Prince" had been riding in, find new horses to harness to the shafts, tear off the carriage curtains, and let him ride in this carriage.

To make the carriage run faster, he stripped off his armor and threw it to the ground, revealing the brocade garment beneath — bestowed by the King of Wei. After a night of bitter fighting, it was now filthy and tattered once more.

"Move out!"

Wu Ziyan sat in the carriage, his crippled leg stretched out, gritting his teeth and enduring the searing pain as he urged his men to whip the horses and retrace their path. As the carriage jolted and bumped, his hand pressed backward for support, only to come away covered in blood — sticky and thick.

Wu Han frowned. Out of habit, he was about to wipe the blood on his clothes, but then remembered that this was the "fine raiment" bestowed by the King of Wei. He hesitated. Then he noticed a piece of unfinished yellow silk embroidery with a longevity pattern, still lying in the carriage — a man's garment.

He grabbed it, wiped his hand casually, and then flung it out of the carriage! He let it be trampled under the hooves of the Yuyang shock cavalry's horses!

And while Wu Han was racing west, Geng Chun had only just linked up with Ma Yuan.

Chaos. This battle had descended into utter chaos.

After the Tongma reverted to their roving-bandit ways, fifty thousand men had broken into fragments and scattered in all directions across the great plain, fighting to break out. Not only did they flee in disorder — the Wei army pursued in disorder as well.

The battle raged on into the night of the thirtieth day of the twelfth month. In Geng Chun's army, the Assistant General could not find his Colonels, the Colonels could not find their Platoon Commanders, the Platoon Commanders could not find their Sergeants — and when a Sergeant turned around, hey, how had half the soldiers under him vanished?

Friendly-fire incidents happened from time to time. It was not until the moon had climbed high that Geng Chun finally linked up with Ma Yuan.

At this moment, the difference between a general who commands a whole front and a general who holds a single corner became starkly apparent. Though Geng Chun struggled to maintain control, only one personal guard brigade beside him still had its formation intact; the rest had all scattered in the pursuit. Ma Yuan, however, could still keep over ten thousand men together.

Deeply ashamed, Geng Chun met with Ma Yuan and asked about the situation: "Wenyuan, have you captured Wang Lang?"

"Not yet." Ma Yuan's expression was solemn. "Our lads intercepted several Copper Horse bands. Many had raised the Emperor's banners and pennants, and there were even chariots being protected among them. But they were either empty carriages or held the families of Copper Horse chieftains — not a single one was Wang Lang's imperial conveyance."

"The Yuyang shock cavalry pursued farther, but no word has come back yet." Ma Yuan laughed scornfully. "Knowing Wu Han's temperament, even if he has taken something, he would probably truss it up and present it directly to the King, without breathing half a word to either of us."

As for Wu Han's earlier conduct, Ma Yuan did not feel particularly offended. He had roamed the realm and seen plenty of rough-and-ready heroes like that.

Geng Chun held Wang Lang in contempt and disdain, not considering the man particularly formidable — rather, he thought the Copper Horses and Liu Yang were simply too stupid. So he still regarded Wang Lang as "tile." He said: "In the old Chu–Han battle of Xingyang, Liu Bang was besieged for many days. Chen Ping thereupon drove two thousand women of the city out the east gate under cover of night, and the Chu troops fell upon them. Chen Ping then slipped out the west gate with Liu Bang under cover of darkness."

"Liu Ziyu is always claiming to be the true heir of Han Gaozu and frequently invites Liu Bang to possess him — might he try that old trick again?"

"Since Wang Lang could fraudulently pass himself off as Liu Ziyu, could he also don the clothes of a Copper Horse bandit and hide among the crowd to escape?"

Fifty thousand pigs, and at night — truly not so easy to catch. More than half the men had already fled. If that were truly the case, Wang Lang might very well escape alive!

Ma Yuan could not be sure either. Fortunately, a moment later, a Colonel finally arrived escorting a chieftain willing to confess, bringing a report.

"Wang Lang… was not among the Copper Horses breaking out?"

Ma Yuan saw the truth in a flash and suddenly burst out laughing. "This false Emperor — what a dog's gall he has!"

Realizing that Diwu Lun's conjecture — "rather be shattered jade than an intact tile" — had been borne out by misfortune, Geng Chun could not help but curse aloud.

"This rubble of his actually wants to be jade after all!"

……

"Your Majesty, the main Wei army and the cavalry have all pursued the King of Bohai."

"Understood. I only hope the King of Bohai, the Empress, and the Crown Prince can smoothly carry out the eastern hunt on my behalf. Once I have defeated Diwu Lun, I shall bring them back."

At this very moment, inside the city of Xiaquyang, Liu Ziyu was polishing his "Sword of the Son of Heaven" — the very sword, he said, with which Han Gaozu slew the white serpent.

Originally seized by Wang Mang, it had been lost when Diwu Lun entered Chang'an — yet now it had returned! One night a divine spirit descended in a blaze of golden light, and when Liu Ziyu awoke, he found this sword in his hand.

"This is a gift from Heaven! It means that I shall slay Diwu Lun!"

The truth, however, was that the genuine serpent-slaying sword had long ago been sent by Diwu Lun, via Feng Yan, to Longyou — which was precisely what had enabled the establishment of the Western Han.

The sword in Liu Ziyu's hand was, like the man himself, a fake!

Yet Liu Ziyu still polished it with the utmost care. In a daze, he recalled the scenes of his youth, when he had followed his father everywhere, scraping for a living.

His father, Wang Kuang, was a diviner. Though of lowly station, his ambition was great and his knowledge broad. He was single-mindedly determined to become a famed fangshi like Li Shaojun, General Wencheng, or Luan Da of Emperor Wu of Han's time. His skills, aside from divination, astronomy, calendrical arts, and mastery of physiognomy and fortune-telling, also included… deception!

Wang Lang had to cooperate with his father. From childhood, he had assumed many identities: a young boy seeking medicine, a wealthy family's son studying arts under the immortal Wang, a sickly child restored to vigorous health after a single dose of the immortal Wang's remedy.

Father and son profited handsomely from this life of swindling and charlatanry — though, of course, there were also predicaments where, after their identities were exposed, they were chased by dogs set upon them.

As a youth, Wang Lang was once viciously bitten by a fierce dog. He fell gravely ill and nearly died. After that, he clamored that he no longer wanted to play these roles.

He wanted to be a true son of a respectable family, a scion of princes and marquises — not someone who could only savor an identity for a brief moment while performing it.

Wang Kuang, too, had grown weary of these petty deceptions and minor swindles. Ambitious and seeing how the people of the Xin Dynasty were destitute and longed for Han, and having heard the story of Liu Ziyu, he resolved to pull off a grand undertaking!

"One last time."

"Lang'er, you only need to play one more person. Become him, and from then on, you will never have to pretend again!"

And so, from that day on, Wang Lang had a new identity: Liu Ziyu.

He had to assimilate the various versions of Liu Ziyu's story that his father had gathered from every source among the common folk, become thoroughly familiar with the scenery and customs of Chang'an and the Shu region — places he had never set foot in — and even learn to speak precise, refined court language.

Father and son spent several full years preparing for this identity. Just when they had deceived the Xin Dynasty's Grand Governor of Wei Cheng and wealth and rank were within their grasp, Diwu Lun destroyed it all.

After witnessing all this by the banks of the Zhang River, Wang Lang fled back to Handan in panic. But after years of playing the role day in and day out, he discovered…

He could never again be the ordinary, common son of a diviner, Wang Lang.

"I am Liu Ziyu." With this conviction, he summoned his courage and did something extraordinarily bold: he walked into the Handan palace and sought an audience with the King of Zhao, Liu Lin.

At the time, Liu Ziyu was still callow. Liu Lin saw through his deception, but he himself needed to push forward a puppet whom all of Hebei could honor. Liu Ziyu's story and Liu Lin's ambitions coincided perfectly!

Thus began the legendary experiences that followed.

How fine it felt to be Emperor! Especially after he was no longer a puppet — his followers grew daily, countless people revered him, his every word and deed was like heavenly law. Over these two years, having grown accustomed to this identity, Liu Ziyu found it even more impossible to shed this outer shell.

He knew perfectly well that once he "went on the eastern hunt," Liu Ziyu's political life would be utterly finished, and it would be nearly impossible to rise again thereafter.

"Chased everywhere by Diwu Lun, turning back into Wang Lang, or taking another name — I might still be able to scrape by and survive."

But he could no longer accept those former days of being chased by dogs, despised by others, living in constant uncertainty.

Once you have stood at the pinnacle, pointing out the realm's mountains and rivers, how can you retire to a village lane and live an ordinary life? Such a fall was more agonizing than killing him.

To become rubble once more, trampled underfoot — or to stake everything once more with the resolve of uncut jade?

Liu Ziyu chose the latter!

Diwu Lun had questioned Li Zhong about Liu Ziyu's character in order to gauge the enemy, but Liu Ziyu, who excelled most at reading people's hearts, had also studied Diwu Lun.

"I have heard that the King of Wei, Lun, is ever cautious. He will certainly send men to pursue Dongshan Huangtu, while he himself leads the army to guard the rear."

If he could exploit a window of time, strike out and annihilate Diwu Lun — once the King of Wei was dead, even if the State of Wei did not immediately splinter, it would fall into brief paralysis. That way, Liu Ziyu could head west to join the thirty thousand men under Shanghuaikuang of Changshan and the Prince of Zhending, and there would still be a sliver of a chance to revive his fortunes!

Those who wished to flee had all run off with Dongshan Huangtu. Those who remained in the city had all been moved by Liu Ziyu and were willing to follow him to their deaths — at least the chieftains were; even if the common soldiers below harbored misgivings, Liu Ziyu had plenty of ways to make them firm in their resolve.

And so Liu Ziyu, at the altar within the city, let his hair down and performed the trick he was most skilled at.

Behold, Liu Ziyu grasped his self-made "Sword of the Son of Heaven," prostrated himself, burned talismans, and chanted incantations. Both hands, starting from the little fingers, pressed and climbed in sequence into a ritual gesture. Then, facing southeast, he raised both hands in a bow and loudly invoked the spell:

"From Mount Mangdang, I invite the Exalted Emperor down upon me!"

Then a bow to the north: "From the Dai Residence, I invite the Filial Emperor Wen down upon me!"

Finally, to the west: "From Weiyang Palace, I invite the Filial Emperor Wu down upon me!"

When the incantation was finished, Liu Ziyu's upper and lower teeth suddenly began chattering unceasingly. Presently, white foam issued from his mouth. The crowd all cried out: "The ancestral gods have descended!"

Liu Ziyu slowly opened his eyes. His bearing was utterly transformed. He had inherited the glory of the house of Han — Gao, Wen, Wu, in this moment, their souls were upon him! Liu Ziyu asked himself: though he lacked the bloodline of the Liu clan, he was the one true, worthy Han Emperor of this age, fully capable of inheriting the history and traditions of the Great Han. In this moment, he was not fighting alone — he was not alone!

After performing the possession by the various ancestral sovereigns, Liu Ziyu summoned those Copper Horse chieftains who believed in him most fervently to come forward. He "performed rites" upon each in turn: touching the Sword of the Son of Heaven to their left and right shoulders, then pressing his index and middle fingers together and touching their foreheads, inviting the generals and ministers of the Great Han to possess them.

He said to Liu Zhi: "Marquis of Huaiyin, Han Xin, descends upon your body. Henceforth you shall command a million troops, victorious in every battle, triumphant in every assault."

To Zhang Wen, the bandit leader of Wulou, he said: "Marquis of Wuyang, Fan Kuai, descends upon your body. Henceforth you shall be loyal, brave, and fearless."

To Grandee Du Wei, who had followed him all along and refused to break out, he said: "Marquis of Liu, Zhang Liang, descends upon your body. Henceforth you shall devise strategies within the command tent and decide victory a thousand li away."

The crowd played along, burning paper offerings and incense, kowtowing until their heads struck the ground.

As for the many chieftains, they were respectively possessed by Zhou Bo, Zhou Yafu, Wei Qing, Huo Qubing, and others — as if everyone had been issued a guardian spirit.

The Tongma and other Hebei roving bandits came from humble origins, and the lands of Yan and Zhao in Hebei were already rife with illicit cults — they ate this sort of thing right up. This was one reason this strange Emperor could give them a sense of belonging.

Watching the emperors, kings, generals, and ministers take turns appearing on the platform, the soldiers below also discussed the miracles they had seen the Emperor perform.

"Earlier this year, when the Emperor rode alone into the Tongma camp, many fierce men still refused to let him pass. So the Son of Heaven took out a handful of wuzhu coins and cast them casually — the heads of those who barred his way all fell to the ground."

"It was the same at Xindu and Yuanshi — the Son of Heaven reads the qi and kills men with a laugh!"

"Did you see it with your own eyes?"

"I saw it with my own eyes. These are no empty words."

And so they all believed he was a god. They had never seen an Emperor who was this close to the common soldiers.

When the ceremony ended, Liu Ziyu opened the granaries of Xiaquyang and let everyone eat their fill with the last of the grain. When Dongshan Huangtu and the others broke out, they left behind all the best armor and weapons, so that the armor-wearing rate within the city among the Tongma was actually quite high.

They waited until the sky began to lighten. When word came that a Wei army division was approaching Xiaquyang, preparing to take over this "empty city," Liu Ziyu had them blow the conch horns.

In an instant, blades and spears bristled thick within Xiaquyang. Liu Zhi and Zhang Wen each led ten thousand men, surging out from the two southern gates of the city with overwhelming momentum!

And twenty li south of Xiaquyang, a Wei army division guided by a five-colored banner was also advancing northward!

"So the Tongma elite really are sortieing from Xiaquyang?"

"It seems what Li Zhong said was indeed 'unpleasant advice from a loyal heart'! Liu Ziyu truly has nerve."

Fortunately, Diwu Lun always "planned for the enemy at his strongest." When making military arrangements, besides the main plan, he also had a "fallback plan," considering the other possibility and running war games on the map, so as not to be caught off guard by sudden changes.

Diwu Lun therefore stood atop the drum chariot and gave the order to Embroidered Uniform Commandant Zhang Yu:

"In accordance with the outcome of the military council — if Liu Ziyu truly has a hidden card, luring away our main force and seeking a fight to the death with me..."

"Then the fallback plan, shelved and unused until now, can be put into action!"

PS: Chapter 2 at 23:00.