Chapter 429: Happy New Year

Unlike Diwu Lun, Liu Ziyu hadn't even prepared a "Plan B" for himself — for the weaker side, the options are always that few, sometimes none at all.

As Zhao Pang turned the Third Division around and struck the Tongma from the flank, the Tongma began to collapse. Though Liu Ziyu rallied morale again and again, even performing two more rituals to let the Exalted Emperor possess him twice, such tricks could fool the ignorant masses but could not deceive real armored soldiers with blades and axes — in the end, he could not reverse the rout.

The chieftains no longer obeyed the Succeeding Prosperity Emperor's orders. The bloodlust the Tongma army had worked up under Liu Ziyu's spirit-summoning charade began to cool. The wilderness was filled with fleeing Tongma and Wei soldiers chasing them down.

And so Liu Ziyu watched helplessly as his "loyal warriors" fell apart in the span of a single morning.

The dew clinging to the withered wild grass evaporated at a speed visible to the naked eye. How easily that borrowed power had come — and how swiftly it scattered.

Though Liu Ziyu still had a core of diehard followers, Liu Zhi on the front line was now surrounded by the King of Wei's personal guard division. His banner toppled and vanished; his fate was unknown.

It was only thanks to Zhang Wen fighting to the death to escort Liu Ziyu that he retreated with several thousand men, fleeing toward the city of Xia Quyang.

Yet it was at this moment that Liu Ziyu realized the most despairing thing of all: Diwu Lun not only far surpassed him in strength, he was even better at playing "schemes and tricks"!

Outside Xia Quyang lay the Tongma army's main encampment. After Dongshan Huangtu led his men in a feigned "breakout" eastward the day before yesterday, the camp had stood empty — but now it was occupied by a guest army.

It turned out Diwu Lun had taken a page from Han Xin's desperate last stand at the river. While engaging the Tongma, he had long since ordered Zhang Yu to take two thousand men and strike suddenly while Xia Quyang was empty and unguarded. How could the old, weak, sick, and crippled left to hold the camp possibly resist? Zhang Yu seized the great camp outside the city with ease, swiftly tore down the Han banners, and planted Wei flags — in an instant, the five-colored banners fluttered in the morning breeze.

Inside Xia Quyang itself, uproar and fighting had also erupted. The people of Xia Quyang, who had long endured the Tongma, drove out the remnants under the leadership of local officials and sent men to make contact with Zhang Yu.

"The officials and people of Xia Quyang wish to rise in righteous revolt and answer Wei's call!"

For the past decade, Xin Mang and Grand Governor Pi Tong had ruled Xia Quyang. The Geng Chun family also had many in-laws and old acquaintances here, and they commanded enormous local prestige. With both men having pledged allegiance to the King of Wei, the people of Xia Quyang naturally yearned to follow. Liu Ziyu, by contrast, had no roots here at all — he even seized the people's grain for food. This was the fundamental reason the Tongma could not hold the city and fight to the death: the contradiction between natives and guest armies of roving bandits far outweighed class.

What was more, the Tongma had long since let the various titles Liu Ziyu handed out go to their heads, seeing themselves as emperors, kings, and ministers. Given more time, they would have simply become another Greenwood.

Liu Ziyu's third Chancellor, Du Wei, was killed. By now, both the city and the encampment had changed hands. The Tongma were trapped with no way forward and no way back, their remaining few thousand men pinned outside the city walls.

"A reward of a thousand gold for capturing Wang Lang alive!"

Diwu Lun issued the order repeating the bounty. He was genuinely intrigued by this great swindler — a man who, by himself, had duped all the warlords of Hebei into a daze and won the allegiance of the heroes of Youzhou and Jizhou. Even more astonishingly, he had bent the unruly Tongma to his will. Trickery though it was, with one rallying cry, ten thousand answered and followed like shadows, willing to die for him — he had very nearly pulled it off.

It was just as Li Zhong had said: give Liu Ziyu a few more years to develop, and he truly could have grown into a grave threat. It was fortunate that Diwu Lun had set aside Longyou and come straight to Hebei to strangle this man in the cradle.

If he could capture Liu Ziyu and force him to publicly expose his own false identity, it would be a devastating blow to those who still clung to the delusion that "Heaven's Mandate rests with Han."

The Wei soldiers, their eyes burning for gold, launched another assault. The protective ring the Tongma had formed around Liu Ziyu shrank smaller and smaller.

Back when Liu Ziyu needed to steady morale, he had declared, "So long as the enemy's arrows have not reached Our feet, it is not yet dire." Now those words had come back to haunt him. Stray arrows whistled past him constantly — peril piled upon peril!

Amid the chaotic din of the battlefield, with thousands shouting and tens of thousands yelling, Liu Ziyu, who had been standing all morning, ceased his rituals and slumped down. He raised his head to look at the sky, growing ever narrower between the encircling forests of spears and halberds.

How, you might ask, did a mere diviner end up becoming Emperor?

It was not regret, but the pride of a man facing death. In the trade of diviners and occultists, he had reached the absolute pinnacle. The most formidable of his senior colleagues had, at best, "swindled an emperor." But Liu Ziyu? He had "swindled his way into being an emperor"!

It truly felt like a dream — a pity that, in the end, there always comes a day of waking.

"Your Majesty! Change into a soldier's clothes and let your servant attempt one more breakout — there may yet be a sliver of hope!"

Zhang Wen, covered in wounds, came to plead with Liu Ziyu. But Liu Ziyu only asked blankly, "Today is the first day of the first month, is it not?"

"It is…"

"A new year."

Liu Ziyu smiled. "That means it is already the third year of Succeeding Prosperity."

He had been propped up on the throne by the Hebei warlords in the eighth month of the year before last. The reign era had now reached its third year.

At this thought, instead of stripping off his imperial robes, Liu Ziyu straightened his crown and sighed. "It was worth it."

шшш＿тTkan＿℃O

What a thrill. These three years — what a thrill they had been. More exhilarating than the entire thirty years of his life before combined. He had been a snake, a worm, an ant — yet by relying on the false horns on his head, he had seized the chance to soar through the clouds like a dragon.

Just then, the Wei soldiers pressing closer raised another shout to relay an order: "The King has decreed: if Wang Lang surrenders, his life shall be spared!"

The Wei army's shouts echoed across the field. If he clung to life and harbored a sliver of hope, now might still be the time to submit to the King of Wei. Hadn't Wang Kuang, the Xin Dynasty's Grand Preceptor who delivered a hundred thousand troops to the Red Eyebrows at Chengchang, survived after being captured by the Greenwood by simply changing his name to "Wang Kuang"?

But Liu Ziyu abruptly rose to his feet.

"Diwu Lun may have the dead Ziyu."

"But he shall never have Wang Lang alive!"

Liu Ziyu drew that counterfeit Sword of the Son of Heaven. With trembling hands, he pressed the blade to his throat. He had thought it through — his identity would be fixed in this moment of death.

He would leave behind an enigma, the kind that private historians like Sima Qian would relish recounting, a mystery to fire the boundless imagination! A legend poised between truth and falsehood.

"A thousand, ten thousand years from now, so long as there remains one person who believes that I am Liu Ziyu, the last Emperor of Great Han — "

" — then it was worth it!"

Liu Ziyu's blood spilled across the last Han banner in Jizhou.

"A sovereign dies for the altars of his realm. If the altars he dies for are real, how can the sovereign be false!?"

……

"Faster! Drive faster!"

Wu Han had injured his knee falling from his horse during the battle and could only lean against the side of a supply cart, urging the Yuyang shock cavalry driving it to race westward with all speed.

Riding to his left and right were several hundred more shock cavalrymen. After a night of pursuit and bitter fighting, both men and horses were utterly exhausted — some had even fallen asleep in the saddle and tumbled off.

But Wu Han paid none of that any mind. All he knew was that the generals had fallen for Liu Ziyu's stratagem, and the Tongma's elite troops at Xia Quyang might well be encircling the King of Wei's main force, which had fallen behind! Victory or defeat hung in the balance.

If they arrived even a little later, the King of Wei might already have found the humiliation of defeat unbearable and taken his own life in despair!

On the return journey, the Yuyang shock cavalry also encountered Geng Chun's division, which was likewise advancing at a huffing, puffing run. Since it was broad daylight, their banners were clearly visible, and both sides were too exhausted to do much else — thus no friendly-fire incident occurred.

Geng Chun, however, was not on horseback either. He was in a cart as well, clutching his shoulder with an expression of extreme agony. In his haste to lead his troops back, he had been moving too fast; his horse had stumbled in a gully, throwing him and fracturing his shoulder.

But unlike Wu Han, Geng Chun knew Diwu Lun a little better. He knew the King of Wei had a flexible temperament and disliked risking his life in desperate gambles. Moreover, the personal guard division's armored troops were elite enough to keep Diwu Lun safe. Even in the worst-case scenario, if the battle turned sour, Diwu Lun could simply fall back on "Plan C" and retreat to Songzi City to await reinforcements.

The reason Geng Chun was so anxious was that, during the council of war, he had misjudged Liu Ziyu's intentions — and he would have to bear responsibility for that!

But by the time the sun was three poles high and the two forces arrived near Xia Quyang one after the other, they discovered that the battle was already over. The Tongma had either surrendered or fled. Prisoners sat on the ground clutching their heads; stripped of their superstitious, blood-boiling fervor, all that remained was dejection and despair.

The Wulou chieftain Zhang Wen had died fighting to protect Liu Ziyu. Liu Zhi, however, had vanished without a trace — after all, a portion of the Tongma had still broken through and fled into the surrounding desolate hamlets and woods.

After hearing Zhang Yu recount the course of the battle, Geng Chun could only curse his own poor memory: "His Majesty is, after all, a disciple of Yan Erudite. In his early years, he led troops personally — it was only later that he gradually delegated such matters to his generals. That he should pick up his old skills again when facing an enemy is only natural."

At the same time, he recalled how, when he had been frantic to rush back to the King's aid, Ma Yuan had been utterly confident that the King of Wei could defeat Liu Ziyu: "His Majesty is also adept at warfare — outwardly cautious, inwardly bold. The Tongma cannot win." Ma Yuan had also divided the labor with Geng Chun, heading east to regroup the scattered Wei troops while keeping an eye out for any fleeing Tongma doubling back.

Geng Chun could not help a self-deprecating laugh. "We are both in-laws to the King, yet it is Wenyuan who understands His Majesty better."

Wu Han, who knew even less about Diwu Lun, was instead astonished by the King of Wei's decisive composure — he had thought he would get another chance to earn merit by rescuing his lord, but Diwu Lun had unexpectedly resolved the matter himself.

"Seen in this light, the King of Wei's courage is no small thing either."

When they reached the heart of the battlefield, they found Diwu Lun examining the corpse of Liu Ziyu. Unwilling to take chances, he had Li Zhong and other former Northern Han ministers confirm repeatedly that this man was indeed "Liu Ziyu" — only then did he let out a sigh.

"In the end, the jade was shattered after all."

His death would create a minor headache for the Wei army's propaganda efforts — though a dead man cannot speak or refute, and Diwu Lun could freely deliver his final verdict on him.

But official discourse can never entirely silence the voice of the common people; this man's legendary story would likely be passed down for a long time across the lands of Hebei.

Yet Diwu Lun himself was still torn: should he treat this man as a fraud whose death sentence was inescapable, or grant him the treatment due an enemy state and give him a proper burial?

"The head must certainly be taken — we have to make his death an established fact. Otherwise, if the remnants of the Copper Horses produce a few more fake Wang Langs, an endless nesting of impostors to rally the bandits and the diehard loyalists of the House of Han, Hebei will still know no peace."

In the end, Diwu Lun decided: "Display his severed head in Zhending, Changshan, Guangyang, and other places."

"Afterward, reunite the head with the body and bury him with the rites of a commoner outside the city of Handan."

At that moment, Geng Chun and Wu Han arrived bearing their wounds, and they knelt to offer Diwu Lun their congratulations.

Diwu Lun spoke with his usual ease: "Boshang, you are my right arm and shoulder — see to it that your wounds heal quickly."

As he finished speaking, he rubbed Geng Chun's injury for him — hah, it hurt even more! Geng Chun still had to smile.

Then he noticed Wu Han limping: "General, did an arrow strike your knee?"

Once Wu Han explained it was from falling off his horse, Diwu Lun ordered his men to detach one of the auxiliary carriages from his own cortege and give it to Wu Han for transport.

He also saw that the fine clothes he had previously bestowed were once again filthy and torn, and merely praised him: "Battle-robes dyed in blood, armor pierced through to show red — who in Youzhou and Jizhou dares contend against such edge? The blood of enemy caitiffs has added luster to the General as well."

These words greatly satisfied Wu Han, yet he forgot that his own hands were still stained with a woman's blood.

It was not until the afternoon, when they reported their respective kills, that Geng Chun learned of this matter. For a moment, a hundred flavors mingled in his heart — though she was Liu Ziyu's Empress, she was after all his own younger cousin, and it was his maternal uncle Liu Yang who had destroyed her!

Though the soldiers were weary and the generals wounded, and the fighting in Changshan to the west and Guangyang to the north had yet to conclude, any clear-eyed observer knew that with Liu Ziyu's death, Northern Han was already declared extinct.

"This can be counted as the first Han I have extinguished."

Diwu Lun, however, did not confine his gaze to Hebei. He asked the two war generals: "How many more are there?"

"Four more," Wu Han answered thus: the Western Han in Longyou, the Barbarian Han north of the frontier, the Green Han clinging to safety south of the Yangtze, and the Liang Han whose momentum was currently flourishing. He had now resolved to settle on the branch that was the State of Wei, and could not help but request orders to extinguish one or two of them for the King of Wei.

Diwu Lun, however, shook his head: "No — five!"

The last news he had heard of Liu Xiu was from several months ago; he had only heard that Liu Xiu had already swept through Huainan and Yuzhang, and now held a complete and intact Yang Province, plus the two commanderies of Linhuai and Sishui in Xu Province. He simply did not know what the King of Wu, Liu Xiu, had been doing this winter.

"Once we have taken Zhending, Changshan, and You Province, I shall hold a bestowal of rewards. Based on merit, I will fix the marquis ranks for the various generals and increase their household stipends. The rewards the soldiers deserve will also be distributed as quickly as possible."

Diwu Lun spoke with meaningful weight: "Today is the new year, and in this year, Sili, Bing Province, and Youzhou-Jizhou ought to see some new weather as well!"

As an old friend, Geng Chun understood the meaning hidden in Diwu Lun's words this time.

"After sweeping across Hebei, he will hold one part of a realm divided in three — the momentum of the times is already sufficient."

"His Majesty will likely, at an opportune moment this year, proclaim himself emperor!"

……

PS: Next chapter at 23:00.