Chapter 440: The Fierce Beast

Wang Long had no time to attend to Ban Biao's little moods, and there was another reason — he was also extremely busy himself.

The ritual and ceremonial system of the State of Wei was mainly handled by Wang Long, the "Fengchang," and Diba Jiao, who served as Zongzheng. But now Diba Jiao had been reassigned as Inspector of Liang Province and had gone to Hexi to help Diwu Lun liaise with the four commandery Governors, so the entire burden fell on Wang Long alone.

With the grand ceremony of the King of Wei's imperial accession at stake, he could hardly avoid worrying over every last detail.

As the day drew nearer and nearer, Wang Long summoned the various offices under him without pause, drilling instructions into them and pressing for progress on their tasks.

"On that day, the Grand Invocator shall welcome the spirits at the Grand Ancestral Temple — the entire procedure must be properly arranged, not a single step out of place. The Grand Music Master must hurry the rehearsals, so that on the day the sacred music is performed; make your subordinate music officials play with full effort, and let there be no cases of merely making up the numbers."

"And the Grand Steward and Grand Provisioner — prepare the three sacrificial beasts for the offerings. The banquet on the day must also be purchased and prepared as quickly as possible. What? The imperial estates are too few and cannot be self-sufficient, and the gold ingots His Majesty allocated are not enough to buy supplies? Must this official go to the East and West Markets to haggle on your behalf? Figure it out yourselves!"

"Grand Pharmacist and Grand Physician, your offices must also exert yourselves. The celestial officials say the first day of the fifth month will be clear, with blazing sun — the robes are so wide and heavy that many of the old ministers attending the ceremony may well faint from the heat. Keep a close watch on all of them; do not let any funereal affairs break out on the spot. For every incident, I shall dismiss one man!"

"And the Grand Diviner — the Five Powers charter that you and the Erudite Libationer have been deliberating should be submitted by now!"

It was still Diwu Lun's fault for insisting on being unique and pursuing "all Five Powers complete," which tormented the charlatans and Confucian pedants below to no end. They could only desperately cobble together five kinds of omens and auspicious signs, tracing back from this year all the way to Diwu Lun's birth, and still finding it insufficient. In the end, they even counted the strange phenomena that had occurred in Qi territory during the time of the Tian Heng brothers. But achieving logical coherence was exceedingly difficult, and the group was still agonizing over it.

But Diwu Lun cared nothing for the process; he wanted only the result.

Wang Long talked until his mouth was parched. Finally, he still had to have the Grand Scribe arrange a group of capable clerks to prepare to record the entire proceedings that day — the carriages, robes, and rituals of that day would certainly have to be entered into the historical record.

Though utterly exhausted, the thought that he was participating in the founding of a new imperial dynasty gave Wang Long renewed strength.

"Master, if only you could come and help plan all this!" was all Wang Long could think.

Having arranged all this, Wang Long then had to attend to a task he had personally volunteered for: waiting at Bianmen Bridge west of Chang'an for the envoy delegation from the land of Shu.

The delegation was again led by Hou Ba, which delighted Wang Long, because according to Diwu Lun's and his own expectations, once the imperial enterprise was established, the fragile alliance between Wei and Shu would be declared broken. Hou Ba and Wang Long would then serve different masters, and Hou Ba might even be used by Gongsun Shu to disgust the King of Wei.

Word might already have reached Chengdu, yet Gongsun Shu still dispatched Hou Ba.

"Elder apprentice-brother!"

When Wang Long and Hou Ba met again, after the pleasantries, Wang Long wondered inwardly, "The Gongsun Emperor has sent you north again, elder apprentice-brother — for what purpose?"

Hou Ba said with a laugh, "For what? Once the King of Wei sees the gift that His Majesty my sovereign spent enormous effort to send, trekking over mountains and rivers, he will understand his intentions!"

Following Hou Ba's gesture, Wang Long's gaze turned into the delegation, toward the strange beast penned inside the animal cage...

"A zouyu?"

"Wang Long has sent word back, reporting that Gongsun Shu has ordered Hou Ba to come present a zouyu beast. What is the meaning of this?"

Without seeing it in person, just hearing the name, Diwu Lun could not figure out what this thing was either.

Fortunately, he now had many highly cultured advisors by his side. Du Du, who had placed first in the civil service examination, immediately thought of it: "The Mao Commentary on the Odes says that the zouyu is a beast of benevolence and righteousness, with white fur and black markings, which does not eat living creatures. In Zhou times there was the zouyu banner; whenever feudal lords took up arms, once the zouyu banner appeared, they would necessarily cease hostilities and rest their troops. Gongsun Shu has specially sent an envoy to offer a zouyu — it should mean he wishes to be on good terms with Your Majesty."

"But they didn't say 'offer as tribute.'" Diwu Lun smiled. "Hou Ba said 'send.' It's entirely possible that Gongsun Shu's court historians are writing, 'In such-and-such a month of such-and-such a year, the Dragon-Rising Emperor bestowed a zouyu upon Lun, King of Wei'!"

This was precisely what Diwu Lun could not figure out. He said, "I have looked at the household registers and maps of the former dynasty. Yizhou has nine commanderies, with a total of 1.02 million households and 4.78 million people — it counts as a large province. Gongsun Shu swiftly pacified Ba and Shu, with relatively little warfare; Yuexi and Nanzhong have all submitted. Even if Zangke is still in the hands of the Gouding Kingdom, the territory under his rule still holds at least over four million people."

Though far inferior to Diwu Lun, Gongsun Shu still ranked as a second-tier power in the realm, at least no weaker than the King of Wu, Liu Xiu.

"Gongsun Shu has already established his title as Chengjia, with the reign name Dragon-Rising — this amply shows his heart harbors ambition and he is unwilling to be the king of just one corner."

"Even if Gongsun Shu does not know that I am about to proclaim myself Emperor, he cannot possibly expect me to continue as a king and submit to him, can he?"

"And if Gongsun Shu does know I am proclaiming myself Emperor, how are two Emperors to coexist? Could it be that he proclaimed himself Emperor just to get a taste of it, with no intention of proceeding to unify the realm?"

Diwu Lun looked toward Feng Yan, who, having recovered from his back injury, was again swaggering about the court. Matters of Shu still had to be asked of him — after all, Feng Yan and "Junior Guardian" Ma Yuan were the only two Wei ministers who had traveled to Chengdu to pay respects to Gongsun Shu.

Feng Yan pondered and said, "Could it be related to Gongsun Shu's defeat in his eastern campaign in early spring?"

It turned out that Gongsun Shu, heeding the advice of his Chancellor Li Xiong, had decided to first take Jing and Xiang. He therefore built ships and, in the first month, dispatched troops out of Jiang Pass to attack Yiling in Nan Commandery, intending to swallow up the King of Chuli. Instead, he was defeated by the local warlord, the Sweeping Grand General Tian Rong, and could only retreat in disarray back to Jiangzhou.

And the troops sent from eastern Hanzhong to attack Nanyang were also fiercely beaten back by the Red Eyebrow Army, whose momentum was at its peak. It was only because the Shu army had defensible terrain that they were not counter-pushed all the way back into Hanzhong by the Red Eyebrows.

Gongsun Shu's first campaign out of Shu had ended in failure on both water and land. Feng Yan felt that perhaps this Dragon-Flying Emperor had realized his own strength, understood that contending for the realm was not easy, and decided to seek peace with Diwu Lun, with whom he had not yet broken ties.

"After all, advancing north from Hanzhong into Guanzhong is even harder to fight than going east into Jingzhou. Gongsun Shu sending an envoy with a strange beast couldn't possibly be to imitate the Qin kingdom's sending of the golden oxen to attack Shu, could it!"

"But Wan Junyou is garrisoned in Right Fufeng, watching the Baoxie Road, and Cen Junran is at Lantian and Shangyu, keeping an eye on the Ziwu Road. Any stirring from the Shu army cannot escape these two generals."

Although Feng Yan had advocated contesting Hanzhong with Shu back then, the battle fought at the start of spring this year had made clear the Shu army's strength, which was not as formidable as he had imagined. If Gongsun Shu intended to maintain peace, Ba and Shu could well be left to be slowly dealt with last — after all, attacking from north to south was also fraught with difficulty.

Diwu Lun nodded. Feng Yan's view seemed somewhat reasonable, but still not comprehensive enough. He then asked Ma Yuan, who had stabilized the situation in Yuzhou, handed the front lines to the two generals Zhang Zong and Zheng Tong, and returned to attend the ceremony.

"The Minister of Guests spoke of the strategic situation. I have heard that you, Commandant of State, and Gongsun Shu were childhood friends. Judging by his temperament, what would he do?"

Ma Yuan had not been back in Guanzhong for a long time. He sat in the seat closest to Diwu Lun, and upon hearing this question, he laughed out loud: "My family and Gongsun Shu's are from the same city; our two mansions were just one street apart. My elder brother and I were on good terms with him since childhood. To put it crudely, it's a friendship of growing up bare-bottomed together!" How old Gongsun Shu was and how many moles he had on his backside — Ma Yuan knew it all clearly.

But Ma Wenyuan's expression immediately turned stern: "However, when Your Majesty previously ordered my elder brother (Ma Yuan) to enter Shu to pay a visit, after my brother returned and told me of his experience, I realized that Gongsun Shu is vastly different from before."

Ma Yuan had been looking forward to talking freely and unrestrainedly with Gongsun Shu as in the old days, but Gongsun Shu now styled himself the "White Emperor" and put on great imperial airs. He received Ma Yuan as he would a foreign guest, ushering him into the guest residence with grand ceremony, and then, as a matter of routine, had him join his own hundred officials in sacrificing at the ancestral temple, enfeoffing lords, and conferring titles. After that, nothing remained but diplomatic and sovereign-minister relations.

The bond of fellow townsmen and the affection of childhood friends were utterly gone. A man wholly devoted to ostentation, a man wholly devoted to displaying personal dignity and awe-inspiring authority — hearing of it left Ma Yuan somewhat disappointed.

"When he was Governor, he could still treat worthy men with courtesy, but now he is entirely different. Now, when the realm's supremacy between male and female is not yet decided, Gongsun Shu does not spit out his food and rush out to welcome scholars of the realm, to work with them to determine success or failure. Instead, he fusses over appearances and puts on airs. How can he long retain the realm's men of talent? I therefore knew he could not last."

"Since Your Majesty asks me, what sort of man is Gongsun Shu? Combining my past acquaintance with his present transformation, I venture to offer one assessment..."

"Gongsun Ziyang is but a frog at the bottom of a well, absurdly self-important!"

That idiom sounds so familiar — I hadn't even gotten around to inventing it yet. So it was you, venerable elder, who contributed it? Then I'll cede it to you, won't fight you for it. Diwu Lun nodded: "A frog may be small, yet always thinks itself the largest."

"Now that his eastern thrust has been thwarted, he should have learned the dangers beyond the well. Will he suddenly see the light, or will he want to try in other directions? And thus send an envoy to make me lower my guard?"

Ma Yuan said, "It should be the latter."

Diwu Lun then looked again at Feng Yan: "What does the Minister of Guests think?"

In the past, Feng Yan would certainly have stuck to his own view, jumping up to argue with Ma Yuan. But today the sun had risen from the west — Feng Yan thought for a moment and actually said: "Though I have some understanding of the situation in Shu, after all I do not know Gongsun Shu's temperament. On the matter of the man himself, the Commandant of State's words are more appropriate."

Now that was strange! Diwu Lun could not help but cast a few extra glances at Feng Yan. After not seeing him for over half a year, the dog-headed strategist seemed to have shed much of his prickly temper. Had overturning in Shangdang not only wrenched his back but also smoothed his disposition into something more slick?

Ah, no longer adorable.

"Unsolicited attentiveness is either treachery or thievery."

That being the case, Diwu Lun also heightened his vigilance against Gongsun Shu. In the latter half of the year, he was going to make a move on Longyou. According to intelligence from spies, envoys between Long and Shu were traveling very frequently via Wudu Commandery. Although it was not easy for Gongsun Shu to strike north from Hanzhong, if he went via Mount Qi from Wudu, and the Long troops did not block him, it would be quite easy.

Here he was deliberating with his ministers on how to deal with the Gongsun delegation, while Wang Long, having greeted Hou Ba, was already approaching Chang'an.

Diwu Lun's reception of an old friend was utterly different from Gongsun Shu's — it was always private before public. He received Hou Ba in the corridor rooms of Jianzhang Palace, with no grand ceremony and no excessive retinue or pomp. Diwu Lun himself merely wore a distant-travel cap and casual clothes, standing outside the door to welcome his elder apprentice-brother with a smile.

Yet it was only when the three apprentice-brothers met face to face that Diwu Lun realized a colossal blunder had occurred.

"What I've brought isn't a zouyu beast — I've come to report an urgent matter."

Wang Long begged Diwu Lun's forgiveness: "I only remembered what the Mao Poetry says — that the zouyu has a tiger's body, a lion's head, white fur, and black stripes. I forgot that Liu Xin's collated Classic of Mountains also says the zouyu has five tails longer than its body. The strange beast sent from Shu, though clearly black and white, has almost no tail at all…"

"Exactly."

Hou Ba explained the misunderstanding: "Back when Your Majesty was still in Xuanming Ward, didn't you once ask the Master whether there were black-and-white bears in Shu?"

"When we escorted the coffin into Shu, Your Majesty asked again at Pi County, and the Dragon-Flying Emperor took note of it then. Hearing that Your Majesty had campaigned to pacify You and Ji, and having nothing else to offer in congratulations, he ordered men to scour the mountains and comb the forests in the western reaches of Shu Commandery. At last, on Mount Qionglai, they found two fierce black-and-white beasts. Bear-like, but with small heads and low-set legs, mottled black and white, their fur short and glossy. They can lick and eat copper, iron, bamboo, bones, snakes, and vipers. He specially dispatched me to present them, to forge goodwill between our two states."

Diwu Lun pieced together the information from both men's accounts — black and white, short stubby tails, short legs, eat bamboo… then wouldn't that be…

A day later, when Diwu Lun, full of interest, made his way to the long-empty "bear pen" in Shanglin Park and saw the two gaunt, scrawny round creatures after their ordeal of the journey, he only wanted to throw Hou Ba's words back at him.

"These are what you call 'fierce beasts'?"

…

They were indeed two pandas, but nothing like the adorably clumsy creatures of later-era breeding centers. They hadn't yet learned to play cute; they were still somewhat wild and untamed. Inside the bear pen, they bared their teeth, threatening anyone who tried to approach.

Yet Diwu Lun stood with his hands clasped behind his back, watching them with keen interest for a long while. He grew more and more baffled as to what Gongsun Shu was really up to. Such painstaking effort — even if he meant to lull him into complacency, wasn't this trying a bit too hard?

The two pandas kept strangers at bay — the sole exception being the man who had tamed them. He was a short, stocky, honest-looking fellow, carrying bundles of Shanglin bamboo and tossing them into the bear pen. His strength was clearly considerable. The two round creatures were not shy with him either, often pawing at his legs and rubbing against them.

The King of Wei found this amusing and asked Hou Ba what the man was called.

"Jiang Zuomei."

Hou Ba introduced him: "He was originally a hunter on Mount Qionglai. He's the one who led the men to find these 'pandas.' A stout fellow — I saw with my own eyes him carrying livestock weighing over a hundred jin as he walked."

That was the name Diwu Lun had given the creatures. He glanced back at the pandas once more and smiled. His curiosity satisfied, he had the two round creatures settled in the Shanglin bear pen for the time being. As for the man — Diwu Lun nodded toward Zhang Yu, signaling him to assign men to keep an eye on him.

Diwu Lun then returned to the palace. A mountain of affairs still awaited him.

Inside the bear pen, the keeper Jiang Zuomei, who had seemed so diligently feeding the animals, let out a quiet sigh of relief once the King of Wei had left — and released his grip on the sharp bamboo sword he had kept hidden among the bamboo stalks the whole time.

The King of Wei was far too vigilant. Even coming to see a panda, he had guards in attendance. Among those who had come from Shu, apart from Hou Ba, a scholar with no thought of harming anyone, no one could get close to Diwu Lun!

"There will be a chance."

"The King of Wei is clearly very fond of these beasts. If he came to see them once, he'll come a second time."

Jiang Zuomei stroked the panda. He would have to be as harmless as the creature itself.

He only felt a secret regret. As a death-sworn assassin kept by Emperor Gongsun, Jiang Zuomei's mission was hardly as simple as looking after these two stupid beasts — it was to wait for an opportunity…

"To emulate Yao Li's assassination of Qingji!"