Chapter 441: The Assassin's Creed

As the first man of a different surname to declare himself Emperor, Gongsun Shu had found the last half-year exceedingly rough going.

That black-hearted Diwu Lun, the moment his Hongmen coup entered Chang'an, rounded up the protesting Han loyalist elders in one sweep and sent them all off to meet Emperor Wu of Han; the dissident turncoats north of the Wei had also been pretty well rooted out. After the Chang'an folk south of the Wei had starved for nearly half a year, the scholars had long since lost the courage to "eat no grain of Wei." When the King of Wei let slip word that he would proclaim himself Emperor, only men like Ban Biao secretly grumbled in their hearts — at most they resigned office to show protest.

But in Shu, which had barely known the chaos of war, the famed scholars, well fed and watered, often still yearned for the Han and found all sorts of ways to refuse serving the new regime.

Gongsun Shu sent men to recruit scholars from every quarter into the new government, and every time he got a face full of dust; these old fellows had turned declining office into a performance art.

And so this sort of exchange kept recurring: "We wished to make Li Ye of Zitong an Erudite. Summoned repeatedly, he always pleaded illness. The court, coveting his renowned virtue, left the post vacant. Has this summons brought him in?"

"Your Majesty, Li Ye is dead."

"How did he die!?"

"Li Ye repeatedly feigned illness and refused. Did Your Majesty not grow angry at the time? You sent an envoy bearing poison to compel his obedience. If he agreed, he would be granted the rank of duke or marquis; if he refused, he would be given poisoned wine."

"Who could have guessed that Li Ye would say, 'A gentleman takes office to relieve the realm's peril — where is it written that one uses high office and rich emoluments as bait to coerce?' And then add, 'A name may be completed, not destroyed; a body may be killed, not disgraced.' With that he seized the poisoned wine and died; the envoy tried to stop him but could not."

After Li Ye's death, Gongsun Shu, fearing the name of a slayer of worthies, sent men to offer condolences and presented a hundred bolts of cloth, but the Li family fled elsewhere and steadfastly refused to accept.

With this one death, the Gongsun Emperor's reputation in Yizhou's scholarly circles was thoroughly ruined. Even those with no attachment to the Former Han now thought Gongsun Shu too narrow-minded to accomplish great things. The ancients said, "Enter not a state in peril, dwell not in a state in chaos," and so a great variety of methods for avoiding office blossomed, played out in ever more elaborate ways.

Take, for instance, the great scholar Fei Yi of Qianwei Commandery, who fled deep into the mountains to live as a recluse. Gongsun Shu sent men to track him down and invite him, and arrested his wife and children as hostages to coerce him. Yet this man smeared lacquer-tree sap all over his own body until his skin everywhere festered into leprous sores, and he let his hair hang loose, feigning madness to escape. Gongsun Shu could hardly make trouble for a madman, and had to let the matter drop.

There was one even more extreme: Ren Yong, a lofty scholar also of Qianwei Commandery, excelled in calendrical calculations and was famed throughout Yizhou. He could deduce the seasons and nodal qi, compute the movements of sun and moon, and was thoroughly versed in era calendars. Gongsun Shu, being rather superstitious, needed precisely such a man, and sent men to invite him. But Ren Yong pretended he had contracted glaucoma and could not see, and that his ears had gone deaf so he could not distinguish sounds.

Gongsun Shu might not have been much at other things, but his secret-police politics were played rather well. He dispatched death-sworn agents to watch the Ren household and see whether the man's eye affliction was real or feigned.

This surveillance, as it happened, uncovered a monumental ethical scandal!

"Your Majesty, Ren Yong's wife is a slut. Taking advantage of his deafness and blindness, she openly brought her lover home to fornicate. Ren Yong was sitting right there in the courtyard; the two of them swaggered past him into the inner chamber, laughing and giggling without pause for a full half-watch, and Ren Yong remained utterly oblivious."

"And then his son fell into a well and cried out frantically for help, but Ren Yong did not hear that either. It was the surveillance man who could bear it no longer and stepped in to help. From this it would seem the afflictions of blindness and deafness are genuine."

"A pitiable man, too." After hearing this sorrowful tale, Gongsun Shu's heart softened, and he did not press Ren Yong further — he only found it strange.

"Why is it that every time We issue a summons, these famed scholars contract dire maladies?"

The sycophants at court thereupon said: "It is because their virtue is insufficient; they lack the blessed fortune to serve as Your Majesty's officials, and so affliction befalls them."

"Perhaps that is truly the case." Gongsun Shu could only stroke his jade imperial seal, sighing endlessly.

Domestically he had failed to win the hearts of Yizhou's famed scholars, and the external war was not going smoothly either.

The previous year, Gongsun Shu and his Chancellor Li Xiong had settled on a strategy: "Make peace with the various Rong in the west, soothe the Yi and Yue in the south, stabilize the interior, and then advance south down the river to take Nan Commandery, straddling both Jing and Yi provinces."

To this end, Gongsun Shu specially dispatched Li Xiong and others to Yufu in Ba Commandery to build "White Emperor City," where troops were garrisoned and trained. At Jiangzhou (Chongqing) he had great warships built for a riverine force. After a winter of preparation, when spring opened they sailed downstream, passed through the Three Gorges, and attacked Nan Commandery, which was under the control of the King of Chu.

They had assumed that the Chu kingdom, a mere petty local lord, would docilely submit once the towered warships sailed east. Who could have guessed that Chu's resistance would be so resolute? Tian Rong, the King of Chu Qin Feng's son-in-law and Sweeping General, routed the Shu army at Yiling, and the entire fleet Gongsun Shu had built was completely wiped out!

Meanwhile, the land force probing eastward from Hanzhong was also dealt a painful blow by the Red Eyebrows and retreated in frustration.

This sent the confidence of the "Chengjia" court officials plummeting. As summer set in, Gongsun Shu heard that Diwu Lun had swept through You and Ji provinces, and he burned with envy and admiration. He sent Hou Ba as an envoy to deliver a panda to Diwu Lun.

As the fifth month drew near, Gongsun Shu, during an internal court conference, clutched his jade seal and suddenly asked: "Since advancing south down the river to shake Jingzhou is temporarily disadvantageous, and building a new fleet would take another year or half, rather than wait idly and waste time, We intend to first cross the mountains northward to strike the Three Qin — what say you all?"

…

At these words from Gongsun Shu, the assembled ministers were all stunned!

They could not even defeat the tiny Chu kingdom, and now he wanted to butt heads with the mighty King of Wei? The ministers immediately objected, saying things like: "Of old, when King Wu of Zhou attacked Yin, he first reviewed the troops at Mengjin. The eight hundred lords all spoke with one voice in support, yet King Wu deemed the moment not yet ripe. Now Your Majesty should first cultivate virtue and righteousness and await Heaven's timing."

"Your Majesty, these ministers are betraying the state — I beg you to execute them!"

A voice rang out in the court hall. It was the Cavalry Commandant Jing Han, a man Gongsun Shu trusted deeply. He had been a retainer who followed Gongsun Shu for over ten years, said to be a descendant of the assassin Jing Ke, and now he had taken up the ancestral trade again, training a large corps of utterly loyal death-sworn agents for Gongsun Shu.

Jing Han was also the most ardent war hawk at court. He said: "Two years ago, the King of Wei did not yet hold a foot of land or a shred of authority; he merely drove a few tens of thousands of Boar-Rush Braves, pressed from within by powerful local clans and beset from without by Liu Bosheng's troops. At that moment, Wei Ao had set up Liu Ying and carved out a domain in Liangzhou, his soldiers strong and his scholars loyal. Instead of seizing that moment to ride victory and surge forward to contend for Heaven's mandate, he retreated, aspiring to the enterprise of the Western Earl, and sat watching as Liu Bosheng was defeated and Diwu Lun unified the Sili region. Consequently he even lost Youfufeng and is now confined to Longyou."

"Now Diwu Lun has swept across Hebei and holds one-third of all under Heaven. If Your Majesty heeds the ministers' words and, because of a minor defeat on the southern front, lays down arms to cultivate civil refinements, prattling on with those sermons about King Wu, then by the time Diwu Lun has fully taken Yong and Liang and sealed off all the northern routes, the great enterprise will never again have a chance to break out northward — you will be trapped to death in Shu!"

Though his words had merit, those opposing war were simply too many. Even Gongsun Shu's two younger brothers urged him: "Your Majesty, it is not fitting to empty a realm of a thousand li and stake success or failure on a single throw."

The plan to march north from Hanzhong was thus shelved. However, after the ministers withdrew, Gongsun Shu kept Jing Han behind alone, and Jing Han proposed another stratagem: "As this minister reckons, the King of Wei's next step will surely be to strike west against Long. If he seizes Longyou and Liangzhou, then half the Han realm will already be in his hands."

Jing Han said: "In this minister's foolish estimation, we should, while Longyou still has the strength to fight, do everything we can to help, maintaining the balance between Guan and Long and preserving Wei Ao!"

At the mention of the Wei clan, Gongsun Shu grew angry: "But Wei Ao is fickle and inconstant. He accepted the title 'King of Shuoning' that We conferred, but he has not made it public, and to this day he still has not deposed Liu Ying."

Jing Han said: "For now Wei Ao still harbors wishful illusions and is unwilling to bear the opprobrium of abolishing the Han. But when Diwu Lun launches his western campaign and destruction looms, Wei Ao will surely abandon Han and submit to Chengjia!"

Therefore Chengjia needed to shift its focus: stockpile more grain and fodder in Hanzhong and Wudu, train troops, and wait for Diwu Lun to open hostilities with Longyou. If the Wei army could be dealt a severe blow in the Long region, then the Shu army might just have an opportunity to march north.

Gongsun Shu nodded, then asked Jing Han: "Does my minister think the matter of assassinating the King of Wei, Diwu Lun, can succeed?"

Jing Han, true to his descent from Jing Ke, not only vigorously advocated external expansion but further proposed that they should emulate the lords of the Spring and Autumn and Warring States periods and employ certain special methods — such as assassination! — to create a winning advantage for their own side.

"Of old, Zhuan Zhu assassinated King Liao, and Yao Li assassinated Qingji — both turned the situation around in a single stroke, achieving great results with little effort."

In Jing Han's view, Diwu Lun's Wei state appeared mighty but was in fact extremely fragile. The various factions, generals, and ministers in Hebei and the Five Tombs region were all gathered solely through the person of Diwu Lun. Once the King of Wei died, his sons were young and weak, and the great officials under him would each carve out their own territories; the whole power structure would vanish like smoke.

"Did the ministers not oppose staking success or failure on a single throw? Indeed, if a great army is launched on campaign, over months and years it will surely cause fathers and mothers, husbands and wives, to have their livers and brains smeared on the ground, worn to exhaustion on the Shu roads and Sword Pavilion. Compared to that, assassination, whether it succeeds or fails, costs at most the lives of one or two loyal men — what harm does it do to Shu's vitality?"

Yet Jing Han also had to admit: "But even though the death-sworn agents have trained for years deep in the Qiong Mountains, there are always cases where a single misstep in the strike brings failure on the verge of success. That is why there was my ancestor Jing Ke's failed attempt on the Qin king, and Zhang Liang's iron hammer at Bolangsha striking the secondary carriage by mistake."

"I have heard that the King of Wei, Diwu Lun, has always been cautious. Even if assassins can establish themselves in Guanzhong, they will not easily find an opening. Therefore, in this minister's view, we must still make more preparations. The blades of Shu's assassins should not only be aimed at the King of Wei, Diwu Lun, but also at the great generals under his command! A general is the heart of the three armies; if a general loses his life, the army's morale can be seized!"

Gongsun Shu nodded: "Then in my minister's view, who else can be assassinated?"

Men like Cen Peng, mere unranked miscellaneous-title generals, were naturally not worth the trouble. Jing Han's gaze fixed only on those few heavy-title generals of Wei.

Jing Han said: "There is one man. Though he is a fellow townsman from Maoling, of the same county as Your Majesty, he is Diwu Lun's right-hand man, and also a theater commander. If he can be killed at an opportune moment when Wei attacks Longyou, it will surely throw the Wei army into great turmoil."

"And this minister has also made inquiries. The man is chivalrous, loyal, and sincere, easy to approach. If we can have a death-sworn agent pose as a wandering knight-errant who admires his name and comes to join him, we might find an opening!"

…

The towering Qionglai Mountains, later ages' "Four Maidens Mountain," are the snow mountains closest to the Chengdu plain. Here live tribes of the White Horse Qiang and the Di; the scenery is exquisite, and in the fourth month of summer the grasses and trees are still not fully green. Between the silver-summitted snow peaks lie many deep ravines. This was also the place where Jing Han secretly raised death-sworn agents for Gongsun Shu.

When, in late fourth month, Jing Han returned to the Qionglai Mountains by order and reached "Hunter's Peak," he beheld a startling sight: the young death-sworn agents were climbing the soaring peak, then standing on a jutting crag called "Eagle's Beak Rock," lining up to jump off.

This was a method of forging courage. So long as one held faith in one's heart, loyal to the Gongsun Emperor, one would plunge into the deep water below and emerge completely unharmed. But if one shrank back in fear, if one's resolve wavered, then even if one did not fall onto the rocky shoal and be smashed to pieces, the impact with the water's surface would jolt one to death!

Jing Han's gaze settled on a lithe, vigorous figure. He watched as the man expertly spread his arms and leaped straight down toward the pool below!

In the sky above, a black-eared kite soared; the death-sworn agent, too, plummeted vertically like a hawk diving for its prey. If you listened closely, you almost seemed to hear a hawk's long cry ringing by your ear!

With a splash the man hit the water, and only after a long moment did his head break the surface, winning cheers from the brothers on the mountain and below — though they shared no blood ties, they were required to address one another as brothers.

Jing Han smiled. The death-sworn agents here had originally numbered two hundred, all of them orphans whose parents had perished in the Xin dynasty's campaigns against the Gouding kingdom — children left utterly alone and helpless. The Gongsun Emperor needed men like these, because those whose hearts are tied to family left behind can never possess absolute, unflinching resolve.

The two hundred orphans trained in the Qionglai Mountains, where death and injury were frequent. The few dozen who remained were as if forged from iron, honed day after day until they were agile and swift, especially adept at climbing.

After completing the first stage of training, they were brought to the bustling city of Chengdu, where Jing Han demanded they find a way to survive for three days without a single coin.

By stealing, by robbing, by cheating — anything was allowed. The only requirement was...

"Do not get caught!"

Once captured, a death warrior lost all value. Even if they were lucky enough not to be beaten to death, they could only be used as a common soldier.

In the end, only a scant dozen or so passed the trial. They could now move through the city like fish slipping into the sea, equally skilled at scaling walls and climbing to the city's vantage points.

Each death warrior was like a sharp arrow meticulously crafted by Gongsun Shu and Jing Han. Once the moment was ripe, they would be loosed upon the enemies of Emperor Gongsun.

In ordinary times, Jing Han would also instill in them a sense of gratitude toward Gongsun Shu, and teach them the conviction of the Warring States scholar-knights: "Their word must be trusted, their actions must bear fruit, their promises must be sincere. They do not begrudge their bodies, rushing to the aid of a scholar in dire straits, already having accepted both survival and death."

"The wind sighs, the Yi River is cold — the brave man departs, never to return!"

When there was no target, they would spend years practicing how to kill. Combat techniques were fundamental, and these death warriors favored a wide variety of weapons: from short swords hidden in sleeves to axes and broken spears — all were common, each designed for a single, fatal strike.

Today, the young assassin most adept at leaping demonstrated a new weapon he had invented to Jing Han.

With a light scrape of his foot, a sharp blade emerged from the sole of his boot. As the youth suddenly launched a flying kick, it cleanly severed a tree branch in two!

"What is this thing?" Jing Han asked, touching the smooth cut on the branch.

"This is a boot blade," the young assassin named "Shao Yun" reported proudly.

Like Jiang Zuomei, who had been sent to await a chance to assassinate the King of Wei, Shao Yun was among the finest of Gongsun's death warriors, and a candidate Jing Han had selected for a mission.

When he heard his turn had come, the assassin, long since indoctrinated and ready at any moment to die for Emperor Gongsun, showed no fear in his eyes. Instead, he asked eagerly, "Who does Emperor Gongsun wish this lowly one to kill?"

Jing Han spoke the name.

"The Wei Guard General, Wan Xiu!"

PS: The second chapter will be up in the middle of the night.

At that time, Ren Yong of Qianwei and his fellow commandery man Feng Xin both shared a love of broad antiquity. Gongsun Shu repeatedly summoned them, offering high positions, but both feigned blindness to escape the troubles of the world. When Yong's wife committed adultery before him, he concealed the truth and said nothing; when he saw his son fall into a well, he steeled himself and did not save him. Xin's serving maid likewise fornicated with Xin. — The Book of the Later Han, Biographies of the Solitary.