Chapter 484: Impossible to Guard Against

"I never imagined the rebellion in Zhuo Commandery would stem from such a ridiculous cause."

Early in the first month of the second year of Wude, Geng Chun, who had already withdrawn south to Julu Commandery with the Jizhou troops, received a letter from Jing Dan. It detailed how, after Geng Chun's departure, the Youzhou soldiers had stormed Zhuo County, capturing and executing the rebel leader Zhang Feng.

It turned out that Zhang Feng, the Governor of Zhuo Commandery, was obsessed with esoteric arts. He had met a mystic who told him that the age lacked true heroes — that Diwu Lun and Liu Xiu were far inferior to Liu Bang and Xiang Yu, that the true Son of Heaven had yet to appear, and that every man still had his chance.

The mystic then gave him a stone wrapped in a five-colored pouch, calling it a "Nüwa Sky-Mending Stone," and tied it to Zhang Feng's elbow. He claimed there was a beautiful jade inside the stone, and that if Zhang Feng tempered it with his ambition, he could refine an imperial seal from it — one that would let Zhang Feng become Emperor.

Zhang Feng actually believed it and rushed headlong into rebellion. Even as the city fell, he still pinned his hopes on the elbow-stone unleashing its power. Jing Dan had someone smash it open — there was nothing inside.

Zhang Feng stood dumbstruck. This "Supreme Grand General" had failed at stone-gambling and artifact-refining, and now he had truly lost his head.

"There really are too many mystics in Yan, Qi, and Zhao." After laughing, Geng Chun reflected that this was no isolated case. The petty kings sprouting up across this land were each more superstitious than the last. It started with his own uncle, the King of Zhending, Liu Yang, who actually believed a tumor was an auspicious omen. These people already harbored ambition; once the mystics stirred them up with spirits, Heaven's will, and prophetic texts, they believed with absolute conviction.

"It is fortunate that His Majesty is young, has no interest whatsoever in mystics, and absolutely does not believe in prophetic texts."

As could be seen from his high-handed, unreasonable appropriation of all Five Powers, Diwu Lun was a pragmatist in matters of faith. He would not openly oppose them, but toward the Yan and Qi mystics who tried to deceive him, he treated them with utter contempt.

At this thought, Geng Chun asked the visitor from Youzhou with curiosity: "Do you know what gift Lord Sun received from His Majesty?"

The retainer sent by Jing Dan replied: "An old feathered cloak."

"A feathered cloak?" Geng Chun was slightly surprised, but quickly grasped the meaning. He clapped his hands: "So that's it."

He recalled that year when, implicated by the flight of Ma Yuan and Wan Xiu, Diwu Lun had been arrested and thrown into the office of the Master of Fates of the Five Majesties. Geng Chun and Jing Dan had then gathered the Filial and Incorrupt nominees and Palace Gentlemen, and together with the Imperial Academy students, they went to the Master of Fates to protest, demanding Diwu Lun's release.

It had been a bitterly cold night. When the Master of Fates, unable to withstand the pressure, finally released Diwu Lun, Jing Dan was the first to step forward and drape the feathered cloak he had long prepared over Diwu Lun, who had been freezing for two days.

At that moment, it must have been very warm.

Diwu Lun treasured that old feathered cloak. It was said that even after becoming Emperor, he still often wore it — yet now he had sent it to Jing Dan.

Geng Chun thought to himself: "Because His Majesty knows that for Lord Jing Sun, these past two winters have been far too cold. He desperately needs someone to drape a garment over him."

The peak of Jing Dan's life had been the Battle of Tongyuan, where he won instant renown. But just when everyone thought he would rise to become one of the most capable generals, Jing Dan's luck turned sour. He failed for ages to take Jingxing, missed the major battles of the Hebei campaign, and after becoming Inspector of Youzhou, presided over the largest rebellion since the dynasty's founding.

On top of that, Jing Dan had long been ill and fretted over state affairs. During the siege of Zhuo County, he often went sleepless through the night, worsening his condition. He could only keep going by relying on the Liaodong ginseng Diwu Lun had sent him, terrified of failing his lord's generous trust and heavy charge.

Sure enough, the visitor said that besides the old feathered cloak, Diwu Lun had also given Jing Dan a poem.

"How well your black robe suits you — worn, I shall make it anew for you."

"I go to your official lodge — returning, I shall give you a fine feast."

The original meaning was a wife exhorting her husband: as you toil on official business far from home, do not mind if your clothes wear thin and old — when you return, I will sew you new ones. Diwu Lun meant to tell Jing Dan through this that preserving his own health mattered most.

"But the more this is so, the more ashamed Lord Sun will feel, and the harder he will drive himself."

Geng Chun felt that with Jing Dan so plagued by illness, he likely could not hold on much longer. When the fighting eased somewhat this year, the chief official of Youzhou might truly need to be replaced. He only wondered whether it would be Kou Xun, who had performed brilliantly in the pacification, or someone else.

And what gift had he, Geng Chun, received?

In truth, what Diwu Lun had sent him was not a thing, but a person!

It must be said, after Geng Chun had put down the Tongma bandits the previous year and saw that Liu Ziyu had nearly destroyed his ancestral home in Songzi, he simply announced that the Geng clan would move away from Hebei entirely.

This stirred up complaints within the clan. What enormous sacrifices the Geng clan of Julu had made to bring down Liu Ziyu! They had severed ties with their Liu in-laws, their fortified manors and fields had been broken by the Tongma, and many of their sons had followed Geng Chun into the thick of battle, braving arrows and stones. Was it not all for the day of victory, to return to the land where their ancestors had dwelt, and by relying on official posts and backing in the State of Wei, to flourish alongside the dynasty and once more stand above others?

Now Geng Chun wanted them to move away — what difference was there between them and those various Hebei Lius of fallen kingdoms? Had Geng Chun not arranged a child-marriage alliance with the Emperor? What was he afraid of?

Of course he had to be afraid. The lessons of the previous dynasty were plain to see: the closer one was to the imperial in-laws, the more one had to fear; the closer one was to the imperial in-laws, the harder it was to endure!

Geng Chun now even somewhat regretted that earlier agreement. Back then, Diwu Lun's entry into the capital had been a near-certain death sentence. It was with the thought of "I shall raise your child as my own" that Geng Chun had resolutely accepted the marriage pact. Who could have known Diwu Lun would reach the heights he stood at today?

If clansmen and retainers, presuming on this special connection, grew arrogant and reckless, fell back into old habits, and continued acting as local tyrants in Hebei — annexing land, bullying men and violating women — then things would become truly troublesome. Geng Chun already wielded sole military and civil authority over Jizhou, which drew plenty of envious eyes. Did he want the baskets of slanderous memorials to multiply?

So he set aside his usual kindness and leniency, and with ruthless resolve, he drove out every member of the Geng clan. The old, weak, women, and children were relocated to the sparsely populated Shang Commandery in Bingzhou. The younger ones, prone to causing trouble, were kept in the army to serve, where he could personally keep an eye on them.

He even hardened his heart and sent his own wife and children to live in the northern palace residences in Chang'an, under the fine-sounding pretext of letting his daughter grow up alongside the Crown Prince to foster affection — but in truth, they were hostages.

And now, the gift Diwu Lun gave Geng Chun was to send his wife and daughter back to Jizhou in an imperial carriage. The accompanying letter even reproached him, expounding grand principles: When I, Diwu Lun, arranged this marriage with you, Boshan, it was because I valued the fine upbringing of the Geng family. Now you have made it so your young daughter rarely sees her father from childhood — how can a sapling grow straight if it is warped?

Diwu Lun instructed Geng Chun, while managing military and civil affairs, to also put his own "house" in good order. The Emperor would take care of settling the Geng clan members who had moved to Shang Commandery, granting them properly demarcated land deeds, fields, and homes. Even Geng Chun's several younger brothers had all been given proper arrangements, to set their minds at ease.

To be reunited with his wife and daughter in the first month — for Geng Chun, this was the finest gift of all.

Yet he could not savor this brief comfort for even a moment longer. Just days after the new year began, Geng Chun received an urgent report from the northern capital, Yecheng!

"It has come."

After reading it, Geng Chun exhaled solemnly: "I can only hope that this will be Jizhou's last calamity of war!"

……

Although the "Governor of Weicheng" outranked an ordinary commandery governor, Pi Tong still suffered from insufficient seniority and was not entitled to receive the first-month gifts. He could only watch, full of envy, as two post-carriages set off for Julu and Youzhou.

He had not even been able to enjoy the new year properly. After all, the main Red Eyebrow army was right across the river at Puyang in Dong Commandery. Pi Tong and Feng Qin, the Governor of Henei, had only managed to scrape together two divisions to keep watch at the various fords on the north bank. But as the first month arrived, the great river froze to its most solid period, and every day new stretches of ice became passable on foot. For a time, the Wei army was stretched dangerously thin.

Fortunately, after his early battles with the Red Eyebrow forces under Chi Zhaoping, Diwu Lun had summed up a lesson: the only thing that could resist the Red Eyebrows' surging flood was the vast ocean formed by the organized common people of Hebei!

To expect the inefficient feudal bureaucracy to handle all of this on its own was clearly wishful thinking. So they had to rely on the help of the local powers — they, after all, were the ones who feared the Red Eyebrows most, and were therefore quite motivated.

Thus, on the foundation of the tithing system, each village and hamlet established a brand-new "mutual responsibility system": every hundred households formed one jia, every thousand households one bao. The local gentry and worthies who actively cooperated with the Wei regime transformed overnight into "Jia Chief Li" and "Bao Chief Wang."

Their main task was to assist the village heads and township bailiffs in coordinating the militia and village braves.

"The Jizhou troops have not yet returned, and General Ma is defending Chenliu. Wei Commandery and Henei may only have two divisions of regular soldiers, but the militia and village braves of the various bao and jia together number two hundred thousand! And many of them took part in last year's Hebei campaign, transporting grain."

Pi Tong could only bolster his own spirits this way. He had also written to Ma Yuan, pointing out that after their setbacks in the Central Plains, the Red Eyebrows might advance into Hebei, and he hoped Ma Yuan could send a division or two as reinforcements.

Failing that, even just dispatching Gai Yan's three thousand Yuyang shock cavalry to Yecheng would do. The enormous quantities of fodder and grain they consumed — though the northern capital was not wealthy, it could still grit its teeth and cover it!

But Ma Yuan simply ignored such an obvious gap, making the excuse that he was only in charge of the Central Plains, not Jizhou, and that they must abide by the rules and not overstep their authority. Who knew what he was scheming?

What ill intent could Ma Yuan possibly harbor? After turning it over in his mind, Pi Tong could only guess at one terrifying possibility: "Last time, Ma Wenyuan used Aocang as bait and only lured a detached Red Eyebrow force. He wouldn't be repeating his old trick, using the northern capital as bait to fish once more, would he!"

At this thought, Pi Tong grew increasingly uneasy. On one hand, he urged Geng Chun's Jizhou troops to speed south; on the other, he drafted a memorial to report to the Emperor and seek confirmation, all while nervously watching the Yellow River.

But a thousand li of river defense is, in the end, impossible to fully secure! On the second day of the first month, after Pi Tong had finished his day's administrative work and drifted into a groggy sleep, his bed had barely warmed when he was woken by urgent knocking. He learned the news: the Red Eyebrows had crossed the ice and entered Wei Commandery!

Pi Tong was frantic: "What of the divisions and brigades and the mutual responsibility corps along the banks?"

"Grand Governor, the Red Eyebrows split their forces, crossing in units of a thousand men each. Though the riverbank defenses managed to block over ten such units with all their might, several dozen still crossed at undefended points. The mutual responsibility corps were no match and nearly got encircled and wiped out by the bandits. They could only retreat into the walled towns and fortified manors, and watch helplessly as the Red Eyebrows poured past."

Pi Tong felt his head spin. What was bound to come had come: "Exactly how many have reached Wei territory?"

"Impossible to count — perhaps dozens, perhaps over a hundred units?"

"Tens of thousands? Over a hundred thousand?" Pi Tong was horrified. The Red Eyebrows were coming north in full force, with every intention of gorging themselves on Wei territory.

He immediately said: "Send riders north and south — to Henei, to Luoyang, to General Ma, to Chancellor Geng — beg for reinforcements! The utmost urgency!"

"Forget the river defenses." Pi Tong could no longer concern himself with the bigger picture. As Governor of Wei, he now had only one thing to consider.

"Pull all outer perimeter troops back. Hold the Northern Capital to the death!"

Pi Tong ground his teeth: "Yecheng is where His Majesty's dragon rose and phoenix soared, the very seat of the Great Wei's dynastic fortune — it must not, under any circumstances, be lost!"

……

A familiar place, a familiar frozen river, familiar red-painted brows, and that familiar exorcist mask — Chi Zhaoping's mask, though its colors had faded badly.

Chengtou Zilu stared at the mask in his hands. He remembered: five years ago, when he followed Chi Zhaoping to strike Wei Commandery, it had been the same filthy frozen river. The Red Eyebrow fighters had crossed it on foot, reached the far bank — and plunged straight into Diwu Lun's ambush. A bitter battle followed, and the Red Eyebrows were routed.

Chengtou Zilu himself, even before crossing the river, had been preemptively attacked by Ma Yuan. His forces scattered. By the time he reached the far bank of the battlefield, all he could do was watch that tragic scene unfold:

Chi Zhaoping, without hesitation, threw herself into the river. Thousands died with her.

That was the nightmare of Chengtou Zilu's life. Round and round he had wandered — and now, at last, he was back!

This winter was even more bitterly cold. Around the first month of the year, the river had frozen far more solidly than that year. The initiative now lay in the attackers' hands.

And after years of tempering, after scores of battles against the Wei army, Chengtou Zilu had become a master of "roving warfare." Even Ma Yuan, when he was at Xindu, could do nothing about him. Liu Ziyu had been destroyed, yet Chengtou Zilu and his followers remained intact. Turning to join forces with Fan Chong, they shed the name "Bronze Horses" and became Red Eyebrows once more.

"Great King…"

"Don't call me Great King anymore." Chengtou Zilu cared little for royal titles. "King of Jibei" was what Liu Ziyu had enfeoffed him. Now, among the Red Eyebrows, his title was "Sixth Duke."

"Sixth Duke, our five ten-thousand-man camps, divided into fifty companies — except for a dozen or so companies blocked and turned back by Wei troops and militiamen along the river, the rest have all crossed!"

Indeed, Chengtou Zilu already stood on the north bank of the great river. He could now gather his forces, scattered to cross as fragments, still over thirty thousand strong — turn around, strike back, and grind against the Wei troops and baojia militia holding the riverbank, pinning them down so Fan Chong's hundred thousand and more could advance north at their leisure.

But Yuan Zeng did not do so. He knew perfectly well: in Wei Commandery and Henei, ruled by Diwu Lun for so many years, even if the Red Eyebrows numbered a hundred thousand, two hundred thousand, they were still the minority. The locals did not welcome them. Powerful clans and common folk alike would raise the cry against every Red Eyebrow. What good would Fan Chong's arrival do? The enemy would surely strengthen their walls and clear the fields. Once the river thawed, would they not be caught between the Wei army's two great corps — You and Ji provinces, and the Central Plains?

He and Fan Chong were both old foxes who had fought for seven or eight years. They would not do anything so foolish.

"The river defenses are so lax — Grand Duke, Wei Commandery may be, like Aocang, bait!"

Chengtou Zilu remembered: half a month ago, when he met Fan Chong at Puyang, he had pointed this out.

"Ma Yuan deliberately placed his main force at Chenliu — neither relieving Puyang nor defending Wei Commandery — precisely to lure us north across the river in search of food."

Fan Chong had been shocked then: "Yecheng is Wei's Northern Capital. Would Ma Yuan dare?"

Chengtou Zilu was certain: "Another man might not. But Ma Wenyuan's gall is bigger than the sky — is there anything he would not dare?"

Yet knowing this perfectly well, Chengtou Zilu still resolved to be the little fish that took the hook!

"Fighting Ma Yuan, you can only match him in sheer audacity. Drag it out, and defeat is certain."

Chengtou Zilu laid out his plan to Fan Chong: "From what I know of Ma Yuan, once he learns the Red Eyebrows have crossed north, he will not cross the river first to strike me."

"Ma Yuan's whole life, he has loved fighting the big battle!"

The one who knows you best is often your mortal enemy. As Ma Yuan's old adversary of many years, Chengtou Zilu said: "Ma Wenyuan will march along the south bank toward Puyang, aiming to cut off our retreat! That way, he can annihilate the Red Eyebrows entirely north of the river!"

A man born by the sea indeed — Fan Chong grasped Chengtou Zilu's plan at once: "When Ma Yuan reaches out to draw the net, he will discover: behind the little fish, there is also a sea-dragon's blood-dripping maw, biting down on him fast!"

Chengtou Zilu felt he had found a kindred spirit: "Exactly. We feint with over a hundred thousand men moving north. I cross the river as a roving force, making as if to strike straight at Yecheng, ravaging their villages and towns, throwing their rear into chaos, tying down the Ji Province troops, and fighting them north of the river."

"While you, Grand Duke, with the Red Eyebrow main force, fight the decisive battle against Ma Yuan south of the river!"

Fan Chong was uneasy: "If you guess wrong, and Ma Yuan does come north of the river to block us?"

Chengtou Zilu laughed loudly: "Then wouldn't Chenliu and Luoyang be left wide open?"

It was a mad plan, but it was also, in Chengtou Zilu's judgment, the Red Eyebrows' only chance to defeat the Wei army. If they dragged on until spring warmth and blooming flowers, and Diwu Lun transferred every Wei army corps to the Central Plains, there would be no turning the tables.

Only, as Chengtou Zilu was about to head north, Fan Chong asked him this.

"Yuan Zeng." That was Chengtou Zilu's real name.

Fan Chong was full of curiosity about him — or perhaps he sought, in this equally legendary fighter, some common ground with himself: "First you were a Red Eyebrow, then a Bronze Horse, from king down to duke, opposing Wei at every turn. With your ability, you could easily be a regional lord. Yet you never leave the banks of the great river. Why do you fight so desperately?"

The question was simple. Did it need thinking over? At the very beginning, Chengtou Zilu had only wanted to keep the river-disaster refugees of his homeland alive. As for what banner he fought under, which commander he served — he never cared in the slightest.

But later, something changed.

Chengtou Zilu was never ashamed to speak of it. Toward Chi Zhaoping, that extraordinary woman who never showed her true face, he felt not only reverence and gratitude, but also love. He was in his prime, she in her best years — it would be strange not to feel his heart stir. Only, she was all thorns; he never dared draw near.

A pity, back then, that he was powerless, able only to watch helplessly as she was buried in the bellies of fish.

The one thing he could do was pick up Chi Zhaoping's mask, washed ashore, and then take her place — become the new leader of the river-disaster refugees!

This was how Chengtou Zilu answered Fan Chong, without the slightest concealment: "To avenge Chi Zhaoping, and to fulfill her long-cherished wish."

Fan Chong shook his head. In his eyes, it was hard to tell whether it was disappointment or sympathy. He used the distance between thumb and forefinger as a metaphor:

"Yuan Zeng, your old ambition — was this big."

The gap between his two fingers shrank from half a foot to a single inch: "But now, it is only this much!"

Chengtou Zilu was quite displeased: "And what of Grand Duke Fan's ambition?"

Fan Chong spoke two words, full of yearning: "The Blessed Land."

That was what Old Tian had told him — about the Book of Songs, about the greedy great rats and the pitiful farmers.

"Large rats, large rats, do not eat our millet! Three years we have served you, yet you show us no regard. We swear we will leave you and go to that blessed land. Blessed land, blessed land — there we shall find our place."

"And another saying: diminish the high, enrich the low — the people's joy knows no bounds."

Old Tian had told Fan Chong this: the ancient sages, in their subtle and profound words, had long since pointed the way for them. The Red Eyebrows, as "the weapon of high antiquity," were the sharp blade to hack through the brambles and thorns barring the path to Great Peace. So long as they wiped out the emperors and kings, diminished the high and enriched the low, equalized the fields — they could reach the "Blessed Realm"!

This was indeed the answer closest to Fan Chong's ideal. But how to achieve it — even with Old Tian's dazzling rhetoric, he still had no clue.

So much so that Fan Chong, who always showed the world heroic self-assurance, when he spoke these two words, felt, alongside his yearning, a sense of being lost.

Watching Chengtou Zilu, fighting spirit ablaze, don the exorcist mask painted with blood-red brows and resolutely head north, Fan Chong even felt a touch of envy. Yuan Zeng was much like himself a few years ago.

Fan Chong, alone, held this loose coalition together by sheer force. With his unexceptional wits, he labored to smooth over everyone's disputes and keep them united. It drained his mind and exhausted his spirit. He was, in truth, somewhat tired.

He had swept across Haidai and the Central Plains, walked far too many roads.

Standing between this bleak heaven and earth, Fan Chong never looked back at the devastation behind him. His eyes were forever fixed on the rich lands ahead. The places he had not yet been — were they only Guanzhong and a few spots in Hebei?

The giant Fan was baffled once more: Must he kill every last enemy on the far bank of the great river before he and his hundreds of thousands of Red Eyebrow brothers and sisters could win their freedom and reach the blessed fields?

……

PS: Only one chapter today.