Chapter 492: The Governor

Liu Xiu wanted a "great victory" to serve as his true nation-founding battle, but the slaughter at Pengcheng drew no one's attention. This spring, he was still only a supporting player.

All eyes under Heaven were fixed on the two banks of the Great River.

The Red Eyebrow main force was operating around Dong Commandery and Dingtao. The year before, they had attacked Puyang, hoping to "besiege the city and strike the reinforcements," but Ma Yuan refused to take the bait. In early winter, Puyang could still be supplied by the fleet from Henei, but once the Great River froze and then broke up in the spring floods, Chengtou Zilu threw Hebei's defenses into chaos, and Wei Commandery and Henei could barely look after themselves — who had the leisure to sweep the frost from another man's roof? Just when Puyang thought the siege had been lifted, two hundred thousand Red Eyebrows turned back and suddenly redoubled their assault.

A few days later, Puyang, already scarred and battered, fell with a crash. This time, not even the inner city held.

"Uncle, the city is lost. Please change clothes and flee with your nephew."

Wang Pan knelt before his uncle, Wang Hong, Governor of Dong Commandery. The two men were the last bloodline of the Xin imperial house. Wang Hong was a younger clan cousin of Wang Mang. In his early years, he had served as an attendant to Emperor Ai of Han and had denounced Dong Xian to the face of that sleeve-slicing emperor — because Emperor Ai had publicly declared he wished to pass the throne to Dong Xian.

As the finest of the younger generation of the Wang clan, Wang Hong should have soared to high office, yet for some unknown reason, Wang Mang had sent him out to the provinces as a two-thousand-bushel official, and there he had remained for over ten years, never once summoned back to court.

Now, that overlong duty was at last coming to an end. After three months under siege, Wang Hong was haggard and bedraggled. As the shouts of slaughter outside grew louder, he felt no urgency to hide, only reflecting on his own absurd life.

"The late Emperor disliked me not, as the streets gossip, out of jealousy for my talent — what talent has a mediocrity like me? It was because, at the Han-Xin transition, I chose the wrong side."

"Back then, hearing the Grand Empress Dowager Wenmu bitterly rebuke him, saying, 'Men like you and your brothers — now your clan shall be exterminated,' I could not bear it in my heart and wished to plead again with the late Emperor, only to be sent far away for my trouble."

Wang Mang had always been ruthless toward opponents. That Wang Hong was not forced to take his own life like Wang Mang's eldest son was already a great stroke of luck. But Wang Hong often heard that the old Emperor slaughtered his own sons and clansmen in batches of four or five, and he grew deeply anxious. He therefore kept a poison vial tied around his neck at all times, ready to end his life at any moment and keep his corpse intact.

Had Wang Hong swallowed that poison and died while the Great Han still stood, he might well have become the sole Wang clan affine to "die for Han" and earned a line in the history books.

And if he did the same as the Xin Dynasty collapsed, he would be "dying for Xin" — also perfectly fitting.

But as it happened, Puyang had withstood the attacks of every bandit army through those years, until Diwu Lun, with whom Wang Hong had a passing acquaintance, sent a summons for his surrender. And so, in a muddle, Wang Hong became a subject of Wei.

Looking back now, he truly should not have.

He had surrendered too late. Although Diwu Lun, mindful of the great help Wang Hong had once given Wei Commandery, had enfeoffed him as a minor marquis under the terms for "offering a commandery in righteous revolt," in the State of Wei they were nephews no uncle doted on and grandchildren no grandmother loved. Dong Commandery and Puyang, lying on the far bank of the Great River, served only as a "bridgehead" for Wei power in Yan Province, a place to be abandoned at any moment. Yet Wang Hong, after all, had feelings for this place. The Wei army might not come to its rescue, but he could not leave.

"If I kill myself now, what would it count as?" Wang Hong had already pulled the poison from his neck. He smiled bitterly.

"Dying for Wei?"

Whatever it counted as, Wang Hong felt he could delay no longer. Better this than suffer humiliation at the hands of the Red Eyebrow bandits. He poured the poison into his palm and swallowed it in one gulp!

Then, a smile on his face, he lay down on the brick bed to wait for death. Years ago, when Diwu Lun had been dispatched to Wei Commandery by Wang Mang's edict and had first come to Puyang to appeal for troops, he had frightened Wang Hong into swallowing poison once before. That time, the dose had been too weak and he had not died, but the taste of that "golden broth" had been anything but pleasant.

Afterwards, Wang Hong had his nephew seek out folk alchemists to compound a more potent poison. It was said that a dose the size of a fingernail tip would kill instantly. Wang Hong had tested it on condemned prisoners, and it was indeed so.

The shouts outside grew louder and louder. The Red Eyebrow troops had already broken through the defense line of Wang Pan and his retainers, seizing him as well, and were storming into the Governor's residence.

But what they saw was not the ghastly sight of Wang Hong dead with blood streaming from every orifice. Instead, he was… eating?

Wang Hong was just as baffled. He had downed the entire vial of poison — why was nothing happening? His stomach even felt a little full.

The Red Eyebrow Attendant was stunned. At a time like this, this dog of a Governor still had the leisure to eat — what nerve! He's a real man. A trace of admiration stirred in his heart.

But Wang Hong felt only bewilderment. He turned a look of astonishment on his nephew, and Wang Pan lowered his head in shame.

"Fearing that Uncle would rashly take his own life again, I secretly replaced the poison with parched flour!"

Wang Hong felt as though five thunderbolts had struck his skull. He struggled to draw his blade and end it, but it was too late. As the Red Eyebrows swarmed over him, pinned him down, and bound him, he could only laugh through his tears.

"If I'd known, I'd have used the knife!"

…

By custom, whenever they took a city, the Red Eyebrows would put any captured two-thousand-bushel official on trial. Besides extorting whatever grain and cloth of value they could, they would also pronounce a sentence. Then it was flaying for those who deserved flaying, and death by dismemberment for those who deserved dismemberment.

"Wang Hong deserves to die."

A Red Eyebrow Elder said, "His surname is Wang. He is a kinsman of Wang Mang."

In the Red Eyebrow Army's simple class consciousness, the surnames Liu and Wang were both original sins. The Liu Han imperial clan were often the greatest magnates and landlords of a region, able to feast on fine grain and meat even in years of famine, while the poor could only scrape by on chaff and husks.

As the Red Eyebrow Army campaigned across the provinces, they had swept away nearly every Liu-surnamed magnate along their path. This, in the words of that "Old Man Tian," was "the Dao of Heaven, which diminishes the surplus to supplement the insufficient." He held that ever since the Three Dynasties, the Dao of man had been "to diminish the insufficient in order to serve the surplus," and that this was why the kingly way had decayed. The Red Eyebrows meant to turn it around!

Whether others believed it or not, Fan Chong did!

As for the Wang surname, though they had been kept so pitifully in check by old Wang Mang that, despite being imperial kin, they dared not seize a plot of land or keep a few extra slaves, and were constantly being found at fault and killed by the Emperor — still, who told them to bear the name Wang? The Red Eyebrow Army loathed Wang Mang to the marrow. The very reason they had risen in revolt was because that dog Emperor's "Five Equalizations and Six Monopolies" had cut off every path to survival. To have failed to storm Chang'an and destroy Xin was a great regret. Now that they had finally caught a man of the Wang family, they could not let him go.

"Wang Hong defended Puyang so stubbornly. We came to attack years ago and failed to take it. This time, too, it took three months of repeated siege, and many brothers and sisters died. He deserves to die."

"But Wang Hong has a good reputation among the people of Puyang," someone said.

"Who says so? I am from Puyang!" A Red Eyebrow Elder rose angrily and testified from his own experience. "Dong Commandery suffered great floods year after year — did he, Wang Hong, ever save us? If there had been a relief gruel station back then, a single path to survival, I would never have had to dye my eyebrows and join Grand Duke Fan."

Dong Commandery had once held three hundred thousand households. As the place where the Great River burst its banks, it was lucky if thirty thousand registered households remained now. The rest had either fled to Hebei — the able-bodied joining the Wei army, the women and children dwelling in huts — or joined the Red Eyebrows, and their numbers were not few.

The grain the Red Eyebrow Army had seized over the winter by defeating the allied forces of the King of Qi and Liang Han in Yan Province was nearly exhausted. They had turned and struck Puyang hard precisely to get some food, according to plan, before the great decisive battle with the Wei army.

But to Fan Chong's disappointment, the granaries of Puyang held little rice or grain — just over ten thousand bushels remained, enough to feed the hundred-odd thousand men under his command for a mere ten days.

Under interrogation, the granary officer told them: "The Red Eyebrows have besieged us for a long time. Governor Wang could not bear to see the city's people, who had not been evacuated, go hungry. He distributed gruel for three months. The army provisions that should have lasted until summer were exhausted by spring!"

So this Wang Hong was actually the sort who loved the people like his own children? It was true. When they learned that the Red Eyebrows had captured Wang Hong, the poor commoners of Puyang even came, trembling, to plead for his life.

"We should have people cast potsherds to decide his fate," the Red Eyebrow Elders proposed.

The Red Eyebrows had long had a similar method, but this one had been formalized by Old Man Tian with reference to ancient practices recorded in the Zuo Commentary of the Spring and Autumn Annals. He held that in an age when ritual and music had not yet fully collapsed, the "people of the state" were entitled to participate in governance.

But the "people of the state" who took part in the potsherd casting were all veterans of Dong Commandery origin serving in the Red Eyebrow Army. They blamed Wang Hong for all the hardships that had driven them from their homes, or else they loathed Wang Mang and extended that hatred to anyone of the Wang family. The potsherds came down overwhelmingly for Wang Hong to die!

And those people of Puyang who cried out against the injustice done to Wang Hong — because they were not Red Eyebrows, not "people of the state," not even adopted sons and daughters, they had no right even to put in a word…

And so the outcome was unchanged. Wang Hong was still to die!

Just as the whole city's commoners wept and cried out against the injustice done to Governor Wang, a man arrived from Suiyang in Liang Commandery and reported to Fan Chong:

"Second Duke Xu says that if you breach Puyang and capture Wang Hong and his nephew, he hopes you will spare their lives for now and send them to Suiyang. Killing them later will not be too late."

"What does Xu Xuan want to do?"

Fan Chong found it strange but agreed all the same. By rights, "Wang Hong, who brought disaster to Dong Commandery," ought to die right here. But Fan Chong had also noticed that this ran counter to the wishes of Puyang's residents — they seemed deeply deluded. Better to let him die elsewhere. He ordered Wang Hong and his nephew sent to Suiyang.

As for the remaining officials — the Commandants, the bandit-catchers — they were not so fortunate. All were executed by the Red Eyebrows within a single morning, their homes ransacked. The city walls were hung with the heads of these officials who had served three dynasties: Han, Xin, and Wei.

The Red Eyebrow Army still cheered, just as they had done when sweeping through the provinces. But the people of Puyang were markedly cold to it. They only watched in silence as the famished Red Eyebrow soldiers ransacked chests and cupboards, searching out the last grain of food from their homes.

And Fan Chong, this time, felt none of the righteousness and satisfaction either.

When he had first raised his troops, he had taken a few old brothers to rob the rich and aid the poor on Mount Dongtai. In those days, they had to think about survival every single day and had no leisure to ponder "what we are fighting for."

Later, after they had routed the Xin armies, when everyone else thought the Red Eyebrow Army should "emulate Chen Sheng and Wu Guang in destroying the cruel Qin and punishing the Xin," Fan Chong had stubbornly gone his own way and led them down a different path: home.

But at home they found no welcome. Instead, their followers scattered. They could only take those willing to leave and carry on as roving bandits. Before they knew it, they had swept across several provinces, their numbers snowballing, their burdens growing heavier and heavier.

Fortunately, this man of practice had met a great theorist. When they fought in Nanyang, and later broke through Suiyang and destroyed Green Han and Liang Han, Fan Chong — inspired by Old Tian's theories — truly felt he was engaged in a righteous cause.

But ever since the war with Wei began, on one hand the resistance has been considerable: a flanking force was defeated at Aocang, and the strength of the Five Lords' Yang Yin was halved, leaving him only able to hold Dingtao and guard against that damned Dong Xian for Fan Chong.

On the other hand, every time they took a place, the Red Eyebrow Army was met with cold stares, even outright hatred, from the local people — especially the poor! They cursed them for disrupting the hard-won peace they had only just settled into.

Dull as Fan Chong might be, he still sensed it: in this city, every tree, every handful of soil, even every mouthful of water seemed to loathe the Red Eyebrows. "The local gentry and commoners want me dead far more than they want Wang Hong dead."

What made Fan Chong even more miserable was that on the fourth day after Puyang fell, before the Red Eyebrow Army had even finished resting and reorganizing, as the ice floes on the great river drifted downstream one after another, he was shocked by unbelievable news:

"Cheng Tou Zilu was defeated in battle and surrendered to Wei?"

That ice flood had struck a hundred li north of Puyang. Red Eyebrow survivors who had escaped death by sheer luck kept straggling in; by their account, the ice flood had struck only the Red Eyebrows, and the Wei army seized the chance to kick a man when he's down, capturing Cheng Tou Zilu.

Yet within days, Cheng Tou Zilu had left the Wei camp unharmed, now accompanied by envoys bearing the five-colored Wei insignia, and had begun rallying the great river Red Eyebrows in Pingyuan, Bohai, and elsewhere — but with no intention of opposing the Wei Emperor any longer…

"Could it be a false surrender?"

The matter baffled Fan Chong no matter how he turned it over in his mind. In the end, he simply shook his head and stuck out his little finger.

"When we parted ways with Cheng Tou Zilu, I said his ambition had shrunk — from fighting for his brothers and sisters, it had dwindled to fulfilling Chi Zhaoping's dying wish. And now, it's even smaller than a fingernail!"

Fan Chong was angry — there was bewilderment at the betrayal, and also extreme disappointment. So Cheng Tou Zilu had gone down the same old road as Dong Xian: seduced by Diwu Lun's offer of 'noble titles and high office,' he had thrown himself into his service and was content to be his falcon and hound?

This fury even drove away his weariness. Fan Chong summoned tenfold energy to think through their situation.

Since Cheng Tou Zilu had switched banners, the pact the two had made — "I fight north of the river, you fight south of it" — naturally fell through. And the Red Eyebrow main force now even had to worry about being caught in a pincer between Wei armies from north and south…

Should he stay here and fight to the death, or, as in the past, shift and fight elsewhere? And where should he go? To Nanyang and Runan, where the foundation of the well-field system and slave emancipation had already been laid? Or eastward, into Qi, back to the place where the Red Eyebrow Army's dream began?

As if summoned by his fears, on the fifth day after Puyang fell, Henei boats appeared on the great river — now free of a single ice floe — and on the north bank, Wei army Jizhou troops were setting up camp and raising palisades.

And from the south, urgent reports arrived.

"The Wei army's Ma Yuan division struck east from Chenliu, made a forced march of three hundred li, and launched a surprise attack on Dingtao!"

…

On the first day of the second month of the second year of Wude, the county of 'Wey' across from Puyang — also part of Dong Commandery, flooded years ago when the Yellow River burst its banks and long since reduced to wasteland — had now become Diwu Lun's latest temporary residence. Tens of thousands of Henei and Jizhou troops were massed here, and he too had received Ma Yuan's victory dispatch.

"General Wenyuan holds Dingtao, and the Red Eyebrows' Five Lords' Yang Yin has been defeated again. Thus, he links up with Dong Xian's roving troops at the Great Wild Marsh."

The idle piece Ma Yuan had placed last winter had now become a killing move.

The situation was now clear: from the Great Wild Marsh to Dingtao, a great net had been drawn in the east, cutting off the Red Eyebrow main force from its flanking division in Yanzhou.

From Chenliu to Aocang, the Wei army's western defensive line stood immovable.

And north of the great river, the banks were now entirely covered with five-colored banners!

On the soil of Yanzhou, between the river and the Ji, a 'Red Eyebrow encirclement net' had spectacularly taken shape!

But it was not yet fully sealed. For now, it was 'encircling three sides, leaving one open' — only the passage due south to Suiyang in Liang Commandery remained open. No one knew whether the Red Eyebrows would stake everything on a desperate fight where they stood, or shift elsewhere.

The Warring States used troops, and men of that age took the patterns of war as chess formations. This map, too, was like a great chessboard: nine files by five ranks, nine palaces and eight rows of dancers, and the Yellow River sweeping across it like the 'Chu River and Han border.'

The red and five-colored kingpieces grappled in pairs across this vast battlefield, and Diwu Lun, having just captured Cheng Tou Zilu — that pawn that had crossed the river — now raised the chariot that represented Ma Yuan.

Sweeping straight across, he aimed it at the blood-red Red Eyebrow Grand Marshal at Puyang's position — and struck down hard!

"General!"

…

PS: Only one chapter today.