Chapter 510: Mending the Sky

As everyone knew, in the State of Wei's first civil service examination, three Palace Gentlemen on the top roster were most highly valued by the Emperor.

Fu Long, son of a great Confucian scholar, proved worthy of his charge — Diwu Lun often used him for "diplomacy"; Cheng Gong, a poor scholar of humble birth, Diwu Lun liked to use for concrete, practical work.

Du Du of the Maoling Du clan, who in theory ranked first, was learned and erudite, skilled in poetry, rhapsody, and prose, and so Diwu Lun often kept him at his side as an advisor. When an edict required soaring literary grace, Du Du would often draft and polish it on his behalf — those who did not know better assumed those fine compositions were written by the Emperor himself!

And today, Du Du, attending the imperial carriage, had the good fortune to witness the largest decisive battle since the end of the Xin dynasty!

As for why? In Diwu Lun's own words…

"Someone must record this battle, to tell later generations what happened here."

Du Du stood within a few paces of Diwu Lun. Though he had no say in decision-making, he had seen the maps he was meant to see, and had heard Diwu Lun's open commands with his own ears. When it came to how the entire battle had unfolded and why it had reached this pitch, Du Du ought to have grasped it all clearly.

But a literary man's mind truly does work differently from an ordinary person's. Although Du Du had experienced the battle firsthand, had witnessed the slaughter and death with his own eyes, he was still some distance from the brutal front line. And so, in his eyes, the battle shed some of its savagery and grief, and instead took on the feel of an "epic."

Du Du's gaze greedily devoured the troop formations shifting in response to orders; his ears were filled with war cries and drumbeats, while his mind raced — how would he describe this battle afterward?

He thought of the ancient myths.

"Legend says that in ancient times, Gonggong fought Zhurong, and in his fury crashed into Mount Buzhou."

In Du Du's view, in the chaotic age after Wang Mang's Xin, the various Han claimants who upheld the virtue of fire were like Zhurong, while the one who had thrown the world into chaos, snapping the Pillar of Heaven and tearing the Earth's cords, was none other than the Red Eyebrow Army.

Recalling all he had seen and heard on his journey east, the resemblance to the ancient legend grew even stronger. Under the Red Eyebrows' rampage, a great hole had been torn in the sky: the four poles were ruined, the nine provinces split; heaven could no longer cover all, nor earth bear all. The flames of war blazed on unquenched; the Yellow River's floodwaters surged without cease. Worse still, savage beasts like the Xiongnu devoured the common folk, and birds of prey like the Greenwood and the Red Eyebrows snatched away the old and weak.

In that ancient catastrophe, it was Nüwa who smelted five-colored stones to mend the azure sky. Now, which hero would end this age of chaos?

He raised his head and saw the five-colored banner and zither above him.

"The Wei Emperor, of course!"

Since Diwu Lun raised his army, he had subdued the Three He regions and Fufeng, destroyed Liu Bosheng — like severing the great turtle's legs to set the four poles firm. He had slain the black dragon of Liang Province, brought relief to the disaster-stricken Ji Province, and more recently even declared war on the Yellow River! Was this not like Nüwa gathering reed ashes to stem the surging flood?

But to fully mend this shattered firmament, he still had to pacify the "chief culprits" who, in Du Du's eyes, had thrown the world into chaos.

And so this clash, in Du Du's heart, became a twilight of the gods. The Red Eyebrows opposite threw everything they had into it; under Fan Chong's desperate, cornered resistance, countless wily vermin swarmed forward — savage beasts and venomous serpents, fangs and claws bared, poison flying everywhere, brave soldiers seized and devoured.

But Diwu Lun was even more formidable. Du Du had already composed the phrasing in his mind: "Our sovereign's army issued forth upon the Pu River, riding a thunder-chariot and yoking a winged dragon. In that hour, the brown-eared pheasant beat the war drums, the leopard's tail swept forward… fierce tigers at the van, paired hares at the rear, the grey hawk spreading its wings. A great assembly of ghosts and spirits, sounded as the Clear Jiao note."

Every corps under Diwu Lun's command was likened by Du Du to a divine beast, willingly obeying his direction. Wang Mang's "beast corps," which had backfired so spectacularly at the Battle of Kunyang, was thus realized in literature instead. And Du Du's work was destined to be ten times more extravagant than the victors' boasts at Kunyang! If later ages took it for truth, Diwu Lun might well be granted the elegant title of "Child of the Plane."

And Diwu Lun himself? Du Du would surely depict him as the very incarnation of the Yellow Emperor and Nüwa, commanding serenely from his chariot. The improved communication system kept Diwu Lun's ears sharp and eyes clear, letting him know the enemy's every move, and also invisibly sped the issuing of orders — at least when directing his own trusted troops, it was truly like wielding his own arm.

Only thus could he withstand Fan Chong's assault with his elite guard. The Red Eyebrow Army, that giant, had its head pinned fast by the Emperor's twin "arms." The giant's great axe had once swept aside obstructing trees and cleaved apart the mountains pressing down on its head, but now, no matter how it strained, it could split the sky no further…

As the Wei army's reserves joined the fray, the tide swiftly turned. They began pushing the Red Eyebrows back outward — the battle had formally entered the counterattack phase!

…

In the same army, and likewise of literary background, Xiang Ziping of Henei had a feeling about the war that was utterly different from Du Du's mind full of gorgeous imaginings.

Du Du saw the grand, macroscopic side.

What Xiang Ziping saw was the microscopic, the individual side.

Fan Chong's assault on the rear troops gave the civilian laborers a terrible fright. On the spot, quite a few prepared to slip away, "fleeing like paired hares" as they had agreed beforehand. But order still held in the Wei army; the rear troops' military judge promptly beheaded several captured deserters before the crowd.

Moreover, the Red Eyebrows' probing thrust had not penetrated deep into the rear troops, but had instead been blocked by the fresh forces Diwu Lun dispatched.

Amid the din and chaos, a Colonel was shouting orders.

"Civilian labor squads, don't just stand there gaping! Follow up — the arrows must not stop!"

Ordinary mules and horses, lacking strict training, could not hold their ground at the front. The civilian laborers had to play the role of human mules, carrying baskets of arrows on their backs and following close behind the archer companies. These fragile ranged troops, protected within the infantry squares, had no fixed position, but shifted with the ebb and flow of the battle line, following the Dog Banner's signals…

Yes, the banner signal for bows and crossbows was the dog — a yellow dog. This was an old tradition from the Warring States; no one knew why, though Emperor Diwu Lun had a homophonic explanation.

"Archers and crossbowmen have no armor to protect them; they must not let the enemy close in. In battle, they have no choice but to keep their distance — to 'dog' it a little, you might say?"

It was fortunate, then, that the civilian laborers could ensure their own safety. But there were times when the battle formation's coordination failed. Sometimes a brigade's command was mishandled, causing the archers to move too far and leave the protection of the infantry square, and a group of Red Eyebrow soldiers would shift direction without warning and charge into the gap…

The archers, afraid of hitting their own men, could only draw their short blades and engage, while the civilian laborers fled with their heads in their hands.

But these small setbacks could not alter the overall improving trend for the Wei army. Fan Chong's assault was blocked and driven back, while the Grey Hawk Banner of the vanguard was swiftly closing in on the Winged Dragon Banner of the Ji Province troops. Winged dragon and grey hawk — flying dragon and soaring bird — were about to spread their wings and trap the Red Eyebrows between them.

The battle line gradually pushed outward, leaving behind a great mass of dead and wounded, Wei soldiers and Red Eyebrows alike. Cold-weapon combat often did not kill instantly; the wounded outnumbered those slain on the spot many times over. The air was filled with wails of agony.

At this point, the civilian laborers were ordered to carry out another task: rescue the wounded Wei soldiers and drag them out of the heaps of dead.

"And while you're at it, finish off any Red Eyebrows still alive, to prevent them from feigning death and causing mischief!"

The Colonel's order came down. Some brigades had already encountered such situations, and so warned their comrades to be on guard.

And so the civilian laborers began forming up in ranks, some carrying stretchers or door planks, others bearing worn-out dagger-axes and spears. They were ordered to work in pairs, following behind the infantry squares and slowly searching forward.

Although during training the civilian labor squads had thrust their blades fiercely at straw dummies, this was, after all, very different. Most of the men in the squad had handled and moved countless corpses and wounded, had passed countless dead through their hands, but had never killed a living person. In their hearts, they could not help but hesitate and recoil. Every time they found a Red Eyebrow bandit still breathing, they raised their weapons but simply could not bring themselves to stab down.

They might curse the Red Eyebrows as demons, as beasts, but these foes had noses and eyes. Seen up close, their eyes held fear too, and from their mouths came desperate pleas — they were, indeed, human.

Fortunately, a regular soldier was leading the squad — that same wounded soldier from Henei whom Xiang Ziping had supported back after he was "injured." Whether from guilt or fear of a post-battle medical reexamination, he had ultimately not dared to report himself as seriously wounded. Seizing the moment when the Wei army began gaining the upper hand, he had volunteered that his injury was not severe and that he wished to continue fighting. He was commended for this, and so was assigned this sort of work.

Seeing Xiang Ziping and the others hesitating, he stepped forward to demonstrate.

This wounded soldier, who at the battle line had been so terrified his face turned pale, like a weakling, now showed not a shred of pity when dealing with gravely wounded Red Eyebrows. He did not look them in the eye, only fixed his gaze on a pair of red eyebrows, and spoke as he worked.

"Brother Ziping, watch carefully. You want to stab the side of the neck, at the throat — it's softest there, and the blade won't easily catch on bone and damage the spearpoint."

So saying, he raised his spear high and stabbed hard at the exposed neck! With a squelch, the spearpoint pierced into the crippled Red Eyebrow's body. He even gave it a twist; when he pulled it out, blood flowed, and the Red Eyebrow had ceased struggling.

Even a less-than-outstanding soldier, through one favorable battle after another, had countless chances to practice the means of killing. The wounded soldier turned back with a smile: "This way, they die a bit quicker too."

This scene was like a demonstration of how to kill a chicken or a pig. Even Xiang Ziping, who had a personal grudge against the Red Eyebrows, was momentarily dazed.

They continued searching forward. Those civilian laborers unwilling to kill eagerly sought out wounded Wei soldiers to carry away, even hauling off corpses as an excuse to slip away.

The man paired with Xiang Ziping also said to him with a bitter face, "I'm getting married when I get back — killing people is bad luck."

"You take the wounded back. I'll keep going forward." Xiang Ziping sighed. He was a Platoon Commander and could not shrink back. He could only console himself with his comrade's words.

"These Red Eyebrows are wounded. Without medicine, they're doomed anyway. Better a quick death than a slow one — I'm just giving them a swift end. I'm doing a good deed."

But these words failed to convince him when Xiang Ziping walked up to a wounded Red Eyebrow soldier who was groaning and struggling to push a corpse off himself.

This was a Red Eyebrow who had been buried in a pile of bodies and knocked unconscious. His body was covered in blood and grime — whether his own or someone else's, no one could tell. As he struggled to rise, Xiang Ziping's spearpoint was already aimed at him!

He raised his head and stared at Xiang Ziping. Xiang Ziping saw his face clearly too.

It was a baby face… no — this was a mere child!

He was only thirteen or fourteen, his arms thin, wearing a suit of armor clearly a size too big, his face covered with cracked, sunburned flush from long exposure, and even his pair of red eyebrows were faded.

What Xiang Ziping could not forget were the boy's eyes — unlike the dullness common in children from poor families, they were stubborn and resolute, glaring fiercely at Xiang Ziping!

"Spearpoint at the throat, at the throat."

His hand moved on instinct, but his heart still wavered. In that instant, what came to mind was not his elder brother driven to death by the Red Eyebrows, but his own little nephew.

The Hebei Red Eyebrows who had plundered his family had largely been pardoned by Diwu Lun already — could killing these Guandong Red Eyebrows still be called "revenge"?

Xiang Ziping's hand went soft after all. He lacked the nerve to let the boy go, but perhaps he could let him keep playing dead? After the battle, the Wei army generally did not kill prisoners. By then, whether the boy lived or died would be for the army judge to decide — it would have nothing to do with Xiang Ziping.

So Xiang Ziping made a slight hand gesture, wanting this wounded little Red Eyebrow to stay lying down, while he himself would simply pretend not to have seen him.

But what Xiang Ziping did not know was that the one he faced was no ordinary child, but a young personal guard raised at Fan Chong's side, called "Xiao Ji." Every one of them had several years of combat experience, far stronger than half-baked militiamen.

In that very moment of hesitation, Xiao Ji suddenly grabbed a handful of blood-soaked sand and flung it at Xiang Ziping, then with extreme speed sprang out from under the corpse he had already secretly pushed aside, and kicked Xiang Ziping square in the groin. As Xiang Ziping doubled over in pain on reflex, the youth snatched the spear from his hand and leveled it at Xiang Ziping!

In the blink of an eye, killer and killed had reversed!

But just as Xiang Ziping stared at Xiao Ji in shock, thinking he was about to die here because of a moment of soft-heartedness and feeling deep regret, Xiao Ji too hesitated. In the end, he only punched Xiang Ziping down, spat on him, then took the spear and, treading through the blood-soaked mire that covered the ground, fled swiftly toward the main body of the Red Eyebrow army.

He wanted to return to the ranks, to the side of the giant Fan.

But as he sprinted and leaped, Xiao Ji seemed to be struck by an invisible fist! His body suddenly lost balance and crashed heavily to the ground!

Not far away, a soldier from the supervising company who had been watching all along held his bow-drawing stance, the bowstring still faintly quivering.

Xiao Ji had been hit in the side of the abdomen by an arrow. It passed through a gap in his armor and pierced deep into his chest. Xiao Ji tilted his head to glance at the wound, the corner of his mouth twitching, but his gaze remained resolute. He still had an elder brother in Dingtao, and he still wanted to keep being the giant Fan's personal guard…

He struggled to move forward — no, he could no longer stand, and could only crawl forward with difficulty. But before he could crawl past a few corpses, the wounded soldier Xiang Ziping had helped closed the distance in a few bounding strides and delivered a practiced thrust, ending Xiao Ji's life!

The youth's head lolled to the side, the light in his eyes scattering and dimming as the blood flowed out, until at last they were dull and lifeless.

From beginning to end, Xiang Ziping had stood there staring blankly. He saw the wounded soldier turn his head back and give him a grin.

That grin was laden with meaning — "It's all right now," "The favor of you hiding my injury, I've repaid it," or what? Xiang Ziping could not even bring himself to think about it.

And the battle line had already shifted half a li away. The slaughter continued, leaving more dead and wounded behind, lying every which way.

One by one, the militiamen kept moving forward, but Xiang Ziping did not rise for a long time, as though paralyzed with fright by this moment so close to death, or perhaps his last strength had drained away.

He simply followed the direction the boy's corpse faced and lifted his head to look up.

Above the horizon of corpses and blood, the sky was blue and white. In the mild, sunny mid-spring weather, several beautiful kites floated, brilliantly colored and of varied shapes, swaying ceaselessly in the wind.

This was Xiang Ziping's final memory of the war years — he who would spend the rest of his life quietly as a minor official in a small village, raising his nephews, never again taking part in slaughter.

So cruel.

And so beautiful.

…

"Congratulations, Your Majesty!"

Back at the main army's command post, the literary rhetorician Du Du, who held a vantage point nearly as lofty as the Emperor's, could by no means see the life and death of small figures. He was stirred to surging emotion only by the mythic, epic scale of the battle. As the Red Eyebrow Army's three assaults exhausted them and they began a full retreat, Du Du prostrated himself and offered congratulations to Diwu Lun.

But Diwu Lun paid Du Du no heed, only incessantly asking about the battle situation to the south. He learned only that, with the coordination of Ma Yuan and Gai Yan's Yuyang shock cavalry, Yang Yin's division was already showing signs of defeat.

"No need to worry about Yang Yin. The key is to drive Fan Chong's division to the northeast."

Diwu Lun then asked his staff officer: "The Red Eyebrow Army's Xu Xuan division, numbering in the tens of thousands, which broke through at the Ji River — where have they reached?"

"Still over twenty li away!"

"Good." Diwu Lun breathed a sigh of relief. Had Xu Xuan's division arrived half a day earlier, this battle might not look as it did now.

"My reinforcements came faster than the Red Eyebrows'!"

Reinforcements? Du Du was not privy to the most classified intelligence. He only remembered that the Great Wild Marsh lay to the northeast — could it be the surrendered general Dong Xian? But had he not been routed by the Red Eyebrows, nearly annihilated? How could he have scraped together enough men again so quickly?

But as the fastest-retreating batch of Red Eyebrow troops broke away from the pursuing Wei army and attempted to regroup and make another stand by Boiling Jujube Creek, on the northeastern horizon, a cloud of dust loomed faintly into view. What finally burst out of the haze was a brown-eared pheasant banner, strikingly similar to that of the Yuyang shock cavalry!

Yet its color was slightly different. What was the same was that the cavalry, advancing in a wild-goose formation to seek out the enemy, came to a halt in the north, eventually filling the horizon, with a pale red evening glow at their backs.

"The Shanggu shock cavalry that Lord Jingsun dispatched Kou Xun to bring — they have arrived."

Diwu Lun, as though a great weight had been lifted, walked over to the war-game pieces used to simulate the battle, placed the cavalry figurine representing the horsemen on the north side, and then with his index finger gave a gentle push, toppling the "giant" caught in the middle that represented Fan Chong!

"The match has been killed off."