Chapter 516: Wild Beasts

Walking into the trap — it sounds easy, but the catch is…

The fish must first pinpoint the net's exact location in the vast ocean before it can swim headlong into it.

But the main Wei army had yet to cross the Ji River southward, so Ju Wuba and Wang Mang could only travel north along the old merchant highroad, hoping to run into a scout or two.

Jiyin Commandery was once the center of the realm, the richest land in Yan Province — yet now, after five or six years of unbroken war and banditry, it had withered beyond recognition.

But unlike what Wang Mang had witnessed in Nanyang — Greenwood magnates drinking themselves senseless inside their fortified manors while dogs and swine fed on human food and corpses of starvation lined the roads — death in Jiyin Commandery made no distinction between rich and poor, wise and foolish.

Lord Fan treated the brothers and sisters of the Red Eyebrow Army with the warmth of spring, but toward "outsiders" he was exceptionally cruel: the merchants in the county seats were the Red Eyebrows' chief targets for extortion; peasant-born, the Red Eyebrows hated those cunning traders who lived off the price spread most of all, and if no grain could be found, they hung them from trees to bake to death in the sun. As for the powerful great houses, there is even less need to elaborate — as the Red Eyebrow Army's main source of grain, they were often ruined entire families at a time. Moreover, Red Eyebrow discipline was wildly uneven, and countless wives and daughters of the wealthy were violated. One by one, the Red Eyebrows stormed and demolished the fortified manors.

Destroyed along with them was the basic local order that the officials and the gentry had jointly maintained.

With the Red Eyebrows' "regime" also collapsing with a crash, what Wang Mang saw in Jiyin was a world plunged utterly into chaos and lawlessness.

Broken remnant troops with no unit to return to ran wild everywhere, killing and plundering. The common people of this commandery had truly reached the point of "longing to be slaves but finding it impossible." Apart from bleached bones by the roadside, hardly a single traveler could be seen on the roads. Those who could flee had long since fled — some westward to join Wei, some eastward hoping to enter Qing Province. The rare survivors they did encounter were mostly gaunt and hollow-cheeked, like wraiths.

Even the crowds that had gathered near Suiyang, begging the Red Eyebrow Elders and Attendants to buy their children, had vanished without a trace — the Red Eyebrow core who had become "citizens" had mostly been wiped out by Diwu Lun between the Yellow River and the Ji River. With the buyers gone, the sellers could only take their wives, daughters, and small children far from home to seek a living. In the worst cases, they brought them to the "human market," trading children to eat, calling them "food-people."

The locals had lost everything — but they were "free."

White bones lay exposed in the wilds; for a thousand li, not a cock crowed. Only Ju Wuba, pulling a broken cart he had scavenged from a deserted village, trudged slowly onward with Wang Mang in tow. Whenever Red Eyebrow stragglers passed by, they hid in the woods for a while. Yet no matter which way they went, they still saw no Wei banners.

Their food was gone, and Wang Mang's stomach began to rumble again. It was only the end of the second month; no wild fruit could be gathered to stave off hunger, and wild beasts were not so easy to hunt. They could hardly let the old Emperor gnaw on tree bark. Ju Wuba ambushed a few isolated Red Eyebrow soldiers, but they too were famished and carried not a single grain on them. After the wretches kowtowed and begged for mercy, and with Wang Mang's soft heart, they could only release them in frustration.

"Your Majesty — ahead is a surviving fortified manor! It looks like people still live there!"

The two approached the manor. A deep trench had been dug, the turned earth still fresh — it must have been excavated recently. Behind the trench was a reinforced wall. Beneath the wall lay several Red Eyebrow corpses; driven by extreme hunger, they had tried to rush in and seize grain, only to be shot dead by the locals.

This was a small armed band, gathered under the leadership of some local magnate to resist the Red Eyebrows and all outsiders. To the locals, forced to choose sides between the magnate lord and the Red Eyebrow Army, the former was certainly more reliable.

This group had originally been driven by the Red Eyebrows to flee into the mountain forests. Recently, with the Red Eyebrows' crushing defeat, they had returned to their homeland, reoccupied the fortified manor, and begun recruiting nearby refugees to join them. In the surrounding fields, a little spring millet had even been planted — those sprouts straining to push through the soil were a hope that stirred the heart.

A watchtower stood within the walls; the people inside watched the approaching pair — one strong, one old — with wary eyes.

Ju Wuba stated their purpose. After a long moment, the old manor lord inside called out: "Are you Red Eyebrows?"

It was a question of life and death. The natives' attitude toward the Red Eyebrows needed no guessing — if the answer was yes, the response would be a volley of arrows.

Ju Wuba shook his head, saying only that they were refugees. The manor lord spoke again: "Strong man, would you be willing to serve as a retainer in my manor?"

In these chaotic times, fierce warriors like Ju Wuba were in demand everywhere. Ju Wuba glanced back at Wang Mang and refused. But the manor lord still had his people lower millet rice wrapped in lotus leaves from the wall — enough food for them for a day.

"A good magnate," Ju Wuba said, judging the man.

"So long as he refuses to divide his land and free his slaves, he is a bad magnate," Wang Mang countered — yet his mouth never stopped chewing the "bad millet rice."

The two continued on their way. A day later, their food was again exhausted. They could only follow the distant smoke of cooking fires and feel their way to the edge of a deserted village.

Unlike the fortified manor they had passed earlier, this deserted village had no defenses at all. No one was visible in the lanes and alleys — not even a chicken or a dog. Ju Wuba had to carry Wang Mang on his back and head deeper into the village. The further they went, the stronger a certain aroma became.

The smell of meat.

Drawing closer, they saw several people gathered in the open ground of the village shrine. One stood pissing against a wall; others crouched by a stove, feeding the fire. The water in the clay cauldron was boiling. From their clothing, they were unmistakably Red Eyebrow stragglers.

They had fled in defeat from the battlefield between the rivers, long since losing contact with Xu Xuan's main force, reduced to a band of broken soldiers. The Red Eyebrows had always lived by plundering grain — only before, they had targeted merchants and great houses. Now, they made no distinction at all.

Stealing chickens and dogs, snatching food — those were trifles. What unfolded before Ju Wuba and Wang Mang was a far more horrifying sight!

Blood pooled on the ground. A village woman, stripped naked, was bound on the ground, her head resting against a wooden stake. Her eyes were wide open; she had been dead for some time. The fatal wound was a knife slash across her throat. Below, the flesh of her chest and thighs had been carved away and thrown by the broken soldiers into the cauldron to boil.

And on the grass nearby sat a frail infant, barely two or three years old, crying feebly. He had witnessed his mother being killed with his own eyes. Though terrified beyond measure, he could not stop his sobbing.

This provoked one of the famished soldiers waiting for the meat to finish cooking. He angrily drew his blade and pointed it at the child: "Stop crying! I don't kill children — don't make me!"

"Letting him reunite with his mother wouldn't be so bad," someone said, licking his lips and rubbing his growling belly. "Reunite — in our stomachs."

"At the human market, they have names for food-people. Young women are called 'low-grade lamb'; old, scrawny men are called 'spare the fire'; small children are called 'tender-to-the-bone' — the tastiest of all…"

As he spoke, he actually started walking over. But before his bloodstained hand could reach the child, Ju Wuba let out a furious roar and charged forward in great strides. The club in his hand sent the broken soldier flying, crashing straight into the boiling cauldron and stove!

Only then, in shock, did the remaining few snatch up their battered weapons and surround him — but Ju Wuba felled them with three punches and two kicks.

The most quick-witted of them noticed Wang Mang leaning against a wall to the side, staring blankly at the scene before him. He immediately rushed over, hoping to seize the old man as a hostage.

But Ju Wuba grabbed another man's broken blade and hurled it with a sudden throw, pinning the soldier dead to the wall!

In a matter of moments, half of the five or six broken soldiers were dead; the rest lay on the ground, wailing.

"Poor woman. Cover her up."

Wang Mang untied the felt cloak wrapped around his own body and had Ju Wuba drape it over the mother who had died so horribly, her eyes still open. Then he walked toward the child, who was still sobbing in the same spot.

The old Wang Mang wanted to say something. His white beard quivered, but in the end, nothing came out. The hand he reached out stopped in midair — it did not touch the child's head, much less take him into his arms.

He was compassionate, but in a messianic way.

"Is it… Old Tian?"

A Red Eyebrow straggler whose leg Ju Wuba had crippled struggled to lift himself up — he had actually recognized Wang Mang.

And Wang Mang recognized him too. Wasn't this the very Red Eyebrow straggler whom Ju Wuba had intercepted on the road a few days ago, only to find they had not a grain of food on them?

The old Wang Mang was furious, as if he had once again become the Red Eyebrow Army's moral instructor. He pointed at the man and cursed: "The Red Eyebrows were the army of benevolence and righteousness from high antiquity — they killed only the mighty and rich, never abused the common people. How is it that now you have become man-eating beasts?"

"We didn't want this either, but we're starving," the Red Eyebrow straggler wailed. "A few days ago, Old Tian and the giant wanted to rob us of our food."

"So we robbed those even weaker of their food."

"They had no food."

"To stay alive, we could only eat them! Even if we hadn't, this mother and child were abandoned — her legs were crippled. Sooner or later, they would have starved to death in this deserted village."

Contrary to the Great Unity that Wang Mang longed for — where one cares for one's own young and thereby for the young of others — these Red Eyebrow stragglers, having lost their faith in the Promised Land and the backbone that was Fan Chong, were now no different from common roving bandits.

No — they were no longer human. They were a pack of wild beasts, a horde of demons!

Yet this Red Eyebrow straggler still felt wronged. He beat his chest and said: "You two go hungry for a while too. When you reach the point where you truly can't hold on — this person, do you eat them, or…"

His argument was cut short — Ju Wuba had lifted a stone used for washing clothes in the village and smashed his head to pulp!

Wang Mang's heart was filled with desolation. War had brought production to a halt; stored grain dwindled by the day. That men would eat men was almost an inevitable outcome. That was why Wang Mang had worked so hard to help Fan Chong, hoping that by dividing land and reorganizing production, he could prevent these tragedies. But Diwu Lun had given him no time!

Just then, the rapid sound of hoofbeats and marching feet came from outside. A company of riders and fully armed foot soldiers charged into the village gate, surrounding the two men.

After them entered a gray-haired magnate — the very man who had given them food the day before, the one Ju Wuba had called a "good magnate." Now he had turned guide, pointing at Ju Wuba and Wang Mang: "Officer, it's these two!"

The arrivals were led by the Embroidered Uniform Commandant Zhang Yu. They had followed the vanguard straight to Chuqiu Post, only to learn that Wang Mang had already fled. They had searched everywhere, their target locked onto Ju Wuba — a giant of such immense stature was exceedingly rare, and paired with a white-haired old man, anyone who saw them was bound to remember.

Seeing the scene in the hamlet, Zhang Yu more or less understood what had happened. He simply cupped his hands toward the wary Ju Wuba and said, "General Ju, back when I followed the Wei Emperor, I was fortunate to have met you a few times. Now the Wei Emperor has heard the General is in Heji and has specially sent me to extend an invitation."

As he spoke, Zhang Yu's mind was not on Ju Wuba; he was only staring at the old Wang Mang behind him. Wang Mang, utterly unafraid, raised his voice: "Does the traitor Diwu Lun not come to welcome the imperial presence?"

He's asking for death! Were it anyone else, Zhang Yu would have made him taste the ruthless methods of the Embroidered Uniform Commandant. Now, however, he could only say, "His Majesty awaits at Jiyang… Old Man Tian."

Though inwardly resentful, faced with bows and spears, Wang Mang still gestured with a hand, letting Ju Wuba carry him out on the dragging litter. Only before leaving did he say to Zhang Yu, "See that this woman is properly buried."

"And that child as well…"

Still acting like he's the Emperor? Zhang Yu was angered to the point of laughter. This Wang Mang was indeed no ordinary ruler of a fallen kingdom.

The fort master who had guided Zhang Yu volunteered, "I can take in this child."

"Guarantee he won't go hungry or cold. When he grows up, he can be a slave in my household."

Hearing this, Wang Mang whipped his head around, flew into a towering rage, and pointed at the fort master's nose. "Earlier we thought you a decent strongman, yet you too are so greedy and base?"

The fort master was baffled. Wasn't he doing a good deed? Given the child's origins, making him a slave was far better than starving to death, dying of disease, being eaten by men, or carried off by wolves. With the world in such chaos, staying alive was already a blessing — what was there to be particular about? Not be a slave, but raised as a son? Treated like a father to be provided for?

Zhang Yu, however, looked at the child and could not help recalling his own youth and Zhu Di. He simply shook his head and said, "Very well. Bury the woman properly. I will take the child back with me."

Then he added self-mockingly, "One trip to this land of great chaos, and His Majesty's army of orphans may well swell from a thousand to ten thousand!"

When Wang Mang heard this, he was still displeased and merely muttered, "Diwu Lun has finished pretending to filial piety, loyalty, and good faith — now he's starting to feign benevolence?"

But this was probably the best outcome for that child. He could only hope the boy was young enough to forget today's horrors. Wang Mang simply let the cavalrymen flank him and Ju Wuba as they left the hamlet.

The fort master, however, was not quite satisfied. At their parting, he pressed Zhang Yu with a question: "Superior Official, that giant and the old man — there were red marks on their brows that hadn't been washed clean. Could they be Red Eyebrows?"

"They are, and yet not entirely." Zhang Yu burst out laughing. Since the Emperor had already decided to reveal himself to the world, he naturally had his own plans, and there was nothing left to hide. He tossed down the words just before throwing the gold cakes.

"That white-haired old man spewing filth from his mouth is named Wang Mang."

"Wang Mang?"

A name both familiar and strange. Perhaps the days of chaos were too hard to endure, or the former dynasty too distant, or perhaps there had never been a chance to speak the Emperor's name directly. It took the fort master a moment before he jolted in sudden realization.

"The Xin Emperor? He really didn't die? And he's mixed up with the Red Eyebrows — snakes and rats nesting together?"

Thinking of all the tragedies in his homeland today, the kin and friends killed by the Red Eyebrows, the root of it all was the misrule of the Mang court. Without Wang Mang, the Red Eyebrows might never have spawned. His face filled with indignation, the fort master finally spat a great gob of thick phlegm in the direction Wang Mang had gone.

"Neither of them is any good! That lotus-leaf-wrapped millet meal of mine — I might as well have fed it to the dogs!"

……

Diwu Lun did not order his troops to launch a major pursuit of the Red Eyebrow remnants, because after the Red Eyebrows had combed through many parts of Yan Province one last time, the land had become nearly uninhabited. The army's supply lines absolutely could not keep up. Not to mention, the Wei army had also captured nearly a hundred thousand Red Eyebrow soldiers.

Thus Diwu Lun only sent men to Chuqiu Village to "rescue" Wang Mang. The main force split into two: one part went to Dingtao, while the other half accompanied him as he garrisoned Jiyang County, drawing supplies from nearby Chenliu.

Wang Mang and Ju Wuba, under Zhang Yu's "escort," traveled west along the Ji River. The further west they went, the more they could feel that they were leaving a land of chaotic, beastly deeds and entering a region with some measure of order and civilization.

The first things they saw were charred, blackened corpses hanging from trees and nailed to wooden stakes, one after another. Further on, the trees gradually thinned, yet the bodies remained just as numerous. Dense flocks of crows screeched as they rose from the scorched corpses, only to settle back down once they had passed.

Wild dogs sprawled beside them, gnawing on bones, utterly unafraid of people. When they lifted their eyes, they were blood-red. In a daze, Wang Mang seemed to see again those few Red Eyebrow stragglers from that day, butchering men for food!

"All captured Red Eyebrow remnants, or local bandits. The evil deeds they committed were no different from what you saw earlier. Judged according to their crimes of cannibalism, murder, and plunder, they were uniformly executed, then burned until only charred bones remained, and only then hung up everywhere as a warning."

So said Zhang Yu. He had already separated Ju Wuba and Wang Mang for guarding. The giant was hemmed in by countless long spears, while Wang Mang was allowed to ride in a comfortable carriage, with Zhang Yu watching him the entire time. Diwu Lun wanted both to deter the remnant soldiers and bandits, and to avoid plague, as well as to prevent the starved locals from cutting flesh off the dead to eat. Better to provide work as relief — let them drink gruel first…

As if showing off, Zhang Yu said proudly to Wang Mang, "The Wei Emperor says that what the tens of thousands of Red Eyebrow remnants still rampaging through Heji and Yan Province need most is not leniency or pity."

"But harsh punishment and severe law!"

"Didn't the Red Eyebrow Army set its own rules — death for killers, wound-for-wound compensation for those who injure?"

"Since Fan Chong can no longer control his subordinates, then His Majesty will use the Red Eyebrows' own rules to help him control them!"

Though these remnants were plaguing Yan Province and all were evil men, Wang Mang remained sullen and unhappy. He could not tell whether they had been old or young, short or tall in life, whether they were people he had known among the Red Eyebrows. People who had been perfectly fine at the start — why, after one great defeat, had they turned into beasts, into ghosts?

Just as they were about to reach Jiyang County, old Wang Mang did encounter an "old acquaintance."

A man with a square face and a fine, handsome beard, an official of the State of Wei, stood waiting by order outside the eastern gate of Jiyang County. Watching the distant carriage draw nearer and nearer, his expression remained composed, but his heart grew more and more anxious.

The man was none other than Dou Rong. Dou, the Duke of Zhou, was at this very moment locked in a fierce inner struggle. He and Geng Chun had once imagined how Diwu Lun, upon meeting Wang Mang, would "blush with shame." But they had never, ever imagined…

"The one to be embarrassed first… would be myself!"