Chapter 552: Departing White Emperor City Amidst Rosy Clouds at Dawn

It was also late in the eleventh month. While Diwu Lun summoned his five generals to Luoyang to discuss military strategy, Liu Xiu's envoy, Grand Herald Zhu You, had long since set out on the westward road.

Although the forces of the Chu Li King still lay between them, the Chengjia regime and the Eastern Han had in fact long shared a border. A few years earlier, Gongsun Shu had once sent a fleet to attack Jingzhou. Though he could never break past the Yiling area, after making a great show of force as if to swallow Jing and Chu whole, he so frightened the southern Jing commandery of Wuling (in present-day western Hunan) that it was willing to submit, nominally raising the banner of Emperor Gongsun.

Thus Zhu You was able to follow the route Qu Yuan had taken centuries before, journeying deep into Yuan and Xiang, entering Yuanling from Changsha, trekking over mountains and rivers through the territory of the Wuxi Man tribes, and then following the salt-trading routes of the local Ba people until he finally reached Chengjia territory.

After that he traveled against the current, dragged by countless trackers through the perilous Three Gorges, and only then entered Ba-Shu.

In winter the Three Gorges still had their white-frothed rapids and green pools, their clear waters and lush, towering cliffs, but the temperature was very low. Battered by the damp, cold rain, Zhu You was utterly exhausted. Fortunately, along the way he heard good news from the mouths of Shu locals:

"You have come at just the right time, honored envoy. His Majesty has lately not been in Chengdu, but at White Emperor City, quietly awaiting your arrival!"

Zhu You gazed into the distance. Following the locals' pointing fingers, he first saw on the northern bank of the Yangtze a vast and strikingly beautiful mountain, a full thousand zhang high. No trees grew upon it, and its soil was very red; it was called Red Armor Mountain. Rain had fallen the day before, and from the foot upward the whole mountain was wreathed in cloud and mist, like a red-faced, towering god-king clad in a robe of pure white silver, standing tall before Qutang Gorge. The cold morning wind toyed with his fluttering sashes, and the brilliant dawn clouds burned the edge of the sky red — the sight filled one with involuntary awe.

Zhu You strained to make out the shape of White Emperor City, but it was veiled by cloud and mist and he could see no details. He only faintly heard the sound of bells and drums drifting down, as if from the dwelling place of immortals.

Not until high noon, when Zhu You had reached the ferry landing on the opposite bank from Red Armor Mountain, did the winter sun at last scatter the mist and reveal White Emperor City in its true form. Beneath Red Armor Mountain there stood another high knoll, over two hundred zhang tall, upon which stone-built structures had been raised. It was less a mountain city than a fortress: the great river before it, tier upon tier of ridges pillowing it behind — supremely strategic and forbidding.

After crossing the river, passing through the Yufu River Gate water fortress, packed with warships and great-wing vessels, and arriving at the foot of White Emperor City, the impression grew even stronger. Zhu You had to ride a sedan chair and climb nearly a thousand stone steps before he could reach the city gate. Inside he saw building after building with flying eaves and tiered towers; they looked newly built.

Zhu You could not help asking the people beside him, "How long has this city been completed?"

The usher Gongsun Shu had sent to welcome him replied, "When His Majesty proclaimed himself emperor, he heard that in Yufu County an ancient well sent up white mist like a white dragon — an auspicious white dragon omen — so he issued an edict to build a new city, named White Emperor City. It took nearly two years and was finished only this autumn."

Wωω. TTκan. ￠O

"Gongsun Shu truly does share traits with Wang Mang," Zhu You thought, secretly clicking his tongue. With White Emperor City at such a height, every brick and stone had to be carried up by man or mule. If it were merely a fortress, that would be one thing, but adding the lavish palace chambers within the city — how much coin, grain, and people's labor had that cost? Gongsun Shu held only a single province, yet he was already this extravagant. No wonder Fang Wang was so disappointed in him.

Then he thought of his own sovereign, Liu Xiu. Ever since declaring himself king, Liu Xiu had insisted on simplicity and frugality, willing to dwell only in the palace chambers of Former Han princes. All coin, grain, silk, and cloth went to maintaining the army. Whenever he joined the troops, he often shared food and clothing with the common soldiers — truly a lord of sagely brilliance.

Nevertheless, when he was granted an audience with Emperor Gongsun, Zhu You still played to his tastes and lavishly praised the strategic impregnability of White Emperor City.

"When this outer vassal traveled west, by land the paths threaded through clouds, barely passable even for flying birds; by water the rapids thundered through sheer gorges, and tow-ropes could snap at any moment. Drawing near, I saw ridge upon ridge, sheer cliffs and broken precipices, high rivers and rushing gorges, great waters and deep pools. With Your Majesty here, you can control Jing and Chu to the east, grip Ba and Shu to the west, command the southern routes to Dian and Qian, and march straight into Jiaozhi. No wonder all under heaven say: Gongsun leaps to horseback, the White Emperor claims the throne!"

Half of this flattery was truth. Although it was not easy for Gongsun Shu to fight his way out of the Three Gorges, it was even harder for an eastern power to break through the gorges and attack White Emperor City. This was also the foundation of Gongsun Shu's confidence in allying with Liu Xiu: he was certain that Liu Xiu and his ministers could do nothing to him.

Before Fang Wang journeyed east, he had submitted a deeply moving memorial to Gongsun Shu. Since Gongsun had no further ambitions to advance north and only wanted the Qiang rebellion in Liang Province to act as an incurable, festering sore slowly bleeding Diwu Lun dry, Fang Wang vigorously promoted his own "southern advance" plan. Specifically, it meant allying with the Liu Han regime, trading northern Jing for southern Jing, and ultimately marching into Jiao Province.

Though it sounded wildly impractical, it happened to perfectly suit Gongsun Shu's appetite for "great southern hegemony." Fang Wang had boasted he could persuade Liu Xiu, and now a Han envoy had indeed come to White Emperor City. After granting him an audience, Gongsun Shu had his Chancellor, Li Xiong, step forward, and the two sides began to haggle over the details.

The laughable thing was that they did not first discuss how to start the war, but instead refused to yield on the question of how to carve up Jingzhou after the war.

The terms Fang Wang had proposed were altered yet again when they reached Li Xiong. He insisted flatly that the center of Jingzhou, the city of Jiangling, must belong to Chengjia, with the Han River and Mount Jing as the border between the two sides.

In Zhu You's view, this was simply far too greedy. One had to realize that nearly half the population of Nan Commandery lived in Jiangling. If they gave that up, there was no point even discussing ceding three commanderies to Emperor Gongsun for nothing.

Because Chengjia's ambitions lay southward, this was for now merely an exorbitant opening demand. In the end Li Xiong relented: Jiangling could go to Liu Xiu, but he demanded two more counties in order to build a sufficiently deep buffer east of Yiling, to guard against the two sides turning on each other and attacking in the future.

Zhu You, neither servile nor overbearing, countered: "If that is the case, then Chongling County in Lingling Commandery must be retained by our state. It is our sovereign's ancestral land and cannot be abandoned."

They had no good intentions either. Under the pretext of preserving a "ancestral worship" exclave for Liu Xiu, they wanted to plant a hidden mine in southern Jing, making it easier to infiltrate agents and sow discord there, and to make Gongsun Shu's southern advance plan more difficult.

After wrangling for several days, the two sides finally settled on a border demarcation. Li Xiong inquired, "When the honored envoy returns, must you first go back to Jiangdu to report to the Han Emperor?"

"Since Emperor Gongsun, in order to conclude this alliance, has traveled east to White Emperor City, our sovereign has likewise traveled west to Chaisang County on Pengli Marsh to drill the navy, so that we may dispatch troops as soon as the alliance is sealed." Zhu You pointed northward. "The villain Diwu is still close at hand. We dare not slacken, day or night."

Yes, both sides harbored their own schemes. Had they not shared a common powerful foe, would they ever have sat down at the same table?

Even so, on the matter of who would move first, they still refused to be put at a disadvantage.

Li Xiong demanded, "The Han army shall advance in the first month, drawing the attention of the Chu forces. Then in the second month, when the ice melts, the snow thaws, and the river waters gradually rise, our fleet shall set out from White Emperor City, pass through the Three Gorges, and strike Jiangling!"

Zhu You, however, shook his head. "It should be Chengjia that strikes Yiling first, causing the Chu Li King to mass his heavy troops in the west. Only then can our army sweep across Jing territory, first taking Xiangyang to block Jingzhou's northern gateway and prevent the Wei army from moving south, and afterward join forces at Jiangling. That is the prudent course."

On this matter alone they negotiated for five full days. In the end they agreed: no need to decide who goes first or second — in the middle of the first month of the coming year, they would advance together!

Yet the ink was barely dry before Li Xiong secretly advised Gongsun Shu: "When the time comes, we will use the pretext that the fleet was not ready in time and delay for a few days. Naturally, the Han army will still move first."

After finally reaching a preliminary alliance, as Zhu You took his leave, he raised yet another presumptuous request:

"Since the Mandate of Heaven has already been divided in two, and our sovereign and Emperor Gongsun mutually recognize one another, Emperor Gongsun may certainly keep the Imperial Heirloom Seal. However, the Snake-Slaying Sword is a treasured heirloom of the Liu clan. We hope it may be returned to its original owner."

Gongsun Shu was, for the moment, quite magnanimous and promised, "If after victory the Han Emperor can transfer the three southern Jing commanderies as agreed, the Snake-Slaying Sword shall naturally be returned with due respect."

Yet no sooner had Zhu You departed than Gongsun Shu issued a secret edict of considerable malice: send men to break and destroy the Snake-Slaying Sword, and thus sever Liu Xiu's Mandate of Heaven!

When the time came, they could simply say that Wang Mang had broken it to extinguish the Han line. Wasn't that plausible? Wang Mang was already dead on Diwu Lun's Dragon-Executing Platform anyway — there was no one left to verify the truth.

After nearly ten days of verbal warfare, this "unbreakable alliance" was at last concluded. Zhu You felt utterly drained in mind and spirit. Standing atop the walls of White Emperor City, he seemed able to see, a little over a month from now, countless warships hoisting sail and heading east into the Three Gorges. And the Han General Who Guards the West, Feng Yi, would also march his troops north from E territory, the blazing Han banners planted all across the lands of Jiang and Han…

In a buoyant mood, Zhu You noticed the local men who poled his boats and hauled his tow-ropes. Every one of them was wind-battered and rain-drenched, burned dark by the sun. Even at mealtime they merely squatted on their bamboo rafts and boats like a flock of cormorants, gulping down chaff and husks with salted fish. Feeling their hardship, he had someone take all the Chengjia iron coins he had recently exchanged and bestow them all upon the boatmen — he would have no use for them in the future anyway.

But when the boatmen saw they were iron coins, they glanced at the Chengjia officials in the distance and waved their hands in refusal.

"Honored envoy," they said in low voices, in thick Ba dialect, "if you pity us, give us a little silk cloth, or grain — anything will do! Only, please, not iron coins."

"Why?" Zhu You found it strange. Hadn't these Gongsun iron coins only been in circulation for half a year?

The boatmen told him something shocking: "Prices are soaring. A catty of iron coins won't buy a catty of grain. They're no good anymore!"

…

If one asked why the Chengjia economy had collapsed so quickly, Gongsun Shu naturally bore the greatest responsibility. Disregarding the state's capacity, he maintained an enormous standing army wholly disproportionate to what exhausted Yizhou could support, and he also built a fleet in an attempt to break through the Three Gorges. Beyond that, he indulged in lavish extravagance on a grand scale, building vanity projects like White Emperor City — all of which naturally plunged the domestic economy into dire straits.

He tried to recoup by issuing iron coins that were cheap to produce, but was punished for violating what Diwu Lun called "economic laws." Prices in Shu soared.

What was worse, in the half year since the iron coins were issued, apart from the powerful local magnates of Ba-Shu secretly minting coins illicitly, a batch of extremely poor-quality iron coins had also circulated within the realm. The most outrageous part was that these debased coins had been deliberately cast in large denominations — one-thousand-for-a-thousand, one-hundred-for-a-hundred. One had to realize that however shameless Gongsun Shu might be, he did not dare to copy Wang Mang entirely.

Yet even though the Chengjia government banned them and refuted the rumors, this batch of large-denomination coins still dealt a heavy blow to the already precarious credibility of the regime! They also played a tiny, negligible role in the devaluation of the iron coins.

If one carefully traced the source of these large-denomination counterfeit coins, Gongsun Shu's officials would surely have found the point where they entered circulation: the Cheng-Wei trading post in the western part of Nan Commandery.

And on the open thoroughfares, Wei state merchants openly smuggled these counterfeit coins mixed in with their goods, handing them over to smugglers near the trading post.

Tracing further back, the place where the counterfeit coins were minted was clearly none other than the ironworks in Wancheng!

The Governor of Nanyang, Yin Shi, had even personally overseen the counterfeit-minting process. Watching the large quantities of inferior iron inevitably produced during smelting — iron normally rejected even for weapons and farm tools — now become a "sharp weapon" for wrecking an enemy state's economy, Yin Shi felt considerable admiration for Emperor Diwu.

"Wenshu may be a hero among men, but Emperor Diwu is truly heaven-sent."

Setting down the large-denomination iron coin in his hand, Yin Shi also heard the news that General Who Guards the South, Cen Peng, had returned, and hurried to the northern gate of Wancheng to welcome him.

As snowflakes drifted down, the twelfth month had arrived. Cen Peng returned wearing a sable cloak personally bestowed by Diwu Lun. He did not ride a horse, but sat in a carriage, looking deeply contemplative.

Yin Shi led his officials to bow in welcome. Nanyang had formerly belonged to Jingzhou, but Diwu Lun had now reassigned it to Yuzhou. Yuzhou, however, was newly annexed territory, still under military administration, and Cen Peng was in every practical sense the "King of Yuzhou."

Cen Peng and the other four generals had been specially summoned to Luoyang by the Emperor, nominally to be rewarded for their achievements, but in truth mostly to discuss the military strategy for the coming year. Yet no matter how Yin Shi and the others probed indirectly, Cen Peng only smiled and said nothing, for the matter was top secret.

Specifically, it was still the "east first, west later" plan that Diwu Lun had confided to Ma Yuan: use an attack on Qing Province as a pretext to draw the Han army northward, then advance rapidly eastward from Yuzhou and Yanzhou, cutting off the connection between Xu-Si and Huainan. If they could annihilate the Han army's main force, that would be best; if not, they would at least seize Huaibei in one stroke! The timing would be right after the busy spring planting season.

Afterwards, however, Diwu Lun summoned several generals individually, giving them private instructions and cautioning them on points requiring attention.

When Cen Peng's turn came, Diwu Lun told him only this: "As General Who Guards the South, keep one eye on the Huai and Si rivers, and the other on Jingzhou — to guard against Wu and Shu committing troops in Chu."

But the Emperor added: "For the present, Jingzhou is of no importance to me."

Diwu Lun believed that if the Wei army moved south into Jingzhou too early, it would not only face the main strength of the King of Chu and Li, but would also drive Gongsun Shu and Liu Xiu into a tight alliance.

What, then, was important?

Cen Peng could certainly never forget the words His Majesty the Emperor had spoken, word by word, when he called him close.

"Xiangyang — this place must be taken. It must absolutely not fall into Liu Xiu's hands. On this point, it is of the utmost importance!"