Chapter 583: Inspector of Qing Province

The highest-ranking territorial official in the State of Wei was undoubtedly the Provincial Inspector. Nominally half a rank below the Nine Ministers, his actual power surpassed theirs. He not only held supervisory duties but could freely intervene in a province's civil affairs and economy. No wonder some said the Inspector "is called a regional shepherd in name, but is in truth a feudal lord" — choosing the right man for the post required the utmost caution.

Yet in appointing the Inspector of Qing Province, Diwu Lun broke with precedent. Instead of picking from his own trusted followers or veteran ministers, he chose a surrendered general!

The appointment stunned everyone, Li Zhong himself included. When the edict reached him, he was in Xindu, idling away his days waiting to die. On hearing the news, he felt first joy, then worry, and immediately declined with the utmost deference: "Your servant is a surrendered minister of Northern Han, who served as Chancellor to the false emperor Liu Ziyu — and I did not rise in revolt, but simply capitulated. After the Hebei campaign, Your Majesty sparing my life was already a tremendous mercy. If you still wish to employ me, sending me out to a distant commandery as a Governor or a commandery assistant would be more than enough. The post of Provincial Inspector — your servant truly cannot bear such a weight!"

But Li Zhong's refusal proved futile. The reason was obvious: Diwu Lun needed someone familiar with Qing Province to follow in the wake of young Geng's advancing blades and take firm control. Li Zhong's ability was beyond question, and he hailed from a prominent clan in Donglai Commandery, Qing Province — making him an excellent choice to check General Geng, restrain the Youzhou shock cavalry, and prevent them from ravaging the region too severely. Moreover, Diwu Lun simply liked using these surrendered generals who had no backers and no factions — solitary ministers to sow sand into the gradually coalescing cliques.

Li Zhong's refusal was not resolute. After all, in an age of great contention, who would willingly fade into obscurity before their hair turned white and their life's work was still unbuilt? After some hemming and hawing, he set out.

Before departing, he went to Luoyang to pay homage to the Emperor and receive his seal and ribbon of office. Diwu Lun gave Li Zhong these instructions: "Of all the lands of the Three Qi, none is richer than Linzi — not only a great metropolis between the sea and Mount Tai, but the largest city under heaven! Backed by mountains and facing the sea, it profits from fish and salt, famed for its wealth and abundant produce. When the day comes to strike at Xuzhou and Huaibei, we will need Qi's manpower, grain, and cloth. Furthermore, Qi is the ancestral homeland of the Wu clan, where the tombs of our forefathers lie. I do not wish it to be too badly ravaged. As Provincial Inspector, you are also granted an Imperial Beheading Sword. Should you encounter any insolent officer who disobeys General Geng's orders and brings calamity upon the region, you may execute him on the spot!"

With the Emperor's words laid down so plainly, Li Zhong, ever since marching out with the army, had worked in concert with Fu Long, constantly remonstrating with Geng Yan while keeping a death grip on the Youzhou troops, guarding against them doing the same things they had done in Hebei...

But what Li Zhong never imagined was that Geng Yan would actually abandon him and the main infantry force, personally leading five thousand cavalry on a lightning raid against Linzi!

At first, Li Zhong feared Geng Yan's gamble would fail, throwing away the entire Qing Province campaign. When word came that the Wei army had won the Battle of Linzi, his worry shifted: the Youzhou troops were now wild horses off the leash, entering a wealthy metropolis with no one to supervise them.

As news of Linzi's fall and Zhang Bu's rout reached Jinan, the fortresses blocking Li Zhong and the Wei main force — Dongpingling, Changguo, and others — instantly lost their will to resist and opened their gates in surrender one after another. Li Zhong was able to pass through without bloodying a blade.

The moment he reached the outskirts of Linzi, Li Zhong's heart sank.

As a great city of several hundred thousand people, Linzi's surrounding countryside was just as bustling and densely settled. During the Warring States and the Chu-Han era, most of the Tian clans of Qi had been forcibly relocated into the Guanzhong heartland by Liu Bang — which was how Diwu Lun's sprawling clan came to be. But no sooner had one batch of old aristocrats departed than more new magnates took their place.

After the Liu clan's Kingdom of Qi was established, its kings — eldest sons of Emperor Gao and the foremost of the feudal lords — were also prodigiously fertile. Over several generations, they spawned a multitude of high officials and nobles. Finding Linzi too crowded and noisy, they loved building great estates by the ponds and rivers of the outskirts, living lives of comfort. They formed the rural magnate class of Qi Commandery, engaged in both farming and commerce.

In Qing Province, the Emperor was far away and his writ ran thin; even the salt and iron monopolies were only half-heartedly enforced. Thus powerful families seized control of the mountains and seas, mining iron ore, smelting and casting, and boiling salt. Great merchants and magnates monopolized the goods of mountain and sea, amassing vast fortunes and exploiting the common people. Even when Wang Mang sat the throne, his will to curb them far outstripped his reach.

A few years earlier, when the Red Eyebrow Army rampaged across the east, it posed no great threat to Linzi, only frightening these magnates into building fortresses and watchtowers, standing cautiously on guard, and calling in Zhang Bu as their protector. Later, fearing that Diwu Lun would settle accounts with the Liu clan offshoots as he had in Hebei, the magnates threw their full support behind Zhang Bu. The private militias they provided formed the backbone of the Qi army.

But now, thick smoke billowed from one fortress after another across Linzi's outskirts. As Li Zhong passed by, he saw estates smashed and ruined. Youzhou shock cavalry, swaggering with arrogance, were escorting away batches of men and women, heads hanging in despair, while their slaves and retainers stood bewildered in the estates, watching their masters being taken.

Worse still, Youzhou troops, leading newly surrendered Qi soldiers, were attacking the fortresses and estates that still resisted. Once they broke through, they stormed in to rape and plunder, and no one dared stop them.

Li Zhong, however, did dare. He halted a group of Youzhou soldiers in the midst of their atrocities, bound their ringleaders, and demanded to know why they were looting the civilian populace.

"Civilians?" The Shanggu cavalryman from Youzhou was draped in looted silks and satins, his unintelligible dialect dripping with belligerence. "General Geng's orders: any powerful magnate household on Linzi's outskirts that did not voluntarily come out to greet our army is to be treated as Zhang Bu's remnant partisans and may be freely plundered. If they opened their gates, we'd just take a batch of grain and fodder and call it done. If they didn't open up, then we had no choice but to storm them! Otherwise, we'd be letting the enemy go!"

Learning that Li Zhong was the Provincial Inspector, the man showed no fear, tilting his chin up. "We take orders only from His Majesty the Wei Emperor and the General of Chariots and Cavalry. Qing Province Inspector? What the hell is that!?"

Li Zhong flew into a towering rage, but held it in. He did not use the Imperial Beheading Sword to kill these men, because on reflection, Diwu Lun had granted him rather vague authority — he could only kill those who plundered without orders from young Geng. But these men were acting under the General of Chariots and Cavalry's command, carrying out their deeds in the name of exterminating Zhang Bu's remnants. Taking goods became "collecting spoils of war" — a fundamentally different matter. Li Zhong was unwilling to fall out completely with Geng Yan before even reaching Linzi.

"I only wonder what the situation inside Linzi is like?" Li Zhong grew more anxious. The city proper was his red line.

When he finally glimpsed the vast city walls in the distance, Li Zhong's heart lurched. Smoke wreathed Linzi's perimeter, as if fires were breaking out in every ward and lane. Could it be that even Geng Yan could not restrain the Youzhou troops, and they were now killing and burning inside the city?

Yet after traveling half the day, he encountered remarkably few fleeing refugees. This made Li Zhong begin to suspect that Geng Yan had sealed the city gates and given the order to massacre the populace!

Only when he drew near the sources of the fire and smoke did he breathe a sigh of relief. It was merely conscripted laborers burning the corpses of the war dead, their mouths and noses covered. According to them, the Wei army had not engaged in wanton slaughter and even provided them with meals. It seemed General Geng did observe some rules after all.

When he reached the Yong Gate of Linzi, Geng Yan was nowhere to be seen. Fu Long, however, was there, cupping his hands with the utmost respect toward Li Zhong. "Inspector Li, you have finally reached Linzi!"

It turned out that on the day of the battle, Gai Yan had led the Yuyang shock cavalry in pursuit of Zhang Bu eastward, killing so heavily along the way that corpses lay strewn for eighty or ninety li. Yet he still failed to catch Zhang Bu, who had disguised himself as a commoner and fled.

After that, Gai Yan continued leading troops to strike at Zichuan Commandery to the east, hunting for Zhang Bu, while Geng Yan himself swept through the surrounding counties and towns. Linzi was left to Fu Long and Dongguo Chang'an to manage.

Upon hearing Li Zhong's concerns, Fu Long laughed heartily. "Inspector, you may set your mind at ease. General Geng understands the bigger picture and knows where to draw the line. Knowing the Youzhou shock cavalry's poor discipline, he didn't even let them enter Linzi. He only allowed the Jizhou cavalry to take over. Those men mostly come from humble or middling backgrounds and can listen to reason — they won't be as hard to control as the Youzhou troops, with their barbarian greed."

For this, Geng Yan had drawn no small amount of grumbling from the Youzhou Shanggu troops, who said he had actually forgiven the Jizhou troops for the great grievance of "firing cold arrows" on the battlefield. Who, they asked, were really General Geng's own trusted men?

To placate his troops, Geng Yan had allowed them to blow off a little steam outside the city walls...

Li Zhong stamped his foot in frustration. This would cause the powerful families in Qing Province's other commanderies to stand resolutely with Zhang Bu and resist to the bitter end. "Master Fu, you are a man of wisdom — why did you not dissuade General Geng?"

How could Fu Long possibly dissuade a proud general fresh from victory? What's more, Geng Yan had not simply let his men loot at will.

He explained: "After entering Linzi, General Geng made a three-point covenant with the locals and produced a large batch of multicolored door placards. Any powerful family or ward that voluntarily submitted was given one to hang up. Any Wei soldier who dared violate them would be executed on the spot. But wherever there was even the slightest resistance, it would be annihilated with thunderous force!"

This left Li Zhong with no grounds to pursue the matter. As for how well Geng Yan's orders were actually carried out — how many estates and wards suffered unjust calamity, how many commoners were caught in the crossfire and died wrongful deaths — there was simply no way to tally.

Li Zhong could only content himself, for the moment, that Linzi itself was intact. At least he could give Diwu Lun an account of that.

"Since ancient times, the land of Qi has been famed throughout the realm for its salt and iron wealth. Linzi now holds nearly three hundred thousand people. Aside from the half who farm, the rest are mostly artisans and weaver-women. The skilled craftsmen can produce leather armor, weapons, and equipment, while the weaving workshops, famed for 'crowning the world in caps, sashes, robes, and sandals,' can more than meet the soldiers' clothing needs."

Add to that this dense population, which provided ready-made labor, and with the capture of Linzi, the Wei army now had a stable base in the east. It could supply the three armies with food and clothing and continue its eastward campaigns...

"Indeed." Fu Long nodded, and made a prediction for the future: "Zhang Bu still has his core forces in the east. He cannot hold Zichuan Commandery and will likely flee to Beihai. There, like the Tian brothers during the Chu-Han era, he will use the Wei River as a screen and wait for Liu Xiu of the Eastern Han to come to his rescue."

The situation so closely mirrored that of two hundred years ago — only now, the State of Wei, founded by the descendants of the Tian Heng brothers, lay to the west, while Liu Xiu occupied Xiang Yu's position. Only the native regime of Qi, continuing to take a beating, remained unchanged.

The two men were in the small inner city of Linzi, discussing how to restore Qi's civilian economy, when word came from outside: the General of Chariots and Cavalry had returned!

Li Zhong and Fu Long went out to greet him, only to see Geng Yan, who had just taken an arrow to the thigh, still riding his horse in and out as if nothing had happened.

After paying his respects to this "partner" of his, Li Zhong still brought up what he had seen on the way. Fearing he could not keep Geng Yan in check, he invoked Diwu Lun: "His Majesty repeatedly enjoined that he hopes the land of Qi will return to us whole, its people unharmed. General, though your actions are no grave fault, they may still frighten the powerful families of the other commanderies, who would rather submit to Han than return to Wei!"

Geng Yan had just fought a brilliant battle and his spirits were sky-high; he paid the warning no mind whatsoever.

As Li Zhong labored with painstaking earnestness to remonstrate, Geng Yan was inwardly reciting Diwu Lun's instructions from the "secret edict":

"The Youzhou cavalry have toiled hard and rendered great service. Should Linzi fall, though the great city and its commoners and artisans must be preserved, the surrounding magnates mostly sided with Zhang Bu and their hearts incline toward Liu Xiu. Leaving them be will easily breed future trouble — better to prune away the greater part! Order the Youzhou shock cavalry to strike and destroy them."

Geng Yan himself came from a powerful family, yet he felt not a shred of empathy for his Qing Province counterparts. He thoroughly approved of Diwu Lun's secret edict: Exactly. How can you expect a horse to run and not let it graze? War is no one-off transaction, but a campaign lasting years, even a decade. When soldiers get their hands on plundered wealth and silks as a reward for bitter combat, they will fight all the harder in the future — otherwise, who would risk their lives? And afterward, the government gets the estates and lands that cannot be carried away. The salt and iron profits those families monopolized for the past two centuries can all revert to the public coffers. A happy outcome for everyone!

He would not disclose the secret edict's contents to anyone else, least of all to Li Zhong, that fool naively carrying out Diwu Lun's "grand design." He merely nodded in agreement, inwardly dismissive, and resolved to continue doing exactly as he pleased.

At last, Geng Yan told Li Zhong and Fu Long a piece of good news:

"Zhang Bu will not be able to repeat the Chu-Han stalemate, using the Wei River as a barrier to hold off our army."

"General Gai Yan has already stormed into Beihai Commandery. Hearing of Zhang Bu's rout, both Beihai and Gaomi Commanderies have submitted letters of surrender, willing to uphold the Wude calendar!"

Truly, when a wall is falling, everyone gives it a shove. These two commanderies lay at the juncture between Qing Province proper and the Jiaodong Peninsula. With them lost, even if Zhang Bu resisted, he would have no strategic depth left.

"Then where is Zhang Bu?"

"Fled south, to his old lair in Langya Commandery."

Li Zhong volunteered, playing to his strengths as a local: "Donglai is my homeland. I can send letters urging the Governor and the local elders to rise up."

Fu Long stroked his beard, looking at the map. "If Donglai is willing to submit, Zhang Bu will have only three commanderies left."

"Jiaodong, Langya, Chengyang."

All were regions thick with mountains and hills. Jiaodong was a tangle of ridges; Langya and Chengyang held the Yimeng mountain range — the hardest terrain in all of Qi to attack.

Li Zhong said, "In the old days, when Yue Yi attacked Qi, in five years he took over seventy cities of Qi — only Ju and Jimo held out."

Fu Long picked up the thread: "Ju lies in Chengyang and Langya, while Jimo is precisely today's Jiaodong Commandery! Zhang Bu, rallying his followers, can muster at least fifteen thousand men. Not enough for a counteroffensive, but enough to hold out, relying on these hills for defense."

Both men hoped the main army would slow its pace, first consolidating Linzi and the surrounding areas, thoroughly securing those newly surrendered commanderies, before gradually attacking Zhang Bu — there was no need to rush over mountains and ridges, handing the enemy opportunities for nothing.

But Geng Yan, living up to Diwu Lun's assessment of him — fierce as a tiger, ruthless as a goat — still pressed for relentless pursuit and attack, saying: "Today is not like the past. Though the troops under me and Gai Yan are mostly soldiers from Yan."

"This time, however, we must strike faster than Yue Yi and march farther!"

His hand swept across the map: "It is now the sixth month. All seventy-two cities of Qi territory — not one missing — must be taken before winter sets in, as a gift presented to Your Majesty!"

Mere Qing Province could no longer satisfy Geng Yan's "wolf-greedy" appetite; this was only an appetizer.

His gaze fixed south of Langya.

Lai Xi, Lai Junshu — the man who first created "mounted infantry" and whom Geng Yan, for all his efforts, never managed to catch — was now stationed in Huaibei, in Xu Province!