Chapter 611: Bringing the People Across the Huai

In late January, when the Wei army, finally recovering from the devastating typhoid epidemic, reached the Huai-Si confluence, they found they had arrived too late. All they saw were the burned-out camps of the Han army and every vessel taken away — on the vast Huai River, not a single plank was to be seen.

Not only that, but from Xiacai and Longkang in Pei Commandery in the west, to Si River Commandery and Haixi County in Donghai Commandery in the east, along six hundred li of the Huai's northern bank, the Han army and the residents alike had been evacuated completely, leaving Diwu Lun nothing but an empty no-man's-land.

The Wei army's naval forces were inadequate, so they did not rush to cross the Huai and seek battle. Following Diwu Lun's orders, they split into several columns and occupied the counties of Linhuai, Pei, and Si River Commanderies in turn, calling upon the common people who had fled into the mountains, forests, and marshes to return for the spring plowing.

Amid this quiet standoff, only a single large ship approached the southern bank from north of Dangtu. Aboard it flew a "Zouyu" banner representing peace — it was surely a Wei envoy.

The passenger on this mid-sized warship was Huan Tan. The ostensible reason Diwu Lun had sent him south was that the Wei Emperor still refused to acknowledge Liu Xiu's proclamation as emperor, referring to him only as the King of Wu, so relations naturally differed from those with Wei and Chengjia. Thus he could not send the Director of Foreign Affairs, Feng Yan, on a formal visit, and could only dispatch Huan Tan, who held the rank of Grand Master.

But the real reason was that Huan Tan had once met Liu Xiu, and his clan nephew Huan Rong was still serving in Huainan with a two-thousand-dan rank, which more or less guaranteed his safety as an envoy and would allow him to fulfill his mission to the greatest extent.

Under the watchful eyes of the Han naval forces, Huan Tan landed at Dangtu County in Jiujiang Commandery (modern-day Bengbu, Anhui). It was the end of January; the ice and snow north of the Huai had only just melted, but south of the river, the spring breeze had long since turned everything green. As he disembarked, his wooden clogs left a trail of footprints on the mossy grass. Huan Tan looked around — a full two years had passed since he had left this place.

A party was already waiting at the dock, but it was no ceremonial welcome; rather, it bristled with wariness. Han soldiers glared at Huan Tan and his retinue, gripping their weapons, and the middle-aged Han official at the center, bearing a silver seal and blue ribbon, treated Huan Tan with undisguised coldness.

"Chunqing."

Faced with Huan Tan's warm greeting, Huan Rong, Governor of Jiujiang Commandery under the Han, merely offered a curt salute with clasped hands: "Grand Master Junshan."

Both Huan Tan and Huan Rong belonged to the Huan clan of Longkang in Pei Commandery. Their ancestors could be traced back to Duke Huan of Jiang Qi. By generational seniority, Huan Rong should call Huan Tan his clan uncle, though they were only ten years apart in age.

Unlike Huan Tan, who faced the world with the air of a "wild scholar," Huan Rong was a pure classicist. He belonged to a branch of the Longkang Huan clan, his family so poor that he often supported himself as a hired laborer, yet he never wearied of pursuing his studies. Huan Tan greatly admired this clan nephew and funded his education in Chang'an to study the Ouyang Shangshu. At the Imperial Academy, Huan Rong took the Jiujiang classicist Zhu Pu as his teacher and devoted himself single-mindedly to learning; for fifteen full years, he did not once return home to visit, all the way until Wang Mang usurped the Han.

From that time on, Huan Tan and Huan Rong's ideals had diverged. Huan Tan harbored illusions about Wang Mang's governance and hoped for change, but Huan Rong clung steadfastly to his loyalty to the Han, believing that everything in the past had been good. Ignoring Huan Tan's pleas to stay, he resolutely left Chang'an and went to Jiujiang to live in seclusion and teach.

In those years, Huan Tan had worried about his clan nephew's livelihood. He never imagined that after the Xin dynasty fell, when Huan Tan was unfortunate enough to be captured by the Red Eyebrows and nearly died of illness, it was by fleeing to Huainan and seeking refuge with Huan Rong that he barely saved his own life. That was Huan Tan's connection to Huainan. He recovered from his severe illness there, just as Liu Xiu was rising in Jiangdong, and Huan Rong, clutching his books, went to join him.

"The King of Wu has the Heaven-bestowed destiny of Gaozu, the benevolence of Wen and Jing, and moreover the strength of Wu and Xuan. He will surely revive the Great Han and become an exemplary sovereign of the age!"

Huan Tan still remembered how, after Huan Rong pledged himself to Liu Xiu, he had excitedly described the man to him, even recommending Huan Tan as well. It was a pity that Huan Tan's heart already belonged elsewhere; he did not stay long in Huainan before stubbornly heading to Chang'an to find Diwu Lun.

After two years apart, uncle and nephew met again, but now each served his own master, and in Huan Rong's eyes there was an added layer of grief and indignation.

"Did Grand Master Junshan perhaps come from Xiapi, by way of Xu County?"

Huan Tan replied evenly, "Precisely."

Huan Rong pressed further: "Then did you see the devastation along the way?"

Huan Tan said, "Indeed, the city walls are all reduced to mounds of rubble, and white bones lie exposed in the wilderness."

"This was all the doing of the Wei army!"

Huan Rong pointed north and said, "Gai Yan led the Yuyang shock cavalry to raid the Huai-Si confluence, burning, killing, and pillaging all along the way, stopping at no evil. They even massacred entire villages to silence anyone who had witnessed their movements!"

"Is this the 'company of sage lords' that Grand Master Junshan serves, the 'army of a true king' that you yearned in your heart to join?"

Back when Huan Rong had first been won over by Liu Xiu, Huan Tan, unwilling to see the Longkang Huan clan split apart, had told him, "The Wei sovereign's benevolence and magnanimity are no less than the King of Wu's," hoping to persuade Huan Rong to join Wei with him. Now, those words of praise for the Wei army had been slapped in the face by the conduct of Gai Yan and the Yuyang shock cavalry.

Huan Tan, however, had no moral purism — otherwise he would never have befriended Liu Xin and Yang Xiong and served Wang Mang as a subject. Still, he had no intention of defending Gai Yan: "The Yuyang shock cavalry have always been unruly and defiant; wanton killing in wartime is indeed a crime."

"But even if my lord wished to punish them for it, he would have no way to do so. Gai Yan is now a captive of the Wu army. May I ask, has the Wu sovereign executed him yet, to avenge the common people who died north of the Huai?"

This was something Huan Rong himself found rather puzzling: "Not yet."

Huan Tan immediately smiled. "Could it be that the Wu sovereign still hopes to win Gai Yan over and make use of him?"

"Impossible!" Huan Rong's expression changed and he denied it flatly, defending, "His Majesty has merely postponed the execution."

Huan Tan did not press him on this point, saying only, "When I traveled south, I did indeed see the tragic state of Huaibei — nine houses out of ten empty, not a soul for a thousand li. But when I asked the locals, I learned that what truly emptied Huaibei was not the Yuyang shock cavalry's raids, nor the Wei vanguard's slaughter. It was the Wu sovereign's order to strengthen the defenses and clear the countryside, forcibly rounding up the people of Huaibei and compelling them to migrate south of the Huai!"

"Absurd!" Huan Rong defended his lord with all his might. "When His Majesty heard of the disaster at Pengcheng, he knew the Wei invaders would sweep across Huaibei and could not be stopped. Only then did he send men to announce to the common people: those willing to follow may come; those unwilling may stay."

"As a result, the people of Huaibei, terrified of being slaughtered by the Wei invaders, all cried out, 'Even if we die, we wish to follow the Great Han!' That very day, weeping and wailing, they set out. Supporting the elderly and carrying the young, leading the men and bearing the women, they surged across the Huai in an endless stream, the sound of lamentation unceasing on both banks."

Huan Rong cupped his hands toward the east. "At that moment, His Majesty, gazing upon this scene from his ship, was also overcome with grief and said, 'For my sake alone, the common people suffer such great calamity — what reason have I to live?' He nearly threw himself into the river to die, and was only saved by his ministers clutching at him."

"Now the refugees from Huaibei have been resettled in the commanderies south of the Huai. They all have military-agricultural colonies to farm, ample clothing and food. Do not think, Grand Master Junshan, that you can pin the people's misery on the Great Han! All the death and displacement in the Xu-Huai campaign was caused by the Wei sovereign's unrighteous war!"

"When one seeks to unify all under Heaven, how can one speak of unrighteousness?" Huan Tan was unimpressed. He had once witnessed the horrors that disorder brought among the Red Eyebrow Army, and now sought only an ordered polity that blended the hegemonic and the kingly ways.

When King Wu of Zhou attacked Zhou, the blood was still enough to float shields. Some sacrifice is inevitable, and those who try to stop a chariot with a mantis's arm are bound to be crushed.

What was more, Huan Tan was now more convinced than ever that his decision to join Diwu Lun had been the right one!

"Chunqing."

Huan Tan made one last attempt to persuade his clan nephew. "I once said that the Wei sovereign's benevolence, virtue, brilliance, and wisdom were not inferior to Liu Xiu's."

"I was selling him far too short!"

Huan Tan's eyes shone. "When I returned to Chang'an, saw the Wei Emperor again, observed his governance, and heard his great ambitions, I realized that the House of Diwu is truly where Heaven's mandate and the people's hearts converge. That he has reached this point is no fluke — it is destiny!"

Uncle and nephew each spoke past the other, but Huan Rong simply did not believe there was anyone in the world more worthy and enlightened than Liu Xiu. "When Grand Master Junshan was convalescing in Huainan, you once discussed the arts of kingship and hegemony with me."

"You said: 'To honor the sovereign and humble the ministers, to unify authority under one, to have no second source of governance, to make rewards and punishments certain, to make laws and ordinances clear, to have all officials properly ordered, and to ensure that authoritative commands are carried out — these are the arts of the hegemon. But first to rid the people of harm, to provide them sufficient food and clothing, then to instruct them in rites and propriety, and to overawe them with punishments and executions, so that they know what to love and hate, what to approach and avoid — thus great transformation gathers from all sides, and all under Heaven is peaceful and joyous — these are the arts of the true king.'"

This was indeed what Huan Tan had always believed. He nodded. "Exactly. The kingly way is pure, its virtue like that; the hegemonic way is mixed, its achievements like this. If one can blend the arts of kingship and hegemony, one can possess all under Heaven, rule over the myriad people, and pass the legacy down to one's descendants."

Looking across the entire Former Han, the only one who truly and perfectly fit this description was the Middle Ancestor, Emperor Xiaoxuan.

But Huan Rong believed he had already found a revival sovereign comparable to Xiaoxuan. "My sovereign, the Great Han's Jianwu Son of Heaven, combines the arts of kingship and hegemony. With the hegemonic way, he established his state in the southeast, united the various Han factions, and unified the court's discipline. With the kingly way, he governs the state and protects the people. How, may I ask, can Diwu Lun, a mere man of the villages, compare?"

That famous line had indeed been spoken by Huan Tan, but he shook his head. "That was Huan Tan's misjudgment. The Wei Emperor is not a man of the villages, nor can he even be encompassed by the phrase 'a man of all under Heaven.' If one must use a term to evaluate him, perhaps it would be... a man of the whole cosmos!"

With that, Huan Tan launched into a mode of extravagant praise he never displayed in front of Diwu Lun. "My sovereign is the wisest man under Heaven, able to employ the greatest harmony under Heaven."

From the telescope to the microscope and that whole series of small inventions, to how a few casual words pointed out the deficiencies of the celestial sphere theory and delivered a stunning wake-up call to the brooding Huan Tan — in Huan Tan's eyes, Diwu Lun had clearly become the most intelligent man in the world, nearly omniscient and omnipotent.

"My sovereign is also the most benevolent under Heaven, able to unite the closest kin under Heaven."

What moved Huan Tan most about Diwu Lun was that, when faced with the typhoid epidemic, he did not, like the typical high official, turn pale and flee, but stayed to fight alongside everyone. He extended his own feelings to others, felt the pain of all people tormented by the plague, and resolved to expend great effort to declare war on the five great scourges: typhoid, consumption, and the rest!

"My sovereign is the most discerning under Heaven, able to elevate the worthiest men under Heaven."

And what Huan Tan admired even more was that Diwu Lun seemed to have his own clear plan for the future of all under Heaven. He had not completely discarded Wang Mang's policies because of the Xin dynasty's failure, but discarded the dross while absorbing the essence, gradually advancing the very things Wang Mang had wanted to do but botched.

Was this not precisely why Huan Tan had supported Wang Mang's usurpation of the Han in the first place? He wanted to see this world, mired in a quagmire, undergo change!

Huan Tan said with deep feeling, "When a virtuous sovereign cultivates these three things, then within the four seas, all will simply await his commands. This is what is meant by 'repelling enemies from a thousand li away.'"

"Indeed, Liu Xiu is no ordinary man either. Had he not encountered the Wei Emperor, he would surely have become an enlightened sovereign of his age, a figure like the Middle Ancestor Xiaoxuan, or even like Han Gaozu."

"But my sovereign surpasses even Liu Xiu. Mencius said, 'Every five hundred years, a true king must arise.' The Wei sovereign is the one who has emerged in response to the times, and in the future, he can be compared to the Duke of Zhou! He will inaugurate a new eight-hundred-year system!"

Sure enough, Huan Tan's estimation of Diwu Lun had soared to the heavens, reaching all the way to "the cosmos." Huan Rong listened, stunned, unable to understand what kind of bewitching potion Diwu Lun had fed the usually rational and intelligent Huan Tan to make him suddenly so fanatically devoted.

He merely flicked his sleeve disdainfully and said, "Since we each serve our own master, there is no need for Grand Master Junshan to speak these flattering words to me. You can wait until you return north and then prostrate yourself before that brat Diwu and fawn on him all you like. May I ask, Grand Master Junshan, what exactly is the purpose of your visit?"

Huan Tan understood at once. "The King of Wu refuses to see me?"

Of course he would not. The two states were enemies, yet neither recognized the other. If Liu Xiu formally received Huan Tan, wouldn't that be tacitly admitting he was the "King of Wu of Great Wei"?

Huan Rong understood this too, and said, "There is no need to trouble His Majesty or the Three Excellencies and Nine Ministers. I shall come as Governor of Jiujiang to receive the Junshan dignitary — that would be fitting."

That being the case, Huan Tan need not stand on ceremony either. He thereupon laid out the reason Diwu Lun had sent him south across the river:

"This journey to Huainan is because my lord wishes to cease hostilities with the King of Wu."

The war had reached a point where neither side could sustain it any longer. Diwu Lun faced enemies on all fronts — hardly a year passed without battle. Over a hundred thousand troops had been in the field for half a year, provisions consumed at a furious pace; he needed a respite. On top of that, a wave of typhoid had battered them, the soldiers were exhausted and had lost all will to fight. Advancing to the Huai River line was already the limit. Any further south, and the Huainan region's web of waterways would sharply diminish the cavalry's advantage.

It was the same on Liu Xiu's side. Continuous losses of officers and men in Jing-Xiang and Xu-Huai had severely weakened his strength. Huainan and Jiangdong, drained of manpower, coin, and grain to supply two great campaigns, were long since hollowed out. At present, Liu Xiu could barely maintain a defense, let alone speak of retaking Pengcheng. Unless Diwu Lun attacked first and gave him an opening, he could not counterattack either.

A truce was inevitable — it was only a question of who proposed it first. Of course, both sides could also maintain a state of war, glaring at each other across the Huai, to see who could hold out longer.

But Diwu Lun felt that was unnecessary. He sent an envoy on his own initiative for another matter entirely.

Huan Tan said, "His Majesty the Wei Emperor, deeply moved by the heroic sacrifice of Lord Lai Junshu and Liu Zhi, and filled with reverence, ordered their remains carefully preserved and placed in coffins."

"He now wishes to return the bodies of the two generals, along with four thousand Huainan-born prisoners, in exchange for General Gai Yan, the Tiger-Tusk General, and over a thousand captured Yuyang lancers! The state letter is here. I beg you, Chunqing, to pass it on to the King of Wu, Liu Xiu!"