Chapter 662: Yizhou Is Weary and Exhausted

In the second month of spring, the eleventh year of the Longxing reign of the Cheng regime (AD 34), word suddenly came from the White Emperor Palace: Chancellor Li Xiong was urgently summoned to an audience!

Li Xiong was instantly alarmed. Unlike the State of Wei's Emperor Diwu Lun, who was in his prime, Gongsun Shu was the same age as Ma Yuan — nearing fifty — and his health was no longer what it had been. Add to that his obsession with prophecies and apocrypha and his consumption of elixirs, and any alarm from the palace always made people fear that Gongsun Shu had suddenly passed away.

Only when Li Xiong hurried to the White Emperor Palace outside Chengdu did he discover it was a false alarm. Gongsun Shu was sitting properly in the main hall, merely listless and looking deeply troubled. After dismissing all attendants, Gongsun Shu showed Li Xiong an urgent report from the front: "Word just came from Bishui Pass — Ma Yuan has marched out and is attacking Yangping Pass!"

What was bound to come had come! Li Xiong felt a wave of dizziness. Ever since the realm split and Wei and Cheng contended for supremacy, it had always been Gongsun Shu who took the initiative, whether marching through the Ziwu Valley, striking from Shangyong, or attacking Longyou. Yet five years ago, Ma Yuan had traveled a thousand li along the Qiang road from the Western Qiang, persuaded the White Horse Di to defect, and seized Wudu Commandery.

The Wei army in Wudu was like a sharp sword suspended above the head of the Cheng regime — if Ma Yuan wished, he could strike Hanzhong to the east or attack Bishui Pass to the south, directly threatening the Shu heartland.

But what Li Xiong found most terrifying was this: with such an opportunity for attack in his grasp, Diwu Lun had been able to hold his troops back. He had been repairing the old roads on one hand while widening the water route along the Qishan Road on the other. When rushing water is swift enough to float stones, that is sheer momentum! Diwu Lun clearly intended to build up his strength and then launch a massive campaign!

And so Gongsun Shu had grown frantic with anxiety, massing his armies several times to march north from Bishui and attack Wudu, only to have Ma Yuan neutralize each attempt using Wudu's complex terrain. Now, with everything prepared, Diwu Lun had finally ordered Ma Yuan to march. In Li Xiong's mind, only one thought echoed…

"From this day forward, the roles of attacker and defender have reversed!"

But Gongsun Shu remained optimistic — at least in words: "Fortunately, General Jing Han is defending Hanzhong Commandery. Yangping Pass should be safe, but it still needs reinforcement. Chancellor, you may conscript forty thousand militia. I will also dispatch ten thousand commandery troops. In the third month, they shall march north to Hanzhong."

"Forty thousand…" Li Xiong nearly blacked out at the words.

Yizhou had developed quite well during the Former Han, producing textiles, leather goods, silver, iron, and stone in abundance, with grain shipped out every year. When Wang Mang took power and conducted a census, Yizhou's nine commanderies had a population of 1.02 million households and 4.78 million individuals, nearly half of them concentrated in Shu Commandery and Guanghan.

After the Xin dynasty's war against Gouding and the great chaos of the dynasty's collapse, once Gongsun Shu reunified Yizhou and took another census, he found that the number of households had shrunk to 940,000, with a population of around four million.

Nationwide, this still ranked in the upper-middle tier, but the problem was that after Gongsun Shu declared himself emperor, he imitated the Han imperial system, coming and going with the full regalia of the Han Son of Heaven — phoenix banners, mounted escorts, and rows of halberds arrayed in the courtyard. The number of Cheng officials had not decreased but increased, swelling to forty thousand — meaning that for every hundred people in Yizhou, one had to support an official.

To contend for hegemony, the Cheng regime also had to maintain an enormous army, routinely exceeding a hundred thousand troops. They guarded the borders while leaving the interior hollow, concentrated mainly in Hanzhong, Jiangling, and the various passes and strongholds. The three critical passes of Bishui, Jiameng, and Jiange alone were garrisoned by thirty thousand men, while Shu Commandery kept only twenty thousand troops to maintain order.

Over the past five years, in a bid to retake Wudu, Gongsun Shu had sent his armies on repeated offensives, leaving the people impoverished and the troops exhausted.

Now, with Yangping Pass in crisis, Gongsun Shu had no choice but to once again exhaust his military and drain his people, conscripting forty thousand men in one breath and combining them with the central army to form a relief force. But this was the height of the spring planting season — suddenly forcing one percent of the entire nation's population into the army would cause unimaginable damage.

What was more, mobilizing an army of fifty thousand costs a thousand pieces of gold a day. The Cheng regime's treasuries were already quite empty. On the currency front, Gongsun Shu's iron coins had produced no good results. Diwu Lun's side had ordered Nanyang to also mint counterfeit iron coins, throwing Yizhou's markets into chaos. The iron coins were essentially worthless, and people had gone back to using their hidden Han wuzhu coins. A children's rhyme had even spread: "Yellow ox, white belly — the wuzhu shall return!"

The yellow ox symbolized the Xin dynasty, the white belly symbolized the White Emperor Gongsun Shu, and the wuzhu naturally referred to the House of Liu — hadn't Liu Xiu in the southeast already restored the wuzhu coin?

This had once made Gongsun Shu suspect that his nominal ally Liu Xiu intended to sail upstream and seize his realm. It had taken Li Xiong every possible argument to convince Gongsun Shu that it was all a stratagem of sowing discord by the Wei state's Embroidered Uniform spies…

Money and silk were in such a state, and grain, once plentiful, had been so frequently shipped to support distant fronts that even in Shu Commandery — known as the granary — peasants were showing signs of malnutrition. To extract wealth from the common people, the petty Cheng court not only imposed extremely high land taxes, but Gongsun Shu also banned the brewing of alcohol and even decreed that anyone who possessed brewing equipment in their home would be thrown in prison…

All of this could be perfectly summed up in four words: "Yizhou is weary and exhausted!"

At this thought, Li Xiong suddenly realized: "Your Majesty, could it be that Ma Yuan is bypassing Bishui Pass and the threat to central Shu, and attacking Hanzhong instead, precisely to continue draining our national strength?"

Diwu Lun had now reopened the old roads, making it several times easier to transport troops and grain from Guanzhong into Wudu. Add to that five years of recovery and recuperation in the north, with full granaries that could provide a steady stream of support — the only thing Ma Yuan needed to worry about was that the counties of Wudu were too small to hold so many troops and so much grain.

The Cheng regime, by contrast, after Ma Yuan cut the Jinniu Road, could only reinforce Hanzhong by detouring along the Micang Road through Ba Commandery, adding half a month to the journey. With a thousand li of plank roads as well, it was exceedingly difficult. If the two sides fought a protracted war in Hanzhong, in just a year or so, Yizhou, already weary and exhausted, would be tormented into losing another half of its life!

"I share this worry." Gongsun Shu now gnashed his teeth in hatred whenever he spoke of his old friend. In his memory, Ma Yuan had always been rash and impatient, but after so many years, the man's temperament had changed considerably. He had been rooted in Wudu for five years, as solid as bedrock!

"Therefore, Jing Han has submitted a memorial saying: rather than being passively worn down over time and falling into Diwu Lun's trap, it would be better for me to take the entire great army of Shu, dispatch all the Northern Army garrison troops and the guest troops from east of the mountains, march north from Bishui, and personally campaign against Wudu! Joining forces with the various generals in Hanzhong, we would strike Ma Yuan from front and rear, and in one stroke pull out this thorn that has been lodged in my back for five years!"

Gongsun Shu spoke these words with a heroic air, his tone impassioned, but his gaze flicked toward Li Xiong. Li Xiong understood at once.

His Majesty the White Emperor did not want to lead the campaign himself!

Liu Xiu liked to personally command his troops in battle. Diwu Lun at least took his place in the command tent. Gongsun Shu alone had never once gone to the front lines. He was not a monarch skilled in military strategy — asking him to lead a campaign in person was simply too much.

"Your Majesty, absolutely not!"

And so Li Xiong immediately dissuaded him: "Matters have not yet reached the point of last resort. It is unwise to empty the state a thousand li from home and stake everything on a single decisive stroke."

There was a measure of public-spiritedness in Li Xiong's words. Central Shu had no great generals — even if they emptied the state, they would not necessarily be a match for Ma Yuan. Over the past five years, the Cheng regime had lost at least five generals and twenty thousand troops annihilated in Wudu. The entire nation had developed a terror of Ma. Even in his youth, Gongsun Shu had been no match for this old friend in a brawl — let alone now. If he led the campaign himself and lost again, the Cheng dynasty's mandate would be utterly finished.

But beyond public duty, there was also private grievance — namely, Li Xiong's dissatisfaction with Jing Han!

As everyone knew, there was a division within the Cheng regime over the nation's future destiny. The men from outer commanderies, led by Jing Han, favored marching north to seize Guanzhong and contend for the Central Plains. The Yizhou local magnates, led by Li Xiong, preferred that Gongsun Shu take a steadier course and develop southward first.

Gongsun Shu had initially wanted to remain impartial, giving equal weight to north and south, but in the end, as circumstances evolved, the Cheng regime's energies were entirely tied down by Ma Yuan in the north.

Because Gongsun Shu had essentially taken Yizhou "by proclamation," the commanderies of Nanzhong had initially remained under the control of the two-thousand-bushel officials from the Xin dynasty. The nearer commanderies of Yuexi and Qianwei were gradually recovered, but at the county level they were still controlled by the great clans of Nanzhong. County magistrates sent from Chengdu were frequently waylaid and murdered by the "barbarians," and for a time the region could only be loosely held.

As for the southernmost "Yizhou Commandery" — the area around Dian Lake in later Yunnan — it would not even offer nominal allegiance. Wen Qi of Zitong, serving as Governor there, had for years joined hands with the Gouding Kingdom in neighboring Zangge Commandery, adopting a stance of defending the commandery and refusing to submit to Gongsun. He had even married a descendant of the Han-era King of Dian and styled himself "King of Dian" as well. Yunnan lay beyond the Dadu River, the Jinsha River, and three thousand li of territory through Yuexi and Zhuti — simply too far away. Though Gongsun Shu wished to destroy them, he could never spare the forces to deal with them.

Li Xiong had always believed that the Dian region could not be ignored. If, at a moment of crisis, Dian colluded with Wei state spies and defected to Diwu Lun, striking the Cheng regime from north and south, that too would be a grave hidden danger!

But Jing Han and the other scholar-officials from the northern outer commanderies looked down on the remote and barbarous Nanzhong and remained stubbornly fixated on the northern expedition, causing the Cheng regime to miss its chance to reorganize internal governance and expand its strategic depth in the rear.

"Your Majesty, your servant is willing to exert every effort to conscript troops and gather provisions, and by the third month to have assembled forty thousand soldiers and a hundred thousand shi of fodder and grain!"

Though he knew how difficult it would be, Li Xiong gritted his teeth and accepted the task. But he raised another plea: "Your Majesty spoke some days ago of enfeoffing the Second Prince as a king. Your servant believes this can be done!"

"Let his fief be set in the Zhuti area in southern Qianwei. Appoint a Chancellor, generals, and the full array of officials. Then select a daughter of a great Zhuti clan to be his consort. Zhuti has silver mines that can be worked to supply the state coffers. Beyond that, it can serve as a bulwark for the state, guarding against Dian and Gouding. And it will win over the great clans of Nanzhong — three gains in a single stroke!"

Zhuti in Qianwei Commandery was a rare prosperous place in Nanzhong, because its silver mountain was far too famous. Under Wang Mang, silver had also become currency. Its unit of weight was the liu, equal to eight liang. Elsewhere, one liu of silver was worth a thousand cash — that was the second grade of silver currency. Only Zhuti silver, at one liu, was worth 1,580 cash — the first grade of silver currency.

But Gongsun Shu had long been unable to gain control of this silver mountain. It was perpetually managed by the great clans of Nanzhong, who sent up a token tribute of silver each year. Li Xiong had always advocated taking firm control of this place as a base for southward expansion — the so-called "enfeoffment of a prince" was merely the means.

Gongsun Shu naturally gave his consent, but what he did not know was that after Li Xiong withdrew from the hall, he looked up to the sky and sighed in secret: "Now Yizhou's troops are weary and its people exhausted, while Diwu's Wei state is rich in strength and its great army presses upon our borders. With Ma Yuan's ability, Hanzhong will be hard to hold. Once we lose this gateway, within a few years, we may face the peril of national destruction."

He turned back and gazed bitterly at the towering White Emperor Palace: "This old minister's wisdom is spent. I cannot help Your Majesty forge a hegemonic enterprise or turn peril to safety. I can only use this meager wit to preserve one last hope of southward advance for Great Cheng!"

"The ancients said: when rites are lost, seek them in the wilds; when the Son of Heaven loses his officials, learning resides among the four barbarians. If the moment of existential crisis truly arrives, perhaps that Zhuti in Nanzhong will be the final refuge for the House of Gongsun!"

…

PS: Happy New Year, everyone. Thank you, readers, for your patience and forbearance. The story is nearing its end — the plot holes are mostly filled, and it will definitely be finished before New Year's Eve.

My experiences in 2021 were rather strange — the lowest trough since I entered this profession, yet also many heartwarming moments… but I'll save the detailed year-end summary for when the book is complete.

Also, a book recommendation: What to Do When the Female Lead Runs Out of Your Novel. The ideal female lead from a book suddenly descends upon the struggling author Chu Ge — the daily romantic fluff of a creator and his character.

Author: LSP. This is an unknown new author — not much to look at, but the book is quite good.