Chapter 694: I Predicted Your Prediction

How could there ever be a Son of Heaven who surrenders? Gongsun Shu's reply was crisp and decisive.

In ancient times, the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors passed down the realm through abdication; only Jie of Xia, after being defeated by Tang of Shang, was exiled to Nanchao — but considering that the Huai region was already the fringe of Shang power, and the southern Yue state claimed descent from the Xia, the likelihood that Jie of Xia fled into hiding after his defeat is rather higher.

King Wu of Zhou's campaign against Zhou was immense in scale; though Zhou of Shang was defeated, he fought to the very last moment and burned himself to death. When Zhou fell to Qin, the Eastern and Western Dukes of Zhou collapsed without a fight, yet the last Son of Heaven, King Nan of Zhou, had died before that, thus missing the humiliating scene of the Nine Cauldrons being moved.

It is true that Ziying bared his flesh, led a sheep, knelt, and surrendered to Liu Bang, presenting the Imperial Heirloom Seal — but before that, Zhao Gao had already used a pretext to strip him of his imperial title, so he was still called the "King of Qin" and could not be counted as a Son of Heaven.

As for the Former Han ending with Wang Mang, that returned to the old path of abdication. Although Wang Mang was pushed onto the executioner's block by Diwu Lun, he never once made a move to kowtow, surrender, and beg for his life.

By this standard, looking across antiquity down to the end of the Xin, there truly was no "surrendering Son of Heaven" — but if one counts those who falsely proclaimed an imperial title and then surrendered, one could list a whole pile just from the Han lines of Liu Xuan and Liu the child Ying alone. Of course, with Gongsun Shu's pride, he never considered such people worthy of comparison with himself. As a player who had stood in a three-way balance for ten years, he ought at least to rank alongside Diwu Lun and Liu Xiu, no?

In short, Gongsun Shu's reply was neither servile nor arrogant, carrying a certain heroic spirit.

Yet another thing he did at the same time was far less honorable. The Chengjia envoy sent to reply to Ma Yuan insisted that he must have a private audience. Ma Yuan himself was about to agree without a second thought, but Feng Yan, the "Grand Messenger" accompanying him on the campaign to pacify the people, was more cautious. Ma Yuan had already been targeted for assassination in Hanzhong the year before — one could not afford to be unguarded.

So they first had the Embroidered Uniform Guard conduct a thorough body search. The envoy refused to cooperate, claiming it was an insult; later, though he grudgingly submitted, nothing was found. But just as the Embroidered Uniform Guard demanded to inspect the fine hairpin in his topknot, the envoy's face instantly went pale, and with a click of his lips, he took poison and killed himself!

A post-mortem examination found that the hairpin was indeed razor-sharp and had been soaked in a lethal poison. Feng Yan could not help breaking out in a cold sweat. If they had granted a private audience today and the assassin, seizing a moment of inattention, had hurled that short hairpin from within ten paces and struck Ma Yuan — how could that have ended well?

When Ma Yuan learned of this, he felt as though he had been casting flirtatious glances at a blind man, and lamented, "I regarded Gongsun Shu as an old friend, yet Ziyang still sees me as a general of an enemy state, eager to kill me before he is content!"

Outwardly all ceremony and courtesy, the lord of a great state; inwardly consumed by jealousy, cruel and venomous — this conduct was indeed very Gongsun Shu!

That being the case, Ma Yuan had already done all that benevolence and duty required. When they assaulted the city, he would no longer hold back in the slightest. It was Feng Yan, however, who turned his thoughts to another matter.

"We have been ordered by our sovereign to attack Shu on two fronts. Gongsun Shu is trapped in Chengdu, his defeat already certain, yet he still pins his hopes on the fluke of a single assassin's strike. If he can send death-sworn men to the Grand General of the Cavalry, Ma, then might he not also dispatch a few assassins to the Grand General Who Conquers the South, Cen?"

…

Now to the other side. After Gongsun Shu's death-sworn men left Chengdu in a group, they immediately traveled day and night toward Jiangzhou. Guanghan, east of Shu Commandery, had already been occupied in many places by Wei troops and was no longer safe, so they raced two hundred li to Zizhong (present-day Ziyang in Xichuan) in the north of Qianwei Commandery, then took boats south down the Tuo River. Traveling five hundred li by water, they reached the Yangtze River crossing at Jiangyang City (present-day Luzhou in Sichuan). Following the current eastward downstream would bring them to Jiangzhou.

This was the route that saved the most time, and it was also the route by which Gongsun Shu believed Cen Peng might advance north to besiege Chengdu.

Yet however fast the assassins were, they could not outpace the fleet-footed Grand General Cen. When they reached Jiangyang City, they found that it had already changed hands. The men were greatly alarmed. Pretending to be scholars coming to surrender, they made a few inquiries and then learned news that made them wish they could leap from the boat at once.

wωω ✿тт kan ✿￠O

It turned out that days earlier, upon learning that Gongsun Shu had mobilized his army to defend Guanghan and Zizhong, Cen Peng had advanced upstream from Jiangzhou and captured Jiangyang — but instead of taking the main Tuo River road, he continued to trace the Yangtze upstream, pressing west! The point of his blade was aimed straight at the capital of Qianwei Commandery: Bodao! (Present-day Yibin in Sichuan.)

Because the Wei army controlled the waterways and had imposed boat restrictions, the assassins traveled by boat at night and went ashore to walk by day. Four days later, having covered two hundred li, the group arrived panting at Bodao — only to find that the city walls had indeed been decked with the banners of the State of Wei…

"What? Cen Peng already left three days ago?"

The leader of the death-sworn men was nearly driven mad. This Cen Peng was not only skilled at defense, able to hide beneath the nine earths amid a pincer attack by the enemy's main force, but also a master of offense — when he moved, he moved like a bird soaring above the nine heavens! Ever since entering Shu, he had traced a great circle, "shifting like the wind" across the vast plain, confounding not only the enemy troops and assassins but even his own men. Very few could guess Cen Peng's true intent.

But when the assassins made inquiries in every direction and figured out the next destination of Cen Peng's main force, their legs all went weak.

"Three hundred li to the north, where the Min River and the Dadu River meet — Nan'an City? (Present-day Leshan in Sichuan.)"

…

Cen Peng was not running about at random. There were three reasons why he abandoned the direct route and instead traced a great circle along the southern edge of the Chengdu plain.

"This is avoiding the enemy's strength to strike his weakness," Cen Peng told his subordinate lieutenant generals and colonels. "The Yangtze waterway is too difficult to transport troops upstream. The Jingzhou army that entered Shu numbers fifty thousand men, and we must also divide our forces to garrison the newly surrendered commanderies and counties. We are already stretched thin — those who can fight number less than thirty thousand."

Therefore, it was better to bypass Zizhong and Guanghan and strike where the enemy was weak.

But the Jingzhou army's generals and colonels, after their string of victories, had grown quite arrogant. They felt that even with only a few thousand men, they could thrash the Shu army. So before setting out, they all strongly urged Cen Peng, and some even said outright: "Grand General, by avoiding the near and taking the far, you have indeed bypassed the enemy's main force, leaving them ignorant of our direction and exhausting them in a wild chase. But in their hearts, the officers and men all hope to win more battle honors, and best of all to reach Chengdu early. If things go this way, the Western Army under Horse Cavalry Ma will surely get there first — then won't we have fought this war for nothing!"

But what they did not know was that, as the steadiest link among the four great generals under Diwu Lun, Cen Peng also possessed extremely high emotional intelligence, and his thoughts ran far deeper than theirs…

At the time of setting out on campaign, Cen Peng had already pondered: "His Majesty ordered a two-pronged pincer against Gongsun, but did not specify whether General Ma or I is the main attack and who is the supporting effort. Yet one army is bound to reach Chengdu first. If we compete with each other, it will easily harm the harmony between us."

This worry was not superfluous — after all, the Wei army had a tradition: the thing one most had to guard against in battle was one's own allies…

By the time Cen Peng pulled off his feint and took Jiangzhou, Ma Yuan was still blocked at Sword Gate. It seemed the Jingzhou army had seized the lead, and the troops were brimming with the cheerful optimism of "reach Chengdu by the Double Seventh Festival." Cen Peng began to think again.

"Last year, the Jingzhou army took part in the decisive battle at Dangyang and was rated by His Majesty as first in battle merit, while General Ma merely pinned down Chengjia in Hanzhong and only sent the Western Liang Iron Cavalry to assist. This year, I have also succeeded in capturing Jiangzhou in Ba Commandery. If I then take Chengdu and seize all of Shu, would I not be monopolizing all the merit and all the advantages?"

Moreover, Cen Peng's post was "Grand General Who Conquers the South." In the future, when Diwu Lun moved to extinguish the lingering Eastern Han, Cen Peng and the Jingzhou army would be the absolute main force! For a time, Cen Peng seemed poised to rise alone above the four great generals and become the foremost among the military commanders.

This was an outcome his subordinates would be delighted to see — who would not want to monopolize the great merit and see their whole household rise? But for Cen Junran himself, the last thing he wanted to seize was merit; the last thing he wanted to stand out in was the limelight!

"Today, only Wu and Shu remain under Heaven — they are like two peaches, while aside from Wu Han, who guards the northern frontier, the three Grand Generals on the southern front are like three warriors. When two tigers fight, they cannot both survive — how much less three? As a subject of His Majesty, one must put the state's urgency first and private gain second."

So Cen Peng took the initiative to relieve Diwu Lun of a worry, playing the role of Lin Xiangru in "The General and the Chancellor Make Peace," carefully balancing the merits to preserve the current situation in which the three generals — Ma, Cen, and Geng — advanced neck and neck.

Thus he ignored his subordinates' complaints, abandoned the short route, and instead executed a great flanking maneuver in Shu. Of course, beyond these first and second considerations, Cen Peng had a third layer of thought.

"Gongsun Shu's defeat and destruction are already a foregone conclusion. My only fear is that he will abandon Chengdu and flee south. The southern borderlands are remote. In Wang Mang's time, troops were raised three times, and hundreds of thousands attacked for ten years without being able to pacify them. If Gongsun is allowed to flee into the southern borderlands, the chaos in Yizhou will likely be impossible to quell in a short time."

This would be detrimental to Diwu Lun's unification of all under Heaven, and Cen Peng naturally had a duty to forestall that possibility!

So he first seized Bodao, the capital of Qianwei Commandery — the strategic chokepoint for traveling south from Shu Commandery to Zhuti and Zangke. Next, he planned to strike Nan'an (Leshan) and seize the most important crossing on the Dadu River. In this way, the Shu army would also lose any chance of fleeing into Yuesui Commandery.

Just as Cen Peng forced a crossing of the torrent and captured the ill-defended city of Nan'an, gazing back at the surging, crashing Dadu River and marveling that its force resembled galloping horses, the forces of the Chengjia Chancellor and Gongsun's Crown Prince were also fleeing south from Zizhong toward this very spot…

…

After Li Xiong received Gongsun Shu's deathbed entrustment, he bade his sovereign farewell with tears and immediately set out with light baggage for Zizhong to see the Crown Prince — in order to save time, he did not even bring his own family!

Upon reaching Zizhong, Li Xiong laid out the Emperor's edict to the Crown Prince and presented the Imperial Heirloom Seal. Though the Crown Prince kept insisting that he must return to Chengdu and was resolved to live or die alongside his imperial father, he still accepted the seal and proclaimed that from that day forward he would govern as his father's regent, first hurrying south to rally loyal troops and then marching north to relieve the siege — it would not be too late.

Zizhong had only a little over ten thousand men, while Guanghan to the east had twenty thousand. Although both were under the Crown Prince's supervision, the withdrawal had to be sequenced. Li Xiong advised: "Cen Peng's Wei army division has already taken Jiangzhou. The lower Tuo River and places like Jiangyang are no longer safe. We would do better to shift to the Min River, then proceed via Bodao to Zhuti."

The Crown Prince was not very old, but he had inherited Gongsun Shu's flaw — a love of pomp and display. The Crown Prince had been enfeoffed as a king by Gongsun Shu in his early years and had accumulated considerable household possessions. Now, relocating south to a barren wilderness, he thought of how there would be nothing there, and could not bear to part with his ding-cauldrons, gui-vessels, lacquerware, and all manner of pots and jars. Passing by the Crown Prince's various estates and mansions along the way, he wished he could move his entire household with him.

Halfway along the road, they finally heard the news that Bodao had fallen. Li Xiong knew they could not go directly to Zhuti now and proposed once more that they go via Nan'an City, cross the Dadu River, and flee to Yuesui Commandery…

They never imagined that while they had traced a great circle to avoid Cen Peng, their opponent had also been tracing a circle!

When Li Xiong heard that the five-colored banners had already been planted at the Dadu River crossing at Nan'an, and that Cen Peng's twenty thousand men were swiftly pushing north and would encounter their own forces the next day, he was so shocked he nearly fell from his carriage:

"Cen Junran — truly a divine general! Not only is his speed of march like a god's, but his reading of the enemy is also like an immortal's!"

…

Cen Peng had exhausted every stratagem. When calculating the enemy in his command tent, he put himself in Gongsun Shu's place and considered every possible escape route, and thus was able to predict his opponent's predictions.

To the south, Cen Peng had blocked, at the Dadu River, the last sliver of hope for the Chengjia regime to continue its line.

And to the north, Chengdu, bound by Gongsun Shu to die as martyrs alongside the separatist ruler, had held out stubbornly for several days — and then, amid the booming thunder of cannon fire, it fell with a crash!

…

PS: Wishing all readers great fortune in the Year of the Tiger.

Also, the story is nearing its end, with fewer than ten chapters left. The main text is expected to conclude around the fourth or fifth day of the new year.