Chapter 70: Are You Going to Be a Coward All Your Life?

Since leaving his homeland in Shu for Chang'an at forty, thirty-two years had passed. Now past seventy, Yang Xiong felt a long-lost exhilaration.

To Yang Xiong, silk manuscripts and wooden tablets were more familiar than the crisscrossing paths of his native fields; his brush moved like legs striding freely, roaming at will across them.

He recovered the abandon of his youth and let it gallop: "The phoenix soars above the lowly thickets — how could mere geese match its speed!"

That old memorial, "Petition Advising Against Granting the Chanyu an Audience," transformed under Yang Xiong's brush into a rhapsody, laying out with perfect clarity two centuries of war and peace between the Central Plains and the Xiongnu, from Qin to Han. By the latter part, it was no longer a rhapsody but a political treatise.

"From Qin to the present, spanning ages and years, a period approaching the Spring and Autumn era, our dealings with the Xiongnu have included: cultivating civility and making peace through marriage; using force to conquer and chastise them; humbling ourselves to serve them; and overawing them into submission as vassals. Bending and stretching, shifting and changing, strength and weakness have alternated."

Yet under Wang Mang, the methods were things Yang Xiong had never even heard of — worse than the brutal Qin!

Ten years ago, the Xin Dynasty's twelve-route army, three hundred thousand strong, marched north. Their momentum was indeed ferocious, but the thunder was loud and the rain scant — they never even left the border fortresses. They just stared at the Xiongnu across the Long Wall for years on end, squandering coin and grain, and the northern frontier was ruined by it.

In Yang Xiong's view, the greatest threat to the border was never the Xiongnu, but state policies that changed overnight, and the new army whose long-term garrison began to brutalize the land and abuse the people. In the eras of Emperors Xuan, Yuan, and Cheng, border towns closed their gates at dusk, cattle and horses dotted the wilds, and for three reigns there was no alarm of barking dogs, the common folk untouched by war. Yet now it has come to the horror of cannibalism — and all of it blamed on the Xiongnu?

At the essay's end, Yang Xiong reflected on his own past, overturning in one stroke all his praise of Wang Mang in "Denouncing Qin and Extolling the New," bitterly attacking the new policies and making a prophecy: "Of old, Qin burned the Odes and Documents to establish its private doctrines; the New recites the Six Arts to gloss over treacherous words. The New's misrule is no less than Qin's. Though it has decreed a calendar lasting thirty-six thousand years, I fear they share the same end by different roads — both shall perish!"

The sweeping torrent of words left Wang Long, who ground his ink, and Hou Ba, who tended his brush, their faces slick with cold sweat even as they inwardly cried, How satisfying!

This rhapsody-discourse was not only magnificent and gracefully worded, but its political views were sharp and piercing — utterly unlike their teacher's past works.

After writing the final character, Yang Xiong at last cast aside his brush and stopped. Staring at the still-wet ink, he was dazed for a long while, then murmured, "What have I written? Quick — burn this essay!"

"Master!" With the Master of Fates' men still outside, Wang Long's voice was pressed extremely low, but it could not hide his unwillingness. "Forgive your disciple's bluntness, but this is the finest rhapsody you have written in the last ten years… no, perhaps the finest since you first picked up a brush!"

"Is it?"

Yang Xiong smiled, and a proud self-satisfaction unseen for many years returned to his face.

He had begun by imitating his fellow townsman Sima Xiangru, composing the "Shu Capital Rhapsody." Its diction was ornate, but ornate only — it lacked its own soul. Later he went to Zigui to mourn Qu Yuan, grieving over his writings, never reading them without tears, and often borrowing lines from "Encountering Sorrow" only to deliberately invert their meaning. The works of his youth were too contrived; to borrow a later phrase, they forced melancholy for the sake of new verses.

When he entered court at forty, hoping to establish himself through his writing, he strained every sinew, yet his four great rhapsodies — "Sweet Springs," "Tall Poplars," "Feathered Forest Guard," and the rest — still could not escape Sima Xiangru's shadow. Yang Xiong felt that his standing in the literary world was probably on par with Wang Bao, another man from his own Ba-Shu homeland, who had served under Emperor Xuan of Han.

Only after his life's great rises and falls, when he had seen through worldly affairs, did "Mocking Adversity" and "Expelling Poverty" find their own strength of character. Yet Yang Xiong had always been a conflicted man, pointlessly binding himself with countless rules and strictures. Today, for the first time, he had let go of hands and feet, opened his heart, and poured out his true thoughts with abandon.

Wang Long held Yang Xiong's text, unable to tear his eyes away, utterly smitten with it — yet he could not stop Yang Xiong's resolve to destroy it.

The small coal stove Diwu Lun had sent in the autumn was lit. Inside were the finest coal briquettes, molded into the shape of beast heads. This batch was a high-end product, sold exclusively to wealthy households or given as gifts to teachers and friends, with careful instructions about ventilation included.

Yang Xiong's family was a pitiable single line of descent for five generations, with almost no relatives left; even his two sons had died young. He was, one could say, without ties.

But he still had three disciples.

Hou Ba, whose talent was quite ordinary but who silently looked after his teacher; Wang Long, who was obsessed, almost madly, with composing great rhapsodies.

And Yang Xiong's most cherished beloved disciple, Diwu Lun, who upon hearing the news was even now racing back on horseback at full gallop.

"It doesn't matter if this old man rouses himself for one last effort at the end. I am seventy-two; I've jumped from a tower, broken my legs — what is there left to fear? But I absolutely cannot implicate the three of them."

More importantly, Yang Xiong had once witnessed a figure like Qu Yuan and knew how that ended.

During Emperor Ai's reign, the minister Bao Xuan dared to submit blunt memorials attacking current policies, speaking out for the suffering commoners. He risked death with his remonstrations time and again, denouncing the ills of the court's great ministers. And what was the result?

In the end, the investigation Emperor Ai of Han dispatched concluded: the Fu and Ding consort clans were pure as ice and clean as jade; Chancellor Kong Guang was the realm's greatest scholar; Grand Marshal Dong Xian was upright and unbending; and the Nine Provinces were in perfect peace. All those "Seven Destructions and Seven Deaths" were fabricated by Bao Xuan — isolated anomalies in a few commanderies and counties.

The real problem, it turned out, was Bao Xuan himself, who seized on trifles and always spoke unpleasant truths that irked people. As long as they solved him, all problems would be solved at a stroke.

And so Bao Xuan was thrown into prison. Had the Imperial Academy students not pounded the gates and raised their voices, he would likely have been killed. Later, before Wang Mang usurped the throne, because Bao Xuan refused to submit to him, he was once again condemned and executed.

Yang Xiong witnessed this affair and remembered the absurd truth Bao Xuan had proven with his life, telling himself: "Whether one meets the right time or not is fate — why must one drown oneself for it!"

And so Yang Xiong's remonstrations became roundabout, offered only obliquely in the form of "admonitions."

Except for this piece today.

Wang Mang treated old acquaintances decently enough, but the essay's fierce phrasing and treasonous words, if seen by Chen Chong, were more than enough to bring great calamity upon him and his disciples.

So write it, then burn it — never to see the light of day. Ah, with so many excuses, when it came down to it, wasn't it just cowardice? A spineless wretch.

But Wang Long was unwilling. He held the pages, reading them from beginning to end, over and over, as if trying to memorize every character. If it could not be made public, then keeping it in his heart would have to do, right?

"Master, let me read it one more time — just once! Then I can memorize it!" Wang Long pleaded in a low voice, on the verge of tears.

Yang Xiong waited for him half a ke, then hardened his heart and had Hou Ba forcibly snatch it away and stuff it wholesale into the coal stove, burning it clean.

Night had now fallen; the smoke rose through the house's chimney, undetected by the men outside.

With this deed done, it was as if Yang Xiong had fulfilled a long-held wish. His whole body slackened with relief, and he longed to lie down and rest.

He had never been a man of quick wit or clever thought; every rhapsody and essay required repeated deliberation before he could set brush to paper, often wracking his brains with intense, painstaking thought deep into the night and early morning. Every finished piece added a few more white hairs. When he poured too much of himself into it, it felt as if his internal organs were scooped out and then stuffed back in, leaving him gravely ill afterward.

To have written such a powerful essay today on a surge of grief and indignation — it would surely harm his health even more.

Hou Ba, being older and knowing the difficulties of the world, asked in a low voice, "Master, how will we answer the Master of Fates of the Five Majesties tomorrow? Perhaps your disciples could dash off some random piece on your behalf?"

"No need. No matter how sycophantically you write, Chen Chong will find fault. Better to let him get not a single word."

Weakly, Yang Xiong said, "Just say that Yang Xiong is old, useless, and truly sorry to the Son of Heaven. That after a night of bitter thought, I gnawed bald several brushes, and in the end couldn't squeeze out half a character. Can the Emperor really call for the head of a useless wreck like me?"

"Master is no useless wreck." Wang Long was still kneeling before the coal stove, staring with endless regret at the silk manuscript now reduced to black charcoal. He only murmured, "The world will misunderstand you, Master. They may even mock you."

"This old man does not care." Yang Xiong gave a long sigh.

He thought once more of that piece, "The Fisherman."

The fisherman said: "A man should not stagnate, clinging to things, but should move with the age. Since the whole world is muddied, why not join them wallowing in the muck, pushing the waves? Since everyone is drunk, why not lie down together, lower your head, and suck up the dregs of the wine? Why feign lofty profundity and get yourself exiled?"

Qu Yuan answered: "He who has just washed his hair must shake out his cap; he who has just bathed must shake out his robes. I would rather cast myself into the Xiang River and be buried in the bellies of the river fish. How can I let this pure, shining whiteness be sullied by the dust of the vulgar world?"

Yang Xiong was neither as free and easy as the fisherman, nor as fiercely noble as Qu Yuan.

Like most people in the world, he fell somewhere in between.

Their bodies had long been stained by the turbid ways of the age. Unwilling to wallow in the mire and do evil, yet lacking the power to resist and the courage to cry out, they could only lower their heads, wrap their arms around themselves, crouch in a corner, and stay silent, guarding the last shred of conscience in their hearts.

Today's rhapsody was not written for Wang Mang, who had already plunged into madness and could no longer be persuaded; not for the people of the realm, who bitterly longed for a new sage; and still less out of longing for the house of Han.

Yang Xiong wrote it only for himself. He wanted to reach a reconciliation with that Yang Ziyun who had been conflicted and ill at ease his whole life.

"Devote your mind within; seek nothing from without. That is enough."

Later generations might mock him for toiling only at insect-carving, specializing in brush and ink.

Composing rhapsodies in his green youth, poring over the classics with hoary head.

A thousand words beneath his brush, yet truly not one stratagem in his breast.

A genuinely useless scholar, achieving nothing in his entire life — having served as a Han minister, then serving a second master, not even daring to remonstrate unto death. The final verdict, perhaps, would be "a scholar of the petty sort."

"Fine — finish what you start. If I am ever deemed worthy of a history book, let it be written just so…"

Yang Xiong shut his eyes, exhausted.

"Yang Xiong, to the very end of his life, was nothing but a coward."

……

The first to arrive upon hearing that Yang Xiong was gravely ill was Huan Tan.

Seeing that Yang Xiong was truly sick, the men from the Master of Fates of the Five Majesties' office withdrew one after another. Wang Long was utterly distraught, while Hou Ba told Huan Tan: "The master's health collapsed after he went to bed last night; this morning he could not even rise. Now he drifts between stupor and waking. He senses the end is near and told us only that we must wait until you, Junshan, and Boyu arrive."

Huan Tan had no time to ask how it had come to this — in truth, they had long been prepared in their hearts. Yang Xiong was seventy-two, a rare and advanced age. For the past half-year his health had seesawed; the coffin and outer shell were already prepared.

Prepared as he was in his heart, when Huan Tan stepped to Yang Xiong's sickbed and saw his old friend's frail state, he was still deeply moved.

The world held Yang Xiong in contempt. Liu Xin respected his scholarship, but it was Huan Tan who esteemed him highest, calling him "peerless"!

Though their ages differed by more than twenty years, that did not hinder Huan Tan from befriending Yang Xiong for many years and coming to understand him well.

"Ziyun, do you still remember?"

Huan Tan came to the bedside and began speaking with Yang Xiong.

"Back then, Ziyun firmly believed in the Canopy Heaven theory — until the day you and I entered court together to present a memorial. We sat waiting to be summoned in the corridor of the White Tiger Hall. I pointed at the sunlight and debated you. You were left with no argument, and so you changed your belief to the Sphere Heaven theory."

After Yang Xiong switched to championing the Sphere Heaven theory, he applied himself with fierce diligence, even spending his meager official salary to fund, together with Huan Tan, the consultation of an old armillary-sphere craftsman of the Yellow Gate. They modeled it on Luoxia Hong's design and built an armillary sphere — which still stands in Huan Tan's home to this day.

"And after that, we together took on the court astronomers. You wrote 'Eight Difficulties Against the Canopy Heaven,' sweeping and exhaustive, leaving those old pedants clinging to outdated celestial doctrines speechless! The Sphere Heaven theory thus flourished."

At this, a surge of sorrow welled up in Huan Tan's heart, and he could only sigh: "In truth, there are not a few who understand Ziyun, calling you 'the Confucius of the Western Circuit.' Yet there are also ignorant sorts who slander Ziyun."

"Do you remember Zhang Song? Two days ago he saw me and still said, 'Yang Ziyun, the Confucius of the Western Circuit — and yet so poor?'"

"Guess how I answered him?"

Yang Xiong had no strength to speak, so Huan Tan answered his own question, clapping his hands with a laugh: "I retorted: Was Zhongni never poor and lowly? Can Zhongni be called merely the Confucius of Lu? He was also the Confucius of Qi, the Confucius of Chu — the Confucius of all under Heaven!"

"So Ziyun is not only the Confucius of the Western Circuit, but also the Confucius of the Eastern Circuit! This life has trod the path of sages and worthies — it can be said there are no regrets."

These words roused Yang Xiong somewhat. To emulate the sages, to write books and establish teachings — that was his lifelong aspiration. At least one person recognized him. He merely smiled and said: "Junshan knows me. To have one bosom friend in life is enough."

Yang Xiong beckoned Huan Tan closer and, in a faint voice, spoke by his ear:

"Junshan, but there is one man you have misjudged!"

……

At the first glimmer of dawn, the moment the curfew lifted, Diwu Lun strode swiftly into Chang'an — for galloping horses were forbidden in the streets.

By the time he stepped into the courtyard, he had still come a step too late. Yang Xiong was already at his last breath, unable to speak, his spirit growing ever dimmer.

Diwu Lun came to his side and called softly: "Master! Your disciple has come!"

But Yang Xiong gave no response whatsoever.

In the courtyard, Yang Xiong's old friends had all arrived — from the former Grand Marshal Yan You, who felt guilt in his heart, believing he had implicated Yang Xiong, to the State Preceptor Duke Liu Xin, his mind heavy with preoccupations.

There was also the City Gate Colonel Liang Rang, who was discussing with Hou Ba how to arrange Yang Xiong's funeral affairs. Matters had reached this point; it was time to accept reality.

Diwu Lun was full of doubt. The last time he had left, Yang Xiong had still been quite spirited. Why had his health collapsed so quickly?

He pulled the weeping Wang Long aside and pressed him for answers. When he heard how Chen Chong, the Master of Fates of the Five Majesties, had come to the door to coerce Yang Xiong into writing a fu-poem for the court glorifying the northern expedition, fury blazed in Diwu Lun's heart.

You again!

But he suppressed it and only asked: "When the master was still lucid, did he leave any words?"

Wang Long looked toward Huan Tan, who stood dazed in a corner of the courtyard with his hands tucked into his sleeves. Since that morning, Yang Xiong had been muddled and unconscious most of the time; the only few words he had spoken were to Huan Tan.

Huan Tan also saw Diwu Lun and beckoned him over. The two walked to a deserted corner of the courtyard. Huan Tan, who had never been particularly fond of Diwu Lun, spoke to him at unusual length today.

"I once appraised the figures of the realm with Ziyun, reckoning that worthies fall into five grades."

"'Prudent and orderly in family affairs, obedient and fraternal among kin and neighbors — a gentleman of the village.'"

"'Vigorous and astute, flawless in literary and administrative tasks — a gentleman of the county court.'"

"'Trustworthy, sincere, and steadfast in conduct, upright, fair, and impartial, managing those below and serving those above — a gentleman of the province or commandery.'"

"'Versed in the classics and arts, of eminent name and conduct, able to engage in governance, magnanimous yet firm in principle — a gentleman fit for the highest offices.'"

A trace of mockery appeared at the corner of his mouth: "Ziyun was a gentleman fit for the highest offices. As for me, I am probably a gentleman of the county court."

Huan Tan looked at Diwu Lun: "At first, I thought you were merely a gentleman of the village. Ziyun did not dispute it."

"But today, Ziyun told me with the utmost gravity: Huan Junshan, you have misjudged him!"

"In his Model Sayings, he wrote that governance is of two kinds: si and du."

"In this age, the old are defiled, the orphaned are wronged, the sick are left alone, the dead lie unburied, fields lie waste, and looms stand empty — this can be called du governance: decay and ruin."

"Yet looking across the Guanzhong region, you alone, in Linqu Village — whether in office or not — have enabled the old to live as the old should, the orphaned to live as the orphaned should, the sick to be cared for, the dead to be buried, the men to till the fields, and the women to tend the mulberries. This can be called si governance: thoughtful and benevolent rule."

"This was Ziyun's ideal. He said of himself that he lacked such ability — but you possess it!"

"Ziyun said that Diwu Boyu is capable of governing more than a single household or a single village. Given the chance, you could even, like Chen Ping, govern all under Heaven — bring an end to the world's du governance and extend si governance across the Nine Provinces!"

"Therefore, Ziyun held that you are of the first grade."

Huan Tan pointed at Diwu Lun: "Of surpassing talent and singular excellence, set apart from the multitude, rich in grand stratagems, able to plan for the age and establish merit — a gentleman of all under Heaven!"

Diwu Lun stood stunned. Yang Xiong had never spoken to him of these things — had never told his disciple that his teacher held such high expectations of him, even regarding him as the inheritor of his ideals.

Suddenly, Diwu Lun felt a tickling on his face. He reached up and touched moisture — tears that had, at some unknown moment, begun to fall.

"The master is waking!" At that moment, Wang Long cried out. They hurried into the room. Diwu Lun went straight over, prostrated himself heavily before Yang Xiong, and grasped his hands, still stained with ink.

"Teacher!"

This was the first time in over a year since Diwu Lun had come to the Xin Dynasty that he wept with such genuine, heartfelt grief — sorrow rising from within, unstoppable.

Yang Xiong, somewhat dazed, turned his head and looked around at the gathered crowd. He saw his old adversary Liu Xin, his expression complicated; the one and only bosom friend of his life, Huan Tan; and his disciples. When he made out Diwu Lun's face, covered in tears and mucus, Yang Xiong actually laughed.

"Boyu has come too. This old man was just about to introduce you to my son, Yang Wu."

Yang Xiong's speech had even recovered, though he was still somewhat confused. His youngest son, Yang Wu, had been dead for many years.

"When there is leisure."

"Read more of the books this old man has left behind." That was his final wish, his eyes brimming with earnest hope.

"I am clumsy with words. What I wanted to say to you all…"

"…is all in the *Model Sayings* and the *Supreme Mystery*…"

Yang Xiong reached out and gently patted Diwu Lun's topknot, his fingertips coming to rest forever on his headscarf. "And… in the *Twelve Provinces Admonitions* as well!"

……

PS: A new week — please send your recommendation votes!

(Chapter 2 at 18:00.)