Chapter 180: Rebirth

"I did all this not for the post of Prime Minister."

Inside Chenying City, upon receiving word of Li Xin's defeat north of the Huai River, Lord Changping seemed to be talking to himself, yet also as if explaining something to his trusted aide Chen Ta. But that single sentence was all he said, and then he fell silent for a long, long time.

He still stood atop the majestic ruins of the old Chu traveling palace at Chenying. From here, looking beyond the palace walls, he could see a few local children at play, chasing each other back and forth astride bamboo horses.

A child at five plays with pigeon carts; at seven, with bamboo horses. Unlike little girls, who love playing house, boys' games, in any era, are always intensely aggressive.

These native Chu children of Huaiyang, though still young and ignorant, had seen so many soldiers and generals come and go through this city that they had learned to stuff a bamboo stick between their legs, gripping it with both hands, pretending it was a chariot and that they were generals commanding great armies.

They usually split into two sides to scuffle, but the amusing thing was that these children were now arguing endlessly over who had to play the role of the "Qin brigand."

"Last time I already played the Qin brigand and let you lot beat me up good — why do I have to play him again this time?"

The child who always ended up the villain felt deeply wronged. The group of children could not settle it by discussion, so in the end they had to decide by rock-paper-scissors.

The loser dejectedly wrapped a ragged black cloth around his head, just like the black-turbaned rank-and-file soldiers of the Qin army. The child who won the guessing game, meanwhile, had gotten a piece of red cloth from who knows where, hoisted it on a bamboo pole to serve as the Chu troops' crimson battle flag. Gripping his bamboo horse with one hand as he ran ahead, he shouted commands at the top of his lungs and led the others, bold and high-spirited, in chasing down the black-turbaned "Qin brigand."

"Nearly half a year now, and the children still see Qin as the enemy," Xiong Qi thought to himself. In the past he would have worried over this, but now, instead of distress, he felt a secret joy.

To gauge the attitude of Chenying's Chu people toward the Qin army garrisoned here, one need not even go deep into the village lanes to ask — just watching the children at play revealed the clues. Without the adults' constant influence by word and example, how could these young children, for no apparent reason, have developed such intense ill will toward a Qin army whose discipline was not all that bad?

Just then, one of the children, a seven- or eight-year-old, accidentally fell. The oldest boy, around eleven or twelve, immediately threw down his bamboo horse and ran over to help him up — the two seemed to be brothers.

Seeing Lord Changping frown, Chen Ta assumed the children were disturbing him and was about to order someone to drive them off, but Lord Changping stopped him.

"I was left all alone in Qin since I was small — no brothers, no playmates. Watching these youngsters romp about is rather refreshing."

He then asked Chen Ta, "Do you have brothers at home?"

Chen Ta answered in his gruff, blunt voice, "Yes. Three elder brothers, two elder sisters. I'm the youngest."

Not every household dotes on the youngest son. A third boy already exceeded the need to carry on the family line; it meant yet another mouth crying to be fed, and clothes that would soon be outgrown — a waste of cloth.

So Chen Ta had left home very early and begun roaming the rivers and lakes, relying on his fine martial skills to gradually earn a bit of a name. Only later did he become a retainer of Lord Changping, attaching himself to him as a sworn man willing to die in his service.

"I, however, am the eldest son."

Lord Changping sighed inwardly, "A pity I am merely a solitary chick cast aside by my royal father."

Although his three brothers were all far away in Chu living as true princes, Xiong Qi, in Qin, did in fact still have one "brother."

Or rather, he once had one.

Xiong Qi still remembered — he too had been a mischievous boy of ten-some years then, in the palace of Empress Dowager Huayang, the first time he met "Prince Zheng," who had just returned from Handan in Zhao after enduring countless hardships…

…

Before he had even met Prince Zheng, Xiong Qi had heard of his story and always felt that he and himself were quite alike.

Both had been abandoned by their fathers in a foreign land; both had clung to life depending only on their mothers.

The difference was that Xiong Qi, thanks to Empress Dowager Huayang's favor, had received preferential treatment from the Qin royal house.

Prince Zheng had not been so fortunate. Even with the shelter of his mother's family, he had still suffered greatly in Handan, enduring every humiliation the Zhao people could heap upon him.

That was only natural. Zhao had just lost over four hundred thousand men at Changping, and Handan was besieged by the Qin army. The Qin general leading the assault had shown not the slightest concern for whether the prince and his mother lived or died. As a prince of Qin, it was already remarkable that Prince Zheng had not been eaten alive by the Zhao people.

By that time, the young Prince Zheng had already revealed a hint of something extraordinary. Facing a crowd of relatives he had never met, he was outwardly courteous and polished, bearing himself with the poise befitting a prince and noble scion, and he knew how to say pleasing things that stirred Empress Dowager Huayang to endless affection.

Yet in Prince Zheng's precociously mature eyes, there was nothing but distrust toward everything around him.

Only by grasping power, by becoming a man above other men, could he guarantee his own safety. From that time on, he had understood this truth — one that Xiong Qi would only grasp much later.

Empress Dowager Huayang, deeply indignant over the hardships Prince Zheng had suffered in Handan, made a point of instructing Xiong Qi to take Prince Zheng around Xianyang and show him about…

"Though you are his uncle by seniority, you and Zheng are close in age — you may treat him as a younger brother."

It was laughable, really — the future King of Qin's first impressions of Xianyang were introduced by a Chu prince detained there. That, too, could be counted as a rare stretch of Xiong Qi's "bamboo horse" days.

The royal house could not compare with commoners. As they grew older, they would have to cast aside bamboo horses and pigeon carts and throw themselves into a far more thrilling and blood-soaked game — politics.

Only a few years after Prince Zheng returned to Xianyang from Zhao, through his own flawless performance, he defeated his own younger brother, Prince Chengjiao — born and raised in Xianyang — and smoothly succeeded to the throne as King of Qin.

And Xiong Qi, as the new-generation hope of the Chu-affiliated maternal clan, was also pushed by Empress Dowager Huayang into the position of Imperial Secretary.

At that time, the court of Qin was controlled by Lü Buwei, while within the palace Lao Ai basked in royal favor. King Zheng's decrees could not travel half a step beyond Xianyang Palace. He could only endure in silence, waiting for the day of his coming-of-age capping ceremony.

And Xiong Qi was one of the few men King Zheng summoned again and again, to discuss with him how to govern the state and enact policy once he personally took the reins of power.

So in those few years, younger brother, mother, Chancellor Father — one after another, they all betrayed King Zheng. Only Xiong Qi and the Chu-affiliated maternal clan remained loyally at the King's side, helping him quell Lao Ai's rebellion and remove Lü Buwei.

The King of Qin repaid Xiong Qi and the Chu maternal clan, making him the Chancellor of Qin.

The Chu prince Xiong Qi remained in the post of Qin Chancellor for a full ten years, and during that time he and the King of Qin were truly as close as brothers. Under Empress Dowager Huayang's direction, the King even married a princess from Chu, just as many generations of Qin kings before him had done — she was Lord Changping's youngest sister — and she bore the eldest prince, Fusu…

At that time, Qin was busy attacking Zhao and had not yet come into conflict with Chu, so Xiong Qi sincerely hoped that the two states could restore their past eighteen generations of friendship, letting those wounds slowly heal — one state standing firm in the northwest, the other keeping to its corner in the southeast, each minding its own business, well water not mixing with river water…

Only then could he remain in Qin with a clear conscience.

But after Empress Dowager Huayang died and the King of Qin truly held sole power over the court, his true ambition began to reveal itself.

Xiong Qi remembered it with perfect clarity — the conflict began at the banquet held for Crown Prince Dan of Yan.

Crown Prince Dan of Yan and King Zheng of Qin had both been hostages in Handan as children and had once been playmates who rode bamboo horses and pigeon carts together.

Now, the King of Qin had become a master who held the power of life and death, yet the Crown Prince of Yan seemed to have no awareness that he was a prisoner, a caged bird.

After the usual pleasantries, he raised his goblet to toast the King of Qin, and then actually began to question the King's decision to detain Han Fei and put him to death. He further pointed out, with sharp directness, that the King's dispatch of Teng, Governor of Nanyang Commandery, to attack Han and besiege Zheng for three months was pressing things far too hard.

"In ancient times, King Tang of Shang and King Wu of Zhou overthrew states but did not extinguish their ancestral temples. I earnestly hope that Your Majesty can follow their example." Crown Prince Dan made this plea to the King of Qin not only on behalf of Han, but also for Zhao, Yan, Wei, Chu, and Qi.

The King of Qin, rarely drunk, for the first time revealed his grand ambition — before Crown Prince Dan, and before Xiong Qi.

"Overthrow a state but not extinguish its ancestral temples?" Xiong Qi remembered how the King of Qin had roared with laughter at that, as if he had heard the most ridiculous joke in the world.

"When King Ping moved the capital east, there were still several hundred feudal lords under Heaven. Now, five hundred years have passed, and only seven states remain in the world. Where did those several hundred states go? Did they vanish into thin air?"

"Yan stretches two thousand li, from Shanggu to Liaodong — this land once held the states of Ji, Guzhu, Ji, Zhongshan, and others. Without conquest and annexation, how could Yan have acquired such vast territory? Zi Dan, today you wish me to emulate the benevolent rulers of old and spare Han's life. Why not first return to your own state and restore the ancestral temples of Ji, which legend says was founded by the descendants of the Yellow Emperor?"

"In these five hundred years, the various states have annexed one another, waging endless wars, and it is the common people under Heaven who suffer. As there are not two suns in the sky, so the people cannot have two masters. As long as there exist two or more kings within the Nine Provinces, war will never cease. This is what you call peace, what you call benevolence and righteousness. Crown Prince of Yan, how much longer do you wish to maintain the status quo and let the people of the world suffer?"

Crown Prince Dan of Yan was struck speechless. The King of Qin then declared with absolute finality, "You may hate me, but the Mandate of Heaven cannot be defied. Someone must eventually unify all under Heaven and end this age of chaos! Therefore, I will not put on a show of false benevolence. I will surely destroy the Six States, and not a single one will remain."

His eyes bleary with drink, he looked at Crown Prince Dan of Yan, and also at Xiong Qi, and laughed. "Yes — in five years, in ten years, Yan will perish, Chu will perish. But what awaits you all is a greater state — all under Heaven united into a single realm!"

"All that the eye can see, and all that it cannot, will be unified under my decrees. All the people of the world will become the black-headed folk of Qin, using a single script, a single currency, a single system of weights and measures! The entire land will be divided into commanderies and counties, governed by incorruptible and dutiful officials. All royal clan members and great ministers will no longer be enfeoffed as feudal lords — they will receive only stipends and nominal sustenance fiefs. The weapons of the world will be collected, and from then on the Central Plains will know no more war. The armies will march to the frontiers, to open new lands, or to fend off the incursions of the Rong and Di barbarians. Harvests will be bountiful year after year, the black-headed folk will dwell in peace and joy, and roads will be built to every corner of the realm. At the ends of the mountains and the shores of the sea, stone stelae will be raised, so that men ten thousand, a hundred thousand years hence may also know of my achievements…"

The King of Qin's ambition left Xiong Qi stunned. The King of Qin's vision left Xiong Qi's mind in turmoil.

It was only then that he truly jolted awake from the dream — he and the King of Qin had never been on the same path from the very start.

The King of Qin wanted to sweep through the Six States, while Xiong Qi only wanted peace between Qin and Chu, to maintain the status quo.

Even though he did not set foot on Chu soil until he was thirty, in the final reckoning, he still identified as a man of Chu in his heart — this was the painful memory branded onto him by King Kaolie of Chu, using Jing and Chu.

As his father the king beat him, he told him: he was a descendant of Emperor Gaoyang! The blazing, burning fire bloodline of Zhurong flowed through his veins!

How could an eight-hundred-year Chu be allowed to perish just like that?

From that day on, the King of Qin began to accelerate his plan to unify the realm, and grew to despise Lord Changping for not being aggressive enough in executing the strategy to destroy the Six States, gradually promoting new ministers like Li Si who could exhaust every effort to help him achieve his imperial enterprise.

In the end, when Qin had already destroyed Han and Zhao, and war with Chu was imminent, the King of Qin began purging the Chu consort clan from the court, and Lord Changping was thus dismissed as Chancellor.

After that, when Xiong Qi's youngest sister died suddenly of illness, their personal relationship also went into steep decline. The once-close lord and vassal drifted further and further apart. Although last year Lord Changping received an appointment to tour the eastern commanderies and counties on the king's behalf, to Xiong Qi it already felt like exile.

That is politics — once you have lost the king's trust and are far from that center, you can never return.

Xiong Qi could only rely on a string of conspicuous achievements — quelling the Zheng rebellion, killing the King of Han, forcing Chen Ying to surrender — to demonstrate his loyalty, begging the King of Qin to leave him a dignified exit…

The current King Zheng of Qin was no longer the youth whom Xiong Qi had led around the eastern and western parts of Xianyang; he was now an arrogant, impatient, and mistrustful sovereign.

To realize his ambition of unifying the realm as soon as possible, the King of Qin was unwilling to wait even the single year that Wang Jian proposed. He could not wait to become the destroyer of the Six States and the builder of a new order.

"In the past, I had no choice." Xiong Qi looked at his own palm.

Whether it was being left behind in Qin, or acting for the Chu consort clan in Qin, Xiong Qi had no room to choose.

But now, after returning to the soil of his homeland, he suddenly had a choice.

Was he to be the Chu orange tree — deeply rooted, hard to transplant, ever more single in purpose?

Or the Qin trifoliate orange — bright and glossy on the outside, but with a bitterness inside that only he himself knew?

Xiong Qi already had his answer in his heart!

This time, he wanted to be a man of Chu once more!

"Let us go. It is time."

……

Xiong Qi hung his sword at his waist and donned a suit of armor as blood-red as crimson. This was a color he had previously avoided at all costs. King Zheng of Qin was not like his father Zichu, who wore Chu robes to curry favor with Empress Dowager Huayang; he liked deep, somber black and disliked dazzling red.

Xiong Qi, bringing his trusted aide Chen Ta, arrived at the courtyard of the official residence. At some unknown time, over a hundred swordsmen in white robes were already kneeling on one knee there, hands resting on their longswords, awaiting their lord's summons.

In half a year, he had assembled so many sworn men — giving them his own clothes to wear, his own food to eat — all for this day.

Xiong Qi bowed deeply to them with clasped hands.

"If the matter fails, I, Qi, shall die before you gentlemen."

"If the matter succeeds, you gentlemen shall all be meritorious subjects of Chu! I, as a prince and Chancellor of Chu, shall never betray you gentlemen!"

"We are willing to die for our lord!" The hundred-odd sworn men prostrated themselves on the ground.

Xiong Qi had already established contact with Xiang Yan of Chu. As long as Xiang Yan proved to him that the Qin army was not invincible, Xiong Qi would be willing to rise up in Chen Ying!

But Chen Ying still had a garrison of three thousand Qin troops. Would a mere hundred sworn men be enough? They would probably be surrounded and annihilated the moment they charged out.

Yet Xiong Qi was fully confident. He had been preparing for this day for a long time.

"Chen Ying is a great city of ten thousand households, with a population of nearly fifty thousand. From the elderly to the children, none wish to be subjects of Qin."

"Therefore, in any marketplace ward, in every household, there are reinforcements for us!"

The residence gates opened, and Lord Changping led his men out. The Qin soldiers guarding the gate showed no surprise. By now, rumors had reached Chen Ying that the Qin army had been defeated; it was entirely normal for the commandery governor of this city to lead troops out to meet the enemy.

The children playing by the wall corner stared dumbfounded at the general in the fluttering red robe. Wasn't the person living in this residence the reviled "Stinking Trifoliate Orange"?

Lord Changping and his party followed the familiar road straight toward the bustling market!

This day happened to be market day. With every step, the crowd grew denser. They all turned back in astonishment, watching the fully armed Xiong Qi approach. In the past, Xiong Qi had walked this road many times, and all along the way, the local Chu people had whispered and pointed at him, calling him a "bad trifoliate orange" — meaning Xiong Qi had forgotten his roots and become a Chu traitor serving as a Qin jackal, failing his ancestors.

Sometimes, people even threw rotten oranges at him…

But now, they all stared blankly at Xiong Qi, watching him stand on a war chariot, holding aloft a phoenix-bird banner.

"Gentlemen!"

In the Chu tongue that he had not dared nor been able to speak for the past ten years, Xiong Qi shouted with all his might to every person he could reach.

"Today, Xiong Qi comes here not as a Qin governor, but as a prince of Chu, to inform you gentlemen of one matter!"

"The Qin army has been defeated by Chu! Those willing to rise up with me to retake Chen Ying and slay the Qin officials — bare your right arms!"

He raised his arm high; the crimson banner fluttered and billowed, wrapping around Xiong Qi as if he were a phoenix undergoing nirvana in the flames, slowly spreading its wings…

Indeed — Xiong Qi, descendant of Emperor Gaoyang, would today be reborn together with Chen Ying!

On that day, three thousand people in the Chen Ying market all bared their right arms! They followed Lord Changping to attack the Qin garrison, and Chen Ying revolted!

PS: The thesis plagiarism check and submission stuff is all done. Starting tomorrow, I'm going to have a good July with steady updates and no procrastination. But for now, I'll lie down and rest my eyes a bit — I haven't slept a single minute since last night. I'm really something…

(End of Chapter)