Chapter 243: A Subject Shall Have No Foreign Relations

"Commandant, Douran couldn't endure the torture and confessed. He said his ancestor, the Ruo'ao clan, once ruled Anlu for four hundred years, spanning twenty generations. After the Dou clan followed the Chu king eastward, the old vassal families left behind in the area — the Yun and Li clans — have secretly maintained correspondence with the Dou clan…"

That very evening, Heifu and Tang Qian returned to the Commandant's residence in Ying County and reported the case's progress to Li You.

Tang Qian made his report with smug satisfaction. Though he had made no headway in tracking down the "inner spy" in Jiangling City, he could at least use the Li and Yun clans of Anlu as small fish to satisfy Li You. The two families' influence across the entire Southern Commandery wasn't large, but they were still prominent local magnates of a county!

"For instance, when the Left Military Clerk, serving as a Bailiff in Anlu, cracked the case of grave robbers plundering the Ruo'ao clan tomb, it was the Li clan head, Li Ping, who informed Douran."

Li You immediately felt a chill of lingering fear. That incident had nearly caused Heifu's false-surrender ploy to fail, which would have dragged him into captivity as well. This Li Ping was truly detestable!

Heifu had no desire to steal Tang Qian's thunder and had been listening silently the whole time. Yet in his mind, an image of a man surfaced: Li Ping, the Li clan head who had invited him to his home as a guest last La month, and who had even asked officials to act as matchmakers, hoping to wed his daughter to Heifu — the retired and highly respected Township Triad Elder of Yunshui Township!

That marriage match had not come to pass, but because of Heifu's trusted aide Li Xian, the Li clan on the whole still remained close to him.

"So now we've hit friendly forces by mistake."

He felt a twinge of regret. He should have thought of it sooner — why would Yun Man ever tell Douran about Heifu's heroic deeds? Besides, he had also heard Li Xian mention that the elders of the Li clan still told stories about the Ruo'ao clan to this day. They had not forgotten their old master.

But that sentiment quickly faded. Douran had also confessed some dirt on Yun Man, and that was exactly what Heifu wanted…

Tang Qian said, "As for Yun Man, he had some trade dealings with the Dou clan. According to Douran, during the years before Qin and Chu went to war, there were still some merchant ships traveling between the two sides. The Yun clan, leveraging Yun Man's position as County Lieutenant, secretly purchased gold and tin from the Dou clan to turn a profit, while also selling rhinoceros-hide armor and fine timber from the Cloud-Marsh to the Dou clan."

"However, as to whether these two families acted as inner spies and leaked intelligence on Southern Commandery's strengths and weaknesses, Douran flatly denied it…"

After hearing this, Li You looked to Feng Jing at his side. "Accessory Clerk, what crime should these two families be charged with?"

Feng Jing replied, "The ancients said: 'A subject shall have no foreign relations, and dare not be disloyal to his lord!' Without the sovereign's command, a subject must not receive or engage with persons of a foreign state. This is established precedent. Douran was a County Duke of Chu, an enfeoffed lord of a territory, and thus falls under this prohibition as well."

Heifu inwardly grumbled. By that logic, the Commandery Governor Ye of this very commandery had, during his time as an official of Han, maintained clandestine foreign ties. He could well be counted among those ministers Han Fei had bitterly denounced as 'forgetting their master to engage in foreign relations, thereby advancing their own allies'…

Yet, looking at the international environment of the Warring States, correspondence and trade between states were extremely frequent. If the feudal lords had kept such a tight leash on their own ministers, men like Su Qin, Zhang Yi, and Gongsun Yan would have had no stage on which to perform.

So the feudal lords only paid lip service to the prohibition. Only Qin had specifically enacted a law for this, severely punishing anyone caught…

Feng Jing said, "During the time of our late lord King Zhao, the 'Crime of Conspiring with the Feudal Lords' was added. If these two families are convicted of this crime, the law prescribes execution!"

"The Crime of Conspiring with the Feudal Lords…"

Li You nodded, then recalled, "If I'm not mistaken, Wang Ji, the Governor of Hedong Commandery under King Zhao, was executed under this very law and his body exposed in the marketplace at Xianyang!"

Heifu had also heard of this affair. Wang Ji had initially been a Qin Interlocutor — that is, a diplomatic envoy. He had assisted the Wei man Fan Ju, then destitute as a stray dog, in entering Qin, hiding him in his own carriage to transport him to Xianyang, and then recommended Fan Ju to King Zhao of Qin.

Fan Ju proposed the strategy of 'befriending distant states while attacking nearby ones' and was heavily employed by King Zhao. After becoming Chancellor of Qin, he did not neglect Wang Ji, his lifesaver. Through Fan Ju's vigorous recommendation, both Wang Ji and another benefactor, Zheng Anping, were promoted. Wang Ji even became Governor of Hedong Commandery, enjoying the privilege of not having to report the commandery's political and economic affairs to the court for three years.

After the Battle of Changping, when the Qin army attacked Handan, Fan Ju believed that Zhao, having just lost four hundred thousand able-bodied men, had absolutely no capacity to resist at Handan, and he strongly advocated for Zheng Anping to be made general.

Unexpectedly, the aftereffects of Lord Wu'an's massacre began to show. The people of Zhao shared a bitter hatred for the enemy and united as one, while Wei's Prince Wuji also sent troops to their aid. Not only did Zheng Anping fail to win, but he and over twenty thousand of his troops were surrounded at Handan by the combined forces of Zhao and Wei. That coward, fearing for his life, surrendered with his men to Zhao and was enfeoffed as Lord of Wuyang.

This put Fan Ju in an extremely awkward position, because according to Qin law, if a person one has recommended commits a crime or betrays the state, the recommender shares the same guilt!

King Zhao of Qin and Fan Ju enjoyed a harmonious lord-minister relationship, and the king could not bear to kill him. Using the pretext that Zheng Anping had already undergone one change of position after being recommended, he declared Fan Ju exempt from punishment. He even issued a decree throughout the state: 'Whoever dares to speak of the Zheng Anping affair shall be punished with the same crime as his!' He barely managed to suppress the matter using royal prerogative.

Yet who could have foreseen that two years after this incident, Wang Ji, while serving as Governor of Hedong Commandery, would be reported by a subordinate for illicit dealings with the feudal lords? Upon investigation, the charges were confirmed, and he was executed under the law.

Wang Ji had been directly recommended by Fan Ju for the post of Governor of Hedong Commandery and had not been promoted in the interim. This time, before the mountain of statutes and ordinances, King Zhao of Qin could not protect Fan Ju. And so Fan Ju was implicated and died by this matter…

From this, it is evident that Qin's punishment for ministers engaging in illicit dealings with foreign states was relatively severe. It was only because Southern Commandery lay in a border region, and its various officials had historical ties with Chu, that such lingering connections persisted.

If Qin and Chu were at peace, no one would be so idle as to investigate strictly. But now that Qin and Chu had become enemy states, and with the assassination attempt on the Commandery Governor having occurred, any reception of or engagement with persons of a foreign state could easily be branded with the label of 'inner spy.'

As a native of Anlu, Heifu also made a detailed report: "Yun Man is the Left Lieutenant of Anlu County, holding military authority. His family is a magnate clan of Anlu County, with nearly a thousand clan members and over a hundred servants and retainers. Li Ping is a township magnate of Yunshui Township, a former Triad Elder, also with several hundred clan members. If these two are truly inner spies for Chu, the matter is of grave importance. Should they stir up rebellion and deliver Anlu to the enemy, the entire county would fall into chaos, threatening the safety of several counties near the Cloud-Marsh! We must swiftly arrest Yun Man and Li Ping, bring them to the commandery seat to confront Douran, and thoroughly investigate this matter!"

"That is sound reasoning. The critical border regions cannot afford any mishap."

With the pressure of the entire commandery's border defense weighing on his shoulders, Li You dared not be the least bit careless. A hundred-chi mansion can be burned down by a spark from a crack in the wall. Therefore, in Li You's mind, when it came to these people, it was better to kill by mistake than to let one slip away! Under no circumstances could the grand strategy of war preparations be affected.

With this thought, he issued his order.

"Left Military Clerk."

"Yes!" Heifu stepped forward once more.

"I grant you the tiger tally. Take three hundred commandery troops and, under the pretext of inspecting conscription progress in the eastern counties, go to Anlu and arrest these two men!"

Li You personally placed the tiger tally into Heifu's hands and grasped them. Murderous intent filled the eyes of this Left Chief of the Masses: "If the Yun and Li clans dare to leap about in resistance… you may deem it the crime of plotting rebellion and raise troops to exterminate them!"

…

After returning to his quarters, Heifu called over his cart driver, Sangmu, who had been squatting outside chatting idly with a minor clerk.

Sangmu was the younger brother of Huaimu, who had died in battle in Chu. Seeing that Sangmu was honest, Heifu had brought him out of Jingling County, but he did not treat him as a servant. Whatever Heifu ate, he let Sangmu enjoy the same food, treating him like a younger brother. Thus, after a few months, Sangmu had also become his trusted confidant.

"Feed the horses well, and put the spare wheel onto the carriage body. Tomorrow I have official business and must go to an outlying county."

Sangmu acknowledged the order and immediately went to the stables to prepare.

Heifu entered his room. Behind the bed, in a hidden compartment his brother-in-law Yuan had helped him build, he retrieved several wooden slips — letters sent from Anlu.

They were not family letters from his elder or younger brothers, but bi-monthly reports from Heifu's subordinates, all written by Li Xian and sent via Ji Ying, who now served as the head of a township "postal station"…

Li Xian was currently serving as a Lieutenant Clerk in the county, keeping Yun Man under constant surveillance. At the same time, Ji Ying, Xiao Tao, and others, who served as minor clerks in the townships and hamlets, were also secretly investigating the Yun clan under Li Xian's direction.

Though Yun Man was cautious, in a large forest there are all kinds of birds. The Yun clan had dozens of members, and quite a few served as clerks in various places. Though cowed by Qin law and not daring to do anything too excessive, their minor infractions were beyond count. Over time, a considerable amount of dirt had been collected.

In ordinary times, these things were not fatal. At most, Yun Man would be reprimanded and a few of the younger clan members would lose their posts — nothing more. But thrown out when the Yun clan was suspected of the "Crime of Conspiring with the Feudal Lords," it was more than enough to add fuel to the fire and bring the entire family crashing down.

"How can one allow others to snore beside one's own bed?"

Anlu was Heifu's hometown; his family and trusted aides were all there. Without toppling the Yun clan, he could not be at ease while away. Moreover, Yun Man had once harbored murderous intent toward him. This was his long-overdue counterstrike.

Heifu silently put the wooden slips away, then found a piece of fine silk. He lit a lamp fueled by animal tallow, and in its flickering candlelight, picked up his brush and began to ponder.

He was mulling over the person of Li Xian.

Heifu recalled that overcast day when the snow had just cleared, the scene of his first meeting with Li Xian. This literate hamlet soldier was clearly a man unwilling to accept his lot. Then he thought of the Battle of Waihuang, where Li Xian, in his eagerness to earn a rank of nobility, had not hesitated to urge Heifu to kill that old Wei man — a ruthless streak.

As for when Heifu had feigned surrender, Li Xian, inside Tongyang City, had joined Gong Ao, Xiao Tao, and others to quell Xu Yang's rebellion in one stroke. That was something Heifu would never forget. Without those capable subordinates, Heifu would likely be a Chu captive by now, perhaps even a household slave of that very Douran whom he had tormented half to death with water torture today…

Sturdy grass withstands high winds. Since then, Heifu had regarded Li Xian as his most capable subordinate, the one most worthy of being entrusted with great matters. And, right, he also had a son named Li Cang, who in twenty or thirty years might well prove to be a talent no less than his father.

Finally, Heifu recalled that visit to the Li clan feast, and Li Xian's attitude toward his lineage, toward the clan head.

"He quoted something I once said — that the clan was nothing but people who were arrogant before and obsequious afterward, merely adding flowers to a brocade. And that I was the benefactor who sent charcoal in the snow…"

With this thought, Heifu made up his mind. His brush flew, filling the silk with seal-script characters. Once it dried, he stuffed it into a bamboo tube and sealed the opening.

Just then, Sangmu came in to report that the cart and horses were ready and could set out first thing in the morning.

"There's no need to harness the best chestnut horse to the shafts; that one is for you." The red horse "Loyal Heart," bought in Anlu, was now in its prime. Not only was it durable, but it was also fast. It was Heifu's old comrade-in-arms.

Sang Mu was somewhat astonished. "Master, you don't want me to drive the carriage this time?"

The honest lad thought his driving skills were poor and that Hei Fu had rejected him. He immediately knelt to beg forgiveness.

Hei Fu pulled him up. "I have other business for you to attend to…"

He handed the letter to the illiterate Sang Mu and instructed him, "Tomorrow morning, after the city gates open at sunrise, you will ride out on horseback. If any acquaintances see you, just say you are returning to Jingling County on business…"

Sang Mu was thoroughly puzzled. "What would I go to Jingling for?"

Hei Fu laughed. "Going to Jingling is a pretense. You are to go to Anlu in my stead!" During Hei Fu's inspection tour of the counties, Sang Mu had once gone to Anlu County on his behalf and knew his subordinates there. He was the perfect choice for a courier.

"You must travel day and night without pause. Reach the county seat of Anlu and deliver this letter to Scribe Li Xian at the County Commandant's office! And tell him one thing for me…"

Hei Fu said, "The survival of the clan, the prospects of an official career — all hang upon a single thought! I hope to see, within Tongyang City, that decisive Lord Li once more!"

PS:

Two years later, Wang Ji became Governor of Hedong. He colluded with the feudal lords and was executed for his crimes. — Records of the Grand Historian: Biography of Fan Ju

In the fifty-second year of King Zhaoxiang of Qin (255 BC), Wang Ji and Zhang Lu died. — Yunmeng Shuihudi Qin Bamboo Slips: Chronicle