Chapter 279: The Place Where It Ended and Began

The soldiers marched over a hundred men who had turned their blades on their own comrades in the scramble for Xiang Yan's body, forcing them to kneel one by one before Wang Jian's war chariot!

"Military Law Officer."

Wang Jian wore a helmet, the bronze giving off a dull gleam under the torchlight, casting shadows that veiled his eyes as he stared fixedly at these men.

His face was seen to be as still as water as he said coldly, "In time of war, to draw swords and brawl among yourselves over merit — what is the crime?"

The military law officer answered at once: "Reporting to the Grand Superior of the Multitude, it is the same crime as fighting over heads and private feuding!"

"Behead the officers who led them. The rest — thirty strokes of the cane, and strip them of their ranks!"

"General Wang, what of our merit in charging the lines and breaking the formations!"

Those several centurions and platoon leaders straightened up, crying out that they were wronged, and one man even tore open his armor. In the firelight, Heifu, standing on tiptoe among the crowd, saw that the fellow's chest and back were covered with scars from blade wounds — likely accumulated over many years past.

"I have followed General Wang for many years!" he shouted. "I bled at Yuyu!"

"I remember you," Wang Jian said flatly. "Yet merit is merit, and fault is fault. Merit must be rewarded; fault must be punished!"

At this moment, no amount of shouting was of any use. Qin military law punished harshly, and merit could not offset fault. At the law officer's single command, this man and a dozen or so other officers were forced to the ground. Wang Jian's close-guard soldiers raised the blades that had had no chance to taste blood until now and struck off their heads one by one!

Wang Jian had messengers each take one severed head and ride out to proclaim it to every unit within a dozen or so li around, strictly ordering the soldiers not to feud privately over heads — or this would be their fate.

Only after this matter was settled did he again order Xiang Yan's body brought over.

In the earlier scramble, Xiang Yan had very nearly been torn limb from limb. With great difficulty, the men had pieced his hands, feet, and body back together and delivered him before Wang Jian.

Wang Jian descended from his war chariot and walked over to examine him in person, his expression solemn.

He and Xiang Yan had met only once, briefly — thirty years ago, when Xiang Yan had escorted Lord Chunshen to Xianyang to attend the funeral of King Zhao of Qin, and Wang Jian happened to be a court gentleman of the Palace Guard.

Inside Xianyang Palace, hung with black and white and steeped in solemn mourning, two young military officers had stood to the left and right outside the great hall, discussing military affairs in low voices. They had talked from night until dawn, feeling keenly that they had met too late. Yet when they parted and bid farewell, each had faintly sensed that the other would one day become his enemy.

After that, they had never met again, only hearing constantly of the other's brilliant battle achievements. Who could have guessed that when they met again, it would be a scene like this.

It was not only the gory wretchedness of a body dismembered after death; from these mangled corpse pieces, Wang Jian also scented death and utter ruin.

"However heroic and formidable a man may be in life, however his power blazes to the heavens, however he commands armies of hundreds of thousands as though they were his own limbs — in the end, he is nothing but a heap of rotting flesh."

A feeling of the fox grieving at the hare's death welled up in Wang Jian's heart. But when he heard that the head still had not been found, he asked warily, "Is this truly Xiang Yan? Did you see him take his own life with your own eyes?"

The officers all said that at the time, they had only seen the Chu army break into a fit of wailing. By the time they fought their way close, those Chu men had resisted desperately, trying to stop them from approaching this headless corpse...

Wang Jian fell silent. The situation before him was somewhat troublesome. Xiang Yan's personal guards had nearly all died in battle, and among the prisoners taken, no one had seen Xiang Yan commit suicide with their own eyes — some believed him dead, others believed he had fled.

Although the military judge who had once served as a scribe swore that this corpse's age was almost exactly the same as Xiang Yan's, without the head, the identity could not be fully confirmed.

"To change clothes and flee — that is not Xiang Yan's style."

Wang Jian ultimately made his judgment, ordering word sent to the entire army that Xiang Yan had already died by suicide. Yet in secret, he decided to have the units dispatched to pursue the enemy continue searching for Xiang Yan's whereabouts. One could not fear ten thousand precautions, only the one-in-ten-thousand chance...

Fortunately, he had also captured Xiang Yan's command banner, which could serve as proof of this matter.

"Where are Li You, Commandant of Southern Commandery, and Heifu, the detachment commander?"

Heifu jolted alert and immediately followed step by step behind Li You as they advanced to present the banner...

The main panel of Xiang Yan's command banner was not made of silk but woven from vivid feathers. The pole was as thick as a calf, three zhang long, and the banner face could cover an entire war chariot.

According to Dongmen Bao, when they had fought their way to the front, the crowd had simply swarmed to seize Xiang Yan's body and even started brawling among themselves — the scene was utter chaos. Seeing he could not squeeze in and growing frantic, he had spotted the great banner planted on the chariot and ordered men to cut it down and haul it out. Who could have known it would be a lucky accident that hit the mark.

Wang Jian laughed: "Commandant Li, you ordered your troops to race to the rescue with light packs and captured Xiang Yan's command banner — this is also the merit of your command and direction!"

"Heifu, you were among the first wave of reinforcements to arrive. First you raised banners everywhere to throw the Chu army into disarray, then you broke through the Chu rear army's formations again and again and seized Xiang Yan's army banner — this merit is no small thing either."

"Those who win banners in battle shall each be rewarded according to the rank they gain, to make clear the intent to reward and encourage. This general has had the military law officer record your two men's merits!"

Beyond this, Wang Jian also commended each army's performance that day. Luring the enemy, holding fast, striking by surprise, feigning defeat — all had merit. Even Meng Wu, who had just defeated the Jing clan's troops and was still over a dozen li away, was not forgotten by Wang Jian for his meritorious service.

In this battle, the Qin army had won a great victory and the Chu army a great defeat — a fight that pleased everyone. But Wang Jian's tone shifted as he said gravely, "Tens of thousands of Chu troops have been annihilated or captured, yet many still scatter and flee in all directions. To prevent them from regrouping, you gentlemen must pursue them through the night! Smash them utterly!"

Wang Jian was already preparing to attack Shouchun and seize all of Chu's cities and towns. Once these resisting forces were swept away, destroying Chu would be as easy as turning over one's hand!

The Southern Commandery corps led by Li You was ordered to pursue northward. Seeing that his own men had not suffered heavy casualties, Heifu told Li Xian to stay behind with some of the more exhausted men to clean up the battlefield, while he himself took five hundred men and followed closely behind Li You.

"Commandant."

After they had left Wang Jian's command headquarters, Heifu asked in a low voice, "The merit established today — I wonder what reward it might earn?"

Because Heifu had performed superbly, effectively winning a "collective merit" for the Southern Commandery troops, Li You was very pleased and had already come to regard Heifu as his lucky officer — last time he had helped him stand out alone amid a defeated army, and this time he had allowed him to net a great merit without even lifting a hand.

So Li You said with a laugh:

"The merit of capturing a banner is second only to slaying a general. For the fifteen hundred men you led, every officer and soldier gets one rank. Dongmen Bao, who captured the banner, can gain two ranks. As for you, the rank of Gongcheng is already in the bag! If you show even a little more performance before Chu is destroyed, Grand Master of the Fifth Order is within reach too!"

From that night until the next day, over a hundred thousand Qin soldiers split into twenty or thirty units and began to spread out from the battlefield, hunting down the scattered, routed Chu soldiers.

As far as Heifu knew, there were two larger groups of routed troops: Left Marshal Zhaohua had gathered twenty thousand men and fled into Qi City, where they resisted stubbornly — Wang Jian had already personally led the Qin main force to besiege the city.

In addition, of the Jing clan troops that Xiang Yan had sent that day to block Meng Wu, Jing Rui had been slain in battle by Meng Wu, while Jing Ju had fled eastward with several thousand men, possibly heading for Xiapi.

Apart from these two groups, the rest of the Chu army had scattered in panic in countless numbers, most losing their unit organization — some in groups of over a thousand, some in groups of a few dozen. Without Xiang Yan, they had lost the backbone that united them and had also been beaten out of their wits by the Qin army. All had thrown away their armor and helmets and fled like scattered stars.

Some fled to nearby Chu cities and towns. Others, like the Diviner Zhou Wen, led part of their men into the mountain forests, and the Qin army could not be bothered to pursue them.

But Heifu's good luck seemed to have been entirely used up in the merit of capturing the banner. After spreading out and pursuing northward, he caught no big fish, only taking a hundred or so heads of Chu stragglers. Then, toward evening of the next day, he ran into a sudden, torrential downpour...

A fierce gale sprang up, lightning tore across the gloomy sky, and rain poured down in torrents, turning the ground into a marsh in an instant. Heifu and his men could only halt their pursuit of a group of over a hundred Chu stragglers. As they looked for a place to take shelter from the rain, they discovered ahead a small settlement not even marked on the map...

"This map is far too sloppy — it only goes down to the county level, some of the roads are wrong, and this little settlement isn't marked either. Good thing the great battle is already over."

Mu had stopped carrying the banner and was instead holding up this era's umbrella, a "canopy screen," for Heifu. Heifu also told Ji Ying to put away the map and ordered everyone to pick up the pace and seize this small settlement to get out of the rain.

"If there are any Chu stragglers inside, we'll just get a few more heads."

But after storming into this small settlement, which had only a hundred or so households and walls no more than a zhang high, they found that, never mind Chu troops, there was not even a single human shadow to be seen...

When Heifu and his men marched straight into the largest house to shelter from the rain, they found that the people here had withdrawn in great haste — they had not even had time to take in the laundry hanging outside to dry.

After a while, Dongmen Bao, who had been ordered to search the settlement for people, dragged over an old man of fifty who walked with a limp. The old man wore coarse brown clothes, clearly very poor, and was holding a little girl of about three or four. She was terrified of the fierce, villainous-looking Qin soldiers and hid in the old man's arms, sobbing without stop.

"Old sir, let me ask you."

Heifu told everyone not to frighten them and asked kindly, "Where have all the people of this settlement gone?"

The Chu old man had never expected that from the mouth of this dark-faced Qin officer would come authentic Jing-Chu dialect. He was dumbstruck for a moment, and only after a long pause did he stammer, "We heard a great battle was being fought south of Qi. The settlement head feared being caught up in it, so he took the settlement's people and fled into the marshes..."

The marsh he spoke of was surely that stretch of swampland north of Qi. Mountain forests and marshes are natural refuges where common folk hide from the chaos of war. After all, where armies pass, brambles grow; when troops march through, they live off the enemy's land and seize every last grain of rice — no different from a plague of locusts sweeping through.

"Why did you not go and hide?" Heifu pressed on.

"This old man's legs are no good — I can't walk far. Besides, I have a granddaughter to look after." His leg was indeed lame, hobbling with each step; he must have been wounded once.

"Yesterday and today — did any Chu soldiers flee into this place?"

The old man clutched his little granddaughter, as though trying his utmost to hide her away, and lowered his head. "None..."

"Squad Leader, look what I found!"

As he spoke, Ji Ying came running over excitedly. In the old man's house they had also found, hidden among the brush, several bloodstained armored coats. Without question, these were Chu armors! Plainly, the old man had lied. Not only had routed soldiers entered the hamlet — he had taken them in and tended to them!

"How do you explain this?"

The old man's face turned ashen. He murmured, "Those were all lads of this hamlet. After the defeat they fled back here. I couldn't just watch and do nothing, so I told them to cast off their armor and go into the marsh as well..."

It was then that Heifu noticed the old man's eyes, from beginning to end, kept darting to the ghastly severed heads hanging at the Qin soldiers' waists.

"This is your granddaughter. Where is your son?"

The old man clutched his granddaughter tighter and, in a low, trembling voice that yet suppressed a thread of fury, said, "Gone on a long journey!"

"Oh — could it be that he too has joined Xiang Yan's great army to fight the Qin forces!?"

The moment Heifu said this, the Qin soldiers' faces turned fierce. They drew their swords, and the little girl burst into terrified wails!

"My son is indeed in the Chu army. But his comrades came back and said he was trapped among the ranks — eight or nine chances out of ten, he is dead."

In something like despair, the old man dropped to his knees and kowtowed again and again. "I can tell from your speech that you too are men of Jing! I beg you, have pity. If you must kill, then kill me — spare my granddaughter. Let her stay in this hamlet until her mother returns. She, fearing capture and defilement by the Qin army, also followed the others into the marsh..."

They were just an ordinary Chu commoner household. The son had been conscripted and died in battle. At home remained only a lame old man keeping a lonely vigil. Looking at that leg injury, it might well have been dealt by a Qin blade in some war many years ago.

In this war, Chu had mobilized one-tenth of its population. Though most of the conscripted laborers were left behind in various places when Xiang Yan withdrew, or fled and scattered early, the dead and wounded among them must number no less than a hundred thousand. In Chu, therefore, there were many more households just like this one.

The living barely cling to survival; the dead are gone forever. In the house no one else remains — only a suckling grandchild...

And they themselves, as it happened, were playing the part of the invaders.

"From this day forward, you too are Qin people — Qin subjects."

After a long silence, Heifu spoke these words. He gestured with his hand and ordered his men to sheathe their blades. "Enough. Lock the old man and the child in the house. Release them when we depart."

That night, the rain fell steadily, a soft, ceaseless patter. Deep into the night, the voices of the Qin soldiers gradually faded. Only faintly, intermittently, could one hear from the room where the grandfather and granddaughter were shut in the sound of low, broken weeping — whether for the lost son and father, or for what else, who could tell?

The next day, the weather cleared. Heifu led his men out of the little hamlet, preparing to return to the main force with over a hundred severed heads and report in.

Before leaving, he spread open again on his own cart that very imprecise map, marked down the small path they had taken the day before and this unremarkable little hamlet, and wrote beside it, in tiny characters, the name he had asked from the old Chu man:

"Daze Village!"

Barely thirty or forty li from Qinan, where the Chu army was annihilated and Xiang Yan fell in battle — there lay Daze Village!

This was the place where everything ended, and the place where everything began.

In history, the flame of Chu was extinguished here — yet would the spark among the ashes still rekindle in this very spot?

Heifu turned his head and looked back at Daze Village receding into the distance, and at the old man and his granddaughter, who had come out and watched them leave from afar, their eyes now impossible to read — was it fear, or was it hatred?

He seemed to see a specter — a specter named the hatred of a lost kingdom and a broken home — already wandering the land of Jing-Chu, lingering and never to disperse!

PS:

Novel recommendation: "A Minor Official of the Ming Dynasty"

The end of the 15th century,

Zheng He's treasure ships have long since vanished,

Europe's fleets are sailing toward the East,

He is the descendant of a hero,

Yet little known to the world,

He is the smallpox-inoculating scholar,

And the friend of women in childbirth,

Though he walks the upright path of the incorruptible,

He also colludes with eunuchs,

Eunuchs help him pass the provincial exam,

The upright help him become a presented scholar,

He is sent as an envoy to the southern heavens,

And opens up the Eastern Isle,

He is both a prodigy of finance,

And a butcher with hands drenched in blood,

He is merely a minor Ming official — his deeds illustrious, yet he stays far from the court,

Where should he go from here — drift with the current, or rise up and strike?

(End of chapter)