Chapter 282: Eight Hundred Years of Flourishing and Withering, Glory and Decay

"The ancients said: When a state is about to flourish, it heeds its people; when it is about to perish, it heeds the gods."

"Yet now, the people have all become Qin captives, and the gods have abandoned Chu as well — what am I, the unworthy one, to do?"

King Fuchu of Chu stood atop the palace gate-tower, his hair disheveled, watching helplessly as within a single day and night, all eight land gates and eight water gates of Shouchun fell. Qin banners appeared and vanished in the once-bustling Ying Market north of the city. Resistance in the outer ward had grown fainter and fainter; nearly ten thousand soldiers and civilians surged into the inner city, while the rest were shut outside by the closed palace gates, abandoned to the Qin army.

Now, all that stood between the King of Chu and the Qin army were the high palace walls and the moat formed by the Left Canal of the Fei River and the West Canal of the Quebei Reservoir. Many years ago, Lord Chunshen, who had built Shouchun and the palace by order of King Kaolie of Chu, seemed to have always feared such a day would come. While ensuring magnificence and splendor, he had also made the royal palace a sturdy fortress.

But even an impregnable stronghold was useless now. Deprived of his people beside him and the gods above him, the King of Chu, relying on this isolated city against the onslaught of a hundred thousand Qin troops, could hold out for one or two more days at most.

The King of Chu could bear to look no longer. He turned away, abandoning the Left Broad Guard soldiers on the palace wall, letting the long train of his robe drag on the ground behind him, and stumbled haltingly toward the Lotus Terrace where he had always loved to feast and make merry.

"With lotus leaves I make my coat, with lotus blossoms I fashion my skirt." The southern Chu people were deeply fond of lotuses. The King of Chu often had his consorts dress in lotus garments and play together in the water. It was early in the fifth month by the Xia calendar, and twin lotus blossoms filled the pond below the high terrace, their faint fragrance refreshing the heart and lungs — yet the King of Chu had long since lost the heart to appreciate them.

The fortunes of a state, too, are like the lotus — flourishing and withering, glory and decay. In full bloom, it overflows the pond; in decline, not a single leaf can be seen upon the water.

When summer returns next year, the lotus leaves will unfold again — but when the sun rises tomorrow, the state of Chu may no longer exist.

Tears streamed from King Fuchu of Chu's eyes. "From our ancestors Yuxiong and Xiong Yi, who served King Wen of Zhou and were enfeoffed as lords, until now, eight hundred years have passed, through forty-two rulers. Yet today, the eight-hundred-year altars of state shall perish by my hand!"

Cai Ci, the Gate Warden who oversaw palace gate access and had followed closely behind him all this while, wept and prostrated himself. "Chu truly perished under King Huai and King Qingxiang. Your Majesty has already done all you could to save it!"

Fuchu, however, shook his head. "'Layered in lotus, so glossy and fair — yet too loose and slack to be girdled. Arrogant in beauty and boastful of arms, relying on the stubbornness of those around him.'"

"In those days, Song Yu meant that a short coat of lotus leaves, though beautiful, is too loose and cannot be bound with a sash. This is just as King Huai boasted of his civil and martial achievements, believing himself upright, yet in truth he relied on sycophants and spurned loyal ministers. I am the same — I gave weight to Wu Ling, the Left Minister, and others, but was suspicious of Xiang Yan and Lord Changping. If I had roused myself from the very start of my reign, could I have altered this fate of destruction?"

Now, at this final hour, he had begun to reflect.

"Had I known this day would come, I need not have murdered my brother to seize the throne those years ago. Or when my elder brother Xiong Qi returned to Chu, instead of sending him off to Jiangdong, I could have yielded this throne to him with both hands! Then I could have been a carefree prince, sailing far away in a boat, preserving my own integrity..."

Not to mention that just half a year ago, he had still gone to such pains to send men to spread rumors about the parentage of King You of Chu and King Ai of Chu — in the end, it all became a farce.

But it was too late to speak of all this now. King Fuchu of Chu wiped away his tears, turned back, and asked Cai Ci, "Is everything prepared?"

"The firewood and oil are all ready."

Cai Ci raised his head. Whatever shortcomings King Fuchu of Chu might have, at least he possessed the resolve to die for the altars of his state.

"Your servant shall do his utmost to hold back the Qin men, and then fall on his sword to bid Your Majesty farewell!"

With these words, Cai Ci performed three kowtows and departed hastily.

Outside, the sounds of the Qin army's assault and siege continued unceasingly. After bathing in the lotus pond, the King of Chu donned a full set of court robes and made his halting way up the terrace. Everywhere he looked, the terrace was piled with jewels, treasures, and jade wares. His consorts and palace maids below the terrace all wept without end.

The King of Chu wished to die, but his consorts all wished to cling to life and refused to follow him.

"I have heard that when King Wu of Zhou entered Zhaoge, King Zhou of Shang, upon the Deer Terrace, wrapped himself in his jewels and jade, and burned himself to death in the flames. I never thought that I, too, would see such a day..."

The King of Chu gave a self-mocking smile. "Even if Fuchu dies, he has no face to meet his ancestors. I only wonder — where is my Daji?"

"Ji Mi is willing to be Your Majesty's Daji!"

A delicate young girl, dressed in brilliantly ornate ceremonial robes, stepped out from among the bevy of beauties and prostrated herself on the ground, pressing her forehead to the floor. "Ji Mi is willing to die together with the King, my brother, rather than become a Qin captive!"

This was the youngest daughter of King Kaolie of Chu, only sixteen years old, just at the most beautiful age of the hairpin ceremony. Yet in her originally soft and alluring eyes, there was now nothing but a resolute will to die — even more absolute than the King of Chu's own.

This younger sister had always been fiercely principled. Because Fuchu had murdered King Ai of Chu, she had not spoken a single word to him for five full years. Only today, with Jing-Chu on the verge of annihilation, did she set aside their past grievances.

"Good..."

King Fuchu of Chu was stunned for a moment, then burst into loud laughter and bade her ascend the high terrace with him. He took the torch that a palace servant, trembling, handed to him.

"Your Majesty!"

Just then, urgent cries came from behind. It was the Left Minister and others whom the King of Chu usually favored, endlessly kowtowing on the terrace steps and vehemently urging the King not to commit such a muddled act.

"Wang Jian outside has sent an arrow-borne letter into the city, saying that Qin and Chu have been bound by marriage for twenty generations. If Your Majesty surrenders, the King of Qin may allow Your Majesty to live without fear for your life, to become a wealthy man, perhaps even with a fief..."

The consorts and palace servants below the high terrace also tearfully urged the King of Chu — a wretched life was better than a good death.

"Villains! Sycophants! You will not follow the King in death, yet you stand here urging the King to surrender to the invaders! Have you not seen how the King of Qin humiliated King Huai of Chu after he entered Qin back then?"

The Chu princess Ji Mi, young and naive, though a woman, had grown up listening to the stories of Qu Yuan and regarded Qin as a mortal foe. Now she burst out in furious rebuke of the Left Minister and his ilk.

"Indeed. Chu may have a ruler who lost his state, but it has no king who was taken captive. Ministers, you need say no more. Those who can die with me, the unworthy one, shall die together; those who cannot, may leave..."

The King of Chu gripped the torch and walked toward the highest point of the terrace, where the Chu palace's treasures and curios were piled in dazzling profusion. Gazing at the mere sliver of land below the terrace that remained of his realm, at these treasures painstakingly collected by generations of Chu kings, listening to the ceaseless pleas behind him, Fuchu's eyes flickered and wavered.

When death is within arm's reach, a man instead begins to hesitate.

"They say the phoenix, every five hundred years, burns itself to ashes, then is reborn from the ashes in fire, cycling endlessly, thus attaining eternal life..."

Ji Mi lifted her chin and said, "I wonder if today, my royal brother can kindle a blazing fire like that of our ancestor Zhurong!"

Hearing this, the King of Chu did not think of Zhurong or the phoenix bird, but instead saw two hunched, charred corpses.

A shiver ran through him, and he released the torch in his hand.

Yet he did not cast it onto the pile of firewood, but threw it into the lotus pond below. The fire in his heart was extinguished as well, leaving only a few wisps of pale smoke...

"I, the unworthy one, cannot die."

"I do not want to die either!"

His face deathly pale, he left the high terrace, abandoning the disbelieving Ji Mi, and scrambled and crawled in a wretched, frantic dash down the steps!

Gate Warden Cai Ci was organizing the last thousand-odd men of the King's Left Broad Guard, resisting the Qin soldiers' tide-like assault with all his might, buying a little time for the King of Chu to die for his state.

Yet he sensed something was wrong, for the great fire on the Lotus Terrace had still not ignited...

Just as he was wondering, the second gate behind him swung open with a boom. King Fuchu of Chu, accompanied by the Left Minister and others, walked out completely unharmed.

Cai Ci was stupefied.

"Open the gates. Surrender to Qin!" The King of Chu remained silent; it was the Left Minister who spoke, elated. He had always advocated peace talks and surrender to Qin.

Seeing this scene, Cai Ci understood. He began to curse furiously: "My King! Where is the courage of our former king Xiong Qu, who refused to share the titles and posthumous names of the Central States? Where is the heroic spirit of King Zhuang of Chu, who inquired about the weight of the Nine Tripods of Zhou?"

"If we open the gates and surrender, I, the unworthy one, can obtain a small fief and live out my old age in wealth, and you gentlemen can also preserve your lives..."

King Fuchu of Chu murmured, not even daring to meet the eyes of Cai Ci and the Left Broad Guard soldiers directly.

Cai Ci was overcome with grief and fury, but the King of Chu's attitude had already shattered the palace guards' morale. He tried to stop them, but was pinned to the ground by men the Left Minister ordered, his head struck and bloodied.

Watching the palace gates slowly open, watching the Left Minister walk out on his knees holding the instrument of surrender, Cai Ci could only beat his head against the ground and weep bitterly:

"Alas! The royal clan of Chu — once they were yuanchu phoenix birds, never crying out, but when they did, they astonished all. How majestic and wise they were! Yet their sons and grandsons have turned into cowardly, death-fearing owls, satisfied by a mere rotten rat thrown by the King of Qin!"

……

"So this is what lies beyond the great gate — such opulence and splendor."

Hei Fu, among the first batch of Qin soldiers ordered to follow Wang Jian into the Chu royal palace to take over its defense, heard the two country bumpkins behind him, Dongmen Bao and Ji Ying, pointing up at the towering gate above them and the phoenix sculpture poised for flight atop it, exclaiming in endless wonder.

Along the long palace corridor, clusters of Chu Left Broad Guard stood in silence, awaiting their entry into the city. The Left Deputy who had just gone out to present the surrender document and a middle-aged man with disheveled hair knelt at the very front, kowtowing to Wang Jian and the generals to accept the surrender — this was likely King Fuchu of Chu.

But Hei Fu's attention was drawn to the Chu men on either side. He saw a Chu official with a bloodied, broken head still being pinned down ruthlessly. The man struggled to lift his head, gazing at the Qin troops marching into the city in orderly ranks, his face streaming with tears.

Turning back to look at the towering gate behind him, then comparing it with the scene before his eyes, Hei Fu suddenly recalled a World War II photograph he had seen in his past life: German troops passing through the Arc de Triomphe into Paris, and the French people weeping along the roadside.

Despair, grief and indignation, helplessness — these were the emotions of the Chu people.

Hei Fu felt some sympathy for these people unfortunate enough to be born in Jingchu, born into this era, but he felt not a shred of sympathy for this kingdom that had stubbornly clung to its old ways, failed Qu Yuan, and fallen from advanced and mighty into decay and withering.

"The people are not a people who deserve to lose their kingdom, but the king is a king who deserves to lose his kingdom!"

He straightened the bronze helmet on his head and looked at his men. Their eyes were full of smug pride and anticipation, all of them brimming with expectation at the Chu royal palace before them. Unlike the fall of Wei last time, this time the Anlu troops, having rendered greater merit in the campaign to destroy Chu, had been granted permission to enter the palace, take over its defense, and transport away treasures and valuables.

The great battle was over. Wang Jian, who had already overseen the destruction of several kingdoms, turned a blind eye to his subordinate troops secretly pocketing a few things for themselves…

Eight hundred years of accumulated collections, forty-two generations of careful cultivation — the finest treasures of Jingchu. Bronze cauldrons treated as common pots, jade and precious stones, gold nuggets and pearl fragments, plundered from their people over generations and years, piled up like mountains…

A treasure vault beyond imagination had just thrown open its great gate to Hei Fu and his men!

PS: Chu has fallen. This is a perfect time to recommend a novel written from Chu's perspective, "Great Chu's King Huai," over a million words already. Those interested can use it to tide over a book drought.

Xiong Huai had just transmigrated into the role of King Huai of Chu when Qin's Zhang Yi arrived bearing a gift: six hundred li of the Shangyu lands.

Xiong Huai declared he would rewrite history, no longer playing the fool as King Huai of Chu, and absolutely would not break with Qi to align with Qin.

The very next day, after consulting with the full civil and military court and several rounds of fierce verbal sparring, the entire Chu court reached a unanimous conclusion.

Brimming with high spirits, Xiong Huai said to Zhang Yi: "I have decided to sever ties with Qi."

(End of Chapter)