Chapter 285: The King of Qin (Part One)

After the colonels acknowledged their orders and headed to their assigned positions, Li You called Heifu back alone and asked whether he was nervous about seeing the Great King's carriage procession.

"This humble officer is so stirred he couldn't sleep a wink last night!"

Although Heifu had actually slept quite soundly the night before, he still put on an act of excitement at meeting a great personage.

His reply pleased Li You greatly, who laughed heartily and said, "Exactly! Even though I see the royal carriage often, I still feel awe and anticipation every time — how much more so for you? Then let me ask you another: do you know what item is absolutely indispensable on the royal carriage?"

"This humble officer dares not presume to guess at the Son of Heaven's carriage." Heifu again put on a look of abject trepidation, refusing to guess no matter what, so Li You simply revealed the correct answer.

"The Great King's carriage, spacious as it is, holds neither consorts nor palace attendants to serve him, nor rare treasures or fine vessels to amuse him. What is always there is, first, maps of all the realm's mountains and rivers, and second, memorials from every commandery and county…"

Li You explained, "Wherever the Great King goes, even to a small town or tiny settlement, he constantly consults the maps, inquiring about the town walls, households, mountains, rivers, and streams — he must imprint every piece of land under his rule upon his mind. Moreover, even when traveling away from court, he reviews a hundred jin of bamboo-slip documents every single day! He never allows governance to slip from his grasp!"

"A workaholic who doesn't enjoy pleasure? Then why build so many palaces in Guanzhong — sure enough, just for hoarding, I suppose…"

Heifu thought this to himself, but aloud he said admiringly, "The Great King's diligence in governance is how Qin has been able to sweep away the feudal lords!"

The idle chat had gone on long enough. Li You looked up to gauge the time — the sun was already three poles high — and waved his hand, saying, "Go to the section of road where the Anlu troops are stationed. When the Great King's carriage passes, make sure everyone kneels in unison. Afterward, follow me into the city. Though the Great King may not necessarily remember you, seeing me might remind him of the 'catalpa timber' counsel, and he may summon you for an audience!"

…

Huaiyang had been lost and retaken by the Qin army for several months now and served as a military grain distribution hub, so the outskirts of the city resembled a vast army camp. Over half of the three hundred thousand conscript laborers had been kept here. Learning that the King of Qin was coming, they were immediately mobilized once more to repair the road from the city gate to Wanqiu. Heifu and the tens of thousands of Qin soldiers with him were arrayed westward from the city gate, stretching a full ten li!

The soldiers stood along the roadside. Behind them were masses of one hundred fifty thousand Qin conscript laborers, already under military-style management and standing in fairly orderly rows. Farther back still were the local residents, whose attitudes were inscrutable; they too had been forcibly dragged out to watch the King of Qin's arrival and the ceremony of the King of Chu's formal surrender…

While vigilantly maintaining security over the hundred-pace stretch he was responsible for, Heifu also had to field endless questions from his men, especially Ji Ying…

"Centurion, what does the Great King actually look like?"

"I've never seen him either. You ask me, but who do I ask?" Heifu answered irritably.

"Isn't Commandant Li the Great King's son-in-law? He must have seen the Great King — didn't he describe him to you, Centurion?" Ji Ying and the others refused to give up.

"Commandant Li said the Great King is brilliant, wise, and sagacious — like a divine being." Li You indeed could not give any concrete description; he revered his father-in-law the King of Qin as if he were a god.

"A divine being…"

Ji Ying, Dongmen Bao, and the others found this comparison perfectly reasonable.

"He is the Great King, after all — of course he's a divine being."

"I've heard the Great King neither ages nor dies." Gong Ao, standing beside them, also leaned in.

"I've heard the Great King is three zhang tall." Mu, the standard-bearer, gestured at himself: "Twice my height!"

"Far more than three zhang — I've heard the Great King wears the stars on his head, and wherever he goes, the weather turns fair and favorable!" Dongmen Bao's version was even more exaggerated, his eyes full of reverence.

It was clear that Heifu's subordinates were the ones truly excited; from the looks of it, they probably really hadn't slept well the night before. Come to think of it, when a national leader in later ages visited the grassroots, common folk who got the chance to shake their hand would be overjoyed — let alone a monarch deified in ancient times.

These men might be irreverent toward the county magistrate who governed them or even the commandery governor, but toward the unreachably exalted King of Qin, their blind veneration came from the bottom of their hearts.

What they worshipped was not merely his power, but all that he had accomplished over these twenty years. Some feudal lords reigned for many years without the common people ever learning their names, but the King of Qin was different. Ever since he took personal control of the government, war after war had mobilized the entire Qin populace to take part. Under the Qin officials' propaganda, everyone knew there was a king who:

With a wave of his hand, he could reduce the Six States to ashes; with a word from his mouth, six hundred thousand men would toil north and south…

"We'll find out soon enough."

Heifu smiled helplessly and pointed west. "Hurry to your assigned security posts — I can already hear the drums and music!"

…

Heifu had not misheard; from the distance indeed came the sound of reed pipes, flutes, and drums, carried on the wind to their ears.

The first thing to enter their field of vision was the vanguard of the King of Qin's procession. Six imposing "axe chariots" passed by first, followed by fifty honor guards bearing halberds to clear the way and fifty more carrying fluttering banners. The halberds were sheathed in red-and-black silk covers; the banners were of every color, embroidered with various beasts, each bearing a different meaning, rippling in the breeze.

Next came the towering drum-and-music chariots, which were actually two stories high! On the upper level stood a great ceremonial drum with feathered streamers fluttering; two drummers struck it with mallets. On the lower level sat four musicians, paired face to face, playing reed pipes and flutes.

Six drum-and-music chariots, thirty-six men. The drummers pounded their drums with all their might as if in a frenzied dance; the wind players blew with every ounce of strength, their cheeks swelling into great balls, their lungs seeming ready to burst at any moment. They exerted themselves so furiously for one purpose: to announce to all with the loudest possible sound —

The royal carriage has arrived!

After the honor guard came the heroic and immaculate "Gentleman-of-the-Palace Guard Army."

The Gentleman-of-the-Palace Guard Army — this was the elite unit that guarded the king's person. Its members were all sons of official families from Guanzhong; Li Xin, Li You, Meng Tian, and others had all come from its ranks.

First came foot soldiers uniformly clad in black armor and heavy helmets, their height a near-uniform eight chi. Five hundred men marched past in the sequence of the "five weapons": shields slung on their backs, short swords at their waists, dagger-axes and spears raised high, bows and crossbows with arrows neatly arrayed, the branches of bronze halberds like a forest passing by.

After the infantry came the cavalry. These men were called "Martial Riders." According to Li You, they were all under forty years of age, over seven chi five cun tall, robust in body, superb in horsemanship, and peerless in archery, able to "leap trenches and moats, scale hills and ridges, brave perilous obstacles, cross great marshes, charge fierce foes, and throw multitudes into chaos."

The two hundred riders were divided into a front and rear contingent. The front riders wore helmets with flowing red tassels, bronze-and-leather composite armor, and crimson battle robes, their nine-chi-long lances slanting forward.

The rear riders wore hideous bronze masks and pure-white feather crests, with long swords at their waists. Even their horses were equipped with leather barding; man and steed alike were fully armed, appearing all the more mysterious under the shroud of dust.

Their horses were tall, and the men were superbly equipped. As they passed, they exuded a dragon-and-steed vitality. Heifu's subordinates could not help sighing in admiration, feeling that these were indeed elite guards worthy of protecting the King of Qin — they looked as though they truly could fight one against five. The stable clerk who served as a scout, in particular, was so envious his eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.

By this point, the King of Qin's carriage procession had been passing for several hundred meters. While marveling that a monarch's progress truly spared no pomp — "a thousand chariots, ten thousand riders are a must" — Heifu was also sighing that the King of Qin was really making them wait endlessly before he finally appeared!

Just as he was about to lament when it would ever end, several more drum chariots passed by, and the officials atop them bellowed:

"The Great King's ceremonial carriage approaches — kneel!"

…

"Kneel!"

Instinctively, the soldiers dropped to one knee. Behind them, the Qin conscript laborers fell to both knees. Across ten li, the hundred thousand–plus people lining the route were like a wheat field swept by the wind, all prostrating themselves in unison!

At this moment, the escort wing of war chariots forming the royal guard also rolled past before their eyes. Heifu had heard that the King of Qin was already using the Son of Heaven's ceremonial procession; though not as extravagant as the eighty-one chariots he would have after becoming emperor, it still numbered thirty-six.

First came six light chariots with vermilion wheels and bodies, neither covered nor canopied, bearing erect spears, halberds, banners, and plumes. Alert crossbow-wielding guards atop them scanned the surroundings warily, and multicolored streamer-banners were planted on them.

After these came six vanguard chariots, carrying secretaries and censors who served as the king's outriders. They too bore dagger-axes, spears, crossbows, and arrow cases, with black canopies lined in red, their bodies also painted vermilion.

At last, after the vanguard chariots, Heifu finally caught sight of the King of Qin's true carriage of state…

It was an enormous carriage drawn by six pure-white horses. Though it appeared unostentatious, every detail was exquisitely deliberate. First, it was twice the size of an ordinary carriage. Its wheels had vermilion double-spoke hubs; a tiger pattern adorned the kneeling front rail; dragon heads held the yoke; a feathered canopy with ornate bronze finials arched above; a great banner was planted on it; and five auxiliary carriages followed closely behind.

A yellow canopy and a yak-tail pennant on the left — Heifu saw them clearly. It was the King of Qin's carriage, no mistake!

"Is it here?"

Heifu nodded.

"It's here!"

Ji Ying, Dongmen Bao, and the others beside Heifu had still been whispering questions moments before. Once they got an affirmative answer, they all held their breath, their expressions a mix of anxiety and unease. They wanted to straighten up and see the King of Qin's appearance, yet they also felt somewhat afraid to. In the end, curiosity won out, and they tilted their heads to steal a look at the approaching carriage.

Today was no ordinary outing, but a tour to reward the officers and men of the three armies. For this reason, the King of Qin had not ridden in the tightly sealed and relatively safer "Gold-Root Chariot," but in an open carriage that allowed everyone to see him…

But the first thing Heifu and the others spotted was the man driving the King of Qin's chariot — tall and powerfully built, sword at his waist and crossbow set beside him, belted and capped, sporting a short beard, imposing yet steady. He was unmistakably an officer of the Central Chariot Bureau!

And behind the driver, seated upright within the carriage compartment, was of course the King of Qin himself!

He sat rigidly formal in the chariot, robed in the royal vestments embroidered with the Twelve Symbols of sun, moon, and stars. The upper garment was black and the lower skirt was crimson. In his hand, just as Li You had said, he still held bamboo slips.

The King of Qin wore a heavy crown upon his head, seven inches wide and a full foot and two inches long. The fine bead-strings obscured his features, so Heifu could only see the long whiskers beneath his chin fluttering faintly in the breeze. The king's eyes were slightly shut, as if resting, conserving his spirit…

As they passed the Anlu soldiers at the very front, the King of Qin finally opened his eyes.

Behind the pearl tassels were a pair of bright, piercing eyes!

Though it was only a light glance, his face betraying no excess of emotion, it was enough to scare the soldiers who met his gaze half to death.

Dongmen Bao, reckless beyond measure; Li Xian, ever ready with a startling remark; and Ji Ying, whose mouth had just been full of lewd chatter — all of them abruptly dropped their heads, for they instinctively felt that meeting the king's eyes was a grave act of disrespect!

Heifu averted his eyes as well. Only then did he notice that some of his own men had even prostrated themselves flat on the ground, pressing their foreheads to the earth and breathing in the dust kicked up by the royal carriage's passage, treating it as a supreme honor.

"The King!"

No one knew who started it, but from this stretch of Qin soldiers rose a low, weighty chant of praise.

"The King! Great King!"

From a hundred paces to a thousand paces, from a thousand paces to ten li, all along the road from Wanqiu to Huaiyang, over a hundred thousand people, like a relay of sound from west to east, began shouting the same words.

"Great King!"

"Great King!"

First the Qin soldiers shouted, then the Qin civilian laborers on both sides shouted, and finally, even the local Chu people on the periphery — who had witnessed the carriage's awe-inspiring majesty and whose faces had long since turned ashen — could not withstand the atmosphere and pressure. They fell to their knees and joined the cry.

There were Guanzhong accents, Nan Commandery accents, Central Plains accents, even Ba-Shu and Yan-Zhao dialects, all jumbled together, yet the thing they sought to express was one and the same.

Only this man, surely, could make so many people and so many voices sound as if issuing from a single mouth.

The King of Qin's eyes closed again. No smile, no frown, only a gentle stroking of his beard, without the slightest ripple of emotion. He seemed to be savoring it, yet also as if he had long grown accustomed to, even weary of, the mountain-roar of acclamation…

Heifu shouted along a few times as well. When he raised his head again, all that remained before his eyes was the retreating silhouette of the King of Qin's chariot, and that tall crown, sitting motionless atop his head.

Unlike the ordinary Qin soldiers and laborers, whose eyes were filled with veneration and frenzied shouts, Heifu, in that moment just now, seemed to see many things in the King of Qin.

There was the glory represented by the ceremonial procession, the imperial chariot with its yellow canopy and the yak-tail banner on the left. The King of Qin was the supreme sovereign, and would soon be the one and only emperor in this land. Throughout the entire process, though he spoke not a single word, he could make thousands, tens of thousands cheer for him, go mad for him, kowtow and pledge their lives to him.

The authority of all under heaven was gathered in that hand gripping the bamboo slips. Such majesty — no wonder that later, when Liu Bang beheld such a scene, he would sigh with emotion, "This is how a great man ought to be!"

But beyond the glory, upon drawing closer, Heifu also glimpsed a trace of vulnerability in the King of Qin: no matter how vast his power, he was still a man, a mortal. Too much deification had been heaped upon his person. Some Qin soldiers firmly believed the King of Qin was ageless and deathless, but Heifu knew that Qin Shi Huang had not, in the end, achieved immortality.

Xiang Yu must have seen this too — seen the emperor aging day by day, seen the mortal frame beneath his supreme imperial dignity, and thought that he himself, a man who could match ten thousand, needed only to leap up to strike him down…

No wonder he would wildly blurt out those words: "I can take his place!"

But compared to the thoughts of those two, as a visitor from a later age, Heifu knew even more about the King of Qin, about the First Emperor:

He would live brilliantly, using his power to accomplish countless things unimaginable to previous generations and unrepeatable by later ones — seizing the Hundred Yue in the south, repelling the Xiongnu in the north. Within the six directions, all would be the emperor's land. Wherever human footprints reached, there would be none who did not submit.

He would die helplessly, on his final tour, collapsing in agony from his upright seat in the carriage, his corpse placed among stinking fish and spoiled meats, his edicts and final testament wantonly toyed with and altered, his descendants nearly slaughtered to the last, and within a few years, the empire he built would crumble apart.

Beyond that, Heifu saw something else.

He saw how, even on the journey, the King of Qin's hands never left his scrolls.

He felt how heavy a burden it was to govern such a vast realm on the strength of one man's energy alone. Heifu now found it fairly easy being a chiliarch, but putting him in charge of a county or an army of ten thousand would be an immense strain.

He observed the height and weight of the King of Qin's crown.

Seven inches wide, a foot and two inches long?

"No, no."

"Its glory is a thousand zhang high."

"And its weight is ten thousand jun!"

Liu Bang saw the height of the glory, but that little village chief surely had no idea how much it weighed.

Xiang Yu saw the possibility of snatching that crown away, yet he was a macaque wearing a cap, clueless about how to wear it.

And so, at this very moment, what rose in Heifu's heart were not the words of those two, but his own thought.

As the King of Qin's ceremonial procession gradually receded into the distance, Heifu — whether moved by the King of Qin before his eyes or lamenting history — rose to his feet and muttered to himself:

"He who would wear the crown must first bear its weight!"

(End of Chapter)