Chapter 286: The King of Qin (Part Two)

After King Zheng of Qin's carriage had traveled the full ten-li ceremonial road, a grand surrender-acceptance and military review ceremony was held in the western suburbs of Huaiyang.

The "Minister of Ceremonies," who oversees the ancestral temple rites, had accompanied the King on this eastern journey and had long since prepared a complete set of ritual music and protocols. Tens of thousands of Qin soldiers flanked both sides, and to the sound of swords striking shields, the music officials began to toll bells and strike earthenware fou drums, performing the solemn and powerful "Yin Wu"...

"Swiftly did those Yin-Wu, fiercely attack Jing-Chu. Deep into their perilous passes they thrust, capturing the Jing multitudes!"

"You, Jing and Chu, dwell in the southern reaches of the realm. In ancient times, under Cheng Tang: from the Di and Qiang tribes, none dared not to come with tribute, none dared not to come acknowledge the king, saying, 'Shang is the eternal sovereign!'"

The melody was ancient and simple, and Heifu could not quite understand it. Li You told him this was the final piece of the "Shang Hymns," a poem recounting how Wu Ding attacked Jing-Chu and compelled the various lords to come and submit. In those days, the Chu people, remnants of the Kunwu state which had been a lord under the Xia dynasty, fled to Mount Jing and continued their stubborn resistance.

By bloodline, Qin regarded itself as the successor of Yin-Shang. Both the Zi and Ying clans shared the legend of the heavenly mandate's dark bird giving birth to their ancestors. The distant ancestors of the Qin royal line, Feilian and Elai, long served as charioteers to the Yin-Shang kings; thus the Ying clan flourished, even attaining lordship — they were true "abettors of Zhou's tyranny." It was only when King Wu destroyed Shang that their line fell into decline and was driven to the western frontier to raise horses.

When the Shang Hymns concluded, what followed was "Gathering the White Millet" from the Lesser Court Hymns.

"Foolish are you Man of Jing, making an enemy of the great state. Fang Shu, that elder statesman, could devise his grand strategies. Fang Shu led the advance, seizing prisoners for interrogation. The war chariots rumbled, rumbled and thundered, like a crashing bolt, like rolling thunder!"

This poem depicts how, in the time of King Xuan of Zhou, the minister Fang Shu was ordered to drill the troops and marshal the forces to overawe the Jing Man. Though it sounded majestic, in truth, throughout the entire Western Zhou, Jing-Chu was never subdued. King Zhao of Zhou even drowned on the shores of the Yangtze and Han rivers. At that time, Xiong Qu had already proclaimed, "I am a barbarian, and do not share the titles and posthumous names of the Central States," brazenly enfeoffing his sons as kings, declaring he had no use for royal titles and would not submit to Zhou!

Qin, by blood and marriage, was the successor of Shang; by territory and culture, it was also the successor of the ancestral Zhou. Qin arose from the ancestral Zhou heartland, shattered by the Quanrong, and absorbed large numbers of Zhou people. After several centuries, in terms of implements, script, and language, it actually resembled the ancestral Zhou more closely than the six states east of the pass. The feudal lords viewing Qin as Rong and Di barbarians, just as Mencius and others scorned the Chu dialect as "bird-talk," were all classic cases of regional prejudice — only a fool would believe them.

It is said that recently in Xianyang, a two-hundred-year-old case has been dredged up again. It concerns the time of Duke Xian of Qin, when the Grand Scribe Dan of Zhou entered Qin to present a gift and prophesied: "Qin first united with Zhou, united then parted; after five hundred years they shall reunite, and seventeen years after reuniting, a hegemon-king shall emerge..."

At the start of the Zhou dynasty, Qin was merely a minor "Grandee of the Western March," a vassal of the Zhou king with no independent standing. From the time Duke Xiang of Qin was enfeoffed as a lord for his meritorious service to the king, to the time King Zhao of Qin conquered and extinguished the Eastern and Western Zhou and relocated the Nine Tripods, exactly five hundred years passed. Seventeen years after that was the year King Zheng of Qin came of age and personally took the reins of power, and Qin did indeed become the supreme hegemon of all under heaven.

Thus, the meaning of this ceremony was self-evident: Yin-Shang and the ancestral Zhou, in all their generations, had never been able to annihilate Jing-Chu, but Qin, as their successor, had accomplished what the previous dynasties could not!

The eight-hundred-year altars of the Chu state had collapsed into ruin, and this war between the two civilizational centers of the Central Plains and the South, lasting over a thousand years, was declared at an end.

Who had achieved all this?

King Zheng of Qin, of course.

The surrender ceremony reached its climax when thousands of Chu captives, crestfallen, approached the altar, and the King of Chu, Fuchu, stripped naked and leading a sheep, performed the ritual kowtow of deepest submission before the lofty King of Qin.

As Chu Fuchu placed his hands on the ground and bowed his head low to the earth, trembling as he begged the King of Qin to forgive his crimes, the thousand soldiers of the Gentleman-Lang Guard surrounding the altar also loudly chanted the lines instructed by the Minister of Ceremonies.

"Qin's founding of the state, in those earliest ancient days, continued the generations and proclaimed itself King.

Punishing the rebellious and disorderly, its might shook the four extremes, its martial righteousness upright and square.

Its martial ministers received the decree, and before long, Jing and Chu were destroyed and perished!"

Amidst a burst of drum and music, the grand surrender ceremony was declared over. At this moment, however, Heifu noticed that below the altar, there were still three trembling figures. Heifu observed they were dressed in full ceremonial garb but were not part of the King of Qin's retinue. They had been placed nearby to observe the surrender rites, and the louder the Qin men's mountain-shaking shouts grew, the paler their faces became...

"Commandant, who are those men?" Heifu quietly asked Li You.

Li You glanced over and told him, "They should be the envoy from Qi, the Chancellor of Dai, and the Chancellor of Yan."

Heifu understood. The King of Qin had staged such a grand spectacle today not only to proclaim that Qin had inherited the enterprise of Yin and Zhou and finally extinguished Jing-Chu, thus crushing the will of the Huaiyang Chu people, but also to intimidate the three states that had yet to submit.

As far as Heifu knew, years ago when Wang Jian breached Handan and captured King Qian of Zhao, the Zhao prince Jia had fled north to the distant Dai Commandery with several hundred men and proclaimed himself king. Not daring to call his state Zhao, he named it the state of Dai.

Similarly, after its capital was also breached by Wang Jian, King Xi of Yan fled to safeguard Liaodong and offered up the head of Crown Prince Dan to buy a brief, lingering respite. Now, Yan and Dai each held only a single commandery, with a total population under a hundred thousand and soldiers numbering less than ten thousand, posing absolutely no threat to Qin.

Qi, however, still possessed some strength. For forty years, the King of Qi had strictly adhered to isolationism. The Qi Chancellor, Hou Sheng, had accepted bribes sent by Li Si and Wei Liao's agents, and thus allowed Qi to huddle by the Eastern Sea, watching helplessly as Qin swept away the Three Jin, Yan, and Chu. Not only did Qi not aid the five states, it even sent envoys to Qin annually to pay tribute.

Chu had been the last hope for the restorationist factions of the Three Jin, Yan, and Zhao. Now that Chu too had fallen, one could well imagine their despair. It was too late for Qi to regret now; Qin had already severed the spine of Shandong, splitting the feudal lords far apart so they could be destroyed one by one.

Heifu had no time to care about the feelings of the three states' envoys, for after the ceremony ended, the King of Qin immediately proceeded to announce the rewards for the officers and soldiers who had attacked Chu...

As the King of Qin's men loudly proclaimed the decree, a clamor arose among the Qin soldiers.

Since the death of Lord Changwen and the rebellion of Lord Changping, Qin had seen no new lords or marquises for years. But today, in this very place, a new noble rank of marquis was born!

"Grand Patriarch Wang Jian, for his merit in routing Xiang Yan's army and capturing the King of Chu, is promoted in rank to Marquis of Guannei!"

All afternoon, the Qin army outside Huaiyang was in an uproar of excitement.

Besides Wang Jian becoming Marquis of Guannei, among the other deputy generals, Meng Wu became Chariot-and-Horse Patriarch, Feng Wuze became Grand Superior, and Qiang Kui became Junior Superior.

Among the several Commandants, Li You was also promoted to Right Patriarch, the highest current rank among the dozens of Commandants.

With the generals and commandants rewarded, the subordinate officers and common soldiers below were not shortchanged either, and among them, Heifu's Anlu Cohort became the biggest winner.

They had been the first to reach the battlefield in the decisive clash, spreading banners and flags far and wide to throw the Chu army into chaos, then broke through several formations in succession and seized Xiang Yan's command banner — no small merit. Thus, of the entire cohort's thousand soldiers, the lowest received the rank of Gongshi, those with outstanding performance were even promoted two ranks, and among the officers, Ji Ying became Bugeng, Li Xian and Xiao Tao became Dafu, and Dongmen Bao, for his merit in capturing a banner and because his unit's decapitations met the quota, was directly promoted to Guan Dafu!

As for Heifu, he was promoted to the eighth rank, "Gongcheng"!

While everyone was rejoicing, Li Xian lowered his head and did some calculations, then quietly said to Heifu, "Cohort Commander, if we add our achievements south of the Huai, your merit should be enough to rise to Fifth Grandee. Why did you only receive Gongcheng?"

"Commandant Li already explained it to me."

Heifu told him not to overthink it: "There are too many officers and soldiers, so the record-keepers and military law officers only had time to tally the merits from the campaign north of the Huai. The merits from south of the Huai will be calculated together with the entire army after Chu is completely destroyed."

It was clear that for this reward, the King of Qin had only granted half. The other half would presumably be tallied together after Chu's total annihilation. This would allow them to continue using ranks and stipends as bait to keep the generals from growing complacent, and also prevent Wang Jian from reaching the maximum rank with no further room for reward...

"So that's how it is," Li Xian nodded.

The others, lacking Li Xian's turn of mind, were all nearly mad with joy. Dongmen Bao was grinning so wide he couldn't close his mouth, but after a moment, he suddenly turned serious and said to Ji Ying, "Ji Ying, slap me!"

Ji Ying thought he had lost his mind, but under Dongmen Bao's repeated insistence, he finally gave him a hard slap across the face. Dongmen Bao clutched his reddened cheek and grinned again, "It hurts — so it's real!"

"A year ago in Anlu, I was a mere Bugeng, content just managing the bandit affairs of a single district. But now, I am a Guan Dafu, a Guan Dafu..."

After this exclamation, he and Ji Ying and the others all turned and knelt before Heifu in unison!

"What are you fellows doing?"

Li Xian understood their feelings and spoke on their behalf: "It is all thanks to the Cohort Commander's words that day at the banquet, 'Are lords, generals, and ministers born of noble seed?' spurring us on. Otherwise, everyone would have been content with modest wealth and unwilling to fight again. How could we have the glory of today's continued rank promotions?"

"It was your own blood and sweat shed on the battlefield, your own earned merit."

After Heifu helped them up one by one, he thought to himself, "Still, better not celebrate too soon. Although after Chu is completely destroyed, I and the others may be able to rise another rank or two, a rising tide lifts all boats. After this great war, at least a hundred thousand men will have earned ranks. Qin's noble ranks, I fear, are headed for a massive devaluation!"

Just as everyone was discussing how to celebrate that evening, Li You sent Feng Jing to find Heifu.

"Congratulations, congratulations," Feng Jing said, all smiles as he entered, cupping his hands repeatedly toward Heifu.

Heifu repeatedly protested he was unworthy of such courtesy and smiled, "I should be congratulating you as well, Ziyang."

Although Feng Jing was merely a civilian clerk and aide and had not been promoted in rank, this assignment had effectively gilded his resume. Moreover, his father, Feng Wuze, had become a Grand Superior in one stroke — this second-generation scion was growing more valuable by the day...

"Ziyang, have you come to find me because the Commandant has some business to summon me for?"

"What do you think I'm congratulating you for, being promoted to Gongcheng?"

Feng Jing laughed heartily, "The Commandant sent me to inform you that the King may grant you an audience. He bids you go quickly and wait outside the royal tent! Heifu, this is the matter truly worthy of congratulations!"

……

"Still looks spirited enough."

After Heifu came hurrying over, Li You looked him up and down, and even personally straightened his collar for him.

"After all, we're still in a military camp — you and I will go in wearing our battle dress."

Seeing that Heifu seemed a bit nervous, Li You patted his armor and said with a smile, "When the King asks you something, just answer what is asked. Don't stammer or stand there tongue-tied. The King dislikes dull-witted, foolish people."

Heifu assented obediently and waited behind Li You. Before long, a tall, straight-backed, fair-faced middle-aged man with a short mustache above his lip, a sword at his waist, a sash and cap, lifted the royal tent flap and walked out.

His bearing was dignified and steady, his smile as warm as a spring breeze. His voice was gentle as he bowed with clasped hands and said, "Commandant Li, please enter."

At the sight of this man, Li You did not dare be the least bit remiss. Very deferentially, he said, "This… haven't the envoys from Qi, Yan, and Dai just gone in?"

The fair-faced middle-aged man smiled. "If the King says it is permissible, then it is permissible."

He then glanced at Heifu. "Is this the Centurion Heifu whom the King praised two years ago as 'timber fit for carving'?"

"This humble officer is indeed Heifu!"

If Heifu remembered correctly, this man was the one who drove the King of Qin's chariot. His office and rank might not be high, but he was the person closest to the King of Qin and most trusted by him — no wonder Li You was so thoroughly respectful. Heifu therefore also made a deep bow. A leader's driver must never, ever be offended.

Li You also introduced him: "This is the Prefect of the Central Chariots, Lord Zhao…"

The middle-aged man laughed brightly. "What Prefect of the Central Chariots? I am merely a remnant of the Hidden Palace, base and lowly for generations, fortunate enough to be chosen for the eunuch register. I then committed a grave crime and should have stretched out my neck to die, but by the King's grace my life was spared and I was still allowed to serve before His Majesty's steps. Now I am just an ordinary minor clerk of the Central Chariots. Just call me Zhao Gao!"

"Zhao Gao?!"

Heifu's expression did not change, but inside, his heart was like a stormy sea.

This tall, handsome-featured man before him, whose smile was as warm as a spring breeze and whose speech was modest and proper — this fellow was Zhao Gao?

"He's walked onto the wrong set!"

Heifu felt somewhat disoriented. He secretly stared at the man's beautifully groomed mustache above his lip and thought, "Isn't Zhao Gao supposed to be a eunuch? Why is he tall and powerfully built, and why does he have a mustache?"

Still, if this man truly was Zhao Gao, and if he were to die before that point in time, history too would be utterly different!

Heifu had only entertained that thought for a moment, but Zhao Gao seemed to sense something. He suddenly stopped his conversation with Li You, turned his head back, and his eyes met Heifu's gaze. He gave Heifu an amiable little pat on the shoulder — seemingly warm, but that hand was ice-cold!

Zhao Gao's usual smile was also like a pit viper hiding its fangs. "Centurion, your spirit is uneasy. Could something be amiss?"

Heifu gave a start and immediately cupped his hands in fearful trepidation. "A man from a remote, humble county, I have never seen the Son of Heaven. Having now been granted an audience, I am therefore shaken and ill at ease…"

"Is that so? You are so young; it's only to be expected."

Zhao Gao's icy hand lifted from Heifu's shoulder. Before Heifu could even breathe a sigh of relief, Zhao Gao turned back and cracked a joke to Li You.

"When Jing Ke and Qin Wuyang came to audience before the King, they said something similar. But that ill intent — try as they might to hide it, they could not. A pity I was unarmed then and could only grapple with my bare hands, letting Lord Xia win the merit in the end… Hahaha. But today we are inside a military camp, the soldiers are hot-blooded and their killing intent still smolders — or perhaps I sensed wrong!"

PS: Chapter 2 will be in the evening.

(End of chapter)