Chapter 295: To Stand on One's Own

North of Echeng, the river stretched over ten li wide — so broad that the northern shore was invisible to the eye. The evening breeze stirred shimmering ripples; the tide slapped against the dock embankment, then retreated in lonely silence. Mid-river, a few faint sandbars drifted in and out of view.

These sandbars, varying in size, were called the "Ezhu." Sixty years ago, in just such an autumn-winter season, Qu Yuan, banished to Jiangnan by a fatuous Chu king, arrived at this very spot.

The Three Households Grandee, in his towering hat and broad sash, stood on the Echeng dock and looked back toward Yingdu, sighing in lament. He left behind the lines: "I mount the Ezhu and turn my gaze back — ah, the lingering winds of autumn and winter..."

But now, were Qu Yuan to return to life and stand in the same place, he would likely find it unbearable to turn his gaze back. For Chu's ships had fled and scattered, and towering Qin warships, packed with soldiers, were already setting foot in Jiangnan.

Echeng stood firm by the riverbank. In Heifu's eyes, this city was slightly larger than Anlu County town. It had five gates, each named for the direction it faced, except for one at the western corner, called the Linjin Gate, which overlooked the great river to the north.

At present, since the Lord of E had fled south with his armed forces, Echeng offered no resistance. The Linjin Gate stood wide open, and some local elders came out to kneel and welcome the Qin army. Although this area was classified as part of "Southern Chu," its speech and customs differed little from Anlu and Zhucheng just across the river.

So when he led his troops to take over the city, Heifu did not feel the hostility and hatred the common folk had shown in Chen County. The men, women, old, and young inside the city had been on guard at first, but the moment they heard the Anlu soldiers' accent, their fear largely subsided.

In the years before Qin and Chu went to war, contact between the two sides had been frequent. Heifu recalled that when he was a village chief, two of the first three bandits he caught were registered natives of Echeng. And that child who followed a Qin grave robber to plunder the Ruo'ao clan tombs — he was a Shaxian native from near Echeng too.

Li You was also very pleased with the attitude of the people in the city. He smiled at Heifu and said, "It seems the governor's idea of governing Chu's Jiangnan lands with men from Nan Commandery may indeed be worth trying."

This was a stratagem Governor Teng had devised for Qin's future administration of the Jiangnan region. He believed that rather than sending officials from Xianyang or the Central Plains — men who could not endure the climate and did not speak the local tongue — to serve as county magistrates, it would be better to select natives of Nan Commandery who already accepted Qin's laws and had earned merit in the war to serve as officials. This would reduce the resistance of the Jiangnan Chu people and allow the administration to get on track sooner.

Li You even teased that Heifu should give it some thought: after the war ended, spend a few years in Xianyang, and once commanderies were established in the Jiangnan region, he might come back to serve as a commandery commandant...

Earn battlefield merit to become Fifth Grandee, enter officialdom in Xianyang, then be sent out to serve as commandant of a frontier commandery, grind through seniority to become a two-thousand-bushel governor... Although now, with the six states being wiped out one after another and more men earning merit, Fifth Grandee was not worth what it once was — one likely needed to be Grandee of the Right or higher to serve as commandant — the career path for Qin's senior military officers was roughly like this.

Just as Li You was thinking that if all the towns of Jiangnan surrendered at the mere rumor of his approach, he could seize all of Chu's Jiangnan lands before spring, a military report from Dongting shattered his assumptions.

Seeing Li You's brows knit tightly, Heifu thought to himself, "Probably the Ba-Shu forces on the western route have run into trouble..."

This time, Qin's campaign to seize Chu's Jiangnan lands had mobilized three forces: the naval troops, the Nan Commandery troops, and the Ba-Shu troops.

When Commandant Tusui set out from Jiangling, his hundreds of ships also carried over ten thousand soldiers from Ba-Shu. They passed the left and right Yunmeng Marshes, entered Lake Dongting, and disembarked at the mouth of the Xiang River. Under the command of the Ba Commandery commandant, they attacked Changsha and Qingyang — that is, the future Hunan.

The empty ships then continued east, reaching the stretch of river between Zhucheng and Echeng to destroy the Lord of E's naval forces, before ferrying the Nan Commandery troops across the river. Li You's objective was Echeng, and over a hundred li to the south, the greatest copper mine under heaven: Mount Tonglü!

Unexpectedly, while things here progressed smoothly, there had been no word at all from the Ba-Shu troops.

Heifu said meaningfully, "Chu has long maintained a presence in Changsha and Qingyang. The Qu clan also killed the envoy sent to demand their surrender — they seem determined to fight to the death. I fear they've run into a tough fight over there."

Chu's development of Hunan had a long history. As early as the late Spring and Autumn period, Changsha, rich in millet and rice, was already an important granary for Chu — as the saying goes, "Chou, Pang, and Changsha are Chu's grain." Entering the Warring States period, during Wu Qi's tenure as chancellor of Chu, he annexed the Man and Yue in the south, thus acquiring Dongting and Cangwu, bringing almost all of Hunan into Chu's territory. That was one hundred and sixty years ago.

After the Battle of Yan-Ying, many residents of Yingdu fled to Changsha and rebuilt towns there. Moreover, because Qingyang and Changsha had both been enfeoffed to the Qu clan as county dukes, and the Qu clan — descendants of Qu Yuan — had always opposed Qin, the Chu people there resisted Qin most fiercely.

Sure enough, Li You sneered as he slapped the silk letter. "The Ba commandant is held up at Wujia Pass — over a month with nothing to show for it. Meanwhile, the Qu clan has turned every citizen into a soldier, singing Qu Yuan's 'National Lament' and 'Lament for Ying' along the Miluo River as they resist step by step. The Ba-Shu troops can barely advance and can only ask me for help, hoping that after I take Echeng, I can come support them and together wipe out the Qu clan."

Heifu asked, "And what does the commandant intend? To aid them or not?"

"The Qu clan has several thousand troops — they are the largest enfeoffed lord in Chu's Jiangnan lands. Of course we must go and aid, and annihilate them!"

Although Li You was displeased with the Ba-Shu troops, he dared not jeopardize the larger strategy. He planned to first send men to seize Mount Tonglü, secure the mines there, then capture Shaxian and advance along the riverbank to reinforce them.

Hearing his plan, Heifu's heart stirred. He pressed further: "If the commandant goes to Changsha, what about the lands of Fan, Ai, and Gan south of the Jiujiang?"

These places were the future Jiangxi. During the Spring and Autumn period, Jiangxi was the territory of the Yangyue people, and Chu had only a few small towns along the riverbank. It was not until Wu Qi that Chu "took in the Yangyue in the south and annexed Chen and Cai in the north." From that time on, Chu controlled Jiangxi, pushing all the way to the headwaters of the Gan River, where they built the "Limen Fortress" at the northern foot of the Five Ranges, facing the Baiyue across the mountains. This became the extreme southern limit of Chu, and indeed of the seven Hua-Xia states. As for Guangdong and Guangxi? At this time, they were probably not much different from the Amazon rainforest...

Although it had also undergone over a hundred years of development, Jiangxi's progress could not compare even with Changsha, let alone Jiangdong. Chu had only a few enfeoffed lords there, clustered in four or five county towns, maintaining a dotted-line sort of rule. Ninety percent of the region was still Yue territory.

Li You had been ordered to seize the Jiangnan lands, and Jiangxi naturally fell within his objectives. Although eliminating the Qu clan in Changsha was clearly more urgent at the moment, he could not simply ignore it either...

As Li You hesitated, Heifu seized the opportunity to volunteer. "Your subordinate is willing to share the commandant's burden and lead troops east!"

When Heifu returned to his own troops, they had already finished plundering the Lord of E's treasury. Ji Ying was shouting orders as the men carried bronze vessels out of the Lord of E's mansion one after another. Seeing Heifu arrive, he gleefully reported his achievements:

"County commandant, though the Lord of E's treasury cannot compare to the Chu royal palace at Shouchun, it is still unlike that of an ordinary enfeoffed lord. His mansion is built like a traveling palace, and gold vessels — bronze vessels — are everywhere. Not only are they of excellent quality, they're huge!"

With that, he pointed at Dongmen Bao, who was helping several soldiers carry a large ding. "As per the county commandant's instructions, the large ritual vessels are left for the commandant, and the rest are divided among the various county commandants. We military officers pick out the small, unranked trinkets to take back and melt down for the bronze — that'll fetch a good sum too!"

"Naturally. The Lord of E was known throughout Chu for his wealth."

Heifu picked up a bronze tally that had fallen on the ground. It bore over ten lines of gold-inlaid inscription. It turned out these were the boat tallies and cart tallies the Chu king had issued to the Lord of E, stipulating that the Lord of E's carts and boats could travel throughout Chu territory essentially tax-free — an enormous privilege. Coupled with the Lord of E's control over the mining at Mount Tonglü, this was the reason his wealth overflowed.

Unfortunately, the Lord of E had fled in such haste that he could not take any of this with him, and it all fell into the hands of the Nan Commandery troops.

Heifu thought to himself, "No wonder Commandant Li chose to attack this Lord of E instead of the Qu clan of Qingyang. I suspect he figured the Lord of E had more spoils to be had. Poor Ba-Shu commandant, stuck gnawing on that meatless hard bone..."

As the war deepened, the Qin army's mentality had shifted. At first, they were only after ranks and land. But after tasting the spoils at Shouchun, the Qin soldiers suddenly realized that robbing Chu's enfeoffed lords and nobles might be no less profitable than the Qin king's rewards.

Most of the Chu royal palace's contents had been sent to Xianyang, but the treasuries of the various enfeoffed lords fell to the officers and men. From this battle alone, Heifu reckoned his own wealth had increased by another twenty or thirty yi, while the bronze vessels, gold, silver, and jewels Li You had acquired, when converted, exceeded a hundred yi...

Even Commandant Tusui of the naval forces had received exquisite bronze vessels worth several tens of yi. The naval force had specifically left a fleet of ships to transport these spoils of war back to Nan Commandery.

"War fortune," Heifu could not help but sigh. "It really is easy to make."

"Elder Brother, does the law permit such conduct?"

A timid voice came from beside him. It was Heifu's younger brother, Jing, now also clad in the black uniform and armor of a Qin soldier. Jing had graduated from the study hall last autumn. When Heifu returned, he had arrived just in time for Jing's wedding to a virtuous lady of the Yan clan, and then the campaign to conquer Jiangnan had begun.

No longer a student, and having "separated households" from Heifu, Jing no longer enjoyed the exemptions from corvée and the rule against conscripting members of the same household simultaneously. Moreover, Heifu wanted to bring him along to gild his resume, so he had him enlist as a clerk. Brush in hand, Jing recorded these shocking amounts of wealth, uneasy and perturbed. The study hall had taught the youth to follow rules scrupulously; this was the first time he had witnessed such a scene.

"Water too pure holds no fish."

Heifu said this flatly, then reassured him: "Besides, Chu's enfeoffed lords who resist Qin are not protected by the law. Part of their private property is credited as merit, and the rest is distributed to the officers and men to comfort them for the hardships of campaign. What is improper about that?"

However, it was not yet time to roll around at ease among these riches. Heifu had all the officers come to him for a brief meeting once they finished moving the contents of the Lord of E's treasury.

"The commandant's plan has changed. We are no longer advancing east, but turning around to help the Ba-Shu troops attack Qingyang and Changsha. He has ordered me to accompany the tower-ship naval force and continue downstream to seize Jiangxi."

"Where is Jiangxi?" Dongmen Bao and the others looked at each other. Heifu had let the name slip out of habit; this place-name did not exist yet.

"It's the lands of Fan, Ai, Yugan, and so on, south of the Long River."

"Only the Anlu contingent?" Li Xian asked with concern. Although Heifu had brought fifteen hundred men this time — even Xiao Tao was now a commander of five hundred — it still seemed insufficient.

"Five hundred from Yan County, five hundred commandery troops, five hundred from Jingling, plus the Anlu troops — three thousand men in total, all under my command."

Heifu produced the tiger tally Li You had given him and smiled. "From this moment on, I am a 'Detached Division Commander'!"

Among the commandant's subordinate officers was the Army Commander, rank equivalent to six hundred dan. Those who separately led a camp were called Detached Division Commanders. The number of troops they commanded varied according to circumstances and was not fixed. Their status fell between the commandant and a contingent commander, and they often served as commanders of flanking forces.

Hearing this, the men realized Heifu had been promoted again. They all knelt together to congratulate him.

In volunteering this time, Heifu had not only shared Li You's burden but also seized the chance to request the men he wanted.

The three commanders of five hundred were: Gong Ao of Yan County, who had officially become a five-hundred commander by riding Heifu's coattails of battle merit; Anpu, the commandant of Jingling, with whom Heifu had been on good terms since his village chief days; and finally Man from Ying County, who had missed out on the Chu campaign because he was left to guard Nan Commandery, but had finally managed to come along this time.

With these old acquaintances as his subordinates, Heifu was very confident about seizing Jiangxi.

Though Jiangxi's territory was vast, it was still a wild and barbaric place. Three thousand men were more than enough. The Chu enfeoffed lords there were poor, and there were many Yue tribes — probably not much spoils to be had. It was a task everyone else avoided, but...

"Though the troops are few, this is the first time I'll be leading an army and holding my own!"

This was exactly what Hei Fu had been seeking. Following Li You wasn't bad, but he wanted to lead troops on his own even more — it was both a tempering for himself and a rare credential.

"This way, I won't have to share credit with a superior. Everything during this period will be decided by me alone!"

In the parlance of later ages, better to be a chicken's head than a phoenix's tail!

Besides, although in the eyes of Li You and the others, Hei Fu was merely going to strike a few small counties and townships and subdue several Yue tribes, a thousand years from now, the account of this military operation might become...

"Hei Fu conquered an entire province!"

Or "Hei Fu, Hero Who Opened Up Gan!"

"The people of Jiangxi will remember me. They might even build me a statue, or name some main thoroughfare 'Hei Fu Road.'" Hei Fu imagined it with great satisfaction...

PS: "Detached Commandant" should be a Han official title, but I've used it here for narrative convenience. There's too little material on Qin military organization to find the corresponding title.

(End of chapter)