Chapter 345: Your Majesty, Wonders Bring Ruin to the Nation!

Zhuo Tie's eyes went round. He was an old blacksmith, over twenty years at the forge, yet he had never seen so many weapons gathered in one place.

Beside him, fellow tradesman Cheng Zheng also gaped, only finding his voice after a long moment. "Just how many blades are there?"

Zhuo Tie could not answer him. By rough estimate alone, there were more weapons here than the Handan Armory had held in the time of Zhao.

They watched as one heavy ox- and horse-cart after another traveled west along the Wei River. At the destination, the Qin soldiers escorting them unloaded the ge, spears, swords, ji, shu, and pi from the carts, piling them into countless mounds, each a small mountain of thousands or tens of thousands of weapons!

After the shock came the question. The Qin officials had ordered the copper and iron craftsmen and merchants who had moved into Guanzhong from the eastern kingdoms to report for labor here — what were they planning?

The riddle was soon solved. A Qin iron official named Sima Chang ordered the thousands of craftsmen and merchants to separate the blades and tips from their wooden shafts.

Zhuo Tie and Cheng Zheng looked at each other, but under the Qin officers' whips, they dared not ask more and each set to work.

Both were Handan blacksmiths who had spent half a lifetime dealing with weapons. They had reached the point where a single glance at a weapon's shape or the color of its metal could tell them its place of origin.

"This is definitely a Han sword!"

Zhuo Tie held a two-chi sword, a gleam shining in his eyes. Since the fall of Han, it had been nearly ten years since he last laid hands on a Han sword.

Though Han was a small state with few people, the weakest of the seven great powers, it had one thing worth boasting of: the finest weapons under heaven all came from Han. As the saying went, "All the mighty bows and strong crossbows under heaven come from Han," and "Among the world's treasured swords, Han's are the most numerous!" In particular, the Tangxi swords of Han, forged and tempered a thousand times over by its craftsmen, had reached the point where "on land they cleave ox and horse, on water they cut through swan and goose, and against a foe they shear through sturdy armor and iron shields!"

What a pity that a fine sword, under a single hammer blow, was bent and broken, torn from its hilt to fall feebly to the ground.

He picked up a long spear. Its tip was iron, and a closer look revealed an inscription — bird-worm script...

Though he could not read what was carved there, he could at least be certain it was a Chu spear. Chu spears were fine too. As people often said, "The iron spears of Wan and Ju sting like wasp and scorpion." Zhuo Tie sighed inwardly at the waste and forcefully wrenched off the spearhead, tossing the long shaft aside.

After this, they went on to discover weapons and armor from Yan, Qi, and Wei.

Wei too had its elite troops, and the ge used by its Wu soldiers were the most famous of all.

Weapons from Qi were relatively few. Although Qi had begun state monopolies on salt and iron as early as the Spring and Autumn period — boiling the sea into salt, mining the mountains into iron, making iron tools the most widespread — after forty long years of peace, even weapons were rarely forged there. Only practical tools like needles, knives, lei, si, hoes, axes, saws, awls, and chisels were numerous. The iron hammers and iron saws that Zhuo Tie and Cheng Zheng held in their hands came from Qi.

And then there was Yan. What met their eyes were hundreds of rusted helmets. In their craft circles, there was a saying: "Yan has no armorers." It did not mean Yan had no "armorers" to make helmets, but rather that in Yan, nearly everyone could make a helmet, so there was no need for armorers to exist. From this one could see that the men of Yan placed the greatest emphasis on protection in war. These iron helmets had likely been seized by the Qin after a Yan army was annihilated; inside them were still dried, dark-brown bloodstains...

After a morning spent stripping blades and tips, one small mountain of weapons was empty. Zhuo Tie and Cheng Zheng moved to the next and found it was entirely filled with the weapons of Zhao!

"This is an iron staff from Mount Heng. I once forged one for a man!"

Cheng Zheng's hands trembled slightly. The iron staff was the most famous weapon of Mount Heng in Zhao. Its core was cast from iron, its top fitted with a bronze cap, and its exterior wrapped in black-lacquered rattan. Under Lord Wu'an, Li Mu, there had been a force of over a hundred Mount Heng warriors. They often wore iron armor and fought wielding iron staves, and wherever they struck, nothing remained unbroken; wherever they charged, no line remained unbreached...

Just imagining that scene brought hot tears to the eyes of a man of Zhao.

What a pity that all of it had turned to ash and scattered smoke. The six kingdoms were broken, their famed cities razed, their kings and nobles surrendered, their heroes dead. Even the weapons that had lost their masters could not escape, brought here as spoils of war, their heads and bodies separated, shattered and broken!

"The Qin have gathered the weapons of the six kingdoms here and are stripping off their blades and tips. What exactly do they intend to do?"

Zhuo Tie was full of questions too. Three days later, when they were ordered to push carts laden with the heavy blades and tips to the north bank of the Wei River, the two men suddenly understood.

Before them was a vast construction site. On its outermost edge were thousands of crude shacks where over ten thousand corvée laborers lived, most of them dark-skinned Guanzhong farmers.

Further in lay a smelting yard that was no stranger to Zhuo Tie and Cheng Zheng. Thirty-four oval furnaces stood on the ground, arranged in a circle. Not counting the raised rammed-earth platforms beneath them, the furnace bodies alone each stood over a zhang tall.

Along with the countless carts of blades and tips came firewood and charcoal. Convict laborers ceaselessly fed fuel beneath the furnaces, while newly delivered copper and iron were thrown into them without distinction, smelted day and night without pause.

The searing liquid copper and iron raced along bronze channels, surging toward the pit that the ring of furnaces surrounded.

Zhuo Tie cautiously drew near and found it was several zhang deep. Inside was an enormous mold already prepared! From the look of it, it seemed to be a giant figure in the process of being cast: a high nose and deep-set eyes, dressed in Di garb, standing with hands clasped in a gesture of deference...

Zhuo Tie, Cheng Zheng, and the craftsmen from the eastern kingdoms were all stunned. Cheng Zheng even lost his composure and sat down hard on the ground. When he raised his head, he saw the thick smoke from the surrounding furnaces slowly rising, merging into a single column that shot straight into the sky!

Standing atop the Zhangtai Palace, Heifu's view was far broader than that of the eastern craftsmen, so he could see that on the entire north bank of the Wei River, there were twelve smelting yards in all. Twelve columns of black smoke gathered, forming a dark cloud that seemed to blot out the sky over Xianyang!

"Truly a spectacle..." Heifu drew a deep breath, even feeling a certain anticipation for the sight of the bronze giants placed within the Xianyang Palace.

These twelve bronze giants were not cast without reason, but originated from an "auspicious omen." In the very month that Qin Shi Huang formally assumed the title of Emperor, twelve giants, each five zhang tall and dressed in Di garb, appeared at Lintao on the western frontier of Qin, only to vanish soon after, leaving behind footprints six chi long...

After the Commandant of Lintao reported this to the Emperor, it drew serious attention from the Emperor and the yin-yang masters of Qi and Yan, who saw it as an auspicious sign that Qin had unified the world and taken the imperial throne! Thus, to commemorate the event, Qin Shi Huang issued an order: the confiscated weapons of the six kingdoms were to be transported into Guanzhong and cast into twelve bronze giants, each five zhang tall and weighing a thousand shi!

Beyond this, Heifu guessed that Qin Shi Huang also wished to make it a ritual. First, in emulation of King Wu of Zhou letting his warhorses loose on the southern slopes, the confiscation of all weapons under heaven was tantamount to declaring that within the Nine Provinces, there would be no more war. At the same time, the weapons the six kingdoms had used to resist Qin were gathered together, melted down, and cast into bronze giants that submitted to Qin and would stand guard over its court — a symbol of the world's fusion.

Third, in the Emperor's view, once they were stripped of their weapons, the remnants of the six kingdoms would be like wild beasts deprived of fangs and claws, with no more power to resist Qin.

The first two aims were beyond reproach, but regarding the third, Heifu could only shake his head.

"Hoes and thorn-wood staves are no less sharp than hooked halberds and long spears..."

"The Qin Mohists have a point. If instead of casting bronze giants, we cast farming tools, who knows how many worn-out wooden and stone implements could be replaced? If the hundred and twenty thousand farmers and tens of thousands of craftsmen and merchants serving this corvée were sent to reclaim wasteland instead, they might open up a million mu of fertile fields..."

A few days ago, the Mohist Cheng Shang came to visit. The implication of his words was that he wanted Heifu, who as Prefect of the Palace Gentlemen could often see the Emperor, to advise Qin Shi Huang: casting bronze giants benefits neither the state nor the people. It is a useless endeavor and should be halted...

Heifu could not agree on the spot. He could only tell him to allow him some time to think it over.

"What could I possibly say?"

While on duty in the hall, Heifu pondered in secret.

"Your Majesty, wonders bring ruin to the nation!?"

"Wouldn't that be asking for death..." Heifu shook his head. Qin Shi Huang was still an emperor who allowed his ministers to offer counsel — death was unlikely, but losing his trust, or even being sent far away, was certain.

He could see that the Emperor's boundless desire to conquer the world was now shifting to a collecting obsession: collecting the consorts of the six kingdoms, collecting the palaces of the six kingdoms, even collecting the weapons of the six kingdoms to cast giant figurines, with the terracotta army still to come. Qin Shi Huang was in the heat of enthusiasm and rarely abandoned a decision halfway. Persuasion was futile; better not to court ill fortune.

Besides, without these wonders, the color of the Qin dynasty seemed like it would lose a great deal...

And so, Heifu did not remonstrate with the Emperor to stop casting the bronze giants. Instead, he submitted a memorial with a small suggestion.

"Your Majesty could have the craftsmen use fierce fire to melt and cast a thousand swords of the six kingdoms, forging them into an iron couch, its blades splayed backward like a peacock's tail. Placed within the palace, let your descendants sit upon it, and they will understand that winning the empire is hard, but keeping it is even harder..."

After the memorial was sent, Heifu began to imagine it. If Qin Shi Huang approved this, the Qin palace would gain a sitting couch cast from steel, covered in ferocious spikes, sharp horns, and bizarrely twisted metal.

Calling it the Iron Throne would be improper; how about the Iron Emperor's Couch?

Seven kingdoms, one emperor — it didn't seem wrong either...

Unfortunately, his mischievous suggestion was ultimately rejected.

By the sixth month, as the casting of the twelve bronze giants was completed and they began to be slowly transported toward the Xianyang Palace, the Emperor, accompanied by the civil and military officials, moved from the Zhangtai Palace south of the Wei River to Xianyang City to witness this grand event!

It was there, inside the Xianyang Palace, that Heifu saw the Emperor's children for the first time...

(End of Chapter)