Chapter 432: Father

Qin Shi Huang heard that Heifu's first child was about to be born.

Only when you have your first child do you complete the transformation from boy to man, as if seeing the continuation of your own life, and you also bestow a special hope upon the newborn.

Fusu's significance to Qin Shi Huang went far beyond that. Over twenty years ago, on the very night a comet came, in Xianyang Palace where a fierce gale howled, the loud wail of an infant rang out. When Qin Shi Huang, amid the congratulations of the nursemaids and palace attendants, took his eldest son and gently cradled him in his sturdy arms, looking at this exquisitely delicate little life, the smile Qin Shi Huang showed was one from the heart.

The birth of his eldest son told the world one thing: The King of Qin had come of age! This left the Queen Dowager and Lü Buwei with no further excuse to obstruct him from performing the capping ceremony and taking power into his own hands!

In the third month, the eldest son was born; in the fourth month, he lodged at Yong. On the day of jiyou, the King was capped, and he girded on the Tai'e Sword!

After that, striking down Lao Ai, imprisoning Zhao Ji, expelling the Lü clan — it all happened in one sweeping motion. Qin Shi Huang was in high, proud spirits, and the beginning of all these good things was the joyous birth of a fine son.

The decade that followed was the decade Qin Shi Huang relied on the Chu consort clan, and also the decade he doted most on Fusu. Only, he was busy with state affairs and handed his eldest son over to Grand Empress Dowager Huayang and the Chu consort to raise. Nurtured on the poetry, the documents, and the Chu-style rhapsodies, Fusu grew up with a deep Chu imprint stamped upon him.

When Qin Shi Huang noticed this trend, he was extremely displeased. So, in the year Zhao was destroyed, he took Fusu, then only ten years old, on a long journey, just father and son. They traveled all the way to Handan, now under Qin army control. Qin Shi Huang led Fusu by the hand into a dilapidated alley, ducked through a red-lacquered gate already falling to pieces, and searched for the bamboo horse he had buried in the courtyard back when he left Handan at the same age as Fusu. He told his son of all the suffering he had endured in Handan back then.

He also wanted Fusu to see how the Qin army dismembered and destroyed the insufferably arrogant Zhao, and how he himself exacted revenge!

But looking at the hundreds of Zhao nobles about to be buried alive, all Fusu's eyes held was terror and pity.

He actually, in front of everyone, beseeched Qin Shi Huang to pardon these people who had once humiliated the royal scions of Great Qin.

"If Father King can forgive them, then the people of Zhao will all know Father King's benevolence, and they will surely welcome and serve Father King just as they welcomed King Tang of Shang and King Wu of Zhou..."

Even if Fusu was precocious, how could a child of just over ten speak such words? Qin Shi Huang investigated and suspected it was instigated by Fusu's granduncle, the Chancellor Lord Changping!

Grand Empress Dowager Huayang was already dead, and the political situation was stable. After destroying Han and Zhao in succession, Qin Shi Huang's rule was at its zenith. The Chu consort clan was no longer an aid to him, but had become a burden. Especially at the critical moment when he was about to attack and destroy Chu, they were like a thorn in his side!

While he was still in his prime, they were already using Fusu, deludedly trying to influence his governance! Who could say what more excessive things they might do in the future?

In his fury, Qin Shi Huang made a decision. Using this as a pretext, he dismissed Lord Changping, who had served as Chancellor for eleven years! At the same time, he began to cold-shoulder the Chu consort, banishing her to the cold palace, where she languished and died.

He personally ended the Chu consort clan's influence over Qin's politics, which had lasted nearly a hundred years since Queen Dowager Xuan, and then swept through and pacified Chu.

And Fusu became the last remaining fruit of the twenty-five generations of covenant marriages between Qin and Chu. Like a fusu tree on a mountain peak, he survived in the deep palace, solitary and proud, gradually growing up.

As his children grew more numerous and state affairs ever busier, Qin Shi Huang lost the concern he once had for Fusu. When he thought of him again a few years later and summoned Fusu and his tutors to examine his recent learning, he was shocked to discover that the Chu imprint on Fusu had not faded, but had instead grown stronger and stronger!

Though he no longer wore Chu robes, Fusu's every gesture, every word and action, carried the Chu-style elegance taught to him from childhood by Grand Empress Dowager Huayang.

He loved the wildly imaginative silk paintings, was keen to associate with Chu scholars in Xianyang, and always gathered a crowd of Confucian scholars and Mohists around him, absorbing their ideas. Even his character showed the Chu traits of being "rash" and "impulsive." He always acted without thinking, letting his personal, subjective emotions prevail. Whenever he thought there was something improper in court governance, he would still, just as he did as a child, remonstrate bluntly.

Every time he offered a remonstrance, Qin Shi Huang's brow would furrow, especially that time with the Twelve Metal Colossi. So, with a grand wave of his hand, he drove away all the Confucian and Mohist scholars around Fusu and ordered him to enter the academy to study the laws properly, like a true Qin prince!

But after more than a year, even though Fusu could recite the laws and ordinances fluently, he had only learned the skin of Qin law. Inside, his character was still of the Chu mold...

His eldest son was not like him, even resembling a man of Chu more than a man of Qin. Qin Shi Huang's frustration at his son's failure to become the steel he desired was mixed with some unavoidable irritation.

Since keeping him in Xianyang could not change him, then he would be harsher and throw him directly to the frontier! Let him go and see the shifting sands and vast desert, taste the hardship of campaigning, and spend every day with the soldiers of Great Qin, to see how, at the Emperor's single command, they hack through thorns and brambles to open up new territory!

He hoped that Fusu could become a true man of Qin.

He hoped that the eldest son who had once brought him luck and deep feeling could truly understand his Imperial Father, understand how Qin Shi Huang, with his insignificant person, had conquered these ten-thousand-li mountains and rivers, and understand these deeds he had done by overriding all objections, the great purpose he pursued...

Wherever human footsteps reach, none are not his subjects. His achievements surpass the Five Emperors, his grace extends even to cattle and horses. None fail to receive his virtue, each rests secure in their place.

Could he understand these thoughts?

These words, the proud Qin Shi Huang could not speak to Fusu personally; he had to experience them for himself.

Although he had decided to let Fusu participate in this great war, among the four generals, Qin Shi Huang also deliberated carefully on where to send the prince...

If Qin Shi Huang had already firmly decided to make Fusu the Crown Prince, he would certainly have sent him to Shang Commandery. That was the main force for the decisive battle with the Xiongnu, and even as an army supervisor, it would be easy to earn military merit.

But with Fusu's current character, he was absolutely not an ideal successor.

He could not go to Daibei either. Fusu and Meng Tian were already close friends. To let an undecided heir associate and work with the general Qin Shi Huang trusted most was a great taboo.

Logically, Li Xin would be very suitable, but Li Xin's use of troops favored swift cavalry charges. He was a sharp blade for slaughtering the Xiongnu. Sending his eldest son into such danger was something Qin Shi Huang was unwilling to do.

After much thought, only Heifu was the most suitable.

Although Heifu had talent, his starting point was too low. Of commoner origin, without even a surname, his foundation at court was zero, posing no danger of colluding with a prince to grow powerful.

Moreover, Heifu waged war by learning Wang Jian's style of steady, solid advances. In the Battle of Huamachi, he avoided risk whenever possible. Though he had no great achievements, he also made no mistakes, making him even more reassuring than Li Xin.

Furthermore, in Qin Shi Huang's eyes, Heifu was strikingly the polar opposite of Fusu.

Fusu was born in the Qin heartland and grew up in Xianyang, yet was raised from childhood by Grand Empress Dowager Huayang and ended up resembling a man of Chu. Heifu, on the other hand, was born in Nan Commandery and grew up in a Chu village, yet he recited the laws and ordinances to become a Qin official, climbing step by step up through Qin's military merit ranks, and was instead the most typical man of Qin!

Wood, when shaped by the carpenter's line, becomes straight; metal, when put to the whetstone, becomes sharp. Letting Fusu travel the same road as Heifu, a man of his own age, might perhaps bring some benefit...

Heifu knelt sitting before the imperial couch, waiting for the main point, but what he got instead was Qin Shi Huang's long silence, which made him somewhat uneasy. Seeing Qin Shi Huang continue to ponder, as if unwilling to speak, he could only bow and say:

"For the Eldest Prince to supervise the army, I and the soldiers of the Northern Lands are greatly honored. I only fear the cold and hardship of military life may slight the Prince..."

"Not so. When Fusu is in the army, he is the army supervisor, not a prince. As for cold, hardship, and toil..."

Qin Shi Huang looked at Heifu and said slowly: "That is precisely what I want him to experience and be tempered by. I only hope that when he returns, he will have less maudlin pity, less hypocritical benevolence, and become a resolute and decisive prince!"

"I understand!"

Because he still did not understand Fusu, Heifu pondered these words over and over, still a bit unsure of Qin Shi Huang's intent. Was it exile, tempering, or paving the way? He wanted to hear the Emperor reveal a bit more, but unexpectedly, Qin Shi Huang waved his hand and dismissed him.

"Ha! That's it? Where's the main point you promised!?"

Heifu was very anxious, feeling as if he had been handed a hot potato. He could only say: "Reporting to Your Majesty, I have one more matter!"

Qin Shi Huang was somewhat weary and glared at him with displeasure: "What matter?"

"It is not official business, but a private affair."

"Oh? Speak and let me hear it."

Heifu cupped his hands and gave a wry smile: "I dare to speak to Your Majesty. In just over a month, my wife will give birth, yet Heifu still has no surname to this day. My father-in-law wrote to threaten that if the child is born and there is still no surname, he will use Ye as the surname! My father-in-law presses hard, and I have no choice, so I beseech Your Majesty to grant a surname!"

Qin Shi Huang, hearing this, could not help but laugh heartily, his weariness gone: "A fine Neishi Teng indeed, truly a forceful and capable official. He actually wants the Commandant of the Northern Lands to be his matrilocal son-in-law?"

But then his face stiffened: "Did you not say in the past that you would take a surname only upon being enfeoffed as a marquis? Have you forgotten your original resolve so quickly?"

Heifu said: "I dare not deceive my sovereign. Heifu himself has no scruples, but I do hope that my children can be born with a surname..."

Qin Shi Huang, hearing this, was silent for a moment, then nodded: "Those born without a surname are either the supreme Son of Heaven, or the lowliest commoners..."

This reason, Qin Shi Huang accepted. He recalled a scene from many years ago, that night of wind and rain, when he had ecstatically named Fusu.

Only when you have your first child do you complete the transformation from boy to man, as if seeing the continuation of your own life, and you also bestow a special hope upon the newborn.

Many old ideas shifted as well.

Because of Fusu's birth, he steeled his resolve to strike back against his mother and Lü Buwei. He steadied the crown upon his head, gripped the Tai'e Treasure Sword, let it taste blood, and slaughtered his foes without mercy — all so that his son might be spared the lonely anguish he himself had suffered as a child...

The world often condemns him for cruelly stuffing those two bastard sons of the Queen Dowager into sacks and beating them to death, yet they do not know that the moment he saw those two corpses, what flashed through Qin Shi Huang's mind was this:

"If I had failed, the one lying here, a mess of blood and flesh, would be my son Fusu!"

Better to be ruthless and merciless — the cleaver — than weak and defeated — the meat on the board!

It seemed it was not only himself; even Heifu, who never cared about clan names, had grown so particular now that he was about to have children and become a father.

"Very well. The clan name endures ten thousand generations, unchangeable, while the lineage name may shift at any time. We shall first bestow upon you a lineage name, to relieve your pressing need!"

As he finished, a rare trace of a mischievous smile tugged at the corner of the ever-serious Qin Shi Huang's mouth...

(End of Chapter)