Chapter 481: Gaining the State Illegitimately

After Qi was destroyed by Qin, its territory was divided into four parts: Jibei Commandery in the west, Langya Commandery in the south, Linzi Commandery in the center, and Jiaodong Commandery on the Jiaodong Peninsula.

Jiaodong Commandery's jurisdiction roughly covered what would later be the four cities of Weifang, Weihai, Yantai, and Qingdao.

Just hearing that sounds quite lovely — good heavens, three of the most livable cities. But in this era, the seashore was nowhere near as developed as it would be in later times; Weihai, Yantai, and Qingdao were all still little fishing villages or deserted, uninhabited beaches. Jiaodong Commandery's seat of governance was at Jimo, with Gaomi and Yeyi as the next two major counties. Half the commandery's entire population was concentrated in these three places.

Near Chunyu, the official road split in two: one branch heading northeast, the other southeast. The northern road led to Yeyi, while the southern road went straight to Gaomi.

Heifu and his party took the southern road. Before they even arrived, news of his assassination attempt in Chunyu County and the ensuing mass hunt for rebels had already reached Gaomi County, frightening the county magistrate, assistant, and commandant, as well as the local powerful families, quite badly.

Some said that under this black-faced commandery governor's orders, Chunyu County had become a place of rolling heads; everyone implicated was arrested and thrown into prison, numbering in the hundreds. Even minor clerks and powerful family heads were not spared. For a time, Chunyu County's jails were as crowded as markets, and the roads were choked with prisoners in reddish-brown convict garb.

Others said that both the Chunyu County magistrate and the county commandant, two high officials, had been summarily stripped of their posts by the new commandery governor on charges of dereliction of duty!

This made the Gaomi County magistrate, assistant, and commandant all shiver. Chunyu was their near neighbor; they had all been assigned as officials together after Qin destroyed Qi five years ago and had plenty of dealings with one another. Though the Chunyu magistrate was old, he had caused no major trouble in his years in office, and the old commandery governor had never done anything to him. Good heavens — the new commandery governor had barely arrived and already dismissed him in a single stroke.

They touched the official seals at their waists and instantly grew tense. The county magistrate immediately sent men to wait at the county border while he himself gathered all the county clerks, powerful family heads, and elders to personally welcome the governor at the Ten-Li Pavilion. The county commandant ordered the military and bandit-catching clerks to tighten defenses inside and outside the city, ensuring no petty criminals would again assault the commandery governor. The county assistant likewise stayed up all night in his office, sorting through the criminal case records of the past five years to guard against a surprise inspection by the governor.

The next day, the crowd gathered at Ten-Li Pavilion saw from afar a procession of carriages and riders approaching on the road. When they asked the vanguard riders, it was indeed the commandery governor arriving. Their faces instantly changed color, and they hurried through the wind and snow to greet him.

The black carriage canopy, covered in windblown snow, had its red-painted door opened. A high official draped in a great bearskin coat and wearing a brown-tailed pheasant cap stepped down from the carriage. The Gaomi officials rushed over to pay their respects.

"Gaomi County magistrate, assistant, and commandant pay homage to the Commandery Lord!"

Heifu saw the snowflakes covering the three men and figured they had deliberately stood out in the open for quite a while to show their eagerness to welcome him, so he smiled and said, "You three have worked hard."

That genial smile made the three officials stare blankly. According to the rumors, shouldn't this be a fierce and ruthless military commander who governed with an iron hand?

Before they could react, Heifu sized them up and teased, "Gaomi's land and water must be nourishing. When I was in Linzi, I heard a commandant say that all three of you previously served in the army. After these few years, your waists have grown ten spans around and your shoulders three times as broad."

That was an exaggeration; in reality, none of them were that fat. The three officials all hailed from Qin lands and had once crawled through mountains of blades and seas of blood, slowly accumulating military merit and rank. But over these five years, having grown accustomed to the peaceful, comfortable land of Qi, their horses had been turned loose on the southern hills, their treasured swords had dulled, and flesh had grown anew on their thighs. The once lean and sturdy military officers had all become potbellied.

"The commandery governor's lesson is well taken." Their smiles were all very strained, for they could not tell whether this was jest or warning. The county assistant even sucked in his belly guiltily to make himself look slimmer.

Heifu's gaze, however, had already moved past them. "These are Gaomi County's clerks and powerful family heads?"

The Gaomi County magistrate hurriedly introduced them one by one. When he introduced the fields bailiff, Yan Bo, Heifu looked the short-statured middle-aged man up and down. "You hail from the Yan clan of Gaomi?"

"This humble clerk is indeed the son of the Yan clan head." Yan Bo answered cautiously in stiff Guanzhong standard speech.

Heifu continued, "I have heard that the Yan clan of Gaomi are descendants of Yanzi, the famed minister of Jiang Qi?"

Yan Bo glanced at the Gaomi magistrate, and only when they signaled him to go on did he dare say, "Yanzi is indeed this humble clerk's distant ancestor. The Yan clan were grand masters of Jiang Qi. They aided Duke Zhuang of Qi in destroying Lai and were enfeoffed at Yiwei — Yiwei being Gaomi. From then on, we made this our family estate…"

And Yan Ying was born in this very city. Through the reigns of several Qi dukes thereafter, he was brilliant and quick-witted, eloquent and skilled in debate. He assisted the state internally and allied with the feudal lords externally. His fame remained resoundingly bright even two thousand years later.

However, the Yan clan's good days did not last long. By the time of Yan Ying's son, Yan Yu, the ministerial Tian clan had grown powerful and seized the reins of Qi. Yan Yu was a die-hard supporter of the Jiang clan; after defeat in the struggle, the family declined, and Gaomi was also stripped from them by the Tian clan.

During the Tian Qi period, the Yan clan remained out of favor and passed over two hundred years in lukewarm obscurity. But a starved camel is still bigger than a horse, and now they were once again the foremost powerful family of Gaomi, with household wealth of several hundred gold and hundreds of servants and retainers.

Heifu immediately put on a look of great interest. "So they are descendants of a famed minister. Is there a Yanzi Temple in the city?"

The Gaomi magistrate rushed to answer, "There is — west of the city!"

"Good." Heifu gestured. "Lead the way, gentlemen. This official has heard the stories of Yanzi and always held him in admiration. Now that I pass by his temple, I must pay my respects!"

…

The impression Heifu left on everyone in Gaomi was different from the black terror of Chunyu County. He shed his cold exterior and replaced it with a warm smile. He did not dismiss the Gaomi officials, and he was amiable toward the local powerful families. The first thing he did upon arriving in Gaomi was to personally offer sacrifices at Yanzi Temple, to show his respect for this local sage.

Inside Yanzi Temple, he also brought out a long-prepared "gift": a hand-copied paper manuscript of the Yanzi Chunqiu!

Yan Bo and his elderly father, the Yan clan head, had originally been trembling with fear, unsure what this black-faced commandery governor really intended. When they saw this book, they were greatly astonished. They took it with trembling hands and examined it, discovering it was actually a complete edition, far more complete than the few fragmentary scrolls their family had collected. Many lost stories could be found within!

Chief Clerk Chen Ping explained, "After Tian Qi fell, all the books in the Linzi collections were transported to the Censorate in Xianyang. The commandery governor has always been fond of the deeds of Yan Pingzhong, so he requested this book from the Archivist and had the scribes sort it out, copying it page by page onto paper and binding it into a volume. On this trip into Qi, he brought two copies…"

Heifu said, "One copy I shall continue to study. As for this one, I entrust it to the Yan clan to be enshrined in Yanzi Temple."

The Yan father and son hurriedly knelt and kowtowed, thanking the commandery governor for his grace. Heifu, however, helped them up and said with emotion:

"It is I who should thank Yanzi. From the many deeds in the book, I have benefited greatly. And my favorite among them is the story of 'Yanzi's Mission to Chu.'"

Heifu even recited aloud in front of everyone: "'The orange, grown south of the Huai, is an orange; grown north of the Huai, it becomes a trifoliate thorn. The leaves are similar, but the fruit tastes different. Why is this so? The water and soil differ. Now, a man born and raised in Qi does not steal, but entering Chu he becomes a thief — could it be that Chu's water and soil make men prone to thievery?' Ah, these words are vivid before my eyes — so witty and so clever. I only regret being born three hundred years too late to befriend Yanzi!"

He was not lying; when he studied this text in his previous life, he had indeed quite liked Yan Ying. Short-statured statesmen often possess extraordinary charisma.

In the end, Heifu even declared publicly, "Were Yanzi alive, I would willingly serve as his groom!"

These words astounded the crowd. The Gaomi County magistrate, assistant, and commandant chimed in with agreement throughout the whole process, while the Yan clan and the various powerful clans of Gaomi were deeply moved by Heifu's performance.

Coming to pay respects at the temple right after alighting from the carriage — that could be faked. Sending someone to copy the Yanzi Chunqiu was no great difficulty for a high official like him either.

But being able to recite classic passages from it — that had to be genuine sentiment, absolutely impossible to fake!

After the sacrificial ceremony, Heifu announced that Yanzi Temple would become a local "public shrine," with officials presiding over a sacrificial ceremony once a year. This made the Yan clan wild with joy. They had originally been terrified by the fearsome reputation Heifu had left in Chunyu, but now they felt he was truly a rare and excellent commandery governor.

That night, when the Gaomi County officials and powerful family heads hosted a welcoming banquet for Heifu, the officials and family heads took turns rising to toast him, speaking many flattering and effusive words.

Heifu, however, gestured for silence, raised his cup, and said, "When I was in Linzi, passing the Terrace of the Main Hall in the Qi Palace, the official stationed there told me a story. Back then, Duke Jing of Qi and Yanzi sat in the main hall. Duke Jing sighed and said, 'How beautiful this chamber is! I wonder who will occupy it in the future.'"

"Yanzi said, 'He who occupies this chamber will perhaps be the Tian clan? Though the Tian clan lacks great virtue, they bestow charity upon the common people and will seize the governance of Qi. If Your Lordship's descendants grow even slightly indolent, then Qi may well be usurped by the Tian clan!'"

This story was something Chen Ping had told Heifu after a day trip to Linzi, and now it came in handy.

Heifu sighed. "Yanzi was wise — this was true foresight. Within a hundred years, the Tian clan indeed replaced Jiang Qi. And the Tian dukes and kings slaughtered the Lü clan, expelled the Guo and Gao clans, and dismissed the Yan clan, banishing them all to the lands of Lai. Throughout the hundred-plus years of Tian Qi, these four clans were never employed again. The descendants of lords, ministers, and grand masters tilled the soil in Jiaodong; the sacrificial beasts of the ancestral temple became laborers in the fields. How lamentable, how hateful!"

Several hundred years ago, Jiaodong was the former territory of the Lai state, which had just been conquered by Qi — the poorest economically and the least populated. Thus, the Yan, Guo, and Gao clans, defeated in the struggle, were all driven there to open up wasteland. The last Jiang Qi ruler, Duke Kang of Qi, was also relocated to the Jiaodong coast, granted a single city to maintain his ancestral sacrifices. For over a hundred years thereafter, these families were firmly suppressed by the Tian clan with no chance of revival. They were the frustrated and thwarted of the Tian Qi era.

The others took it in stride, but a few scholars of the Yan clan could not help sighing deeply, feeling that Duke Jing of Qi had been far too muddled. Yanzi had spelled it out to that extent, yet he still failed to perceive the Tian clan's wolfish ambition, ultimately leading to the usurpation of the state altars. They were still rather nostalgic for the Jiang Qi era, when their clan had been ranked among the ministers and their name had carried weight across the realm…

During the Tian Qi period, Yanzi's descendants had not dared to show their discontent. Now that Tian Qi had fallen and a "Yanzi-worshipping" good commandery governor had arrived, they all chimed in one after another.

Heifu, who came from peasant stock, now seemed to have forgotten his own class. After a spell of righteous indignation on behalf of the Yan clan and the other old Jiang Qi aristocrats, he spoke a wildly imaginative sentence.

"Now the Tian clan gained the state illegitimately and thus met with sudden destruction. This can also be seen as His Majesty our Great Qin First Emperor avenging Jiang Qi!"

Huh? The crowd looked at one another. There was such a way of looking at it?

But come to think of it, the First Emperor had placed Guan Zhong, the famed minister of the Jiang Qi era, into the "Border-Pacifying Shrine" and built shrines to worship him in Linzi and other places. It did seem to carry a hint of sympathy for Jiang Qi?

As the crowd was mulling this over, Heifu rose and said with a solemn expression, "This commandery governor has come to take up this post and intends to restore the honor and glory of the various clans that were once dismissed and suppressed by the Tian clan, to have their descendants fill the government offices and serve as Qin clerks and aides. This policy shall begin with Gaomi, and begin with the Yan clan!"

With that, he looked at the dumbstruck Yan clan head and said in a tone that brooked no argument, "I wish to summon the fine and virtuous young men of the Yan clan and the Gaomi powerful families, to take them to Jimo, to enter the academy, to take officials as their teachers, and to study Qin's laws, ordinances, and standard speech, so that they may be employed in important positions in the future. What do you gentlemen think?"

(End of chapter)