Chapter 567

"Commandant Lou met with defeat — he failed to wipe out the bandits completely?"

Hearing the news brought back by the galloping messenger, Lü Yi, Governor of Linzi Commandery, grew so frantic he nearly burst into flame. Casting aside all decorum expected of a high Two-Thousand-Bushel official, he shot to his feet and pressed for answers:

"When Commandant Lou departed, he beat his chest and swore he could sweep the bandits clean within ten days. Every time he sent word back, he said the bandits were nothing but a rabble, too weak to withstand a single blow — that if we fought, we would annihilate them utterly. What in the world went wrong?"

Only then did the messenger recount the details of the Battle of Ji River in full. It turned out that the morning before last, the Qi bandits had crossed the water first to attack, but were quickly routed and fled back.

Commandant Lou Kang thus grew to despise them. He immediately ordered pontoon bridges laid and crossed the river in pursuit. Who could have guessed that just as over a thousand men had crossed, the previously routed bandits would wheel around and charge back, as if injected with rooster's blood? Over ten thousand of them, with hardly any battle formation, surged toward the riverbank. The bank was narrow and sodden to begin with; the Qin soldiers' line of a thousand men was not thick enough. Though they set their spears and kept firing crossbow bolts, caught off guard by this sudden charge, they could only fall back slowly.

The Qin army's formation was solid and its equipment sufficient. As long as follow-up troops kept streaming across, they could have held. But at that very moment, several dozen small boats came down from upstream — it turned out the bandits from Jibei Commandery had come to support the Tian brothers. Those boats rammed straight into the pontoon bridge, and the men aboard leaped down to block Qin reinforcements. In the end, the bridge was severed, and the Qin forces north and south of the Ji River could no longer coordinate. The thousand-odd men north of the river were thus swallowed up among the bandits.

Seeing this, Lou Kang could only withdraw with his remaining four thousand men to Duchang County and plan to fight again...

Governor Lü Yi of Linzi heard this out, then could not help cursing aloud. This was no mere failure to annihilate — clearly, the Qin army had been defeated!

Lü Yi knew exactly what this minor defeat meant: the chance to swiftly stamp out the rebellion was gone. The uprising of the various Tian clans and the gallant bravos would likely only grow fiercer and fiercer.

Worse still, according to the messenger's account, bandits had also come over from Jibei Commandery. Did this mean that the "Lixia bandits" the Jibei Governor had written about days ago were now swelling in strength as well?

The rebellion in Linzi Commandery was the result of pirate activity and the plotting of the Tian clan of Di County, while the response to Di County over in Jibei Commandery had been provoked by the Jibei Governor's own rash actions.

When he heard that trouble had broken out in Di County and that the Tian Dan brothers were plotting to restore the state of Qi, the Jibei Governor's first reaction was to dispatch commandery troops to arrest every member of the various Tian clans within his borders. This move, however, provoked an even greater backlash. He caught hardly anyone, and overnight, nearly all the Tian clans in Jibei were driven to revolt.

In particular, Gaotang County, the ancestral stronghold where the Tian clan held their rites, also raised its banner. A noble of the Tian-Qi line named "Tian Jie" answered Tian Dan's call, killed the Qin officials, and seized the city to hold it. Thus Jibei Commandery was now utterly overwhelmed, busy suppressing the Gaotang revolt, and had no troops to spare to send to Linzi's aid.

Lü Yi could only console himself in secret. Fortunately, most of Linzi's various Tian clans had been relocated to the Guanzhong region years ago along with King Jian of Qi. They had been the very first batch of powerful families forcibly moved, so for the time being, there was no chaos within Linzi city itself. He could still hide in a safe area and ponder his next move.

But the matter had already reached a point of extreme urgency. Qin law is strict not only toward commoners but also toward officials, especially military law: a commander who abandons his army is to be executed, and an official who loses a city is to be punished.

As commandery governor, Lü Yi was not required to personally lead troops into battle without an imperial decree, but he bore the responsibility of defending his territory. Now, four or five counties north of the Ji River in Linzi had fallen completely. Lü Yi had already met the standard for dismissal from office. If he allowed the rebellion to spread further and become a prairie fire, then his report to the Emperor claiming "it is not a rebellion, merely bandits" would surely become the confession that doomed him — he wouldn't have enough heads to chop off!

Yet now, relying on Linzi Commandery alone to quell the rebellion was impossible. That Lou Kang had managed to hold the rebels north of the Ji River was already the limit.

At this moment, the Linzi Commandery Aide offered a suggestion: "Governor, there is no need to worry. Jibei has its own chaos and cannot come to help, and the court's relief army will still need some days to arrive. But we still have the troops of Jiaodong! Jiaodong has already driven out all its Tian clans and has no more worries on its rear. Governor Wei has already received His Majesty's command and is leading his land forces to approach Linzi; his naval forces have also set sail. In just a few days, they can link up with Linzi's troops and advance by water and land together to quell the rebellion!"

The idea seemed sound — just hand everything over to Heifu, that Jiaodong man who could both fight battles and govern a commandery. But Lü Yi only kept a dark expression and said nothing. The Commandery Aide was deliberately needling him with that remark!

As an old minister past fifty, Lü Yi had been dispatched to govern Linzi — a major commandery with a population of nearly two million — not because of any great merit, but mainly because his seniority was sufficient. He had entered official service over thirty years ago and accumulated enough performance evaluations to reach this step. At most, during the Lao Ai rebellion, when he served as Aide of Xianyang, he had shown a moment of distinction.

After arriving in Linzi, Lü Yi had governed the place fairly well, though the main reason for Linzi's stability was that the towering presence of Wang Ben had suppressed it, and the Qi people had held him in awe.

Last year, Wang Ben left Linzi and returned to Xianyang. Lü Yi immediately felt immense pressure — pressure not only because the Qi people of Linzi were hard to govern, but also because his neighbor, Heifu, Governor of Jiaodong, was performing far too brilliantly...

Regulating private academies, recruiting the Agriculturalist school, exterminating the Tian clan of Yeyi, discovering a gold mine — almost every few months, Heifu would stir up some event that shook the entire Qi region. Compared to that, a peaceful and uneventful Linzi seemed rather dim.

This contrast became even more pronounced when the First Emperor of Qin made his eastern tour. Lü Yi, following the advice of his Chief Clerk, collected all sorts of auspicious omens to present — such as the giant footprints supposedly left by a titan. In the end, he was outshone by Heifu. "Natural omens cannot compare to human omens" — Heifu had the nerve to say such a thing, and yet it once again greatly pleased the Emperor, while also carrying a veiled jab at Lü Yi and others for fabricating their omens.

Next, when the Confucian scholars of Linzi stirred up trouble, using the past to criticize the present, Lü Yi was charged with failing to properly manage public order and was reprimanded. Meanwhile, Heifu had waded into the book-compilation and book-burning controversy, forcefully opposing Li Si's proposal, and became the savior of the Hundred Schools of Thought, enjoying unparalleled prominence for a time.

In short, the First Emperor's assessment of Linzi's governance was very low, while he was full of praise for Jiaodong's new policies. When he left Jiaodong, he even bestowed a courtesy name upon Heifu: Jimo...

Though Lü Yi never voiced it, he harbored some jealousy and resentment in his heart. Still, he and Heifu minded their own business, and there was no need to make an enemy of him.

But the rebellion that erupted in Linzi left Lü Yi unable to care about any of that.

He felt deeply wronged: the forced relocation of the Tian clans had been Heifu's initiative, and those four thousand pirates had also been entrenched on the islands of Jiaodong. Yet they didn't dare stir up trouble in Jiaodong and instead ran to his jurisdiction to cause chaos — did they think Linzi Commandery was easy to bully?

Angry, furious, and eager to shift blame, when he submitted his report to the Emperor, Lü Yi had pinned the blame for this rebellion squarely on Jiaodong Commandery.

But now, the hope of quelling the rebellion with Linzi's own strength had evaporated. Lü Yi still had to count on Jiaodong's assistance. Where could he possibly put his old face...?

With the Jiaodong troops due to arrive tomorrow, Lü Yi did not even know how he should cooperate with that Heifu...

Fortunately, he would soon no longer need to worry about that.

Just as Lü Yi was pacing and pondering, he heard a commotion outside. A clamor of noise arose. Lü Yi was instantly alarmed and sent someone to see what was happening.

A moment later, a clerk, his face deathly pale, rushed in. He had no time to remove his shoes, nor to perform the proper courtesies, and blurted out urgently: "Governor! News of the Battle of Ji River has leaked! Inside Linzi city, someone is taking advantage of the moment to rise in revolt!"

Lü Yi first froze, and then a bone-chilling dread washed over him. He had been so consumed with anxiety over the battle at the Ji River that he had forgotten — at this very moment, he himself was sitting atop a pile of dry kindling that could ignite at any second!

At the same time, over ten li away, Heifu stood upon a war chariot and also saw the several columns of smoke rising from that great city.

They climbed straight into the clouds, like the pitch-black fingers of ghosts and gods reaching down from the sky. Wherever those fingers swept, blood and fire followed...

"I just knew it..."

Heifu let out a breath. He had passed through Linzi three times before and knew that Qin's rule here was truly like a tree without roots, water without a source — floating on the surface.

Linzi of Qi had three hundred wards, yet the officials did not know their people, and the people did not trust their officials. Although the various Tian clans of Linzi had been relocated along with King Jian of Qi when the state fell, who knew if there were fish that had slipped through the net, hiding among the common folk, lying dormant and waiting for the moment to rise again? And for the gallant bravos of those wards and alleys, causing chaos in this city where they were born and raised was all too easy.

Heifu could never forget what Wang Ben had once told him: in Linzi, Qin had only forty senior officials, and what they governed were four hundred thousand Qi people of Linzi — people of unfathomable intent, whose language was hard to understand!

Relying on just two thousand poorly trained garrison soldiers to maintain order in the city was far too difficult. This place was a dense, tightly packed pile of dry kindling — a single falling spark could ignite a towering inferno!

Cao Can also sent a rider galloping back to report: "My Lord Commandery Governor, Governor Lü of Linzi has sent a man to request aid. He says there is rebellion inside Linzi city — gallant bravos and unruly folk have taken to the streets, burning government offices and attacking officials and soldiers. When the lips are gone, the teeth grow cold. If Linzi falls, Jiaodong will no longer be safe either. He hopes the Commandery Governor will come swiftly to the rescue!"

Gong Ao, hearing this, burst out in hearty laughter. "So this Governor of Linzi finally admits it's a rebellion? But even without his broken lips, Jiaodong's iron teeth and bronze fangs can still bite the rebel army to pieces and secure a great achievement for our Commandery Governor. Why rush to save him?"

Having spoken, both men turned to look at Heifu.

Heifu, however, pointed toward Linzi, his face utterly solemn. "All I know is this: if Linzi city falls into chaos, then this rebellion will no longer be a matter of just a few thousand or ten thousand dead!"

PS: Second chapter at 11:30.

(End of chapter)