Chapter 571: The Great Vengeance

Tian An had lost all the bold swagger he'd shown when he raised his revolt. Now he was utterly wretched, wearing a Confucian scholar's robe that was clearly too big for him — though the scholar's cap had long since vanished. A Qin soldier had punched him in the face, leaving the corner of his mouth bruised and purple. Bound tightly with ropes, he was forced to his knees before Heifu and the Supervisors of Linzi Commandery.

A rebel ringleader like Tian An, a scion of the Tian house of Qi, required the three senior officials to jointly interrogate him and commit him to custody.

"So you are Tian An? Why did you rebel?"

The Linzi Commandery Aide posed the question. Heifu's gaze flicked toward him — what a pointless question — but he said nothing.

Tian An raised his head, a trace of a sneer tugging at his bruised lips. "The Commandery Aide jests. To expel the Qin invaders and restore the old kingdom — how can that be called rebellion?"

"Impudence!"

The Linzi Supervisory Censor slammed the table, but it failed to intimidate Tian An. He laughed loudly. "You Qin savages destroyed my state altars, starved my grandfather to death, seized my people and forced them into servitude, mistreated my kinsmen, and treated our princes and royal grandsons like bondservants and slave-women, carting them off to Qin to sate the tyrant's lusts. And now you even plot to uproot every branch of the Tian clan, leaving our ancestral graves without offerings, denying the former kings their blood-sacrifices."

"Between me and Qin there is a kingdom's enmity, a father's vengeance, a family's blood-debt. Long ago, Duke Xiang of Qi could avenge a wrong nine generations old — how much more so today! If I did not seek vengeance, I, Tian An, would have lived in vain. And now you come and ask me why I oppose Qin? Truly, nothing under heaven is more absurd!"

"Today's venture failed. Tian An will die, and that is that. I only regret that foolish men are so cowardly — at your instigation they turned their resentment on me, and some even betrayed me. Otherwise, today I would be sitting upon the dais, and all of you would be the prisoners at my feet!"

Tian An poured out his fury with relish. From the moment he was betrayed and arrested, he had known he was doomed beyond doubt. When a man no longer fears death, he fears nothing at all.

The Linzi Commandery Aide and the Supervisory Censor exchanged glances. The fault truly lay in their own clumsy questioning. In truth, today's interrogation of Tian An was nothing more than a formality — once his crime of plotting rebellion was established, they could pass sentence and exterminate his three kinship lines.

"Commandery Governor Wei, what do you think…"

The Commandery Aide wanted to wrap up the interrogation quickly, but Heifu stopped him. He studied Tian An's worn Confucian robe.

"I have heard that for the past seven years, you have been posing as a Confucian scholar, hiding in Linzi city. The identity may have been forged, but you must have acquired some genuine learning to escape detection. If I am not mistaken, what you studied was the Gongyang Commentary on the Spring and Autumn Annals, was it not?"

This Gongyang Commentary was the work of Gongyang Gao, a man of Qi. He was a disciple of Zixia and devoted himself wholly to the study of the Spring and Autumn Annals, composing a commentary to explicate Confucius's "subtle words and profound meanings." He transmitted his ideas orally to his descendants, generation after generation, and thus the "Gongyang school" came into being.

This school, however, had long followed the principle of "transmitting but not creating," and only when paper became widespread did they finally commit their words to writing.

Heifu was quite interested in the Gongyang school. During last year's debate over book-burning versus book-preservation, he had heard Zhang Cang say that while Confucians all took the Former Kings as their model, the Gongyang school showed a tendency to take the Latter Kings as their model, making them closest to their own Xunzi school of learning. Moreover, they vigorously advocated "Grand Unification," holding that the king, having received the Mandate, institutes the first month to unify all under heaven, so that the myriad things all without exception take it as their beginning — hence the term Grand Unification.

That sounded rather promising, and in line with the Qin dynasty's core values. But regrettably, this school contained one single point that was more than enough for the Qin dynasty to regard it as a monstrous flood or savage beast, and to subject it to brutal suppression.

That point was the Gongyang school's most fervent obsession: "The Great Vengeance!" The Gongyang Commentary lavishes praise on Duke Xiang of Qi for avenging a nine-generation blood-debt, holding that the enmity of a lord or father must be repaid — vengeance had been elevated to the level of ritual propriety.

But in the eyes of the Legalists, private vengeance was a grave crime that undermined the order of governance and had to be severely punished. Thus, in the Qin dynasty, no matter the reason, killing a person left no room for leniency whatsoever.

What was more, if the Gongyang school's doctrine of vengeance were allowed to spread unchecked, would not the six kingdoms destroyed by Qin produce a great multitude of men seeking vengeance for their fallen states?

Emperor Wu of Han would later champion the Gongyang Commentary to use the name of vengeance to wage war on the Xiongnu. But in the Qin dynasty, it was absolutely, categorically impossible to allow a theory of vengeance that undermined the integrity of the state and the unity of the people to become mainstream!

And so the Gongyang Commentary was designated a banned book by Li Si — directly proscribed and burned, with no copies to be preserved! Nearly all of the already scarce handwritten copies were confiscated. But with its old tradition of oral transmission, the Gongyang Commentary continued to circulate secretly among the school's Confucian scholars among the common people of Qi. And over this past year, it had spread wider and wider still.

Because the various Tian branches needed this doctrine. The young master Tian An before them, the three Tian brothers of Di County — all had raised their revolts under the banner of avenging the state of Qi and avenging King Jian of Qi…

"To avenge one's fallen kingdom, one's lord and father — this is the justice of Heaven and Earth!"

With this slogan, the Tian branches had managed to dupe not a few wandering bravos and hot-blooded youths into joining the rebellion.

Heifu had no intention of debating with Tian An whether vengeance was right or wrong, proper or improper. He merely smiled and countered: "You say the people of Linzi who refused to aid your rebellion are fools? Your words carry a note of reproach. But what does your Tian clan's vengeance have to do with the common folk of Linzi?"

"They are people of Qi. Having received our house's favor for a hundred years, how could they fail to repay the grace of several generations of sovereigns?"

Tian An said this as though it were the most natural thing in the world. And indeed, from the perspective of a noble young master, that was exactly how it seemed.

King Wei of Qi, King Xuan of Qi, King Xiang of Qi, the Queen Dowager — they had treated the common people of Linzi exceedingly well. After Qi fell, the people ought to have remembered that past kindness and aided him in restoring the kingdom and exacting vengeance — not stood by coldly and kicked him when he was down!

Heifu shook his head. "I have read a few books. I know that the coups and street battles that took place in Linzi in the past happened more than once or twice. The Tian clan relied on four coups to seize the position of feudal lords. Twice they fought the great houses of Guo and Gao in the Zhuang and Yue quarters, and only with the aid of the capital's people did they prevail. Have you ever considered why, today, only wandering bravos lend you their aid, while the common folk and black-headed people have not followed you?"

Because they are ignorant? Because they are ungrateful?

Without waiting for Tian An to answer, Heifu continued: "For no other reason than this: even the common folk and black-headed people can see that this venture has no hope of success."

"Your enemy is no longer the decaying Jiang-line nobles of Qi, but the mighty, ascendant Qin at the height of its power! Even if you seized Linzi city, you would still have to face the army from Jiaodong. Even if you defeated the Jiaodong army, the imperial court's great hosts would still come to suppress you. Linzi may have four hundred thousand inhabitants, but can they withstand six hundred thousand Qin soldiers?"

"So what the common people of Linzi are thinking now is to muddle along as best they can — not to join you in playing a game of restoration with no hope of victory, only to be dragged down with you in the end. That is human nature!"

Before the emergence of the modern nation-state, one should not place too much hope in the patriotic fervor of ordinary people. Even loyalty to the sovereign must be called into question.

If Tian An had captured Linzi, if all under heaven had risen like clouds and followed like shadows, slaughtering Qin officials in response, with the situation looking overwhelmingly favorable, the common folk and black-headed people would not have minded adding flowers to the brocade and flocking to join. But for them to risk the extermination of their three kinship lines and stake everything to give you their utmost aid?

This, one might say, is the weakness and compromising nature of the petty artisan and petty merchant class. As property-owners, they are, after all, different from wandering bravos and delinquent youths who have far fewer ties binding them.

The Confucians say: the noble man understands righteousness; the petty man understands profit. Regrettably, true noble men are rare under heaven. All of us here are petty men.

That is why Lord Shang saw things so clearly: "What I call profit — that is the root of righteousness!"

In the Legalist view, human nature is drawn to profit, and the relations between people are purely and nakedly relations of interest. "Profit" is the sole motive force behind all human conduct and interaction.

And so it was by luring the people with profit that Lord Shang made them devote themselves to farming and war.

Thus a thousand-year bloodline cannot compete with military merit conferring rank. Thus the noble houses of the six kingdoms are all trampled underfoot by Qin officials! The reason lies in governance, in momentum, in warfare — and also in profit.

The various Tian branches, facing the threat of forced relocation, staked their lives in a desperate gamble to preserve their "profit." The wandering bravos, suppressed and confined for years, threw themselves into the cause to reclaim their "profit."

But the common folk and black-headed people, to preserve their own "profit" — which still allowed them to barely eke out a living — naturally chose to stand aside with folded hands and see how things played out.

Every person is loyal only to their own livelihood. Even if the seas turn to mulberry fields, this will never change.

"Tian An, do you now understand why you lost? If you cannot give the common folk and black-headed people a profit they can reach out and grasp, then do not expect them to go through fire and water for you. The black-headed people of Qi have no hundred-generation grievance against Qin, no blood-debt of slaughter. Make them pay more taxes, make them serve more corvée labor — they will grumble, but they will not rise in revolt. And so the ones they have a grievance against are no longer the Qin officials, but the ambitious men and wandering bravos who burned their houses and nearly destroyed this city along with them!"

"Absurd!" Young Master Tian An seemed to have been struck hard. His mouth refused to yield, but his face had turned ashen.

Heifu was not standing on some moral high ground to pass judgment on Tian An's actions. He was simply telling him an indisputable fact.

"Tian An, accept your fate."

Heifu's voice fell like a heavy hammer, pounding into Tian An's heart.

"The times have changed!"

With those words, Heifu paid no more heed to Tian An, whose lips had gone white. He waved his hand and ordered the man taken away.

"There is nothing more to ask. Let the jailers carry out the Five Punishments on Tian An at the market in the Zhuang and Yue quarters, then display his severed head to the public! As for the corpse, wrap it in a straw mat and bury it with the rites of a common black-headed person!"

As Tian An was being dragged away, he still craned his neck and declared:

"Tian An will make all under heaven know that the royal grandsons of the Tian house are no cowards!"

"In a hamlet of ten households, there is bound to be a loyal man! Though Tian An dies, those who wish to avenge Qi will never cease! And those under heaven who wish to overthrow the tyrannical Qin will rise in swarms!"

His voice gradually faded into the distance. The Linzi Commandery Aide and the Supervisory Censor looked at each other. They had not expected that this Commandery Governor Heifu possessed such formidable eloquence — no wonder he was a man who could debate book-burning and book-preservation with the Chancellor himself.

What they did not know was that Heifu had spoken so much today only because his thoughts had been stirred.

From ancient times to the present, the overthrow of a "tyranny" has often ushered in not some age of peace and prosperity, but cycle after cycle of chaos and suffering.

The end of Qin was like this, the Middle East is like this — examples are far too many. When the realm prospers, the common folk suffer; when it perishes, the common folk suffer.

Tyrannical rule is fiercer than a tiger, but for the common folk, orderly tyranny is still better than a world in chaos without any order!

Moreover, to end tyrannical rule, is the only path truly to smash this world to pieces, drain its blood dry, exhaust everyone utterly, and then knead it back together to embark on a new cycle?

At least in Heifu's view, not necessarily!

But blood, more or less, must always be shed. In this world there is no revolution without bloodshed, nor is there any suppression of "revolution" without bloodshed!

"You two."

Having finished his thought, Heifu looked toward the Linzi Deputy Governor and the Supervisory Censor, his smile amiable: "Earlier we dispatched soldiers to fight the fires — that was planting virtue. What follows now must be punishment and execution — planting awe!"

PS: Second chapter in the evening.

(End of chapter)