Chapter 480: - The Real Pawn

Count Pingye spent the entire day running himself ragged.

Originally, all Zheng Fan had wanted was a one-and-done deal: simple, crude, and direct, so long as it got him the result he wanted.

But through one coincidence after another, the whole affair had somehow gone from “simple and crude” to “careful strategic maneuvering.”

It felt rather like this: you only wanted to go ask the penniless scholar at the head of the village to pick two characters for your newborn son’s name. But the moment you pushed open your door, you discovered Yao Zizhan lying unconscious from hunger on your doorstep.

What should have cost no more than a strip of cured pork and a small red envelope for some poor scholar now required you to boil two tubs of water so Master Yao could bathe, cook him a meal of one meat dish and two vegetable dishes plus a bowl of beaten-egg soup, and then go into town to buy half a jug of wine.

Once Master Yao had eaten his fill, drunk his fill, and washed himself clean, he would choose your child’s name for you. Afterward, he would launch into a grand discourse full of classical phrases, explaining just how profound the meaning behind the name was.

You would understand none of it, but still think it sounded extremely impressive.

Then Master Yao would even leave behind a letter telling your child to go find him in the State of Qian after coming of age.

The matter itself had never changed. All you wanted was a name for your child.

As for the cost?

The cured pork became the sole meat dish. The egg came from your own hen. The vegetables grew in your own field. Even the money for the wine came out of the red envelope you had originally prepared.

But something that should have been simple, even a little crude, had suddenly become far more elegant.

The only thing it required was for you to make a few extra trips and run yourself ragged.

And that was exactly what Count Pingye was doing now.

The rewards were primarily silver, though there were also silks and bolts of cloth. In this age, such things could serve as currency in their own right. As for wine and meat, there had not been enough time to prepare them, and besides, this was hardly the moment to encourage indulgence.

The princess dressed in formal splendor and accompanied Zheng Fan. First they visited and rewarded the troops stationed inside the city, then they went to the North and South Gate Camps.

The spectacle carried something of the flavor of a head of state appearing in public with the first lady at his side.

Naturally, the response was excellent.

If the Marquis of Jingnan was a lofty military deity high above them all, then Count Pingye was an idol who felt much closer to ordinary men. Zheng Fan could clearly sense the worship in the soldiers’ eyes.

Soldiers, moreover, tended to see the world in stark black and white. Men who lived with their heads tied to their belts preferred to drink today while there was wine today. They wanted things clean, direct, and satisfying.

Zheng Fan had kept winning battles. His record was there for everyone to see. This time, they had followed him into Yingdu to suppress the rebellion and had earned merit of their own. Now they had received tangible rewards as well. Of course their hearts leaned even more firmly toward him.

The Marquis of Jingnan had exterminated his own clan, yet his prestige within the army remained unmatched. That alone made the point clear: to soldiers who licked blood from the edge of a blade, all those moral strictures about the Three Cardinal Guides and the Five Constant Virtues were empty air. The man who could lead them to victory and make sure they were rewarded was the man they would sincerely obey.

And with the princess standing there beside him—a princess of the mighty State of Chu, meekly standing behind Count Pingye—the sight alone sent those soldiers into a frenzy.

It was not some base, lustful excitement. No one dared look at the princess with lecherous eyes, much less profane her. Not because she was a princess of Chu, but because she was Count Pingye’s woman.

This excitement existed on a spiritual level.

Zheng Fan himself was a living example of a man who had struggled upward by his own efforts, reached the summit of life, and married a rich, beautiful woman.

And Count Pingye spared no effort that evening, delivering four separate speeches.

None was very long, but after each one, Xiong Liqing could see flames almost bursting from the soldiers’ eyes.

Yes.

Flames.

A speech, the power of language, could magnify the force of a person’s charisma and spread it through the crowd, infecting everyone around him until even their souls began to “tremble.”

In the world Zheng Fan remembered, there had first been Adolf and the fevered passion of his speeches, with Germans famed for their rigor raising their arms in perfect unison.

Then there were the motivational speakers most schools invited before the final sprint toward the gaokao, there to inject the students with a shot of chicken blood.

But here, in this age, the spread of culture was limited. People had very few channels through which to receive information, soldiers included. In other words, they had never lived through anything like a “chicken-soup craze” or a flood of inspirational gurus.

For the overwhelming majority of them, this part of the heart was still virgin soil, untouched and undeveloped.

They were accustomed to campaigning. Accustomed to galloping into battle and taking the heads of the enemies before them. Yet their inner lives were, if anything, even more barren than those of ordinary people.

In this age, only nobles, the so-called elite classes, had the right to receive cultural nourishment on a spiritual level.

Not only in the State of Yan.

The State of Qian, the State of Chu, the State of Jin even among Barbarians, Savages, and mountain tribes, it was the same.

So once you truly moved them, that emotion could last for a very long time, perhaps even be engraved in their hearts for years and years.

“I was once nothing more than a commoner from a small city in Beifeng Commandery. My birth was lower even than yours. When I first entered the army, I started as a laborer... I had no distinguished clan. I had no friends or kin to rely on. All I had was a rusty blade in my hand... I could earn a noble title through military merit. So can you! I could marry a princess of mighty Chu and bring her home to warm my bed. So can you! Do you see this saber? This is a treasured saber bestowed upon me by His Majesty. Under His Majesty’s leadership, beneath the Black Dragon Banner, follow me. Follow this Count. What I have today can be what you have tomorrow! I believe that in the future, we will have more chances to take the field together. When that day comes, I will stand beside you and use mountains of enemy heads to buy wealth and honor for every one of us, to bring glory to our ancestors, to win— for you, you, you, and you, for all of you, for all of us— titles for our wives, honors for our sons, and noble houses that endure for ten thousand generations! Great Yan, ever victorious!”

“Great Yan, ever victorious!”

“Great Yan, ever victorious!”

At that point, the personal guards who had been prepared in advance would shout:

“Count Pingye, ever victorious!”

The soldiers around them immediately joined in.

“Count Pingye, ever victorious!”

“Count Pingye, ever victorious!”

Openly gathering the army’s loyalty to himself would have been far too ugly, and would have amounted to treating everyone else like fools. But if every premise was placed beneath the banner of loyalty to His Majesty, then no one had much room to criticize.

To these soldiers, after all, the Emperor was far away.

Count Pingye was right in front of them.

What surprised Zheng Fan somewhat was that the North and South Gate Camps were even more enthusiastic toward him than the Yan troops were.

The deeper reason was that among Count Pingye’s own forces, true Yan natives were actually a tiny minority. Jin troops and Barbarian soldiers made up more than eighty percent.

The Great Yan Dynasty had taken control of Jin territory. If it could still be described as relatively lenient toward the great clans, scholars, and officials of Jin, then its attitude toward Jin troops was dominated by suspicion.

They were useful and had to be used, but suspicion was inevitable.

Other Great Yan commanders also had Jin units under them, but those were truly only used as auxiliary troops or cannon fodder. Their real core remained their own Yan contingents. Zheng Fan alone genuinely liked using troops from outside Yan, and he treated them as equals. Among the many Yan commanders stationed throughout Jin, he was practically a uniquely refreshing exception.

...

“Heh.”

Inside the carriage, Zheng Fan handed the second letter in his hand to the princess, who was massaging his legs.

The princess took it, swept her eyes over it, and smiled.

“That does sound quite sincere.”

The two letters had come from the commanders of Yingdu’s North and South Gate Camps. Both expressed their admiration for Count Pingye and their hope that one day they might serve beneath him and win merit on the battlefield.

“Husband, you really gained a great deal this time. The North and South Gate Camps together must have more than ten thousand troops, yes?”

The princess was delighted. She had abandoned the prestige of being a princess to follow this man into Yan territory. At heart, she wanted to build a better life with this man than the one she had possessed before.

So she truly resembled a thrifty young wife running a household. Every time the family gained something, she felt an enormous sense of satisfaction.

Zheng Fan shook his head.

“It isn’t that simple. A letter is just a letter. You can’t take it too seriously.”

Originally, the two camps had wanted to present gifts to Count Pingye as well. Zheng Fan had indeed come to reward them, but those were separate matters: one was a public reward, the other private friendship.

Zheng Fan had declined on the grounds that he was in a hurry to reach the capital.

Human relations and the exchange of favors were unavoidable, and Zheng Fan’s Snow Sea Pass was particularly accomplished at it.

Under the Fourth Lady’s arrangements, gifts were never omitted during festivals and holidays. Nearby, there were the Marquis of Jingnan and Li Fusheng. Farther away, some gifts even reached Yanjing. And the gifts were tailored to the recipient: not vulgar gold or silver, but gestures meant to show thought and sincerity.

“You can’t take them seriously?” The princess clearly did not quite understand. After all, she had personally seen yesterday just how much those soldiers adored her husband.

“You know about the Sixth Prince’s merchant network, don’t you?”

“How could I not? The spectacle at the Sixth Prince’s wedding raised the grandeur of my own wedding by two full levels. And isn’t the Fan Clan on the Sixth Prince’s line as well?”

“Mm. That’s what people say. Everyone thinks his eyes and ears stretch across every state, as though he has men and hidden agents everywhere. But that isn’t actually the case. Even the Secret Intelligence Department, the Silver-Armored Guard, or your Great Chu’s Phoenix Nest have the strength of an entire state behind them and an orthodox banner to operate under, yet none of them could truly achieve the kind of omnipresence he appears to possess. At the end of the day, the people who seem to be his people are not actually his people. Back then, His Majesty had the Marquis of Jingnan destroy the Min Clan, but he did not touch the Min Clan’s hidden commercial properties. Those businesses naturally placed themselves under Little Sixth’s name. One reason was that half the Min blood still flowed in Little Sixth’s veins. But that was only a sweetener.”

“A sweetener?”

“Yes, only a sweetener. Merchants chase profit. Of course, what separates men from beasts is that people can value sentiment too. But the Min Clan is gone. Even if those shopkeepers still cherished feelings for the Min Clan, how much of that sentiment could really transfer to Little Sixth? No one knows. First, Emperor Yan had destroyed only the Min Clan’s main house. He did not move against the former Min shopkeepers scattered across the provinces, but that blade was always hanging overhead. With that blade forcing their hand, those shopkeepers had to pledge loyalty to Little Sixth whether they wanted to or not, even if the loyalty existed only on the surface. Because no matter how out of favor Little Sixth appeared back then, he was still an imperial prince. Those shopkeepers are no fools. They knew that if they threw themselves under another master or sought another patron, the next moment someone might slap the label of ‘remnants of the Min Clan’ on their heads and purge them. Second, Little Sixth himself is extremely intelligent and highly capable. Outsiders may not know it, but those truly great shopkeepers ought to understand that. Of course, even this was only a sweetener. That wedding in Yanjing was magnificent. Rain made of money, a road paved in silk—it shook the entire capital, and its fame spread across every state. To you, and to many others, it looked as though Little Sixth had finally turned over every hidden card in his hand to prove to the court that he was no idle prince, that he had the strength to contend for the throne. But that was not what happened. It wasn’t because he possessed those hidden cards that he dared be so arrogant as to all but announce his bid for the succession. It was because he announced his bid for the succession that those hidden cards became his. Understand?”

“I think so.”

“It’s actually very simple. The shopkeepers of those merchant houses have spent so many years developing that each one has practically become a new Min Clan, a local lord in his own right. They have their own power, their own business, their own connections, their own families, their own commercial territories. Why would they go looking for a father to put over their heads? Even if they acknowledge a father in name, why would they sincerely treat that father well? ‘No filial son remains beside a long sickbed,’ and that is talking about one’s actual father. And as for those newly minted jinshi—yes, that’s true, Little Sixth is their patron. But Great Yan is not Great Qian. The scholar-officials of Qian have spent a century weaving their customs into a dense web. Refuse to honor the teacher who presided over your examination, and in that circle you simply cannot survive. But Great Yan is different. Those new jinshi may act for Little Sixth now out of conscience and gratitude. But once they have spent years steeped in officialdom, why would they continue to care about an idle prince? Officialdom is a place that devours conscience, and the strange thing is that you feed your own conscience to it yourself. So that is Little Sixth’s true power. It looks enormous, but in truth it is loose, like sand that slips through your fingers.”

Xiong Liqing understood.

“So this is what it means to borrow momentum?”

“Yes. Borrowing momentum. Because he openly planted his banners and declared his intention to contend for the succession, the temptation of merit in aiding the future ruler drew those followers more tightly around him, until they evolved into an actual force with him at its center. If Little Sixth had never shown any intention of fighting for the throne, if he had never managed to suppress the Eastern Palace, do you think the Fan Clan would have devoted itself so wholeheartedly to helping me steal you away? So throughout Great Yan and Great Jin, it looks as if Little Sixth has people everywhere. But in truth, they are not his people. Merchants value harmony because harmony brings wealth. They understand taking a loss today for profit tomorrow. They are not like common laborers who work one day and immediately need that day’s pay to feed their wives and children at home. Look at these two letters. They seem to be declarations that these men want to follow me, but that is all they are: declarations. No one can live forever inside a dream. If one day my momentum is overwhelming and I bring a great army to bear against Yingdu, they may seize the moment, turn their coats, and join me. But if one day I fall from grace, they may well be even more vicious than anyone else in kicking me while I’m down.”

“My imperial brother once said, borrowing momentum is inferior to becoming momentum.”

Great Chu was crowded with powerful noble houses, to the point that whenever the Chu court wished to do anything, it first had to discuss matters with those nobles.

At heart, what the Regent of Chu was doing in Chu was also a project of centralizing power. He simply had not gone to the extremes Emperor Yan once had.

Zheng Fan nodded.

“That is exactly what I have been doing at Snow Sea Pass. The soldiers and common people there eat my food and drink my water. I give them clothes to wear. I send their children to school. I provide treatment for their elderly. They have to depend on me to survive, and they live better than others because of me. That is why they cannot afford to lose me, because I am everything they have. Borrowing momentum is like borrowing the wind. It may look spectacular, but it cannot last.”

“So when you use me, Husband?”

“I’m borrowing your momentum. But I’m not borrowing it merely to show off. I want to use the opportunity to gain something tangible and make our household foundation even thicker.”

The conversation inside the carriage continued.

Outside the carriage, one of the personal guards returned at a gallop and reported to Gao Yi. Gao Yi immediately rode alongside the carriage.

“Count.”

Zheng Fan lifted the curtain.

“The imperial envoy’s party took the other road.”

Zheng Fan nodded and let the curtain fall.

After rewarding the three armies the previous night, Count Pingye had risen early that morning and left Yingdu with his personal guards. He had not waited for Zhang Yuanshan and Feng Guan. To prevent them from catching up, he had even deliberately laid a false trail. By now, the two groups were no longer traveling the same road.

Xiong Liqing leaned against Zheng Fan’s shoulder and asked curiously:

“Husband, why didn’t we travel with them?”

“Because I need to visit a place. It’s a bit of a detour, and having them with us would be inconvenient.”

“Where are we going?”

“Litian City.”

The shortest road from Yingdu to Yanjing could not possibly pass through Litian City. Litian lay well to the south of the normal route. Going there deliberately meant tracing out half an oval before turning back.

Zheng Fan reached into his robes, took out an iron case, pulled out a rolled cigarette, and lightly tapped it against the back of his hand.

“This was somewhere I intended to visit from the beginning. Even if nothing had happened in Yingdu, I still would have gone there. In fact, under the original plan, what I meant to accomplish in Yingdu was nowhere near as effective as what I can do there. Some unexpected things happened, which changed matters somewhat. But that place— I still have to go.”

Xiong Liqing knew what Zheng Fan intended to do and what message he wanted to send the court. She knew how to observe and how to think. Zheng Fan had even told her the Savage King’s true identity, so naturally he would not conceal these matters from her.

Yet Xiong Liqing still found herself puzzled.

If the events in Yingdu had merely been something he did in passing, only for them to produce an unexpectedly large effect, then what, exactly, was the place he had deliberately included in the original plan as the true instrument for achieving his objective?

He wanted the court to feel apprehensive, to make it afraid to continue reining in the military power of the regional commanders, yet at the same time he could not truly tear away all pretense of harmony.

“What are we going there to do?”

Zheng Fan’s gaze suddenly darkened.

“To let certain people know that Dujuan’s death has not been forgotten.”

[End of Chapter 480]