Chapter 580: - Cold Leftovers

“I have disappointed the Southern Marquis. At this moment, Ying Capital has nothing left but cold leftovers and scraps.”

Ahead appeared an old man with crane-white hair and beard. He wore a blue-green robe, leaned on a green-serpent cane with his right hand, and was supported on the left by a little girl.

Yao Zizhan of Qian, the Sage of Letters, was universally acknowledged throughout the Four Great States as the foremost literary figure of the age. Whenever his calligraphy, poetry, or prose appeared, scholars and nobles of every country fought to copy and circulate it.

But Great Chu had always possessed its own literary inheritance, and the family specifically responsible for preserving that inheritance was the Jing Clan.

The Jing Clan was vast and wealthy, but unlike other noble houses, it did not raise private troops. Its foundation lay elsewhere.

In education, ritual, sacrifice, etiquette, and all the other affairs of Great Chu’s cultural order, the Jing Clan stood without question among the greatest authorities.

The hundred Shanyue tribes had always been regarded as barbarians. Yet ancestors of the Jing Clan once entered the Great Marsh with only three or five attendants, going alone among tribe after tribe and persuading them to submit to the cultural order, ritual, and etiquette represented by Great Chu. They taught them to recognize their own “barbarism,” recognize their own “backwardness,” and ultimately deny their own roots before submitting to Chu.

As the saying went: subdue the enemy without battle.

In the Blind Man’s words, this was the true meaning of “winning people over through virtue.”

Even the saying, “If distant peoples do not submit, cultivate civil virtue and bring them to you,” carried a rather different flavor in the Blind Man’s eyes.

At first glance it might sound like the self-reproach of some naïvely benevolent old fool.

In truth, it was nothing of the sort.

The Blind Man said this was actually the wisdom of the ancestors. In antiquity, “we” were basically the beacon-state of the age.

Looked at that way, everything immediately became easy to understand.

A former Chu emperor had once said that the Jing Clan was worth a million soldiers.

Through education and culture, the Jing Clan told the Shanyue: everything you possess is backward, while Great Chu is bright and advanced in every respect. Thus they gradually eroded the Shanyue will to resist. They persuaded them that Chu people had come to help them farm, teach them to read, instruct them in ritual, and lead them toward a brighter life.

And so the Shanyue forgot that the vast lands now occupied by Chu had once been seized from their own ancestors. They forgot that many of the auxiliary troops serving on the frontiers were their own people. They forgot that the mountain lands once belonging to their tribes were steadily annexed by Chu nobles, that the rivers were occupied by Chu ships, and that if they wished merely to eat, they had to work beneath Chu noble houses.

Of course, all of this rested on one prerequisite.

You had to be strong enough.

Once you were strong enough, you could play “The Emperor’s New Clothes” to your heart’s content.

The Jing Clan’s success had always been built upon Great Chu’s ability to suppress the hundred Shanyue tribes. Because the Chu army was strong, its lies became easier to believe.

Just like Fan Li.

He was terrible with words.

But the moment he raised his axe, you immediately felt that many things he said made tremendous sense.

The opposite example was Qian.

The flourishing of Qian’s literary culture was the greatest among the Four Great States.

But did Yan people admire its culture?

There had once been a Third Prince who did.

Then he died.

Even the poorest commoners of Yan wore looks of disdain when Qian was mentioned. If you could not fight, if your army could not become strong, your culture was destined to remain incapable of spreading outward.

The old patriarch of the Jing Clan wore a bleak smile.

“Truthfully, I should have noticed long ago. I really should have. Yet somehow I still failed to imagine it. I never imagined it... Our sovereign is truly a great ruler.”

The Regent of Chu had been trapped for many days in Juyang City by his own brother-in-law, Great Yan’s Count Pingye. Because of that, large numbers of troops, officials, craftsmen, and others had been transferred out of Ying Capital.

And those transfers occurred while the Regent himself was surrounded by Yan troops.

It was the most natural camouflage imaginable.

The old Jing patriarch had told the Southern Marquis that Ying Capital had disappointed him because nothing remained but cold leftovers and scraps. There were no longer any jade platters or rare delicacies with which to entertain a guest from afar.

Because the true essence of the city, or more precisely, what the Regent himself regarded as its essence, had already been transferred elsewhere.

The old Jing patriarch was practically an immortal fox who had lived long enough to become a spirit. Yet even he, now suddenly awakened from a dream, had no choice but to admit complete admiration for the Regent’s handiwork.

With the dignity of the Son of Heaven, surrounded by the wolfish troops of an enemy state, he had actually used that very opportunity to control the capital from afar and carry out a deception vast enough to hide the sky and cross the sea, preparing to build an entirely new stove elsewhere.

Impressive.

Truly impressive.

The old Jing patriarch chuckled and raised his green-serpent cane.

“Southern Marquis, you truly had no need to enter. No... but then again, you had to enter.”

He lifted his head and shouted:

“A visitor is a guest. We Chu people could hardly lose our manners in receiving one. Unfortunately, this particular dish of mine can only be tasted by you, Southern Marquis. I wonder whether you will honor me by sampling it?”

“Move aside.”

Prince of Jingnan spoke.

The Yan cavalry ahead immediately opened a path, and Prince of Jingnan slowly advanced.

“Southern Marquis, if you withdraw now, there is still time.”

The old Jing patriarch said:

“All things are destined to pass. Why step once more upon a brazier already dying out?”

“This Prince came precisely to kick up one last shower of sparks.”

The old Jing patriarch nodded.

“This dish was discarded by some as though it were a worn shoe. That you, Southern Marquis, are still willing to taste it is this old man’s honor.”

With that, he lowered his head toward the little granddaughter beside him.

“Come.”

The girl looked at the imposing armored man standing ahead and began to recite:

“Remember the bitter toil of our forebears; the Son of Heaven gave command, bearing the tally they went forth...”

It was a folk song of Chu, later incorporated into Chu music. It told of the hardships endured when the Marquis of Chu obeyed the Son of Heaven of Great Xia and opened the Chu frontier.

As the girl’s clear voice rang out, the old Jing patriarch tossed his green-serpent cane to the ground.

His entire body slowly knelt.

Half singing, half weeping, he intoned:

“Brave indeed, and mighty in war;
unyielding in strength, never to be humbled.
Though the body dies, the spirit lives on;
the resolute soul becomes a hero among ghosts...”

Suddenly, a strange rhythm began flowing outward.

At that moment, it seemed as though the entire city had awakened in another form of life.

It had stood here for centuries, watching Heaven knew how many springs and autumns pass. It had watched people multiply, watched them work and rest, watched them open new lands, watched them create splendor.

It was witness.

And it was record.

Since ancient times, gifted poets had loved chanting of things to express their aspirations, or borrowing scenes to pour out emotion. Set aside those who forced sorrow into new verses for no reason. There truly existed a class of people capable, in the dim realm beyond explanation, of touching souls that should never have existed at all.

And speaking with them.

Tian Wujing stood there.

Within his vision appeared group after group of men in Chu robes, their long side-locks streaming freely. They sang without restraint, drank away sorrow, went barefoot across blue brick, dancing, cheering, and wildly pouring out the passion of the moment.

Some loudly recited newly written poems.

Some sang newly gathered songs.

Others simply used jade pendants as clappers, beating out the rhythm.

At the height of their joy, the jade shattered and fell across the ground.

The man holding it crouched down, heartbroken and sniffling, while everyone around him erupted into laughter, unfastening their own ornaments and passing them over.

Again!

Pick it up!

Continue!

Buzz!

Buzz!

Buzz!

Enormous stone steles erupted from the earth one after another.

By Chu custom, every newly conquered territory had a stele carved and raised to announce the achievement to Heaven and the spirits.

Great Chu’s ancestral temple had three successive gates.

The outer gate was used for ordinary sacrifices.

The second was opened for great imperial rites, such as the enthronement of a new emperor or the investiture of a crown prince.

But the innermost gate?

Even the sovereign could not enter unless he had achieved merit in opening new territory.

The ancestors of the Xiong Clan understood how difficult it was to establish a realm, and so they set down this rule.

As a result, Chu people had preserved immense enthusiasm for expansion over the centuries. No ruler wished to reach his deathbed without having earned the right to enter the ancestral temple’s inner gate, becoming a laughingstock to future generations.

Chu was a land of marshes and mountains. Before development, much of it had been poor and inhospitable. Sometimes wars lasting years were fought against Shanyue tribes merely to seize land that, at the time, brought little practical return.

Yet Chu hunger for land had always been enormous.

Every generation of sovereign wanted only to occupy more, more, and still more new territory, so that he could boast before the ancestors of what their descendant had achieved.

And the enfeoffed nobility was precisely the form of rule most suited to governing newly absorbed lands and continuing outward expansion.

Now, those enormous stone steles represented the territorial achievements of every Chu emperor through the generations.

Many fertile and densely populated regions of present-day Great Chu had still been barren wilderness only a century earlier. It had been the ancestors’ struggle through brambles and thorns that established a place for Xia civilization to stand on this land.

Each stele bore the name of that generation’s Chu emperor.

And the names of the noble houses that had distinguished themselves in those wars of expansion.

Dugu Clan.

Qu Clan.

Zhao Clan.

Those three appeared most often.

And the Jing Clan, which possessed no private army, followed close behind.

The first three expanded by force of arms.

The Jing Clan subdued through culture and education.

Many believed Great Chu’s four foremost noble houses possessed nothing but the inherited merit of their ancestors. In truth, through centuries of outward expansion, every one of them had contributed enormously.

Shapes began appearing atop the stone steles.

Blurred.

Indistinct.

Yet somehow seeming genuinely present.

The old Jing patriarch raised one hand and shouted:

“Southern Marquis of Yan! This dish is before you. Do you dare lift your chopsticks?”

This was not the art of a Qi Refiner.

Nor was it a swordsman’s sword.

Nor a Martial Artist’s body.

It was neither Dao nor spell.

It was a faith that had existed before, existed now, and would continue to exist in the future.

It did not belong to any sect or religion, because no altar of any sect beneath Heaven possessed the qualification to enshrine these men.

It had no killing power.

It could not even crush an ant.

But there was one condition.

You had to ignore it.

The moment you lifted the chopsticks, you pulled yourself into that world.

If you accepted the challenge, then you had to face all of it directly.

This was true grand momentum.

The old Jing patriarch had spent a lifetime reading books, writing calligraphy, and explaining principles. He was nothing more than an old scholar.

Yet at the end, he had forced thunder to erupt from level ground.

Tian Wujing looked at the scene before him.

He could simply ignore all of it.

Walk forward.

Kick over the frail old man.

The little girl would certainly burst into tears.

And then everything before him would become nothing more than flowers in a mirror, moonlight upon water.

But earlier, Tian Wujing himself had already shouted:

Serve the dishes.

So now, he could not refuse to lift the chopsticks.

He stood there, hands clasped behind his back.

And in the next instant, the wind rose.

It seemed as though countless stone steles, countless marks, countless ancestors of Chu’s noble houses, countless poems and songs of Chu had transformed into a landslide and a tsunami, crashing down upon him.

This city.

This imperial capital.

After the Imperial Clan Guards outside the walls were crushed so easily, how could Great Yan’s god of war, Prince of Jingnan, possibly have failed to notice something wrong?

Yet he still entered.

Because there were things he could accomplish only by entering personally.

The Regent had not deliberately handed this capital to him.

He had simply had no other choice and chosen the lesser loss.

He abandoned it not because he did not want it, but because he knew he could not hold it.

Yet no matter whether the city had been deliberately abandoned or simply could not be preserved, as Great Yan’s Prince of Jingnan, Tian Wujing still had to walk inside.

And stamp his foot down.

He needed to trample the pride of Chu.

The history of Chu.

The self-respect of Chu.

Even if Great Yan did not annihilate Chu completely in this campaign, what would the Chu people, stripped of spirit and courage, use in the future to resist the rolling iron cavalry beneath the Black Dragon Banner?

A country was territory.

Population.

Army.

Warhorses.

Weapons.

Armor.

Blacksmiths.

Rivers.

Mountains.

But at its root, it was faith.

The old Jing patriarch laughed loudly.

“Come then, Southern Marquis! This old man is waiting for you to take the iron-blooded vigor Great Yan forged through centuries of war against the Barbarians and compare it against eight hundred years of Great Chu’s splendor. Let us see which stands higher!”

Tian Wujing shook his head.

He had no intention of doing that.

“No matter how glorious the past, it is still only the past.”

Tian Wujing stood there and continued:

“To praise antiquity while belittling the present is, in this Prince’s eyes, merely self-consolation for weak descendants. Great Chu has eight hundred years behind it. That is true. Since Great Yan founded its state, it has defended the east against the Barbarians. Emperors of every generation personally campaigned into the desert and stained the battlefield with blood. But those are all things of the past. What meaning is there in comparing past against past? Men of the present should have schemes for the present. Schemes of the present should possess courage for the present.”

...

Yanjing.

The Rear Garden.

Emperor Yan, reclining upon the imperial couch, slowly opened his eyes.

A faint smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.

He tossed aside the memorial in his hand.

Wei Zhonghe, who had been resting with his eyes closed while His Majesty slept, immediately opened them, crouched, and picked up the memorial.

He did not dare make a sound.

...

Beifeng Commandery.

Inside the courtyard of the Marquis of Zhenbei Residence.

Li Liangting sat in a chair.

Below him knelt a group of newly submitted Barbarian chieftains.

Suddenly, those Barbarian leaders noticed that the Marquis, who had been listening to their vows of loyalty, had smiled.

...

Great Chu.

Ying Capital.

The Imperial Avenue.

Two more figures appeared beside Prince of Jingnan.

One wore black armor and leaned on a great saber, genuine arrogance filling his eyes.

The other wore a black dragon robe, true majesty contained within his gaze.

You press me with countless men.

I answer with three.

You invoke the ancients to force me down.

I answer with the men of this age.

The old Jing patriarch’s mouth fell open at the sight.

He was shocked.

Shocked by what the Southern Marquis standing before him actually believed.

To venerate antiquity meant venerating the ancestors.

But he, but they, wanted to create an entirely new order themselves.

They wanted to become the true founders of a new world.

I will not worship the ancients.

But my descendants will worship me.

It was an entirely different faith.

And precisely because of it, the man before him had been capable of exterminating his own clan.

There was no road left behind him.

The road beneath his feet was new.

The old Jing patriarch was first shocked.

Then stunned.

Then he found it absurd.

Finally, rage overwhelmed him.

He roared:

“Absurd! Absurd! Absurd!”

A flush spread across his face.

He actually straightened without relying on his cane.

Pointing at Prince of Jingnan, he shouted again:

“Arrogant! Arrogant! Arrogant! This old man asks you, then: what gives you the right to be so arrogant?”

Tian Wujing stepped forward.

Beside him, Emperor Yan and the Marquis of Zhenbei also stepped forward.

At the same time, the surrounding stone steles, literary splendor, and heroic spirits pressed in once more.

Tian Wujing stretched out one hand and pointed at the furious old man before him.

“Because this Prince has already fought his way into Ying Capital.”

“Pff!”

The old Jing patriarch spat out a mouthful of blood.

His face instantly turned wax-white.

And when those words fell, everything around them, every illusion, vanished amid hysterical shrieks.

It was as though everything that had just happened had truly been nothing more than a dream beneath daylight.

Unreal.

Untrue.

Impossible to grasp.

No matter how many reasons.

No matter how much preparation.

No matter how much glory.

That one sentence was enough to kill all of it.

The old Jing patriarch could not even shout that Great Chu still remained, even if its capital had fallen.

“Because Great Yan marched south against Qian as though entering empty ground.”

“Because one decree from Great Yan was enough to make the Barbarians fear sending even a single horse across the border.”

“Because Great Yan fought two wars in three years and swallowed the entire Three Jin lands.”

“Because Great Yan mobilized the whole state against Chu, and today its iron hooves have already entered your imperial capital.”

Tian Wujing slowly walked before the old Jing patriarch.

The little girl had already dropped to her knees and begun sobbing.

The old man lifted his head with difficulty.

He looked at Prince of Jingnan.

“Heh... Truthfully, I lost from the beginning. If His Highness thought I still had use, he would not have left me here. He would not have abandoned this place.”

Even his own sovereign had discarded the old rules, rituals, and glory.

What could he still fight for?

What could he still argue?

This had always been a duel he was bound to lose.

The result had been decided long ago.

And the man who decided it was one of his own.

“Perhaps His Highness is right. Great Chu needs a rebirth. Great Chu’s totem is the Fire Phoenix. A phoenix, after all, can be reborn from the flames.”

Then the old Jing patriarch pointed at Prince of Jingnan and laughed.

“You cannot destroy Chu. You cannot destroy Chu! Great Chu will rise again.”

Prince of Jingnan crouched down.

He looked at the old man whose oil had already run dry, whose lamp had reached its final flare.

He offered no false show of sympathy.

There was no need.

He was the victor.

Mercy from a victor was a kind of charity.

And he did not wish to give charity.

So faced with the old Jing patriarch’s dying curse, Prince of Jingnan merely answered calmly:

“This Prince has plenty of time.”

“Heh... is that so? How much time?”

The old Jing patriarch stared hard at him, waiting for the answer.

“Enough that every time it rises again, this Prince can destroy it again.”

The old Jing patriarch fell silent.

Then his head slowly bowed.

Great Chu’s grand master of letters died there in the middle of the Imperial Avenue, on the road where he had tried to block the iron hooves of Great Yan.

“Grandfather... Grandfather... Grandfather, wake up... Grandfather, wake up...”

Prince of Jingnan stood.

He stepped across the old man’s corpse and continued forward.

Behind him, the Jingnan cavalry followed.

No one paid attention to the old man’s body in the middle of the avenue.

Nor to the little girl crying beside it.

This was a conquered capital.

And it was also an abandoned capital.

Its glory, from this day onward, would forever be fixed in the past.

Prince of Jingnan’s gaze settled upon the Great Chu imperial palace already visible ahead.

That place was Great Chu’s pride.

Its center.

The place where Great Chu’s government had once ruled.

Where Great Chu’s ancestral temple rested.

Faintly, one could almost hear the cry of a phoenix drifting from above the palace.

Great Chu had long since lost its Fire Phoenix.

But was that truly so?

The Pixiu that had followed behind Prince of Jingnan gave a low growl from its throat.

Prince of Jingnan reached out and placed a hand upon its head.

The Pixiu immediately quieted.

It even stuck out its tongue and licked the prince’s palm.

“Don’t be impatient. Its turn is almost here.”

[End of Chapter 580]