Chapter 821: Great Upheaval

South Gate Pass.

Garrison Commander Ran had just received the envoys from the States of Zhao, Qi, and Wei.

Yes.

Received them.

After entering the pass, those three delegations would continue onward to Yanjing to pay audience to the Emperor of Great Yan.

At this moment...

Ran Min stood on the walls of South Gate Pass with his saber at his waist, gazing south.

A group of trusted aides stood behind him.

As a man’s position rose, a framework naturally gathered around him.

He did not even need to seek people out.

Like moths drawn toward flame, they would come to him on their own.

Naturally, mud and sand mixed together in that flow.

If he wanted to pick out good men, he still had to keep his eyes open and spend the effort.

Most capable people in this world possessed at least a little pride.

Unless driven to the end of their road, they would not behave like gaudy little seductresses, throwing themselves in front of you to flatter and beg for favor.

Take Fengxin City.

Every day, frustrated scholars from Yan, Jin, Chu, Qian, and even the smaller states lingered around the tea houses, taverns, and noodle shops on the street outside Prince Pingxi Residence where rumor claimed the Prince sometimes appeared.

Some composed poetry.

Some wrote essays.

Some loudly proclaimed their strategies.

All for the chance to leap through the dragon gate.

But just as a master selected talent... talent also selected its master.

Some believed Prince Pingxi Residence might indeed be a high ground, but its threshold had become too high.

They had missed the first pot of soup.

Rather than forcing their way in now, it might be better to step down one level and join some new rising star who, like Prince Pingxi, had himself climbed from the common people.

Ran Min was an excellent choice.

One could only say Prince Pingxi’s rise had been too dazzling.

He had obscured the light of too many others, making them look dim by comparison.

But once you drew closer and looked carefully... you still had to admit:

Damn.

Smells good.

Garrison Commander Ran had grown a beard now.

He raised one hand and pointed south.

A scholar surnamed Yang immediately said:

“What Patron sees is his own achievement.”

Ran Min laughed.

He shook his head.

“Mr. Yang should wait until I ask, ‘Guess what I’m looking at,’ or until one of my guards helps ask the question for me. Then you answer. That would fit the scene better.”

The scholar surnamed Yang smiled.

“Patron should know that Yang has always been slow of tongue. I was afraid that if I waited until Patron asked, one of my colleagues would step into the first floor before me. So I used a trick and seized the answer early.”

Ran Min and everyone around him burst into laughter.

Only after the laughter faded did Scholar Yang continue:

“This time, envoys from the four states will enter the capital and conclude an alliance under Great Yan’s leadership. Once the treaty is signed, Great Yan will, in name at least, extend its southern reach by another thousand li. All of that will be Patron’s achievement.”

“The matter is not finished yet. I do not dare claim merit. Besides, His Majesty may not even value a mere alliance that highly. A sheet of paper, that is all. Great Yan has always...”

Ran Min had nearly said that Great Yan had always used treaties as toilet paper.

He hesitated.

Then swallowed the rest.

“No, no, no,” Scholar Yang said. “In this alliance, Patron has specifically emphasized Great Yan’s leadership. Yan officers will even be placed among the armies of the four states. Once this coalition truly takes form, Patron’s own position will naturally rise with it.”

Ran Min had personally driven all of this forward.

The moment he took up his appointment as Garrison Commander of South Gate Pass, he began lobbying the small states to the south.

Threats.

Temptation.

Promises.

Pressure.

Every method available.

Originally, progress should not have been this fast.

On the surface, all those states behaved obediently toward Great Yan.

In reality, none wished to let an outsider insert a hand directly into its military and government.

Then Prince Pingxi led troops into Chu.

At Fan City, he captured Chu’s Grand General alive and killed another Pillar of State.

The States of Zhao, Wei, and Qi, which had still been wavering, were shaken badly.

The alliance suddenly accelerated.

One could say Ran Min had eaten a mouthful of Prince Pingxi’s dividends while sitting at South Gate Pass.

Once the coalition was established, Ran Min might not directly become the “Grand Emperor” of the four states, but as its initiator, the Yan court would inevitably need to raise his status and rank to match the responsibilities that followed.

The stage grew larger.

His treatment would rise with it.

According to the estimates of the scholars under him, once the matter was complete and the four states thoroughly submitted, Ran Min would at minimum receive a general’s title.

He might even, like Prince Pingxi before Snow Sea Pass in the old days, be made a Count.

At that moment, Ran Min seemed to remember something.

“Any news from Count Yishan?”

“Reporting to Patron, this subordinate only just received word. After the imperial commissioner arrived, Count Yishan seems to have quarreled with him. The commissioner seized the opportunity to strip him of his tiger tally and military authority. Command has now been transferred to the deputy general.”

Count Yishan’s name was Chen Yang.

He belonged to the oldest group of former Jingnan Army Garrison Commanders.

Another scholar, surnamed Xu, spoke:

“Count Yishan simply cannot read the wind. He still thinks Prince Jingnan is alive. Prince Pingxi has received such favor from His Majesty and is even raising the Crown Prince. How could he possibly be willing to wade back into this muddy water? Yet those men remain unsatisfied. They still want to hold onto the days when Prince Jingnan was alive and they could swagger without restraint. Is that not deliberately putting His Majesty in an impossible position? Patron, in this subordinate’s view, stripping the tiger tally is only the first step. Next, the court will certainly transfer another group of officers under Count Yishan elsewhere and completely sever his control over those troops. Count Yishan’s garrison lies close to South Gate Pass and was originally meant partly to reinforce us. Patron, this subordinate believes those troops could perhaps...”

“No. No.”

Scholar Yang immediately objected.

“The tallest tree in the forest is the first destroyed by the wind. Prince Pingxi could behave arrogantly in those days because first, Prince Jingnan protected him, and second, he enjoyed an extraordinary relationship with His Majesty. That was why Prince Pingxi could keep asking for more. Patron does not possess that kind of good fortune. You must advance one step at a time and never become greedy. Otherwise, you will certainly bite off more than you can chew.”

“Mr. Yang speaks correctly. I do not have Prince Pingxi’s lucky life. Hahahaha...”

Everyone laughed with him.

A little later, Ran Min spoke again:

“I do not dare covet Count Yishan’s troops right now. But I am willing to make things convenient. Mr. Yang, I want you to visit the imperial commissioner’s headquarters. Tell that lord that whoever he intends to recommend, I will submit a supporting recommendation as well. Let us sell him a favor first. And there is no need for me to rush. Once the coalition of four states is completed, my position will no longer be limited to this one Garrison Commander post. At that time... perhaps Count Yishan’s troops will have to answer my summons anyway.”

“Patron has risen high without losing himself to delusion. This subordinate admires you!”

“We admire Patron!”

“We admire Patron!”

“Gentlemen flatter me too much. I am merely a rough military man. Even a figure as powerful as Prince Pingxi is said to have talent such as Fan Li assisting him. The road ahead for me will still depend heavily upon all of you. And in the future... I will never fail any of you!”

“We are willing to serve Patron!”

“We are willing to serve Patron!”

...

“Get out! Get out! I won’t see him! This Count will not see him!”

Chen Yang kicked over the personal guard who had come to report.

“Kill the donkey after the grinding is done. Kill the donkey after the grinding is done. How dare they! This Count refuses to believe this is the court’s will. I refuse to believe this is His Majesty’s intention either! His Majesty cannot be this short-sighted. Even if His Majesty intended to take this Count’s military authority, he would never act with such reckless haste! It is those bastards handling the work below. They get hold of one chicken feather and treat it like...”

Chen Yang’s chest rose and fell violently.

“Heh. Fine. Let them do it. Let them do it. Take the military authority if you want. This Count wants to see which bastard among the officers under me actually dares take over my command!”

Chen Yang dropped into a chair and gasped heavily.

His personal guards stood around him.

Not one dared try to persuade him.

...

Sushan Camp lay beneath Mount Sushan.

From here, southward, it could reinforce South Gate Pass.

Eastward, it could support Litian City.

Northward... during the era when the Wenren Clan ruled this region, it had guarded against the Helian Clan.

Westward, cavalry could ride straight toward the Horsehoof Mountains.

If Litian City had been the economic, political, and cultural center under Wenren rule, then Sushan was the military center.

Geography and the pattern of surrounding powers had dictated it.

Years ago, after Prince Jingnan and Prince Zhenbei led Great Yan’s finest cavalry through South Gate Pass, they immediately seized the lightly defended Sushan.

From there began the famous decisive campaign in which they fought across a thousand li in ten days, creating one of the classic examples of large-scale cavalry warfare in the history of all Xia.

Now that Yan ruled Jin territory, Sushan Camp had been retained.

Count Yishan’s command was stationed here.

Fifty li from Sushan Camp stood Suzhou City.

Like the camp itself, the city occupied excellent ground.

Trade routes from east, west, north, and south crossed there.

And because it lay beside a major military camp, the transport of supplies and the spending of soldiers during leave provided enormous stimulation to local commerce.

In this age, among groups numbering in the tens of thousands, few possessed more ready silver or were more willing to spend it than soldiers.

Naturally, one condition had to be met.

It had to be peacetime.

Otherwise, living beside a military camp of that size was not a blessing.

It was a source of catastrophe.

At this moment... inside a tavern in Suzhou City, a man dressed as a scholar took a seat.

Across from him sat a merchant.

Their identities were simple enough.

Clear enough too.

The scholar came from Qian.

Suzhou City had once belonged to the Wenren domain.

The Wenren Clan loved literature.

Even Chen Daole’s Chen Clan, now serving beneath Prince Pingxi Residence, had originally come from Wenren territory.

Even after Yan occupied the region... even though Yan people possessed little taste for refined literary pleasures... a tradition cultivated across a century meant scholars remained numerous here.

After Yan introduced the imperial examinations into Jin, successful candidates from former Wenren territory almost crushed those from the old Helian and Situ regions.

There was no helping it.

The difference in cultural atmosphere between the three regions was simply too large.

In the end, to balance political opportunities across Jin, the court had no choice but to divide the examination rankings by region so Wenren territory would not monopolize everything.

The scholar’s surname was Ming.

Ming Yilou.

He truly was a scholar.

He truly was Jin-born.

But behind him stood the shadow of Qian’s Silver-Armored Guard.

An intelligence yamen could never manage every detail.

Nor could it fill the entire world with its own people.

But sometimes... it was not the intelligence service seeking people.

People came to it voluntarily.

Chen Daole had once been one of the righteous men of Jin.

And there had been many others like him.

Ming Yilou had seen that Jin people alone possessed no hope of overthrowing Yan rule.

So he sought out the Silver-Armored Guard himself.

No silver was needed.

No official position.

He willingly became a peripheral asset of the Silver-Armored Guard because he hoped to use Qian strength to overthrow Yan.

Chen Daole had once told Prince Pingxi about this period in his life.

He had also mentioned people like Ming Yilou and asked whether the Prince found such Jin men strange.

Or perhaps ridiculous.

Prince Pingxi merely shrugged.

As though he had seen this sort of thing too many times to care.

The merchant... belonged to the Xie Clan.

Prince Pingxi Residence’s vigorous smuggling trade into Chu had produced a significant side effect.

As the Residence deepened its understanding of Chu territory and planted more people there, Chu could naturally extend hands back into Jin.

You touch mine.

I touch yours.

Everyone joins the fun.

Prince Pingxi Residence did not fear being touched.

First, its population was small and concentrated around several major and minor hubs.

Foreign trade and travel were tightly controlled.

Most importantly... a newly rising, young military faction still climbing upward was extremely difficult to infiltrate.

Persuading its people to defect was harder still.

But the lands of the Three Jin were not limited to eastern Jin.

Eastern Jin might be clear water.

Elsewhere... there was plenty of mud.

After the two sat down... they exchanged almost no words.

They did not analyze the situation.

They each merely produced one letter.

Then lowered their heads and began eating and drinking.

Once the meal ended, the merchant paid.

He took the scholar’s hand.

His eyes looked lecherous.

The scholar appeared reluctant yet yielding.

Together, they boarded a carriage.

No one found it strange.

If anything... everyone found it completely natural.

In strange-tale stories elsewhere, fox spirits fell in love with scholars.

In Jin, influenced by Jin custom... the fox spirit was only one step from becoming male himself.

A merchant accompanying a scholar was a perfect match here.

Merchants acquired silver and then liked attaching themselves to refined culture.

And scholars... were refinement itself.

The carriage began moving.

When it passed a jewelry shop, the merchant and scholar got out together and selected two pieces of jewelry.

Then they returned to the carriage.

The shop assistant took the two letters they had left behind and carried them into the back room.

He handed them to the proprietor.

The proprietor opened both letters.

Then summarized the contents.

The imperial commissioner had arrived at Sushan Camp and recruited a number of Jin scholars as aides and clerks.

Count Yishan had managed Sushan Camp too thoroughly.

The commissioner possessed no men of his own there.

Ming Yilou had an elder brother and several colleagues working inside.

His letter contained information from Sushan Camp.

The merchant’s letter contained information from another camp east of Litian City.

Specifically... the movement of grain and provisions.

The owner of the jewelry shop was a Hundred-Household Commander of the Silver-Armored Guard.

Qian armies had always embarrassed themselves on open battlefields.

But in the battlefield of shadows... the Silver-Armored Guard had always looked down upon its peers in every state.

No wonder a Qian minister had once submitted a memorial asking that the commander of the Silver-Armored Guard be given troops.

The suggestion that the head of an intelligence yamen should control an army had terrified Commander Luo so badly that he knelt outside the imperial palace for an entire night, desperately explaining that the minister had either lost his mind or was merely some naïve fool trying to serve the state.

It had absolutely not been done at Luo’s instruction!

Now... the Silver-Armored Guard Hundred-Household Commander in Suzhou City refined the two pieces of intelligence as quickly as possible.

First:

The conflict between the imperial commissioner and Count Yishan had become irreconcilable.

After the commissioner stripped Count Yishan of command, the deputy general, Guerrilla Generals, Assistant Generals, and other officers all claimed illness and refused to cooperate.

The commissioner had therefore been forced to use military officers from his own mission headquarters to take temporary control.

At the same time, a new edict from court had arrived.

The court had decided to punish Count Yishan and use him as the chicken killed to frighten the monkeys.

Second:

The transfer of provisions east of Litian City meant the troops originally stationed there under Li Fusheng, Count Dingbian, were being mobilized to replace the garrison at Sushan Camp.

The Hundred-Household Commander rubbed his eyes.

Then added his own analysis.

Sushan Camp would lose the ability to conduct offensive operations for a significant period.

Li Fusheng possessed an impatient temperament.

He loved leading charges personally.

His use of troops was aggressive.

Then... the Hundred-Household Commander hesitated.

Some words could be added or omitted.

He could say them.

But perhaps they were not for someone at his level to say.

If he stayed silent, there was no fault.

He would still receive merit for the intelligence.

If he spoke... he might instead be blamed.

But when he remembered all the comrades who had died in Yan and Jin these past years... the Qian commoners displaced when Yan cavalry rode south... and the humiliation of Shangjing being besieged... the Hundred-Household Commander gritted his teeth.

Then added one more line:

The imperial commissioner at Sushan Camp is obstinate, impatient in handling affairs, and acts according to his own will.

The Emperor of Yan has the bearing of an enlightened ruler and must understand the principle that turmoil cannot be allowed inside an army.

He is not a sovereign who can be fooled.

This commissioner will likely be recalled and investigated before long.

Finally... the Hundred-Household Commander released a long breath and wrote four final words:

Act without delay.

The report, worth a thousand pieces of gold, was immediately sent out.

It would travel at the greatest possible speed.

Even if doing so exposed traces and sacrificed other agents, it had to reach the hands meant to receive it.

After watching his subordinate leave with the report... the Hundred-Household Commander, surnamed Zhao, prepared half a pot of wine for himself.

He poured one cup.

Took only the smallest sip.

Then leaned back in his chair.

Tears were already running down his face.

“It should be Great Qian’s turn... to win once, shouldn’t it?”

...

Not long after the new Emperor ascended the throne, Prince Jingnan departed west.

The court immediately began gathering the many military bosses scattered across Jin.

Their local administrative authority had already been stripped away.

They could no longer collect taxes themselves.

Could no longer organize their own caravans and conduct trade.

That meant not merely a loss of personal wealth for the commanders.

It also weakened their control over their armies.

Count Yishan and the others had once abandoned their posts together and gone to Fengxin City to pay respects to the Heir.

That had been the final attempt at resistance by the Jingnan Army faction.

One could even call it pressure upon the court.

But three imperial decrees shattered their hope.

Then the court used the incident as grounds to push its consolidation even further.

Prince Pingxi Residence continued watching from the side.

It refused to become the leader of trouble.

By coincidence... the first serious conflict erupted at Sushan Camp.

The imperial commissioner and Count Yishan became as incompatible as fire and water.

And the court intended to use Sushan Camp as its chicken to frighten the monkeys.

In truth... when the Emperor of Yan once held Prince Pingxi’s hand and sat with him on the Dragon Throne imagining the future, his meaning had been simple.

You preserve your freedom.

I consolidate what belongs to the court.

Yupan City had even been given as part of that exchange.

At the same time, the Emperor had revealed his intention to launch another war of unification after the state recovered.

He and Prince Pingxi had reached agreement on that point.

Prince Pingxi had not even needed to remind him.

The Emperor himself said consolidating the armies was meant to establish the court’s authority.

It was not meant to wreck effective troops the way Qian had.

The Emperor had always possessed an extremely clear understanding.

But although an Emperor was called the Son of Heaven... he was not a god.

Sometimes the policy set above was perfectly sound.

Yet by the time it reached the man carrying it out below... even good scripture could be recited crookedly.

One could only say Ji Chengjue was an enlightened sovereign.

Given Little Sixth’s ability, once he learned what had happened, he would certainly react quickly and repair it.

He would soothe the army.

He would mend the contradiction.

But the Emperor was in Yanjing.

The court center was in Yanjing.

That was simply too far away.

There was no way the correction could arrive immediately.

And therefore, for this brief window...

Sushan Camp, north of South Gate Pass and ordinarily one of the pillars stabilizing the region... was in complete chaos.

One could even say the place had become foul with smoke and miasma.

Li Fusheng’s force had already begun moving to take over Sushan Camp’s defenses.

Several times, Li Fusheng had prepared to reinforce eastern Jin.

Several times, Prince Pingxi simply fought too well and ended the crisis before Li Fusheng could enter the field.

A ball of fire had long accumulated in Count Dingbian’s chest.

He was impatient to the extreme.

All one could say was... everything had arrived together by coincidence.

Eastern Jin’s Prince Pingxi Residence had just won the Battle of Fan City in winter and slaughtered Chu prestige.

Yet South Gate Pass, which looked like boiling oil over roaring flame, happened to be entering the moment when its hollow fire burned hottest.

If that moment passed... then it passed.

Fire was called fire precisely because it could not burn forever.

But if someone seized it at the right moment... that became an entirely different matter.

Even the Blind Man had not predicted this precise coincidence and opportunity.

The Blind Man might once have dressed like a Daoist and handed out talisman water.

But he genuinely could not divine Heaven’s secrets.

And what happened next might very well slide into territory that even the Blind Man himself never expected.

Jin had been destroyed long ago.

Qian and Chu had spent years being crushed and beaten until they were almost losing the courage to oppose Yan at all.

But Yan people seemed to have forgotten something.

It was not as though Yan had never suffered setbacks these past years.

It had lost battles before.

It was simply that stronger figures always stood up afterward and pulled the situation back.

Unfortunately...

Prince Zhenbei was dead.

Prince Jingnan had gone far west.

The one figure who could still hold up the stage, Prince Pingxi, remained far away in eastern Jin.

For affairs in western Jin... his arm could not reach this far.

It was said... that after Xie Yu’an, Young Master of the Xie Clan, received this report from Meng Gong and finished reading it... he sighed:

“The armies of your Qian truly do not deserve these loyal men living inside enemy territory. If Great Chu’s Phoenix Nest Internal Guard were half as capable as the Silver-Armored Guard, how could we possibly have failed to discover the breaching of Wangjiang in advance? The outcome of the Yan-Chu war might even have been different!”

Meng Gong did not argue.

He said nothing.

He merely lowered his head and looked at the calluses across his hands.

Before steel actually met steel... there was no point talking too much.

Qian’s problem was probably this:

When fighting with mouths... it was too hard.

When fighting with blades... far too soft.

...

Ten days later... a thunderclap brought coolness.

At the same time, it announced the true beginning of blazing summer.

And South Gate Pass... received an urgent military report from Liang.

Chancellor of Liang has raised troops in rebellion.

The ruler requests Yan forces enter Liang to stabilize the realm!

Inside the command office, Garrison Commander Ran Min read the report aloud.

Every strategist around him immediately congratulated their patron.

The alliance of four states was about to be concluded.

And now Heaven itself had delivered an opportunity allowing Yan troops to enter Liang with the most righteous justification imaginable.

Once the chaos in Liang was suppressed, Yan would become the coalition’s true and undisputed leader.

The opportunity... had arrived!

That very night... the garrison at South Gate Pass began moving.

Nearly ten thousand cavalry rode south through the pass.

Straight into Liang.

It was said... that while riding through the pass, Garrison Commander Ran shouted toward his subordinate officers to raise morale:

“What Prince Pingxi could do... I, Ran Min, can do as well!”

A war capable of affecting... perhaps even overturning... the entire political order of all Xia... opened beneath the roar of summer thunder and rain.

[End of Chapter 821]