The Brush Is Stronger Than the Blade
"Form a straight line!"
"Keep your heads down! Anyone who lifts his head—"
Faces stiff with terror, they were dragged along in a file, lashed together with prisoner-ropes.
"Move them over there! Now!"
"Y-yes, sir!"
Corpses whose upper bodies had been torn away by cannon shot, and bodies gone slack where spear and blade had found them, were hoisted by the prisoners and carried off to one side. The field where nearly a hundred thousand men had fought to the death was being put in order.
"How many dead?"
"Our dead come to two hundred and eighty-one, with three hundred and seventy-two badly wounded. As for the enemy, we won't know for certain until every corpse is collected, but something on the order of fourteen thousand..."
The heaviest losses had fallen on the Garrison Army of the right wing. Even so, Yeo Mun-yeop, regiment commander of the Garrison troops serving as my guard and reserve, had taken one regiment to their relief, and the valiant Fang Guozhen had hurled himself into the collapsing ranks and raged there in person. Between the two of them, the line was restored at the very moment it was about to break.
"I am ashamed to face you, my lord."
"No. It isn't your fault. I took the enemy too lightly."
I clapped the shoulder of Fang Guozhen, who stood with his head bowed and the life gone out of him.
"The First Division of the Garrison Army held. I judged wrong, and we still won because the lot of you fought so desperately."
"My lord..."
Kagetora held the north, Ho Sim and Oh Jideok the east, and the walls of Jianning barred the south, so the enemy had nowhere to run. A portion of them, under the enemy commanders Deng Keming and Jiang Tai, resisted furiously and fought to tear a hole in the encirclement. But they were already surrounded, and artillery, matchlock fire, and arrows poured in together. At the sight of flesh and blood bursting before their eyes, the enemy soldiers lost their nerve, flung down their weapons, and dropped to their knees.
"Most of the men who surrendered have been bound and confined in their own camp. A number of them have been put to gathering the dead off the field..."
At Dolswe's report I nodded and looked at the three severed heads set before me. Marshal Deng Keming, his younger brother Deng Zhiming, and the young army supervisor called Jiang Tai had tried to flee north, and Akuto's blade had taken all three heads. The prisoners alone numbered a good thirty thousand. The men of Fujian were one thing, but there were even fellows from distant Hubei and Jiangxi among them.
"My lord, men from across the river request an audience."
"Across the river?"
Oh Jideok, division commander of the Garrison Army, who had been holding the perimeter because his sector had seen comparatively little fighting, came and reported to me himself.
"Upward of several thousand troops came down off the ridge on the far bank. I was drawing the men up to meet them when a party of their number approached under a white flag..."
"Who did they say they were?"
"He gave his name as Chen Youding, Route Commander of Tingzhou."
"Chen Youding? That man came here?"
I gazed steadily at Chen Youding, who had crossed the river alone to seek me out.
"This minor general, Chen Youding, pays his respects! It is an honor to look upon Your Grace the Duke of Yue, whose fame stands so high."
"Good to see you, Commander Chen."
He was tall, with a solid frame and a face burned black by the sun. My men stood all around him, watching with killing intent, and still his manner was calm and unshaken. He had the look of a country peasant and a street tough who had met a chaotic age and carved out a power of his own.
"You've had a hard time of it, by the look of you."
"We ran the mountain tracks day and night. I beg Your Grace to forgive this minor general's discourtesy."
A plain lamellar cuirass that covered only the chest, a helmet caked with dust, filthy clothes sour with the stink of sweat. Chen Youding looked like a beggar, and yet he offered the formal salute with his head high.
"This official, Chen Youding, received an urgent request to relieve Jianning. The moment the word reached me, I took ten thousand men, forced a path through the mountains, and have only just arrived."
"From Qingliu County in Tingzhou, all the way here? That is better than a hundred and fifty miles, and mountain road the whole way."
"When it is the business of the realm, shall I stop to ask whether a thing can be done?"
I was too dumbfounded to let it pass.
"And how did you manage rations?"
"On the way we struck counties the rebels held and seized their military grain. We also levied grain from the mountain hamlets we passed..."
Well, would you look at this bastard. He really came to stake his life on a single throw.
If the man leading the army had been reduced to a beggar's state, then his men had surely pounded those brutal tracks without enough to eat or drink, and without a decent sleep. Chen Youding must have judged this fight an opportunity worth betting his life on. I clicked my tongue at the thought that forcing the battle early had been a masterstroke.
"Your loyalty to the realm is truly commendable. You won no merit, and yet I will not forget your devotion."
"To hear you say so, I can only be overwhelmed with gratitude."
His eyes tightened for an instant, and then he offered his thanks.
If this fellow had shoved his way into the middle of it and taken a fair share of the credit, he'd have been a headache.
I smiled brightly and took his hand.
"Come now, your men must have suffered badly as well. Cross the river and quarter them in the camp over there. I'll issue them ample rations."
"Thank you, Your Grace."
I watched Chen Youding draw away under Oh Jideok's guidance, then looked to Fang Guozhen.
"Post men around them and keep a strict watch. If they show the slightest sign of making trouble, be ready to put them down at once."
"I will watch them thoroughly, my lord."
The fighting had only just ended, and still the work kept piling up. I let out a breath and looked at my retainers.
"Well then. Let us enter Jianning."
"Yes, my lord!"
From a tower of the Jianning yamen, an old scholar looked down. Unfamiliar soldiers were posted all around the offices. The bearing of the elite troops in black armor was nothing like militia or government regulars. Even at a distance they gave off a chill like a naked blade. Jie Hong sighed at the sight.
"Commissioner, did you sleep soundly?"
At the familiar voice behind him, Jie Hong turned. Puyan Buka, a Mongol official in his mid-forties, came toward him with a gentle smile.
"I slept like the dead for hours. Unlike you, I am still in my prime, and yet my whole body is stiff and sore."
"Ho ho. Is that so?"
Jie Hong was a Lianfang Qianshi of the regular fifth rank, charged with inspecting the provinces. Puyan Buka was younger, and yet his rank stood higher. But he was a rare Mongol, learned enough to have passed the examinations, and as good as a student who had received Jie Hong's teaching in the Hanlin Academy. Jie Hong was of Southern blood, and so his rank sat low beside his learning and his character. Puyan Buka honored him for it and treated him as a teacher.
"I hear the Duke of Yue's army has taken complete hold of Jianning's militia and government troops."
"Haa... It cannot be helped. His Grace the Duke of Yue is Manager of Governmental Affairs of Fujian, and at the same time he holds the military authority of the Jiangnan Branch Privy Council..."
Jie Hong and Puyan Buka sighed together. When the Duke of Yue's army had arrived to relieve the besieged city and annihilated the rebels, both men had raised a cheer, certain that the worst was over. But the moment that army entered and seized every force inside the walls, the air had changed.
"I hear His Grace has summoned his civil officials."
"Yes. I am told the men who were staying in Fuzhou and Yanping have arrived. They say that someone must take charge of Jianning in place of the officials who fled..."
"Hah. How did the realm come to this?"
Inspecting the corruption and the overreach of local officials was precisely the work of the Censorate. Jie Hong's rank was not high, but as a man of the Censorate he felt the weight of that duty. Watching the Duke of Yue take Fujian in hand, step by steady step, he could only lament.
"And what do you mean to do?"
"Haa. I cannot find my own footing either. It is true the Duke of Yue oversteps in certain respects, and yet..."
Puyan Buka sighed.
"Teacher. You know it perfectly well, do you not? The realm is in disorder, and rebellion burns on every side. Do people not say that if not for the Duke of Yue in Zhedong, the whole of Jiangnan would have fallen into the rebels' hands?"
"Mm..."
"Even before the Duke of Yue came, the law of the state did not reach this land of Fujian, save for Jianning. Even Fuzhou, where the Fujian provincial government sits, was in truth being handled as those Huihui rebels pleased. Was it not?"
Jie Hong clenched his teeth at the lament of Puyan Buka, who was as good as his own disciple.
"Unlike you and me, the high officials of noble birth do not care who takes this land of Fujian. So long as the threat around Khanbaliq is cleared away and the tax grain is delivered as it should be, anyone will do."
"How is it that the court holds none but fools..."
Jie Hong was sighing deeply and shaking his head when someone came up the stairs of the tower.
"So this is where the two of you were."
A robe dyed a pale blue, a black silk cap, a fair face and a handsome beard: a scholar of clear and refined looks. Jie Hong regarded Liu Ji with open displeasure and offered a light bow, hands clasped.
"Master Bowen. You have come."
"His Grace the Duke of Yue invites the two of you to the banquet. I thought it would be the proper courtesy if I came and told you so myself..."
At Liu Ji's faint smile, Jie Hong clicked his tongue and asked:
"I heard that Master Bowen once warned the Duke of Yue would become a calamity to the realm. And yet now you serve beneath him. How can a scholar's heart sway so?"
"T-Teacher! You go too far."
Puyan Buka caught his sleeve and shook his head, but Jie Hong's edged voice did not stop.
"Where is the crimson heart with which a scholar serves his country? Have you cast away your integrity out of resentment that the court slights Master Bowen, and slights Southerners?"
Liu Ji gave a bitter smile.
"It may be so."
"Wh-what did you say?"
"Commissioner Jie, you have served the realm all your life, and still you are no more than an official of the regular fifth rank. Do you truly believe that has nothing to do with the Southern blood in your veins?"
"Th-that is..."
Under that sharp point, Jie Hong could not go on. His father, Jie Xisi, a Southerner of Jiangxi, had been a man of letters whose fame shook the realm. He had entered court service and spent his whole life in the Hanlin Academy. The blood was Southern, and yet Jie Hong had lived all his days in Khanbaliq and served as an official. Even so, he had never fully slipped the fetters of being a Southerner.
"But I do not serve under His Grace because I resent the court for denying me advancement on account of my being a Southerner, or for impeaching me rather than recognizing my merit."
"Then—then for what, I ask you?"
Liu Ji met the stern eyes fixed on him.
"What? For the realm? That man?"
"T-Teacher!"
Jie Hong shook off the restraining Puyan Buka and took a step forward.
"The court, commending the Duke of Yue's merit, appointed him Manager of Governmental Affairs of the Fujian Branch Secretariat. He may have rendered great service in pacifying Fujian, but that is no more than what a great minister of the realm ought to do!"
"Indeed. Your Honor speaks rightly."
"And yet I hear that once he was raised to high office, His Grace knew no restraint. He dismissed officials appointed by the court at his own whim, drove them out, and even put them to the sword!"
Jie Hong glared at Liu Ji, his eyes burning.
"Of course you will say they were greedy and incompetent! But who granted the Duke of Yue such authority? If this is not a breach of the law of the state, then what is it?"
"......"
"And more than that, I hear he takes the posts left empty by the men he drove out and scatters them like favors among the great clans and scholars of Zhedong and Fujian, and so wins their hearts! A servant of the realm, dealing out reward and punishment as he pleases. Can this be right?"
He cried out, stern and unyielding.
"His Grace tells scholars and common people that he offers his loyalty to the realm alone. But examine his conduct point by point, and how does he differ from the likes of Zhu Yuanzhang or Chen Youliang?"
"......."
"Speak, Master Bowen! Is the lord you serve a loyal general in the manner of Guo Ziyi, or does he mean to make himself a traitor in the manner of Cao Mengde?"
"T-Teacher, how can you speak so?"
Liu Ji smiled at Jie Hong, whose eyes blazed as if he had already resolved to die.
"I have heard Your Honor clearly. May I offer an answer, inadequate though I am?"
"Do so."
"It is true that His Grace put Mongol and Semu high officials to death. But that was because they had violated military law and aided the rebels, and because he had received sanction from His Excellency Dashi Temur of Jiangzhe Province, upon whom the court had wholly conferred the authority of reward and punishment."
"As if that were a thing one could say..."
"I was present in that very place. And your superior, His Excellency Qing Tong, Censor-in-chief and head of the Jiangnan Branch Censorate, was there as well, and he acknowledged the justice of the verdict."
At Liu Ji's answer, Jie Hong let out a stifled groan.
"It is also true that His Grace appoints local officials in Zhedong and Fujian and leads them. But he does not wield the power of appointment at his own whim. He recommends men of talent and character through His Excellency the Chancellor, and he has received the court's approval."
"......"
"How can this be called the insolence of usurping the sovereign's power to bestow favor and punishment? In the urgency of putting down rebellion and settling the people, His Grace has at times used his discretion to post men as acting local officials. Afterward, he has always observed proper procedure."
The old scholar had been about to loose his anger, and instead he bit down on it. In the end the man had become a vast warlord, gathering into his hands both military power and civil government across all of Zhedong and on into Fujian. But he was also a man who had preserved his claim to legitimacy one step at a time, by means as meticulous as they were sinister. Was he not an imugi—a serpent merely biding its time to ride this age of chaos and rise as a dragon?
Jie Hong's white beard trembled as he shot back.
"Listen only to Master Bowen, and the Duke of Yue would be the most loyal subject under heaven, a man of spotless integrity! Then where did he obtain that host too vast to count, and the navy that commands the eastern sea? Are you telling me he did not seize the state's storehouses at will and exploit the people?"
Liu Ji shook his head.
"Your Honor, that is a misunderstanding."
"A misunderstanding? Do you take me for a fool? Will the grain and the funds to raise an army of more than a hundred thousand fall out of the sky?"
When Jie Hong flared, Liu Ji answered calmly.
"It is true that His Grace diverted a portion of the tax grain collected from the people to serve as military rations. But to say he privately took the wealth of the state storehouses for his own use? On the contrary, to lighten the people's burden he has emptied his private fortune to fund the army and to supplement the salaries of the officials."
"Th-that is absurd..."
"His Grace has never laid heavy miscellaneous levies or corvée upon the people of Zhedong on the pretext of supplying the army. Rather, he temporarily abolished the salt monopoly and made the once-crushing salt tax very light. Thanks to that, the salt households and the peasants who had risen in revolt now work at their livelihoods in peace."
Jie Hong had nothing left to say, and fell silent. Among the militia of Fujian and the government troops alike, heavy extra levies were an everyday matter if an army was to be funded, and further taxes were wrung out of people under the name of sparing them harsh corvée. No salt was issued, yet a salt tax was hung on every head, and those who could not bear it fled in droves. Even Jie Hong and Puyan Buka, who prided themselves on being upright officials, had in practice no choice but to lay a considerable burden on the people of Jianning.
"His Grace protects merchants from pirates, has them form fleets, cross the sea, and trade with Goryeo and Japan, and collects maritime customs to supplement his revenue. He gathers refugees and captives, opens salt fields, and sells the salt cheaply so the people do not suffer for want of it, and he makes up his military funds with the proceeds."
At Liu Ji's words, Jie Hong and Puyan Buka both squeezed their eyes shut.
A constant heart grows only where there is a constant livelihood, and the people look to food as they look to Heaven. In an age this grim, if a man still kept to Heaven's law, was that man a traitor—or was he something else?
"Your Honors, let us go. His Grace will be waiting for you."
When Liu Ji bowed with due courtesy and asked it of them, Jie Hong nodded, the strength gone out of him.
"Haa... Let us go."
The old loyalist, Jie Hong, moved off unsteadily, his steps faltering.
"I'm telling you, the bastards don't even flinch when you open up with the field guns! So there I am—hey! Hey! Grapeshot, now! Load the fucking grapeshot!—yelling my head off, and..."
"Haha. I was startled then, too. To think they'd answer cannon and matchlocks like that..."
"Thieving bastards, but they're clever enough with their little tricks!"
Huindungi, deep in his wine, was holding forth about the battle just past, and Dolswe was chiming in.
"So they met the Tiger Hunting Army's matchlocks that way, you say?"
"Yes. The front ranks opened out as they came in, took the volley, and the moment they buckled, the rest charged all at once. They didn't give us time to reload."
"Just as I thought. The rate of fire is slow... A bow hasn't the same power, but in that respect it may have the better of it."
Kagetora was drinking without reserve with Fang Guozhen, beside whom he had once served in the interior of Zhedong.
"I regret that I won no great merit this time."
"Must a fight be a great slaughter before it counts as merit? The two of you pressed the enemy as you should, and you arrived at the proper moment. That is great merit in itself."
I poured wine into the cups of Ho Sim and Oh Jideok, who were giving voice to their regret at having joined only at the battle's end, and praised them for it. Lively music filled the banquet hall. Those raising their cups fell broadly into three companies: my own commanders, loud and excited, and the civil officials in their bright mood; Jie Hong, Puyan Buka, and the other officials and militia leaders who had held Jianning, all of them sunk in gloom; and, in a corner, Chen Youding's party, watching the room and taking its measure.
"Your Grace, I believe now would be best."
"Mm. You think so? We'll do as Master Bowen says."
At Liu Ji's urging I rose, and I went to where Jie Hong and Puyan Buka sat quietly before their cups.
"Is today's banquet not to your liking? Neither of you seems to have any appetite."
"Your Grace..."
They rose and bowed their heads. I sat down before them.
"Since Your Grace has come to us, I would ask."
"Ask what?"
"What do you mean to do with us? Will you take our heads? Or strip us of office?"
There were thorns in the words, but no strength behind them. I looked at Jie Hong, the old official whose hair had gone white.
"I can't see why you'd think that. Why would I punish men who didn't run from the rebels and held Jianning?"
"If we remain here, will we not be a hindrance to the work of bringing Fujian under one hand?"
I smiled at the old man studying me.
Leave this gentleman where he is, and of course he'll be a hindrance. A censor who inspects local officials, a stiff-necked character, and the nerve to hold a city without fearing death. I can't kill him lightly, and I can't dismiss him lightly either. His father, Jie Xisi, was a house of letters whose name had shaken the realm, a man every scholar in Jiangnan respected, and Jie Hong himself was a scholar who, Southerner though he was, had raised young Confucians in the Hanlin Academy at Khanbaliq. He was no corrupt official, and he had done no wrong. I had no justification. Lay a careless hand on either Jie Hong or Puyan Buka, and I would soil the reputation I had built and plant a splinter of doubt in the hearts of Jiangnan's great clans and scholars.
Then what am I to do?
"Master Bowen, bring it here."
"Yes, Your Grace."
I took from Liu Ji the commission, still warm, that had come in by water only today, and held it out to the old man.
"What is this?"
"I have heard in full of the merit earned by Jie Hong and by Puyan Buka. If talents such as these do nothing but hold a single city in a corner of Fujian, is that not a great loss to the realm?"
"What? What do you..."
I smiled at the two of them, who were staring at me as if they could not believe their ears.
"And so, some time ago, I sent a letter of recommendation to His Excellency Dashi Temur, the provincial chancellor, and to the court. I told them I would go at once and rescue the two of you from the danger you were in, and that talents like these must not be left to rot in the countryside. That they must be given weighty office."
"Y-Your Grace..."
Jie Hong, who had lingered at the regular fifth rank into his late fifties, was appointed Attendant Censor of the Jiangnan Branch Censorate, which oversaw the whole of Jiangnan—a post of the regular third rank. Puyan Buka was a Mongol, but his house was obscure. He, too, was raised: an order naming him Pacification Commissioner of Shandong, of the junior second rank. It could only be called a thunderbolt of advancement.
"Commissioner Jie—no, Censor Jie. A scholar as respected as you ought to devote himself to a censor's true work, should he not? I hear that in Zhexi, Zhang Shicheng, now risen to Grand Commandant, meddles as he pleases in both civil government and military authority. It would be well if you inspected the place properly."
A stiff-necked old man is nothing but trouble, so I'll just pack him off to that irritating Zhang Shicheng.
"B-but..."
I turned from Jie Hong, who could find no answer, and looked at Puyan Buka, a man in the prime of his forties.
"I hear your home is Yidu, in Shandong."
"Th-that is so, Your Grace."
"I hear His Excellency Chaghan Temur, appointed Manager of Governmental Affairs of Henan Province, is even now wholly taken up with preparations to retake Shandong from the Red Turbans. I thought a scholar was needed who, like you, was born in Shandong, knows the ground, and can steady the hearts of the local people. So I sent up a recommendation."
"...Thank you, Your Grace."
At the words that this was for his homeland, now fallen into the Red Turbans' hands and in the midst of chaos, Puyan Buka hesitated, then offered his thanks.
"Today, enjoy yourselves to the full, sleep well, and then prepare to depart. I've arranged ships so the two of you can return in comfort."
I patted the shoulders of the two gloomy men and smiled.
They say power grows from the barrel of a gun. Sometimes, though, a brush unties a knot more gently than a blade.
Holding to justification and legitimacy is weary work, but now and then it is also a powerful way of clearing an obstacle aside.
Only one problem remained.
I smiled at Chen Youding, who was watching me with tense eyes.