Each Their Own Circumstances
The Han Dynasty is a twisted, Confucian-centered society. To be more precise, the Later Han that Emperor Guangwu rebuilt is a twisted, Confucian-centered society. Of course, if any of the Han people heard that statement they’d beat the speaker half to death and demand a retraction, but the fact that the Han’s worship of Confucianism has become downright pathological remains unchanged.
Back in that barbaric era, Confucius traveled the Warring States doing lecture tours and preaching Confucianism with the simple intention of telling people to live like decent human beings. These bastards, however, cherry-pick only the parts they like and teach that anyone who doesn’t act exactly as the sayings dictate is not a real person. How could the resulting mess possibly be something Confucius and the ancient scholars would look upon with satisfaction? No, they’d clearly collapse from high blood pressure the moment they saw the distorted product of their teachings.
Would Confucius smile contentedly and call a child who dies performing three years of mourning for his parents a filial son? He’d probably point and shout that the kid had gone insane. There is no greater unfilial act than a child dying because of his parents; what sage would praise a son wasting away in front of his mother’s grave? Yet the great clans of the Later Han treat Yuan Shao—who mourned both her birth parents and adoptive parents for a full six years in a 3+3 mourning event—as the idol of our era’s Confucianism. Their family tombs are crowded every single day. It’s truly a pathetic sight.
Would Mencius nod in approval and call it righteous if someone stabbed a person to death for insulting his teacher? He’d scream at the top of his lungs to arrest the criminal immediately. There is no greater injustice than killing someone over a teacher; what sage would praise a man who stabs another and then runs away? Yet the people of the Later Han praise Xiahou Dun, who at fourteen killed the one who insulted her teacher and then fled, calling her upright and strong. One can guess just how severely distorted the Confucian virtues of this age have become.
It wouldn’t be strange if Confucius suddenly sat up in his grave and shouted, “This isn’t Confucianism!” Even if such a miracle occurred, the Han people living in this mess would surely shove him back into the ground while yelling, “Fuck off, what does the original author know!”
In an era when Confucianism has become a religion, in a country that worships it, the behavior of Bang-yeol—who lost his parents and siblings—would be to go to Luoyang, bribe officials, and buy himself an office? Even in modern society people would react with “Uh… that’s a bit…” Let alone in this twisted Confucian society of the time. Petitions calling for the immediate execution of that unfilial bastard would fly in from across the country. According to the common sense of this era, if you were born and raised under a person, you cannot live under the same sky as those who killed your parents. Naturally, the expected course is to grab a single blade and fight to the death, whether you or your enemy perish. What? Leave it to the authorities and wait for a trial? What the hell is this guy, a eunuch? This bastard isn’t even human!
Those were the things Bang-yeol would hear every day if he went to Luoyang and purchased an office. In other words, he had no choice. The only option was to cut off Cheng Yuanzhi’s head, wherever among the countless Yellow Turbans it might be. Though even if other choices had existed from the beginning, there was no way the half-mad Bang-yeol whose entire family had been slaughtered would have chosen anything else.
The moment he received news of his household’s annihilation, Bang-yeol had rushed back to his family home. What he found was a house reduced to ashes. Entering the ruins while calling his family’s names in a trembling voice, he saw his mother’s corpse with only the tastiest parts torn away and devoured by wild dogs.
Bang-yeol caught the wild dog gnawing on his grandmother’s remains, tore its limbs apart, and howled until the sun set and the moonless night grew completely dark. Since he had returned home at midday, he had been crying for a full half-day. When he finally came to his senses, he gathered what little remained of his mother and grandmother’s bodies along with the lumps of flesh that seemed to belong to the rest of his family. He dug graves on a nearby hill and buried them. After finishing, he bowed deeply twice. A few tears, one choked sob. But he could not stay weeping before the tombs—there was a blade that had to be drawn, and the road he had to walk was far too long. Forcing strength into his leaden legs, he turned back toward the village.
The next morning. Bang-yeol used the twenty men he had hired as escorts to Luoyang to gather the surviving villagers. He slowly looked over the few who remained. Some sat dazed, having cried until they no longer had tears. Others who felt that simply surviving was already a blessing. People with grief-stricken faces in the ruined village. Or just the hungry. Their reactions varied, yet beneath them all lay the shared emotion of despair. Bang-yeol gazed quietly at the crowd and opened his mouth.
“It has already been twenty years since my parents and all of you pioneered this place, Dontou Village.”
The sudden mention of old times made the people stare at him as if wondering what nonsense he was suddenly spouting.
“Father sometimes told me the story of how the village got its name. He said that when you look at it from the mountain, it resembles a pig’s head, so he named it Dontou. Uncle Bae, is that correct?”
The large, shabbily dressed middle-aged man Bang-yeol called Uncle Bae, who had been lost in memory, startled and answered.
“Eh? Ah… yes, that’s right. The Bang kid named it Dontou. Everyone said since it looked like a pig’s head, good fortune would roll in, and they were happy… But damn it all, what was the use! Those little shits got sweet-talked by Cheng Yuanzhi and joined him, cleaning out everything in the village! Those motherfucking bastards! Cheng Yuanzhi, that son of a bitch! We named the village after a pig’s head for luck, but instead of fortune it brought the damn Yellow Turbans!”
When Uncle Bae loudly cursed Cheng Yuanzhi and the delinquents who had tied yellow cloths on their heads, looted the neighborhood, and disappeared with him, everyone united and began pouring curses on them.
“Fuck! Those shitty bastards didn’t just take the money, they took my wife too!”
“The guy I drank with just last week suddenly shoved a knife into my belly… I was so shocked…”
“The bastard I worked with in the fields, the one whose father praised for being diligent, suddenly showed up with a yellow rag on his head, wrecked the house, and even broke my father’s leg!”
The village grew as noisy as a powder keg on fire. Curses flew everywhere—fuck, fuck, fuck.
“And yet you’re all just sitting here spitting curses?”
At Bang-yeol’s coldly frozen voice, the village fell deathly silent again. Of course they wanted revenge and to take back what was stolen, but the only ones capable of fighting were Bang-yeol, the twenty escorts, and about a dozen able-bodied villagers after excluding the elderly and children. At most forty people. Moreover, the village had been completely looted and burned; there weren’t even any farming tools left, let alone weapons. Half of them were empty-handed. On the other hand, the group Cheng Yuanzhi had gathered and lured into becoming Yellow Turbans numbered roughly five hundred, all armed even if their armor was poor. With these numbers, they were no match at all.
However—
“Listen, everyone! This Bang kid may be a pathetic wretch who couldn’t even attend his father, mother, or siblings in their final moments, but he is not so pathetic as to live under the same sky as the enemies who killed his bloodline! Are you all any different?!”
“…Look here, Bang-yeol. You think we don’t want to kill those bastards? We’ve had everything taken, everyone killed, everything burned. But going like this is just asking to be slaughtered for nothing.”
“We’re not asking for horses or armor! If we at least had weapons…”
“…If I have a way to obtain not only weapons but armor and horses as well, will you join me?”
The moment Bang-yeol threw back the thick cloth covering the cart with all his strength, the sound of fabric flapping was followed by the glitter of precious goods that stabbed the people’s eyes. Every item was extraordinary and obviously expensive at a glance. Naturally so—they were the very things his grandmother had carefully selected again and again.
Indeed. The identity of the valuables on the cargo cart was none other than the bribe money Bang-yeol had brought to purchase an official post.
After that, things moved like a swift current. A decent ranch near Daegu County in Youzhou. Forty high-quality warhorses. Five hundred jeon each, so forty came to twenty thousand jeon. Since he bought so many, they threw in a month’s worth of dried fodder for free. Total spent at the ranch: twenty thousand jeon.
A large smithy in Pyeongseo County, Youzhou. Forty suits of regular army-grade armor. Three hundred jeon each, totaling twelve thousand jeon. Good swords, hand axes, spears, bows, and spare weapons came to two hundred jeon per person. For forty men, eight thousand jeon. Since he bought so many, they threw in the arrows for free. Saws, pickaxes, shovels, and other tools bought in bulk came to three thousand jeon. Five large cargo carts fitted with iron wheels, two thousand jeon. Total spent at the smithy: twenty-five thousand jeon.
Other goods. One month’s food supplies, fifty thousand jeon. Rope, small tools, braziers, tents and blankets for forty men, fifteen thousand jeon. Grand total: sixty-five thousand jeon. Combined with the previous purchases, one hundred ten thousand jeon spent in total. Yet ninety thousand jeon still remained in hand. This meant the Bang family had loaded two hundred thousand jeon onto the cart to bribe for office.
According to the prices personally set by the Emperor, the Three Excellencies cost ten million jeon, a Governor’s seat twenty million, and a County Magistrate’s seat four million. Two hundred thousand jeon in bribes was enough to either serve as an aide to a magistrate appointed to a fairly good region or, with luck, secure a direct military post under a Governor. Conversely, the fact that Bang-yeol had spent half that enormous sum to arm forty men as heavy cavalry meant he absolutely had to succeed in killing the Yellow Turbans who had sacked his hometown of Dontou Village.
It was a burdensome situation, but both Bang-yeol and the people under him were confident they could catch and crush the Yellow Turbans. A single well-armed cavalryman could handle ten properly equipped infantrymen, and their opponents were nothing but poorly armored thieves. In comparison, Bang-yeol’s force consisted of forty heavily armed cavalry. Moreover, every one of them had been born and raised in Youzhou, so they were quite used to riding horses. People known for swordsmanship in Youzhou who couldn’t ride? It would be faster to look for farmers in Bingzhou. In short, five hundred at most, farmer-turned-thieves, were simply no match.
Thus Bang-yeol and the forty uncles set out boldly for Daeheung Mountain in Tak Commandery where Cheng Yuanzhi had last been seen.
…However, that momentum did not last long. The news that Cheng Yuanzhi had become the leader of all the Yellow Turbans in Youzhou by distributing the loot taken from Dontou Village to nearby bands had spread. Their numbers alone reached roughly fifty thousand. No matter how poorly armed the Yellow Turbans were, forty men could not possibly face such a force.
Thus Bang-yeol and the forty uncles fell back into the pit of despair…
After living as useless humans who didn’t know what to do and simply wasted time for a full week, the uncles sent out as scouts returned with news from Nusang Village, a small village next to Tak County. There was a fellow named Liu Bei who always went around claiming to be a descendant of the imperial family. Her sworn brother Zhang Fei had sold the deed to his father’s butcher shop, used the money to recruit five hundred men, and raised an army.