BST - Chapter 14
Chapter 14: The First Step Toward Becoming a Rebel
The original Chinese line was only seven characters long. Held in the hands of that "frail scholar" in silhouette, it carried the weight of a thousand catties and radiated a murderous intent that soared to the heavens.
If the great houses are useless and only drag us down, then it would be better to follow the will of the people, raise an army and rise in revolt, and crush the bones of the nobles and high ministers beneath the long streets of Jiankang!
That was the answer given by the future Emperor Yong'an.
...
Wang Xun's voice shot up in pitch as he lurched forward two steps. "How dare he! Does he think he can overturn royal authority with nothing but ignorant peasants and Daoist priests?"
The moment the words left his mouth, every eye in the place swung back to him.
Yet Wang Shen'ai saw clearly that the looks which had earlier been full of appraisal and mockery had all turned to shared enmity.
Even without Wang Xun, Xie Zhong, Yu Kai, Sima Shangzhi and the others gathered here would certainly have said the same thing.
That single line, "Trample every last bone of the nobles and ministers underfoot in the imperial streets," had turned a predicament that until then had involved only the Wang clan into a threat to everyone.
Who had any time left to spare for Wang Xun's earlier humiliation?
If anyone deserved attention, it was that madman.
How dare Yong'an!
Did he think he didn't have to play by the rules of this world's scramble for power?
If Wang Xun knew who this Emperor Yong'an was, he would surely have drawn his sword and stabbed the man a couple of times, rather than merely being enraged by a single line.
"To pit a rabble of clueless Jiangdong commoners against the regular armies of the court..."
Wang Xun got no further before he felt a tug at his sleeve.
He turned to see that Wang Shen'ai had directed a palace attendant to do it.
She gave a small shake of her head, her expression one of gentle discouragement, then raised her hand and pointed at the Heavenly Screen.
Without a single word, it was enough for Wang Xun to understand her meaning.
However impossible it was to believe, the Heavenly Screen had already made everything plain.
Emperor Yong'an was the victor of this great struggle, as the Heavenly Screen's verdict had sealed it.
The Heavenly Screen had said that at this stage Yong'an faced three deadly crises. Only the first had appeared so far; the other two remained unknown.
But since he would survive the remaining two crises and then become regent with the emperor under his control, perhaps the path of a popular uprising from below did, after all, succeed.
What use was it for Wang Xun to be squawking at a time like this? It would only make him look unable to keep his composure, too frantic by half.
Wang Xun: "..."
Wang Shen'ai's gesture cut deeper than words could have.
And precisely because that madman Yong'an's actions were so horrifying, Wang Xun was all the more convinced that the plan to put Wang Shen'ai in a position of power was crucial to saving themselves. He still dared not show any displeasure.
"Uncle, please calm yourself and keep listening. If the southeast were to erupt in unrest and throw in its lot with Yong'an now, with Huan Xuan still watching for an opening in Jingzhou, it would bode ill for Jiankang. Losing your composure prematurely will only give the enemy something to laugh at."
The Heavenly Screen was far more effective than any widely circulated dispatch or posted proclamation.
If what came before was only a broad outline, it might not have made Yong'an's position clear or given the people beneath the Heavenly Screen much sense of its reality. But this line about a spark in the southeast and emulating the Yellow Turbans broke decisively with the Jin's ruling elite and cast its lot with the people.
For common folk who knew only a handful of characters, an account of Emperor Yong'an written in simplified script would naturally feel closer to them.
Now, as the noble houses and high ministers beneath the Heavenly Screen grew ever more desperate to find this fellow, how would the people of Jiangdong view the sovereign who meant to lead them out of their plight?
Wang Xun drew a long, deliberate breath and forced down the seething emotion. "You're right... you are right. He is certainly an enemy and no friend, and a formidable one at that."
He could only hope that the man was already hiding himself away to avoid disaster, unable to seize the initiative. Perhaps this too was the Heavenly Screen's consideration for men like them.
That fellow had better hide well. If Wang Xun ever found him...
...
"If I let myself be dug out and disposed of that easily, it would hardly be worth my having driven on through the night these past days without rest..." Liu Bobo lay sprawled in the grass, his gaze fixed on the Heavenly Screen overhead.
He had crossed the Yellow River and left his pursuers behind, but until he reached Jiankang and placed himself in the service of a worthy lord, not a single day would he be safe.
Even after night fell, his rest was far from easy.
It was only now, lying among the grasses, that the young Xiongnu's sinews and bones finally uncoiled and gave him a chance to breathe. Because he knew that with the great change on the Heavenly Screen before them, even an old farmer toiling in the fields would set down his hoe and pick to watch and listen. Who would have the leisure to bother with a fugitive like him?
He reached over and knocked his knuckles against his thigh, and only then felt the swelling ache of exhaustion surge up.
But for all the weariness of his body, the hot blood racing through his chest and coursing past that fiercely ambitious heart kept his other hand steady and firm around the dagger at his side.
"Trample every last bone of the nobles and ministers underfoot in the imperial streets..." He murmured the line over to himself, his eyes growing brighter by the moment. "A fine verse, a truly fine verse! And a fine Emperor Yong'an at that!"
When he had headed south to offer his services, he had worried a little. If this Emperor Yong'an, judging by his title, turned out to be a benevolent ruler, and moreover had those effete, bookish habits of the southern great families, would he really accept a man like Liu Bobo?
The Heavenly Screen told him instead that this was a god of war with real fire in his veins, a ruthless man who meant to wash Jiankang in blood, whose ferocity was no whit inferior to the valor of northerners like himself. How could that not make his regard for the man soar in the blink of an eye?
The Heavenly Screen also told him that this wise ruler's own generalship was only middling, yet he harbored no suspicion of the illustrious General Liu, and instead showered him with every manner of reward, allowing him to live to a ripe old age and die peacefully. Truly a fine tale of ruler and minister.
What the great houses thought was no concern of his. Very likely, if he came across those obstructive creatures, he would simply cut them down with one stroke.
He knew only this:
Whether or not there was another General Liu, he was going to fight for that position himself!
He could only hope that Emperor Yong'an would survive a little longer, ringed as he was by the ravening wolves of the great houses!
...
Below the Heavenly Screen, people reacted in their own ways.
Wang Xun and his fellows, and Liu Bobo, might best represent the two extremes.
Huan Xuan, for his part, watched the Heavenly Screen with heavy eyes, trying to glean the identity of "Yong'an" from the faintest of clues.
After all, the Heavenly Screen above had also said that he would one day die at Yong'an's hands.
Tuoba Gui in the north already knew in advance that he would one day die at his son's hands, and had taken precautions against it. He was conscious that, barring accidents, he would be the one to face that Emperor Yong'an.
If, with the Heavenly Screen proclaiming his fate so openly, he could still fight his way through, then even he, Tuoba Gui, would face the greatest challenge of his life.
They said that to know yourself and know your enemy was everything. How could he let a single word or half a phrase from the Heavenly Screen slip past him?
...
[This may well be the boldest sentence Zhi Miaoyin had ever heard.]
[Trample every last bone of the nobles and ministers underfoot in the imperial streets!]
[Zhang Jiao never managed it, never let the Yellow Turbans sweep over Luoyang. Yet two hundred years later, at Qiantang, someone set forth such an ambition.]
[Jiang Ding then told her that if she still could not make up her mind, if she did not believe that man would become the victor, she had only to watch and see whether events in the lands of Wu and Kuaiji to the southeast would unfold as predicted.]
[Anyone in Zhi Miaoyin's position would have been stunned senseless by such a turn of events.]
[According to the Biographies of Buddhist Nuns she later compiled, after suffering this "shock," Jiang Ding made only a single request of her.]
[If she wanted to enjoy the show, she ought to pay for a ticket. Since she had brought a good deal of money with her out of Jianjing Temple, why not gather some of those funds together as support?]
[And so it came to pass that the histories record: "Miaoyin saw great promise in the venture and poured out her family fortune."]
Zhi Miaoyin's expression, composed until now, twisted at once.
Wait. What did they mean, "poured out her family fortune"?
She had long cultivated her temper, and was practiced at reading and maneuvering hearts at the very eye of the storm of power. She had thought nothing could unsettle her. Yet these successive earth-shaking reports, all happening to her up there on the Heavenly Screen, seemed to render even the finest powers of self-possession useless.
If she did not still want to see where the mandate of heaven lay, she would have reported a certain "old acquaintance" to the authorities without hesitation.
She could only force her attention back to the Heavenly Screen.
[Next, Jiang Ding paid a visit to a certain man.]
[To follow the example of the Yellow Turbans and gather up the displaced and refugee populations of the southeast, they needed a local leader. Ideally one who already harbored disloyal intent and who enjoyed immense prestige in the region.]
[We have, in fact, already mentioned this candidate.]
[The leader of the Way of the Celestial Masters in the Three Wu region had originally been Du Zigong of Qiantang, but he died even earlier than Sima Yao. By this time, his lineage and prestige had both passed to a man named Sun Tai.]
[More precisely, Sun Tai did not really belong to the common people. It would be far more accurate to call him of a humble family. His clan too had moved from Langya to Wu Commandery only after the Yongjia migration south. Sadly, by the Taiyuan era, only an uncle and a nephew of the family retained any renown, and that renown came from their apprenticeship under Du Zigong. Only after Du Zigong's death did Sun Tai's true turning point arrive.]
[He inherited Du Zigong's Daoist arts and was held in respect. Not only did the common people, out of their faith in the Way of the Celestial Masters, regularly send him melons, fruit, sweet dew and other gifts of devotion, but men such as the Gentleman of the Yellow Gate Kong Dao and the Administrator of Poyang Huan Fangzhi also treated him with marked courtesy.]
A sharp hiss of breath.
Far away at the Daoist center in Qiantang, Wu Commandery, Sun Tai drew in a sharp breath and leapt to his feet.
When he first heard that line, he had felt a rush of fierce satisfaction, as if the bitterness of all those years suppressed by the prejudices of the great clans and noble houses had been swept clean away.
But if this were laid at his door, and announced to the world by the Heavenly Screen no less, the situation was anything but good!
He sent men out to carefully scout the movements of the authorities, even as his eyes stayed riveted to the Heavenly Screen.
Something was wrong. Something was very wrong.
He had no personal dealings whatsoever with that "Jiang Ding." If the man showed up out of nowhere, on what grounds should Sun Tai listen to him?
There was no sense to it!
Thinking this through, Sun Tai slowed his breathing again and told himself inwardly that this had perhaps only been a failed attempt.
And yet he could not help wondering: if the world truly was as the Heavenly Screen said, and after Sima Yao's death so many things had come to pass...
[There follows another very interesting exchange.]
[Zhi Miaoyin felt that, though the people of Wu and Kuaiji suffered all manner of oppression and did share a comparatively unified faith, a closer look at Sun Tai's way of doing things showed at a glance that he was not a man to be easily directed. What was the use of visiting him?]
[Jiang Ding told her, however, that according to the plan set out by Emperor Yong'an, this visit had never been intended to make Sun Tai submit. That was impossible to begin with.]
[There was only one goal: to let Sun Tai know that such a man had come here, and that there were those who believed he could lead the disciples of the Way of the Celestial Masters to accomplish something great.]
[Judged by the aim of forming an alliance, Jiang Ding's visit was plainly a failure. Sun Tai rebuked him sternly, drove him out, and refused to discuss cooperation.]
[Yet judged only by the point Jiang Ding raised, the visit was a success beyond question.]
[This "scholar" who had come so far from Jiankang left, yes, but he left behind an oracle: "If you insist on going your own way, it will not last long." And he left a blueprint, only half sketched out yet already enticing enough to set Sun Tai's naturally restless heart churning.]
"Uncle, you..." Sun Tai's nephew Sun En's eyes went wide, and he rose hastily from his seat.
"Shut your mouth!" Sun Tai barked him down at once, though his toes were already aimed at the door, as if one more unfavorable word and he would bolt.
[Just so. Sun Tai refused Jiang Ding's proposal to join forces, and had no wish to take orders from a junior. But this most emphatically did not make him a loyal servant of the Jin.]
[Beneath the great houses and noble clans, the humble families had no better a time of it. And Sun Tai in particular suffered worldly prejudice on the one hand, while being hoisted high on account of his religion on the other.]
[If one were to liken him to a pair of scales, he would surely be the kind most easily thrown off balance.]
[Jiang Ding's visit was the first push that set those scales trembling. The second push was the military news from Jiankang that arrived at precisely this time.]
[Wang Gong had marched on Jiankang in towering wrath, yet failed to destroy Sima Daozi. Having merely watched Wang Guobao's head fall, he led his troops away. Though both sides held forces far from small, not a single blow was struck.]
[To some of the common people, still in the dark, it looked like a contest among powerful figures at court, with the conflict resolved as peacefully as possible.]
[For Yong'an, it proved that the great houses of the Jin had long since rotted to the root.]
[And for Sun Tai?]
[It is no exaggeration to say that Sun Tai was overjoyed. He felt he had received very good news indeed.]
[The Jin's military strength was likely nothing like as formidable as he had imagined, if even a confrontation that fully warranted battle had been settled by mutual concessions. With one rallying cry he could bring at least several thousand believers to follow him. Why should he not try?]
...
[And so, in the fourth month of that very year, Sun Tai raised an army and rebelled.]
[All the while declaiming, "You scholar, don't come to my door making trouble and spreading heresy," he rebelled without a moment's hesitation.]
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