Chapter 17: Open Dissent in the Imperial Court

The atmosphere in the tent was as heavy and still as stagnant water.

"Insolent!" bellowed Song Xiangling, a nephew of Commander Song Wei. "Wang Jian, who gave you the right to speak to the Commander in such a manner?"

Wang Jian, however, showed no trace of fear. He stood tall and unyielding, as firm as a mountain rising from the depths. Song Wei merely waved a hand. "Xiangling, Captain Wang Jian is a man of talent. Since he has something to say, let us hear him out."

Hearing Song Wei’s command, Song Xiangling dared not utter another word.

The other generals present suddenly recalled that in the recent battle where the imperial forces crushed Wang Xianzhi, it was this very captain, Wang Jian, whose strategy had played a pivotal role.

Wang Jian smiled, revealing two rows of teeth. "Since the Commander is willing to hear me out, please forgive my chatter."

With that, Wang Jian abruptly spread his dark cloak upon the ground. From somewhere, he produced a bamboo tube filled with golden millet, which he scattered across the fabric, the grains flowing into shapes reminiscent of winding rivers.

"What is this child's play? If you have something to say, speak! Are you mocking the Commander? Do you have a death wish?" Song Xiangling could no longer contain his fury, but he soon realized that no one else in the tent was echoing his sentiments.

Wang Jian worked with swift efficiency, piling the fabric into mountains and arranging the millet into rivers, recreating the battlefield around Songzhou. He then pulled a few leftover chicken bones from his pocket and placed them with precision, vividly depicting the standoff between the two armies and the defensive posture of Songzhou city.

In the early years of the Eastern Han Dynasty, when the great general Ma Yuan assisted Emperor Guangwu in pacifying the Longxi region, he famously piled rice into a mountain to demonstrate the terrain and movement of troops, capturing every twist and turn of the landscape.

Yet, Wang Jian’s makeshift map—using clothes for mountains and chicken bones for military formations—was so accurate that it not only matched the local topography but also clearly marked the layout of every camp with uncanny detail.

The man was clearly a master of military strategy, gifted at interpreting terrain and, no doubt, accustomed to the hardship of scouting and surveying the land himself. Some onlookers secretly marveled: could this obscure youth possess a talent even greater than Ma Yuan, the Wave-Subduing General under Emperor Guangwu and ancestor of the famed Ma Chao?

"Commander Qi is posturing to breach the North Bian River, and the rebel Huang Chao is doing everything to stop him. The two armies are deadlocked," Wang Jian explained, gesturing to his map.

"If Commander Qi succeeds in breaching the river, the rebels—who are masters of evasion—will realize their position is untenable and scatter. Our pursuit will fail to annihilate them entirely, as previous battles have already proven. Clearly, if we wait until that moment to commit to a decisive battle, it will be far too late."

"Captain Wang Jian, since you say this, what is your strategy?" Song Wei asked, stroking his long, five-willow beard.

"The rebels have moved north into the forest to block the Taining Army from breaking the dikes. The dense woods are ill-suited for cavalry, and they have been fighting for days, exhausted. However, Commander Qi’s forces are too few to crush them in one go."

"If we seize the moment while the rebels are locked in combat with Commander Qi, select our elite troops, and march light to ambush their rear, we can catch them in a pincer movement. The head of the rebel leader will hang from our gate! Once the rebels are slaughtered, the bandit Wang Xianzhi can be dealt with in one stroke!"

Song Wei pursed his dry, aged lips, contemplating Wang Jian’s proposal. The tent fell into a deathly silence as everyone waited for the Commander’s ruling.

"Your plan is not bad, but..." Song Wei twisted his frost-white beard. "Our force is a coalition of several garrisons, and our command structure is not perfectly integrated. Wang Xianzhi’s forces are filled with desperate martial artists and daredevils. If we commit all our elite troops and the rebels break through even one of our camps, it would trigger a chain reaction with catastrophic consequences. A young man may have courage, but this plan is simply too risky..."

"Furthermore, the rebels are notoriously cunning. If they detect our movements and withdraw before engaging Commander Qi, we will have wasted our effort, sapping our own morale. If our main camp is compromised while we are away, we invite our own destruction. Why not sit securely on our own 'fishing platform,' coordinate from afar with Commander Qi, and wait for success?"

Song Wei’s ability to frame inaction as "coordination" was a testament to his thick skin. Yet, as a veteran general of the Great Tang, though not known for his brilliance, his analysis was methodical and grounded in military norms.

Neither Song Wei nor Wang Jian mentioned the possibility of attacking Huang Chao’s main camp, as it occupied the strategic stronghold of Yanwang City—a fortress so impenetrable that only a small garrison could hold off a massive assault. Breaking it depended entirely on Commander Qi’s water tactics, making the topic irrelevant.

Hearing Song Wei’s words, the "Heavenly Blade" Song Jue, the officer Song Xiangling, and others nodded in approval. But before they could praise the Commander’s wisdom, Wang Jian spoke up, unable to contain himself. "I have already accounted for that!"

"The enemy has repeatedly used light cavalry to raid our supplies, which has been a constant nuisance. We can turn this to our advantage by feigning a food shortage. We will leak the 'news,' then march our elite force out as if desperate to crush the enemy camp—but we will feign a brutal battle while carefully avoiding heavy losses."

"The enemy will assume our numbers are vast and our supplies are dwindling, making us desperate to defeat them. After two or three days, instead of moving south to attack the bandit camp, our forces will speed east to the North Bian River dike to pincer the rebels with Commander Qi, catching them completely off guard."

Wang Jian’s fingers traced the map on the floor. "Our elite troops will occupy these few high grounds and rapidly erect archery towers. This will prevent the bandit forces from trailing us to reinforce their comrades, and also protect our camp from surprise attacks."

"As for me, I am willing to lead my unit to hold this mountain and form a pincer with the main camp. If the bandits attack, I will set an ambush just as I did before and leave them decimated. The Commander can lead the charge to slay the rebel leader, while those guarding the main camp can follow this simple arrangement..."

Wang Jian continued to demonstrate on his cloak map, shifting chicken bones to simulate the clash of steel and horses, as if the tent were truly ablaze with war. His eyes burned with an indescribable excitement, as if he were the supreme commander directing thousands of troops.

However, such unabashed arrogance naturally offended many.

"In this world, there are always some country bumpkins who think themselves clever," a sharp voice rang out.

Wang Jian glanced over to see a man with pale skin, deep-set eyes, and a high nose, wearing a red headband—clearly of Western Region descent. His gaze was fierce, exuding an overbearing and aggressive aura. This was Ba Wuji, an officer from the imperial Shence Army, a man whose character lived up to his name.

"Oh?" Wang Jian squinted at him, showing no respect. "I may be self-important, but does Master Ba have some grand discourse to share? Do tell us all."

Ba Wuji gritted his teeth, his eyes turning as sharp as blades. "You 'Thief Wang the Eighth,' don't get too arrogant just because you offered a few minor plans!"

"The lives of imperial soldiers are precious; they are not to be compared to the lives of lowly rebels! You are addicted to taking risks, hoping to use the lives of tens of thousands of soldiers to gamble for your own promotion. Do you think I don't see through your petty motives?"

"If we follow the Commander’s plan, we suffer no losses and take no risks. Warfare is about profit. These bandits kill the wealthy and steal their grain; they are as fat as the autumn carp in the Yellow River. We are here to reap the rewards. Once the campaign ends, the court will bestow honors. A double victory—what could be better?"

"If we follow your inferior plan and send our elite into the forest, Wang Xianzhi will fight like a cornered animal for his life. If our coalition forces suffer heavy casualties, the compensation and funeral costs would be astronomical. Given the state of our national treasury, do you even realize the cost?"

Ba Wuji’s gaze was cold and predatory, like a gray wolf. His words were designed to strike at the heart, accusing Wang Jian of risking the lives of thousands for personal gain.

The nickname "Thief Wang the Eighth" caused veins to bulge on Wang Jian’s bronze-colored forehead. Born to a family of pancake sellers, Wang Jian had been a wild youth, once stealing a donkey, which earned him this humiliating moniker. Since being promoted by Cui Anqian, the Jiedushi of the Zhongwu Army, this youthful indiscretion had become a painful, unspoken wound. Mentioning it to his face could easily lead to a duel to the death.

Yet here, in front of all the generals, Ba Wuji had shouted it out, clearly intending to humiliate Wang Jian to the extreme to vent his jealousy of this self-made man.

"Master Wuji is correct."

Following the sound of applause came another cold voice. The speaker was a strikingly handsome man with delicate features and an introverted aura. However, his cold, piercing eyes and low, creepy tone filled his every gesture with an icy chill. This was Xu Shenwei, an officer in the Shence Army.

"Soldiers are tools of destruction; war is a dangerous business. To diminish the great and weaken the strong is but a matter of a moment's thought," Xu Shenwei sighed, waving his hand. "The poet said, 'The bones on the Wuding River are still in the dreams of their wives.' The poet does not deceive me! In this campaign, we have already seen enough bloodshed. If we can win without fighting and let the bandits collapse on their own, why must Brother Wang Jian risk the lives of thousands for his own glory?"

He murmured, "As Li Taibai wrote: 'Know that the soldier is a tool of destruction, used by the sage only when there is no other choice.' Such compassion is truly admirable. While we lack Li Taibai’s spirit, we must not be like his 'bad friend' Gao Shi, who relished chaos and ignored the lives of soldiers for personal gain, only to fail miserably when disaster struck. Is that not so?"

Xu Shenwei’s words were eloquent, painting himself as compassionate while vilifying Wang Jian as a man of no talent or virtue. Wang Jian saw through it all. A tree that stands above the forest is bound to be buffeted by the wind. His intellect and achievements had inevitably invited jealousy. It was clear that these two Shence Army lords had been planning this attack long before today.

Even without his own uncanny talent for reading people, Wang Jian would have recognized these two men, who strutted about like blue-shelled crabs. They were dispatched from the Shence Army, which directly guarded the Emperor.

Commander Song Wei was a veteran of the Empire, appointed as the commander-in-chief of the six regional armies, nominally commanding forty thousand men. In reality, he only had a few thousand from the Pinglu, Zhongwu, and Xuanwu garrisons at Songzhou. However, he also had three thousand imperial guards specially granted by the Emperor—an elite force that had built a fearsome reputation.

Everyone knew that the Shence Army was the supreme power among the imperial guards, and the three thousand guards granted to Song Wei were all elite soldiers chosen from their ranks.

Ba Wuji was a minor officer in the Shence Army, but that was not his only source of pride. His ancestor was the legendary "Wild Blade of the Desert," Ba Fenghan, a hero from the early days of the dynasty who had helped Emperor Taizong seize the throne at the Xuanwu Gate, earning generations of protection for his descendants.

Xu Shenwei’s ancestor, Xu Ziling, was even more illustrious—a legendary hero of the early dynasty whose fame surpassed even Ba Fenghan’s. Because they were both officers of the Shence Army and descendants of such heroes, the two were inseparable. Xu Shenwei was more cunning and introverted, yet he was clearly the one leading their partnership.

"It is a pity that some are far from being a Gao Shi," Ba Wuji sneered again. "Gao Shi may have been lacking in talent, but he came from the noble Bohai Gao clan. Even a 'Thief Wang the Eighth' covered in mud cannot compare to him! The son should follow the father’s path; that is the natural order. A pancake-seller’s kid, a boy who stole donkeys, should just weep in a corner instead of chattering here among warriors!"

Even the stoic Wang Jian felt his body tremble. He was pushed to the brink of rage. But just as the generals waited to see how he would retaliate, Wang Jian took a breath, calmed himself, and spoke with a voice like clashing steel.

"If following one's father's path is everyone's duty, then we are all descendants of the Yellow Emperor and should all be Sages like Yao or Shun! If nobility is hereditary and birth determines one's fate, then the throne would last for ten thousand generations, and the rebellions of Chen Sheng and Wu Guang would never have happened! But where did Emperor Gaozu of Han, who destroyed Qin with a three-foot sword, come from? And where did you yourself come from?"

"Do not boast of your dead father to a youth. Do not be like the dogs and swine, only interested in chewing on old bones!"

The words were deafening, righteous, and carried the weight of history. Many officers in the tent, who were also of humble origins, could not help but nod in silent agreement.

Ba Wuji was so stunned by this aura that he remained speechless. Wang Jian sighed and scolded, "Descendants of Yangzhou beggars enjoying titles, and descendants of Northern bandits wearing the caps of nobility!"

He did not name names, but Ba Wuji’s face turned the color of liver, and even the seemingly calm Xu Shenwei gritted his teeth in fury. The reason was simple: Ba Wuji’s ancestor, Ba Fenghan, had been a horse thief in the Northern regions before his rise, and Xu Shenwei’s ancestor, Xu Ziling, had been a beggar in Yangzhou at the end of the Sui Dynasty!

Wang Jian had stripped away their ancestors' masks in public.

"This country bumpkin dares to be so rude in public!" Xu Shenwei could no longer keep up his act. He bowed to Song Wei, "Wang Jian has insulted our ancestors. Please, Commander, deliver justice for us!"

The generals saw clearly that it was Ba Wuji and Xu Shenwei who had provoked the conflict. Yet, the tent was split.

Song Wei pondered for a moment and said slowly, "Ba Wuji, Xu Shenwei, your words were indeed improper. But Wang Jian, insulting their ancestors was your fault. Considering your past achievements, I will not demand an apology. However, your strategy is not flawless, and I will not take such risks. You may leave the tent."

This was a clear bias in favor of the two Shence officers.

Wang Jian stood stunned for a moment, then let out a long, regretful sigh.

"I obey the Commander's order. But Commander, do you know why Wang Xianzhi is defeated in every battle, yet grows stronger, until the Central Plains are in such a state of ruin that it is almost beyond saving?"

Without waiting for Song Wei, Wang Jian continued, "I know, the Commander knows, and everyone here knows! Everyone knows the truth in their hearts, but no one dares to pierce the veil."

"After every battle, if the rebels suffer a setback, they abandon their gold and jewels for the imperial army to pick up. Not only does Wang Xianzhi escape, but he has fueled the greed of our generals, turning our army into a whetstone for his own training!"

"When the rebels first rose, they had no discipline. Now, they move with formation and clear signals, far superior to two or three years ago."

"It is our own army that has grown fat and lazy, losing our courage and refusing to fight hard battles! Today, the army is paralyzed by hesitation, losing the trust of the people. I am ashamed for you all!"

Wang Jian’s outburst stunned everyone. Song Wei’s face changed entirely. The spread of the rebellion was linked to his own practice of "nurturing bandits to ensure his own importance."

"Commander, this 'Thief Wang the Eighth' is so disrespectful! Execute him!" Song Xiangling shouted.

Two burly guards rushed forward and grabbed Wang Jian by the arms.

Song Wei was furious, but he knew he could not kill Wang Jian. Wang Jian was a favorite of Cui Anqian, the Jiedushi of the Zhongwu Army, whom the court had recently appointed as a rival commander to dilute Song Wei’s power. Executing Wang Jian would lead to a political disaster.

Wang Jian, however, showed no fear. "You call me 'Thief Wang the Eighth'? So be it. If you want to kill me, then kill me. What is there to fear?"

"When I was a boy stealing a donkey, it was during a great drought. My siblings were starving to death. I didn't want to steal, but I was hungry! I didn't want to eat dirt and die a bloated corpse!"

"Some say I only want glory. Yes, a person of humble origins like me wants to get ahead! But I am willing to trade my life for that glory. You, who were born into wealth and never knew hunger, can easily rise without ever risking your lives in battle."

"I do not hide my desire for glory, but I intend to earn it with my blood! The people are suffering. I want the army to use a decisive strategy to end this chaos. What is wrong with that? At least I am not like those who act like cowards while spouting empty, lofty rhetoric!"

Song Wei could take no more. "Wang Jian, I spare you once for your past service. Take him away! If he returns, execute him by military law!"

The two guards dragged Wang Jian out of the tent.

Once far from the command tent, Wang Jian shook off his guards and threw a fist into the air. "The world is as it is! The times are truly regrettable!"

"Only now do I understand the sorrow of Cao Cao at Xingyang. We still have hearts that wish to serve the Empire, but they have no intention of ending this calamity."

He spoke of the era of the Three Kingdoms, when Cao Cao had urged the coalition of warlords to pursue Dong Zhuo, only to be rejected, forced to fight alone, and ultimately suffer defeat at the Bian River.

Wang Jian, though not a man of great learning, understood the history well. He felt a kinship with the Cao Cao of old.

Back in his own camp, his men heard of the incident and were outraged. They urged Wang Jian to plan for the future to avoid being dragged down when Song Wei’s inevitable defeat occurred.

Meanwhile, outside the forest by the North Bian River, the Huang Chao rebels, who were deadlocked with the Taining Army, were falling into a bitter battle, just as Song Wei had feared...