“You are many times most warmly welcome here, Lord Zhong,” said King Da Yi of Shang, raising his hands in greeting, “and I give thanks to my trusty subject, General Chang, for his courage in conveying you safely to this city.”
Zhong Gu, on his knees before Da Yi, had sworn fealty to the clan of Zi, to the king of the Shang peoples, and declared his vow to serve his new master. Chang, wearing new leather armor, his hand on the hilt of his bronze sword, stood behind him, reveling in the glory of his new rank and basking in the radiance of Da Yi’s gratitude.
Disguised as peasant farmers, he and Zhong Gu had walked for weeks in their escape from the city of Xia. As soon as the soldiers left him alone outside the cell in which Zhong was imprisoned, Chang removed the bar from the door and entered, carrying a tallow lamp.
“Lord Zhong,” he whispered, “I come to take you to safety. I beg you to make no sound in case Wu should hear us.”
“Who are you?” Zhong Gu hissed, “and why do you offer me help? You must know you risk your life.”
The feeble flame of the lamp revealed Zhong to be a thin man of about fifty with a long, wispy gray beard and moustache. He wore a blue silk robe, now torn in several places, and there was a cut on his cheek outlined in dried blood.
“I am not a man of Xia,” said Chang. “I came here with Lord Yi Yin from the city of the Shang. I can take you there. The Lord Da Yi will be gracious to you. He has declared King Jie no longer holds the mandate of heaven.”
“How can we go to the city of the Shang?” whispered Zhong. “It is not possible.”
“It is possible,” said Chang. “I have made everything ready for us, but we must make great haste. We have but a few hours before sunrise. Trust me, Lord, I beg you.”
“Very well,” said Zhong Gu. “I have little to lose if you are false, for I am dead if I stay here.”
The two men crept out of the cell, and, by the light of the small lamp, Chang led the way outside. To his vast relief, there was no sound from Wu’s cell. Extinguishing the lamp, Chang conducted Zhong by the route he had planned, down narrow streets and alleys towards the city walls. The moon was a mere feather, drifting in and out of the clouds, silvering their edges in pale radiance, but there was enough light for them as they hastened past the dark, high-walled houses of rich noblemen and landowners.
“We will be caught by the night patrols,” whispered Zhong, but Chang shook his head.
“They are fools. They carry torches which proclaim their coming. If we are careful, we shall be safe from them.”
Twice they saw a warning orange glow approaching and retreated into the shadows where they lay hidden as the squads of soldiers passed by, their bronze weapons reflecting the light from their pitch torches. Once all was clear, they rose cautiously and continued on their way, at last reaching the wall at the place Chang had chosen.
“Follow me,” whispered Chang, leading Zhong Gu along the base of the enormous structure to a point where repairs were being made. The work was almost complete, the wall near its full height and thickness, but there were still piles of brick everywhere, as well as hand carts and, best of all, ladders. He had at first decided against this place as a way of escape, deeming it far too dangerous, but following two nights’ observation, he marveled to discover it was not being guarded at all. It appeared there must be a greater interest in keeping marauders out than in keeping citizens in.
Placing a ladder against the wall, they climbed to the top of a scaffold, and thence to the parapet at the summit of the wall itself where they crouched in the darkness.
“How are we to get down the other side?” whispered Zhong, very much out of breath from such unwonted exertions. Men of learning such as he did not run through city streets, much less climb ladders to the tops of high walls.
“You shall see,” said Chang. “Follow me but be careful of the rubble they have left up here.”
Crawling along the narrow parapet to avoid being silhouetted against the pale moonlight, they came to a place where a large house had been constructed against the outside of the wall, no doubt the home of a successful tradesman or artisan.
“We must jump down onto the roof,” Chang whispered. “No one will hear. The owners are not here.”
“I cannot,” whispered Zhong, desperately. “The drop is too great.”
“There is no other way,” hissed Chang into Zhong’s ear. “We have no choice. I will go first. Just do as I do.”
As expected, there was no sound from within the house as Chang dropped onto the thatch, and he silently thanked his ancestors for their protection.
“Come,” he called softly. “It is safe, and the thatch will break your fall.”
He ground his teeth in exasperation as he watched Zhong Gu teetering hesitantly on the edge of the brick parapet above him. Was all to be lost because the man would not jump?
“Hurry, for the love of heaven.”
After an eternity of indecision, Zhong dropped onto the thatch beside Chang in a heap of flailing arms and legs, uttering a cry of pain as he landed.
“What happened?” Chang asked in alarm, but Zhong only shook his head.
“It is nothing. Let us get out of sight.”
Chang pulled away some of the thatch, and they scrambled into an upper room and then down to the ground floor and out of the house. No one was to be seen anywhere. Nothing stirred.
“Come, Lord,” said Chang, “we have not far to go now.”
“I cannot run much further,” gasped Zhong, after a few minutes, and they slowed to a brisk walk which Zhong, now panting heavily, barely managed to maintain.
“I am sorry, Lord,” said Chang, “but we dare not loiter.”
“I know,” Zhong gasped. “I am trying my best.”
They passed fields of grain and vegetables dotted with occasional stands of trees, ghost-like in the soft radiance of the declining moon, before reaching a broad expanse of bare ground where Chang found the hiding place he had prepared for them.
“Here we are,” he said, halting by a large pile of stones at the base of a rocky outcrop. Moving aside several stones, he revealed a narrow opening which appeared to be the entrance to a cave.
“I am to go in there?” Zhong wheezed, uncertainly, and Chang nodded. “But I will never fit,” he protested.
Chang showed Zhong how to wriggle into the tunnel, and then followed him before pulling the stones back from inside to conceal the opening.
“We shall not be found here, Lord,” he said, lighting his lamp again. “I found this place several days ago. It is an ancient copper mine, long disused. No one knows of it. We must wait until the hue and cry dies down which it will surely do, once they believe we are far away. I have brought food and water for us for as long as we need.”
“You have done so much for me, young sir,” said Zhong. “My gratitude is boundless.”
They settled themselves on the rocky floor, their backs to the wall of the tunnel, and after pouring water from a large jug into two clay cups, Chang explained his plan for their final escape from the kingdom of the Xia.
“But shall we not be recognized?” asked Zhong, his breath returning after a long drink.
Chang smiled, and said, “Without doubt, Lord, were we to go in the clothes we wear now, but we shall go in the guise of ordinary farmers. I have clothing here for both of us.”
Zhong Gu looked around in the dim lamplight, plainly unnerved by all that had happened that night — the terrifying raid on Wu’s house, his capture and imprisonment, then his miraculous deliverance at the hands of a man completely unknown to him. Such high drama and perilous adventure were as foreign to him as anything in life could possibly be. He had faced certain death, and his life had been given back to him by the young man now sitting beside him in this subterranean sanctuary calmly pouring him another drink of water.
“I owe you my life, young sir,” he said. “but may I ask you a question?”
“Of course, Lord.”
“What is your name?”
* * *
As Chang had predicted, the frenzied hunt finally ended a week later, but not before he and Zhong had endured an agonizing two hours of breathless terror one day when a troop of soldiers camped at midday by their subterranean hiding place. Several of them sat eating and drinking on the pile of stones concealing the mine’s entrance while the two fugitives crouched in the dark just below them, not daring to move. They listened as the soldiers laughed and talked.
“They are gone forever,” said one. “The Lord King may shout all he likes, but it will not bring them back.”
“His cousin, Lord Wu, was skinned alive,” said another, “and the slave girl the king gave to the man of Shang was put to death as well, I hear.”
“Yes, she was,” said the first. “The king accused her of aiding the escape. She denied it on the bones of her ancestors, but he had her executed anyway.”
“How?’
“I do not know, but I am sure it would not have been pleasant.”
The soldier chuckled, and then belched loudly.
Chang felt a pang of regret as he listened. Sai had been a loving companion, and without her, Zhong Gu’s rescue would never have been possible. But, he reflected, it seems her destiny was to enable me to achieve mine. The gods must have judged her life less important than mine. She was, after all, my property, and the lives of slaves can never be more valuable than the lives of their masters. If her destiny had been of greater importance than mine, I would have been her property, would I not? It is a proof of the righteousness of my cause.
However, righteous cause or not, he tried hard not to contemplate the numerous, hideous forms of execution he had been forced to witness while at King Jie’s court.
Regardless of the search, the days in hiding proved necessary for an entirely different reason as well. Zhong Gu had damaged his left ankle in the jump from the city wall, and although he made no complaint, it swelled and discolored in a most alarming manner. Chang watched it with mounting anxiety. Such an injury, which he could never have foreseen, might ruin everything. Their food and water would not last forever, and he was considering the possibility of returning to the city to steal more supplies, but so risky a venture was unnecessary in the end. Within three or four days, to Chang’s immeasurable relief, the joint returned to its normal shape and color, and Zhong pronounced it sound.
When Chang judged it safe to go, they emerged from their tunnel like cautious mice.
Wearing nothing but loincloths and homespun jackets with rice straw belts around their waists, they walked, day after weary day, begging for food and water until they reached the city of Shang. To his surprise, Chang discovered Minister Yi Yin was already there, having fled on horseback from Jie’s fury.
“You shall be one of my generals, Lord Chang,” Da Yi proclaimed. “We shall wage war and vanquish the ignoble king of Xia.”
“I am yours to command, Lord King,” said Chang, bowing. “My sword and my life belong only to you.”
And so, as Da Yi’s strength flourished, Chang, who rapidly gained fame as his military prowess grew, led soldiers of Shang on raids deep into the lands of the Xia, overrunning many smaller kingdoms which had come under Jie’s suzerainty and securing their allegiance to Da Yi. He watched with contempt as King Jie’s soldiers fled the battlefields like frightened rabbits and took savage delight in killing prisoners and those who lay wounded. Da Yi soon made him a member of his high military council, so that thereafter he stood with the other, more senior, commanders as the king planned the campaigns which were taking him ever closer to the final defeat of Xia.
“We must entice the Xia into a single great engagement,” said one of the commanders, a battle-scarred old warrior who had lost his left eye to one of Da Yi’s enemies many years before. “There is no other way, Lord King.”
“Yes,” said Da Yi, nodding, “but the time is not yet propitious. The clans of Gu and Wei have made common cause with Jie, and together they are too many for us.”
“The Wei alone field a mighty army,” said another, “and their commanders are courageous men.”
“I shall overcome the Wei,” Chang declared. “Give me but two months, and I shall either destroy them or turn them into our allies.”
“Bah,” snorted the old general. “Two months? You are a dreamer, General Chang. I know you to be a fearless man in battle, but you are a dreamer, notwithstanding.”
“On what grounds do you ask me to risk an entire army in such a venture?” asked Da Yi. “This sounds like sheer bravado.”
“I have studied the battle tactics of the Wei,” said Chang. “There is a means by which a relatively small force can defeat them.”
“How small?”
“I would need a thousand good men.”
“A thousand only?” guffawed the old general. “This is sheer folly, Lord King.”
“Tell us,” commanded the king, and Chang set forth his plan. Da Yi and the other commanders listened without interruption as Chang pointed out the necessary features on a drawing and described the disposition of his forces.
“And so, Lord King,” he finished, “I ask leave to undertake this venture for your greater glory and power.”
“It is far too risky, Lord King,” protested the old general, shaking his hoary head. “It bases the entire battle on one strategy alone, without tactical options if things do not go as anticipated. Moreover, the plan requires one particular piece of ground, and what is to be done if it cannot be reached? The slightest miscalculation or unforeseen circumstance will result in disaster, and we would lose a thousand men for nothing.”
“I have thought of everything, Lord King,” said Chang. “I am sure of success. With the Wei subdued, your path to victory over the Xia is assured. The army of Gu is small and ill-equipped, and King Jie’s forces are demoralized. This is the moment to strike down the Wei. The army of Xia will then be forced into a final battle and delivered by heaven into your hand.”
Da Yi studied the drawing, rubbing his chin, and every eye rested upon him.
“Go,” he said, after a long pause. “Take whatever men you need. But,” and here he raised a warning forefinger, his eyes narrowed, “if you fail in this, do not trouble to return.”
The king’s final words rang in his ears like the tolling of portentous bells as Chang bowed and withdrew from the council chamber.
A mere six weeks later, Chang returned triumphant, and the king of the Wei peoples bent his knee to Da Yi and swore allegiance. Chang was a hero, and the king made him rich.
After leaving the council, he carefully chose a thousand seasoned fighting men and equipped them with new weapons and armor. For several weeks, they hounded and harassed the army of Wei in a series of raids in daylight and darkness, always avoiding a pitched battle. Eventually, just as Chang had anticipated, the king of Wei was infuriated to the point of gathering his troops into a single force and marching on Chang’s small army which had, by design, disposed itself in what appeared to be a temptingly vulnerable position. Chang and his army fled in mock disarray, and the men of Wei, in high hopes of routing their enemy permanently, pursued them into the place Chang had chosen. After more games of cat-and-mouse, the king of Wei, in a sad display of military ineptitude, allowed himself to be lured into the narrow defile where Chang had prepared the final, terrible slaughter. Too late, did the king of Wei see his fatal blunder and order his men to withdraw. Chang’s troops at once blocked the paths both in and out, and rained spears, arrows, boulders, and blazing bundles of wood down upon their helpless enemies. Surrender came swiftly, and the king was found cowering under a thorn bush, from whence he was conveyed in chains to the court of Da Yi, eager to transfer his loyalty from Xia to Shang and thereby preserve his life.
In the entire campaign, Chang lost no more than a hundred warriors, and in gratitude, Da Yi gave him a carved jade baton of deep emerald green — an honor no other commander had ever received. He further bestowed on him a great weight of gold and bronze, a fortune in cowrie shell money, and a hundred slaves — prisoners from the defeated army of Wei — to serve him in the luxurious house he now occupied in the city of Shang. Five weeks later, Da Yi dispatched him to crush the Gu clan, which he speedily accomplished — they capitulated almost at once — and with that final minor impediment removed, the massed armies of Shang and its allies marched against the king of Xia.
Choosing his ground with utmost care, Da Yi ranged his forces across a broad, level plain at a place called Mingtiao. Two days after their arrival, as Da Yi and his four generals sat together in a large tent eating, drinking, and talking battle tactics, a messenger begged leave to enter, and, kneeling, made his report.
“Our scouts tell us the army of the Xia has been drawing up all day, Lord King. It is believed they number nearly six thousand men with foot soldiers, archers, horsemen, and charioteers. It is a mighty host.”
“Mighty indeed,” said Da Yi, “but with heaven’s help, we shall prevail.” He paused for a moment, then said to the messenger, “Go now. Fetch me the old seer.”
A few minutes later, there appeared a willow-thin woman of about sixty, with a face as wrinkled as a dried plum. She wore a black, knee-length tunic, and a black silk scarf knotted around her head. Her smile revealed very few teeth as she entered the tent, bowing repeatedly as she came.
“Lord King?”
“Old and venerable one,” said Da Yi, “I wish you to conjure the gods of heaven and tell me the outcome of the battle we shall fight in this place tomorrow.”
“I shall burn the shell of a turtle,” the priestess said, bowing yet again, “and by this we shall know the will of heaven, if the gods themselves wish it to be known.”
“So be it,” said Da Yi.
“But there is a question, Lord King,” the priestess put in.
“Well?”
“Whom shall I say commands the army of Shang?”
“I command, of course,” snapped Da Yi, with a flash of irritation, “and the Lord Chang is my deputy. Why should heaven care who commands?”
“Because, Lord King,” the priestess said, with a knowing smile on her furrowed face, “heaven blesses men, not armies, and heaven will not reward or prosper unrighteous men, no matter the strength of their armies.”
Da Yi grunted, and the woman nodded.
“If you will come with me, Lord King, all things will be revealed.”
Da Yi, Chang and the three other generals followed the woman to where a fire burned in a three-legged bronze cauldron. Other priestesses stood nearby, bowing as the king approached, and the woman spoke a curt command. One of her assistants took up a bronze rod about the thickness of a man’s thumb and thrust it into the glowing coals. While the rod heated, the high priestess reached into a deerskin bag, withdrawing a dozen or so plastrons of the fresh-water turtles which abounded in the rivers and lakes thereabouts. She examined each one with sedulous care, muttering to herself and occasionally shaking her head. After discarding several of them, she finally chose one somewhat larger than the span of her hand which looked to Chang exactly the same as all the others.
Get on with it, he thought, fingering the pommel of his sword impatiently.
“This is the one for today,” she announced, holding it aloft. Delving into her bag once more, she produced a short bronze awl, and, sitting cross-legged on the ground, she proceeded to incise the question asked by Da Yi onto the flat shell using a special script reserved for such divinations. All eyes were fixed on her as she worked, and the only sound was the scratching of her awl and an occasional crackle from the fire. At length, she looked up and read back what she had inscribed.
The great and noble King, Da Yi of Shang, humbly asks if he and his great general, the Lord Chang, will prevail at Mingtiao against the hosts of King Jie of Xia.
Getting to her feet, she approached the hot cauldron, where, by that time, the end of the bronze rod glowed a bright red. Wrapping a cloth around the end, the old priestess held the hot metal rod in one hand, the plastron in the other, and extended her arms skyward.
“Witness this, great ones of heaven,” she cried. “Show us mercy and answer the petition of the Lord King Da Yi.”
No one stirred or spoke as she stood thus for almost a full minute. Inwardly, Chang fumed with impatience. Then, after bowing in each of the four cardinal directions, she pressed the red-hot end of the rod to the turtle shell. For a few moments nothing happened, then with a soft crackle and a curl of black smoke, a lattice pattern of tiny, thread-like cracks appeared on the surface of the plastron, radiating from the point where the rod had touched it. Raising her arms again, she blessed and thanked heaven before dropping the rod. Approaching Da Yi, she bowed and presented him with the shell. He looked at it for a moment before handing it back.
“Heaven reveals nothing to me. Tell us the meaning of it, old one.”
The priestess studied the shell for several minutes, all eyes still fixed on her in fascinated expectation. Chang watched the king for signs of impatience, but there were none. Da Yi now appeared content to await the verdict of heaven, rather than insist on haste. Perhaps, Chang reflected, he does not wish to risk angering the gods and spirits on so important a matter. Turning his attention to the priestess, he watched her as she puckered her lined face into a frown, pursed her thin mouth, and then chewed a little on her lower lip, before addressing Da Yi.
“Lord King, heaven tells you this. Tomorrow, many men will die. The unrighteous will be defeated at this place called Mingtiao, and an unworthy king shall be driven from the land.”
Da Yi gave the priestess cowry shell money and then watched the completion of the ritual. Sitting on the ground, she incised the answer on the plastron as custom dictated, before giving it to the king’s historian, who had the solemn charge of keeping it safe. When Da Yi was eventually gathered into the arms of his ancestors, the bone, along with the hundreds of others accumulated during his reign, would be placed in his tomb. There, they would form an indispensable record of his deeds as the gods and demons vied for possession of his soul.
* * *
Dawn the following day prophesied a storm. Towering flat-topped thunderheads massed themselves on the horizon, and the humid air lay motionless on the land like a hot blanket. Chang, helped by two slaves, donned his bronze-studded leather armor, and his heavy bronze battle helmet which all but obscured his face, leaving him only narrow slits through which to see. He had commissioned the finest metalsmith in the city of Shang to craft a new bronze sword to his own exacting specifications, and he hefted it in his hand with great satisfaction before sheathing it in the leather scabbard at his side. Today, heaven willing, he would kill Jie with that very sword and so fulfill the vow he had made so long ago. It had taken five years, but the time had finally come. He laughed in fierce anticipation. Although many said the answer from heaven told them nothing, was mere equivocation, Chang believed it foretold the end of Xia and the demise of its king. In his mind, it could not be otherwise, for was it not his destiny to see the destruction of Xia?
After a short prayer and the sacrifice of a chicken, Da Yi issued his orders to Chang and the other commanders. The strategy was bold, not without risk, but Chang was confident it would succeed, simply because it would be wholly unexpected. On his return to Shang he reported all he had learned about the battle tactics of Xia, and his information had been confirmed by Zhong Gu, now elevated in the Shang court to a position of high esteem and dignity. Da Yi had planned accordingly.
“We shall not attack,” he said. “They must come to us before the trap can be sprung.”
Hours passed, and the sky darkened menacingly until just before noon the blare of trumpets was heard from the camp of Xia.
“At last,” said Chang aloud, and then shouted, “Come, Jie of Xia. Come and die.”
As if in answer to the call to arms, lightning leapt across the sky, and the damp, oppressive air was riven by a mighty peal of thunder. The black clouds opened as though they were vessels full of water, and the downpour all but blinded man and beast alike. The storm’s climactic eruption also released a wind which howled across the plain, driving the rain before it, turning the drops into a hail of needles.
Heedless of the rampaging storm, the Xia army hurled itself forward across the open ground in a wild, shrieking stampede, expecting, no doubt, to overwhelm the forces of Shang in a single charge.
Exactly as expected, you fools, thought Chang smugly, remembering what he had told Da Yi about Xia’s lack of discipline.
The warriors of Shang stood resolute, waiting for the onslaught. Then, at the last conceivable moment, when the Xia were all but upon them, Da Yi’s heralds sounded three blasts on their bronze trumpets. Immediately, the Shang army divided to allow the attacking hoard to blunder headlong into the space between the two halves. Jie’s over-confident indiscipline now proved his undoing. The two flanking sides of the Shang army fell on his bewildered troops and wrought a bloody slaughter. The air rang and reverberated with the clash of weapons, the thundering of hooves, blood-chilling war cries, and the screams of the wounded and dying. Jie’s forces collapsed in complete disarray, and by mid-afternoon, the carnage was over. Chang found Da Yi, his sword arm blood-covered to the elbow, standing, his breath labored, amongst the dead and wounded of both sides.
“It is done, Lord King,” he said, sheathing his sword. “The Xia are no more. Theirs was the army whose defeat the seer foretold yesterday, and Jie was the unrighteous king.”
“Where is King Jie now?” asked Da Yi,” and Chang, removing his heavy battle helmet, shook his head.
“He has fled like the coward he is.”
“Find him,” ordered Da Yi, vehemently. “We must know where he is.”
Chang bowed before hurrying away. Three of Jie’s commanders had been captured, and for the next two hours they swore they knew nothing of his hiding place, but Chang looked into their defiant eyes and knew they were lying. In spite of himself, he was impressed by their unyielding loyalty to their defeated king, but impressed or not, he eventually lost patience. Choosing one of them and stripping him naked, he heated a large kettle of water until it boiled and bubbled in clouds of steam. Without a word, he poured the scalding water over the man, and nothing further was needed.
“Jie has gone to Nanchao, Lord King,” he reported to Da Yi. “He has only a handful of men with him.”
“Take two hundred horsemen,” Da Yi commanded, “and follow him. Tell him if ever he so much as sets one of his feet outside the city of Nanchao, he will die. Tell him I swear it on the bones of my fathers and bring me word of his answer.”
“You exile him?” asked Chang, surprised and disappointed. “May I not execute him, Lord King? I would rather bring you his head than his words.”
“No,” said Da Yi. “The mandate of heaven has passed to me, and that is enough. Jie’s death is not necessary, nor was it foretold by the seer.”
It is necessary to me, Chang thought, as he led his mounted troops towards Nanchao. He felt a bitter frustration at being unable to kill the man whose soldiers murdered his family and destroyed his village, yet angry as he was, his heart told him Da Yi was right. Jie had lost the mandate, and once lost, it could never be recovered. Jie would never rule again; heaven would destroy him if he tried, and in letting him live, Da Yi was condemning him to exilic obscurity and poverty. Chang contented himself with that thought. He pictured Jie many years hence, gaunt and thin, gray-bearded and toothless, in a threadbare tunic, telling anyone who would listen that he used to be a powerful king. Adults would nod and smile indulgently, and grimy street urchins would mock him and call him a silly old man, bowing before him and laughing. Surely that was a fittingly ignominious end for a man once so arrogant and cruel.
Chang eased himself in his wooden saddle. For years he had nourished the belief that his destiny was to kill King Jie, but that was not to be. What is my destiny, then, he asked himself?
Perhaps I am to become a king myself. Perhaps the mandate will pass to me. Is kingship my destiny?
He found the thought intriguing.