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Lü Bu could make fun of the situation, because of course he wouldn’t be cooked.
Right now, the one so anxious as if he was being cooked was Xiang Bo. He paced in his tent anxiously with a forehead covered in sweat.
Even if Fan Zeng had deliberately concealed it, the Chu army’s movements were so obvious that it was impossible for Xiang Bo, who was the Minister of the Left,1左尹: traditionally 2 people occupy each of the more important court positions, which is why in dramas etc. you see people being called things like ‘left prime minister’ or ‘general of the right’. As far as I can tell, 左尹 is a title exclusive to the Chu state which is more or less equivalent to a prime minister’s undersecretary not to find out.
He really couldn’t figure out what slander Fan Zeng filled Xiang Yu’s ears with while he was busy elsewhere. His persuasion had held steady until this morning, but that guy suddenly changed his mind!
Xiang Bo’s mood went up and down, making his face look very ugly.
In the tent, it wasn’t as if he couldn’t tell that Xiang Yu was also in a bad mood. Xiang Bo was too scared to persuade him too much, he tentatively asked for an explanation but even this made Xiang Yu turn away angrily, and his every word showed that his mind was set.
Compared to his decision a few days ago, this time he was indeed much more serious. Not only did he summon his generals and hold emergency military meetings, he also arranged the basic formations for deployment. In just two days, the army would set off towards the Han army in the pass.
Xiang Bo turned pale with fright and wracked his brains to stop him, using excuses like ‘it is impossible to build trust if you go back on your words’, but Xiang Yu just ignored him and politely sent him out.
Having never been treated like this before, Xiang Bo was scared stiff and naturally didn’t dare to insist on staying.
Xiang Yu never suspected that his beloved uncle had colluded with the Han, he just thought that he had felt furious enough when he realised he had been fooled by the cunning and sly Liu Bang, and there was no need to make his uncle go through the same humiliation.
He also specifically chose a time when his uncle wasn’t present to hold the meeting in order to spare him the pain of betrayal.
He didn’t know how to pretend, didn’t want to say the truth, and also didn’t want to lie, so he simply mumbled a few words before sending Xiang Bo away.
But it was this ambiguity that made Xiang Bo — who already felt guilty — nervous.
If not for his knowledge of Xiang Yu, he would have thought that his nephew already knew of the agreed marriage of his and Liu Bang’s children, and his delicate position in this matter.
Since he was still safe for the moment and only excluded from the battle situation for an unknown reason, the first thing he should do was to inform Zhang Liang of the situation.
Xiang Bo was very worried about the danger Liu Bang was about to face. He originally wanted to go himself, but in order to prevent unexpected complications in case Fan Zeng had sent anyone to stare at him, he instead sent a confidant to rush through the pass overnight to the Qin Palace.
At this moment, Liu Bang sat opposite Zhang Liang as they discussed countermeasures for the dangerous Hongmen Banquet tomorrow. He definitely wasn’t expecting to hear such bad news.
“Is this true!” Blood drained from Liu Bang’s face. He stumbled and crawled to the messenger, not even caring about his appearance, and clutched the man’s shoulder as he asked repeatedly, “Xiang Yu will really bring his army to break through the gate in two days?!”
“There is absolutely no falsehood.”
The confidant sent by Xiang Bo was also very nervous. He repeated what Xiang Bo told him to say, then refused to stay a minute longer and quickly left.
Even if Liu Bang wanted to ask about the movements of the Chu army in detail, he didn’t know much because Xiang Bo had been kept far away from the decision-making process.
So even though he was eloquent and let go of his airs, he couldn’t get any information other than the terrible news that the Chu army would march into Hangu Pass in two days.
“It’s over, it’s over.”
A single Hongmen Banquet already scared him out of his wits, but now although he didn’t have to go to the banquet, there was an even more terrible disaster!
His temperament had always been very resilient, but at this time he had a feeling that heaven wanted him dead. He had hardly celebrated escaping from the pan before falling into flames, causing him to be quite depressed.
Where on earth did the flaw come from?
Zhang Liang’s first suspect was Xiang Bo, who was supposedly a central Chu figure yet acted more intimately towards Han.
There must be a devil in the works of anything abnormal. Could Xiang Bo be not a fool who mixed up private and professional interests and betrayed his master for ‘righteousness’, but a spy sent by Fan Zeng? He would gain Liu Bang’s trust to set up this dead end of a Hongmen Banquet, then use the King of Qin as an excuse to wipe out the entire Han army.
Everyone knew that Fan Zeng and Xiang Bo were at odds, but if it was all an act…
Zhang Liang shook his head and rejected his own guess.
If Xiang Bo’s urgency that night were actually performed by a man with a sweet mouth and a sword in his belly, that would be too amazing.
The most important thing was that if Xiang Yu was determined to attack Liu Bang, then according to his previous actions, he would likely choose to fight fair and square out in the open.
Their strengths had a great disparity and there was a ready-made excuse — the Han army didn’t allow the Chu army to enter Hangu Pass, so the Chu army could take this as justification to march.
It would be too easy for the Chu army to exterminate them.
Why bother to force the Chu’s left governor to go into the Han camp alone?
Even if they insisted they were in the right afterwards, they would inevitably be criticised for attacking allies.
However, when the distribution of land was imminent, one less Liu Bang was one less lord to contend with. In that case, the feudal lords would only be too happy to watch on the sidelines, at most they would write a few articles.
As for Xiang Yu, he only recently executed over two hundred thousand Qin soldiers, so he presumably didn’t care for rumours.
After thinking things over many times, Zhang Liang vaguely realised that it was the bloody clothes Liu Bang gave which were the fly in the ointment.2actual phrase is adding legs to a snake (画蛇添足), meaning doing superfluous things (derogatory); for the specific origin story, you can go to www.tutormandarin.net
However Ying Ziying’s assassination happened too suddenly, and with Xiang Bo’s visit also coming unexpectedly, they didn’t have the time to think of a perfect response. Fan Zeng had always been on guard against them, it wasn’t unusual to stumble here.
In any case, it was no use to speculate on the past. The most urgent task now was to deal with the Chu army’s imminent attack in two days.
Liu Bang looked panic-stricken as if he were mourning a wife. In his mind, this was no different from his end.
After he recovered, Zhang Liang reminded him of what he did in the past few days and he realised how stupid he had been: how could a hundred thousand Han soldiers emerge victorious against four hundred thousand high-spirited Chu soldiers led by Xiang Yu? Not to mention the other lords and their own armies waiting in the wings.
He feared that the only way was to replace the elite Han soldiers with Qin troops who had surrendered in the palace before the Chu army could react, then bring the ten thousand elite soldiers to flee towards Ba County or Shu County.3both are around modern day Chongqing, which is middle of China ish. Wikipedia
The Bashu area’s terrain was treacherous and difficult for pursuers to enter. Xiang Yu was unlikely to sacrifice his army to go deep into the hinterlands, so he should be safe with just these few elite soldiers.
But although it was hard for pursuers to enter, it would also be hard for him to leave.
In this way, it was tantamount to trapping himself in the former Qin dynasty’s back yard; it would be hard just to survive, let alone realise the grand plan of unification in his heart.
But after a while, he made the sober decision to take only his trusted soldiers to escape and abandon his other people.
After Zhang Liang heard his plan, he fell silent, then suddenly said, “When in adversity, retreating to Bashu is indeed a good way out.”
His eyes were sharp, he knew that it was impossible for the Han army as they were to compete with Xiang Yu, who was so powerful that hundreds answered his call.
Right now, he just wanted to appease Xiang Yu so that later, they could be granted a fief that wasn’t too terrible, with which they could accumulate strength, develop allies, and slowly make plans.
Liu Bang’s eyes brightened.
How could he fail to understand what Zhang Liang meant? This was saying that the Han army still had a way out!
“Sir, please teach me!”
The situation was urgent, Zhang Liang wouldn’t make things difficult for him. He revealed his entire plan and immediately asked Liu Bang to do two things.
First, to urgently send envoys to the Chu capital of Pengcheng, to escort the King of Chu — who had proclaimed ‘the one who first enters the pass is king’ and been subsequently ignored by Xiang Yu — here.
Second, to also send envoys to the vicinity of the Chu camp and delay them at all costs until the King of Chu arrived.
The Xiang clan had supported the King of Chu to his high position, but Xiong Xin now turned against them because he was unwilling to be a puppet, and this was what gave Liu Bang the opportunity to rise.
If he wanted to maintain his power, he had to contain Xiang Yu, who was flourishing and at the height of his power — and considering all the lords, Liu Bang was his best and most useful choice.
There was no doubt that he would use everything in his power to protect the Han army from Xiang Yu.
Liu Bang also understood this point. As he thanked Zhang Liang profusely, he also hurriedly summoned his confidants and assigned the two important tasks to them.
His strategy had been implemented, but Zhang Liang still felt uneasy.
There were simply too many variables in such a hastily formulated plan.
The most difficult thing to grasp was the amount of restraint the King of Chu still had on Xiang Yu, or rather… how much more Xiang Yu could endure.
If Xiang Yu was driven to the edge and became determined to eradicate the Han army even if he had to blatantly disobey the King of Chu, then they really would have to flee to Bashu in embarrassment.
At this time, how could Lü Bu know that his casual act of getting a token of guarantee had turned into a boulder thrown into a placid lake from which countless waves arose, disrupting many people’s plans.
After he had a comfortable nap on a temporary bunk in the barracks tent, he was full of energy and looking forward to seeing Liu Bang at Hongmen, only to find to his surprise that the banquet which should have been settled had actually been cancelled!
“That’s outrageous!!!” Everything had been prepared and even his sword was newly sharpened, but upon hearing the bad news, Lü Bu’s eyes widened and he shot to his feet, dislodging the shortsword on his lap which fell to the ground with a clang.
How could he care about that crappy sword now, his whole head was about to fall apart from disbelief!
“What’s going on! How can Heaven be so unreasonable!” Lü Bu roared as he stomped his feet violently.
Was it big-eared Liu’s treacherous ancestor who was too dishonest, or did Lord Grand Historian4referring to Sima Qian, a major historian in Chinese history and author of Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji) which is a general history of China covering 2000+ years from the Yellow Emperor to Emperor Wu of Han (Liu Bang’s great-grandson). Wikipedia deceive him? Which goddamn bastard did it, who had so little conscience that they completely got rid of the entire thing!
Damn, what a mess!
Lü Bu, who had no idea that he was exactly that ‘unconscientious bastard’, was so indignant that he agitatedly paced back and forth, all the while muttering “That’s impossible,” and “Who the hell did this.”
A man who had been perfectly fine just now turned into this as if he had nothing to live for when he heard such an irrelevant matter. Han Xin, who was the one who told him about it, was stunned when he saw this and completely unable to understand.
Han Xin stood at a loss for a while. “…General Xiang is generous. Although he hasn’t given a position to my virtuous brother yet,” he comforted, remembering the way Lü Bu picked through the rough food with disgust in the mess tent earlier, and thinking he now knew the crux of the matter, “for mere meat and wine, you need only to ask.”
What’s more, in his opinion, Lü Bu with his unclear identity might not be allowed in even if there was a banquet held for Liu Bang.
Lü Bu’s face was numb. He lifted his face to the sky and let out a long cry, then fell motionless to the ground.
The hell did he care about the banquet’s food for! He just wanted the head of that guy named Liu!
Author:
Lü Bu: I’ll scold myself and lose my life’s goal by the way.
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- 1左尹: traditionally 2 people occupy each of the more important court positions, which is why in dramas etc. you see people being called things like ‘left prime minister’ or ‘general of the right’. As far as I can tell, 左尹 is a title exclusive to the Chu state which is more or less equivalent to a prime minister’s undersecretary
- 2actual phrase is adding legs to a snake (画蛇添足), meaning doing superfluous things (derogatory); for the specific origin story, you can go to www.tutormandarin.net
- 3both are around modern day Chongqing, which is middle of China ish. Wikipedia
- 4referring to Sima Qian, a major historian in Chinese history and author of Records of the Grand Historian (Shiji) which is a general history of China covering 2000+ years from the Yellow Emperor to Emperor Wu of Han (Liu Bang’s great-grandson). Wikipedia
mimi says:
unluggy for lübu…. little did he know, it was caused by his own actions. Thanks for the chapter!
22 July 2023 — 18:23