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In fact, the ministers led by Fan Zeng had brought up similar words to Xiang Yu more than once.
But there were three reasons why they had never been heeded. First, when Fan Zeng offered advice, he explained things clearly but didn’t take Xiang Yu’s temper into account — his every word was carefully considered before he spoke, thus the lecture dragged on and Xiang Yu became drowsy, so of course he would have little enthusiasm. Secondly, many soldiers in the Chu army led by Xiang Yu were indeed from ancestral Chu lands and had been away for many years, which brought about a strong longing for their hometowns. If they were forced to stay here, they would likely face a sharp decline in morale. And lastly, there was Xiang Bo meddling around with his ulterior motives, as well as Chen Ping who knew what was going on but pretended to be confused and let things go as they pleased…
The situation was completely different with Lü Bu.
When he saw the brainless hegemon-king’s stupid behaviour, he treated it as if he were watching his younger self who had been reckless and took many needless detours in life, so he could naturally understand the man’s thoughts.
Only then could his particular combination of praise, encouragement, and suggestions hit the mark. It seemed all over the place, but it scratched the itch in Xiang Yu’s heart that no one had reached before and lit up the confused hegemon-king’s mind.
With this important event before him, Xiang Yu completely forgot the troubles caused by his uncle Xiang Bo’s suspicious behaviour.
Since he made up his mind, he wanted to get it done right away.
As he watched an impatient Xiang Yu disappear into the dust kicked up by Dapple’s hooves…
Lü Bu, who had always been very courageous and fearlessly moved forward, actually had goosebumps on his back for the first time in his life.
Damn, would Xiang Yu want him to discuss things with those chittering scholars and ‘persuade’ them soon?
Thinking up to here, he broke out in cold sweat.
Frozen in place, Lü Bu hesitated for a long, painful time between ‘just rub oil on your feet and run now, don’t bother with these troublesome things’ and ‘don’t waste your previous effort, go back and deal with it as it comes’, then finally chose the latter with reluctance.
He just didn’t believe that if he refused to speak, there would be people in the world who could force him to open his mouth.
It was entirely the fault of that brainless hegemon-king. He worked hard for more than half a month for the sake of taking revenge on Liu Bang, but before his revenge was taken, his troubles increased instead!
After secretly cursing at Xiang Yu a few times under his breath, Lü Bu let out a sharp whistle, summoning Jade Lion who was still wandering nearby, and leapt onto its back with a sullen face.
He really hoped that Xiang Yu wasn’t stupid enough to make him engage in a verbal battle with those Confucian scholars. If he was… then none of them would be able to survive under his sword.
Jade Lion, who had already recovered, was completely unaware of its new master’s worries. It let out a cheerful whinny, then lifted its hooves and galloped forth.
Although Jade Lion was no match for Dapple, who was unique in the world, it was still an uncommonly good horse who could travel like the wind.
He still kept his sullen face even as, before he knew it, he arrived at the gates of Xianyang.
Jade Lion carried its new — depressed — master proudly as it shuttled through the streets as if very familiar with the way, and they soon reached the Qin Palace.
At this time, there was hardly anyone in the Chu army who couldn’t recognise the man who had somehow won King Xiang’s trust. Seeing that the man approaching was Lü Bu who had accompanied King Xiang out before and now returned, they even skipped the step of requesting identification and directly opened the palace gate to let him in.
Lü Bu’s journey was unimpeded all the way. He quickly arrived at the palace which had been temporarily renovated and designated for administrative meetings and, dismounting, walked inside stiffly.
As he expected, he saw that the hall was filled with people, all of them wearing high crowns and long robes with long sleeves that were obviously difficult to move around in.
Lü Bu was the last to arrive, and his figure was completely different from an ordinary scholar’s typical leanness. He was tall and mighty, not much different from Xiang Yu, but what surprised the ministers the most was that apart from Xiang Bo, who was a blood relative, Lü Bu was the only person in the tent who had repeatedly caused Xiang Yu to change his decisions.
Xiang Yu sat indifferently in the main seat. Upon catching sight of Lü Bu’s entry, he nodded slightly. Han Xin, the sentry standing behind him, immediately understood and led his virtuous brother to the position that originally belonged only to the Minister of the Left, Xiang Bo.
Lü Bu sneaked a look around and found no trace of Xiang Bo. He raised his eyebrows at this, but otherwise didn’t react much.
As soon as Han Xin led him to his seat, he boldly sat down.
Many ministers sitting below frowned at his unruly posture and the way he had no intention of politely rejecting the seat a few times before he sat.
However, Xiang Yu himself up on the main seat obviously loved Lü Bu’s talent so much that he showed not the slightest indication of reprimanding Lü Bu even though he acted so arrogantly right under his nose.
Perhaps it was to calm the jealousy in everyone’s hearts that Xiang Yu, who had always cherished his words like gold, actually gave a few instructions to the servants and after a short while, snacks were delivered to these people who hadn’t yet had lunch and were getting a little hungry.
While they felt flattered and thanked King Xiang for the food, Han Xin had a more complicated look on his face.
His eyes involuntarily fell on the snacks in front of his virtuous brother, which were in a pile three times the size of others’.
The meat slices, which were made particularly attractive by the steaming hot sauce covering them, also looked extremely familiar… There were hardly any differences between it and the dried meat that he had secretly hidden for Lü Bu during the banquet earlier and which he had then carefreely gulped down.
Han Xin had a thought.
If he guessed correctly, everyone here should have benefited from the fact that his brother was hungry last time and made King Xiang worry about him.
Lü Bu, not nearly as attentive as Han Xin, went straight to eating it all, and in the blink of an eye he had eaten up the triple servings of meat.
And there was another, more important reason why he could eat with peace of mind — Xiang Yu had summoned him to this court meeting, but he had no intention of letting him argue with his ministers.
Since Xiang Yu decided to relocate the Chu capital to Xianyang, he had to resettle his soldiers.
Those who were willing to stay would be given certain official positions, and those who were unwilling would be given certain rewards. They could make their decisions with confidence.
In fact, what surprised Xiang Yu was that the Chu soldiers whom he thought to be homesick and eager to return only accounted for a very small proportion of the 400,000 man army.
Most of the remaining were soldiers from other kingdoms who were later incorporated into Xiang Yu’s army, whose family members were already separated and lost, or otherwise had nowhere to return to; or they were from Chu, but were unwilling to be content with going home to an ordinary life with an ordinary wife. They wanted to follow the powerful Xiang Yu and take advantage of the world’s chaos to win more fame and wealth, and didn’t mind suffering hardship.
For the scholars who desired to stand out from the masses, following an overlord who had the qualifications to be a king, had ambition, and could make rational, beneficial decisions was of course better than serving someone who decided on a whim to go home in order to show off.
Anyone who wasn’t blind could see that Pengcheng held no advantages when compared to Guanzhong. To abandon the fertile fields of Guanzhong in favour of returning east to Pengcheng was like handing over a gift from the heavens, or like something a child would do.
They were naturally happy to see King Xiang stop being so stubborn and realise that he should bring order to the chaos, so how could they object?
Even the few dissenters were only worried that it may be too difficult to win over the common people.
Xiang Yu listened to the heated discussion below with an expressionless face, nodding from time to time to show his agreement.
He had only called Lü Bu here to let everyone know who this should be credited to, so he specially arranged for him to sit at the table where the Minister of the Left Xiang Bo usually sat.
If it had been anyone else facing King Xiang’s tender care, they would have already been moved to tears and vowed to serve him until death.
As for Lü Bu… he was just glad to have escaped without incident and, for the sake of the meat not tasting too bad, decided to scold the brainless king a little less.
Fan Zeng was very pleased with Xiang Yu, who had always been hard-headed yet quietly changed his mind this time and made a wise decision. At the same time, he admired and felt affection for Lü Bu.
He was intelligent, brave, and could even persuade King Xiang at his most stubborn. In addition, the man cared for neither fame nor fortune, but only stayed loyally at his king’s side…
It could only be said to be good fortune gifted to the hegemon-king by heaven.
As the leader of King Xiang’s ministers, Fan Zeng was the one who would implement specific arrangements after the overall strategy was determined.
He had fully learned his lesson from the events of Hangu Pass, when Xiang Yu, despite being furious at Liu Bang, impulsively changed his mind on attacking many times. In order to prevent this from happening again, he wasn’t even willing to wait until the next day to arrive before he gave orders to the servants around him one after another.
Once Lü Bu had eaten and drank enough, he propped up his chin with one hand and lazily watched the excitement for a while, but soon felt bored.
Since the position of marshal would likely be given to Zhang Han, who was currently the King of Yong, then he should be able to ask for another post, right?
Seeing Fan Zeng, an old man with snow-white hair and beard, hard at work assigning duties, Lü Bu — fearing that he would be roped into taking care of administrative tasks — quickly found an excuse to scurry out of the hall.
As soon as Lü Bu opened his mouth, Xiang Yu, who had been daydreaming with a straight face, came back to his senses and glanced at him lightly.
It wasn’t hard for him to see that Lü Bu couldn’t sit still from his sullen expression and the way he kept changing his posture. He simply lifted his hand, not only following his wish, but also let his friend Han Xin go out with him.
Elsewhere, Xiang Bo had no way of knowing Xiang Yu’s sudden decision to relocate the capital to Xianyang.
He also had no idea that his act of bribing the jailers to take better care of Zhang Liang with treasure he received from Liu Bang had been exposed, and that with the unique markings the former Qin dynasty stamped on items in their treasury, even someone as slow as Xiang Yu could follow the clues and suspect that he had been in secret communication with Liu Bang for a long time.
His estimation of himself was very high, no less than that of Xiang Yu, and he had always believed that everything he did was for the sake of ‘righteousness’. Therefore, whether he was informing Zhang Liang of the Chu army’s movements, privately meeting with Liu Bang, accepting gifts from Han, or firmly supporting Liu Bang in front of Xiang Yu, without a thought as to if he was harming the Chu army’s interests… strangely, he had never felt guilt.
That day at the banquet, when he had to step forward to defend Zhang Liang yet received open provocation and humiliation from some nobody called Lü Bu, he had been incandescent with rage but knew that the power disparity between them was too large and he was no match for him, so he could only swallow his anger.
Just this already made him unable to bear it, but what shocked him even more was that Xiang Yu, who usually trusted and respected him greatly, actually acquiesced to Lü Bu’s rude attitude!
He was the patriarch of the Xiang clan! He had weathered many years of storms and did everything for the younger generation, but now he was treated like this — he felt full of resentment toward Xiang Yu.
Xiang Yu hadn’t invited him to the discussion. He was already disturbed by his status’ sudden drop in his nephew’s heart, and felt that his face had been hurt. How could he grovel and beg for peace?
His resentment towards Lü Bu and Xiang Yu deepened. Apart from visiting Zhang Liang in the prison, he mostly stayed in his palace residence, so he was a step late in receiving notice of what was going on outside.
The only thing that didn’t change was his determination to set Zhang Liang free. Xiang Yu’s mood was unpredictable and he could kill at the drop of a hat; for every day Zhang Liang stayed imprisoned, the danger to him increased.
The main army would set off back to Pengcheng after the land was divided — being in the capital of Chu would make it even more difficult to escape.
Xiang Bo tossed and turned, and in the end finally decided to ignore Zhang Liang’s objections during their earlier meeting and rescue him before doing anything else.
suiruo says:
Thank you for the chapter!
19 October 2023 — 07:53