Controlling mountains and rivers since the Warring States Period

Chapter 559 Death and Rise

In the spring of the thirteenth year of Yongyuan,
As expected, the Han Dynasty, after long preparations, launched an attack on the Yan Kingdom in Liaodong.

They had been preparing for a long time, carefully selected the leaders, and provided excellent logistics.

So when the hot summer winds from the sea turned the land north of the Liao River into a muddy mess, the State of Yan met its demise.

That idealistic society, at most, only existed for sixty-five years.

If there were any unlucky long-lived people in the Yan state,

He could reminisce about the joys of his childhood while witnessing the mighty arrival of the Han army.

What must he be feeling?
No one could have guessed it.

But when the nobles of the capital, Ji'an, stripped off their clothes, led lambs, and presented the imperial seal representing the Yan state outside the city to welcome the royal army...

There were always some snickers coming from the crowd behind them.

The powerful and wealthy used their last bit of power to force those people to shut up, and then knelt down before the Han imperial soldiers who came riding tall horses.

that's it,
They personally led the way, guiding the Han army all the way into Gantang Palace.

The angel who came here to accept the surrender walked around the Gantang Palace, then pointed to a dark and filthy place and said:
"Is this the site of the fire a few years ago?"

"Why hasn't it been fixed yet after so long?"

The guy being questioned replied righteously:
"The dynasty's fortune has run its course; what use is it to build the most magnificent palaces of all?"

"We only hope for the Emperor's favor, and are willing to offer the resources of the Yan Kingdom to win the Emperor's favor!"

The angel was very displeased with him for his shamelessness.

The Han Dynasty revered the strong.

Even defeated generals and scholars with integrity can receive sufficient respect and attention.

But what are bonesless creatures anyway?
Then the angel pointed to the former noblewoman of Yan and said, "What resources does the Yan state still possess?"

"Wasn't it already sent to the Central Plains by you?"

After stammering for a long time, the other party finally managed to explain, "It's just for the benefit of my children..."

The angel glanced at it sideways, and then went to check the reserves in the Gantang Mansion's treasury.

He took inventory and then laughed mockingly.

"Your swords are still quite sharp, and your armor is still quite sturdy."

"Why did they surrender so easily when faced with the army of the Han Dynasty?"

The last Duke of Yan, who presented the imperial seal, said, "Wherever the sun and moon shine, wherever the rivers flow, all is Han territory."

"The Yan state previously occupied this place by force, but now that it has been returned to us, how dare we make any further moves?"

Upon hearing his words, the angel burst into laughter, tears welling in his eyes.

Duke Yan stood beside him, also smiling obsequiously.

At first, he seemed a little ashamed, but after laughing for a while, his expression became firm.

It's just a public tool.

Where can anything compare to personal wealth and status?

With this thought in mind, he watched the soldiers of the Han Dynasty enter and leave the decaying Gantang Palace, his thoughts slowly drifting to distant Luoyang.

He could be considered the ruler of a country, yet he never resisted the royal army.
They showed utmost respect to the emperor, offering him land and acknowledging him as their vassal.
Their ancestors had the merit of saving the lives of hundreds of thousands of people in Ji'an.
Regardless of life or death,

They must all be able to enjoy wealth and luxury!
"Pooh!"

"Shameless!"

After respectfully serving the Han envoy, the Duke of Yan planned to return to his residence and await his departure the next day to Luoyang to pay homage to the Emperor, thus becoming a carefree and legitimate mascot and spoils of war for the Han Dynasty, free from worries.
Someone pushed aside the crowd on the street, broke through Yan Gong's protection, and spat on Yan Gong's face as he was about to step into his home.

Soon, he drew his hidden dagger, intending to assassinate the man who had sold the country for a pittance.

The guards quickly stopped him.

The man was pinned to the ground, his short sword taken from him, yet he still cried out in defiance:
"The rise of the Yan state was truly remarkable."

"Now, in your hands, our ancestors have suffered such disgrace!"

"If I hadn't killed a bastard like you today, I would have died with regrets!"

After all,

He forcefully broke free of his restraints and rammed his body into the upright gatepost in front of the Yan Gong Mansion.

With a bang, he died.

Blood splattered on Yan Gong's face, startling him so much that he couldn't recover for a long time. He wiped his face with his sleeve and frantically shouted that he would tear the lowly commoner in front of him apart with five horses.

But the surrounding crowd raised their voices in protest, venting their pent-up anger at the shameless scoundrel in front of them.

Yan Gong then ignored the corpse at his doorstep and hurriedly entered the mansion.

Anyway, he's going to enjoy a life of luxury in the Han Dynasty tomorrow.
We don't need this house and courtyard!
As a result, early the next morning,

The grand carriage that Duke Yan had been eagerly awaiting had not yet arrived.
Some people gathered in front of his door and began to verbally abuse him.

Duke Yan did not want to listen to the nonsense of the lowly people and wanted to order his guards to drive them away so as not to delay his auspicious departure time.

Unfortunately, to show his subservience, he had already dismissed eight or nine out of ten of his guards, and the remaining men were no match for the troublemakers blocking the door.

then,

He could only swallow his humiliation, walk to the front of the stage, and, with a puzzled expression, ask the people surrounding his mansion:
"I was elected by the people of Yan."

"I am a representative of the people's will!"

"Submitting to the superior nation and becoming part of the Han Dynasty was also agreed upon by the people of Gantang."

"Why do you oppose this decision when the overall situation has already been decided?"

Some people burst into laughter, pointing at the Duke of Yan, whose skin was as thick as the Great Wall of Qin and Han, and said:
Whom did we elect?

"Whom do you represent, sitting in the Gantang Palace, using the names of your ancestors but not following their path?"

"We both know the truth inside!"

"Anyway, before you took office as the Duke of Yan, I had never heard of any achievements or reputation you had!"

"But I know!"

The man who shouted pointed at the Duke of Yan's luxurious mansion and said, "I know your children have long since moved to the Central Plains!"

"Your beautiful wives and concubines are already inside the Great Wall, waiting for you to use the spoils you gained from selling out your country to pamper them!"

"You shameless bastard! The Yan Kingdom stretches from the Yinghai Sea in the east to the Great Wall in the south, and extends north beyond the Xingling Mountains... Such a vast territory, and you've just hollowed it out and sold it all off!"

"How many battles did those hundreds of thousands of soldiers fight? How many times did they wield their swords?"

"You surrendered just like that, without even giving the order?"

They possessed sharp swords and sturdy armor, yet they made no use of them.

Faced with provocations from the border,
They only said things like "we must not easily provoke border conflicts" and "it is enough to protect the land and ensure the safety of the people."
Why then should we use the excuse of providing aid to the country every year to increase domestic taxes?

What use is a weapon, no matter how powerful, if it cannot be used, cannot kill enemies, and cannot spread fame or enhance national prestige?
These people who don't care about official business and don't think the country has anything to do with them are unlikely to risk harming their own interests to make the best use of resources!

After all, once the war begins,
High pressure forces many problems in junior high schools to be exposed to the light of day.
The previously stable hierarchical order will also become unstable.

With so many states and so many precedents in the Central Plains, the far-sighted rulers of Yan were unwilling to allow any "heroes of troubled times" to appear before them.

Status brings power and wealth.
Who would be willing to give it up?
In response, Duke Yan could only argue that "this was something that had been discussed beforehand," while keeping an eye on the movements on the road.

He no longer wanted to stay in the State of Yan.

The unruly people here only make him feel suffocated!
He wanted to breathe the free air of the Han people!

And on the other side,
I heard that the Duke of Yan, along with other high-ranking officials and nobles, were blocked at the gates by the people of Yan. The Han generals instructed their subordinates, "The people of Yan are in a state of great turmoil. It is a good thing for us to have these people share the burden."

"You all go and keep an eye on things nearby. As long as Lord Yan isn't killed, let them do whatever they want!"

The Duke of Yan intended to take it back to Luoyang and present it to the emperor as a war trophy, as evidence of the Han dynasty's conquest of Yan and expansion of its territory. He could not be forced to his death by the angry people like King Li of Zhou.

As for the other guys?
They don't even cherish their own country.

They don't even care about the legacy of their ancestors.

What right does he have to interfere? And so it is.
With the Han dynasty's deliberate leniency, allowing the Yan people to vent their anger and thus better accept the new rule,

The capital of Yan, Ji'an, was thrown into turmoil even more intensely than when the city surrendered.

The people know many things, but it's too late for them to change anything.

But a lose-lose situation is better than a win-lose situation.

During the summer, the people dared to shout, "When will this day end? I will perish with you!"
How could they possibly want to watch those meat-eaters drain the flesh and blood of the Yan state, only to then go to the Han dynasty to enjoy their wealth?

Then came a brief but intense period of chaos.

The residences of some Yan officials were broken into, and people cleaned up the filth inside for their owners;
Some didn't even bother to fight, and were directly met with flames.

Lord Yan hid at home, trembling with fear, and dared not curse the "troublemakers" anymore.

He simply complained:
"Why would you take out such passion on me?"

"It was clearly the Han people who invaded the land of my Yan state and overthrew the state of Yan... Why don't they fight back against the Han people?"

Upon hearing his words...

Even the ghosts and spirits who were secretly watching his disheveled and cowering appearance couldn't help but let out a sigh.

He Bo wanted to say something, but in the end he just shook his head and looked back at the chaos in the city.

Sun En, who was standing next to him, remained silent.

Only the second-generation Duke of Yan vehemently denounced the situation, then painfully pounded his chest.

His mind was filled with doubt.

Why is it that the most beautiful things often end in darkness and tragedy?

After his death, he met his ancestors from the Qin Dynasty and the Former Han Dynasty in the underworld, which deepened his understanding of the previous dynasties.

He therefore knew,
Before the end of a dynasty, regardless of the monarch or the state of affairs at the time, there will always be some loyal and righteous people who cherish the nation and its ancestral temples and choose to live and die with the country.

Why are there so few such figures in the Yan state?
The previous dynasty nurtured scholars for a hundred years,

They've been raising them for over 60 years!
How come when skyscrapers collapse, they are not even comparable to those of the Former Han Dynasty?
Even when the Qin state in the Western Sea was barely clinging to life until its last moment, some people still died for their country!

"Human nature is always difficult to explain."

Sun En patted his disciple on the shoulder to calm him down.

Subsequently,

He pulled the people away to witness the last, and only, remaining, backbone of the Yan Kingdom.

Not in Gantang Palace
Rather, it is among the common people.

As he watched, Sun En even showed a slight smile.

He told his still grieving disciples, "There is still hope in people's hearts."

"If the people of my country remain indifferent and allow the corrupt officials to squander the people's hard-earned money and let the country fall silently, then I fear I would be so heartbroken that I would be willing to be reborn as an ignorant plant, never to be involved in the world again."

but now,
Hope remains.

The disciple stared blankly at the people who were shedding tears amidst the turmoil and boundless anger. After a long silence, he nodded slightly in response to his teacher's words.

Seeing that they weren't too disappointed to the point of being consumed by anger and doing something outrageous, He Bo felt relieved.

He quietly left, leaving the State of Yan to these two true Dukes of Yan, and then went to the Western Sea and to Zhao Sheng's home.

Zhao Sheng has also become an old man.

I wonder if it's because of the long-term practice of absorbing yang energy to replenish yin.
His wife, Liu Yirong, looked much more radiant than him.

When He Bo arrived...
The couple were at home helping Zhao Yu take care of the children.

The goose that grew up with Zhao Yu hadn't reached the end of its lifespan yet, but in recent years it had lost the strength to run over cats and chase dogs.

It folded its wings and propped up its two short legs, waddling around the yard, looking just like an old man with his hands behind his back.

Zhao Yu's younger children followed behind Uncle Goose, making their father's voices:
"goose!"

"Goose--"

Upon seeing this, He Bo couldn't help but laugh, "That kid Zhao Yu still hasn't written 'Ode to the Goose'?"

Just a few sentences,
He kept it bottled up for decades.

If this continues, the geese will all die of old age!
When Zhao Yu is overcome with grief, he might be inspired to write "Ode to the Goose," and burn it as a memorial for the goose.

Zhao Sheng tried to save face for his son, saying, "When you're fighting a war, you don't have time for such romantic things."

"Are you busy?"

He Bo pointed at his bunch of grandsons and started to speak sarcastically.

Zhao Sheng simply laughed and said, "The couple is very loving and both are in good health, so there's really nothing we can do to stop them!"

At the beginning of their migration to the Jin state in the Western Sea

Zhao Yu, who had just joined the army, was appreciated by the local county official.

The other party believed that the young Zhao Yu was very capable, had a heroic and spirited demeanor, and a promising future, so they married their daughter to him.

Zhao Yu was originally not very willing,
He was spoiled by his parents and elders growing up and never wanted to wrong himself.

Moreover, with his parents' precious daughter as an example, Zhao Yu also wanted to find a woman who was perfectly compatible with him to live with.

How can we arrange marriages so casually, sacrificing our own happiness!

Otherwise, he would have married and started a family in the State of Qi long ago!

As a result, the official surnamed Zang invited him to his home for a gathering. After his daughter made an appearance, Zhao Yu immediately called out "Father-in-law" and then sent a message to his parents to ask for betrothal gifts. Not long after, he entered the bridal chamber to become the groom.

They have been married for over ten years now.

As Zhao Yu approached forty, his official rank and status rose with his military achievements, and the number of his children also increased as he spent more time with his wife.

"It's a good thing I didn't take a concubine, otherwise there would be even more women and children, and I really wouldn't know how to manage them."

Zhao Sheng and He Bo sat down facing each other, their grandson running around beside them, making noise more disruptive than string and wind instruments and more tiring than official documents.

He Bo stroked the beard he had artificially created to reflect the passage of time. "Zhao Yu's power and position are growing daily, but the situation in Jin is unpredictable... It's good that he's not adding more people to his family."

The situation in the State of Jin was similar to that of the State of Ning and the State of Di, which were separated from the Qin dynasty to the north.

The former had already been destroyed by Rome, and the city of Jade Wall was renamed "Constantinople," becoming the permanent fiefdom of the Roman crown prince.

The latter, through its chaotic and disorderly conduct, barely outlived its neighbor by two generations, but in recent years it was also seized by a military general and wiped out.

Similarly, a powerful minister usurped the throne.

Similarly, the state of Jin, whose power struggle among brothers after the death of its founding emperor still lingers today, looked to its neighboring states for guidance.
The sad discovery was that, apart from the Liang Kingdom, which went to Rongzhou to enjoy the sun, few of the other separatist regimes met a good end.

Unfortunately, it occupies a strategically important location on both sides of the river, which is easy to attack but difficult to defend, attracting many covetous eyes but few defenders.

As a result, the ministers of Jin inevitably had the idea that "the country will perish sooner or later, so we might as well have a quick and decisive end," which made the already turbulent situation even more fragmented.

Zhao Yu, an outsider, was able to rise rapidly in rank not only because of his innate superhuman strength, which enabled him to achieve numerous military exploits, but also because of the sabotage and backstabbing among the local powerful families of Jin.

When Zhao Yu was not yet forty years old, he rose to a high position and became an influential minister in the entire Jin state.

The powerful families, who were obsessed with power struggles, also realized this and wanted to form alliances with him through marriage.

Even though the couple is loving,

But there is no perfect wall in the world. If you drill too much, the gaps will inevitably become bigger, and then the air will leak in.

Zhao Yu knew what they were thinking and kept refusing.

He is currently using the war as an excuse to take his wife to the front lines, leaving his parents and children at home.

"On my way here, I heard people talking about how General Zhao Yu has the aura of a king."

What do you think of what was said?

After complaining about the lack of backbone among the Jin state's nobles, who only thought of using their daughters' marriages to win over talent and reaping the benefits of others' misfortunes...

He Bo, chewing on a date that was so sweet it tasted bitter, suddenly brought up a new topic.

(End of this chapter)