Han Qian was just about to cast aside the perplexing situation in Jinling that was beyond his reach when he suddenly heard the sound of hoofbeats as urgent as a sudden rainstorm, thundering out from a side alley as if hundreds of swift cavalry were charging forth without warning, intent on savagely attacking and tearing them to pieces.
The hoofbeats rose so urgently, so rapidly, and with such murderous intent that even Xi Ren’s face changed in alarm. Like a nimble leopard, she half-crouched in the carriage compartment, lifted her skirt, and drew from the sheath on her outer thigh a sharp dagger over a foot long, staring out the carriage window while listening intently to the distant commotion.
The Shu state and Chu state wished to form a matrimonial alliance, but they had not yet broken with the Liang state. In particular, the Shu Lord Wang Jian had always chosen to acknowledge Liang’s suzerainty, which allowed the Liang state to conceal large numbers of elite troops within the Shu capital.
Yang En’s previous mission to Shu had suffered three assassination attempts. Han Qian’s current mission to Shu would elevate Chu-Shu cooperation to an entirely new level, so there was no reason to believe that Liang scouts would remain inactive this time. However, if Liang scouts were assembling cavalry to attack them in broad daylight within the Shu capital, it would be utterly astounding.
The dozens of ceremonial guards that Minister of the Court of State Ceremonial Wei Qun had brought out to receive them had grown accustomed to lives of ease and privilege. At this moment, they were all somewhat panicked, not knowing what was happening or how to respond.
Yang Qin and Zhou Chu had remained outside the city to watch over the warships, cargo, and the main force of soldiers. Zhao Wuji had also not entered the city before being dispatched back by Han Qian. Feng Yi reined in his horse in some alarm, but Xi Fa’er, Kong Xirong, and Guo Que immediately ordered their retainers to spread out left and right. In groups of twenty men, within just a few breaths, they formed three wedge-shaped small formations on the main imperial avenue that ran from the south city gate straight to the palace city of the Shu capital—an avenue nearly a hundred paces wide—protecting the carriages carrying Han Qian, Guo Rong, Long Xiang Marquis Wang Yong, and Minister of State Ceremonial Wei Qun in their center.
At the same time, twenty armored soldiers moved forward to the open space at the alley entrance, planting twenty iron shields in the ground and mounting spears and halberds on them to form an anti-cavalry barrier formation, while the men themselves retreated a dozen paces holding swords and bows at the ready.
Han Qian looked calmly toward the Long Xiang Marquis and Minister of State Ceremonial Wei Qun. He didn’t believe that Liang scouts would dare to so openly assassinate him on the Shu capital’s imperial avenue—that would force the Shu Lord Wang Jian to break with the Liang state, wouldn’t it?
However, seeing that both Wang Yong and Wei Qun’s faces also showed alarm and suspicion, they clearly didn’t know who these arrivals were either, that they would dare to charge their carriage convoy in such circumstances.
“Halt!”
Han Qian soon saw dozens of black cavalry rolling out from the alley entrance several zhang wide like a black tidal wave. By their momentum, they seemed ready to trample without hesitation through the simple anti-cavalry barrier formation the retainers had set up ahead, but following a deep, resonant shout, these dozens of black-armored cavalry came to an abrupt halt in the blink of an eye.
The warhorses snorted loudly, exhaling white mist from their mouths and nostrils. The cavalry on their backs had their faces concealed behind black face armor, appearing all the more murderous.
The Shu Lord Wang Jian had inherited the legacy of the previous dynasty’s Divine Strategy Army and commanded large numbers of cavalry. However, for dozens of black cavalry to complete the transition from thunderous charge to motionless as statues in an instant was clearly something ordinary cavalry could not accomplish.
Seeing that the cavalry had not charged forward to attack, Han Qian sat quietly in the carriage compartment. Through a layer of gauze curtain, he watched as the leader—a handsome youth in white robes and silver armor who appeared no more than twenty-three or twenty-four years old—rested a jet-black war halberd across his knees and scrutinized their side with considerable interest.
“Xiaoxian, what is the meaning of this?” Long Xiang Marquis Wang Yong pulled aside the curtain and stood at the front of the carriage, staring at the silver-armored youth as he demanded an explanation.
Wang Xiaoxian?
“So it is His Highness Marquis Wei! Han Qian was timid and acted rashly—Marquis Wei must find this amusing!” At this moment, Han Qian also stepped out of the carriage and clasped his hands in salute toward Wang Xiaoxian, the fourth son of the Shu Lord Wang Jian and also the full brother of the Shu Heir Apparent Wang Hongyi. At the same time, he signaled Kong Xirong, Guo Que, and Xi Fa’er to have their household troops and retainers withdraw.
After the Liang state occupied the Guanzhong region, Prince Yong of Liang, Zhu Yu, had only been painstakingly managing it for just over two years. Relations between Shu and Liang had not yet ruptured, but in recent years Shu had experienced considerable warfare to consolidate its rule in southern and western Sichuan and to resist the southward invasion of the Pacification Army, which was primarily composed of Western Qiang forces.
The fourth son Wang Xiaoxian, who had been enfeoffed by the Shu Lord Wang Jian at age thirteen as Marquis Wei and General Who Pacifies the Qiang, was two or three years younger than the Long Xiang Marquis. Yet he had displayed exceptional martial prowess from youth, with few in Shu able to match him. He also enjoyed reading military texts, and in recent years had led the Black Cloud Cavalry—a three-thousand-man guard force specially authorized by the Shu Lord Wang Jian—in campaigns north and south, establishing many illustrious military achievements.
Now seeing Marquis Wei Wang Xiaoxian like a finely honed war halberd with his edge fully exposed, Han Qian smiled inwardly, secretly feeling that the rumors were indeed true. However, he wondered whether Marquis Wei Wang Xiaoxian giving them this show of force on their first day entering the Shu capital was at the instigation of the Shu Heir Apparent and Marquis of Qingjiang, Wang Hongyi.
Wang Xiaoxian studied Han Qian for several moments, then examined the nearly one hundred Han family retainers who had withdrawn to both sides of the carriage convoy. Han Qian and the retainers around him had clearly not been frightened into losing all composure, which left him somewhat disappointed.
Although a considerable portion of Han Qian’s newly organized three hundred household troops and retainers had been selected from the children of granted slaves, the true core still consisted primarily of elite troops with backgrounds as convict soldiers, stockade soldiers, and even Xi clan indentured laborers.
For this mission to Shu, Han Qian also knew it could not go entirely smoothly. Among the retainers he had brought, only a small portion were newly hired granted slave children with greater potential for cultivation—the rest were almost all veteran elite soldiers who had followed Han Qian through the Jingxiang campaign and the campaign to reduce the regional governors’ power.
Though the hundred-plus Black Cloud Cavalry around Marquis Wei were extremely elite, the retainers around Han Qian were absolutely not inferior. In fact, in just the few dozen breaths moments ago, Xi Fa’er and Kong Xirong had already led men to assemble six ballistas halfway to completion.
Wang Xiaoxian ignored Han Qian and Long Xiang Marquis Wang Yong, instead looking coolly at Minister of State Ceremonial Wei Qun: “Minister Wei, Han Qian may indeed be an honored wedding envoy, but does that allow them to bring these enemy-slaying weapons into the city?”
Wei Qun looked somewhat awkwardly at the retainers around Han Qian, who were methodically disassembling the six partially assembled ballistas back into component parts and packing them into boxes.
As a matter of protocol, allowing Han Qian to bring nearly a hundred fully armed guards into the city was already treating him with extreme courtesy—there was no way they could also permit Han Qian to bring in heavy weapons like ballistas. However, he had not previously noticed that ballistas could be so conveniently and quickly disassembled, and that once disassembled they looked so inconspicuous packed in wooden boxes, so he had not specifically mentioned it.
However, having said that, with Marquis Wei inexplicably staging this scene, he shouldn’t really have any grounds to question Han Qian about secretly bringing heavy ballista weapons into the city, should he?
“These six ballistas are gifts that His Highness the Prince of Tan specifically ordered Han Qian to present to the Shu Lord. If we don’t bring them into the city, how can we present them before the Shu Lord?” Han Qian asked with a smile. “If Marquis Wei feels that presenting such gifts is improper etiquette, I will immediately have someone transport them out of the city.”
Ballistas weighing several hundred jin had tremendous power. Making them disassemblable seemed easy, but given the material strength of the current age, particularly for the bow arm components, maintaining sufficient tension in the bow arms after disassembly and reassembly was extremely difficult.
At the same time, heavy weapons like ballistas were mostly equipped by elite troops and normally had no need for concealment.
Therefore, no one in the contemporary manufacture of weapons and armor had yet thought of making disassemblable ballistas.
However, if ballistas could be disassembled and assembled, Marquis Wei Wang Xiaoxian—with his several years of military experience leading troops in charges and assaults—would have no difficulty imagining the many advantages of such disassemblable ballistas.
Of course, just six current disassemblable ballistas were nothing special—after all, even the best weapons would wear out after limited use.
“Besides these six ballistas, His Highness the Prince of Tan also originally ordered Han Qian to present the designs for the whirlwind catapult,” Han Qian continued calmly. “Since Marquis Wei feels these gifts are somewhat presumptuous to present to the Shu state, then Han Qian will naturally remove them from the gift list…”
Not only the Liang state but even the Ma family had mastered the manufacturing technology for whirlwind catapults. In Han Qian’s view, there was no need to maintain strict technical secrecy from the Shu state. Moreover, if they hoped the Shu state could contain the Liang army’s offensive in Hanzhong and Liangzhou, the Shu army being too weak would not do.
Furthermore, to obtain some substantive benefits from this trip, if they couldn’t produce something sufficiently impressive and merely relied on secretly bribing Shu officials, they would be completely underestimating the Shu Lord Wang Jian.
At this moment, Marquis Wei Wang Xiaoxian’s handsome face stiffened somewhat.
Although he had not personally witnessed the Jingxiang battlefield, he was still clear in his heart about how Prince of Tan Yang Yuanpu of Chu, with Han Qian’s assistance, had held Xichuan city, causing Prince Yong of Liang to suffer losses and return without success, as well as the pivotal position of the Battle of Xichuan in the entire Jingxiang campaign.
The whirlwind catapult had emerged during the bloody battle of Xichuan. It had been created by the Chu army’s craftsmen battalion that Han Qian had led at the time and had played an extremely important role in the city defense battle.
The “Treatise on Epidemic Waters” written by Xuzhou Magistrate Han Daoxun had also spread in recent years, giving the outside world more reason to speculate that the whirlwind catapult was most likely Han Daoxun’s creation, and that Han Qian had repeatedly achieved extraordinary accomplishments due to his family’s scholarly tradition.
Although the Shu Lord Wang Jian had also ordered the relevant officials to replicate the whirlwind catapult and other weapons, the Shu craftsmen had never seen the actual design of the whirlwind catapult. Relying only on a few scattered rumors about the whirlwind catapult, how could they possibly replicate it?
At this moment, Marquis Wei Wang Xiaoxian could not possibly say the whirlwind catapult was useless to the Shu state, nor could he pursue the matter of Han Qian bringing ballistas into the city.
Of course, Wang Xiaoxian could not possibly yield to Han Qian either. He merely gave a cold snort, turned his horse’s head, and disappeared into the alley entrance without a word. As the hundred-plus black cavalry receded like a tide, it was as if the earlier episode had never occurred.
“Fourth Brother made a scene in the street—his temperament is perverse. He has disturbed the state envoy, and when I see Father I will certainly impeach him. Please, Lord Han, do not take it to heart!” Long Xiang Marquis Wang Yong apologized. His eyes lingered on those boxes containing ballista components. He had absolutely not expected that Third Prince Yang Yuanpu would agree to present the manufacturing technology for whirlwind catapults as part of the betrothal gifts to the Shu state.
“How could I possibly presume to take it to heart? As for removing the whirlwind catapult designs from the gift list—that was just something I said casually. It couldn’t really intimidate Marquis Wei. But if Han were to say that the whirlwind catapult designs were something the Marquis strove greatly with His Highness to obtain, it would make Marquis Wei somewhat displeased, wouldn’t it?” Han Qian smiled slightly and asked Long Xiang Marquis Wang Yong.
As the wedding envoy, his main objective for this journey was still to smoothly escort Princess Qing Yang back so that Chu-Shu cooperation could deepen.
Otherwise, it would be a demonstration of his incompetence, and no matter what, it would be difficult to explain upon returning to Great Chu.
Therefore, no matter how much he wanted to be willful, his latitude was quite limited. More importantly, he needed to exploit the contradictions between Shu generals and among the various sons of the Shu Lord.
However, although Long Xiang Marquis Wang Yong knew Han Qian harbored ill intent, hearing him say this, he couldn’t help but feel somewhat tempted.
With his mother consort having died early, although Qing Yang remained favored as before, he had long since left the palace to establish his own household. He saw his father only a few times each year, so their emotional bond had naturally grown thin.
On one hand, he lacked support from his maternal clan; on the other, he was wary of the Qingjiang Marquis’s suspicions. Ordinarily, besides devoting himself to poetry and Buddhist matters, he had no achievements in military or political affairs, which had made him increasingly unfavored by his father.
He knew his father placed great importance on the Chu army’s performance in the Jingxiang campaign and had always guarded against the Liang army possibly preparing to attack the Shu state at any moment. If he could truly claim credit for obtaining the whirlwind catapult designs, he could to some extent improve his father’s view of him.
Of course, if he bit the hook too easily, he would likely be looked down upon, wouldn’t he?