Free Web NovelChapter 1051: Chapter 252: Cursing Myself (2)
Zheng Fan had just been about to speak
when Mr. Chen directly said:
"Yes."
Zheng Fan stood up and saluted again:
"In front of you two, this junior doesn’t dare call himself ’sir’; just call me Mingzhe."
The man in the white robe smiled and said:
"No wonder Master Yao took a liking to this disciple. This composure and bearing are indeed uncommon."
One was a publicly acknowledged Chu swordsmith,
the other was himself,
the Regent Prince, who though he had not revealed his identity, knew full well that not just anyone could remain calm in his presence.
At this moment, Zheng Fan’s calm, in the Regent Prince’s eyes, was precisely what they called "the manner of a great house."
They would never have guessed that the man sitting before them was Yan’s Lord Pingye;
a great general who had once faced the Yan Emperor, the Earl of North Border, Lord Jingnan, and had long been tempered in the fires of war.
You couldn’t call them stupid for this; even Lord Zheng himself had never imagined that he’d only meant to treat Mr. Chen to a meal, then by the way fleece him a bit—have him deliver the gift and then act as his bodyguard to escort him home—and yet, as the meal went on, the Chu Regent Prince and the swordsmith had actually sat down as well.
In this little Drunken Wind Pavilion,
at this very moment,
there just happened to be room for several living Buddhas at once.
Zheng Fan reached out and pushed the letter Mr. Chen had earlier taken out and set on the table over to the Regent Prince, saying:
"This is a letter my master had this junior deliver."
The Regent Prince held out his hand,
and the swordsmith took a kerchief from his sleeve and passed it over, letting the Regent Prince wipe his hands first.
Then the Regent Prince carefully opened the envelope and took out the first sheet inside. It was a ci poem, describing the scene when Yao Zizhan, having accepted a commission by imperial decree to go serve as Qian’s Governor-General of the Three Frontiers, led eight hundred cavalry out of the city to hunt.
The upper stanza of the poem wrote of the grand spectacle of all the various forces riding close in attendance as the Governor-General went hunting,
while the lower stanza expressed a lofty wish: he refused to admit old age and still yearned to carve out new deeds and achievements.
The whole poem was bold and magnificent.
"Fine lines, truly fine lines."
After reading the poem, the Regent Prince passed this sheet over to the swordsmith at his side.
The swordsmith accepted it, glanced through it, and couldn’t help but chuckle:
"The poem is indeed good, but Master Yao has studied all his life and doesn’t know a thing about war. He’s every inch a great man of letters—obviously not adept at such matters, yet still able to write with such fiery, heroic passion."
As soon as he finished, the swordsmith seemed to realize that Yao Zizhan’s disciple was also sitting here, and he hurriedly waved his hand:
"That was indiscreet, indiscreet. Little Mister Mingzhe, do not take it to heart."
With the swordsmith’s status, even sitting with Yao Zizhan himself, he could still joke around and poke fun at him as an equal.
But to mock a man’s master right in front of his disciple—how was the disciple supposed to take that?
Yet,
Zheng Fan merely smiled, nodded, and very freely said:
"My master says the same. Master says: everyday life is everyday life, poetry and song are poetry and song. Because our days are a bit too bland, we need poetry and song as seasoning for life;
but if you really start living life as if it were poetry and song, then you have things backwards. I’ve never heard of anyone who could live by eating only salt and not rice."
On hearing this, the Regent Prince nodded and said, "I’ve always admired Master Yao’s state of mind and his ease of spirit."
The swordsmith said, "That does sound like something that old fellow would say."
"Master also said that although the Emperor has him sitting in the Governor-General’s seat over the Three Frontiers, what he’s really meant to do is just play the mediator—pull everyone to the same table to talk. Master says he doesn’t understand war, so he has no intention of pointing fingers in military affairs."
The swordsmith sighed at this and said, "He really does know how to live clearly."
The Regent Prince, however, said, "That is learning from the past. As it’s told, when the Yan Army marched into Qian and reached the walls of the imperial capital, a Yan envoy entered the city to meet your Qian Emperor;
that envoy said to your Emperor’s face that he knew nothing of war;
this enraged your Emperor,
who immediately ordered the Three Frontiers armies not to return and reinforce;
yet in the end, it allowed the Yan people, with just over sixty thousand cavalry, to pin down the entirety of Qian’s forces, so that Yan’s main force of three hundred thousand iron horse could calmly borrow the road through Qian to enter Jin."
Zheng Fan immediately put on a solemn expression and said:
"One can only say the Yan people fought that campaign too well."
The Regent Prince shook his head and said, "It was your Qian people who cooperated too well."
As the Chu Regent Prince, in effect the de facto "Chu Emperor" of this generation, he naturally had no need to restrain his tongue; after all, his status was on par with the Yan Emperor and Qian Emperor.
The swordsmith said, "That envoy was the current Yan Lord Pingye, wasn’t he?"
Zheng Fan responded at once: "Yes, his name is Zheng Fan."
The swordsmith couldn’t help but gloat:
"I’d wager your Emperor regrets it now. Back then he thought the man was just a glib envoy, let him safely into the city and safely out again;
though ever since Xia there’s been a rule not to behead envoys during war, in my view, that Zheng fellow should have been chopped, had to be chopped—no, he was worth chopping.
Yan now has a Tian Wujing in his prime;
best not let it come to pass that when Tian Wujing is gone, a Zheng Fan walks out to take over his mantle.
For this kind of commander talent, the fewer in an enemy state, the better."
The Regent Prince also nodded and said: "This Zheng Fan has the look of one who can wield both brush and sword. A man capable of authoring the ’Zheng Zi Art of War’ will, in time, surely become a Confucian marshal of his era.
Give him another ten years, and he will undoubtedly take up Tian Wujing’s banner and become a great threat to my Chu and Qian both.
A pity—such a general talent, yet he is a Yan man. If only he were one of us Chu people, how fine that would be."
