The Three Leaps of Wang Lun

by Alfred Doblin

  The three chief leaders—Wang Lun, Ngo, Yellow Bell—came quickly together. Wang raged against his troops. Not a few of his adherents were beheaded along the way, found guilty of spreading panic. All the heat of his rage was directed at the defeated troops. It was due only to his granite nature that just two days later the army was proceeding in close order towards the northeast, directly towards the approaching Chao Hui. Six thousand men under Ngo remained as rearguard. Contact was maintained with irregular bands; they were brought around to methodical plundering and assaults.

  Chao Hui declined all support from the provincial army. At news of the defeat of the insurrectionaries in Peking he rounded up all his remaining available manpower.

  In the thunder and lightning of the summer’s first storm, ten scorching days after the flight from Peking, the armies met on the hills of Yingp’ing. The snorting and maneshaking grunts in the sky, the baring of teeth, whipping of tails, rolling of eyes went unobserved from the flat hilltop. From the black air a giant gong hung above the armies on an invisible cord; its beats incited. Two white panthers leapt past each other. The soldiers of Ili gave themselves to the delights of a sated blood thirst. The sectarians yielded to the embrace of their bitterest foes, cracked their spines.

  Chao Hui swayed on his grey horse, up on the hill. Wang Lun rolled his wheel along the road, milled his corn. Then the blackness of heaven was ripped asunder, hailstones pelted from the gash, danced on skulls. The Truly Powerless fought in the dazzling chaos of the storm with icy calm. No wound troubled them. It was all the same if they lived or died. The flames of the Ili soldiers failed to eat through, began to smoulder, to flicker. No furious assault followed from the rebels; calmly, not so much impetuous as impelled by involuntary necessity, they overwhelmed the enemy.

  As Chao Hui turned back with his devastated soldiers the rebels, drawn on, dogged his heels. Both fleeing. Running from the field, leaving the broken men, ox wagons, unmuscled swords and clubs, as if it were stinking ichor.

  The defeated Imperial general barricaded himself in the town of Shanhaikwan.

  Yellow Bell and Wang Lun rode around the western, inland section of the town.

  The general’s red palace flashed like an erect halberd; to the south the grey memorial arch splayed its legs; the inscriptions on its brow boasted of victories over Mongol princes of old.

  From the higher ground beyond the town the slime-yellow sea could be seen; white sails of junks preened themselves on the water. The town slid into the sea: it sprinkled the rivermouth and the sheltered coast with houseboats. If not for the yardthick wall with its watchtowers, this rockhard gnashing jawbone of the town, the rebels would be able to chase the Imperial troops into the sea with one thrust.

  Yellow Bell looked dreamily at the grey roofs on which weak sunlight played. He recalled that night when the full moon shone and they had stood at the edge of a copse by a ruined town. The tables were turned. How long now till these walls met their fate?

  Wang touched his arm. If it was up to him, the town would soon be taken. But how strong and precious had the brothers and sisters been in the Mongolian town, how strong!

  “Do you know, Yellow Bell, what Fate looks like? Like a corpse. She won’t be spoken to, or comforted, or angered. You can wave cloths to her soul in gardens, on roofs, outside the door, in the yard.

  “How many now are still alive of the brothers from Nank’ou? I don’t think the earth has ever taken so quickly so many splendid warriors; the land smells sweet with their spirits. And I am left, and I’m to lead to victory. And what is it I do now, on and on? Devour, sate the ground with precious bodies, behind Hochien, in Peking, at Yingp’ing. They didn’t want to take me with them. Sacrifices pile up before me, I’m a corpse already that the ground refuses to snatch, so as to keep me away from those so dearly sacrificed. And so I shall tear around the earth a while longer; the name Wang Lun will resound like the name of a demon from Hell; I’ll fall asleep somewhere, sometime, and not know why it all happened.”

  They dismounted in a copse of elms, tethered their horses, sat on moss.

  Yellow Bell, his expression pained, stroked Wang’s shoulder. “What is this? What is this?”

  “We must conquer the empire for ourselves. We must set up the Ming emperors, who shall be our emperors. It can’t come to pass that it was all for nothing. Ma No said his brothers and sisters were forged together into a ring; he didn’t want to save himself from me. And I say the same. We can’t let this be torn from us, not through any defeat: we must set up the empire of the Mings. This buzzes through and through me. I hold fast to this rod of iron: the Way is foreordained; it has nothing to do with me.”

  “What do you mean, Wang Lun: it has nothing to do with you?”

  Wang turned mysteriously to the tall officer. “There’s a difference between you and me. I am the soil in which the Wu-wei grew, that took part of my soul from me. Earlier I believed I had to prepare a lovely, thriving, gentle home for the Wu-wei among the people of Chihli, ran here and there with Yellow Leaper. Now Wu-wei has acquired a voice and a resonant throat of its own, whispers clearly that it was a spirit of my body and I should give it shelter and a resting place in me. It laughs at me, as Ma No used to laugh. Oh, Ma No, who instructed me on Nank’ou about the mild guiding Buddhas, is so often with me. Now, dear brother, everything is pointing at me and has such a strange tormented look. My wife sits in the Lower Reaches and doesn’t mourn me; but my son that I produced without a wife, my Wu-wei, whimpers for me. You know what I’m trying to say. My son is whimpering. I must protect the brothers and sisters as I’ve always done. We have to set up the empire of the Ming.…”

  The officer looked askance without bringing himself to an answer, then: “You’re different from Ma No, quite different. My brother Wang Lun follows a good path with fear and counterfear. Yellow Bell hasn’t experienced much of Wang Lun’s hard fate. Yellow Bell thinks one should be bold, should challenge the world. We are children of the Hundred Surnames. I too say: what has it to do with me? We must dean our house, dear brother Wang, so that it goes well with us.”

  Wang gently touched his hand. “Let’s move on, brother. Since I came up from the Lower Reaches I’ve been ridiculously confused. I know only that I was born in Hunkang-ts’un, have such strong bones and such a mouth; otherwise I know nothing of myself. Once I knew a Mohammedan and a priest. They were my companions once. You mustn’t pay so much attention to what I say. Ngo shook his head too.”

  They rode almost to within bowshot of the wall, where soldiers of the besieged army were patrolling. They could see over the wall, make out packed streets, distinguish idling gangs of soldiers among the hawkers in the markets. Wang Lun’s horse frisked; on the rider’s face appeared a pleased curiosity; the cunning eyes dissected the distant tiny groups. At a shout from Yellow Bell he pulled the horse about; the patrolling soldiers had drawn their bows. They galloped on around the town.

  All Wang’s torment evaporated in a flash. He cancelled Ma No and the Broken Melon in the Mongolian town as with a slash through a failed calculation. He had followed Ma No, who without him put into practice all the teaching of Wu-wei. In excitement and horror Wang observed its progress and its end. It was his duty to bring to a conclusion this affair, which was in fact his own affair; no baseness should snarl its way into the death of this dream. In a spirit of vengeance he still carried his sword around, ran murderous from the bloody field, but in his heart he knew already there was nothing to avenge, there was no enemy here against whom he could raise his sword, because everything had to end like this.

  And when Ngo told him the story of Ma No’s death, with one savage tug revenge was laid bare: he was overcome, annihilated, throttled more foully than the T’ouszu. Disgust came: the whole Wu-wei was finished! Complete seclusion in the Lower Reaches beckoned, a few months of commandeered rest; the peasant in Wang came slowly to the fore. Meanwhile in Chihli his teaching gnawed about itself. He couldn’t stay deaf and blind for long, sha
ke off his past like dust; his rage against the Emperor uncorked him again. The Wu-wei, though hurtling down the road, was his own dearest creation. Half pushed he came back; the tempestuous movement blew him along with it. Often he didn’t know what he should do, thought how easy nonresistance would be and saw himself in an endless, hopeless slaying. He couldn’t find himself. Looking over the wall of Shanhaikwan he saw the lively bustle of the marketplaces, streets: a joyful excitement flashed through him; decisions, an unfounded urge were hoist up within him: “Into the place! Into it, without weapons.” He didn’t know that it was the image of Chinan-fu there before him, that he was sweating Wu-wei from every pore. Endure, endure, suffer, bear! Don’t fight back! Su-ko! For the first time he loved life again. Whooping he raised his arms towards the town. With a feeling of weakness he wanted once again to be the town fool.

  The army of the league had completely abandoned its initial division into two parts. The brotherhood of arms bound the White Waterlily and the Truly Powerless indissolubly together. These strong men and women ran, struck tents, pushed ration wagons, wielded dubs and swords; black banners flapped; they had no eyes for anything more distant. Victory must be theirs, the Manchu driven out, golden Mings back on the throne. The Truly Powerless differed in no way from the secret society, except that they were prouder, in battle behaved like berserkers, in camp fought dangerous bouts for sport by twos or fours, made a show of menacing confidence.

  They camped in a wide semicircle around Shanhaikwan, rested from their latest battles, awaited reinforcements that were on the march from Shantung and Kansu. From Chihli and the neighbouring provinces there were reports of provincial armies mobilizing.

  Newcomers claimed to know that provincial troops had grown to enormous numbers. Every piece of intelligence was greeted with laughter and delight.

  At news of the spreading rebellion two men came trekking in from Nanking claiming to be descended from the Ming imperial line. They reached the rebels the day after their defeat in Peking, fought at once with great bravado in the clash with Chao Hui. They were cousins, the elder a peasant in his fifties, the younger perhaps in his twenties. They stood out through their gravity ~md an amiable, indisputably distinguished demeanour. Of course they could support their claim only by tales of a very fanciful kind, found general credence.

  Returning from his ride around the town, Wang asked the younger of the Ming cousins whether he was married. He was not. Wang studied the delicate, deeptanned boy, suggested that he might like to consider marrying. The slender fellow turned his long face away, smiling: he rejoiced at Wang’s friendly manner; he had kept a little box of candied dates for Wang, and they would have nice times together. Wang seconded that, and where had he got the dates from? Sucking and spitting in front of a tent they looked contentedly at one another. It was a long time since he’d tasted dates like these, thought Wang; the last time in Shantung, long ago now. In Poshan once he’d been invited to the house of a merchant, a leader of the White Waterlily; he’d had to eat lots of them there and enjoyed himself. Yes, replied the Ming, they were quite rare in this region, especially now. Was he really not married, continued Wang. Marrying in wartime was a sign of great prudence; for you might have a son and then you’d die happier. Now, he didn’t need to look at him like that. Straight to the point: would the young Ming like to marry the daughter of general Chao Hui? If he wanted to, he had only to give the nod; Wang would play matchmaker.

  The young fellow bowed very gravely to Wang; he didn’t want to harm Wang, but he didn’t deserve to be made fun of; he set no store by his Ming ancestry these days. Wang repeated unruffled: it was all so clear and simple, if Chao Hui gave away his daughter it would mean the general was won over. If he didn’t give her away—well then, they’d see. The Mings shouldn’t show themselves hostile: disarm with peace offerings, think diplomatically. Confused, blushing, the Ming stammered something. Anyhow, said Wang firmly, before they set about cooking the millet it was all settled that he, the Ming, being unbetrothed, had entrusted Wang with the matchmaking. He must now write down his birthday, year, month, hour, for the eventual horoscopes.

  There were adherents of the sectarians in the town. The besiegers tried to establish contact with them. Their initial efforts to despatch information and assignations on scraps of paper in hollowed lances came to nought. Either the messages did not arrive or they went to the wrong address: every failed attempt added to the work of the brothers inside. More promising was the sea route.

  Two days after the siege began, a great fleet of well manned ships arrived off the town from the south. The besiegers, at first jubilant because the sailors did not wear Imperial uniform but were clearly pirates, were severely disappointed at their first approach. The rebels’ junks were simply rammed by two of the great ships. They were pirates hired by the Tsungtu of Chihli, their leader rewarded in advance with a peacock’s feather from the Emperor. They sat proud in the water, captured suspicious boats, extorted money from the town and settlements along the coast and patronised Chao Hui.

  Wang Lun went with fifty of his boldest followers into one of these coastal villages. He told his men they’d open the town gates from within. Well armed they approached the fishing village where the crews of three great ships were lying. Noisily they emerged from a lane into the main street that crept past eroded dunes. The surprised pirates in straw hats and woven straw cloaks came from the houses into the street. Wang climbed up to a tavern with a crowd in front of it, asked who the ships out there belonged to.

  One of them, about Wang’s size but probably not their leader, pushed to the fore and said it was none of Wang’s business. Wang knocked his wide straw hat off: he shouldn’t talk like that; if the ownership of the vessels was unclear, then he and his companions would take them. The pirates roared cheerfully: to be sure they had no owners, but meanwhile they belonged to them, and they weren’t about to give them up.

  Then he was quite satisfied, said Wang. He’d only wanted to know, that was all. But had they seen any smaller ships anywhere, sailing junks, that might be taken? He and his friends wanted to go to sea, since there was nothing doing on land.

  The pirates agreed with that; regarding the newcomers with the smugness of possession said mockingly: to be sure there were junks ready for the finding; they were spry looking lads, doubtless good swimmers all. During the recent hailstorm sixty small junks and five big ships had been taken, six li offshore. They’d be easy to get hold of, they didn’t belong to anyone now and were splendidly fitted out. If they knew how to dive they couldn’t miss the boats; they were over that way, south by east.

  Wang found this advice extraordinary; he’d take good note of such precise directions. Of course his comrades, like himself, were too little used to the water to indulge in such strenuous diving practice right away. Since according to their description the matter was so simple they could all get something out of it. He and his companions would take over the ships out there (as landlubbers they were better suited to such work), while they could swim beside the ships. He’d be sure to lead them to the exact spot, six li offshore, where the sixty small junks and five big ships were waiting.

  Silence and whispering among the pirates, quizzical looks on both sides. The beach was empty, the sailors crowded in front of the tavern. They saw the strangers’ axes, daggers, bows.

  As they kept silent, Wang said they should think the matter over quietly. Meanwhile he’d go down to the beach with his gang and take a look at the ships.

  After some toing and froing among the stocky men who seemed to be the leaders, one of them with a hare lip came up to Wang and asked politely who they were. A regretful smile played on the impassive face of the stranger: he could smite his breast for forgetting such basic manners. You picked up such uncouth habits on the highways. They came from various villages of north Shantung, had joined forces so as to break through to a more fertile country; nothing had gone their way; near Peking they’d been forced to merge with the rebels but had
been defeated, had eaten dogrice for a couple of days in the College of Great Humanity in Peking, now wanted to try their luck at sea.

  And why were they so heavily armed.

  So as not to have to beg any more.

  After this exchange the interlocutors stepped back with deep bows. Wang’s people barred the street on both sides; the situation for the pirates was hopeless.

  Then they came to Wang with a proposal, urging him and several others into the tavern. They said they’d been hired by the Emperor with their ships for the defence of Shanhaikwan. Perhaps the strangers would like to join them and earn good Imperial pay.

  Wang expressed willingness, if the pay was high enough for him and his people.

  Certainly: every man would get two taels for two months’ work.

  The strangers conferred among themselves. Their leader replied that it wasn’t enough. Apart from that, what security would be given. As soon as they reached harbour they’d be jeered at and set ashore.

  After much haggling, agreement was reached. The armed strangers take over two ships as security, the third ship sails into harbour, fetches back half the money, whereupon they all approach the town. If the third ship comes back with police, it counts as treachery and will be avenged on the crews of the other two ships.

  The plan was put into action. Wang got the money, they boarded the ships, anchored off the town. When they disembarked at the pirates’ invitation the adventure came to a swift end, for behind their boats echoed the mocking laughter of the sailors, whose trick had succeeded. The ships, putting back to sea with the others, were lost to Wang and his men.

  Wang and several companions went into the town, complaining for the other half of their money. The mandarins turned him away: such contracts had no legal force, there was no way to arrest the pirates, for the present they were friends of the Son of Heaven. He unearthed his followers in the town, changed his clothing, strolled in the markets and streets. Several days were taken up with loitering, visiting temples, listening to gossip, haggling with pipesellers, lounging in teahouses. It was fine fresh summer weather. He paid no attention to his companions during these days. Then he gathered them all at the house of a prison warder: his intention was to stir up incidents in the town leading to revolts, and then they’d see how it went.