The Warring States, Books 1-3

by Greg Strandberg

  “What are you doing here?” Pang continued as he looked up at Sun. His voice was still full of surprise and happiness, but Hui could see that confusion was beginning to creep into his eyes. “How is Guiguzi?”

  Sun shook his head and Pang lowered his arms back to his sides. Hui slowly moved out from behind the table so that he could get a better look at both men’s faces, his headache and anger suddenly forgotten in the strange reunion.

  “He didn’t make it through the past winter,” Sun said quietly. “He went to Shangdi peacefully one night in his sleep.”

  Pang looked down at the floor, his face ashen. Whoever this Guiguzi was, he must have meant a lot to Pang, Hui thought as he looked at his friend and general. In all of the years he’d known Pang he’d never seen him look so shaken. It was now Sun that put his hands onto Pang’s shoulders, offering reassurance instead of a warm welcome.

  “He was the only father that either of us had,” Sun said softly, and Hui saw Pang nod. “He spoke of you fondly toward the end.”

  Pang looked up into Sun’s eyes at that last comment and Hui saw that Pang’s eyes were red-rimmed with tears. This was a side of Pang that Hui had never seen, and the sight both intrigued him and filled him with unease. His general was a cold and unmerciful man, this sudden display of emotion wholly out of character. Pang Juan cared for no one and nothing, save for a small amount of allegiance to his adopted State of Wei. Hui had never considered Pang’s past before, taking at a given when he had been told that Pang’s family was dead and that he had never known them. Even Pang’s home state wasn’t quite clear. Now to see that the man actually had a past, with someone named Guiguzi and this man Sun Bin, well, it was all a bit much. Hui felt his headache returning.

  Pang shook his head slowly as he looked at Sun, confusion again in his eyes. “But what are you doing here in Lu, at the Wei Army camp, and meeting with Hui?”

  Sun turned back to look at Hui, who was now standing at the side of the table. “I’m here to elicit support for Wey in their upcoming struggles against Zhao. Unfortunately I’ve been told just now that that support will not be given.”

  “You want Wei to support Wey against Zhao?” There was surprise in Pang’s voice as he looked at Sun. “Surely, Sun, you realize that’s a lost cause? If Zhao were not to attack Wey than some other larger state would. All of the small states are being swallowed by the larger.”

  “And soon they’ll have to begin chewing on each other when there’s no more small states to satisfy their hunger,” Sun said firmly as he stepped back and looked at both men. “Will Wei be the first to take that bite, or will they wait to have it taken from them by another?”

  “To strike first would be madness and would ensure a quick demise when all the other states rise up with their combined forces to strike down the transgressor,” Hui said.

  “So you do not deny that it will come to open warfare between the Seven States,” Sun said more than asked.

  Hui was about to offer a rebuttal but smiled instead. “I can tell that you’re an educated man, Sun Bin, and perhaps you mean to trap me into some slip of the tongue. But I assure you, it’ll be of no consequence. Anything I could say here today that you may or may not construe as support for Wey will mean nothing. My father in Anyi is the man that makes the final decisions on what the Wei Army does or does not do.”

  “Then I have come to see the wrong man,” Sun said icily. “I apologize for wasting your time and bid you success in your endeavors in Lu.”

  Hui nodded and Sun turned toward the tent flap. Pang looked at Sun’s back and then to Hui, who only shrugged.

  “Sun, wait,” Pang said as he began following, but Sun had reached the tent flap and was already stepping outside. Bright sunlight again flooded into the tent and struck Hui full in the face. He groaned and shielded his eyes as Pang fled after his friend.

  Sun’s strides were purposeful as he made his way to the perimeter of the camp and it took several running steps for Pang to reach his side.

  “You tell me that our mentor has died and then barely hide your contempt for the Heir of Wei as you insult him, and then don’t even bother to say goodbye to me?” Pang gasped.

  “Goodbye Pang,” Sun said as he kept up his brisk pace, not even turning his head.

  Pang chuckled. “Sun, please. I’m not sure why you came here seeking an audience with Hui, but why don’t we sit down and talk about it.”

  “I must be back on the road to Wey.”

  “So you’re serving Wey now, is that it?”

  “Not in an official capacity,” Sun replied as he turned down a narrow path between the hundreds of tents around them.

  “Then what is it exactly that you are doing? Tell me, Sun. Maybe I can help.”

  Sun stopped and stared down the line of tents for a few moments before meeting Pang’s eyes.

  “What is it Sun? I’ve never seen you this out-of-sorts before.”

  Sun looked around him and then back at Pang. “Where can we speak?”

  “My tent is a short distance away. No one will disturb us there.”

  Sun shook his head. “There may be others listening. Where can we go that’s out in the open?”

  Pang’s brows knitted. What was Sun up to? “Where is your horse? We can ride out into the countryside.”

  “Down this line of tents, at the edge of the camp.”

  Pang nodded. “I’ll have my horse saddled and meet you there in a few minutes.”

  Sun nodded and turned, but Pang caught his arm and turned him back.

  “Sun,” he said, then looked away for a moment before the two men locked eyes once again. “How bad is it?”

  “It’s bad.”

  Pang nodded and released his grip on Sun’s arm, watching as the one man that had ever been like a brother to him turned and walked away.

  EIGHT

  Clumps of dirt and grass flew up from the earth where the horse’s hooves touched down as the two men galloped across the grassy expanse outside of the defeated capital city. They let the horses run, the wind blowing back their hair, as they moved further and further away from the sprawling army camp. Finally, as they neared the tree-lined hills, Sun reined in his horse and fell into an easy walk. Pang caught up to him and both walked their horses in silence for several minutes before Sun spoke.

  “You’ve come a long way since you left Guiguzi’s small mountain hermitage, Pang.”

  “Not so far really. We could ride there in little more than a day if we wanted to. I would like to pay my respects. You did bury him there, didn’t you?”

  “Under the tree that he always told us to,” Sun replied. “But that is not what I meant. A general in the Wei Army, that is a bit further than a day’s ride will take you.”

  “Men with talent and ambition can go far in this world, Sun. I’m surprised you’re not in a similar position with another state.”

  “Perhaps I am.”

  “Please tell me that you haven’t thrown your lot in with Wey. That’s a lost cause if there ever was one.”

  “Wey is the right place for the fighting between the Seven States to begin,” Sun replied quietly.

  “And why do you think it should be Wei and Zhao that start it?”

  “Why not?”

  Pang chuckled. “Well for one thing, it’s just like Hui said back in the camp. The first state to move against another will have all the others come down upon them. It would be suicide.”

  “There’s nothing in the peace that says one state cannot support a smaller state against a larger.”

  “No, I suppose not, but I don’t think the scholars will be brought out to discuss the matter before the armies clear it up.”

  Sun brought his horse to a stop and Pang circled around to face him.

  “Wei is the most powerful of the Seven States,” Sun said. “I don’t think that any two states together could defeat them.”

  “Us,” Pang said. “I serve Wei and am as much a part of the state now as if I was born
to it.”

  “So then you agree with me.”

  “Not so fast, Sun. What makes you think that only two states will join the fighting if Wei moves against Zhao?”

  “There’ll only be Zhao and one other, the way I see it,” Sun replied. “The Three Jins are the main powers of the Seven and it is they who’ll fight out the beginnings of the war; the others will sit back and watch before choosing sides.”

  “So Han will aid Zhao then, is that it?”

  “Most likely.”

  “And if you’re wrong, and the other states rise to Zhao’s defense?”

  Sun shook his head. “That won’t happen.”

  Pang’s brows knitted. “What makes you so sure?”

  Sun smiled. “Let’s call it a hunch?”

  “Oh, no,” Pang groaned, “not another one of your hunches. When we were boys those hunches often as not proved disastrous for us.”

  “We’re no longer boys, Pang, and we’re not playing games. With your position in the Wei Army and easy access to Hui and his father you can convince them.”

  “You’re not convincing me as to why I would even think of such a thing.”

  Sun stared off at the hills for several moments before speaking. “By aiding the small State of Wey, Wei will not directly be attacking Zhao. Zhao will know this and be angered, and Marquis Jing will attack. He may not move against the State’s borders, but he will attack its troops stationed in Wey and helping the Wey soldiers. Such a move will be a sure break of the peace, and the fault will lie solely with Zhao.”

  “That’s easy to say, but I don’t think many others will see it quite that way, Sun. For one thing, Wei army soldiers standing with the smaller State of Wey’s soldiers in the field could easily be construed as the first act of aggression and a break of the peace. The fault then will lie with Wei.”

  Sun looked back at Pang. “Not if Wei soldiers don’t take the field.”

  Pang frowned. “Then what use will they be to Wey? You’re not making much sense, Sun.”

  “In my view it all comes down to the intent of the soldiers entering Wey,” Sun explained. “Zhao will be coming into the state intent upon invasion, of incorporating them into Zhao. That’s as clear an act of aggression as there is. Now, if Wei, on the other hand, comes in with the intent of helping Wey, of training their soldiers let’s say, and offering a helping hand, well, that would be seen as an act of friendship, would it not? Wei will in fact have become Wey’s ally, and if we could push it even further, Wey could possibly be considered a protectorate state of Wei. If Zhao were to attack in that situation it would be an attack on Wei, and they would be the first to break the peace.”

  “Again, that is something that the scholars can argue after the fighting takes place, and at which point it won’t really matter. These are some technical points you’re presenting here, Sun, and not ones that most soldiers will understand or even bother trying to.”

  “No, but they are points that will be considered in the courts of the rulers of the Seven States when it comes time to decided which side to back and which side to fight. For many the only thing holding them back from war is the peace they signed nearly twenty years ago, and the only thing keeping that peace is the lack of aggression between the Seven. I think many already have their minds made up on who they’ll fight for whatever reasons; they’re just waiting for the opening move.”

  Pang took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I don’t know, Sun. It’s even a bit much for me to get my mind around. What you’re proposing, in the end, is that Wei and Zhao go to war. Who comes in on either side after that is pure speculation. Personally, I lean toward your way of thinking. I’m a military man and I’m ready to fight. As it now stands there’s no one left for me to fight. All of the smaller states are gone, only the larger remain. I know that it’s an inevitability that they’ll eventually move against one another, but it’s not my place to make the decision of when, where, why, or who against. The man that you should be talking to is hundreds of miles to the west in Anyi.”

  “And to talk to that man I first have to talk to you. You have the Marquis’ son’s ear. Tell him what I said here today; convince him to bring it up with his father. But I urge you Pang, act quickly, and urge him to do the same. We don’t have much time before Zhao moves against Wey. Already they’re massing their troops along their southern border. This may be the best chance for Wei to end the peace justifiably and enter into war.”

  Pang stared at Sun for several moments and then nodded. “I’ll see what I can do. Hui’s set to ride to the capital this day or the next. He means to place me in charge of the occupation forces here in Lu, but I’m confident I can convince him to take me with him to Anyi. If, that is, I can convince him of what you told me here today.”

  “Wei is power hungry, they always have been. Convincing Hui and the Marquis will be easier than you think.” Sun turned his horse east and looked back at Pang. “I’m heading back to Wey, and possibly into Zhao as well to gauge their troop dispositions. We’ll meet again soon.”

  “Where?” Pang asked quickly before Sun could spur his horse into motion.

  “I’ll find you,” Sun yelled out as he kicked his horse into a run. “Good luck.”

  Pang watched him gallop across the grassy plain and toward the hills, wondering what trouble his boyhood friend was getting him into now.

  NINE

  The sun shone down brightly on the walls and surrounding canals of Anyi, and they basked in its glow. Silvery shimmers of light reflected off of the dozen canals that flowed in and out of the city between its walls, while the walls themselves seemed to soak up the sun’s rays and then shoot them back out in an iridescent barrage that made looking at them in full daylight difficult at best.

  Hui had no troubles looking at them from his position on one of the roads atop a small hill overlooking the city. For the first time in five years he was looking down on the only city he’d ever considered home, although in his more than forty years he suspected he’d only actually spent ten years there. Still, it was the seat of the Marquis, a city where his father and grandfather and countless others who held that title lived and ruled and made the State of Wei what it was today.

  Far from entering the city after their long two-day ride from the State of Lu, however, Hui felt much more inclined to turn his chariot around and head back to the front lines of the Wei Army. There were no more front lines for the Wei Army, not anymore, he reminded himself. Yet he’d come to the city to convince his father that those front lines would need to be re-created.

  “How does it feel to be home again?” Pang asked from where he stood on the chariot’s platform beside Hui. “It’s been five years, hasn’t it?”

  “It didn’t feel like five years until I looked upon the city just now,” Hui confessed. “It’s easy to feel detached from a place when you only have memories of it, but to actually see it again with your own eyes after an absence of so long, well, it brings back a lot of feelings.”

  “Li-Hua will be happy to see you again, as will your son, Si Wei.”

  Hui shook his head. “I doubt very much that Li-Hua will be anything but happy to see me and Si was little more than a baby in his mother’s arms the last I saw him.”

  Pang nodded and said nothing. He knew full well that there was no real love between Hui and his wife. Li-Hua, although young and beautiful and from a noble family, had been chosen primarily because Hui’s father, Marquis Wu, insisted that his son have a viable heir if he was to continue leading troops in the field. While it would not do to have the future Marquis of Wei fall in battle without an heir, Pang wondered if the Marquis’ judgment had been correct in the matter. It was common knowledge in the army camps that Hui liked his women, and most suspected that he had quite a few children out there somewhere that even he didn’t know about. Pang was sure that Hui’s father knew about this as well, but none of those children could ever be considered as the rightful heir to Wei. True heirs came from marriage, an
d that is exactly what Marquis Wu arranged for his son.

  From what little Pang had been able to get out of Hui over the years, and that usually when they were both well into their cups, Wei had never even seen Li-Hua until the day they were married. While she was beautiful, he readily admitted, she was also shy, quiet, and submissive, all traits that Hui had always associated with his own father in relation to his grandfather, the previous Marquis Wen, and traits that he had come to despise. Many times Hui had spoken of how his grandfather would chastise his father in front of subordinates and how his father had stood by meekly and received the rebukes. Hui had vowed that he would never allow his own father to talk to him in the same way, and he had done well on the vow, primarily by not being in the same room, city, or even state as his father for most of the past fifteen years.

  Why Hui did not take his young wife or son along with him on their various campaigns in other states Pang was never quite sure of. Many of the leading officers in the army, and a large portion of the common soldiers, had women following behind them. They would set up their own camp just on the edge of the main army’s, and although the scorn and disdain were directed their way from the capital and even several leading generals, most had come to realize that they provided an indispensable role to the army. The women cooked and cleaned and mended clothing. They comforted their men after a hard day’s march and tended wounds after an even harder day’s fighting. While most of the women trudged along on foot behind the main army, most in little more than rags and with barely a shoe to be seen among them, the wives of the officers were often carried in litters and wore clothes that were more appropriate to a palace than a battlefield. Whenever Pang brought up the subject of Li-Hua joining her husband, however, Hui had always shaken his head and said simply that it wouldn’t’ be possible, and Pang had never pressed him on why.

  “Si must be seven or eight years old now,” Pang said as they both continued to stare down at the shimmering city. “No doubt he plays at being a soldier, and now you can turn that play into training.”