novelSusiti Chapter 2 The History of Xuanxu: Warring States
Chapter 2 The History of Xuanxu: Warring States
In the beginning of the Xuanxu Continent, when heaven and earth were not yet separated, all things were born in a state of ignorance.
At that time, the universe was in chaos, and the distinction between the pure and the impure was not yet made. The vast mountains, rivers, forests, and marshes were all occupied by wild and untamed people.
Ancient trees reach for the sky, blocking out the sun and clouds. Vines intertwine like dragons, making the day seem like dusk. Ferocious beasts lurk in the deep ravines, some with two heads, others with poisonous saliva. Their fierce roars reverberate for miles. Miasma and poisonous fog, colorful and mottled, shroud the surrounding fields. Touching it will cause skin to bleed and bones to be corroded.
Our ancestors were ignorant and lived in caves, wrapped in animal skins, ate raw meat, and drank from polluted springs. They did not know how to farm or weave, nor did they understand the seasons. Tribes devoured each other, and the strong preyed on the weak, just like beasts running among thorns.
When the Great Emperor Tai Xuan was born, he marked the beginning of the creation of heaven and earth and the establishment of human relations.
The Emperor was born divine and holy. When he was born, purple aura came from the east for 30,000 miles. At the age of twenty, he had already glimpsed the mysteries of the heavens. He spent seven years observing the stars on the summit of Kunlun Mountain and comprehended the "Tai Xuan Zhen Jing" (True Scripture of the Great Mystery), thus gaining the power to create.
At a time of great chaos and conflict among tribes, the emperor rose from humble origins, wielding a jade tablet and the Longyuan sword. With a single call to arms, heroes from all corners of the world followed him, and wise men from all directions flocked to him.
He convened a meeting of feudal lords at Tianzhu Mountain, cast nine tripods to protect the mountains and rivers, and thus established a system of authority and became the supreme ruler, founding the Taixuan Emperor Dynasty. He established the calendar, created writing, and established rites and music, thus ushering in the dawn of civilization.
His imperial bearing was like that of a dragon and the stride of a tiger, his ambition to conquer the eight directions.
After ascending the throne, he established six official positions, clarified ranks and titles, strengthened military preparedness, built war chariots, and trained strong soldiers. The emperor personally led his mighty army, determined to pacify the world and vowed to spread the seeds of civilization to the four corners of the earth.
Their northern expeditions across the cold plains were swift as the wind, the northern barbarian cavalry living in yurts, subsisting on dairy products, and wielding bone arrows and carved bows, repeatedly raiding the borders.
The Great Emperor drove a chain of armored chariots, carrying powerful crossbows and oil, traversing thousands of miles of ice and frost, crossing the River Styx at night, and launching a surprise attack on White Wolf Mountain.
After more than thirty bloody battles, amidst wind and snow, the Emperor personally beheaded the Di King, finally stormed the Di court, burned their golden tent used for sacrificial rites, and drove their remaining forces to the barren land of the north wind. He erected a stone tablet to commemorate his achievements and to secure the northern gate forever.
They also relocated criminals and impoverished people from the Central Plains to the border regions, built twelve beacon towers, and stationed soldiers to cultivate the land. Gradually, the cold plains began to resemble cities and towns.
When the emperor launched a western campaign against the various Rong tribes, the tribes scattered across the seventy-two valleys in the western border region formed an alliance to resist his orders, using the mountains as a natural barrier.
The emperor, wielding a black iron halberd, braved arrows and stones to carve roads through mountains and build flying bridges across abysses.
He fought across mountains and rivers, first defeating the Baima Qiang, then subduing the Heishui Rong, using a counter-espionage strategy to make them fight amongst themselves, and finally defeating seventy-two tribes in succession, seizing their weapons and livestock, and forcing the chieftains of the various tribes to grovel and submit, paying tribute annually with gold, jade, fine horses, and yak cattle, establishing a protectorate, opening the Silk Road, and having caravans come and go, with camel bells ringing softly.
The Nanping Barbarian Demons are a group of barbarian tribes from the southern frontier. They are tough and untamed, with tattoos and short hair. They are skilled at driving away poisonous insects. The demons are unpredictable and hide in the mist and miasma. They possess mysterious and unpredictable witchcraft.
The emperor, with his royal army pressing on the border, employed a combination of suppression and appeasement. He first defeated the barbarian 100,000 elephant soldiers at Erhai Lake and burned their witchcraft temples. He then invited reclusive cultivators to set up a grand formation to subdue the thousand-year-old spirits and recruited their extraordinary individuals into the "Mysterious Armor Secret Guard".
They transformed the pestilential wasteland into fertile land for farming, taught the people to cultivate rice, and introduced sacred springs to cure all poisons, thus establishing the system of prefectures and counties in the southern border region.
The Dongjing Haiyi people, who travel by flying boats and fast boats, frequently harass the coastal areas and abduct women and children to be enslaved.
The emperor ordered the officials to build a five-story, whale-shaped warship, equipped with giant crossbows and a 100,000-strong navy, and to sail eastward on the monsoon winds. They fought fiercely on the turbulent waves, set fire to the enemy camps, launched a night raid on the islands, burned their ships, and destroyed their island fortifications.
The captured barbarian king was presented as a prisoner at the Imperial Ancestral Temple, and from then on, three hundred tribes of the Eastern Seas submitted, paying tribute annually with pearls, coral, and sea salt. Maritime Trade Offices were established along the coast, and sea routes gradually became open.
With the four corners of the land settled, the territory expanded to tens of millions of miles, reaching the wilderness of Xuanbing in the north, the desert of Liusha in the west, the shore of Yanzhou in the south, and the islands of Cangming in the east.
The Great Emperor divided the land into nine provinces, established prefectures and counties, built roads, and standardized weights and measures. He minted the "Tai Xuan Tong Bao" coin to circulate throughout the land, built the Mingtang Hall to receive the feudal lords, and established the Imperial Academy to cultivate talents.
Farmers were taught how to cultivate land, craftsmen studied the "Kaogongji" (Record of Trades), and merchants traveled freely with their official seals. Furthermore, there were astronomical observatories to measure the calendar, and the Imperial Medical Bureau to research hundreds of herbs. Civilization flourished as brightly as the midday sun.
The people were deeply grateful and honored him with the title "Great Emperor Shenwu". It is said in history that "the Great Emperor ruled the world for thirty years, during which there were no wars, prisons were always empty, lost items on the road were not picked up, and doors were not locked at night".
The Tai Xuan Dynasty reached its zenith, lasting for over eight hundred years. Its institutions and cultural artifacts shone brightly throughout history, and later generations referred to it as the "legacy of Tai Xuan," which they all yearned for.
However, the way of Heaven has its waxing and waning, and the fortunes of the world have their rise and fall.
The imperial lineage passed to the twelfth emperor, Xuandi, who was incompetent and weak, indulging in wine and women, favoring sorcerers and seeking immortality.
He favored sycophants, executed honest officials, alienated virtuous and capable people, and neglected the law and order. He built the "Tongtian Terrace" and "Zhaixing Tower" on a grand scale, conscripting millions of laborers, whose dead lay piled up on the roads. He also sought elixirs from overseas, building thousands of giant ships, exhausting the treasury. In addition, there were years of locusts and droughts, leaving thousands of miles of barren land, and taxes became increasingly harsh. People sold their children to pay taxes.
Bribery was rampant in the imperial court, with official positions and titles openly sold at fixed prices. Local officials were like jackals, exploiting the people under various pretexts.
An old farmer in the countryside lamented, "They strip me of my clothes and steal the grain from my mouth; they skin a sheep twice over. How can I not die?"
Resentment soared to the heavens, eventually leading to widespread beacon fires and the raising of righteous banners.
The "Red Turban Army" cut wood to make weapons and occupied the Taihang Mountains; the "Taiping Army" gathered people at Fushui and destroyed counties and prefectures. The feudal lords all held their own troops to protect themselves and watched the outcome.
On the day the capital fell, Emperor Xuan, along with his concubines and treasures, fled in haste through a secret passage, disappearing without a trace.
The glorious Tai Xuan Emperor's dynasty was shattered, its ancestral temples overturned, its sacrifices extinguished, and its incense burned out. The Nine Tripods were lost, its classic texts scattered, and the palaces burned for three months without ceasing, nearly plunging eight hundred years of civilization into darkness.
As chaos ensued, heroes vied for supremacy.
For the next several centuries, war raged on, while the four dynasties of Da Ling, Da Hong, Da Xiao, and Da Yan rose in succession, each inheriting the legacy of Tai Xuan and displaying their own grand ambitions.
The Great Ling revered Confucianism, promoted schools and academies, honored Ling Gong and Zhou Zi, built a thousand academies, revised the Ling Dian (a classic text on rites and music), and spread its teachings far and wide. The Hu and Han peoples gradually integrated, the territory was expanded by a thousand miles, and cities were built in the grasslands south of the desert.
However, the policy of valuing literature over military affairs ultimately led to problems on the borders.
Emperor Wu of the Great Hong Dynasty valued martial arts and honed his military skills. He trained his troops at the foot of the Qilian Mountains, where he created ring-pommel swords, powerful bows and crossbows, and pioneered the cavalry raiding tactic.
He conquered the Baiyue in the south, reaping the benefits of salt and iron; he campaigned against the Rouran in the north, establishing six garrisons as a protective barrier, bringing all the remote and uncivilized areas under his control. However, his excessive conquests exhausted the people's strength, and the dynasty declined after three generations.
Emperor Wen promoted agriculture and sericulture, and introduced the Nine Translations: He issued the Equal Field Edict, teaching the people to practice crop rotation, repair irrigation canals and dikes, and establish the Four Directions Hall to attract merchants from the Western Regions and the South Seas.
Luoyang was bustling with merchants and travelers, with "travelers filling the streets and rare treasures piled up like mountains." The country was the richest in the world, but extravagance was rampant, powerful clans monopolized the market, and the number of displaced people increased daily.
The Great Yan Dynasty brought together all that was accomplished, bridging the past and the future:
Emperor Taizu combined civil and military talents, established the Three Departments and Six Ministries, implemented the military system, and opened the Grand Canal to connect the north and south. By the time of Emperor Renzong, the country was at peace, granaries were full, and all nations came to pay tribute.
At its peak, its territory was so vast that "even a fine horse could gallop for three years without leaving the border, and a large ship could sail for five years without reaching the sea."
He established 100,000 post stations to transmit government orders to the ends of the earth, compiled the "Great Yan Unified Gazetteer," and drew maps to cover the four seas. Ordinary people spent their entire lives confined to their villages and towns, and the vastness of the world existed only in their imaginations.
However, the Great Yan Dynasty was in decline, and its downward trend was difficult to reverse.
By the end of the dynasty, the court was corrupt and inefficient, and government orders were chaotic and incoherent.
Eunuchs held sway over the Privy Council, selling official positions was commonplace, and regional military governors amassed large armies, becoming uncontrollable. Cheating was rampant in the imperial examinations, leaving no path for the poor to advance; land annexation was rampant, leaving farmers with nowhere to stand.
Coupled with years of natural disasters, the Yellow River breached its banks three times, locusts swarmed the sky, and people resorted to cannibalism.
Although the last emperor, Zhaozong, had the will to revitalize the dynasty, and punished the eunuch faction and reduced the power of the regional military governors, the accumulated problems were too great to be reversed.
Eventually, the "Red Robe Army" rose up in Qingzhou and Xuzhou, gathering a million followers within a month. Various military governors either watched from the sidelines or declared independence, leading to the collapse of the state and the division of the country.
Dozens of states rose up, annexing each other, fighting bloody battles for decades, leaving bones exposed in the wilderness, and not a rooster crowing for a thousand miles.
This gradually led to a situation where five powerful nations—Da Yao, Da Chu, Da Ning, Da Cang, and Da Xia—stood side by side.
The Great Yao Kingdom resides in the heart of the Central Plains, boasting itself as the legitimate dynasty. It is rich in culture and resources, controls the strategic pass of Xiaohan, and possesses the wealth of Luoyang. However, it is plagued by numerous powerful clans and endless factional strife.
The Great Chu controlled the natural defenses of the rivers and lakes, boasted a powerful navy, and had boats covering the waterways. It also profited greatly from fish and salt. However, the aristocratic families were extravagant, and the people were decadent.
Da Ning possessed a mighty cavalry of the grasslands, moving swiftly like the wind, causing fear in the northern frontier. The horses were of excellent quality, but the tribal system remained, and internal annexation was unstable.
Da Cang was advantageous in terms of sea routes, with its warships crisscrossing the seas and dominating the East Sea. Its merchant ships reached as far as Japan and Ryukyu. However, pirates were frequent and the Japanese pirate problem was difficult to quell.
The Great Xia Dynasty relied on the powerful troops of Youyan and the strategic passes of Hebei, which were fortified and had a fierce and valiant people. However, the land was small and the people were poor. It was a place of constant warfare and was always surrounded by powerful neighbors.
Each country established a "Hall of Recruitment," where alchemists refined elixirs in search of immortality, swordsmen roamed the world with their swords, strategists offered their plans, and advisors devised strategies.
This corresponds to the ancient prophecy of Tai Xuan: "When the nine tripods crack, the feudal lords will rise up, and it will not be settled for thousands of years."
In the martial arts world, sects also rose up: Shaolin practiced martial arts on Mount Song, the Celestial Masters sect guarded Mount Longhu, and the Mohist school of mechanical arts hid in the streets. All of them wanted to choose a master to serve in this chaotic world and strive to make a name for themselves in history.
From then on, Xuanxu fell into chaos once again. The five kingdoms each harbored their own ambitions. Some prepared for war and wanted to conquer the world, some formed alliances to seek their own survival, and some befriended distant states while attacking nearby ones, gradually eroding their neighboring states.
Beacon fires lit up the borders from time to time, envoys shuttled back and forth, spies lurked in taverns, and the smoke of war filled the imperial court.
The common people were either conscripted into the army or used for transport, leaving the fields and gardens deserted and nine out of ten houses empty.
The glorious days of the past, when "no one picked up lost items on the road," are now just distant memories. The splendor of the Tai Xuan Dynasty, where "all nations came to pay tribute," is now only broken steles and fragments. Only the boundless mountains and rivers silently observe the rise and fall of dynasties and witness the vicissitudes of life.
As for the founding of the Great Xia Dynasty, there is a generous and treacherous history that foreshadows today's power struggles.
In the final years of the Great Yan Dynasty, the world was in chaos, and the rebel army spread like wildfire, heading straight for the capital.
Meanwhile, within the imperial court, undercurrents were already surging. The Left Chancellor, Ji Song, came from the powerful "Xingyang Ji Clan," and harbored ambitions to usurp the throne. He secretly colluded with the leader of the "Red Robe Army" outside the city, promising him land and a kingship, and agreed to work together from within and without to overthrow the Yan dynasty.
Emperor Taizu Wu of the Xia Dynasty, Tian Lin, was originally from a poor family in the north. In his youth, he herded horses on the frontier. Because of his bravery and strategic skills, he was appreciated by Emperor Mo of Yan, who adopted him as his son, gave him the surname "Yan", appointed him as General Zhenbei, and ordered him to quell the rebellion in Hebei.
Before leaving the capital, the last emperor held his hand and wept, saying, "My country is in your hands for the rest of its life."
While Tian Lin was fighting the rebels in Youzhou, his supplies were running out and he was unable to get any help, he was completely unaware that a calamity was about to befall the capital.
Ji Song had already bribed the palace guards and the city gate captains. Taking advantage of the moment when the last emperor summoned his ministers to discuss strategies and the defenses were slightly relaxed, he suddenly closed the inner city gates, controlling the main roads to the palace. At the same time, he secretly opened the west gate of the outer city, leading the Red Robe Army straight in.
The last emperor was caught off guard and had few followers. Although he fought back bravely, he was ultimately outnumbered and exhausted.
Seeing the rebel army breach the Zhaowu Gate and burn the Taiping Hall, the last emperor wept and pleaded with the ancestral temple before hanging himself from the beam of the Taiji Hall, leaving a blood-written message: "I have no face to meet my ancestors after death. I wish that future wise rulers would punish the traitors."
The empress and princes all died for their country, the ancestral temple was burned down, and the imperial seal, "Received the Mandate of Heaven," was secretly hidden by Ji Song.
A meticulously planned attack from both inside and outside led to the downfall of the ancient Yan Dynasty overnight. Palace servants fled, books were destroyed, and the capital city, spanning three hundred miles, was reduced to a ghost town.
The news of the tragedy reached Hebei half a month later.
Tian Lin was filled with grief and indignation. He bit his finger until it bled, and wanted to lead his troops south to take revenge. However, he discovered that the Ji clan had already laid a backup plan. Ji Song, under the pretext of "suppressing the rebellion and protecting the country", urgently mobilized private soldiers from Guanzhong. Taking advantage of the Red Robe Army entering the city to plunder and causing chaos, they launched a surprise attack and "annihilated" the rebel army in an instant.
He then installed his nephew on the throne, establishing the state of "Da Yao," and issued a proclamation to the world, falsely accusing Tian Lin of "holding up troops and waiting to see what happens, thus delaying the emperor's efforts to serve," and intending to strip him of his military power and eliminate him as soon as possible.
Tian Lin summoned his generals, showed them a copy of the last emperor's blood-written letter, and wept, saying:
"The treacherous Ji murdered the emperor and usurped the throne, then falsely accused loyal officials. If we return south now, we will surely fall into her trap, and we will all become fish on the chopping block. But how can we not avenge the late emperor and the hatred of the Yan dynasty?"
The governor of Youzhou and the prefect of Yizhou under his command were all his former subordinates. He drew his sword and struck a pillar.
"I am willing to follow the general to punish the traitors and restore the Yan dynasty!"
The people of Hebei also lined the roads, weeping and pleading, "If the general leaves, the barbarian cavalry will surely arrive, and we will all become slaves!"
Therefore, Tian Lin, dressed in white robes and armor, set up an altar on the banks of the Yi River to offer sacrifices to Heaven.
He sacrificed a white horse, removed the surname "Yan" and restored "Tian," and proclaimed to Heaven and Earth: "The usurper Ji stole the tripod, a crime that angers both gods and men. Though I am unworthy, I have received the late Emperor's special favor, and dare not fail to exert all my strength to continue this lineage and ensure its survival?"
He then established the state of "Great Xia" and made Xia City his capital. He vowed to restore the Yan dynasty and eliminate the traitors. His army wore mourning clothes and their cries shook the fields. The Yi River wept for him.
The news sent shockwaves through the land. Former governors and prefects of the Yan dynasty, either outraged by the usurpation of power by the Ji clan or desiring to establish their own independent regimes, rose up in rebellion and declared themselves rulers.
The Zhao family established "Nanyue", the Li family called it "Xiliang", and the Liu family called it "Cheng Han"... The world then entered a period of war among various states, with no fewer than twenty large and small regimes.
Relying on the abundant grain and fodder, the sharpness of its soldiers, and the support of its people, Tian Lin resisted Da Yao in the south, allied with the Shiwei in the north to defend Da Ning, and allied with the Dongyi in the east to control Da Cang.
After decades of fierce battles and alliances, it gradually annexed the three provinces of You, Ji, and Bing of the Great Yan, divided them into various provinces, and finally became one of the five strongest powers, laying the foundation for the current tripartite balance of power in the world.
However, before the founding of the dynasty was even halfway done, Emperor Taizu passed away, and the throne has now passed to the current Xia emperor, who has ruled for five generations.
Though the blood feud of that year had not been forgotten, factional strife was brewing within the court, and powerful enemies lurked on the borders. Meanwhile, the descendants of the founding emperor, amidst the bustling yet turbulent capital, each embarked on different destinies…
In a chaotic world, heroes rise and fall, the flame of civilization flickers and who will control its rise and fall? The story begins in the capital of the Great Xia Dynasty, with a young man who has just been granted the title of prince.
What chapters will be written in his hands, with old grudges from the previous dynasty and new hatreds in this life?