The Warring States, Books 1-3

by Greg Strandberg

  He left his room, closing and locking the door behind him, and went down the stairs to the common room. About two dozen men were scattered about the room, most sitting at wooden tables in the center of the room and against the walls. A few of the more inebriated men stood, speaking loudly on one topic or another to their particular group of friends or whoever was unfortunate enough to be within earshot. Wu took it all in and moved to the bar, where Sa was serving drinks and chatting with a few of the more regular customers and tenants that rented rooms.

  “Well, this is a surprise,” Sa said as he walked down to Wu. “What’ll you have?”

  “Wine,” Wu said.

  While Sa turned to retrieve a cup Wu turned and leaned his back against the bar to better survey the room. Most of the men were young bureaucrats, although there were a few older men as well. He recognized one or two from his own office, although he didn’t know there names. None seemed to recognize him, or if they did, they paid him no heed.

  “Here you are, Wu,” Sa said as he finished pouring the cup of wine. “That will be a tenth.”

  Wu fished out his money pouch and found the appropriate coin, a tenth of a yibi, and slid it across the bar to Sa. The inn-keeper slightly as he picked it up put it into the money box behind the bar.

  “Got tired of writing?” Sa asked as he came back to the bar. The barkeep and owner of The Barracks had seen Wu writing at his desk many times over the three years that he had been staying there, most times after knocking on the door for several minutes without answer before opening the door to peer inside. Each time Wu had been so occupied with his writing that he hadn’t noticed the sound, and a few times Sa had even mentioned that he had entered, retrieved the empty tray of food, and left the room again without Wu even noticing.

  “I was beginning to feel a headache come one,” Wu admitted.

  Sa nodded. “I’m not surprised. You can’t always stay cooped up in that small hole.”

  Wu didn’t reply as he continued to look about the crowded room. Although most of the men were obviously bureaucrats, several seemed out of place. He turned back to Sa, who was moving further down the bar.

  “Seems that the crowd is a little different that usual tonight,” Wu said.

  “Soldiers, and high-ranking ones at that,” Sa answered as he came back. He looked past Wu at the men in the room. “I don’t see him just now, but just a few minutes ago General Min himself was here.”

  Wu turned back to face Sa. “General Min? You can’t be serious.”

  “Dead serious,” Sa said with a stern look. “He sat right there, ordered dinner and drinks for his men.”

  Wu looked toward the table that Sa had nodded at and saw several men sitting about. He could clearly tell they were soldiers, his years in the army made that easy. None were in any type of military robes, however, and in fact their robes looked just the same as the bureaucrats that surrounded them.

  “Where did the general go?” Wu asked, a feeling of nervousness coming to him.

  “I’m not sure,” Sa admitted. “Perhaps just to relive himself. I doubt he would have left his men.”

  Sa’s attention was called away by a few thirsty men further down the bar and Wu picked up his own cup of wine, taking a deep drink of it as he stared at the table of soldiers. The last thing he wanted was for General Min to see him.

  The two had met several years before. Wu had still been serving alongside Marquis Wen’s son, Wu Wei, when they both were commanders in the Wei Army. They had been sent south to deal with a small clash of Wei citizens against citizens of Chu over grazing land. Two villages had eventually been pulled into the hostilities, both on either side of the border, so both states sent a small force to restore order. The citizens quickly fell into line when the two groups of soldiers appeared on the outskirts of their villages, and that same night the commanders of the two states had dined together before heading back to their respective capitals. One of those young commanders was General Min, and he and Wu Qi had spent a great deal of time talking about their two states’ forces.

  Wu knew that General Min would recognize him if he saw him, and that was the last thing he wanted. He had made it three years without his true identity becoming known, and he wanted to keep it that way.

  Wu drained the last of his wine, set the cup down, and was just about to head for the stairs when the front door of the common room opened. General Min stood standing in the darkened doorway. He surveyed the scene before him for a moment before walking to his companions. Wu felt a wave of fear come over him; fear that he would be recognized and possibly killed. He was, after all, a former general of a rival state, and even though the peace agreement between the states had been in effect and observed by all for more than three years, there could be no certainty of how his situation would turn out if he were to be discovered

  Wu hung his head and began walking to the stairs as quickly and as unobtrusively as possible. It was a short distance, with only a few tables blocking the way, and Wu felt confident that he could make it there and up to his room without detection. He glanced at General Min out of the corner of his eye and saw that he had reached the table of soldiers and picked up his cup of wine. He was beginning to say something to them in the same deep, loud voice that Wu remembered when suddenly Wu was covered in wetness.

  “Oh! I’m dreadfully sorry,” a young man said to him when Wu looked up. From the expression on the man’s face, a slight smile curling the edges of his mouth, laughter tugging at his eyes, Wu could tell that he was anything but. The man, an obvious bureaucrat, glanced sideways at his companions sitting at a nearby table, each of whom was already beginning to break out in laughter.

  “Please, let me buy you a drink to make up for it,” the man quickly said before turning to yell toward the bar. “Sa! Sa! Get us another cup of wine over here!”

  Wu, wine dripping from his head and face and onto his light brown robes to the floor below, turned back to the bar without thinking. Sa was staring over at him, as were many of the other patrons. Wu couldn’t stop his eyes from jerking toward General Min’s table, and he quickly regretted the action. General Min was staring straight at him, and their eyes met. It seemed like an eternity before Wu could pull his gaze away and turn back toward the stairs, pushing past the young man who was now laughing along with his friends. In fact, it wasn’t an eternity but a single brief moment, but in that moment Wu had seen General Min’s brows knit and his eyes narrow before they widened again. Wu knew that look: he had been recognized.

  He walked as quickly as he could to the stairs and then, out of sight of the men in the common room, bounded up them two at a time. Wu was at his door in a flash, his keys already in his hand, and was soon inside. He didn’t pause for a moment as he reached for the two leather bound books of notes on his shelves, stuffed them under his arm, and then turned for the door once again. Nothing else mattered to him, only the notes were important, although what he would do with them, and even why he was compiling them, was beyond him. He stepped out into the hallway and began to pull the door closed behind him, when he suddenly stopped. Even if he did want to escape, which he most assuredly did, he could not do so without going down into the common room. There were no other stairs, and the only back door of the establishment was through the kitchens behind the bar. Even if he had wanted to take that less obtrusive way out, he couldn’t reach it without half the eyes of the common room going to him as soon as he came down the stairs.

  Wu pushed the door back open and stepped inside. He looked around for a brief moment then rushed to the window. The drop down to the alley was less than twenty feet, and piles of refuse were heaped about beneath. Without hesitation he dropped his notebooks onto the bed and began pulling at the window, then, when it wouldn’t budge, pushing. The window was sealed shut with years of grime, for Wu had never opened it before, and it proved nearly impossible to budge. Still, he kept at it, and after several moments the frame began to loosen from the grime it was encased in.

 
; The stairs at the end of the hallway began to creak and Wu immediately stopped. The creaking came again, and Wu knew from the sound that someone was coming up. His eyes darted from side-to-side, panic beginning to edge in, and looked back at the window again. He would never get the thing open in time, His eyes fell upon the chair pushed under the table and without hesitation he reached for it. He had it over his shoulder and was just about to swing it at the window when a voice stopped him cold.

  “General Wu, is that really necessary?”

  Wu closed his eyes and let out a deep sigh, the chair still held over his shoulder. After three years of successfully staying unknown it all came crashing to an end with one spilled cup of wine. Wu lowered the chair back to the floor and slowly turned to face the man in the door.

  General Min was a tall man, taller than Wu by a head, and would be forced to bend down if he wanted to enter the small room. His long black hair was tied in a neat topknot on his head, and allowed to flow down his back in a single long tail. His mouth was framed by a small, neatly trimmed beard and mustache while the rest of his face looked smooth and surprisingly young. His brown eyes stared at Wu with a mix of surprise and curiosity.

  “You’re not wearing your uniform,” Wu said as he pushed the chair back to the table and motioned with his arm for Min to come in and sit down.

  “I haven’t worn that in some time, at least not in the capacity it was meant for,” Min said as he ducked under the door frame and came into the room. “Once a year Duke Dao has some kind of elaborate ceremony in the palace and the uniform gets dusted off and worn for a night. Wine stains now take the place of the blood stains.”

  Wu waited for Min to sit down in the chair before sitting down on the bed opposite him.

  “I seem to have found plenty of those this evening,” Wu said, holding his robes out to look down upon the purple stains from the wine which had caused this meeting.

  “And plenty of the other kind as well over the past few years,” Min said. He leaned closer to Wu and spoke in a hushed voice. “I was sorry to hear about what happened to you when Marquis Wu came to power.”

  Wu nodded, a slight smile coming to the edge of his mouth. “Not as sorry as I was to experience it.”

  Min smiled before shaking his head. “He’s a fool to dismiss his best general like that. What could he have been thinking?”

  “About the past,” Wu said quietly, then continued quickly as he saw Min’s brows furrow in confusion. “But that was more than three years ago now, and, as you can see, I’m now quite content in Chu.”

  Min stared around at the small room before returning his gaze to Wu. “Living in a box like this and working in the Chu bureaucracy? I don’t think so, Wu.”

  “I’m content,” Wu replied.

  “And it is contentment which filled those two books at your side,” Min said, pointing at the two leather-bound notebooks still lying on the bed.

  Wu instinctively moved his hand and pulled the books closer to him. “Just thoughts, they’re nothing of any consequence.”

  “You’re a terrible liar, Wu,” Min said with a laugh. He smiled at Wu for several moments and then grew serious once again. “There is nothing to be afraid of, Wu. No one in Chu means you any harm. There’s no need for you to go by any other name but your own, and there is certainly no need for you to be working as a lowly clerk in the Department of Administration.”

  “How do you know these things?”

  “I asked the barkeep who you were before coming up here,” Min replied with a shrug. “He said you were Wu Li, had been living here for three years while working in the bureaucracy.”

  Wu shook his head. “It is no concern of yours what I call myself or where I choose to bide my time.”

  “Oh, but it is, Wu, it is.” Min stared at Wu for several moments before continuing. “You see, Wu, you are one of the most capable generals in all of the Seven States. You would be a huge asset to Chu, or any state for that matter.”

  Wu shook his head. “My military days are over.”

  “Your talents as an administrator match those as a general.”

  Wu narrowed his eyes and knitted his brow. “What are you getting at?”

  “Even if you were interested in joining the Chu Army, it would be a waste of your talents.” Min threw up his arms and rose from the chair, causing Wu to lean back. “The bureaucracy stifles any attempt by the military to take action against even the weakest of the smaller states,” Min said in frustration. “We cannot empty a chamber pot without filling out several forms, sending them off to the appropriate offices, and then waiting for a reply, which may or may not come. They’ve taken one of the most formidable armies in all the Seven States and turned it into a dog on a leash.”

  “Then why don’t you do something about it?” Wu asked in consternation.

  “I would if I could,” Min replied, “but I can’t.” He peered out of the window as he continued to speak. “I’m an Army man, Wu, always have been. I know nothing about administering the lands that we conquer; I leave those worries for others to argue over.” He turned back to Wu, a glimmer in his eye. “But you, Wu, you know all about those sorts of things.”

  Wu shook his head. “You’re confusing me for someone else, Min.”

  “No, I’m not,” Min said as he again sat down in the chair, this time leaning in to talk to Wu. “All of the other states were abuzz with what you were doing in Xihe over those five years that you fought there. We’ve never seen changes the likes of which were made there, Wu. You not only took the lands under your control, but you kept them by the demand of their own people. Those policies continue to be talked about in all of the Seven States. I could never have made those changes; no one I know of could.”

  Wu waved his hand dismissively. “That’s all history. Others are governing Xihe now, not I.”

  “And they’re not doing half the job that you did,” Min said.

  “I don’t understand what that has to do with me now.”

  Min leaned back in his chair and studied Wu for a few moments. “Duke Dao is ready to take on the nobles and gut the bureaucracy.”

  “I’ve heard that talk before,” Wu said.

  “It’s for real this time, Wu. He means to make some serious changes before the year is up.”

  “Impossible, the bureaucracy is too large, the nobles too controlling. They’d stop any attempts before he even got started.”

  “Not if the great General Wu Qi was overseeing the changes,” Min said.

  Wu laughed. “You’re dreaming, Min.”

  “Am I?” Min rose from his chair and sat down on the bed beside Wu. “I’m heading straight to the palace to tell Duke Dao that you’re here, whether you like it or not.”

  Wu shook his head. “Please don’t do that, Min. Let me continue on as I have.”

  “That I cannot do, Wu. It would be an injustice to not only you, but to Chu as well.”

  “I’ll leave.”

  Min let out a sigh. “We’ll find you, Wu. Now that we know you’re here, we’ll find you.”

  Wu stared at the floor but said nothing. His world was suddenly crashing down around him, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. The carefully prepared life that he’d created for himself was no more. Wu Li was gone forever, changed back in an instant to Wu Qi.

  Min rose from the bed and stared down at Wu. “Come with me, Wu. Meet with Duke Dao.” Min pointed at the two books still sitting next to Wu. “Tell him of your thoughts on the bureaucracy. Show him your books.”

  “The nobles are too strong, the bureaucracy too large,” Wu said quietly and without conviction.

  “Tell him how to change that, Wu.”

  Wu looked up at Min, sorrow in his eyes. Min gave smile in return and held out his hand.

  Wu looked at it then down to the floor. What do I have to lose, he thought. He looked back up at and grasped the general’s hand.

  “You’ve made the right decision,” Min said as he helped him to his feet.


  “I’m not so sure of that,” Wu replied.

  “Perhaps not now, but you’ll come to see the wisdom of it with time.”

  Wu reached down and again picked up his books and put them under his arm. Min stepped back out into the hallway as Wu took one last look around his small room. He blew out the candle, plunging the room into darkness, and then stepped out into the hallway beside Min, pulling the door closed behind him.

  FIVE

  Even in the dark of night the Chu Royal Palace reared up resplendently from the otherwise dull and barbaric structures that crowded around it. The palace, much like the rest of the city, was a constant work in progress: it was continually in the process of either moving out or moving up, and sometimes both at the same time. Unfortunately, as that movement took place the quality and beauty decreased markedly. Although the palace was quite resplendent as Wu and Min approached it, its outer face was nothing compared to its inner.

  The Palace grounds were surrounded by a low wall which rose up behind a moat that had long ago ceased to hold water. The two men walked over the wooden bridge that spanned the dry and cracked stone beneath them and then right past the two sentries manning the gate, both of whom gave a deferential nod to Min. Once inside the wall, the appearance of the palace grounds became better, although it was nothing compared to the palace in Anyi, Wu thought. All throughout the stones of the buildings and walls were cracking from neglect and improper construction. Weeds sprouted from the bricks at their feet and refuse was piled about haphazardly. Still, it was cleaner and more maintained than much the city, although Wu couldn’t quite decide if that was good or bad.

  Entering the palace itself proved just as easy and they were soon walking down the carpeted halls. Tapestries depicting Chu’s military achievements over the previous centuries lined the walls, each showing a victory over large and small states alike, although Wu knew that most had been small. At last they came to a door that had several guards and Min had to stop and request an audience with Duke Dao. One of the guards nodded and slipped through the door.