Chapter Fifteen

While Sun Sike’s envoy was still on the road, Lin Feng was grappling with a particularly troublesome affair. The roots of this matter were many, but the most immediate cause lay in the recent wave of officers being dispatched for training. Due to the secrecy surrounding these orders, their sudden recall to Beijing seemed highly suspicious. At first, a myriad of rumors spread within the army; aside from some conspiracy theories about the Commander-in-Chief planning a purge, the prevailing sentiment was that these officers were headed to Beijing to enjoy some perks. This left the rank and file not only disappointed, but also somewhat envious. On the whole, the affair was not entirely negative—after all, it suggested that, despite some favoritism, General Lin cared for his subordinates, even arranging some rewards for them after New Year’s.

However, as the spring planting season approached, a new wave of demands rose among the troops—many soldiers requested leave to return home and help with farmwork.

From Lin Feng’s perspective, this was utterly absurd. In traditional Chinese military systems, soldiers were considered expendable and received scarce benefits. The Han army’s pay was already the most generous among all the factions; Lin Feng’s hope was to mold these men into true professional soldiers. This sudden clamor for leave caught him completely off guard.

When the reports were submitted, the Han army’s top brass were deeply divided. Lin Feng and Zhou Peigong found themselves in fierce arguments with Li Guangdi, Tang Bin, and other officials. Deeply influenced by orthodox Confucian principles, Li Guangdi and his faction advocated for strict suppression, citing numerous examples from history of wise rulers exerting stern control over their armies, including dispatching upright and principled civil officials to act as supervisors. Lin Feng, on the other hand, advocated a more lenient approach: punish a few ringleaders, then allow some soldiers with genuine lack of family labor at home to take leave.

Initially, Lin Feng’s stance wasn’t so uncompromising, but Zhou Peigong’s subtle reminders soon made him realize that this could be the opening salvo in the civil service’s assault on military authority. Over time, the Han government’s bureaucracy had grown significantly, moving toward regularization, but the Han army’s longstanding policy had always been “the interests of the military above all.” All administrative institutions existed to serve the army and the needs of war, and the privileged treatment of the hundreds of thousands of military families was emblematic of this philosophy. The opinions of Li Guangdi and his colleagues clearly reflected the civil service’s desire to break these shackles and even to influence the military directly. They were eager to revert to the ways of “orthodox dynasties,” using traditional concepts to manage the army and force it to submit docilely to the guidance of the bureaucracy.

After Lin Feng, as the supreme leader, forcefully asserted his will, Li Guangdi and his faction reluctantly backed down. Thus, the earliest institutional clash in Han army history ended hastily, with most senior officers unaware of the true stakes. But both sides, Lin Feng included, knew full well that this was only the beginning. The government officials were far from subdued—their current retreat was merely a chance to regroup and search for a new breakthrough.

Out of caution, Lin Feng immediately instructed Zhou Peigong’s General Staff to assign a group of scholar-officers directly into Li Guangdi’s government agencies. Usually, the civil service’s methods of subduing the army, apart from plying the commander with “imperial arts of rule,” involved monopolizing the supply of military materials. Lin Feng’s countermeasure was to preclude such a situation from arising, expanding military influence over logistics, and diminishing the bureaucracy’s control over the army’s lifeblood.

And now, Lin Feng was thrusting these issues before history ahead of their time. How would future generations judge him? History would remember: it was Lin Feng who defied tradition and strove to elevate the social standing of soldiers; Lin Feng who disregarded the sages’ teachings and transformed the political system; Lin Feng who compelled the elite to join the military, thus establishing the precedent for a professional officer corps; Lin Feng who, drop by drop, built the very source of future calamity.

Envoy Wang Shirong of the Great Zhou Dynasty, after a brief delay at the front, proceeded toward Beijing as soon as permission was granted. To ensure the safety of his mission—though more importantly, to keep a close watch on his activities—Commander Liu Laosijun of Shunde garrison was ordered to detach a battalion of five hundred elite troops to accompany the delegation, coordinating with the Han government’s diplomatic staff to handle all reception duties.

The presence of this escort did nothing to prevent Wang Shirong from gathering intelligence. In fact, the Han military was woefully inexperienced in counter-espionage, and the accompanying battalion commander knew little beyond basic field operations. Chen Menglei’s special service bureau did not intervene in this matter, so even before entering Beijing, Wang Shirong had gleaned most of the information he needed from the conversations and open remarks of Han officers.

Due to the simplicity of the Han administration, Wang Shirong’s audience with Marshal Lin Feng was arranged without any fuss, which greatly surprised him. In his experience, meetings of this level typically involved the other side sending Ministry of Rites officials under the guise of “instructing protocol” but really to probe for intentions and exchange signals. Here, however, Lin Feng seemed to prefer directness, with no interest in such diplomatic fencing. The day after the delegation arrived, a summons was issued.

Wang Shirong was a supremely confident man—justifiably so, given his abilities. He had collected a wealth of information on Lin Feng, but after analyzing it, found the man impossible to pin down. The execution of an emperor, mass slaughters, and the razing of the Forbidden City painted Lin Feng as a ruthless butcher, yet the resettlement of a million refugees suggested a compassionate sage. Remarkably, Lin Feng possessed extraordinary political talent, swiftly uniting all political factions in the capital as an outsider from Fujian and stabilizing his regime. All signs pointed to a profound and imposing figure, a true warlord of deep calculation. Yet reliable sources also indicated Lin Feng was unpredictable, informal to a fault, given to mischievous jokes, and at times displayed a surprising innocence, even childlike playfulness. What a singular character indeed.

When Lin Feng received Wang Shirong and his deputy, he set aside all displays of military intimidation. None of his advisors, civil or military, had suggested such measures, which struck him as odd—weren’t scenes of troops and boiling oil standard fare for intimidating envoys in classic novels? Why was it so different in his own case? He raised the question with Tang Bin, who bluntly advised him to maintain his dignity—if a ruler on his own soil needed to rely on military threats to cow foreign diplomats, it spoke to a profound lack of self-confidence and, frankly, poor character.

Still, this straightforward approach left Wang Shirong’s deputy a little dissatisfied. The deputy was a distant relative of Grand Chancellor Xia Guoxiang, and though an important figure in the delegation, his true assignment was not to the Han side but as a plant by Xia at Wang Shirong’s side—a transparent gesture. There was no intrigue here, as Xia, being a military man, disdained such schemes; his sole intent was to make it clear: “I don’t trust you, I don’t like you, so tread carefully.” Wang Shirong understood perfectly, but could do nothing about it. The Grand Chancellor’s dissatisfaction was a universal rule—superiors always felt insecure when their subordinates were too capable.

It was a contradiction that could never be reconciled.

After the formal announcements, the deputy quickly moved to fulfill his mission, doing so with undeniable skill. After a perfunctory bow to Lin Feng, who sat at the head of the hall, he immediately stepped to one side, drew a yellow silk scroll from his robe, and, in a loud, raspy voice, proclaimed, “An imperial edict from the Emperor of Great Zhou—Lin Feng, receive the decree!”

The hall fell into astonished silence.