The Sorceress' Revolt -
Ko Eiji's Story
Author: Toriumi Jinzō
Translator: Ainikki the Archivist
Part Four: The Way of the Dragon Slayer
It was in February of the following year, 1047 CE, when Ou Soku heard about the popularity of the Divine Immortal Spiritual Religion in Beizhou. It was clear to him that Sei Koko was planning to seize Beizhou and use it as a base for conquering the world. Ou Soku’s ambition to join the sorcerers and use them for his own purposes had ended in failure, but Ou Soku did not give up.
I’ll be making an enemy of all those sorcerers… but sorcerers are only humans with magic. Instead of magic, I will use wisdom and courage as my weapons.
Sei Koko was clearly intelligent. Ou Soku didn’t believe he’d ever be able to outsmart her. Her intelligence led her to use cunning and underhanded tactics to achieve her ends. But Sei Koko and her sorcerers had to have weaknesses, since they were only human. Could sorcerers grow addicted to their own power? Why stay and serve Sei Koko if not for the chance they got to become more powerful still? He hadn’t observed any of the sorcerers crafting cunning plans like Sei Koko did, so he assumed that they relied less on intelligence and more on raw power. The sorcerers were like a pack of savage beasts.
Sun Tzu’s Art of War said that the beginning of any battle was in the planning. Ou Soku tried to plan. He was glad he’d spent so much time reading Sun Tzu; Art of War gave him a good basis for what he should consider doing next.
The section of the book called Laying Plans came back to him.
Sun Tzu wrote:
The art of war is of vital importance to the Imperial State.
It is a matter of life and death, a road either to safety or to ruin. It is a subject of inquiry which can on no account be neglected.
The art of war, then, is governed by five constant factors to be taken into account in one’s deliberations when seeking to determine the conditions in the field.
These are: (1) The Moral Law; (2) Heaven; (3) Earth; (4) The Commander; and (5) Method and discipline.
Moral Law causes the people to be in complete accord with their ruler, so that they will follow him regardless of their lives, undismayed by any danger.
Heaven signifies night and day, cold and heat, times and seasons.
Earth comprises distances great and small; danger and security; open ground and narrow passes; the chances of life and death.
The Commander stands for the virtues of wisdom sincerity, benevolence, courage and strictness.
Method and discipline are to be understood as the marshaling of the army in its proper subdivisions, the gradations of rank among the officers, the maintenance of roads by which supplies may reach the army, and the control of military expenditure.
These five aspects should be familiar to every general: he who knows them will be victorious; he who knows them not will fail.1
Ou Soku recalled another passage as well: All warfare is based on deception.
When able to attack, we must seem unable; when using our forces, we must seem inactive; when we are near, we must make the enemy believe we are far away; when far away, we must make him believe we are near.
After the initial Laying Plans chapter, Art of War explained waging war, attack by stratagem, tactical dispositions, energy (as regarded military forces on the battlefield), exploiting weaknesses and shoring up strengths, maneuvering, varying tactics, the logistics of marching over distances, terrain and its manifold struggles, attack by fire, and the use of spies.
Sei Koko has all those sorcerers working for her, but I’m on my own. Well, Sei Koko also started out alone, didn’t she? All that means is that I need allies, Ou Soku thought. He couldn’t use spies unless he recruited some—and became one himself.
The basis of military strategy was to know one’s enemy. Perhaps some useful wisdom could be gleaned simply from gathering intelligence. Ou Soku visited the towns and cities of Hebei Province to learn news from soldiers and guards. He visited Chengde, Quingping, Zhending and other places on his hunt for information.
Even though many—most?—government officials were corrupt and decadent, there were some places where the prefectural and imperial governors were relatively good at managing their respective areas. There were also some imperial estates where everyone was corrupt. Everything about entering government service was suspect. Though Ou Soku had been raised since early childhood to want to be a government official, he now saw limited appeal in that way of life.
After traveling around for a while, Ou Soku entered Beizhou. He tried to be circumspect so that he wouldn’t draw attention from Sei Koko or her sorcerers. Thanks to the supplies and money Ri Shun had given him, he was able to explore Beizhou at his leisure. His traveler’s pack was still more than half full of copper coins and gold nuggets.
Ou Soku was duly impressed by Ri Shun’s thoughtfulness and consideration. He found himself thinking about Jun Reini, Ri Shun’s female transformation, from time to time with a chuckle. How had Ri Shun even found out that he possessed such a unique ability: transforming into a beautiful young woman?
The memory of Ko Eiji’s face troubled Ou Soku at odd times. He couldn’t seem to forget her. He wasn’t sure he wanted to.
***
Ou Soku entered the Daoist temple of the True Divine Immortal Spiritual Religion in Beizhou. It was packed with believers and filled with the wafting scent of burning incense. His face was mostly covered by a winter hat. Only his eyes were exposed. He looked around, peering over the heads of the believers in front of him.
He looked at the altar. Sei Koko was kneeling in prayer next to Ko Eiji, who had her head bowed. Ko Eiji finished her prayers first and stood up straight, facing all the gathered believers.
In her fine clothes and jewels, Ko Eiji was even more lovely than she’d been when Ou Soku first saw her on Mt. Zixia. Before he could be overwhelmed by her again, he closed his eyes and turned away from the stage.
Ou Soku’s movements caught Ko Eiji’s attention. Her gaze fixed on him and him alone. He started to sweat under his winter gear. Surely she couldn’t recognize him—not at such a distance, and not with his face mostly covered.
Before Ko Eiji could address him, Ou Soku left the temple in a hurry. He huffed out a steam-white breath in the cold air and went down the temple steps.
***
That night, Ou Soku ate dinner at a run-down tavern. He didn’t think that any of Sei Koko’s sorcerers would find him here, but he was troubled by Ko Eiji’s gaze on him earlier that afternoon.
There were few other customers in the tavern. In one corner, there were three imperial soldiers drunk on cheap rice wine. They vented their drunken anger by complaining loudly about Beizhou’s governor, Zhang Deyi.2 It was unusual for imperial soldiers to show up at a tavern where ordinary people gathered, but perhaps this was proof of their lack of discipline. They were practically foaming at the mouth, they were so upset. At first they were whispering, but their voices grew louder the drunker and more excited they became.
Ou Soku heard in whispers, then in shouts that Zhang Deyi had conspired with other officials to steal the imperial soldiers’ wages and embezzle construction subsidies and relief funds for the poor. He’d also introduced a new medicinal herb shop to the Imperial Court and received kickbacks in exchange. The rumor was that Zhang Deyi's wife had received an exorbitant sum from a wealthy merchant that had been delivered in an ox cart.
Zhang Ti’s wife was as greedy as him, if not more. She would complain about the smallest things, thus: “I don’t like the color of the tea. Give me something with a better color.”
Or: “I want only the best outfit for my daughter when she gets married, and this certainly is not it. I also want to build a new estate with a garden.”
She repeatedly asked for things like this and complained whenever she was unsatisfied, which was often.
Zhang Deyi maintained his position by bribing high-ranking imperial officials. Even if his bribery were revealed and a public outcry ensued, all that would happen was that he would be dismissed from his position. He would be able to retire to his hometown as an extremely wealthy man without suffering any consequences. The world’s censure meant nothing to a man like Zhang Deyi because he had enough money to comfortably ignore it. Such was the way of the world.
Listening to all this made Ou Soku feel strangely hopeful.
The soldiers’ anger at their desperate situation increased as they drank more. “I’ve had my pay cut for six months now. I have a mother, a wife, and five kids. I’m on the verge of starvation.”
“Do you want to take the plunge? End it all?” a younger soldier asked.
The older man frowned. “Nah. I guess I’ll just have to cry myself to sleep again. Damn it.” He was closer to being sober than his companions. He hung his head dejectedly because there was nothing left in his glass. “And if you mean escaping the other way, well. There’s no way to escape Akurai’s evil eyes. They’re wild dogs; they can smell when something’s off.”
Akurai (or Orai) was an imperial official during the reign of Emperor Xin at the end of the Shang Dynasty (around the 12th century BCE). He was a powerful and violent man.3
There was no way that the soldiers were talking about a long-dead government official. Akurai must be someone else’s nickname.
The tavern owner placed a large bottle of rice wine on the soldiers’ table.
“It’s from the customer next door.”
Ou Soku stood up with a slight smile on his face. “Please feel free to drink,” he said. “That bottle’s on me.”
The soldiers looked at him suspiciously.
Ou Soku bowed and sat down in a vacant chair near them. “My name is Ou Soku.”
“So. Why buy us a drink?” the older soldier asked.
“I overheard your troubles, is all,” Ou Soku said.
The soldiers’ eyes burned with fierce intensity—and fear. They were worried about what he’d overheard, exactly.
“I’m not a local, so don’t worry. I won’t tell anyone what you said.”
“I thought you were an imperial spy for a second.”
“Not at all. Just hearing what they’re doing to you all made me want to strangle myself.”
“Sh. You might not be a spy, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t others hnearby.”
Ou Soku shrugged that off, and then the soldiers got to drinking again. Alcohol was the best way for them to release their stress. Ou Soku expressed his sympathy for them, trying to win their favor. The drunk soldiers were honest about what they were thinking and feeling and started to relax around him a bit more.
“If it weren’t for that accursed Akurai, we would have all fled a long time ago.”
“Who is Akurai?” Ou Soku asked.
“Ta Sai,” another soldier spat. “A general.”
“Oh. Is he really as strong as all that?” Ou Soku asked.
“Stronger than anyone knows or thinks. He’s like a bull where the horns can’t break. Plenty of us tried escaping and got their necks twisted clean off for the trouble.”
“He’s violent and stupid, so he can’t be controlled, either. He really is a mad bull,” a soldier said.
“You should talk, idiot. Who likes being controlled?” another soldier asked.
“Do you have a good plan for escaping, young man?” the older soldier asked. “‘Cuz if you hadn’t noticed, we’re all ears.”
Perhaps because Ou Soku was sober and had bought them an entire bottle of wine, the soldiers seemed to perceive him as a wise man.
Ou Soku considered. He’d never thought of running away, even when facing Sei Koko and all her terrible power. Conquering the world was not a dream. He could do it. He even thought he knew how.
“Hey, are you gonna say something or just think all day?” a soldier asked.
“To fight and conquer in all your battles is not supreme excellence; supreme excellence consists in breaking the enemy’s resistance without fighting,” Ou Soku quoted.
The soldiers looked stunned.
“What is that?”
“It’s from Sun Tzu’s Art of War, from the chapter on strategy.”
“I see. So you’ve been educated?”
Ou Soku shrugged. “We need to come up with a plan and get things done quickly. And that depends on us standing united.”
The soldiers exchanged glances. Ou Soku was not a soldier or a local. He was getting very involved very quickly, and even the drunk soldiers were curious about what that meant.
Akurai—Ta Sai—was a confidant of Zhang Deyi and was cracking down on disgruntled soldiers. One soldier had attempted to desert recently and ten members of his unit were punished along with him. All eleven men were sentenced to three months in prison or dumped into one of the city canals. Most soldiers in the army didn’t desert out of fear of what would happen to their comrades.
Still, there were always some men who tried to escape, which just went to show how harsh military life truly was.
One man deserting had terrible consequences on his unit, but what if a hundred men deserted at once? A thousand? More?
The drunk soldiers nodded along as Ou Soku explained his reasoning and his plan. The soldiers were impressed by Ou Soku’s simple and persuasive explanation of military strategy and were inspired by it.
“Let your rapidity be that of the wind, your compactness that of the forest. In raiding and plundering be like fire, and in your immovability be like a mountain. Let your plans be dark and impenetrable as night, and when you move, fall like a thunderbolt,” Ou Soku said, quoting Sun Tzu again.
“Huh?” the older soldier asked. “That was hard to understand. I didn’t catch it all.”
“Never mind,” Ou Soku muttered. “He who sees the obvious and devious plan will win. We have an obvious and devious plan, so let’s get to it.”
“But it seems like it’ll be hard,” one soldier whined.
“It doesn’t matter. We have to get ahead of the enemy. Now that we have a plan, we must execute it immediately. If our enemy realizes what we’re up to before we do it, it’s all over for us.”
The older soldier nodded agreement.
“It’s just as Ou Soku said. Akurai’s wild dogs have good ears for trouble.”
“Let’s get the others and get this done right away, sir,” one of the less drunk soldiers said.
“Well, tomorrow is my day off so that’s perfect,” the older soldier said.
Then they started speaking in whispers to each other. Ou Soku frowned a little. He didn’t think that the soldiers were going to run, which was what they should do. No. They were going to mutiny. He could work with that.
“Tomorrow night, gather the soldiers in one place. If you can guide me there, I’ll be with you and provide what aid I can,” Ou Soku said.
“And what can you do?” the older soldier asked.
Ou Soku silently stretched his arm out to the lantern hanging from the ceiling.
The soldiers stared, wondering what he was doing.
There was a sound like wind cutting through the air. The lantern broke open and burst into flames.
The soldiers were shocked. And not only the soldiers, but the other tavern patrons as well.
“It looked old,” Ou Soku said as he gazed up at the burning lantern. “It probably needed to be replaced anyway.”
“Amazing! Can you do magic?” a soldier asked.
The tavern owner probably thought that the wick of the lantern had fallen over and caught fire, so he got the lantern down with a long stick and stamped the fire out before it could spread.
But the soldiers had seen Ou Soku light the lantern on fire just by pointing at it. They thought he had sorcerous powers.
Ou Soku chuckled. “Sorry to say, but I’m not a sorcerer. Just a strategist.”
“Strategists are important in war,” the older soldier said. “I’m Lieutenant Rou. I’ll be waiting for you at the back entrance of the East Barracks tomorrow night. Don’t come late.”
The way Lieutenant Rou spoke became suddenly polite. As a lieutenant, he led an entire platoon of soldiers.
“I’ll be there. Whether it goes well or poorly, let’s make it a night to remember.”
Lieutenant Rou nodded.
Ou Soku paid for the soldiers’ drinks and left the tavern. The moon shone brightly overhead as he sought lodgings for the night in Beizhou.
Translator's Notes
1
I have used the translation of The Art of War hosted by MIT, correcting some minor typos and adding a bit of context to some terms. https://classics.mit.edu/Tzu/artwar.html↩
2 張得一 Zhang Deyi was the governor of Beizhou during this time period. He fled to the cavalry barracks during the revolt and wound up being captured by the rebels.. ↩
3 悪来 Akurai is a nickname for Orai, which was the man's given name. The 'aku' in 'akurai' means 'evil.' Akurai is an antagonist in the novel Romance of the Three Kingdoms in addition to being a real historical figure. ↩
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