Wen Zhong Falls

T he Grand Marshal marched his army out of the old Shang land, and the west wind came hissing across the fields to push the slanting sun down the sky. A king had wrecked his own government and left the people to suffer for it; a minister would pour out his loyalty and be wounded to the last drop. That was the verse the storytellers hung over the campaign before it began, because the ending was not in doubt. Wen Zhong was the best soldier the house of Shang had left — clear-eyed, incorruptible, the one man at that poisoned court who still said no to the wrong things out loud. When word came that the demon brothers of the Mo family had been killed in the west, he went to the king, took his commission, and rode out at the head of three hundred thousand men toward the rebel city of Xiqi. The Grand Marshal leads troops out of the old Shang; the west wind sighs, seeing off the slanting sun. The lord, through misrule, has left the people in great hardship; the minister, to spend his loyalty, will be wounded to his life's end. So runs the opening verse. After the Mo brothers had lost the pearl parasol and their army was thrown into disorder and broken, Wen Zhong obtained the king's sanction and set out with three hundred thousand soldiers to subdue Xiqi.

On the road west, passing Yellow-Flower Mountain, he found four men worth having — Deng Zhong, Zhang Kui, Tao Rong, and Xin Huan, fighters with arts of their own. He did not so much recruit them as outmatch them, beating each in turn until they agreed to serve, and the bargain was the usual one: come with me against Xiqi, and there will be a reward at the end of it. There was a reward at the end of it, though not the kind any of them had in mind. They took their places under his banner, and the great column rolled on toward the west with the most formidable commander Zhou had ever faced at its head. On the march, at Yellow-Flower Mountain, he met four celestial generals — Deng Zhong, Zhang Kui, Tao Rong, and Xin Huan. Through his superior arts Wen Zhong subdued them one by one and took them into his service. Xin Huan submitted first, then the others, all agreeing to fight against Xiqi in hope of future reward. The four generals made ready, and the army pressed on.

The campaign that followed was the hardest war Xiqi had yet fought, and even it could not break Wen Zhong on the open field. So Jiang Ziya, who fished men out of fate the way he had once fished the Wei River, did not meet him on the open field. He waited for night. He sent Yang Jian ahead with three thousand men to burn the grain stores, and put Xin Jia and the rest at the perimeter, shouting into the dark — Come over to the virtuous lord of Xiqi and live in peace; prop up the tyrant of Shang and you abolish every bond of heaven and kin. Then, around the first watch-drum, the Zhou army hit the camp from all four sides at once. In the silver hall Jiang Ziya gave his orders, dividing Huang Tianhua, Nezha, and Lei Zhenzi into three columns. He had Xin Jia, Xin Mian, and the rest take three thousand men and cry aloud: "Submit to the virtuous lord of Xiqi and enjoy peace and safety; support the lawless tyrant of Shang and you destroy every human bond." Yang Jian, with three thousand men, was sent first to burn the enemy's grain and fodder. About the first drum, the Zhou army attacked the camp from all four sides.

“He looked up through the fire and saw his own name, already written in gold on the scroll hanging in the sky, and understood that he had never been marching toward Xiqi at all.”

It was butchery in the dark. Blood ran until it filled the ditches; bodies lay stacked and flattened for a mile. Ziya cut his way through seven rings of the camp's defenses to reach Wen Zhong himself, and the two old soldiers came together at last. And here the war turned on a single object. Ziya hurled the God-Beating Whip — and the Grand Marshal's third eye, set in the middle of his brow, saw it coming. He dodged. He was not quite fast enough; the whip caught him in the left shoulder. Meanwhile Long Xuhu's stones came clattering down out of the night into the press, the grain stores went up behind him in a wall of fire, and the loyal army of Shang began, quietly and then all at once, to come apart. Blood flowed until it brimmed the trenches; corpses lay heaped and level for miles. Ziya broke through seven rings of the encirclement and fought Wen Zhong in person. As the Grand Marshal was in the thick of it, Ziya threw up the God-Beating Whip. Wen Zhong's divine eye in the center of his brow saw it, and he hurried to dodge — but it caught him early in the left shoulder. At the same moment Long Xuhu's flung stones threw the camp into chaos, Yang Jian set the grain ablaze, and the spirits of the Zhou soldiers soared.

The Zhou voices kept calling surrender across the burning camp, and with the grain gone the men had nothing left to fight for. Half the Shang army simply walked away into the dark. Wen Zhong found himself in the position every great commander dreads and few survive to describe: he had strength, and nowhere to put it; he had his arts, and no use for them. There is no spell for a war already lost. He gathered what was left of his broken column and fell back to Mount Qi, and when he counted the men who were still with him there were something over thirty thousand — a tenth of the host he had led out of Shang. The Zhou troops shouted on every side urging surrender, and with the grain and fodder burned, half the Shang army walked off. Wen Zhong "had strength but nowhere to use it, had arts but no place to apply them." He retreated to Mount Qi, halted his beaten and remnant men and horses, and on review found only a little over thirty thousand left.

He retreated north after that, and the retreat became a hunt. The Zhou immortals and their young killers were waiting at every turn — Nezha, Huang Tianhua, Lei Zhenzi — and one by one his four generals from Yellow-Flower Mountain were cut down on the road, the men he had won by beating them, dying for the reward none of them would collect. At last Wen Zhong lost the road entirely. He came upon a woodcutter and asked the way, and the woodcutter pointed: southwest, not fifteen li, past the White-Crane Mound, and you strike the high road for Green-Dragon Pass. The woodcutter was Yang Jian wearing another face. The road he pointed out did not go to Green-Dragon Pass. It went to a ridge called Juelong — the place where dragons end. Wen Zhong retreated northward, and along the way Nezha, Huang Tianhua, and Lei Zhenzi lay in ambush and killed his subordinates Deng Zhong, Zhang Kui, Tao Rong, and Xin Huan. Wen Zhong lost his way, and met a woodcutter, who pointed with his hand: "Southwest, not more than fifteen li, past the White-Crane Mound, is the main road to Green-Dragon Pass." The woodcutter was Yang Jian in disguise, and the way he gave led not to Green-Dragon Pass but to Juelong Ridge — the Dragon-Ending Ridge.

At the ridge an immortal was waiting — Yun Zhongzi, who lived in the clouds of Mount Zhongnan. This is Juelong Ridge, he said. You have come to a dead place. Why not surrender? Wen Zhong, of course, would not. So Yun Zhongzi raised his hand and called the thunder, and out of the level ground grew eight pillars that reached toward heaven, each above thirty feet tall, set in the eight directions of the trigrams — Qian, Kan, Gen, Zhen, Xun, Li, Kun, Dui. Inside every pillar burned forty-nine fire dragons, breathing smoke and flame, their claws and fangs glowing red where they moved. The verse for that fire said it could boil the bitter sea dry to the bottom and burn a mountain until the very stone stood hollow. At the ridge Yun Zhongzi, the immortal of Mount Zhongnan, appeared and said: "This place is Juelong Ridge. You have come to a desperate ground — why not surrender?" Wen Zhong refused. Yun Zhongzi struck the thunder with his hand, and from the level earth grew eight heaven-reaching divine fire pillars, more than three zhang tall and over a zhang around, set by the eight trigram positions: Qian, Kan, Gen, Zhen, Xun, Li, Kun, Dui. In each pillar appeared forty-nine fire dragons, fierce flames leaping. Of the fire it is written: "From its mouth it spews smoke and breathes flame; where its claws and fangs move, all turns red — it boils the bitter sea dry to the bottom, and where it meets a mountain it burns the stone hollow."

Wen Zhong knew the art of walking through fire unburned; it should not have been able to hold him. But Yun Zhongzi had borrowed the immortal Ran Deng's purple-gold alms bowl and clapped it over the top of the formation like a lid on a pot, so that the one road out — straight up — was sealed. The Grand Marshal did not know it was there. He gathered himself and shot upward to escape, and his head struck the underside of the bowl. The Crown of Nine-Heaven Flames was knocked from his brow and fell to the dust; his black hair came loose and hung down around his face. He gave one great cry and dropped back into the fire. Wen Zhong knew the technique of escaping fire, but Yun Zhongzi had beforehand capped the formation with Ran Deng's purple-gold alms bowl, covering it over like a single lid. Wen Zhong did not know. He shot upward to flee, and struck the Crown of Nine-Heaven Flames from his head into the dust; his black hair fell loose about him. The Grand Marshal gave a great cry and tumbled down.

So the last good general of the Shang burned to death on a ridge he had been tricked into climbing, in a war his king had already thrown away. And as he died he looked up through the flames and understood the joke that had been running underneath the whole campaign — that he had never really been marching toward Xiqi at all. A single soul rose from the fire toward the Investiture Platform, where a god of pure fortune came to meet it with the hundred-spirit banner and lead it in, his name already written in gold on the scroll that hung waiting in the sky. He had one errand left undone. He went to King Zhou in a dream and begged him, even now: work hard at humane government, seek out good men to help you rule, do not give yourself to ruin, do not treat the altars of your ancestors as a small thing, do not think the words of men worth nothing and the will of heaven nothing to fear. Then he was gone, and the king woke, and changed nothing at all. A single soul went toward the Investiture Platform, where the God of Pure Fortune came with the hundred-spirit banner to guide the Grand Marshal in. Afterward his spirit came to King Zhou in a dream, urging: "May Your Majesty diligently cultivate humane government and seek worthy men to aid the state; do not give rein to dissipation and foul the court's governance; do not hold the ancestral altars too light to honor, the words of men not worth trusting, the mandate of heaven not worth fearing. Turn back from past faults, and it may yet be retrieved." Then he departed forever.