Mirage by Anonymous

Author:Anonymous [Hanan, Patrick]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 978-962-996-841-0
Publisher: New York Review Books
Published: 2016-06-21T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter XIII

Emerging from reclusion, he reviews commanders

A bandit for the present, he is awarded high rank

Bai Xishao was a commoner who lived in Boluo county and whose monastic name was Dun’an. He had built himself a small hut beneath Mount Luofu, and although he was poor, with nothing to his name apart from his lute and a few books, he had a mind well stocked with ingenious schemes, he could predict the future, and he was skilled in all aspects of military strategy. In his straw hat and his coarse cloth gown, he led a contented life. Three years previously he had divined that the coastal areas would suffer several years of armed conflict, after which certain individuals, he himself would share the same destiny, would serve the state by setting one group of bandits against another. The only thing he did not know was when the conflict would begin.

One day, as he was fishing beside the stream, he heard some passers-by talking about how some bandits had recently set up camp on Goat’s Foot Ridge. Although the bandits didn’t rob any of the common people or the traveling merchants, they had blocked the road through the mountains. Dun’an smiled. “You must have it wrong,” he said to one of the passers-by. “How could bandits survive if they didn’t rob anyone?”

“You don’t understand, sir,” said the man. “This bandit chief is the brother of Colonel Yao, and he wants to render service to the court. He is burdened by an enormous sense of injustice, and he kills only greedy and corrupt officials and robs only those who are ruthless in their pursuit of wealth. He doesn’t bother honest citizens at all.”

Struck by a sudden thought, Dun’an stopped fishing and went back to his hut. From what they say, he thought, this man Yao really does sound rather unusual. There has never been a bandit in the greenwood who has been able to repay his obligations to the court. Let me use the eight diagrams to try and divine his behavior. He heated up some incense, cast the milfoil stalks, and was delighted to obtain the Second Yang of the Army hexagram. The Second Yang at the lower level is where many yin images return; at the higher level it resonates with the Fifth Yang, he reflected. This man will receive the favor of the sovereign, who will confer on him a threefold commendation,1 all of which fits my earlier divination. But he has no idea that I even exist, and I shall have to go and seek him out. He cast aside his medicine burner and his tea stove, said farewell to his thatched hut and his bamboo fence, and set off in the direction of Huizhou.

He soon reached Ebu, where people gathered in groups of two or three passed on the news: “Chief Yao has seized Goat’s Foot Ridge, where last month he defeated a force from the Jieshi station. In the last few days the commander-in-chief has dispatched government troops to root out the bandits.

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