It had been some time since Qu Qiukao’s return to our home state of Qǐ. But I, occupied as I was by various trifling matters, had not yet found an opportunity to meet with him.
During this delay on my part, I began hearing rumors regarding this man. Several nobles had visited him in groups; after hearing the tales of his travels to various foreign states, they all found his words ‘illogical and absurd—not the proper speech of a dignified gentleman.’ It did not take long before descriptions of what he had seen and heard made their way to my ears. After many rounds of retelling, the contents of what he had said were surely jumbled and distorted, quite different from his original words. But one thing was clear: At present, he was wracked by anxiety, to the point of losing his appetite, over the notion that the heavens would fall and the earth would collapse.
It was about time that I met with this old friend of mine. I sent word to him, and we arranged for me to go to his manor on the twenty-eighth day of the heavenly cycle in the fourth month.
When I arrived for said visit, Qu Qiukao was sitting beneath that lush birchleaf pear tree in his courtyard. They say it had been planted by his ancestors when they had migrated eastward and settled here. Not many flower petals remained atop the branches, but the ground was replete, as if with a blanket of snow, and canaries flocked near, streaming melodies upon their perches. We were right in the most scenic time of the year, the very picture of harmonious nature from the Book of Odes, but alas, in his present state, Qu Qiukao was far too preoccupied to enjoy it. The sights of spring dimmed before my eyes at the thought of his worries.
Noticing my approach, Qu Qiukao ordered our places set and wine to be brought and served. We then sat right beneath the tree and began our chat.
It was evident that the hardships of his journey had left indelible marks upon his person. That face most familiar to me had become overrun with furrows, as suntanned and arid as plowed earth before the planting; his once-intense gaze, having lost its glow, was now flickering and uncertain, as if he wasn’t looking at me but at a faraway place.
I still remember, clear as day, the sight of him two years prior as he had ascended the carriage to embark upon his grand travels—how confident and proud he had been then, and what grandiose boasts he had made. Those eyes had been brimming with ambition and ego, without the slightest hint of hesitation or fear. That boldness was nowhere to be seen, now. The figure before me was the living image of a cicada husk, and the Qu Qiukao I was familiar with had perhaps vanished on his journey.
A journey which he had undertaken to proselytize his treatises on war.
It all began in this very courtyard. He had voraciously devoured all the strategies and histories on wars from various lands, and on a large table of sand, he had reenacted battles of the past and present with his belt and hat to represent cities, and pebbles to model chariots and cavalry, calculating the outcomes of every possible path of action. After nearly two decades of labor, he had completed his seven volumes of stratagems, the subjects being the Art of Campaigning, of Besieging, of Fortifications, of Logistics, of Pyrotechnics, of Topography, and of Aeromancy, for a total of eight-and-ten thousand characters.
And then he had copied his treatises most reverently upon wooden slips and presented them to our ruler, the lord of Qǐ. He had further presented a petition requesting adoption of his stratagems, promising that within three years, we would recover all of our territories lost to the eastern hordes, and within ten, we would build a great empire to which other principalities would bow their heads.
In the end, his petition had been rejected—not that this had been a surprising development. Though Qǐ’s history could be traced back to the Yu the Great, the founder of the first dynasty and tamer of floods, it was now merely a tiny state adjoining where the states Qí and Lu meet. Generations of lords rested upon their holdings and ruled without ambition. This was no place for Qu Qiukao to spread his wings, nor had he been discouraged by his rejection, either, remarking only, “Birds know to choose their trees, and surely we cannot be less capable.” This was when the idea of traveling to other states to propound his stratagems had germinated in his head.
Only at this recollection did I realize the huge sand table that had accompanied him for most of his life had also disappeared without a trace.
“Which lords did you meet, and did they take interest in your treatises?” I asked after a round of pleasantries.
“Treatises?” He shook his head, his expression vacant. “I burned them all. They are no longer of use.”
“But twenty years of your hard work was spent on them. Even if the ruling lords don’t adopt your strategies, they’re more than enough to be passed onto future generations—why burn them?”
“You would not be saying this if you’d seen what engineering marvels the major states have developed,” he said. “I only wish that I had never spent time writing that thick stack of treatises, and more so, that I never took them to tour the other states. In their eyes, I am only a most uncultured man, one who finds basking in the sun to be the epitome of human enjoyment and peas the most delicious delicacy on earth. I could have been satisfied with my own lot, but I just had to expose myself before those lords of worldly sophistication. In the end, I brought nothing but disgrace upon my person.”
He heaved a long sigh at this, draining the wine in his jue in one go. I kept quiet and listened as he continued.
“We the people of Qǐ have been isolated from the outside world for too long. Even when we have the chance to visit the aristocrats of Qí and Lu, we care only for the cuisine and entertainment of our neighboring states, and not at all of their armaments and defenses. We do not even know how far we have fallen. I also once thought that military strategies are eternal axioms, immune to change no matter what instruments may be crafted by engineers. But as soon as I reached the Qí capital, I realized how utterly, horribly wrong I was.
“The Marquis of Qí was joining forces with the states of Lu, Song, Chen, and Cai to attack Wei. Eight years ago, two noblemen had revolted, ousting the Marquis of Wei to replace him with his brother. The Marquis of Qí aimed with this expedition to help the exiled marquis back atop his throne.
“I arrived at the perfect time, just as the Qí army was lined up before the wall of its capital city. The army banners weaved together in a tapestry, connected as far as the eye could see, and the dust billowed up to shroud the sun itself. At first, I was utterly awestruck by the show of military might from a major state, their war chariots numbering in the tens of thousands, but then I noticed that most of the infantry behind the chariots were not wearing armor, almost as if they were completely undressed. Puzzled, I focused my eyes on the peculiar sight, only to discover that those were not soldiers of flesh and blood, but humanoid figures carved from wood.
“Those wooden soldiers had either pikes in their hands or halberds upon their shoulders; they marched in unhurried unison, keeping pace behind the chariots. I could also spy no shortage of wooden figures in the rear supply line doing a number of odd jobs, drawing water and tending horses.
“The head of each wooden figure was as a wine cask, with a wide opening narrowing to a square base, and water was held inside. The joints of the shoulder, elbow, hips, and knees were all freely movable, like living humans, but the neck and ankle were dead wood. Each of the two shoulder blades had a hole in which a hemp rope was threaded, and the exposed ends of the rope drooped all the way to the waist. Various knots were tied on the ropes; with each step forward, a small section of the rope was fed into the left hole, and an equal length extruded from the right hole, such that the total length of the rope stayed constant. If you looked closely, you could see that drops of water occasionally leaked out from the soles of the figures, leaving rows of muddy footprints upon the earth.
“When I entered the city, I saw that the streets were also full of these automata. The Qí use them to cut firewood, husk grains, and transport goods. After settling in, I asked around to learn they were designed by a man named Bei Guoli from the state of Lu. They told me he had traveled throughout the western states in his youth to evade those who had quarrel with him. It was during that time when he serendipitously happened upon the treatises on the mechanical arts from the venerable puppet master who served King Mu of Zhou, and after forty-odd years of repeated experimentation, he had finally mastered this art of puppetry. He had crafted a troupe of wooden musicians and dancers and had presented them to the Marquis of Qí, who had been deeply appreciative of his efforts. The Marquis had not been satisfied by the performing arts, however, and had wanted Bei Guoli to apply his puppetry skills to the military and economic spheres, the results of which were the wooden automata I witnessed both within and without the city.
“Afterwards, I bribed a Qí noble for his connections so I could finally meet this Bei Guoli face-to-face.
“He was shrunken from old age, his left eye clouded over, and in place of two legs, he had four wheels beneath the knees, the movement of which he controlled using a wooden shaft. According to his own words, he had first presented a performing troupe of automata to the lord of Lu, but had then been accused of false crimes by a wicked liar and punished with having his feet cut off. Only after his exile to Qí had he been appreciated for his talents.
“There is another story out there regarding his disability. Some say he had been bribed by Pengsheng, a noble of the ruling family of Qí, to conceal a dagger inside one of the wooden figures he had presented to the Marquis of Lu, who had then been assassinated by said blade when he examined the figure up close. By then, Bei Guoli had already escaped to Qí; to placate Lu, the Qí had executed Pengsheng and severed Bei Guoli’s feet. Others say that the real mastermind behind the assassination of the Marquis had been the lord of Qí himself. The Marquis of Qí’s younger sister had been married to the Marquis of Lu, but she had frequently gone behind his back to have affairs with her own brother. After this came to light, the Marquis of Qí had used Bei Guoli’s puppets to assassinate the Marquis of Lu. This story seemed plausible to me, as well.
“Bei Guoli was very confident in his own technology, to the point of being utterly unconcerned that I might steal his secrets, perhaps because he was unimpressed by people from Qǐ. I said I wished to see the inner workings of the automata; without reservations, he removed the wooden panel over the chest of a wooden entertainer who was playing music. Inside was perhaps as many as a hundred bronze cogwheels of various sizes: the smallest were no bigger than peas, while the largest were the size of an open palm. The teeth of these cogwheels interlocked perfectly with each other, and the entire system rotated continuously. Water from the head of the automaton flowed down and moved the smaller cogs, which in turn rotated the larger cogs, which then tugged and pushed on levers and strings that enabled the automaton to move in various ways. After flowing past the system of cogs, the water would eventually exit from the hole at the bottom of the feet.
“Then I asked him how he controlled the movements of the automata, and he answered that it was through the knots tied on the rope upon their backs, disassembling the wooden panel on the figure’s back and pulling out the rope as he spoke. Although the cogwheels continued to spin, the figure was now immobile. He then installed a different rope, and the automaton, instead of performing music in a sitting position, now stood up and began dancing with its limbs.
“He explained further that complexity in the knots begets complexity in the movements of the automata. Skilled artisans must sew with their bone bodkins for days to create knots that enable wooden entertainers to strike drums, play zithers, juggle balls, and toss swords. In contrast, the ropes for mundane tasks have much simpler knots. You need only to calculate the steps and actions ahead of time for it to repeat the same work over and over, and for upkeep, simply refill the heads of your automata with well water from time to time.
“And the wooden soldiers employed in war are the simplest. Only two ropes are needed: one tied with knots solely for striding forward, used to march the army; the other rope intertwines the first set of commands with knots that waved their weapons for fighting. Unless blades or arrows pierce their bodies and damage their cogwheels, or the water in their heads is exhausted, these fighting automata will continue to advance without rest. Bodies of flesh and blood are no match for them.”
“If the Qí had truly mastered this art, were they not peerless and invincible in war?” I asked.
“Quite the opposite, in fact. They were immediately defeated in that battle. The Zhou royal court had sent reinforcements led by Zitu to the state of Wei to fight the five-state alliance upon the plains. The Qí army had an absolute advantage in the first few bouts of battle, but it did not last. As winter approached and temperatures dropped, the water in the heads of the wooden soldiers froze to ice. Without the flow of water powering their actions, the automata could no longer move.
“Furthermore, the Wei came prepared against the Qí wooden army. Their engineers designed a pyrotechnic weapon: Its head was cast from bronze and in the form of the chi, the hornless dragon, and it spat fire from its mouth, hence the name Zhuchi, or chi candle. Its body was an enormous wooden box that contained eight or so bellows sewn from leather hides and filled with grease. Several foot pedals extended from the rear of the box, where a person could stand, and four wheels were installed beneath.
“On the battlefield, the Zhuchi is maneuvered by two pushing from behind while another stands on top to helm its flames. The chi head can be turned using ropes, and when you want to spew fire, you simply step on the pedals, which causes the mechanism within the box to compress the bellows and spray grease from the mouth. The upper and lower jaws of the chi each has a flintstone that makes sparks upon contact. The grease, ignited by the sparks, will transform into a stream of flame as far as a person is tall. Countless wooden soldiers were burned to ashes by Zhuchi.
“After this defeat, improving the automata became an imperative. To combat the wintry cold, the newer generation of automata no longer used water as their source of power. Instead, two bovine tendons were installed in their heads and wound together using a spiral spring. The tendons slowly loosened, which moved the cogwheels and thereby the automata.”
“But won’t this be even more susceptible to the Zhuchi’s flames?”
“Bei Guoli naturally had a solution to this, too. He devised a sort of Huanji, or soaking machine, which used the watermill on the shore of the river to divert water into a huge bronze vessel, beneath which was a raisable platform. After drawing water, the watermill would be replaced with wheels that could transport it across the battlefield with ease. Against the Zhuchi, one would elevate the platform, lifting the vessel to about three or four person-heights, then open a valve, allowing the water inside to flow through a wooden tube and spray out of its opening to approximately as far as the vessel’s height. The Zhuchi’s range was far shorter than that, and they were useless against the Huanji. In spring, they rematched in a few furious battles, and this time, the Qí won handily.”
“How extraordinary.”
“Not the most extraordinary. After the Qí returned victorious, Bei Guoli hatched a new idea. He wanted to design a special type of automata that he named Yuanbao: yuan, here meaning origin, and bao, here meaning embryo. This invention would be self-replicating.
“According to his vision, these automata would be divided into two teams—the Yuan unit would be installed with ropes that bade them to chop wood, carve shapes, and assemble objects, while the Bao unit would gather vines, weave ropes, and tie knots. Yuan and Bao working together would realize the self-replication of these automata. All they needed to do was dispatch a group of Yuanbao, which would in turn rapidly create an entire army of wooden soldiers. If some of those Yuanbao were given instructions to make new Yuanbao, it wouldn’t be long before there were no trees left beneath the heavens, every piece of land barren save for their automata conquerors…”
“Well, there’s no sign of wooden people here in Qǐ, so it would seem that his research is unsuccessful.”
“He had not made much progress by the time I left Qí. But given his intellect, it’s only a matter of time before the Yuanbao come into existence. We can only hope he doesn’t live that long.”
“And did you end up meeting with the Marquis of Qí?”
He shook his head.
“He sought to summon me, but I did not go. With a master engineer like Bei Guoli in their employ, I hardly think they have any use for my crude treatises. I soon left Qí to try my luck with the state of Jin, to the west. Before I left, I burned two volumes of my work, the Art of Campaigning and of Pyrotechnics. Such stratagems were utterly worthless before the automata, and the Huanji were better fed to the flames.
“When I passed by the state of Wei, I found the wooden figures of Qí to be everywhere. Though the Marquis of Wei had retaken the throne on paper, he was no better than the Qí’s puppet ruler in reality. The automata deployed to Wei all had a special mechanism in them—as soon as anyone attempted to open their panels to divine the mysteries within, the entire figure would burst into flames. Thus the Wei did not understand its principles of operations, and could not manufacture copies of their own.
“Not long after I crossed the borders of Jin, I saw another awe-inspiring scene. In the plains, the skies yellow with flying dust, I could see the walls of a city through the haze. It was not particularly big, far smaller than the Qí capital, but nevertheless quite a bit larger than the Wei cities I had just passed. Its walls were towering and studded with a row of what seemed to be banners. But a city such as this was somehow moving to the north, away from me at a rapid clip.
“I did not know where my courage came from, but I ordered the carriage driver to speed up the horse in chase, but we could not shorten that distance no matter how we tried. We gave chase until sunset, until both men and beast were drained, when we finally gave up and found lodging at the local village. Only after some asking around did I learn that what I saw was a moving city, built by the Jin engineer Dong Chenglou for the noble Zhao Rang, and named Handan.
“A few merchants happened to be staying at the same place. They had just come from there a day prior and prepared to head for the state of Wei, so they told me all about Handan.
“It is like an enormous ship that sails on land. Those flags I saw were actually wind sails, and at the bottom of the city are installed a countless number of wheels. With the wind blowing upon the sails, the city can move to and fro. If there is a windless day, or if they wish to move opposing the direction of the wind, the leaders of the city will gather the residents of the city to row the oars installed upon the walls, which enables the wheels to turn as well. But this method expends great time and effort, so it is only employed in emergencies.
“They said also that because of the turbulent movements, the feeling of being in Handan is like riding in a tiny raft upon giant waves. The first days will be difficult—dizziness in the mild cases, endless vomiting for the severe—and a long time will pass before you can move about freely. And if you do become accustomed to the turbulence of Handan, you will feel ill at ease when you return to solid ground. There was once someone from Yan who lived in Handan for a few years, lost the ability to walk on land, and could only clamber back to Yan on hands and feet.
“After witnessing the moving city, I was dispossessed of my notion to seek an audience with the Marquis of Jin and tossed Of Besieging in the fire while I was at it—if the enemy’s city is speeding away, too fast for you to catch, then there is nothing to lay siege to. Before the rolling wheels of Handan, my stratagems were but the proverbial mantis, attempting to block a vehicle but getting crushed to smithereens. After a night spent in distress, I decided to try my luck at the state of Qin.”
“I hear the Qin have long intermixed with the Xirong to the west, such that their ways are different from us in the Central Plains—could they really comprehend your treatises?”
“The same thought occurred to me, as well. But the sights of this journey had taught me the truth—the Middle Kingdoms no longer have any use for my skills.” Qu Qiukao heaved a long sigh. “And as it turned out, even the remote land of Qin had engineering marvels beyond our wildest imaginations.”
“What did you see there?”
“This time, before I could even enter Qin territory, I would already witness their might within Jin’s borders. Qí’s automata were created at the order of their lord, and the moving city of Jin was at least built for a noble, but the marvels of Qin were by the hands of a widow. She designed it not at the behest of anyone but only for easing her own trade. It was already dusk when I arrived at the Qin-Jin borders, and I had planned to stay the night at Jin before crossing over to Qin in the morning. But it was at this time that I saw an entire caravan fly steadily across the sky toward me…”
“Fly?”
“Indeed. The sun was setting then, the boundary between earth and sky blurred by the clouds at dusk, and in the slight breeze, the caravan appeared out of nowhere above the mountain range to the west, steadily approaching until it flew over my head and disappeared to the east. Somehow, the local villagers did not find this remarkable sight to be even worth raising their heads as they tilled their land, so I asked them what had flown overhead, and they said, most nonchalantly, that it was the trade caravan of the widow of the Xiqi clan from the state of Qin.
“Apparently, to expedite the shipment of goods, the Xiqi widow invented the so-called Gouyunsuo, or cloud-hooking rope, that could suspend carriages high in the clouds, rising and falling with them and drifting with the wind. Now her trade caravan can travel a thousand li in a day to trade between states, rapidly becoming an enterprise that rivaled entire states in wealth.
“O dastardly Fate! The heavens let me witness the wooden automata of Qí to bury my hopes, the moving city of Jin to renounce me. And now, the cloud-hooking rope of Qin—all is lost! All is lost!
“And so, there was no need for me to set foot in Qin. By next daybreak, I began my travel back to Qǐ, and in passing burned three more volumes. With the Gouyunsuo, provisioning the army was no longer a problem, and so the Art of Logistics was moot. Likewise with of Topography—hanging your chariots from the clouds rendered terrain-based formations obsolete. As for of Aeromancy, my art of predicting the weather was surely inferior to Xiqi’s mastery over the wind and clouds. By now, of the seven volumes, only of Fortifications remained.”
At this, he filled his jue with wine, but did not drink it.
“Before my visit, I had heard some things about you,” I said. “They’re all saying you’re worried the heavens will fall and the earth will collapse, to the point of not eating or sleeping. Is there truth to this?”
“Indeed.” He nodded. “If you knew what I had witnessed in the state of Chu, you would not think of these troubles as creations of my own imagination.”
“You traveled to Chu, too?”
“I had not planned on it. On the way home, I happened to encounter a caravan from Jin that was going south to Chu. I had a good chat with the head merchant. After hearing of my situation, he said the King of Chu was searching for talents the world over for his great enterprise and suggested that I try my luck there. I only thought dismissively of ‘the Jing hordes,’ as the Book of Odes called the Chu; surely, they could not have any technology more advanced than us here in Qǐ. And so I followed him there.
“But this would become the worst decision of my life. If only I had headed straight for home instead—I would still feel a tremendous sense of failure from my travels, but I would not be wracked with anxiety as I am now.”
At this, he blew out a long breath, and only after a moment of silence, during which he drained his wine vessel, did he continue.
“Our travels passed through several small states on the north bank of the Han River, those so-called Ji states of Hanyang. When the Zhou royals bequeathed those nobles of the Ji family land there, they had intended for them to form something of a barrier against the southern hordes. But alas, these small and weak states are being swallowed by the Chu bit by bit, and it’s only a matter of time before the Zhou themselves fall under threat. Not that the states of the Central Plains are faring any better, as we all sit with our hands tied and watch Chu’s burgeoning rise.
“The King of Chu had just conquered the state of Shen when we reached the state of Deng, wedged between Chu and Shen, so we happened upon the Chu army’s victorious return. Serendipitously, I was able to meet the King of Chu immediately.”
The way he called that man ‘king’ pierced my ears. The royal house of Zhou had given the lord of Chu the rank of viscount, but now the Viscount of Chu found fit to give himself a higher title that not only disrespected the royals but demonstrated their contempt for us states of the Central Plains. Though Qiu Qukao still referred to the Chu as the Jing hordes, he seemed to have no disrespect in his tone or words for the so-called King of Chu when he spoke of that man. Perhaps it was because the viscount gave him such a positive impression, or perhaps he saw something worthy of his respect and admiration in those lands.
“The King of Chu looked to be quite young, thirty years of age at most, and his appearance and speech were no different from the lords of the Central Plains. When he heard that I hailed from Qǐ, he asked after our history, our customs, and where exactly I resided, and then asked me several questions regarding the art of besieging. Though I had already burned that volume, it was no hardship for me to recall bits of it here and there, and so I answered his questions one by one. After hearing my answers, he made no expression or reply, and only took me to see their siege weapon, named Jingshi.”
“Jingshi?”
“Jing, referring to Chu, and shi, here meaning lord. From this name alone, their unbridled ambition for ruling the Central Plains was evident. The Jingshi was built by the previous lord of Chu, the king titled Wu for his martial prowess, in order to attack the state of Sui, which he had tried to conquer thrice in his life. The Sui had thick fortifications and were adept at forging weapons of war, twice inflicting great defeats upon the Chu army. King Wu was over seventy in the last siege and died en route. On his deathbed, he ordered the master craftsman Nanmen Wutu to create the Jingshi. This weapon gave wings to the already fierce beast that was the Chu, and they conquered Sui in one go.
“It is like a giant wooden wheel, all askew and as tall as two men, with countless bronze shovels installed atop and a dozen or so ropes attached. With strong laborers pulling the ropes, the wheel turns and can dig into the earth. To operate it, one would first dig a vertical shaft, then lower the Jingshi into it, pulling the ropes to turn the giant wheel and excavate in the forward direction. It seems to be quite slow at first, but if you command work to commence without rest, you can dig a tunnel a few li in length in a matter of days. There is furthermore a bronze ring, tied to a thick rope and installed at the center of the wheel, on which hung a row of bamboo baskets that were used to transport the soil outward. The people of Chu used this Jingshi to dig a tunnel, bypassing the city walls between Sui and Shen.
“By now I understood why the King of Chu wanted to take me to see the Jingshi. It was his wordless mockery of me, of those of us who see the Central Plains as our birthright. Only the Art of Fortifications remained from my treatises, and its tactics were utterly useless in the face of the Chu’s superior instruments. At this thought, I burned it too, all of it—these twenty years of toil have all been for naught, in the end: nothing but an exercise in humiliation!
“I had planned to return to Qǐ, but the King of Chu bade me stay. To be honest, I could not divine whether he was keeping me as a guest or a hostage. I went with them to Ying, the new capital of Chu. Even the palace there still had simple unadorned thatched roofs, and the dwellings of the common people were even more crude. It was not long after that a shocking event rocked the entire state.
“There is a noble in Chu by the name of Yu Quan, famous for his blunt honesty before his lord. Seeing how the Jingshi was effective in the conquests of Sui and Shen, he proposed building a great underground passage, reaching the capital of each state, that would be thousands of li in length. Upon completion, any country that dared to make the Chu its enemy would see its capital collapsed underground and reduced to rubble at a single command from the king. The king did not plan on enacting this most costly proposal, and Yu Quan somehow unsheathed his sword in court and placed it upon the king’s neck, forcing him to give the orders for its construction. Afterwards, for the offense of threatening his lord, he cut off one of his own feet…”
It seemed that Qu Qiukao’s worry that the earth would collapse was because of this great underground passage.
“Chu and Qǐ are thousands of li apart—can they really dig a tunnel all the way to here?”
“It’s only a matter of time,” he said. “But this is far from the most terrifying of their plans. Nanmen Wutu conceived of something even more destructive. His Jingshi only caves the earth in, but this new invention can make the heavens tumble down and destroy whatever lies beneath.”
“I hear what we call the heavens is but an amalgamation of gaseous substances. The sun, the moon, and the stars merely give off light within that gas. Even if the sky were to fall, it should not cause physical harm.”
“No, not so. I went with the King of Chu to his royal villa at Yunmeng, where I saw a most complex machine that revealed the true nature of the universe. It was an armillary sphere cast from the finest metal from the south that could model the movements of the earth and the celestial orbs. The Chu called it the Choujueyi, or the instrument that senses the heavens and earth.
“The Choujueyi appears to be a bronze orb, about six to seven handspans in width. The orb has many holes on its surface and can be spun and opened, and there are two smaller orbs inlaid on the inner wall. Inside the main body, there is a bronze board as thick as the span of two fingers laid flat, on which was carved mountains and waters. And this was precisely the structure of the universe—the outer orb is the firmament, the board the earth on which we live, and the smaller orbs represent the sun and moon. The firmament rotates about the earth as the sun and moon move on its inner surface; these two orbs have their own light, while more light emanates from beyond the firmament and reaches us through the holes on its surface—those are the stars. Observing this instrument made me realize that the ancients already knew the mysteries of the universe. As was written in the Book of Odes of the founder of the Shang dynasty, ‘Orbs large and small conferred, the vassal states thus adorned, anointed by the Heavens.’ It was referring to precisely this: the small orbs are the sun and moon, and the large orb the firmament.”
“Even if the universe is structured as you describe it, how would the Chu induce the heavens to fall?”
“It’s simple: just fire a huge arrow that pierces the firmament. The heavenly dome will break, and its pieces will plunge and become the most lethal weaponry in the world. Exterminating entire cities and states can be done with one wave of the hand.”
“But is it really possible to shoot such an arrow?”
“I did not see this with my own eyes, but the Chu did prepare a bow and arrow just for this called the Guantianshi, or sky-piercing arrow, and the Yunmengji.
“As the name implies, Yunmengji is a machine installed at Yunmeng, by the lake. This is quite possibly the largest weapon in the world. The Chu first had to build two towers of stone a hundred handspans tall and several li apart. They then constructed an earthen wall the height of ten persons, half as thick as it is tall, that extends from the towers to the apex of the hill, where the two ends meet. The wall acts as the bow and the towers as the nocks at its ends; they then stewed the tissues of deers, horses, cattle, rodents, fish, and rhinoceros from their autumn hunt to join bovine and deer sinew, weighing hundreds of shi, as well as silk and hemp, into a bowstring six handspans wide and several li in length, the two ends of which are inlaid into the towers. Thousands of horses are needed to pull this bow.
“As for the sky-piercing arrow, it is made from felling hundreds of ancient, sky-high trees, then joining them with mortise and tenon in a process that takes months. Once the command is given, they will mount the arrow upon the wall and launch it with the bowstring at the firmament, piercing it such that the fragments rain down upon enemy nations.
“According to Nanmen Wutu’s design, this machinery is best used at nighttime. When aimed at a constellation, it will hit a corresponding target upon the earth, which can be calculated using the Choujueyi.
“On the way back to the capital, the king summoned me once more. He said I no longer needed to remain at Chu, and he stressed that I could freely disclose the Jingshi and Yunmengji to the people of the Middle Kingdoms. He likely wanted me to broadcast his might in order to induce shock and awe across the Central Plains. And so, I went with a trade caravan heading for Qí up north and found my way back to Qǐ. I had embarked on my journey with an entire case of treatises and returned with only an empty box and a heart full of worries.”
Now that he had detailed all that he had seen and heard on his journey, he fell silent for a long time.
I did not completely believe his words, but I could not find any obvious flaws, either. His anxieties were not merely centered around the potential destruction of the heavens and earth, but more so lamenting our ignorant complacency that may lead to our tiny state being swallowed up by these huge, hungry nations. To this, I could only console him with the notion that some things cannot be prevented no matter what we do—you may as well enjoy life while it lasts, instead of wallowing in anxiety for all your days.
Hearing my words, he nodded thoughtfully, but his brows remained furrowed, his eyes still focused on some faraway place.
Later, we drank to our heart’s content until sunset. Before I took my leave, Qu Qiukao struck his staff in rhythm and chanted an ode to its percussion:
O mighty realm that Yu the Great did raise,
A hundred ages, noble bloodlines tall.
Ever weaker in a heedless daze,
Earth shall sunder, Heavens fall.
I did not know then that this was to be my last sight of him.
That night, strange celestial phenomena appeared in the southwesterly sky. The stars were all outshone by a blazing streak of white, which then dimmed quickly, eventually vanishing only to be followed by a shower of meteors raining down. There was a thunderous roar, and then the meteors all plummeted, and an ensuing earthly inferno swallowed the stars that had just reappeared in the sky once more.
Looking at the conflagration on the horizon, I saw it was precisely in the direction of Qu Qiukao’s manor.
The fire burned for three full days. The manor, as well as the adjoining village, was burned to ash that crumbled at a single touch. The ground was sunken into a cavernous rift that could entomb hundreds of carriages. My friends and I searched for Qu Qiukao’s body, but we found only black pieces of metal, perhaps fragments of the firmament.
His worst fears had come to pass, after all.
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Translator’s Note: The setting for this story is the Spring and Autumn period (approximately 770-480 BCE) of ancient China, an era of rapid social and technological change when many high-ranked aristocrats, bequeathed noble titles and land by the weakened royal house of the Eastern Zhou dynasty, declared themselves the rightful ruler and vied for dominance in the Central Plains and beyond, eventually ending in the state of Qin annexing other states and becoming the first imperial Chinese dynasty. It reimagines the famous parable of the person from the small state of Qǐ who could not stop worrying that the sky would fall down (杞人忧天, from which the original title of the story derives).
Many references in the story are rooted in history and legend. The legendary puppet master that served King Mu of Zhou was recorded in a colorful anecdote in the Daoist classic Liezi, written around the 4th century CE, that described these humanoid figures made of wood and leather that could sing and dance. Ma Jun, famed inventor of a chariot in the 3rd century CE that always pointed south through a system of what was most likely differential gears, was also recorded as having created entertainers made of wood and powered by water that turned gears. Major battles and historical events mentioned in the story are generally believed to have taken place; Yu Quan did force the King of Chu to listen to his advice at swordpoint and later severed his own foot; that the ruler of Qí assassinated the ruler of Lu once the latter discovered the incestuous affair between his wife and the former is recorded in the Zuo Zhuan. The Zuo Zhuan also states that King Wu of Chu did or had the Jingshi (荆尸), but its meaning is a subject of debate between historians to this day. The real city of Handan, in modern-day Hebei province, is a source of many legends, including a story from Zhuangzi about a youth who tried to learn the uniquely fashionable walk of the locals, failed, and forgot how to walk in the process, crawling back home in the end (邯郸学步).
First published in The Longlist Anthology 9, 2025