The Life and Times of Master Han Fei

Prologue

Once, the kings of Zhou ruled China. It was a glorious time, a golden age, as the Zhou royals grew their empire, nurturing the areas already under their control and seducing lands that would soon be theirs. A line of kings that seemed to produce kings even better than the last did more than enough to keep China in its golden age. But, like everything in this mortal world, it would not last.

The Zhou royal family grew weaker and weaker, and had begun to need the help of other families to rule their vast lands. They conferred titles of nobility to their most trusted allies, giving these non-royals unprecedented amounts of power-and the political legitimacy to keep it too. Soon, they relied on their so-called allies to keep their dynasty limping into a new age, an epoch where the impermanent feudalistic system of their own design began to fall apart at its seams.

The noble families began to thirst for more, for greater power, as the Zhou dynasty grew impotent, as it began to rely on the strength of the noble families to keep its vast lands in check. They had been given a taste of what the Zhou had once enjoyed, to rule a kingdom in their own right, and soon, they began to agitate for crowns of their own. Eventually, the powerless and hopeless Zhou family had to accede to growing calls to allow their former vassals to carve up their territory into seven major kingdoms: Qin, Zhao, Wei, Chu, Qi, Yan, and Han, each noble family reluctantly granted the right to rule their own.

The smallest of the seven new states, Han lay in the heartland of China, just south of the remaining portion of China the Zhou were allowed to keep (despite the political and military weakness of the Zhou state, they still claimed the Mandate of Heaven they had gained upon defeating the Shang kings that had ruled before them, a divine directive to govern China and her peoples that could be granted only by Heaven itself, and none of the fledgling kingdoms was confident enough in its own strength to challenge this century-old claim). The Han kingdom was, in fact, considered to be the most politically and culturally insignificant kingdom in all of China.

Han being at the heart of China meant that it was always surrounded on all fronts by more powerful kingdoms. It was unable to expand like the peripheral states could, and was not rich in natural resources like some of the other kingdoms were. The only saving grace of the Han kingdom, in fact, its greatest claim to fame, was its knack for horse breeding.

Decades ago, the cavalry of Han had been greatly feared, which had served as a rather compelling reason for other, larger kingdoms to not interfere in its affairs, or bully the Han kingdom in any way, as this sort of thing is wont to do. The horsemen of Han, a legacy of the nobles that had bred horses for their feudal master, the King of Zhou, were a much-feared bunch, and the subject of many horse-related legends.

It was perhaps important to note that the cavalry alone had been the reason the other kingdoms had been wary of the Han kingdom, for when the cavalries of the other kingdoms finally found ways to neutralize the advantages the Han kingdom's had possessed, the days of rival kingdoms regarding the Han kingdom as rivals soon disappeared, replaced by a never-ending age where the Han kingdom became the object of constant ridicule, a "lightweight state."

Sadly, not even a shred of basic military competence existed in the Han military; both the infantry and the cavalry battalions were in horrid condition, unable to adapt to the undeniable fact that the kingdoms in China had found ways to completely neutralize the advantages having a superior cavalry had formerly granted them. While other militaries grew powerful due to their innovative spirit, an eclectic blend of factors, such as conservatism and financial limitations, kept the Han kingdom military's condition in almost exactly the same stagnant state for almost a full century.

Though the Han were undermanned, low on resources, and on the verge of certain disaster, they did not have to worry, traditionally, their complacency had not and would not have any more of an adverse effect than it previously had had. For a century, the seven warring states had been at a deadlock, a political impasse, where no kingdom able to overpower another acting alone. Instead, most kingdoms had elected to bully smaller fringe states that had sprung up during the uncertain period of political instability that had followed after the major royal families had finish jostling with each other for the feeble Zhou kingdom's lands and had begun the actual carving up of the territories.

But a new power was rising, one that had been looked down upon by the others for centuries, even more so than the Han had been. It had undergone reforms, casting away what it regarded as an obsolete ideology in Confucianism and adopting a new one, Legalism, which had injected in the kingdom a newfound vitality and vigor. Its Legalistic reforms had produced a formidable army, which undoubtedly pleased its ruthless new king, a young man eager to not let his newfound power go to waste. This new heavyweight was the Han kingdom's western neighbor the Kingdom of Qin.

The flourishing Qin state's rapid ascent spelled certain doom for the floundering Kingdom of Han, at least, unless something was done to remedy the situation immediately. As it so happened, the incompetent King of Han, known infamously for his negativity, was mercifully entering the last years of his life. The jockeying for future administrative positions had already begun, as sycophants in court became even more sycophantic in their battle to ensure that their hoped-for futures of flattering the next king were secured.

There were four princes in contention for the throne, though none seemed to be capable of protecting the Kingdom of Han for another generation. A dire situation seemed to be getting worse by the minute, and many onlookers predicted that the Han would be the first to fall. The first victim of the nascent Qin Empire.