orderby does not accept the values ASC or DESC. These are acceptable values for the parameter order. Changing 'orderby' => 'rand' to 'order' => 'ASC' should be sufficient and should by rule work
As already pointed out,
if (have_posts() ):
should be
if ($the_query->have_posts() ):
Apart from that little discrepancy, you code have to work
It case this does not solve your problem, look in your functions.php for any instance of pre_get_posts. The reason for my thinking is, pre_get_posts does not only alter the main query, but also all instances of WP_Query. You have to include the conditional tag is_main_query() to target the main query only, otherwise pre_get_posts will interfere with instances of WP_Query
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