Chapter 24

Before dawn that day, the Martial Emperor Yang Zao led his ministers out of Yanjing and came in person to the Tan army camp to pay his respects.

Tan Shize was not old, just thirty-seven this year, yet he had never married, and had neither son nor daughter.

When the Ministry of Rites settled on his posthumous name, they had examined his battle-merits and his conduct carefully before submitting it.

In the war years past, what ought to have been done with rigor had all been done roughly. But now that the new dynasty had risen, everything set down on paper would become the precedent for how courts conducted their business for generations to come. As the first posthumous name of the first year of Yong'an, the Ministry of Rites acted with no private motive at all, but handled it wholly by what was just.

Tan Shize was a man of extraordinary power, fierce in battle, victorious in a hundred fights. Yet he was also hasty and rash by nature, cruel by disposition and fixed in his ways, and wherever he passed he had done things that ran counter to the way of benevolence. And so the Ministry of Rites took "Su" from the phrase "reverent in bearing, respectful in heart."

And even this was out of regard for the Emperor, a quiet commendation of Tan Shize's loyalty to the sovereign alone, and of the friendship the two men had once shared, not the sort of "loyalty" the Tan house wanted, the kind that would serve later monarchs too.

The Emperor was pleased with the word. But the Tan house, of all things, sent up three memorials in a single day, asking for burial ground near Yanjing, asking for military supplies to reorganize the army, asking for the rewards and titles due the meritorious officers of the Tan army.

Did the Tan house have no burial ground in its old home? Or were they taking advantage of Tan Shize's having died abroad, to keep him from returning to his native place? Did the old Tan house mean to seize a plot of land on the strength of a single corpse?

A sovereign is always the sort who thinks too much.

The several memorials were not sent up by Tan Shiyuan alone. Ever since Shao Shang raised his troops, the Tan house had stretched its feelers into every level of the court, and they likely all felt that, this being Tan Shize's period of mourning, the Emperor ought to show the Tan house extra solicitude.

But they were all mistaken. The Emperor never cared about such things, it was no more than the ministers' wishful thinking. He was a dynasty-founding sovereign, and those men the first generation of assisting ministers, a merit that might, if one weren't careful, leave a fragrant name for a thousand years. Who could resist that?

Day after day, they nattered in his ear without end. He even wanted to laugh aloud and tell this pack of fools: he hadn't become emperor by all this useless benevolence, he'd simply seized it by force, and who didn't know as much? His own house too had once enjoyed the imperial favor for generations, but from the moment he rose in revolt, his good name had rotted through and through.

Look at these people leaping and scrambling about the court, could they not sit still already? True, the sovereigns of every dynasty had to face such tangled, deep-rooted webs of relation, ruler and minister, minister and ruler, all leaning on one another, but must he too be like that?

He'd not had a single day's schooling in kingship, and knew nothing of a monarch's political cunning.

And that Tan Shiyuan, hmph! Tan Shiyuan! A fool who'd once wanted to contest the realm with him.

There was no telling what good deed his ancestors had done to deserve it: out front an inscrutable Tan Shiyuan no one could see through, and behind him a Tan Shize to plug every gap.

Like Heaven's own punishment, it was all as if fixed by fate...

And so the Emperor was thoroughly out of humor.

He was poor.

Even though the Tan house had deliberately set the mourning-hall in the army camp, he had come all the same, and brought his ministers with him, quite unruffled.

In any case, what the old dynasty's remnants said of him came to no more than this: that he was low-born, of a lesser gentry line, without rule or manner in his dealings, stingy and mean, coarse and vulgar in word and deed, and so on... Coarse, then, let him be coarse. He could leave off the coarseness later. But as for vulgar, he could at least be vulgar in an open, aboveboard way.

As on this day.

The new Emperor came to the army camp openly and aboveboard, burned incense and made his obeisance in person, and after burning the eulogy he had written with his own hand, he made up his mind at last: rather than choke himself to death holding it in, he'd feel a good deal better finding fault with somebody else.

It was simply that, entering the camp just now, he'd taken a dislike to it: the Long Saber Battalion's shouting was too loud, the clash and clatter of armor on the march grated on him, he felt they were spending his silver to make a show of force at him.

His own mother, who bore him, was up on a hill outside the city now, with but four dishes to a meal, by what right did they?

And so Yang Zao came down with the emperor's disease he'd only lately caught: he turned petty. Casting his eyes round the whole place, the Emperor resolved to teach the Tan house a lesson.

The Tan house did not stand high in the Emperor's heart, in the past they had done no little dragging at his heels, but not so low that, after all these years of struggling alongside him, he'd wipe them out the moment he took the throne. Merit was merit. Tan Shize had campaigned at his side all the way, and some things could not be erased. Let there be a little more grace, then.

But look at the grief that filled the tent, past all shutting out, every little while several would faint, prostrate with sorrow as if their hearts would break. Yet study the mourning-hall closely, and to the eye it was all greater mourning of the third degree, lesser mourning of the fourth, fine-hemp of the fifth... You, Tan Shiyuan, have great-grandchildren already, yet at the funeral of the very Tan Shize who upheld the whole family's face, not one soul wore the deepest, unhemmed mourning... Was this bullying him, or looking down on him?

The Martial Emperor Yang Zao was not high-born, and his origins were much like Tan Shize's. It was on this, in the end, that the two of them had something of a fellow-sufferers' sympathy. Back in the day Yang Zao had promised Tan Shize certain things, and only so had he drawn Tan Shize fully into his hand.

The Martial Emperor's principal-wife mother could bear no children, and there being truly no other way, when she was past thirty she had taken him away from the concubine Jiang, who'd been driven off to the countryside. And by great good luck he was the only male in the house, without even a sister.

Save for the pain of being parted from his mother from the age of seven, everything of the Martial Emperor Yang Zao's house had been in his hands from childhood, and those he grew up among were his cousins of the collateral branches.

But Tan Shize was another matter: a maidservant's son, a full twenty years and more younger than his legitimate elder brother. Tan the Second stood low in his own house, harshly used from childhood. And in his youth, when there was simply no bearing to stay at home, the family sent him to the Siming Chan Monastery to study the Chan way.

To Tan Shize's own father's mind, he had hoped his youngest son might become a famous monk of his age, for the two great Nation-Guarding temples, north and south, had always held a deep and lasting sway over the courts of every dynasty.

But Tan Shize had not been at the monastery two months before he climbed the wall and ran off next door, to the southern-school martial master Qin She, to learn his art...

Perhaps, from the day he was sent to the Siming monastery, a powerful ambition had begun to stir deep in Tan the Second's heart. He had no wish to be a monk, and so in all he did he set himself against mercy and benevolence at every turn, one might say he had no benevolent heart at all, and was cruel besides.

But what of it? He had once been the Emperor's friend, all the same.

The Martial Emperor burned the eulogy, took the cloth that the chief eunuch beside him, Zhang Minwang, held out, and wiped his hands. And as he wiped, he ran his eye over the faces of the Tan sons in the front row.

He seemed to recall someone had mentioned in passing that of the Tan family's third generation, it was the third son who was worth watching.

Tan Shiyuan came in person to take the used cloth from the Emperor, and the Emperor pointed over that way and asked: "Who is that one? I think I've seen him before."

He was pointing at a youth of thirteen or fourteen, his face like warm jade, his features delicate and fine, wearing greater mourning.

Tan Shiyuan raised his face to look, was startled at first, then let the corner of his mouth curl up slightly: "Your Majesty, that is my unruly third son, Weixin."

The Emperor nodded and settled himself into a chair off to one side, and while he sat there, the Ministry of Rites official who was to preside over the sacrifice, waiting outside with the assembled ministers, had no way to come in and carry out the ceremony at all.

---

Chang Lianfang, having seen the princes to a tent at the side to rest, and with his sworn brother's business on his mind, found a pretext to go up before the mourning-tent to look for his father.

Having at last picked out his father from a crowd of pitch-black court robes, Chang Lianfang sidled over and asked in a low voice: "Dad!"

Earl Chang, his head bowed in thought, heard his son's voice and drew him aside: "What are you doing here? Where are the young masters?"

Though those were young lords now, the habit of years was too much for him, and he called them so out of habit.

Chang Lianfang rolled his eyes and looked a little disgusted: "You've no idea, there's no room for me up front now: the Feng lot, the Liu lot, the Yue lot, in the war years you never saw a one of them."

Earl Chang laughed at that: "All to the good. Things don't look right up front today, best you don't go over either. Just now one of the lads told me that sworn brother of yours is at the horse-farm. Go and find him..."

Not waiting for his father to finish, Chang Lianfang gave a quiet cheer and went off at a trot.

Watching his son run off into the distance, Earl Chang shook his head helplessly, made his slow way back to the ranks of the ministers, and, once he'd found his place and stood in it, gave a soft sigh and said to the colleague beside him: "Ai! Never got to enjoy a scrap of good fortune, and now he's gone! A pity, a pity!"

The other, keeping to the mood, nodded gravely too: "Ai! Poor man... they say his old mother's still living, over yonder, and having a hard time of it."

"Nothing to be done... her one promising son, and now she's left with nothing to lean on."

---

Inside the mourning-tent...

The Emperor pointed at Tan Weixin: "Call that child over, let me have a look at him."

Tan Shiyuan, startled and then delighted, quickly beckoned his youngest son over to make his obeisance to the Emperor.

Tan Weixin stood up in a daze. First they took the mourning garment off him, and only then was he led before the Emperor to kowtow.

The Emperor was all gentle words and soft tones with him. First he praised him as a fine and noble scion, then asked where he studied, and whether he'd learned the Tan family's handed-down Treatise on the Ordering of Troops. And when he'd done asking, he said with a smile: "Good, very good! Poised and gracious, quick and bright, first-rate stuff. You must apply yourself well hereafter, and never slacken."

Tan Shiyuan, overjoyed, bowed his thanks, only, to his surprise, the Emperor then had him call his other two sons as well.

When Tan Weitong and his brother, the two of them, had changed their mourning dress and knelt before the Emperor, the Emperor, who knew what had got into him, was, today, both long-winded and warm toward the Tan sons.

In the midst of his questioning, a gust of autumn wind came, carrying a fine rain.

---

At that same moment, at the horse-farm not far from the mourning-tent, a drop of autumn rain fell on the yellowed military orders, and Chen Dasheng hastily had his brothers gather them up.

This was a man of few words at the best of times, and no temper to speak of at all. There were stretches of ten days, half a month, when you'd not hear him say a single word aloud to an outsider.

But what had come over him today? How had he flown into such a temper?

Yu Qingguan, seeing the brothers cowed, took the stack of things and held it out before Chen Dasheng: "Chief? What's wrong?"

Expressionless, Chen Dasheng took the stack of orders and, with great care, put it back into the sheepskin satchel.

What was wrong? How was he to tell his brothers that, ever since the twenty-sixth year of Hongshun, the lives of the Long Saber Battalion had been nothing but stepping-stones for other men?

"Chief, say something, whatever it is, out with it, so we brothers can talk it over."

Ma Ergu, hot-tempered, rattled off the questions one after another.

Never in his heart had Chen Dasheng felt such despair. He could give no account of it. He still carried on him a dozen and more squad-leaders' locks of hair, by the Long Saber Battalion's custom, every one of those leaders had died for the brothers behind him, had died for this new dynasty.

Were their lives, then, no lives at all? These lordly officials, these noble ones, what did they take them for? A piglet was worth more than they...

When a Long Saber man died, his body was never collected. The squad-leader who came up to fill his place behind him took away a single lock of his hair.

And now in Chen Dasheng's satchel there were thirteen locks of hair in all.

Had they truly died for nothing? Chen Dasheng stared blankly at the drizzling sky and thought: how is it that when I'm wretched, it rains? Could it be that Heaven, seeing our sorry state, is willing to shed a few tears for us too...

As he watched, a gust of meadow wind drifted over from not far off. Before they'd time to think, the seven of them had reversed their grips on their sabers, quickly set the fodder-stack back in place, and burrowed in, every one.

It happened in less time than it takes to tell: Chen Dasheng and the others, hidden in the fodder-stack, saw a woman, a raw-cloth veil on her head, a wide-sleeved mourning gown on her, hemp sandals on her feet, and a zither-bag on her back, pushing off on the tips of her toes, flying over the tent-roofs, and sliding into the camp-ground like a grey swallow.

In all these years, was this the first time the few of them had seen a woman who could fly? And fly so high, at that.

For a moment they were all struck dumb.

"A g-god! An immortal! Big Brother, a woman immortal!"

Chen Dasheng pinched Tong Jintai and said: "No, she's... one of those kind we saw in Qiongzhou."

At his words Tong Jintai remembered who they were, and his face went from shock to scorn: "Hmph, all fancy show."

Chen Dasheng tilted his head to look at him, then suddenly laughed too: "Mm, fancy show."

Women were not allowed into an army camp. Close as Old Madam Chen was with Meng Wanquan, following the sick-and-wounded camp for years, whatever she had to say she said at the camp gate.

Back in the year Chang Lianfang was wounded, the troops had taken over a village to rest in, and with no banner planted it didn't count as a camp.

With the imperial presence here, this woman was bold beyond all reason.

Guan Si'er asked: "Big Brother... do we, do we do anything about it?"

Chen Dasheng didn't answer at once. He thought it over carefully before he said: "No!"

He no longer cared to.

Only once the woman had leapt far off did the few of them roll out of the meadow and look off into the distance.

"Big Brother, that over there looks like Tan the Second's mourning-hall."

Chen Dasheng watched, his gaze fixed, then suddenly said: "Pack up the things, we're going!"

"Going?!" Guan Si'er, overjoyed, turned to ask Chen Dasheng: "Big Brother, are we running away?"

Run? Run where to? The boy was talking nonsense.

When the old home flooded, hadn't the whole village wanted to run? When the Long Saber Battalion's first culling sent those warhorses charging, hadn't they too been running? Under walls beyond counting, on the battlefield, there were always men who wanted to run, and they all died.

For men like them, Heaven never gave a second choice: forward! Live or die!

The few of them had little baggage to begin with. The things they'd swept up on the battlefields and in the palace they had long since found a way to turn into silver and hide away. So in no great while, each with a small bundle on his back, they followed Chen Dasheng silently toward the mourning-tent.

None of them asked their chief why he was heading that way. Wherever the chief went, they simply followed.

And if the chief died, Yu Qingguan would take his place.

---

Inside the mourning-tent, the Emperor was still questioning.

Outside the mourning-tent, the two ranks of ministers, civil and military, waited in silence. Since his accession the Martial Emperor's temper had always been good, what had got into him today, had he forgotten the two words "benevolent ruler" that everyone kept pressing on him?

Before long, a young eunuch came out holding an oiled umbrella and held it over the head of the Grand Preceptor, Li Zhang.

In about the time it takes an incense-stick to burn, the Emperor, to the bafflement of the Tan family and the whole court, had at last finished asking after the circumstances of Tan Shiyuan's three legitimate sons.

When he'd done, he turned and said with a smile to those behind him: "The Tan house has worthy heirs to come, Minister Tan is a fortunate man."

At this Tan Shiyuan's uneasy heart began slowly to ease. But before it had quite settled, he heard the Emperor speak again: "Good! A reward! To the two elder young lords, one broad jade belt apiece, of the fighting-bull pattern."

A belt was a thing of great significance. Yet Tan Shiyuan did not know whether he ought to be glad, or ought to beg pardon for a crime.

And his best-loved third son, Weixin, somehow the Emperor had said nothing of a reward for him.

A eunuch nearby quickly brought over two wooden trays, and on them, sure enough, lay two broad jade belts of the finest, most exquisite make.

After Tan Weitong and his brother had knelt to receive them, the Emperor smiled and said to the panic-faced Tan Weixin: "Today I'll give you a word, then, Longli."

Tan Weixin's small face grew more bewildered still. But the Emperor had granted him something, and thank him he must, so he prostrated himself and kowtowed his thanks for the gift.

When he had finished his thanks, he heard the Emperor ask him: "Do you know what Longli means?"

Anyone who'd read books knew this.

Tan Weixin answered: "Your Majesty, it is a phrase the sages used in the commentaries on the rites, it means to honor and to follow the rites and the law..."

Before the child had finished speaking, Tan Shiyuan, standing to one side, had already dropped to his knees with a thud.

Seeing his father fall to his knees, Tan Weixin was frightened out of his wits. He dared not speak, but stared blankly at the Emperor.

The Emperor nodded, smiling, and reached out to stroke his head: "Good boy, quick and clever indeed. I hope you'll not fail my expectations of you, and that you'll look after your grandmother well from now on..." And here he turned his head and ordered Zhang Minwang: "Take him down and change him into deepest mourning..."

Watching his own son hurried away, Tan Shiyuan could not, in the end, keep the grief from his voice, and cried out: "Your Majesty!"

Yes, this was "Your Majesty" now, no longer the broken-roof Yang Zao they'd despised to the marrow in days gone by.

The Martial Emperor Yang Zao walked slowly up to Tan Shize's spirit-tablet and stared at it a long while before he said: "Yesterday the inner ministers sent up three memorials, your family asking me for burial ground, asking me for military stores, asking for rewards of merit besides. Everyone knows I'm a pauper now, but even if it turned my pockets clean out, you shall have all of it, for who was it that lost me my vanguard Grand General?..."

He turned his head and looked at Tan Shiyuan: "I would not have it that one day I meet my Lord Wu Su, and he asks me: seeing he once entrusted me with his very back and belly, how could I bear to send him off bare, not only dead without a whole corpse, but without so much as one to break the mourning-pot for him? Since you've had the benefit of the man, Minister Tan, then give up a son of yours..."

Before the Martial Emperor had finished, from outside the tent came a sudden sound of silk strings, and a woman's voice spoke from the very top of the mourning-tent: "So you've a conscience after all! He didn't follow you for nothing, then."

"Who goes there!!"

"Guard the Emperor!!!"

In an instant everything round about fell into confusion. The personal guards drew their sabers and were about to press forward to shield him, when they heard the Martial Emperor rebuke them: "No panic! It's an old friend!!"

At that, little by little, everyone quieted, all watching the tent-top tensely.

The woman spoke again: "Did he ever speak of me?"

The Martial Emperor's lips twitched. Mastering his feelings at last, he said: "He said that if the day came when I took the throne and rewarded merit, he'd ask me to make him a marquis, and to give him a courtyard with an osmanthus tree, so that then he'd dare to broach the marriage with your father."

The woman gave a soft laugh, and from the tent-top came, slow and unhurried, the sound of a qin, its notes breaking through the rain, neither grieving nor bitter, like seeing a friend off on a far journey, earnest and heartfelt...

When the qin had played its last, the Martial Emperor looked up and asked the one on the tent-top: "Miss Qin?"

The woman laughed: "A spinster past thirty, and still 'Miss'? I've changed my name, you know."

The Martial Emperor raised an eyebrow, and in the end gave a sigh: "The two of you were always alike in your stubbornness. Never mind, and what name does Miss Qin go by now?"

"Qing Buyi, the qing of the seven passions and six desires, and buyi, 'unwavering.'"

"Why don't you come down and pay him your respects?"

"He never let me into an army camp."

"But you've come in already, haven't you? Since you're here, I pardon you all offense, at least let him see you."

"If I don't enter the tent, it doesn't count. I always did it in secret before, too. Today, as well... let it be, I'll not see him. May I trouble Your Majesty, burn this for me, as an offering."

From the tent-top a sheet of paper drifted slowly down. The Martial Emperor reached out and took it, lowered his head to glance at it, and before he'd finished reading heard Meng Dingchen, who'd just run up to guard him, say: "Your Majesty, she's gone."

The Martial Emperor nodded, turned and walked to the burning-basin, and reached out to light the paper at a candle. And in that instant all present saw what was written on it:

The grave may know a day it opens again, but a face knows no return to its youth, the flower has its season to bloom afresh, yet love has no year to meet again.

And the woman, swallow-like once more, went away across the camp's tent-tops...

---

And at this moment Chang Lianfang, a hand clapped over his mouth, was being dragged into a corner, unable to move. In a great fright, he watched a woman in hempen mourning halt on a tent-top not far off and look toward the mourning-tent...

A gust of autumn wind swept in, and the hempen veil on her head was blown away, baring a gleaming bald head in the rain.

A voice said low in his ear: "Third brother, don't make a sound, it's me!"

---

Author's note:

This poem is really only half of one, just the first part: "The grave may know a day it opens again, but a face knows no return to its youth."

These half-lines were inscribed on the wall of a tomb at Gaoping, near my old home. When the tomb was opened, there was no coffin in it, only murals and this half a poem. I suppose that when the tomb was finished and its master had to go far away, he wrote this. But he never came back, and no one knows where he lies buried. And that place was where, in ancient times, the man-butcher Bai Qi buried three hundred thousand surrendered soldiers alive.

Then, many years later, I'm a fool who keeps herself going scrolling Douyin, I came across this half-poem again, and wrote the rest: "the flower has no season to bloom anew, love has no year to meet again."

I feel that the tomb's master who went away had a story of his own, and that I've been given a chance to speak with the ancients.

Tan Shize is a complicated character. I keep wondering: a Grand General of good family, of noble birth, why would he be so cruel, and hold human life so cheap? So he ought to have a growth-arc of his own, and a story that belongs to him...