Two days later, Hsi-wei took his leave of his host with many thanks for his hospitality, and headed in the direction of the canal. Chu-po shouted something after him. Hsi-wei wasn’t sure if it was “I hope you’ll return” or “None will return.”
Weizhuang was in a deplorable state: fences falling down, fields untended, houses collapsing. Hsi-wei found only hungry children and starving grandparents, all barefoot and poorly dressed. He left them with what money he had—the Emperor’s new currency—and a dozen pairs of sandals. “Thank you, sir,” said one old man. “I hope you’ll come this way again. When our children return from the canal, we’ll be able to repay you.”
It took Hsi-wei another week to get to the canal which had almost reached Bian Qu. From the top of the eastern embankment he looked down on an astonishing sight, hundreds of men and women struggling in thick mud like ants. Around him the exhausted and sick lay under lean-tos, wheezing in crude tents. On both embankments men and women strained under huge bags, heavy with mud and rocks.
He found an overseer, a powerfully built man with a cudgel in his fist.
“Sir,” he said, “where can I find the people from Weizhuang.”
“Weizhuang? Why are you interested in them?”
“I have messages, sir.”
“There were rains last month,” growled the overseer and began to turn away.
Hsi-wei stopped him. “Rains?”
“It’s bound to happen. The embankments get undermined. Those useless weaklings from Weizhuang were supposed to be shoring them up.”
“There were over two hundred men and women from that village.”
“Two hundred?” scoffed the overseer. “We lost three times as many in one night. They’re easily replaced. We have the Emperor’s authority to conscript all the people we need.”
“And their pay?”
The man laughed and, looking Hsi-wei up and down, said, “Interested in some work?”
Though the formal title of the following poem is “The Guangtong Canal in a Hundred Years,” it is generally known simply as “The Grand Canal.” Chen Hsi-wei confessed that he wrote it but he relished the irony that it has been attributed to Zhang Chu-po.
On some far off spring noon, a little girl
will sit quietly while at the tiller her father
guides their barge, broad bottomed and laden
with good things for the nobles of Daxing:
worked iron, brass bowls, lotus root,
lemongrass and lychees, dressed pork
and salted fish, rolls of paper, bolts of silk
and cords of the finest rosewood. How she will
delight to see the breeze in the tall shore reeds
and the carpet of new violets rising up the
embankments. Far above, she’ll see white pines and
fragrant Yulan magnolias, homes for the
birds whose songs sound as bright to her ear
as their feathers look to her eye, and never suspect
the thousands of bones mingled with their roots.
Hsi-wei and the Rotating Pavilion
During his visit to Chen Hsi-wei, retired then to his little house outside Chiangling, the Tang minister Fang Xuan-ling inquired about several of the poet’s works. His detailed record of their conversations has survived and done much to illuminate the origins of well-known poems like “Yellow Moon at Lake Weishan,” “Exile,” “Justice,” and “The Silence of Hermits.”
At one point, Minister Fang asked Hsi-wei about “The Rotating Pavilion,” a less celebrated poem.
A thousand globes of orange, green, and blue floated on the summer night,
lighting lacquered pillars, glinting like will o’ the wisps over the teak floor.
The lords and ladies of the court, ten score at least, reposing in their silk
robes, wondered at the pavilion’s beauty, gleefully giggling
at its measured revolution. One by one, they took turns standing
at the still center, a merry game. Here they might truly feel
themselves at the very center of the Middle Kingdom.
Our Northern nobles behaved courteously to those
up from the South, made them welcome, as the Emperor
had sternly directed. As for the defeated princes of Chen,
they upheld their dignity without being standoffish or servile.
Men spoke approvingly of the new currency, tax laws, penal code,
the clever plan for militias. Women rejoiced at the peace,
admired the exotic fashions, greeted old friends, new rivals.
All breathed in the promise of the newly united empire,
looking out on Yuwen Kai’s dream of a vast Daxing, its
gardens and temples, broad roads extending on every side to the
horizon, as if the capital of Sui were the whole world.
Emperor Wen arrived in state and all bowed low,
not with grudging submission but in tribute to what he had
already accomplished and the foreseen glories yet to come.
The gods themselves must have nodded, smiling as
the stately pavilion circled reverently about their Son.
“‘The Rotating Pavilion’ is not much like your other work, Master,” I ventured to say. “I hope you’ll pardon my saying so, but it’s more a courtier’s poem than a peasant’s. I’m expressing myself poorly, but those long verses feel loose, weightless though at the same time heavy.”
Hsi-wei nodded. “Like a river man’s cable falling through thin air. Like the fulsome flattery of a hired woman.”
His comparisons startled me, but they were, unlike the poem, in his mature style. “If you like,” I said. “Am I wrong to think it’s an early work?”
“Not wrong, my lord. And early enough to show all too clearly how early. ‘Rotating Pavilion’ is indeed a court poem, one written by a novice whose wretched calligraphy could hardly be read even by himself.”
“I’ve heard of the rotating pavilion. Did you actually see it the evening it was unveiled?”
“Oh yes. The poem is accurate in an external sense. Master Shen Kuo dragged me along with him on that memorable occasion. As one of the official ornaments of the court he was invited to attend and received permission to bring one of his pupils.”
“Dragged you, eh? Why was he keen for you to be there?”
“In order that I should write this poem. You see, Master Shen wished to make a gift of it to the Prime Minister. Remember, I began my career as a dancing dog. The object was to demonstrate the trainer’s skill, not the dog’s.”
“So these verses were written under duress?”
“No. That would be unfair. Master Shen did not threaten to beat or behead me. But he had the ability to make himself quite clear. It was an assigned task, a duty. He wanted a court poem and explained the requirements of the form to me. His idea was that I should be dazzled and say so in respectable verse. I was to glorify the occasion and, of course, the master of my master, the Emperor.”
“You had already done good service for Emperor Wen on that perilous trip to the south. As I understand things, you turned down the offer of money, land, and women asking to be educated instead.”
“That’s true.” Hsi-wei laughed and grabbed at his knee. “Master Shen was not well pleased by the order to educate an illiterate peasant boy whose only virtues were fast-growing hair and an unaccountable knack for survival. He was strict with me and quick with barbed criticisms; but the more he insulted me, the more I learned. It was an effective method for us both.”
“The poem, then, is an accurate account of that evening?”
“Yes, the evening that sealed the reconciliation with the nobles of Chen, the night the empire was truly unified for the first time in three centuries. I was overwhel
med by the experience, as my Master anticipated, and struggled to do what he asked of me. Still, he made many corrections.”
“Was your heart in it?”
“My heart? An urchin who stares at a princess becomes tongue-tied. I come from a small village and had only glimpsed Daxing briefly before being sent off to the south, though even that glimpse awed me. By the time of my return, the Emperor had transformed and expanded the capital. He had made it magnificent.”
“‘Yuwen Kai’s dream,’ you called it. Who was he?”
“He was the Emperor’s architect and engineer, one of the truly remarkable men of his generation. It was he who recommended that the Grand Canal be built and it was he who laid out the plan for the magnificent capital in only nine months. To create a final touch, a marvel for the city, he conceived the rotating pavilion. Has he been forgotten already?”
“He belongs to another time.”
“That’s true,” sighed Hsi-wei.
By then, afternoon had turned into night. A waning moon was on the rise. My host asked if I would care for some more tea.
“Rice wine would be more welcome,” I said, “if you have any.”
“I’m sorry, my lord. Only tea.” The poet blushed and I regretted my words.
“Tea will be most welcome.”
Hsi-wei went inside the little cottage. Perhaps our conversation stirred his memory. After he returned with the tea he spoke more freely of the past.
“When I was a child I believed Mr. Kwo’s four-room villa must be the grandest building in the world. When I was told that Emperor Bei Zhou lived in a great palace in the capital, I imagined it as just a larger version of Mr. Kwo’s place, with more rounded pillars and fresher paint.”
I laughed.
“Well you may laugh, my lord, at the innocence of a poor peasant boy; but I think Mr. Kwo was a better landlord than Bei Zhou was an emperor. My village was poor; even Mr. Kwo just scraped by. Nevertheless, when Mrs. Ts’ao’s husband died and she could not pay him the rent, he didn’t turn her out. The laws of Bei Zhou, on the other hand, were hard benches without pillows.”
Hsi-wei’s image appealed to me. I replied, “And Emperor Wen put pillows on those benches so they would compromise with life’s imperfections?”
“Just so. Wendi began all things afresh, just as he did with Daxing. At his direction, Yuwen Kai made space for large markets in both the east and the west. He got rid of the tangled lanes and laid the city out in good order, on a grid. To honor the Emperor and display his skill, he devised the rotating pavilion where two hundred guests could take tea together without once bumping elbows. The night it was unveiled the most sophisticated courtiers were as amazed as this peasant boy. Between them, the emperor and his architect rolled all Daxing out before us the way a merchant does a carpet.”
“You think well of Emperor Wen?”
“I do.”
“Yet he could be cruel. He is said to have executed fifty-nine princes of Zhou and to have emptied the state treasury.”
“I’ve heard the tale of the fifty-nine princes. Even if it is true, it was one of the evil necessities of war time, not essentially different from the savage battle on the Yangtse or the razing of Jiankung. As for the treasury, if Emperor Wen emptied it at least he did so in good causes. He built granaries for the people and the empire’s defenses. It was not empty flattery when the scholars he patronized nicknamed him the Cultured Emperor.”
“And the Emperor Yang, his successor?”
Hsi-wei made a face, as if he had tasted something sour. “His son, executed, it’s said, not by your master but by his own ministers, poured money and lives down his so-called Grand Canal. Lusting for dominion, but not leading his troops, he sent whole armies to be slaughtered in the mountains of Goguryeo. Yang would have done better if, like his father, he had economized on concubines and cruelties, paid attention to the grumbling of the nomads, taken into account the widows planting rice. He might have given a thought to men too old to dig or fight who wished only to be left in peace to recite the verses of the Shijing masters.”
“So in your opinion Wen’s son was in no way worthy of his father?”
“Yang may have been a fair poet, but he was a terrible emperor. In my last travels I saw the villages he had stripped of men and money, poorer than ever. While the people suffered he led a shameful life in Daxing, carelessly spilling lives and money as people say he did the strong yellow wine. To speak plainly, I’m glad that your master has replaced him.”
Though it felt strange to hear such bitterness from Hsi-wei’s mouth, I wasn’t all that surprised. By the time of his overthrow, Yang had scarcely any defenders left and—if half of what was said of him is true—merited still fewer.
Before departing for the night, I asked if I might return in the morning to resume our conversation. The poet agreed with his usual courtesy, then excused himself and went inside again. He returned with a scroll tied up with the rough twine peasants use to stake climbing beans.
“You were right to criticize that early poem of mine. I never think of it without shame. When I heard of the overthrow of Emperor Yang I recalled it again. And so to get the bad taste out of my mouth, I’ve written a second part, a sequel. As you’ll see if you honor me by reading it, it’s not the naive effusion of a callow youth but something different.”
This poem, in Hsi-wei’s true style, is blunt, elegiac, and angry, an epitaph for the Sui. In the rotating pavilion of Daxing he finds a new significance, an emblem rather than a spectacle.
I was careful to keep the scroll dry and delivered personally it to Emperor Tang on my return to the capital.
So, the glorious Duke of Tang
has declared Daxing no more.
It is to be called Chang’an now.
I’m told it looks much the same.
Would I still recognize its alleyways,
its markets and villas? Perhaps not,
but I shall never forget that
evening of the rotating pavilion.
Our new emperor must be brave.
It’s said even his daughter,
the Princess Pingyang, raised her
own troops and led them well, too.
And so ended the Sui dynasty.
Somewhere in Lungyu the news
will have reached the village of Zhaide.
At first the peasants would be impressed
that Heaven had stripped Yang of its
mandate and settled it on Tang.
But that is far-off news, business of the capital,
home of marvels, murders, intrigues, luxuries.
Perhaps they had once heard talk of a teak
pavilion that goes round and round.
Emperor Yang should have taken better note
of the moral of Yuwen Kai’s masterpiece,
how nothing stays, not even dynasties
that look immovable as the Blue Mountains.
The pavilion rotated so slowly that one
enthroned in the middle might well think
himself secure. But still the pavilion turns.
Such an end from such a beginning,
the peasants in Zaide would say, then shrug.
Hsi-wei and the Liuqin Player
The marketplace was nearly as still as a painting of itself. The villagers drooped, just like the leaves on the medlar tree under which Hsi-wei had set up his sign. Anyone who stirred moved as if resenting the necessity. Two sweating workers shuffled lethargically up to the dumpling seller. A boy almost tottered from a dry goods shop to the well to get a drink. A woman holding a little girl by the hand approached Hsi-wei with small steps. What would new sandals for her daughter cost? Though Hsi-wei’s price was low, when he saw the look on the woman’s face, he made it still lower.
The summer had turned oppressively hot and dry
. Up north there was drought, rumors of famine. This region, watered by the Yangtze, was better off, but still sweltering and dusty. Hsi-wei was making his way south to Chiangling. An invitation from an old friend had reached him. Zhu-li had been appointed to a high post in the city and promised Hsi-wei a gracious welcome if he would visit. When they were students together in the capital, Zhu-li had defended Hsi-wei against those who insulted the upstart peasant. In return, Hsi-wei helped Zhu-li prepare for his examination. Hsi-wei was making his way south from Daxing. He had stayed in the capital only long enough to pay his respects to the widow of his old teacher, Master Shen. It was she who handed him Zhu-li’s letter.
At mid-afternoon a wagon with a faded green awning pulled into the marketplace. Hsi-wei could see the horses were suffering from the heat. The man at the reins jumped down quickly, unhitched the poor animals, and led them to a stone trough on the east side of the square.
Three people emerged from the big wagon: a young girl, then, more slowly, a fat man and a thin one. The men stretched and looked around them drowsily, while the girl wrestled a carpet from the wagon, rolled it out over the hot ground and called sharply to the two others. The men rubbed their eyes and ignored her. The girl struck Hsi-wei as unusually self-contained. Her narrow face was closed, giving her the squinting, severe look of an over-studious child.
The fat man waddled to the well, drew water, and gulped it down straight from the bucket. The thin one was right behind him and did the same. The girl shook her head at them, then jumped back on the wagon. Hsi-wei wondered why she hadn’t drunk as well. She emerged carrying two musical instruments by their necks, like dead fowl. In her right hand she held a pipa almost as long as herself, in the left a small liuqin—goose and duckling. Across the marketplace, the fat man flopped down in the shade of the well, feet splayed out. The thin man wiped his mouth, grunted at his companion, then made his way back to the wagon and climbed inside. A moment later he emerged carrying the kind of flute known as a chi, also an erhu and its bow. These he laid on the carpet.
Hsi-wei Tales Page 18