Hsi-wei Tales

by Wexelblatt, Robert;

  “A good commander, then?”

  “Oh, yes. There was no trouble from the Tibetans while he was there. However, the General didn’t want a military career for his only son. He forced Boling to be a scholar, to prepare for the examinations so he could enter the civil service, to practice the arts of peace, and become a minister.”

  “A noble aim.”

  “Boling was a good fellow, one of the few pupils of Master Shen who didn’t treat me—the upstart interloper, the filthy peasant—with disdain. He wasn’t in the least haughty. Perhaps it was because he’d spent his childhood in garrisons. In fact, Boling made me his confidant. He told me he didn’t care for his studies—which, to tell the truth, was obvious to everyone. No, he said that what he yearned for was to emulate his father; he wanted to become an officer, dreamed of being a commander. He excelled at horsemanship, fighting with staves, at all military exercises. He neglected his scrolls and brushes to practice with the gong and qiang. Master Shen upbraided him ceaselessly, though he didn’t dare beat the boy. It wouldn’t have made any difference if he had. Boling was stubborn and, in the end, the General gave in. When we said farewell, Boling was so filled with elation he forgot himself and embraced me.”

  “Did you hear from him again?”

  Master Hsi-wei was quiet for a bit before resuming.

  “One day, about twenty years ago, I decided to see the river with which I share a name and made my way to Kwangsi. I had not gone south since I carried the message to General Fu, put off less by the memory of my dangers than the sultry climate. This was about a year into the southern campaign. As so many of the Kwangsi men had been conscripted, the war was the talk of the province. At first I heard only of victories—how quickly the army had taken Tong Binh and all its surrounding tributary kingdoms. The old men and the women spoke with joy and relief of how their sons and husbands would be home in a month, two at the most, returning in triumph, back in time for planting.

  “But then I came to a village where the mood was just the opposite. The bad news was brought back by the few who had survived the ruinous thrust into Champa and it spread quickly. These stragglers also spoke of victories, and proudly, as soldiers will. In a village by the Hsi River I myself met one of these men. Though he couldn’t pay I made him a pair of straw sandals and told him it was to honor his service to the Emperor. He was only about nineteen, terribly thin and weak, and struggled to bear himself upright like the veteran he was. It was he who told me how they had defeated the war elephants and then pursued the enemy deep into the pestilential forests. ‘We were invincible,’ he insisted harshly, as if I had denied it. ‘Our officers were smart, the archers sharp as nails, morale high as Heaven’s gates. Until,’ he said, ‘the sickness began, the terrible fevers.’

  “I asked this man if he had ever heard of an officer named Yuan.

  “‘Captain Yuan? I never met the man but he was known to everybody,’ he said sadly. ‘He was one of our best officers, trusted by the commanders. His men must have loved him because they mourned him for a whole day. Not long, you’ll say, but by then all of them were either sick or dying.’”

  We were quiet for a time, watching the sun go down. “And the letter-poem?” I asked.

  “Written to my friend whose father wanted him to become a minister.”

  Not knowing how to respond, I said I was sorry.

  Hsi-wei sighed. “Only a year later the Emperor died, or was killed by a son who lacked his father’s vision and decency but had all his worst impulses in abundance—who launched still bigger projects and even more disastrous wars.”

  “I believe our new dynasty will fare better and last longer,” I said confidently. “With fewer wars.”

  Hsi-wei smiled wearily. “So I hope too, and with better poems.”

  With that my host humbly begged my pardon, saying he was drowsy and needed to sleep.

  Thanking Master Hsi-wei for his hospitality and openness, I quickly took my leave and returned to Chiangling.

  The War in the South

  Were you ready for them? People say you weren’t warned.

  What a shock it must have been after the easy triumphs,

  the delicious exotic food I picture you wolfing down

  as you lounged in the abandoned palaces of Tong Binh.

  Was the food as good as they say? Are the women of

  Linyi really slim as willow branches, shy as fawns?

  Champa must have beckoned like a crimson pomegranate

  hanging so low you only needed to raise your hand, tug,

  and drop it in the basket of the Emperor’s swelling glory.

  But how terrifying they must have been, the war elephants,

  their tusks and exultation, the thick trunks rearing back

  like giant pythons seeking prey, the cracking of their

  rush through the forest. The biggest trees would

  be nothing to them, mere twigs and splinters.

  Many must have been crushed, broken, shouldered aside.

  But you officers, steady men and crafty, didn’t panic, not you.

  You passed the order to feign retreat, found soft earth and

  arrayed the ranks of crossbowmen, set the men to digging.

  Elephants are no fools. I imagine only the first stumbled into

  the traps; the others wheeled slowly and fled, harried by bolts,

  stamping on the infantry of Champa. What a paean the

  men must have raised, seeing war’s fortune turn.

  They say many victories drew you deeper into the poisonous

  southern forests. First a few fell ill, crying pitiably for

  water. Then more and yet more until the whole army was

  wasted by fevers. The news has come home but few of you.

  Old men and boys, mothers and young girls, weep as they plant this

  year’s rice and till brown fields, missing your strength.

  They say that in Daxing the Emperor has met with his ministers.

  I know we parted six years ago. Only in dreams do

  we still drink under the new moon, joking, reciting verses;

  yet to me also the world feels like a forsaken field.

  Yuan Boling, you triumphed over the enormous but fell to

  the invisible. Surely there must be some lesson in that.

  Hsi-wei and the Village of Xingyun

  Early in the reign of Emperor Yang, the peasant/poet Chen Hsi-wei was making his way through Jizhou. He had no particular destination but thought he might visit the city of Dingxiang. It was a wet November. Hsi-wei was drenched and cold and a long way from the prefectural capital when he found shelter with a peasant family. Like so many families Hsi-wei encountered on his travels, the Huans were missing men, both a father and an uncle. Though he knew what she would say, Hsi-wei felt it proper to give Mrs. Huan a chance to speak about what concerned her most. He asked after her husband.

  “The army,” said Mrs. Huan in a tone that might have signified, “in the grave.”

  Mei, her younger daughter, a girl of eleven or twelve, took her mother’s hand and disagreed with forced cheerfulness. “They said it could be the canal, the Grand Canal, Mother. They said people come back after a year, two at the most.”

  Mrs. Huan scoffed, gave a shrug.

  “It must be difficult to manage.”

  Bao, the older daughter, who was fifteen or sixteen, spoke sharply and with pride. “We manage as you see. But what I’d like to know is how you manage, sir. I mean, why haven’t they taken you?” Suddenly, her tone changed from accusing to hopeful. “Or did they take you, and you’ve actually returned, is that it? Or have you escaped? I’ve never heard of anyone returning. Is it possible?”

  Bao had struck him in a vulnerable spot. Hsi-wei felt embarrassed and pained.

  “No, I was never taken.
It’s probably because I’m always on the move. The Empire likes to do things methodically and, you see, I’m not registered in any prefecture.”

  “So you hide from the roving conscription gangs—the ones that aren’t so ‘methodical’?” asked Bao.

  Hsi-wei nodded. “I confess that I have, once or twice.”

  “Then I say good for you!” Mei exclaimed, clapping her hands. “I wish that’s what Father and Uncle had done.”

  Bao was entitled to be proud of how they had managed. Though it was not growing season, Hsi-wei could see that the land had been well tended. The house was in need of some repairs and paint, but it was neat, the floors swept and washed.

  When he arrived at their door in the late afternoon, tired and wet, Mrs. Huan looked at Hsi-wei almost fearfully. Her daughters stood behind her, Mei expectant, Bao looking almost put out. Mrs. Huan became less suspicious when he told her their elderly neighbor, Mr. Chen, with whom he happened to share a family name, had directed him to her. “Mr. Chen said he regretted he had nothing suitable for me and suggested you might be able to put me up for the night,” explained the poet. He offered to make Mrs. Huan, Bao, and Mei fine straw sandals if they could spare a corner for him to sleep in, and perhaps a little rice with a vegetable or two, a small cup of tea.

  “I think we can do that,” said Mrs. Huan.

  Hsi-wei bowed, thanked her, and said he’d noticed a broken barrow by the door. He offered to fix it.

  “We’d prefer help with the roof,” said practical Bao, pointing up to a damp spot on the ceiling.

  Emperor Wen initiated vast projects, restoring and extending the Great Wall and digging the Grand Canal. He had begun wars to secure and extend the Empire. He raised taxes; the peasants could pay in kind, with labor, or military service. Staggering numbers died at the works and in the wars. The people grumbled and, here and there, rebelled. However, when they considered all the good Wendi had done, for the most part they submitted. And Emperor Wen did accomplish a great deal, beginning with the reunification of the country after three centuries of disorder. He reformed the state’s antiquated and corrupt administration. He simplified the Empire’s political structure and re-allocated land in a way that was more fair and productive. For the first time in memory, the cities had surpluses of food. Wendi brought back the examination system and centralized all government appointments, at once raising the quality of the civil service and freeing people from the system of nepotism under which officials were drawn from the richest, best connected local families. Wendi’s first reform was to replace the system of traditional punishments—which included dismemberment and even the execution of three generations of a criminal’s family—with the humane Kaihuang Code. His second was to standardize the currency by minting new Wu Zhu coins to replace the old private and local currencies.

  Emperor Wen was succeeded by his tyrannical, sybaritic, and vicious son, the Emperor Yang who, according to rumor, assassinated his father. In his travels, Hsi-wei observed how conditions worsened under Yangdi. Taxes were further increased and with them conscription. Millions lay under the Great Wall; and more than half the workers sent to the Grand Canal died by drowning, mudslide, exhaustion, hunger, or exposure. The new Emperor’s military ambitions exceeded even his father’s. He sent vast armies to invade Champa in the south and Goguryeo in the north. All these campaigns failed with colossal losses.

  Like many others, Hsi-wei missed Emperor Wen.

  Bao sent Hsi-wei back to Mr. Chen to fetch straw from his late-wheat harvest. The sun was down when he returned, and Mrs. Huan prepared a dinner of rice with bok choy, mushrooms, and some dried pork. Mei made a pot of tea of which she was quite proud.

  The meal ran late because the Huans had so many questions. It seemed to them that the guest who had come from nowhere had been everywhere. Mrs. Huan was amazed that he had lived in the old capital of Chang’an when it was still known as Daxing and had also visited the new one, Luoyang. She wanted to know all about both. How wide were the streets? Had he seen the Rotating Pavilion? What were the Buddhist temples like—simple or very grand? Did all the people in the capital dress in silk? Were the women as haughty as they were said to be? He had trekked through the southern provinces and climbed the Yellow Mountains. He had visited the Grand Canal and had even seen the ocean. Bao refused to believe that he had really been to all these places; yet she had more questions than either her mother or her little sister. Hsi-wei was glad to answer. He described the new temples erected by Wendi and the old Buddhist monastery at which he had stayed. He told them how poverty and wealth pushed up against each other in the cities and how the countryside suffered through ferocious droughts and relentless floods.

  Mei wanted to know more about Hsi-wei himself. What adventures had he had? Hsi-wei obliged by telling her a few of his experiences, and Mei, her eyes shining, begged for more stories. He never mentioned his poetry or how the little fame they had won him led to his being well received in this or that province. It delighted him, as it always did, to be among good people who knew nothing of his writing and took him for what he truly was—a vagabond peasant who, as a boy, had learned the craft of sandal-making from an uncle.

  It grew late and Mei began to yawn.

  Hsi-wei asked Mrs. Huan if it would be possible for him to stay an extra day. “If not,” he said, “I’m sure I could find other lodging nearby. But it will take me two days to make your sandals.”

  “And to repair that leak,” Bao reminded him.

  “Oh, please let him stay, Mama,” pleaded Mei. Enthralled by his stories, she hoped to hear more.

  Mrs. Huan agreed with a smile and told the drowsy child to go to bed.

  Bao reminded Hsi-wei about the repair to the roof.

  “Tell me,” asked Mei as she got to her feet, “did you ever visit that wonderful village, the one in Liangzhou, the one—” She turned impatiently to her sister. “Oh, Bao, what’s its name? You know the one I mean.”

  “Xingyun,” said Bao.

  “Yes, Xingyun. Have you seen it?”

  Hsi-wei had heard at least a dozen versions of the story of Xingyun. The tale had been circulating for years. It had to date from early in the rule of Emperor Wen since it involved two of his earliest reforms. Hsi-wei had noted that, wherever the story was told, the teller always placed the village of Xingyun in some distant province. As Mei was sure it was in Liangzhou, the people of Liangzhou were just as certain the village was in Ba-Han, while the peasant from whom Hsi-wei had heard the story in Ba-Han situated the village in Henan.

  Hsi-wei thought that perhaps there was some truth to the story of Xingyun but, over time, it had become a legend, a folk tale of pluck, peace, hope, and justice, just the kind of story to appeal to children like Mei.

  According to all the versions of the story Hsi-wei had heard, the local prefect—whose name could be Fung or Chang or Shui—was one of the old sort, nephew of a local landlord, cruel, biased, quick to demand a bribe. His family had held the position for generations.

  When the order came from the capital to begin conscripting peasants and increase their taxes, this Fung or Chang or Shui threw himself into the work, anticipating a rise in graft to match the one in taxes. It was also an excellent opportunity to rid himself of malcontents. Those out of favor or who could not pay were taken away, men and women alike, until many villages in the region were left with only young children and elderly grandparents.

  At the same time that Emperor Wen ordered the conscriptions, he began the process of standardizing the Empire’s currency. He had five mints built in various provinces to strike the new Wu Zhu coins. In accord with a schedule worked out in Daxing, armed convoys would be sent out from these mints to distribute the new coins through the Empire and to confiscate the old, privately minted ones. It was estimated the task would take two to three years to complete.

  Conditions in the prefecture run by Fung, Chang, or Shui were
particularly harsh. Young men stole away before they could be conscripted. Some went to relatives in other jurisdictions; others became bandits.

  Some versions of the story include the unlikely exploits of the young bandits. Whether they are kidnapping the prefect’s son and teaching him to despise his father, stealing pigs from the prefect’s family compound, or outsmarting Turkic mercenaries, the outlaws are always presented as clever, down-to-earth, decent heroes who enjoy the sort of camaraderie that is irresistible to children, especially if the heroes are children themselves. In some versions, the bandit gang includes women who are just as brave and clever as the men. The bandits are always young, healthy, witty, and indifferent to the risk of torture and beheading. Hsi-wei recognized all these bandit stories as elaborations, digressions to please the public, but distractions from the story’s proper subject.

  The tale really begins when bandits ambush an armed convoy carrying the Emperor’s new Wu Zhu coins. After a short, sharp fight, the outlaws kill the officers and drive off the guards. All this is witnessed by four ragged but fascinated children who are foraging for mushrooms and happen to be at the side of the road. Three of the bandits take hold of the children and warn their leader.

  “They’ve seen everything. They can identify us. Maybe we should—”

  But their captain cut the man off with a laugh. “There must be forty caskets in this wagon. I say we give one of them to these children.”