Sandalwood Death: A Novel (Chinese Literature Today Book Series)

by Mo Yan

  The German tripped and fell, burying his face in the mud, and he no sooner realized what had happened than General Yue’s club had flattened his tall helmet. The General was about to keep clubbing him when he saw that the man’s blue eyes were like those of the lamb they’d sacrificed earlier—sad eyes, blinking pitifully, and the General’s wrist failed him. This time the club hit the German marine not on the head but on the shoulder.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Masterpiece

  Razor-tipped knife in hand, Zhao Jia stood in the center of the parade ground, a bowlegged young apprentice at his side, facing a tall pine post to which the failed assassin of Yuan Shikai was bound, awaiting execution by the slicing death of five hundred cuts. Arrayed behind him were dozens of high-ranking officers of the New Army, seated on fine horses, while behind the execution post, five thousand foot soldiers stood in tight formation, looking from a distance like a forest, and up close like marionettes. Dry early winter winds swept powdery alkaline dirt into the soldiers’ faces. All those gazes made Zhao Jia, who had carried out hundreds of executions, slightly nervous, and somewhat self-conscious. By force of will he suppressed these feelings, which could only have a negative impact on his work, and focused on the condemned man before him, refusing to look at either the mounted officers or the formation of soldiers.

  Something his shifu, Grandma Yu, had told him was on his mind: A model executioner does not see a living being as he prepares to carry out his task. Before him is nothing but strips of muscle and flesh, discrete internal organs, and a skeleton. After forty years in the trade, Zhao Jia had attained that degree of perfection. But for some reason, on this day he was on edge. After plying his trade for decades, during which he had ended the lives of nearly a thousand people, before him now was the finest specimen of the male body he had ever seen: a proud nose and capacious mouth, slanting eyebrows and starry eyes, his naked body a scene of perfection, with chiseled chest muscles and a flat, taut abdomen, all covered with glossy bronze skin. What truly caught his attention, however, was the ubiquitous taunting smile on the face of the young man, who was returning Zhao Jia’s scrutiny. A sense of shame engulfed Zhao in much the same way that a misbehaving child cannot bear to look his father in the eye.

  Three steel cannons stood on the edge of the parade ground, busily attended by a squad of a dozen soldiers. Three rapid explosions startled Zhao Jia and made his ears ring. For a moment that was all he could hear. The acrid smell of gunpowder nearly choked him. The condemned man nodded in the direction of the cannons, as if in praise of the artillerymen’s skill. Zhao Jia, who was badly shaken, saw flames spew from the mouths of the cannons, followed immediately by another series of explosions. He watched as the bright, golden-hued shell casings flew behind the big guns, so hot they seared the patches of grass they landed on, marked by puffs of white smoke. Then three more explosions, after which the artillerymen stepped behind their guns and stood at attention, a sign that the fusillade was over, although the echoes hung in the air.

  “Present—arms!” came a shouted command.

  Five thousand soldiers raised Steyr rifles over their heads, forming a forest of long guns, a vast expanse of glossy blue steel to the rear of the execution post. Zhao Jia stared tongue-tied at this demonstration of military might. He had observed many martial drills by the Imperial Guard during his years in the capital, but nothing he had seen could compare with what he was witnessing today. The effect on him was apprehension and a powerful sense of unease. His self-confidence was shaken, his self-possessed demeanor, which had never wavered on the capital’s marketplace execution ground, now gone.

  The foot soldiers and mounted officials remained at respectful attention for the arrival of their commander, which was heralded by the blare of trumpets and a clash of cymbals. A palanquin, covered in dark green wool and carried by eight bearers, emerged from a path through a grove of white poplars like a multi-decked ship riding the waves, crossed the parade ground, and settled gently earthward in front of the execution post. A young recruit ran up with a stepping stool, which he placed on the ground before reaching up to pull back the curtain. Out stepped a hulking figure, a red-capped official with big ears, a square face, and a prominent moustache. Zhao Jia recognized him immediately, an acquaintance from twenty-three years earlier, when he was still the young scion of an official family; now he was Commander of the New Army, His Excellency Yuan Shikai, who, in a break from the usual protocol, had summoned him from the capital to Tianjin to carry out the execution.

  Dressed in full uniform under a fox fur cape, he cut an impressive figure. With a wave to the military complement assembled on the parade ground, he sat in a chair draped with a tiger skin. The commanding officer of the mounted troops shouted:

  “Parade rest—!”

  The soldiers shouldered their rifles on command, sending a deafening shock wave across the field. A young officer with a ruddy complexion and yellowed teeth, a sheet of paper in his hand, bent low to whisper something in Excellency Yuan’s ear. With a frown, Yuan turned his head away, as if to avoid the young officer’s bad breath. But “yellow teeth” would not let the distance between his mouth and Yuan’s ear increase. Zhao Jia could not have known, and never would learn, that the dark, gaunt young man with the yellow teeth would one day be known throughout the land as the Imperial Restorationist General Zhang Xun. Zhao Jia actually felt sorry for Yuan Shikai, being subjected to the stench from Zhang Xun’s mouth. Once Zhang had finished what he had to say, Yuan Shikai nodded and straightened up in his chair, while Zhang Xun stood on a bench and read what was on the paper in a voice loud enough for all to hear:

  “The condemned, twenty-eight-year-old Qian Xiongfei, known also as Pengju, is from the city of Yiyang in Hunan Province. In the twenty-first year of the Guangxu reign, Qian took up studies at a military school in Japan, where he cut off his queue and joined an outlaw gang of conspirators. Upon his return to China, he joined forces with the Kang Youwei–Liang Qichao rebel clique. Under instructions from Kang and Liang, he assumed the role of a loyalist and infiltrated the Imperial Guard, where he operated as a planted agent for the rebels. When the Wuxu rebels were executed in the capital, like the fox that mourns the death of the hare, the frenzied Qian made an attempt on the life of our commander on the eleventh day of the tenth month. Heaven interceded to spare the life of Excellency Yuan. The criminal Qian was thwarted from carrying out this sinister and unpardonable act. In accordance with the laws of the Great Qing Empire, anyone found guilty of an assassination attempt on a representative of the Court is to suffer the slicing death of five hundred cuts. The sentence, approved by the Board of Punishments, will be carried out by an executioner brought from the capital to Tianjin . . .”

  Zhao Jia felt the eyes of the assembled witnesses on him. Sending an executioner from the capital to the provinces was unprecedented, not just during the Qing Dynasty, but throughout the country’s history. The enormity of his responsibility put him in a state approaching alarm.

  Now that the death warrant had been read, Yuan Shikai removed his fox fur cape and stood up, his eyes sweeping the formation of five thousand soldiers before he began to speak. Blessed with powerful lungs, he began, his words ringing out with great sonority:

  “Men, I have been a military commander for many years and love my troops as if you were my own sons. If a mosquito bites you, my heart aches. This you already know. The idea that Qian Xiongfei, whom I had regarded with such favor, could one day turn his deadly rage on his own commander was alien to me. This act came as not only a horrible shock, but an even greater disappointment.”

  “Men,” Qian Xiongfei shouted from the execution post to which he was bound, “the treacherous Yuan Shikai has betrayed friends and allies in order to seek Imperial favor, crimes for which death is too good for him. Do not be taken in by his fine-sounding words!”

  Zhang Xun, who saw Yuan Shikai’s face redden, ran up to the execution post and punched Qian Xiongfei in the face.

  �
��Keep your fucking mouth shut and die with a little class!”

  Qian spat a mouthful of bloody saliva in Zhang Xun’s face.

  With a wave of his hand, Yuan Shikai stopped Zhang Xun, who was about to hit Qian a second time.

  “Qian Xiongfei, you were a wizard with a gun and smarter than most people. That was why I gave you a pair of gold-handled pistols and granted you special responsibilities as a trusted confidant. My benevolence not only went unappreciated, but actually led you to make an attempt on my life. If that can be tolerated, what then cannot? Even though I nearly died at your hands, I grieve over the loss of your talent and cannot bear the thought of your punishment. But the law can show no favoritism, and military law is unimpeachable. I am powerless to save you from it.”

  “If you’re going to kill me, do it, but spare me the sermon!”

  “Now that things have reached this point, I can only take a lesson from Marquis Zhuge Liang, who ‘wept as he beheaded Ma Su.’”

  “Excellency Yuan, drop the act!”

  Yuan Shikai shook his head and sighed.

  “Since you insist on being stubborn and stupid, there is nothing I can do for you.”

  “I am prepared to die, and have been for some time. Do what you must, Excellency Yuan!”

  “For you I have done everything humanity and duty call for. Tell me of your last wishes, and I shall see that they are carried out.”

  “Excellency Yuan, though Qian Ding, the Gaomi County Magistrate, is my brother, I disavowed our kinship long ago. I ask that he not be implicated in my activities.”

  “You may rest easy on that score.”

  “I thank Your Excellency for that,” Qian said, “but that you would send someone to remove the bullets from my guns to ensure my defeat when victory was within reach was unimaginable. Pity, what a pity!”

  “No one removed your bullets,” Yuan said with a laugh. “It was heaven’s intervention.”

  “If heaven decided to spare the life of Yuan Shikai,” he said with a sigh, “then you win, Excellency.”

  Yuan Shikai cleared his throat and declared:

  “Men, your commander’s heart is breaking over the need to subject Qian Xiongfei to the slicing death, for he was once an officer with a bright future. I had great expectations for him, but he cast his lot with those rebelling against the Throne and committed a heinous, unpardonable act. It is not I who am putting him to death, nor the Throne. No, this is an act of suicide. I would have been willing to grant him a simple execution, keeping his body intact, but the national penal code is involved, and I dare not bend the law for one of my own. In my desire to allow him a dignified death, I made a point of asking the Board of Punishments to send us its finest executioner. Qian Xiongfei, that is my final gift to you, and I hope you calmly accept your punishment as an example for the soldiers of our New Army. Listen to me, men. You have been brought here to witness this execution in order, as the adage goes, to scare the monkeys by killing the chicken. It is my hope that you will take away with you a lesson learned on the body of Qian Xiongfei, one of fealty and good faith, caution and prudence, fidelity to the Throne and obedience to your superiors. If you act in accordance with my guidance, I can guarantee you a bright future.”

  Led by their commanding officers, the soldiers shouted in unison:

  “Absolute fidelity to the Throne, devoted service to His Excellency!”

  Yuan Shikai returned to his seat and nodded imperceptibly to his aide, Zhang Xun, who grasped his meaning at once.

  “Let the execution begin!” he shouted.

  Zhao Jia stepped up in front of Qian Xiongfei, where his apprentice handed him a knife of the highest quality, one made specifically for this purpose.

  “My friend,” he said under his breath, “I ask your pardon.”

  Despite his attempt to face death without flinching, Qian Xiongfei could not keep his pale lips from quivering, and his irrepressible terror was exactly what Zhao Jia needed to recoup his pride of profession. In that instant, his heart turned as hard as steel and he was as calm as still water. He no longer saw a living human being in front of him. Bound to the execution post was nothing more than blood, flesh, tendons, and bones, assembled in a pattern determined by heavenly forces. Without warning, he drove his fist into Qian Xiongfei’s chest directly above the heart. Qian’s eyes rolled up into his head, and before the effect of that blow had worn off, with a quick circular motion of the hand holding the knife, Zhao snipped a circle of flesh the size of a bronze coin off of the other side of Qian’s chest. He had neatly excised one of Qian’s nipples, leaving a wound that looked like a blind man’s eye.

  In accordance with an unwritten practice of the profession, Zhao Jia held the nipple on the tip of his blade in full view of His Excellency Yuan and the officers behind him. Then he displayed the fleshy coin to the five thousand foot soldiers in front of him, as his apprentice announced:

  “The first cut!”

  The detached nipple seemed to him to jiggle. He heard the rapid, nervous breathing of the officers behind him and a forced little cough from Excellency Yuan. He did not have to look to picture the bloodless faces of the mounted officers. He knew also that their hearts, including Yuan Shikai’s, were pounding at that moment. And that thought instilled in him pleasant feelings of gratification. In recent years, many important men had fallen into the hands of Board of Punishments executioners, and he had grown used to seeing pitiful exhibitions on the execution ground by high-ranking officials who had swaggered through life when they were in power. Not one in a hundred was worthy of the manly Qian Xiongfei, who could suppress his feelings of terror while undergoing cruel torture to the point that they were virtually imperceptible. At that moment, at least, Zhao felt a sense of supremacy. I am not me; I am the agent of the Emperor and the Empress Dowager, the embodiment of the laws of the Great Qing Dynasty!

  Sunlight flashed on his blade as, with a flick of his wrist, the piece of human flesh flew from the tip of the knife high into the air, like a pellet, before settling heavily on the head of a swarthy soldier, like a glob of bird shit. The man screeched, as if a brick had landed on his head; he wobbled uncertainly.

  Based on an age-old executioner’s custom, the first piece of the victim is a sacrifice to heaven.

  Fresh blood oozed from the hole in Qian’s chest like a string of bright red pearls. Some dripped to the ground; some snaked down from the edges of the wound to stain his muscular chest.

  The second cut, taken from the left side, was as deftly and neatly accomplished as the first. The remaining nipple was cut away. Qian’s chest was now decorated by matching holes the size of bronze coins. Less blood flowed this time. The blow to his chest had made his heart contract, and that had abated the flow of blood throughout his body, a technique that had evolved out of the experience of generations of executioners in the Bureau of Detentions, perfection based on trial and error.

  Qian maintained the noble expression of fearlessness he had worn before the first cut, but a series of moans so soft that only Zhao Jia could hear them emerged, seemingly from his ears, not his mouth. Zhao forced himself to look away from Qian’s face. He was used to hearing wretched shrieks of pain from condemned prisoners as they were being sliced, howls that did nothing to disturb his unfaltering composure. But not hearing a sound from the valiant Qian Xiongfei, who clenched his teeth to keep from crying out, actually rattled him, as if something terrible were about to happen. Forcibly controlling his emotions, he raised the fleshy coin on the tip of his knife, as he knew he must do, displaying it first to His Excellency, then to the officers, and last to the ashen-faced soldiers, who stood before him like clay statues. His apprentice announced:

  “The second cut!”

  Zhao Jia had figured out that the legal and psychological foundation for the ritual of displaying fleshy parts sliced from the prisoner’s body to the officials in charge of the execution and to the observers was built on three principles: First, it was a display of the harsh rule of
law and the unflinching dedication to it by the executioner. Second, it served to instill the fear of retribution in the minds of witnesses, who could be counted on to turn away from evil thoughts and criminal behavior. That was why the Imperial Court had staged public executions and encouraged attendance by the populace throughout the nation’s dynastic history. Third, it satisfied people’s bloodlust. The finest play ever staged cannot compete with the spectacle of a public slicing, and for this more than any other reason, executioners in the capital were contemptuous of actors, who were so highly favored in royal circles.

  As he held up the second piece of Qian’s flesh for all to see, Zhao was reminded of scenes from his youth, when he was learning the trade from his shifu. In order to perfect the fine art of the slicing death, executioners for the Bureau of Detentions worked closely with a butcher shop just outside Chongwen Gate. During the off-season, the shifu took his students to the shop to practice their skills; there they helped turn the meat from countless pigs into filling for dumplings, and in the process developed a dexterity of hand and eye as accurate as a scale. If the call was for a pound of meat, a single cut would produce exactly sixteen ounces. When Grandma Yu was the keeper of the Bureau of Detentions official seal, the execution team opened a butcher shop on Walking Stick Lane in the Xisi, or West Fourth, District, where they slaughtered animals in back and sold the meat up front, enjoying a brisk business until one day someone revealed their identities. People not only stopped coming to buy their meat, they obsessively avoided the area, fearing they might be taken off the street and butchered.