by Rich Horton
At the secret archive at the Temple to the Primordial Nothingness in Sundown Archipelago, a text has been discovered with a note indicating that it is the translation of that letter from imperial ideograms into the phonetic script of the south, rendered by the Great Sea Dragon’s interpreter Upright Lotus. While it contains the gist of the Sixth Emperor’s admonishment, it takes such liberties with the contents of the original that it can hardly be considered a proper translation. Its tone has been moderated and formalized to such an extent that the “stern warning” became more of a “respectful caution,” with no mention of the name Pirate Fish Stink. The crazed quasi-religious ravings have all been cut out, replaced with a reasoned discourse on the sheer military and logistical difficulties the Great Sea Dragon would have to face should he dare to attempt an invasion of the Grand Circle proper. What is especially striking about the text is the insertion of numerous references to and quotations of the Grand Strategists, from such classic works as Rules of Warfare, Expanded Rules of Warfare, and New Rules of Warfare, with detailed expositions on why victory would be practically impossible to achieve for the Great Sea Dragon, and how even if he managed to initially take over significant territory through a number of victories on the battlefield, he could not hope to hold on to it in the long run with the limited resources as his disposal. Since it is implausible that the daughter of a South Ocean merchant would be so familiar with such military texts, this almost certainly points to collaboration with an imperial official.
After the Sixth Emperor’s initial letter was dispatched, the Great Sea Dragon sent a number of his own missives to the imperial court, all of which have survived along with Diviner Supreme’s translations. The messages in the original southern phonetic are aggressive, confident, and proud, declaring the warlord’s intention to conquer the Grand Circle as he conquered the entirety of South Ocean. Diviner Supreme’s translations are generally faithful, except for a glaring and mysterious alteration that appears in almost every fifth or sixth sentence, which is the mention of the color green. The waves upon which the Great Sea Dragon’s fleet rides are described as green, the light emanating from his great curved sword is green, his green cape flies in the wind as he speeds forth toward the Grand Circle (he did not wear a green cape but a red one), and so on. He is even made to describe himself as the Great Green Sea Dragon and the Green Master of the Endless Green Waves who is destined to establish the Green dynasty after the downfall of the Primal. In the original letters, the word “green” does not occur once.
To give yet another significant example of such distortions, in the picture “Peace on Five Peaks Island” the Great Sea Dragon holds the jade tablet of officialdom which he received from the Sixth Emperor, acknowledging his status as an imperial subject who rules over South Ocean in the name of the emperor. The color of the jade is red, which is the second to lowest of the six ranks of jade. Tablets in the two highest ranks, dark green and light green, were given on the extremely rare occasion that the emperor acknowledged a ruler to be his equal (tablet of brotherhood). For instance, the penultimate emperor of the Radiant dynasty gifted one to the Mountainous Father of the Golden Horsemen of the North in a futile effort to forestall their catastrophic invasion of the Grand Circle. Tablets in the next two ranks of jade, yellow and white, were given to rulers who were granted “subordinate but independent” status, kingdoms and lordly territories that were expected to pay tribute but whose internal autonomy was respected (tablet of honored lords). Tablets of the lowest jade ranks of red and black were granted to those whose dominion over certain territories were temporary, subject to review, and conditional upon pre-established imperial rules (tablet of officialdom). One who received such a tablet was expected to relinquish his power any time the emperor ordered him to.
During the final negotiation over the peace treaty, it is most certainly the case that Upright Lotus knowingly lied about the jade ranks. In the records of the Great Sea Dragon’s advisors, they express great pleasure after learning from the translator that the emperor has capitulated to their demand that he recognize their lord as his equal. The acknowledgement is to be affirmed through the granting of the highest rank of jade in red. In the imperial records, on the other hand, the ministers affirm that if the Great Sea Dragon acknowledges his subordinate status by accepting the tablet of officialdom, their sovereign will allow him to submit on his feet. In others words, through Upright Lotus’s lie, both sides came to regard the final outcome as a diplomatic victory.
There are many other examples of such deliberate mistranslations perpetrated by Diviner Supreme and Upright Lotus in apparent coordination with each other. They were able to do so without being discovered because Diviner Supreme was the only official in the Grand Circle who knew the language of Sundown Archipelago and Upright Lotus was the only speaker of the imperial tongue in the leadership of the Great Sea Dragon’s fleet. No one, in other words, was capable of checking their work.
After the successful completion of the peace on Five Peaks Island, the Sixth Emperor’s interpreter was granted the special honor name of Diviner Supreme, awarded with precious gifts, and offered a permanent position in the Imperial Secretariat. He humbly begged off officialdom with the respectable filial excuse that he had to take care of his ailing mother as his oldest brother was serving as the governor of the faraway province of Abundant Mountains and his second older brother had died in the previous year from an illness. Six months after, his mother passed away, and so he went into his mourning period. But after its completion, Diviner Supreme not only refused a position in the imperial court but he left the Forest of Brushes and West Capital, moving to a small town all the way in the southeastern plain, the last long journey he undertook. Not much is known about the life he led in this remote place, other than that he operated a school and produced some of the most important scholarly works on linguistics and cultural studies. For instance, his massive volume on his adopted homeland is still to this day the best source of information on the language, culture, and history of the region at the time. In particular, the record of his conversations with the survivors of the horrific massacre that was perpetrated on them by the Sixth Emperor in the early part of his reign provides a wholly plausible counter narrative to the official imperial account of the atrocity.
Toward the end of his life, he wrote what is his only known poem, a long narrative work in the neo-antique style, which may also have been his last writing. While many have marveled at the evocative beauty of its natural imageries, they have also found the work’s overall meaning utterly obscure. It tells the story of a traveler who is lost in a dark forest, who becomes prey to a fierce tiger on one path and a pack of wolves on another, while he is also chased by poisonous snakes. At his most dire moment, he comes across a pristine lotus flower of many changing colors that becomes personified as a beautiful young woman. The traveler and the lotus woman plot together to evade the beasts and to escape the forest. They employ a variety of magic spells and clever tricks to evade the tiger, wolves, and snakes. The woman then becomes luminous and lights their way as they walk out of the forest.
One scholar theorized that the poem is in the mode of the so-called “dark cloud lyrics” written by scholars during the time of the repressive Legalist Emperors. They employed coded language, especially in the use of specific imageries with hidden meanings, to communicate with one another under the scrutiny of the Imperial Censorate. That notion has been proven to be correct through the discovery of some letters at the site of Diviner Supreme’s final home. They were written in the southern phonetic script, on strips of bamboo that were tied together, sent to him by the interpreter for the Great Sea Dragon, to whom Diviner Supreme gave the amity name of Upright Lotus, which is also the title of his poem. The contents of the letters provide enough clues for decoding the work which reveals a remarkable account of what actually occurred on Five Peaks Island.
In the first days of negotiations on the island, the envoys of the Sixth Emperor and the Great Se
a Dragon exchanged belligerent demands as both sides conducted their meeting as a prelude to war. Diviner Supreme, after spending an entire morning interpreting for the imperial officials, took a walk on a beach, filled with dread and melancholy at the prospect of the dark, violent times to come. There, he encountered Upright Lotus, who appeared to be in a similar mood. They walked together, spoke of each other’s lives, their work, and their concerns for the future. In the course of a single day, as the sun set and they rested at a beachside tavern to share liquor, Diviner Supreme fell in love with the southern woman. As he gazed at her luminous eyes that shone with sad intelligence, he could not bear the thought of never seeing her again after the conclusion of the fruitless meeting, and of her becoming lost in the bloody war that was coming. Without considering the matter, he found himself committing high treason by revealing to her vital information that would have given the Great Sea Dragon a crucial advantage if he became privy to it. Diviner Supreme told Upright Lotus that the Sixth Emperor was hopelessly insane.
For almost five years, the Lord of the Grand Circle had neglected the affairs of the state, spending his time running around the palace in bizarre costumes and raving endlessly at his appalled officials and servants. All those who tried to remonstrate with him to correct his behavior were dismissed from their positions, exiled, or executed, until none was left in the court except for sycophants, cowards, and mediocrities. He sent his best generals on impossible military operations, and when they returned unsuccessful, he executed them all, leaving no experienced and competent commanders at the Ministry of Military Affairs. One day, he accused his queen and all twelve of his concubines of conspiring against him, and had them and all their attendant ladies strangled to death, their corpses mutilated, and their remains spread across the empire to be fed to pigs and dogs. He hardly slept, was drunk most of the time, and ate only the vital organs of rare animals. And he was anxious to go to war, to turn South Ocean red with the blood of Pirate Fish Stink and his people. The eunuchs who served under him would be much vilified later as the Fifty Half-Men who all but usurped the power of the throne, but recent revisionist historians have pointed out that they had little choice but to take charge of running the government in the mad ruler’s stead and actually did the best they could under the difficult circumstances. They were also successful in keeping the knowledge of their master’s lunacy within the palace, as they scrupulously and, in some cases, violently suppressed any possible leak of the information.
It was only after Diviner Supreme revealed this to Upright Lotus that he began to dread the consequences of having exposed the great secret. He knew that if the eunuchs found out what he had done, he would be immediately recalled to West Capital and executed. Three generations of his family would be eradicated as well, as was the punishment for a traitor to the throne. So he was both astonished and relieved when his counterpart returned his gesture by revealing crucial information as well. It was that despite the Great Sea Dragon’s bluster, he was wracked with doubt about the whole enterprise, as he had never conducted a major military campaign on land before. He was undoubtedly invincible on water, as he had never lost a naval battle since he took command of his own ship, but he had only lately began to familiarize himself with the basics of large-scale warfare on land from mercenary officers whom he hired as advisors. He was as ambitious as ever and genuinely wanted to find out if he could be as good a strategist on land as he was on the waves, but that was not the main reason he was challenging the Grand Circle.
Once he successfully established dominion over South Ocean, he realized that many of his sea lords, fierce martial men who had known nothing but raiding and warring all their lives, were getting restless. In addition, those who did not come from Sundown Archipelago, which was most of them, had submitted to him out of necessity and calculation, but resented his authority over them. He knew that he had also exacerbated their discontent by ordering them to learn and use his native tongue, wear the costumes of his people, and follow the political and ritualistic ways of the archipelago. Many of them had been part of a loose confederation of pirates in which the highest leader was the first among equals, so they found it humiliating to kneel while paying fealty to the Great Sea Dragon as their supreme lord. He was certain, therefore, that they would conspire against him sooner or later, unless he directed their energy elsewhere, to an enterprise that was dauntingly difficult as well as long-lasting, but one that also promised rewards beyond measure at its successful completion. The invasion would also give him the opportunity to get rid of some of his most untrustworthy subordinates on dangerous missions. But all that would work only if he proved to be victorious, as failure would lead certainly to the loss of his authority.
Diviner Supreme realized that if the Great Sea Dragon knew of the Sixth Emperor’s madness and the empire’s current lack of competent commanders, his self-doubt would disappear and he would launch an all-out assault as soon as possible. It was Upright Lotus who first suggested that the two of them were the only people who could stop the war. And so the conspiracy of unfaithful translations was born.
When Upright Lotus received the Sixth Emperor’s raving letter to the Great Sea Dragon, she essentially rewrote the entire text as a polite warning from a calm and intelligent sovereign who was so supremely confident that he deigned to gently lecture the upstart on the foolishness of his course, providing a detailed and reasoned discourse on the many insurmountable difficulties he would face in taking on the Grand Circle. It was undoubtedly Diviner Supreme who provided her with the appropriate quotations from military classics. The profuse use of passages from the works was designed to intimidate the Great Sea Dragon by exposing his lack of knowledge on conducting a large-scale campaign on land, so further undermining his confidence. The letter gave the impression that the Sixth Emperor was surrounded by learned generals who provided him with such expertise, which they would deploy against the warlord in battle.
As for Diviner Supreme, the inclusion of the word “green” in his translations of the Great Sea Dragon’s letters was inspired by his knowledge of his sovereign’s early life. The emperor was born and raised in the northern frontier where his father, a member of a tertiary branch of the imperial family, was the lord commander of fortresses, a position his son inherited following his graduation from the Forest of Spears Military Academy. Given the large number of possible candidates to the throne, he had no expectation of attaining it when the sickly and impotent Fifth Emperor died without naming his successor. So he was taken completely by surprise when officials from the High State Council came to his headquarters to announce that they had designated him as the heir to the throne.
In that harsh region of frigid winds and rocky hills, there was a folk tradition about a figure who was called the Green Visitor. Parents of disobedient children would leave a window open for the creature, a macabre monster with rotting skin and bladed fingers, to come in at the darkest hour of the night. It would sneak over to the side of a sleeping child, rip off the skin on their face, and gobble it up. His coming was announced by the stench of fish, and he was sometimes depicted as having the head of a fish. Parents in the region corrected the behavior of recalcitrant children by threatening to invite the green visitor or by claiming to smell rotten fish in the air.
The Sixth Emperor was apparently subjected to such warnings during his childhood. With the onset of his madness, he became tormented by the recurring appearance of the Green Visitor in his dreams. The emperor became so terrified that he avoided sleeping as much as he could, so worsening his condition. He also banned fish from the palace, forbade the presence of green objects, and ordered that all things painted green be covered up with a different color. His reference to the Great Sea Dragon as Pirate Fish Stink made Diviner Supreme think that his sovereign harbored the suspicion that the warlord was the Green Visitor incarnate.
In the last letter Diviner Supreme translated with the numerous additions of the word “green” to frighten the Sixth Emperor, he add
ed one original sentence at the end, promising that the Great Sea Dragon would go away without eating his skin if given the three gifts of title, jade, and liquor. The successful conclusion of a peace treaty with a foreign ruler usually ended with the emperor granting an official title, a jade tablet of the appropriate rank, and finally, precious liquor that they shared.
The Sixth Emperor surprised everyone with the order to offer the Great Sea Dragon peace. And they were surprised anew when the warlord agreed, on the condition that he was given the highest official title possible. A problem arose when the emperor refused to grant the jade tablet in the rank of green, as he would have nothing to do with something of that color. So his officials offered red jade, with room to negotiate up to white or yellow. The counter offer they received was that the Great Sea Dragon would accept red jade if he was allowed to submit standing up rather than having to prostrate himself on the ground, as was required of those receiving anything below the green. This was agreed upon. The negotiation over the jade color was entirely a play put on by the two translators. Diviner Supreme made it seem as if the Sixth Emperor got the better of the Great Sea Dragon by getting him to acknowledge his subordinate position by accepting the low grade of jade. Meanwhile, Upright Lotus told her master that the tablet of red jade was the mark of the highest recognition of equal status demanded by him, as demonstrated by the fact that he was to accept it on his feet.