by Kim Man-jung
Dismissing his ministers, he appealed to his mother to release Shao-yu from prison, and summoned him to get his advice.
Shao-yu said, “The tomb of the imperial ancestors and the royal palaces are all located in the capital. If you abandon the capital, there will be great confusion throughout the empire. And if a powerful enemy were to occupy the city then, it would be very hard to drive them out again.
“In the days of your predecessor T’ai Tsung,8 the Tibetans allied with the Uighurs and attacked the capital with a combined force of a million men. At that time, there were fewer men in the capital than now, and yet the Prince of Fen-yang, Kuo Tzu-i, drove them off with his cavalry.
“Your humble servant lacks the skill and military prowess of Kuo Tzu-i, but if you would give me a few thousand soldiers, I will do my utmost to drive out the enemy and so repay you for the great kindness you have shown me.”
The Emperor gladly approved and immediately appointed Shao-yu as commanding general. He gave him thirty thousand troops from the garrison and told Shao-yu to engage the Tibetan army.
Shao-yu took leave of the Emperor and marshaled his troops, assembling them at the Wei Bridge. He beat back the vanguard and captured a Tibetan prince. The enemy was routed. Shao-yu pursued them and fought them three more times, winning all three battles, killing thirty thousand men, and capturing a thousand horses. He sent dispatches to the capital describing his victories.
The Emperor was delighted with the news and ordered the return of his armies, preparing rewards for each general according to his achievements. But Shao-yu sent the following message:
I have heard that the imperial army cannot be defeated. But I have also heard that an army that always wins does not respect the power of the enemy and cannot win unless the enemy is weak and hungry. Our enemy is strong and well-fed, but they are strangers in this land of which we are the owners, where we can wait, well-fed, while they grow hungry. They grow weaker with each passing day.
In The Art of War9 it is said that one should attack the enemy when he is most vulnerable. Already their ranks are broken and they are fleeing. The outlying provinces have supplies and food for us, so there is no concern about lack of provisions, and in the flat plains and fields, they cannot find a place in which to hide from us. If we pursue them quickly, we can overrun them. I do not believe that it is wise to stop our attack and return now. I beg you—take counsel with the ministers before you come to a decision. Let me pursue the enemy as far as possible to their hideouts, set fire to their camps, and guarantee that not a suit of armor or a flight of arrows shall ever come across our borders again. Then Your Majesty can be at ease.
The Emperor was impressed by the wisdom in Shao-yu’s dispatch. He promoted him to the rank of chief inspector as well as minister of war, with the title of western marshal. He sent him a sword, a red bow and arrow, a belt of water buffalo horn, a white flag made of yak tail, and a golden battle-ax. He dispatched orders for the mobilization of troops and horses to Shao-yu’s army from the provinces of So-fang, Ho-tung, and Lung-hsi.
When Shao-yu received the Emperor’s gifts and orders, he bowed toward the palace in thanks. Then he selected an auspicious day, offered sacrifices, and set out with twenty thousand men.
He based his strategy on The Six Secret Teachings of Chiang T’ai-kung10 and his units were arranged according to the eight trigrams of the I Ching.11 Discipline was strict. His army marched out like a stream of water, straight as a split bamboo. Fifty lost towns and their territories were retaken within a few months and the main body of his army arrived at the foot of the Chih-shih Mountains.12
A whirlwind appeared before Shao-yu’s horse and blew through the camp with the cawing of crows. Shao-yu divined the meaning of this strange occurrence and learned that the enemy would attack in force, but his army would be victorious. So he made camp below the mountains, scattered calthrops13 and posted guards, and waited for the enemy.
* * *
That night, when the sentry called the third watch, Shao-yu was sitting in his tent reading dispatches by candlelight. Suddenly, a cold gust of air blew out the candle and a young woman materialized in the middle of the tent as if she had come out of the very air. In her hand she wielded a double-edged sword that gleamed like frost.
Shao-yu realized she was an assassin, but his voice did not waver, and he said to her, calmly and sternly, “What manner of woman are you that you come in the night air to the middle of my camp? What is your purpose?”
“I have been sent by Tsen-po, King of Tibet,”14 she said. “I am to return with your head.”
Shao-yu laughed. “The superior man never fears death. Take it—quickly—and go.”
But the girl threw down her sword and bowed her head, saying, “Do not worry. I could not do such a thing.”
“You come bearing a sword and infiltrated my camp, and yet you will not harm me? So what is your purpose, then?”
“I want to tell you my story, but I cannot give you all the details now,” she said.
Shao-yu asked her to sit down. “You faced great danger to find me. Now tell me why you came.”
“I have been trained as an assassin, but I do not have the heart of one. I will tell you what is in my heart.” She rose, relit the candle, and sat down in front of him.
Looking at her again in the light, Shao-yu saw that her hair, fastened high with a golden hairpin, was like a dark cloud. She wore a military jacket with narrow sleeves embroidered with small pink flowers. Her boots were high-backed, shaped like a phoenix tail, and she wore a dragon scabbard for her sword. Her face was like a wild rose covered in morning dew, and when she spoke with cherry-red lips her voice was like an oriole’s.
“I am originally from Yang-chou from a family that has been T’ang subjects for generations. I lost my parents when I was a child, but I was found by a woman who became my teacher and I her disciple. She was a master of the sword, and of her disciples, three were the best: Chen Hai-yüeh, Chin Ts’ai-hung, and me—Shen Niao-yen.15
“After devoting myself for three years to the art of the sword, I also learned the art of transformation. I can ride the wind, follow the lightning, and traverse a thousand li in an instant. The three of us were equally matched in our swordsmanship, but whenever our teacher wanted to destroy an enemy or kill some evil person, she would always send Hai-yüeh or Ts’ai-hung. She never once sent me.
“I could not get over my anger at this, and I asked my teacher, ‘The three of us have studied under you together, but I am the only one who never gets to repay your kindness. I do not understand. Is it that my skill is inferior, or do you not trust me?’
“My teacher answered, ‘You are not really one of us. In time you will learn your proper path and achieve perfection. It would mar your virtue if I sent you to kill men like the others, and that is why I have never sent you.’
“‘Then what is the use of teaching me how to use the sword?’ I asked.
“‘Your destiny lies in the empire of T’ang, where you will meet your master,’ she said. ‘He is a superior man. I have taught you that humble skill so that you will be able to meet him. You will have to enter a camp of thousands of men, where you will find him among the swords and spears. The T’ang emperor will send a great general against the Tibetan army, and the king, Tsen-po, has advertised for an assassin to kill that general. Take this opportunity. Go down from this mountain and go to Tibet and show off your skill as an assassin. With one edge you apply your training, with the other you meet the man for whom you are destined.’
“I did as my teacher said and went immediately to Tibet, where I tore down the notice on the city gate and took it to the king. He summoned me and tested my skill against the other assassins. After I cut off the topknots of a dozen men, he decided I was the best and he chose me, saying, ‘Bring me the head of the T’ang general and I will make you my first consort.’
“But
now I have met you, and it is as my teacher said. Please, my only wish is to be with you, even if I must serve as a companion to your ladies-in-waiting. Will you take me?”
Shao-yu was very pleased. “I was condemned to die, but you have saved my life and now you wish to belong to me? How can I ever repay you? I wish we could marry and be together for a hundred years.”
And so they consummated their meeting. The gleam of the sword served as nuptial candles and the boom of battle gongs replaced the sound of lutes. Bathed in soft moonlight, that distant tent was more joyful than a silk-curtained bridal chamber. Their ecstasy soared like the mountains and thundered like the ocean surf.
* * *
For three days, Shao-yu was under Niao-yen’s spell and did not bother to see his officers or troops. Niao-yen finally said to him, “An army camp is no place for a woman. Your soldiers will be demoralized. I must go.”
“But you are no ordinary woman,” Shao-yu replied. “Why not stay and teach me some tactics by which I may destroy my enemy?”
“You do not need me,” she said. “You are strong enough. You will cut them down like rotten tree trunks. I came here on my teacher’s orders, but I have not said a proper good-bye. I must go back to her, and then I will await your return from the campaign and meet you again in the capital.
“If Tsen-po sends another assassin, I will let you know. They are not my equal, and since you have accepted me as yours, there will be no danger from them. Do not worry.” She drew a jewel out of her belt. “This is called Miao-ya-wan, the Mystic Trinket,” she explained. “King Tsen-po wore it as an ornament over his topknot. Please send it back with a message so he will know that I have no intention of returning.”
“Do you have any other instructions?” Shao-yu asked.
“As you continue your advance, you will reach a place called P’an-she Valley. The water there is not drinkable. Be sure to have your men dig wells there so that they may drink.” Then she threw down the jewel, leaped into the air, and was gone.
Shao-yu called his men together and told them what she had said. They all agreed that she would be good luck and a source of power to strike fear into the enemy. “Surely,” they said, “she was sent by the gods.”
PART II
9
AMONG THE DRAGON FOLK
Shao-yu immediately sent a man to the enemy camp to deliver the jeweled pin to King Tsen-po. Meanwhile his army marched to T’ai-shan, where the path through the gorge was so narrow that only one rider at a time could pass. They followed the edge of a stream along the base of a cliff for many miles before they found a place open enough to pitch camp and rest.
The soldiers were exhausted and thirsty and went searching for drinking water but could not find any. They searched until they discovered a large lake under the mountain, but when they eagerly drank from it, they turned green and they gasped for breath, unable to speak.
Shao-yu was disturbed by this news and went to investigate in person. The water was dark and too deep to measure, as cold as autumn frost. He realized this must be the P’an-she Valley of which Niao-yen had warned him. He ordered the other soldiers to dig wells, but though they dug in a hundred different places, they found no fresh water.
Discouraged, Shao-yu ordered his men to move the camp. Suddenly, the valley shook with the sound of war drums from the cliffs. The Tibetans, hiding in the gorge, had cut off the narrow path and any means of escape.
With his soldiers dying of thirst and now trapped by the Tibetan army, Shao-yu sat in his tent trying to think of a way out of the predicament. He was exhausted, dozing off against the table, when, suddenly, the tent was filled with strange fragrances. Two young girls stood before him, looking as if they could be fairies or ghosts. “We have come to deliver a message from our mistress,” they said. “Please accept her invitation to visit her.”
“Who is your mistress?” Shao-yu asked. “And where does she abide?”
“She is the youngest daughter of the Dragon King of Lake Tung-t’ing,” they answered. “She left her father’s palace for a time and now lives nearby.”
“The Dragon King lives underwater and I am only a man,” said Shao-yu. “By what magic could I make a visit?”
They replied, “There is a heavenly horse already waiting for you. You may ride it safely to the Underwater Palace.”
So Shao-yu followed the girls to the gate of the camp, where he found the Dragon King’s retinue assembled outside in strange garb. One of them held a spotted horse with a golden saddle. They helped him mount the horse, and it glided through the air, its hooves never raising dust, and they arrived under the water—as if it were perfectly natural—to a regal palace constructed of pearls and shells.
The guards had heads like fish and were bearded like shrimp. Maidens came out to open the gate and guide Shao-yu inside. In the middle of the throne hall one of the maidens asked him to sit in a chair of white jade facing south. They put a silken cushion on the floor at the foot of the steps and withdrew.
Then a dozen attendants entered, accompanying a lady from a room on the left side of the hall. Her beauty and the finery she wore were beyond description.
One of the ladies-in-waiting stepped forward and announced, “The daughter of the Dragon King requests the marshal’s audience.”
Shao-yu was struck with fear and indecision, but the maiden did not let him rise from his seat. In a moment the Dragon Princess bowed to him four times, her jade ornaments tinkling, the air imbued with the wonderful fragrance of flowers. Shao-yu bowed in return and asked her to sit beside him, but she declined and sat instead on the cushions on the floor.
Shao-yu objected, “I am a mere mortal and you are a Dragon Princess of the underwater realm. Why do you treat me with such exaggerated respect?”
She replied, “I am Po Ling-po,1 the youngest daughter of the Dragon King of Lake Tung-t’ing. After I was born my father went before the Jade Emperor in Heaven2 and asked Chang the Fortune-Teller to cast my horoscope. Chang said that I had been a fairy in a former life but that, for a crime, I had been banished from Heaven to be born the Dragon King’s daughter. In time I would become human and marry a superior man with whom I would enjoy fame and fortune until, finally, I would dedicate myself to the Buddha and become a distinguished nun.
“We dragon folk belong in the underwater realms, but to be human is a great honor for us and we long to attain Taoist immortality or Buddhahood. My elder sister became daughter-in-law to the Dragon King of Ch’ing-shui, but she did not get along with her husband and our two families had a falling-out. She remarried, this time to Liu I, a mortal man, and my family and relatives admire and respect her more than the other sisters. But if I meet the one for whom I was destined, my honor will be greater than hers.
“After hearing what Chang the Fortune-Teller said, my father loved me more and the palace women treated me as if I were a heavenly creature.
“When I came of age, Wu-hsien, the son of the Dragon King of the Southern Sea, heard of my beauty and asked my father for my hand in marriage. Since we are subjects of the Southern Sea, my father could not refuse offhand—it would have been rash. But he went to the Dragon King of the Southern Sea in person to explain what Chang the Fortune-Teller had said and why he thus had to refuse the proposal.
“But the Dragon King spoke up for his prideful son, saying he did not believe such nonsense. He rebuked my father and hastened the marriage. I thought to myself that I would be disgraced if I stayed with my parents, so I ran away. I cleared some brush and built a house for myself in a remote place, and I lived a humble life, but the Southern Sea king only renewed his pursuit of me.
“My parents said to him, ‘Our daughter does not want to marry. She has run away and now she lives alone in hiding.’ Wu-hsien had no regard for my determination and he came at the head of an army to take me by force.
“But Heaven and Earth were moved by sympathy for me an
d the waters of the lake were transformed—they became cold as ice and dark as Hell and his troops were unable to enter. I was encouraged by this and have persevered until now.
“When I asked you here, it was not just to tell you my story. I know that your soldiers dug wells because they had no water to drink, but no matter how many they dug, they could not find any water, and now they are too weak to fight. This lake was originally called Ch’ing-shui-t’an, Clearwater Pool, but since I have lived here they call it Po-lung-t’an, the White Dragon Pool. The water has turned brackish, and anyone who drinks it becomes sick.
“But now that you are here, I have a man upon whom I can rely, who will care for me. It is like spring sun on the shadowed side of a hill. I have already promised myself to you, so now your troubles are my troubles, and I will do everything in my humble power to help the Emperor’s army. From now on, the water will taste sweet, as it did in the past, and your soldiers may safely drink it. Those who became ill from it will recover once they drink it again.”
“Now that I have heard your story, I realize we were destined for each other by the will of Heaven,” said Shao-yu. “We must give ourselves over to the silken bonds of the old man under the moon.3 I understand what is in your heart.”
The Dragon Princess answered, “I have promised myself to you, but there are still three things that make it wrong for me to marry you. First, I have not yet told my parents. Second, I cannot think of being intimate with you until I have changed my form. I am covered in scales, and I do not want to defile your bed with my fins and my repulsive fishy smell. And finally, Prince Wu-hsien is always sending his spies to watch me, and if he learns of our meeting, he will be furious and I am afraid of what he will do in his fit of anger.
“Quickly—return to your camp. Marshal your troops and destroy the enemy. Then you can return to the capital with honor, singing victory songs, and I will pull up my skirts and follow you across the river to Ch’ang-an.”