by Neil Clarke
The terrified warden stumbled back against the wall and watched Zhao Da and his men creep away.
Shivering, he pulled over a nearby child. “Tell Sixth Madam to clear out. Quick!” The snot-nosed urchin bobbed his head and hightailed it.
In less time than it took to burn half a stick of incense, two hundred and forty shutters clattered over the windows of the thirteen brothels of Xuanren Ward. The noise of price-haggling, bet-placing, and bed frames creak-creaking disappeared without a trace. Somebody’s child started to wail, only to be silenced instantly by a resounding slap. A swarm of patrons still adjusting their robes and hats fled out the back, darting through gaps in the ward walls like startled rats to vanish into Jinyang’s streets and alleys.
A crow flew by. The guard outside the gate drew his bow and aimed, his right hand groping for an arrow, only to discover that his quiver was empty. Resentfully, he lowered the bow. The rawhide bowstring sprang back with a twang that made him jump. Only then did he realize that his surroundings had descended into total silence, so that even this little noise startled more than the hour drums at night.
That Zhu Dagun, resident of the ward for the last ten years and four months, failed to notice Xuanren in its busiest afternoon hours had plunged into a silence more absolute than post-curfew could only be attributed to remarkable obliviousness. Only when Zhao Da kicked down the door to his room did he start and look up, realizing that it was time to put on the show. So he bellowed and hurled a cup half-filled with hot water smack into Zhao Da’s forehead, following it up by knocking over his desk, sending the movable type in his type-tray clattering all over the floor.
“Zhu Dagun!” Zhao Da yelled, one hand over his battered forehead. “I have a warrant! If you don’t—”
Before he could finish, a fistful of movable type slammed into him. Made of baked clay, the brittle, hard type blocks hurt something fierce when they struck his body, and shattered into dust as they hit the ground. As Zhao Da leapt and dodged; clouds of yellow dust filled the room.
“You’ll never catch me!” Zhu Dagun opened fire left and right, hurling type blocks to hinder his foes while he threw the south window open, preparing to jump out. One of the young soldiers charged out of the yellow fog, chains raised. Zhu Dagun executed a flying kick; the boy cannonballed through the air and landed against a wall. The chain fell from his hands as nose-blood and tears flowed freely.
While Zhao Da and company continued to grope blindly about, Zhu Dagun vaulted out the window into freedom. Then he smacked his forehead, recalling the charge from Minister Ma Feng: “You must be caught, but not easily. You must resist, but not successfully. Lead them on; play the coquette. The show must not appear scripted.”
“Lead them on . . . lead them on my ass . . . ” Zhu Dagun steeled himself and barreled ahead, carefully tripping his right foot with the left just as he passed the middle of the courtyard. “Aiya!” he cried as he tumbled to the ground with a meaty slap; the water in the courtyard cisterns sloshed from the impact.
Tracking the commotion, Zhao Da ran outside. “Serves you right for running!” he guffawed at the sight, still nursing his bruised forehead. “Chain him up and bring him to the jail! Gather up all the evidence!”
Still bleeding from his nose, the soldier boy stumbled out of the room. “Chief!” he bawled. “He smashed that tray of clay blocks. What other evidence is there? Since I spilled blood today, I should eat rich white flour food tonight to get better! My ma said that if I enlisted with you I’d have steamed buns to eat, but it’s been two months and I haven’t seen the shadow of a bun! And now we’re trapped in the city, I can’t even go home. I don’t know if my ma and da are still alive—what’s the point of living?”
“Fool! The type blocks may be gone, but we still have the internet lines! Get some scissors and cut them loose to bring back with us.” Zhao Da bellowed. “Once we get this case sewn up, never mind steamed buns, you’ll have mincemeat every day if you want!”
2.
The fates of life’s bit players are often changed by a single word from the mighty.
It was the sixth day of the sixth month, in the first dog days of summer. The sun hung high above the northlands, the streetside willows limp and wilting under its glare. There shouldn’t have been a wisp of breeze, and yet a little whirlwind rose out of nowhere, sweeping the street end to end and sending the accumulated dust flying. The General of the Cavalry, Guo Wanchao, rode his carriage out of Liwu Residence and proceeded along the central boulevard toward the south gate for the better part of an hour. Being the ostentatious sort, he naturally sat high in the front, stamping on the pedal so the carriage made as much din as possible. This carriage was the latest model from the East City Institute, five feet wide, six feet four inches tall, twelve feet long, eaves on all four sides, front- and rear-hinged doors, with a chassis constructed from aged jujube wood and ornamented with a scrolling pattern of pomegranates in gold thread inlay. Majestic in air, exquisite in construction, the basic model’s starting price was twenty thousand copper coins—how many could afford such a ride in all of Jinyang, aside from a figure like Guo Wanchao?
The four chimneys belched thick black smoke; the wheels jounced along the rammed-earth street. Guo Wanchao had meant to sweep his cool gaze over the goings-on of the city, but due to the heavy vibrations, the passersby saw it as an amiable nod to all, and so all came over to bow and return the greeting to the General of the Cavalry. Guo Wanchao could only force a laugh and wave them off.
A massive cauldron of boiling water sat in the back of the carriage. Despite hours of explanation filled with fantastical jargon by the staff of the East City Institute, the general still didn’t understand how his vehicle functioned. Apparently it used fire-oil to boil the water. He knew that the stuff came from the southeast lands, and would burn at a spark and burn even harder on water. Defenders of a city would dump it on besiegers. This stuff boiled the water, and then somehow that made the carriage move. How was that supposed to work?
Regardless, the cauldron rumbled and bubbled, such that the armor at his back fairly sizzled from the radiating heat. He had to steady his silver helm with one hand so that it wouldn’t slip over his eyes every few bone-jarring feet. The General of the Cavalry had only himself to blame; inwardly, he bemoaned his decision to take the driver’s seat. Fortunately, he was approaching his destination. He took out his pair of black spectacles and put them on his sweating, greasy face as the carriage roared past streets and alleys.
A left turn, and the front gate of Xiqing Ward lay straight ahead. This was an era of degeneracy, insolence, and the collapse of the social order, to be sure: the residence walls were so full of gaps and holes that no one bothered to use the front gate. But Guo Wanchao felt that a high official ought to behave in a manner befitting the importance of his position. It just didn’t look proper without servants and guards leaping to action on his behalf.
But no one came to the ward gate to greet him. Not only was the warden missing, it seemed that the guards were napping in some hidden corner as well. Ancient scholar trees and cypresses lined the street, providing shade everywhere except in front of the completely barren front gate. It didn’t take long before Guo Wanchao, waiting in his stopped carriage, was panting and dripping sweat like rain.
“Guards!” he yelled. There was no response, not even a dog barking in acknowledgment. Furious, he jumped off the carriage and stormed into Xiqing Ward on foot. The residence of Minister Ma Feng was just south of the gate. Without bothering to speak to the doorkeeper, he shoved open the door to the minister’s residence and barged in, circling around the main building to head for the back courtyard. “Surrender, traitors!” he bellowed.
Pandemonium broke out. In a flash, the windows burst open front and back. Five or six escaping scholar-officials fought to escape by squeezing through the narrow openings, but only succeeded in tangling their flailing limbs and tumbling into a heap.
“Aiya, General!” Potbellied old Ma Feng ha
d crept to the door and was peeking out the seam. He put a hand over his heart and thanked heaven and earth. “You mustn’t play this kind of trick on us! Everyone, everyone, let’s all go back inside! It’s just the General, nothing to be afraid of!” The old man had been so startled that his cap had fallen off, leaving his head of white hair hanging like a mop.
“Look at you!” Guo Wanchao smirked, an expression somewhere between amusement and ire. “How are you going to plot treason with so little courage?”
“Shhhh!” Old Ma Feng was given a second fright. He scurried over, took Guo Wanchao’s hand and dragged him inside. “Careful! The walls out here aren’t so thick . . . ”
The whole gang trooped back inside, latched the door, pressed the battered window panels back into their frames as best as they could, and gingerly took their seats. Minister Ma Feng pulled General Guo Wanchao toward a chair, but Guo shook him off and stood right in the middle of the room. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to sit; rather, the archaic armor he’d worn for its formidable appearance had nearly scraped his family jewels raw on the bumpy journey.
Old Ma Feng put on his cap, scratched at his grizzled beard, and introduced Guo Wanchao. “I’m sure everyone has seen the general at court before. We’ll need his help to accomplish our goals, so I secretly invited him here—”
A tall, rangy scholar in yellow robes interrupted. “Why does he wear those black spectacles? Does he hold us in such contempt that he covers his eyes to spare himself the sight?”
“Aha, I was waiting for someone to ask.” Guo Wanchao took off the black lenses nonchalantly. “It’s the latest curiosity from the East City Institute. They call it ‘Ray-Ban.’ They allow the wearer to see normally, and yet be spared the glare of the sun. A marvelous invention!”
“It hardly seems right for a man interested in enlightenment to reduce the reach of light,” grumbled the yellow-robed scholar.
“But who says banning rays is all I’m capable of?” Guo Wanchao proudly drew a teak-handled, brass-headed object from his sleeve. “This device, another invention from the East City Institute, can emit dazzling light that pierces darkness for a hundred paces. The staff from the institute didn’t give it a name, so I call it ‘Light-Saber.’ The banisher of rays and the sword of light! Brilliant, eh? It was a match made in heaven, haha . . . ”
“Disgusting ostentation!” shouted a white-robed scholar as he wiped at the blood on his face with his sleeve. He had run too quickly earlier and tripped, and the cut on his forehead had bled all over his delicate scholar’s face, encrusting his fair skin with blotches the exact color of farmland mud. “Ever since the East City Institute was established, our proud State of Han has fallen further by the day! We’ve been under siege for months; the people are full of fear and dread. And your kind still revels in such, such—”
Ma Feng hurriedly tugged at the scholar’s sleeve, attempting to smooth things over. “Brother Thirteenth, Brother Thirteenth, please quell your anger. Let’s take care of business first!” The old man made an unhurried patrol of the room, drawing the curtains and carefully covering up the cracks in the windows. After a phlegmy cough, he took out a three inch square of bamboo paper from his sleeve and displayed it to his audience, who saw that it was covered with characters the size of gnat’s heads.
Ma Feng began to read in a low voice. “Sixth month of the sixth year of the Guangyun Era. Great Han is weak and benighted, and the fires of war rage in the twelve provinces around us. We have fewer than forty thousand households, and our peasants cannot produce enough to equip our soldiers with strong armor and weapons. Beset by droughts and floods, our fields lie bare while the wells are exhausted, and our granaries and stores are empty. Meanwhile we still must pay tribute to Liao in the north and guard against mighty Song to the south, stretching the treasury beyond its capacity. The peasants have no food, the officials have no pay, the roads are lined with those dying of starvation, the horses have no grass to graze, the state is poor and its people are piteous! Woe is the land! Woe is Great Han!”
“Woe,” the roomful of scholars lamented in synch; then, they immediately chorused, “Well said!”
But Guo Wanchao glared at the speaker. “Enough of this flowery oratory! Get to the point!”
Ma Feng took out a brocade handkerchief and wiped the sweat from his forehead. “Yes, yes, there no need for me to continue reading from the formal denunciation. General, you know well that after such a long siege by the Song army, Han is at the end of its strength, while the Song ruler Zhao Guangyi has made the conquest of the city a matter of personal honor. His edict declared that ‘Han has long disobeyed the will of the rightful ruler, acted heedless to the right way, and governed the people ruinously. For the sake of the land and the people, I personally come to pacify Han in the name of justice.’
“Zhao Guangyi is known for his vicious, vengeful nature. Have you not seen how the King of Wuyue pledged his territories to Song voluntarily and was made a prince, while the ruler of Quan and Tang gave up his lands only after he saw the Song army at his gate, and was thus made a mere regional commander? By now, Jinyang has been under siege for nearly ten months. Zhao Guangyi is beyond furious. Once the city falls, the grandeur of the title he’s waiting to bestow our Han emperor will be the least of our concerns. The whole city will suffer the Song ruler’s rage! You won’t find an unbroken egg in a nest that has tumbled from a tree. General, you mustn’t let our people perish in unimaginable suffering!”
Guo Wanchao said, “I’ll be honest with you: we military officers haven’t been paid in half a month either. The footsoldiers whimper with hunger all day long. If we scrape away all your fancy allusions and circumlocutions, what you mean to say is that our little emperor Liu Jiyuan won’t be able to sit on his throne long anyway, so we might as well surrender to Song, am I correct?”
Instantly, the scholars jumped out of their seats in uproar, shouting curses and instructing him of the Confucian duties of ruler and subject, father and son, the respect due to a subject reciprocated by the loyalty due to a ruler, so on and so forth, until Ma Feng was shaking all over with fear. “Everyone! Everyone! The neighbors have ears, the neighbors have ears . . . ”
When the room had finally quieted, the old man hunched his shoulders and rubbed his hands together anxiously. “General, please understand that we’re aware of our duty of loyalty to the throne. But if the ruler doesn’t do his part, how can the subjects be expected to do theirs? If the emperor is unwise in his governance, we have no choice but to overstep our bounds! The first possibility ahead of us is that the city falls and the Song army slaughters us all. The second is that the Liao army arrives in time to drive away the Song, in which case Han will become nothing more than Liao territory. The third is that we open the gates and surrender to Song, ensuring the survival of Jinyang’s eight thousand six hundred households and twelve thousand soldiers, and preserving the bloodline of the imperial family. You too understand the superior choice, General! At least Song follows the same customs and speaks the same language as us, while Liao is Khitan and Tatar. It’s better to surrender to Song than let Liao enslave us! Our descendants might curse us for cowards and traitors, but we can’t become the dogs of the Khitan!”
Hearing this speech, Guo Wanchao had to revise his opinion of the old man. “Very well.” He gave a thumbs up. “You’re a righteous man indeed to make even surrender sound so fine and just. Tell me your plan, then. I’m listening.”
“Yes, yes.” Ma Feng gestured for everyone to resume their seats. “Ten years ago, when the previous Song ruler, Zhao Guangyi’s elder brother, was invading Han, Military Governor Liu Jiye and I wrote a memorandum to the emperor begging him to surrender. We were whipped and driven out of court. But today, the emperor spends his days drinking and feasting, careless of the matters of state, a perfect opportunity for us to act. I’ve already secretly contacted Inspector Guo Jin in the Song army. If you can open the Dasha, Yansha, and Shahe Gates, General, the Song will accept our surre
nder.”
“What about our little emperor, Liu Jiyuan?” asked Guo Wanchao.
“Once he sees that no other options are left to him, he’ll wisely surrender too.” Ma Feng answered.
“Good enough. But have you considered the most important problem? What are we going to do about the East City Institute?” Guo Wanchao looked around the room. “The prince of East City has people on all the city walls, gates, and fortifications, and they control all the defense mechanisms. If the prince doesn’t surrender, the Song army won’t be able to get in even if we open the gates.”
The room fell silent. “The East City Institute?” The white-robed scholar sighed. “If it weren’t for Prince Lu’s antics, perhaps Jinyang would have long since fallen . . . ”
Ma Feng said, “We’ve decided to send a representative to persuade Prince Lu toward the path of reason.”
“And if it doesn’t work?” asked Guo Wanchao.
“Then we send an assassin and get that fake prince out of the way with one stroke.”
“Easier said than done, old man,” said Guo Wanchao. “The East City Institute is heavily guarded. With all his strange devices, one might die before getting so much as a glimpse at Prince Lu’s face!”
Ma Feng said, “The East City Institute is located right next to the prison. All of the prince’s subordinates are criminals recruited from there. All we have to do is plant someone in the prison, and he’ll end up next to Prince Lu for certain.”
“Do you have candidates? One to persuade, another to kill.” Guo Wanchao swept his gaze around the room. The scholars avoided his eyes, focused inward, and began reciting the Thirteen Confucian Classics under their breaths.
Guo Wanchao smacked his forehead. “Wait, I have a candidate. He’s a scribe from your Hanlin Academy, an old acquaintance of sorts, a Shatuo who goes by a Han surname. He’s a middling scholar, but he’s strong. He’s the sort of muddled self-righteous fool who likes to spend his days complaining on the internet. Let’s give him a little money, then hand him a knife and deliver him a speech like the one you gave me. He’ll happily do what we want.”