Character Index
Hu Qing/Liang Hongfei: Lord of the Liang clan, an Oversight Officer in the reinforcements sent to the Turkish Khaganates.
General Yan: Commanding officer of the reinforcements sent to Chuluo Khagan. Reluctant ally of Kayla and co.
Chuluo: Khagan of the Eastern Turkic Khaganate, Kayla's father-in-law.
Shegui: Khagan of the Western Turkic Khaganate, was on his deathbed before actually getting better mid-war.
Xie Rengui: Hu Qing's aide, was recruited by Ke Yongqian (Hu Qing's main retainer) for his sharp insights. Shares the given name of a famous Tang Dynasty general, which had initially piqued Kayla's interest in retaining the man.
Li You: One of Kayla's retainers, he's a bit more bloodthirsty than his peers.
Yan'er: A young serving girl in Kayla's household, she has entered a fast friendship with the other teenagers of her age, which includes Yun'er, as well as Kayla's wards Yilie and Qazar. She was a teenage prostitute before her brothel contract was redeemed as thanks for saving Hu Qing back in Book 1.
Ashina: Personal name Ibilga, the princess of the Eastern Turkic Khaganate and Kayla's wife. Halfway into faking a pregnancy that was originally meant to save Kayla from execution, she found herself actually pregnant.
He Zhengda: Son of Lord He, he is engaged to Lord Cui's daughter.
Lord He: A leader of the capital aristocrats, strongly opposed to Kayla's reforms.
Zhou Ying: Former Emperor, posthumously titled Emperor Xuanzong.
Grand Empress Dowager: Refers to the Empress Dowager of Book 1 and 2.
Empress Dowager An: Kuang's birth mother, currently the Empress Dowager as the most senior surviving Dowager Consort.
Empress Dowager Shu: Yunqi's birth mother, she was poisoned and posthumously titled Empress Dowager by her husband to clear the path for her son to become Emperor.
Zhou Kuang: The deceased Third Prince of Emperor Xuanzong, he was posthumously made a Grand Prince (step up from an Archduke).
Meral: Ashina's lady-in-waiting.
Zhu Simo: A staunch conservative official in the Shandong clique.
Yao Gongzhuo: Minister of War, formerly Kuang's supporter.
Zhang Dingyong: Minister of Justice, formerly Kuang's supporter.
Sun Ruhui: Right Secretariat of Justice, formerly Kayla's supporter.
Lord Cui: A leader of the capital aristocrats.
Liu Hongyu: Former Secretariat Director and ally of the Grand Duke. Died after being sentenced to house arrest for lese-majeste.
Zhou Xianchun: Seventh Prince of Zhou Ying, now titled an Archduke. He has not been involved in politics on the wishes of his older brother Yunqi, the current Emperor.
Wei Guang: Former Imperial Edict Bearer, Kayla's god-father. Committed suicide after killing Emperor Xuanzong to take responsibility.
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Hu Qing stood by a fence post, staring pensively at the endless grasslands before him.
A soldier was singing softly while standing guard, his voice carried across the distance by the night winds.
“The moonlight shines bright, the beauty becomes all the more alluring. Her steps light as a dance cloud my weary heart with longing.”
The soldier’s voice wasn’t particularly good, but his singing was earnest. To his own surprise, Hu Qing was a little touched by it. It hadn’t been that long since they’d left the Wu, and each day was packed full to the brim. Only on quiet nights did the melancholy of homesickness creep up on the men.
For many of them, the grasslands reminded them of their own homes in the Northern regions of the Wu, where the grass shone just as such beneath the moonlight. The only difference was their distance from their loved ones.
The soldier had moved on to the next refrain, engrossed in his own world.
Unlike for that soldier, nothing here reminded Hu Qing of home. To Hu Qing, it felt more like a foreign world, one that he was still exploring with avid interest. The grasslands were nothing like anything Hu Qing had ever seen, having been born and raised within the clustered capital city. Even with its grand streets, its magnificent buildings, the capital seemed like meaningless noise compared to the steppe.
The skies loom vast, the wild stretches endlessly, Hu Qing thought to himself. It’s really just like that folk song.
There was fearfully little to navigate by in the grasslands, save for the sun and stars above and the distant mountains on the horizon, but Hu Qing, who had grown up in a clustered mess of rooftops, playing games of assassination with the other scum of the capital’s underworld, found that he loved the steppes.
He had felt the same way the first time he came North with Wenyuan. Even then, he hadn’t ventured this far into the steppes. He had never gone further than the country’s border, had never seen the snow-capped peaks of the Altai Mountains.
The war was going very well–a bit too well, from the eyes of the Wu politicians. Even without General Yan running around like some sort of War God, it was evident that the Eastern Turks had been far more prepared to retaliate than the Western Turks had been to invade in the first place. The invasion had been beaten back, all lost territory regained and some new lands taken, and it seemed that the Western Turkic Khaganate would sue for peace by autumn. In any case, no one was prepared to fight throughout the winter.
A rather short war, all in all. But Hu Qing didn’t think it would end there.
What would be Chuluo Khagan’s terms for peace? Shegui Khagan had tottered back from the verge of death, and the battles seemed to have done wonders for the old man’s health even as it ravaged the young men of his country. Hu Qing had the feeling that Chuluo had hoped Shegui would die so that the Eastern Turkic Khaganate would have some sway in who was chosen as the next Khagan of the Western Turks, but that opportunity had disappeared.
How would Chuluo maximize his advantage then?
Distance from the capitol had ironically sharpened Hu Qing’s political senses. He was, after all, from a ministerial family and had been involved in its intrigues since birth. Without really understanding as much, Hu Qing had been interacting with elite politicians and their hunting dogs on a near daily basis. Compared to the naive provincials he encountered in the army, Hu Qing was like a predator who had grown up in an enclosure and was only now realizing his place in the food chain.
It didn’t take a consultation with Xie Rengui, his talented baby-faced aide, for Hu Qing to realize that there would be another war, and soon. Chuluo would surely do his utmost to expand his own influence over the succession struggle for whoever came after Shegui. When the Khagan inevitably did die, which would be soon unless Shegui miraculously went on to live another twenty years, there would be internal strife.
Someone would appeal to Chuluo for aid, or Chuluo would find some way to manipulate some buffoon into attacking, and then the Eastern Turks would take up arms en masse to make their Western neighbors a puppet state if not an outright vassal.
Would the Wu support it? Hu Qing found it hard to imagine that the Wu would want their dangerous northern neighbor to grow even stronger, but he also knew very clearly after a few months on the battlefield that the Wu would never win against the Turks on the steppes. Even with General Yan’s heroics–that had been possible because the man was operating under permissive Turkic command. If the Wu Emperor was the commander-in-chief with all the trappings of hierarchy that would entail, General Yan would be a muzzled dog.
Even discounting the surprising amount of Persian heavy cavalry that Chuluo Khagan had under his banner, the Turkish light cavalry was far more agile. They had an insane form of archery where they turned around and shot backwards at the enemy while riding away, making them deadly to pursue even in retreat.
Wenyuan’s last letter had mentioned another marriage alliance in the talks, so Hu Qing doubted that there would be outright conflict anytime soon. But were they simply going to stand back and let Chuluo Khagan swallow up Central Asia?
It might depend on how the reforms go, Hu Qing thought grimly. After all, Chuluo wasn’t going to just sit back and let his son-in-law do whatever he wished either. Why on earth would Chuluo want the Wu to grow stronger? It boiled down to a game of which country could intervene in the other’s affairs more effectively.
Hu Qing quieted his thoughts, breathing in deeply.
Watch and absorb. That was part of his mission here–to understand the inner workings of the Turkic Khaganates, and to figure out the path of least resistance for any impending conflicts in the future.
Silently cataloging his observations, Hu Qing wandered back to his tent.
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Kayla glanced up briefly as Li You approached. She gave him a smile without really turning away from her work.
“Apologies, my lord. I need to report something,” Li You said.
“Yes?” Her tone was polite, but she was flipping through a stack of documents at a rapid pace, looking for one particular memo that she had misplaced. The soft swishing of paper filled the air as Li You struggled to find his words. He was a bit of a straightforward hothead, and greatly despised being made to give sensitive news.
Kayla sensed as much and paused, giving him her full attention. Now that he couldn’t delay it, Li You decided to just push through.
“My lord, there have been some…unsavory rumors recently,” Li You said, looking uncomfortable.
Kayla set down her work altogether.
Oh boy, here we go again. What are they going to do this time? Concoct an affair between me and a Dowager Consort? Something about my finances? Some old skeletons from the Grand Duke’s time?
“What is it?” Kayla asked.
“There are rumors that Your Excellency brought a prostitute girl into the household as a serving maid,” Li You said.
Irritation flared up faster than Kayla could’ve imagined. Yan’er was a good girl who’d had a hard life, and Kayla was as abstractly protective of Yan’er as she was her other wards in a muddled sort of obligation.
“Ah, that. Well, I did. What about it?”
“Well,” Li You paused, looking even more uncomfortable. “People are just gossiping about how she stayed in the capital when the princess was at the villa.”
Kayla tilted her head, gesturing for him to go on.
“With you,” Li You finished.
Kayla scoffed in disbelief. “What kind of–with a sixteen year old? Fucking animals, the lot of them!”
Li You winced sympathetically.
“Who the hell is behind the rumors?” Kayla demanded.
Li You lowered his eyes, his expression contrite.
Kayla leaned forward in her seat, peering up at his face.
“You mean to say you don’t know?”
“No sir,” Li You said in a small voice. “I apologize.”
Kayla smiled at him. “That’s fine,” she said gently. “That’s alright.”
She paused briefly. “Go find out.”
“Yes sir!”
Li You practically fled the room.
With an underage girl? They have no fucking bottom line anywhere in the cesspools that they call a soul. Sure, fifteen was the official coming-of-age for girls, but no one actually thought that a fifteen year old was suddenly a full grown woman. Except for the old shits who actually married them at such a tender age–the thought of which only increased her irritation.
And while Ashina was pregnant too, as if to show off the extent of their malice. They couldn’t have known that Ashina wasn’t actually pregnant or that she now really was, which meant it had been a deliberate attempt to torment the princess.
Stifling her annoyance, Kayla paused to think it over as objectively as she could manage.
It’s a crass rumor, and entirely without subtlety. The only effect it has is on my personal reputation, but having mistresses is so common that there’s barely any damage. So long as Ashina is on the same side as me, then there’s no impact on the Khaganate side either. Is this something that the Shandong coalition or the capital elites would come up with?
No. If it were them, they would come up with something far more damaging. There was literally so much material dangling before them with Kayla’s less-than-pristine track record, it was just a question of whether they were brave enough to make use of it.
But they hadn’t. Instead, a rumor that annoyed her greatly but in reality neither hurt nor itched.
So who was it then? Kayla sighed, rubbing at her temples.
That was the problem of making so many enemies. You didn’t even know which one was coming at you.
Her answer came rather soon, and was met with such a smiling welcome that Li You wasn’t sure whether to be disturbed or relieved.
“So,” Kayla said, beaming. “You’re telling me that He Zhengda is behind this?”
“Yes sir,” Li You said. “We found a girl at a brothel who served a party of young men. She identified He Zhengda as the one who started the rumor.”
“This He Zhengda is that He Zhengda? The son of Lord He?”
“Yes sir.”
“The one with the illegitimate son with the Persian dancing girl?” Kayla asked.
“The very one.”
“Excellent, find the illegitimate child while you’re at it,” Kayla said, still beaming. “And pay that girl for her trouble.”
“Yes sir,” Li You said. “Sir, the rumors, what should we do?”
“Leave it for now,” Kayla said. “It’ll blow over soon–I’m releasing the full text of the reforms tomorrow anyways. He Zhengda sure has bad timing. Excellent sense for scandal though. He would’ve made an excellent tabloid reporter, though I suspect he would be sued into oblivion.”
“Pardon?”
“You’ve done very well,” Kayla said, electing to forgo an explanation for her temporary lapse. “Wait, actually–that girl from the brothel–pay her some extra and ask her to start a new rumor tomorrow night. That He Zhengda spread the rumor about me, and that he was high on Five Minerals Powder at the time. I’m willing to bet that he was, and even if he wasn’t, the fact that a son of a capital aristocrat was at a brothel during the year of mourning for Emperor Xuanzong and the Grand Empress Dowager and the Empress Dowager and Grand Prince Kuang is enough to smear the He clan’s name. Lord He will have to cover it up–keep a keen eye on what he does. Once we see his methods, we can trace his family’s scandals retroactively.”
Li You concluded that his boss was actually angry after all, smiley or not, and determinedly set about with the preparations. The Duke was going into attack mode, which meant another round of fast-paced maneuvering on the part of his retainers–and higher pay to match.
But to his surprise, Kayla didn’t act. Ashina knew immediately the rumors were ridiculous, got angry because of the baseness of the rumors, and then suffered a bout of morning sickness that had Meral and Kayla worrying over her.
By evening, the reforms were publicized and caused a great stir. Zhu Simo’s speech had polarized the court’s reactions–for some, Zhu Simo had prejudiced them against the reforms so that their views of it were colored with distrust and disdain. For others, finding that the actual reforms were really quite reasonable shut down their anxieties and also discredited Zhu Simo in their eyes.
Officials hurried to each other’s houses, some in such a rush that they didn’t call ahead and so missed their colleagues who had headed out for their house, and a great deal of discussion buzzed throughout the night so that nearly the entire administration was quiet and tired the morning after. Those who were still full of energy, on account of not having been included in the various plans and plots, were rather hurt by their apparent exclusion and so were also in low spirits. Amidst all that ruckus, the whispers about He Zhengda’s hedonistic party spread a little bit but didn’t get very far, since it wasn’t breaking news anyways, and Kayla did nothing to fuel it along. She just left it there and focused her attention on Yao Gongzhuo and Zhang Dingyong, leaving the loose ends untied.
It paid off wonderfully.
Lord He was a perfectionist with a mild obsession with his reputation–he couldn’t withstand any filth on his name, no matter how small the stain. His third son was his greatest despair. He Zhengda was a typical spoiled young master–his mother had died early, leaving him to cycle between his father’s indifference and sudden stretches of oppressive control. By the time he had reached the age of majority, He Zhengda was well-known as a good-for-nothing with a conflated opinion of himself and too much money for his own good.
The young man already had enough scandals, with a marriage arrangement that had fallen apart, an illegitimate son, and a Persian mistress who he had wooed rather publicly and shamelessly. The last problem had been fixed. The illegitimate son couldn’t be made to disappear after a public reveal, but had been bundled off to a side estate where the poor boy was largely neglected. And the marriage with Lord Cui’s lovely daughter would eventually come to pass. But not if He Zhengda’s reputation worsened yet again.
Gnashing his teeth and throwing random fits of violence at He Zhengda, who was deeply aggrieved on account of thinking he had done rather well to help his father, Lord He got to work shutting down the rumors through a combination of throwing money at the problem and leveraging his various connections.
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Lord He had a strange feeling that someone was mocking his misfortune, and he was completely correct. He had shown his low threshold of tolerance to the person who wanted to see it most. They knew how to handle him now.
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While the harried father was bustling between beating his son, cleaning up after his son, and also rallying his own faction in the aftermath of the reforms being publicized, Zhang Dingyong was having a very good time.
His particular copy of the content of the reforms had arrived with a very nicely written note asking for a private meeting, which Zhang Dingyong immediately agreed to. Yao Gongzhuo had, to Zhang Dingyong’s surprise, also written a note with a glowing review of Zhao Wenyuan and his policies. Whatever the young Duke had said to the Minister of War, it had succeeded in winning the man’s support rather quickly.
Now it was Zhang Dingyong’s turn–a quick read-through of the reforms left him grinning like an idiot.
This would be fun, Zhang Dingyong realized with a savage delight. Whatever Zhao Wenyuan and the Emperor had in mind, it was urgent. A timed battle! With infighting included. The perfect package for any politician who wanted to quickly advance his career–or to ruin it, if his choices were made badly.
There was probably some reasonable explanation for why the reforms were prioritizing speed over stability, fast roll-outs over a steady conquest of public opinion, but Zhang Dingyong doubted he would hear of the true reasons anytime soon.
He paused. It’s not some kind of health issue on the Emperor’s end, right?
He would have to keep an eye out for that.
Zhao Wenyuan arrived in Zhang Dingyong’s household in the evening, smiling and pleasant.
“Minister Zhang, I’m in sore need of your help,” Zhao Wenyuan said. “Minister Yao has repeatedly emphasized that you are one of the brightest men he knows of–I ask now for your support in passing these reforms.”
Zhao Wenyuan definitely understood what kind of person Zhang Dingyong was, given the name drop of Yao Gongzhuo. Good. Their collaboration would go smoothly enough as long as Zhao Wenyuan understood that Zhang Dingony would never cling to a sinking boat. But now it was his turn to show something worthwhile in turn, and Zhang Dingyong spread his hands in a plaintive gesture.
“I will gladly do anything to support the Emperor’s wishes, Your Excellency. But my abilities are limited. Please allow me to speak frankly on this matter–” He paused until Zhao Wenyuan nodded.
“I do not think it is possible to sway the core members of the opposition faction,” Zhang Dingyong said.
Wenyuan gave him an inquisitive look.
“Think about it like this–any simple farmer knows that if you have a beautiful wife, you don’t brag about it. If you do, other men will covet her, and either see you a cuckold or see your wife a widow,” Zhang Dingyong said. “Likewise, if you have a better crop yield than your neighbor, keep it discreet. If you have more chickens, more cows, you must guard your property all the more against the jealousy of your peers. For they will praise you in the good times and resent you in the hard times, and in the worst of times, you will become a target.”
“Jealousy turns men into monsters,” Wenyuan agreed, looking as if he could think of a few examples. “What does this have to do with the reforms though?”
“Allow me to explain. The thing about jealousy is this–you are jealous of your neighbor who has one sheng more in his harvest, you hate your neighbor who has one dou more, and you live in awe and fear of the landlord who has ten stone more,” Zhang Dingyong said. “You only feel true jealousy towards your peers. Why is that?”
He clapped his hands together and then spread his palms. “Hierarchy. It’s ingrained in our society that we only covet what someone on the same level has–we see him as unworthy of having more because he’s the same as us. He deserves it no more than I do, so why should I not hate him? But someone a rung higher, several rungs higher, that’s out of reach. We can only hate someone within reach. And so we resent the man who marries the prettiest village girl but not the landlord who imports concubines from Yangzhou. ”
“Anything that changes the status quo,” Zhang Dingyong said, pointing to the scroll on his desk, “Threatens that solid hierarchy we take for granted. ‘If this, too, can change’, you see, is a dangerous thought to have. Which is why, my good Duke, our opposition will never back down on this matter. Or any reform, really.”
“Resentment will build up anyways,” Wenyuan pointed out. “Or why would dynasties fall?”
“Yes, but the elite don’t want to believe that the end is coming until the end is already here. You can see that happen in every dynastic cycle,” Zhang Dingyong said. “When something is outside of their control and they don’t want to face it, they have the strangest tendency to ignore it altogether. Sometimes they even manage to convince themselves that the problem doesn’t actually exist, and that the crisis is all due to instigators that deserve to be punished. That’s why we see fools who actually raise taxes during a crisis instead of lowering them, or some other similarly foolish thing.”
“Well,” Wenyuan muttered, “I suppose that’ll be true even a thousand years down the line.”
“I wouldn’t doubt it,” Zhang Dingyong said cheerfully. “People repeat their mistakes because they’re idiots. We’ll never learn from history–no matter how many times you use the same trick, people will fall for it every time. Just watch what happens if you pour two cups of tea for three subordinates. They’ll fight amongst themselves something fierce every single time you do it.”
“That sounds oddly specific,” Wenyuan said.
“I tested it,” Zhang Dingyong said rather proudly. “Our good Right Secretariat Sun never goes along with me, but the others are willing to humor my experiments.”
“You’re fostering a toxic work environment,” Wenyuan accused him.
Zhang Dingyong pretended not to hear.
“In any case, you will never convince them,” Zhang Dingyong said with finality. “You will have to suppress them–demote some to the poorest parts of Lingnan, force a few into resignation, maybe even find an excuse to execute someone.”
“Well,” Wenyuan said, none too bothered by his options. “You make a good point. We’ll need to start somewhere–I was thinking of Lord He or Lord Cui.”
“Lord Cui and Lord He are the heads of the capital elites,” Zhang Dingyong said. “If we want to get anything through, we need to remove both of them first.”
Wenyuan frowned slightly. “I’m not so sure about that. Destroying one of them may be more effective than destroying both.”
“And leave the other to oppose us all the more vehemently?” Zhang Dingyong asked incredulously.
Wenyuan shook his head. “The capital aristocrats are principled men. ‘A great man can die but cannot lose his principles.’ They’re the type to believe in that, and to take pride in it. But how principled are they, really?”
“Principled enough that they won’t be endeared by the downfall of their in-laws? All of the bunch are related somehow,” Zhang Dingyong offered.
“I really wish their families weren’t so tangled up, it makes everything so complicated. But the point is, they believe themselves to be properly principled men. Which is why I intend to destroy the ones that actually can’t be persuaded, but for those who can, once they find themselves bowing their heads, they won’t be able to maintain their pride any longer,” Wenyuan said.
Zhang Dingyong smiled, intrigued at the young Duke’s casually sadistic plan. For men who prided themselves on their lineage and their principles, who built their personalities and careers on those tenets, this was no different from psychological castration.
“It’s more sustainable to break their pride than to create martyrs. Isn’t that what our forefathers did when they established the Wu dynasty? The capital elite bowed their heads then, but now they act as if their virtue is utterly untarnished. If that were the case, their clans would have perished generations ago, choosing to die rather than to submit to the Wu,” Wenyuan continued in his alarmingly naive cruelty. It was fascinating to watch.
“Interesting idea,” Zhang Dingyong said, narrowing his eyes. “But can it be done?”
“We’ll have to find out,” Wenyuan said. “They haven’t committed any misdeeds that people were willing to report. But is this because none of them, and none of their kinsmen, have ever done anything worth reporting? Or is it because they’re better at dealing with the aftermath? Lord He and Lord Cui are definitely careful men. But what about their children?”
“What?”
“What do you think they would choose, hypothetically? Their children? Or their principles?” Wenyuan asked.
Zhang Dingyong smiled slyly.
“Well now, Duke, aren’t you asking quite a difficult question? How am I supposed to know?” Zhang Dingyong said.
Sure, he wanted to see where this was going, but he also didn’t want to bear responsibility for the idea in case the Duke was looking for a potential scapegoat.
“I think they’ll choose their children,” Wenyuan answered his own question. “I intend to prove it.”
Oh, what a lovely young man. Zhang Dingyong pitied Wenyuan’s unborn child–with a father like this, the child could be the kindest being alive and still incur resentment from all corners of the country.
“You may very well succeed,” Zhang Dingyong said. “But you’re likely to be ridiculed for the rest of history no matter what. The reforms themselves are the problem, Your Excellency. People don't take kindly to what shakes their social structures.”
Wenyuan gave him a mildly surprised look as if this extremely important problem of their legacy was not worthy of being mentioned in conversation.
“Minister Zhang, the only time we need to worry about ridicule is if we have failed,” Wenyuan said. “No matter how outlandish, how strange and difficult to accept the policy is, even if it’s outright damaging to the people’s interests–so long as we succeed in passing it, there will be great Confucianists who emerge to defend us.”
Zhang Dingyong lifted his eyebrows slightly, indicating for him to go on.
“That everything will change–that is the only thing that will never change,” Wenyuan went on. “Two hundred, three hundred, a thousand or more years from now, people will still be reaching back through the long currents of history to find justifications for their own behavior. Those who want to preserve things as they are will always disparage us. Those who want to move forward will always defend us, no matter how this turns out. It won’t be for our sake, but for their sake. Even if we can’t trust our legacies to the kindness of others, we can at least trust in their sense of self-interest.”
He scrutinized Zhang Dingyong briefly.
“But I’m sure Minister Zhang already knows that.”
“Your Excellency is indeed astute,” Zhang Dingyong said, very well-pleased.
“Minister Zhang, you’re testing me?”
Zhang Dingyong’s smile widened. Not for the reasons that the young Duke probably thought, but he didn’t need to say that.
“I apologize if I’ve offended you, Your Excellency. But I needed to see what kind of resolve you had. To put it frankly, if you wanted to do something that shocks the world and breaks custom, yet still wanted to fish for honor and reputation, there’s no way this could succeed. If that were the case, I would be better off extracting myself sooner than later,” Zhang Dingyong said, not sounding apologetic at all.
“I respect that, and especially how blatant you are with it,” Wenyuan said, actually meaning the words. “I don’t think I could trust you if that weren’t the case.”
“The same goes for me, Your Excellency,” Zhang Dingyong said. “Though I may be overstepping by saying this, I think we’re the same type of person.” They most certainly were not. At least when Zhang Dingyong hurt someone, he meant it and he enjoyed it. It was an honest type of ugliness.
“Then you should rest assured that matters of reputation won’t stop me from pursuing the reforms,” Wenyuan replied, absolutely sincere.
“It pleases me greatly to hear it.”
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Kayla withheld a silent sigh of relief. Zhang Dingyong was a difficult man to deal with, much more difficult than the staunch and stoic Yao Gongzhuo. Then again, that particular meeting had gone unexpectedly well–Yao Gongzhuo seemed to take it very seriously that she had gone in person to go over the reforms with him point by point, seeing it as a sign that she would give the military its due honor and consideration.
Zhang Dingyong was a different matter. She’d always had the impression that he was a bit of a sadistic freak beneath the surface, and not very far beneath the surface either. Back around when they had first met, Zhang Dingyong had been the one to tell her of Liu Hongyu’s death at Kuang’s return banquet. He had watched her expression with keen interest, like that of one entertained rather than that of one who just sought information.
But as an audience member, he can see things more clearly. Or is it just that he’s a pot stirrer who enjoys the drama? It didn’t matter. Zhang Dingyong was certain to be reliably unreliable, a man who needed to have his appetites sated–for ambition and entertainment alike. She would never need to guess if he would betray her because she would know.
In a way, that made Zhang Dingyong that much more pleasant to work with. In the moment, of course, he was doing his best to make the conversation uncomfortable in some way.
“So you hope to sway the rest of the court after publicly destroying the capital aristocrat’s pride?” Zhang Dingyong asked in a way that suggested he was eager to see it.
“I don’t think I need to do it publicly, or that the two cannot happen simultaneously,” Kayla replied.
That seemed to be exactly what Zhang Dingyong had been waiting for.
“Duke Zhao, you’ve never wooed anyone before, have you?”
“What?”
Zhang Dingyong smiled. “I don’t think that you have–with no offense to you, of course.”
“Your wife only has one man to rely on in this country, and that’s you,” Zhang Dingyong said. “I doubt you needed much effort to win her over in those circumstances. And you have no concubines to play at love with, not even a pretty maid or two to tickle and tease while your wife’s turned away.”
Now distinctly uncomfortable, Kayla made an aborted attempt to reply. Watching her carefully, Zhang Dingyong continued.
“Nor have you had any real need to sway any official. Actually sway them. Put in effort to understand the subtle twists of their minds, to ply at their hearts and tempt them into making choices that they think are entirely of their own choice, to wheedle and coax them into doing your bidding–none of that,” Zhang Dingyong said.
Unbidden and unwelcome, Xianchun popped briefly into mind.
“Your peerage is impressive, and your godfather’s reputation was a thing of wonder,” Zhang Dingyong went on. “You didn’t need to fine tune your relationships one by one, carefully weaving out a web like a spider on a rafter. That’s fine and well, but what about now?”
He didn’t wait for a reply and rolled right on.
“The court of today isn’t the same as the court of a month ago. And you must understand, for most, this whole business is a basic requirement to being an official. I’d say that most officials spend more time and effort wooing their fellow man than any woman,” he said blithely. “I suppose that’s understandable. One’s for the sake of career, one’s only for the sake of pleasure, and far more easy to obtain without any effort anyhow–even without any skill, being a man of decent rank is more than enough. Tell me, Duke Zhao, have you ever slept with a prostitute?”
“I don’t see what that has to do with anything,” Kayla replied stiffly, now seriously lost as to what Zhang Dingyong was getting at. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to know anymore.
“One can buy pleasure and a facade of affection,” Zhang Dingyong said. “As you have realized, one can also buy loyalty and competence. But you can only buy those who are lesser to you–and who agree to consider themselves lesser. If they don’t agree with that judgment, you can’t buy them so easily.”
He smiled. “Those who would’ve consented to your purchasing have more or less been cleaned out of the upper echelons of government. All that’s left are those who need active courting.”
“Huh,” Kayla said as neutrally as she could.
“It is a game of seduction,” Zhang Dingyong said, clearly very pleased with his analogy. “The hinting of intentions, the subtle propositions, the lingering glances that belie one’s true meanings…not unlike a young couple at a festival, each hoping to confirm the other’s affections.”
Kayla was beginning to second-guess her decision to ally with him now, as the man before her seemed to be in the wrong genre altogether.
“It is no different between men,” Zhang Dingyong said. “Except the prize is not love, or even a brief begetting of pleasure. Rather, it’s power.”
I’m not sure I like this analogy, Kayla thought drily to herself, but wisely did not interrupt.
“Your Excellency lacks the time and effort for any of this,” he said. “But I do not. And I enjoy the game greatly.”
He paused to look at her expectantly.
Kayla suddenly felt very tired.
“Minister Zhang, am I correct in understanding that you would be willing to recruit allies on my behalf?” Kayla asked.
Zhang Dingyong blinked in exaggerated surprise.
“Why, Your Excellency, what an honor! I would be glad to do so, despite my incompetency. How kind of you to ask!”
She did not bother holding back a sigh. Yet another unhinged official in the upper ranks of government. Was the country really alright going on like this? But Zhang Dingyong was properly competent. It was why his adoptive father had taken on the risk of raising him, why Kuang had taken on the risk of protecting him.
“Just as well,” Kayla muttered. “I would be happy for you to handle the…recruiting. Some of it, at least, since I will be otherwise occupied.”
Zhang Dingyong looked utterly delighted. “Against Lord Cui?”
“Against Lord He,” Kayla said.
“Interesting choice. I’m assuming it’s because you have something over him?”
Kayla smiled. “Let’s call it a test,” she said. “The same conundrum I mentioned earlier. His principles or his child? It’s his choice.”
Zhang Dingyong was far too pleased given the topic of their conversation. Something was seriously wrong with this man, Kayla wearily noted, but that was exactly what she needed.
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Cultural Notes
月出皎兮，佼人僚兮。舒窈纠兮，劳心悄兮/The moonlight shines bright, the beauty becomes all the more alluring. Her steps light as a dance cloud my weary heart with longing: A pre-Qin poem/folk song describing a young man's yearning for his sweetheart. It has three stanzas that are largely identical, with small variations in a few key phrases as was common for poems from that era.
天苍苍野茫茫/The skies loom vast, the wild stretches endlessly: A line from a translated folk song by Northern nomadic tribes, it's also known as the Tiele song: “In the Tiele valley, beneath the icy peaks of the Ying Mountains, the sky stretches like a yurt that encompasses the four directions. The skies loom vast, the wild stretches endlessly. The wind bends the grass and the cow and sheep become visible.” Part of why this became so popular among Han Chinese is because the steppes have always been a source of wonder, awe, and danger for the agricultural civilization, who had trouble defending against and attacking their nomadic neighbors (in the Han Dynasty it often happened that of four commanders sent out to attack, three would get lost in the steppes), but were also drawn to the unrestrained freedom of a lifestyle on the move compared to their own lives where one's connection to a single plot of land could be traced back for centuries.
Altai Mountains: A mountain range that is currently situated at the intersection of modern-day China, Russia, Kazakhstan, and Mongolia. It was believed to have been an informal border between the East and West Turkic Khaganates.
Parthian shot: A tactic commonly used across Eurasia by nomadic peoples (and also Koreans) where you twisted around your entire body and shot an arrow with both hands while riding away from the enemy. It required superb equestrian skills and made pursuing a retreat a very deadly business.
Cataphract: A type of armored heavy cavalry originating from Persia. Many were capable of both hand-to-hand and long range combat, and their armored horses were very difficult to stop in a full charge. Though this was also used in China (along with most countries along the Silk Road), it fell out of use after the Tang Dynasty due to difficulties in breeding the right type of horses and also the enormous cost associated with the upkeep.
笄礼/Coming-of-age ritual for women: Girls came to age at 15 years old while men came to age at 20 in Ancient China.
不痛不痒/Neither hurt nor itch: A Chinese proverb that means something doesn't really have much of an impact.
五石散/Five Minerals Powder: A type of psychoactive drug that fell out of use because of its poisonous side-effects. It was popular prior to the Tang Dynasty, after which it became associated almost exclusively with degenerates.
国丧期/National mourning period: Often imposed after the death of someone major in the Imperial Family, usually an elder or in some cases, the Crown Prince. Out of consideration for the commoners, the official mourning period during which you could not drink, hold parties, or get married was usually limited to only a few weeks, usually less than 27 days. For aristocrats, nobles, and those related to the Imperial Family, there were various restrictions that lasted for the full mourning period that could be punished if violated.
石/Stone: Stone was a unit of measurement for rice and grains in Ancient China, very different than the western unit of a stone. One stone was ten dou, one dou was ten sheng, and one sheng was in turn ten yue, a measurement vessel that held about 600 grams of rice. So one sheng more rice was about 6 kg, one dou more rice was about 60 kg, and ten stone more would be 6000 kg.
Yangzhou: A province in China that has long been known for its wealth and abundance, as well as being the hometown of beautiful girls. Modern-day scholars suggest that having access to proper nutrition throughout their childhoods due to the wealth of the region might have been part of the reason why the girls there were considered especially beautiful.
Lingnan: An Ancient Chinese province that includes much of modern-day Guangdong province and Fujian province. While the port cities in these two provinces thrived due to the maritime Silk Road, the region was so mountainous that wealth disparities were great. It was often the case until rather recently in history that due to the difficulties of travel, it was almost impossible for people one mountain apart to understand one another's dialect.
誓死守节/A great man can die but cannot lose his principles: A standard that many Ancient Chinese scholars held themselves to, some with more success than others.
Shocks the world and breaks custom/惊世骇俗: An Ancient Chinese proverb.
Fish for honor and reputation/沽名钓誉: An Ancient Chinese proverb.
旁观者清/The onlookers/audience can see more clearly: An Ancient Chinese proverb that means the objective observer can often see the full picture.
自有大儒为我辩经/There will [naturally] be great Confucianists who will defend me: A modern-day Chinese saying in reference to a pattern we see throughout history. No matter what the origins of a dynasty, as long as it takes power, there will be people who step forward to defend its legitimacy.
Homosociality in Ancient China: Honestly not all that different from homosociality in any patriarchal society (I don't know enough about matriarchal societies to apply this statement to them). The term is often used to refer to a social, not sexual, preference for one's own sex, such as preferences for same-sex confidants, etc. In ancient China where gendered divisions of labor often rendered the upper classes into segregated spheres, homosociality was especially strong among men, hence Zhang Dingyong's metaphor. Many officials worked for years away from their families while their wives stayed behind to take care of the children and the in-laws, and the more prominent the family, the less active the woman would be expected to be in socializing outside of her sex. As a result, men often had little common language with their wives but shared extremely intense bonds with male friends who shared common experiences. The good opinions of their male peers were valued far more than the feelings of their wives in many cases (of course there are many notable exceptions as well). We often see men who never wrote a single poem for their wives writing extremely passionate poems for their male friends despite both of them being presumably heterosexual (if records of their brothel visits are anything to go by).