MFMH C84

Chapter 84 — A Troubled Autumn

When word spread that Prince Jinyang would distribute relief supplies, the victims swarmed to the collection point.

To prevent a crush or trampling as people scrambled for aid, Shen Yanbei had the constables guide the victims into orderly queues, register their names, and receive numbered tokens before handing out supplies. The line stretched so long it disappeared from sight. Watching from the side, Prince Jinyang felt a pang in his chest.

The piled grain was visibly dwindling at a horrifying rate, while the number of people waiting for rice kept growing.

Rubbish! Why are they eating so much? the prince cursed inwardly.

“This is wonderful! Wonderful! We won’t starve or freeze to death!” Some recipients who took home grain and winter garments were overcome with the elation of having survived disaster; their faces shone with raw relief and joy.

Shen Yanbei walked among the crowd at the right moment to calm them: “The earthquake in Min Prefecture weighs heavily on His Majesty’s heart. Before I arrived I was instructed that in distributing relief we must ensure the people have food and clothing. So do not despair—the court will see you through. I have also brought with me the Imperial Medical Academy’s chief physician and several court doctors; if anyone needs treatment, step forward.”

“The court has allocated one hundred thousand taels of silver for relief,” he continued, “and to guarantee that funds taken from the people are used for the people, every expenditure will be recorded and the ledger made public.”

At those words the crowd erupted. If the relief account would be published, anyone could see exactly where every coin went, effectively preventing embezzlement. Faces across the gathering flushed with gratitude; an elderly man with hair white and face weathered suddenly knelt, raised his trembling hands, and cried, “Long live the Emperor! Long live the Emperor!”

Contagious emotion spread. Others, moved by the old man’s fervor, also dropped to their knees, calling out “Long live the Emperor!”

Those words seemed to work like a spell; people instinctively joined in, and soon the entire crowd knelt and prostrated toward the capital, shouting “Long live the Emperor! Long live the Emperor!” until the cry rolled through the sky.

Enveloped by that deafening roar, Prince Jinyang felt like blood had lodged in his throat—he could not spit it out nor swallow it. His fists clenched under his sleeves; he wanted nothing so much as to strike Shen Yanbei across the face.

Those relief goods had been paid for with his shining silver, and now, after Shen’s few sentences, all credit was being recorded under the emperor’s name. Publishing the relief ledgers would make embezzlement impossible. How then could he divert the funds?

This man had ruined his plan with a few words. He raged with impotent hatred. If not for restraint, he would have had Shen killed on the spot.

The letters Shen had already sent would take the court a month to process—by the time the hundred thousand taels arrived, another month would have passed. At that thought the prince’s pain deepened.

A small lack of patience can spoil a grand scheme. Swallowing the bitter taste, Prince Jinyang left—the sight of the people praising the emperor enraged him; better not to look, better to return to the mansion.

Shen Yanbei watched him go, the corner of his mouth curving slightly.

As dusk fell, the clerks, whose arms ached from writing down names and addresses all day, handed their ledgers to Shen. He tallied roughly the number of surviving people and then compared the sum—survivors plus the casualties Prince Jinyang had reported—against the original population of Min Prefecture. The total exceeded the prefecture’s prior population. The prince had indeed overreported deaths.

Those extra names likely represented the private troops Prince Jinyang had hidden. Shen’s eyes darkened as he packed the booklets away.

Back at the prince’s mansion, the depressed man tried to do something to lift his mood. Naturally, he turned to what pleased him most: his conjugal pleasures.

In Jinghong Courtyard, Su Ruizhen lay lazily like a boneless creature upon the noble concubine’s couch. A pretty maid knelt at her feet, rubbing her legs; another attractive maid peeled grapes for her.

The earthquake had damaged common dwellings more than the prince’s newly built, well-crafted mansion. Though the outer walls and ear rooms fell, the main structure remained intact; with some carpentry and repair, the palace was still livable.

Su Ruizhen had moved into a plush annex after doctors diagnosed a pregnancy. Served carefully by attendants, life was indulgent. With the prince’s main consort under house arrest, the whole household looked after her like a favored jewel. She asked and the wardrobe, food, and jewels promptly appeared—life was very comfortable.

…If only she didn’t have to face the prince.

“Master—” she stiffened when he entered and quickly rose to bow.

“Don’t be so formal,” the prince scowled. “If you frighten my child, what then?”

“Yes,” she answered hurriedly.

His eager gaze fell on her flat belly. He gathered her in his arms and laid a hand gently on it. “How is my son today?”

At barely over a month’s term there was no real sensation; Su Ruizhen’s body locked. Swallowing fear, she forced a smile. “Baby knows his father is busy, so he’s been obedient.”

“Truly my own,” the prince murmured, eyes softening. The praise squeezed into her chest like ice and she trembled.

When he left, the tension in Su Ruizhen’s body finally released and she slumped back on the couch, exhausted.

Fortune had smiled upon the Duchess: the child she would bear was a son. But what if, eight months hence, the child were a daughter? The thought made her dizzy. Sweat beaded along her palms as she clutched a handkerchief; fear and ambition warred in her chest.

She wanted to live. She had no choice but this stratagem. As long as the prince lived, she could not escape this gilded cage.

If the child was a girl, she would have to bear again—until a son was born.

Relief distribution proceeded in regimented steps. Shen Yanbei spent each day so busy his feet barely touched the ground; he wanted the work done and finished so he could move on. Because he had written to the emperor requesting release of relief funds, Prince Jinyang relaxed his surveillance just a little; that margin let Shen inspect Min Prefecture and nearby counties thoroughly.

Post-disaster reconstruction meant starting from scratch. But this year would prove a season of many troubles for the Great Qi. After the Liuyang earthquake came a locust plague in Shangrao Prefecture.

When Zhao Yu received the prefect of Shangrao’s urgent memorial, a letter to William lay on the imperial desk; the messenger knelt low as he presented it.

When the letter reached William, he showed it to his foreign friends. At first confused—why was he addressed as a missionary?—he found the portion written in his native tongue and realized Shen had appealed to him for help. He and Su Qingze translated the English portion and sent it, through the court eunuch, to Zhao Yu.

“Go back and tell him I know. Tell him not to worry,” Zhao Yu said after reading, rubbing his temples. He sighed; Su Qingze could have delivered the message himself, yet he hadn’t. The young man, lately not avoiding Zhao but not actively approaching either, seemed to wait for Zhao to make the first move. That stung. But worse was the memorial from Shangrao.

Sentiment could take time; locusts could not.

Shangrao’s counties, long drought-prone, suddenly brimmed with hopper swarms. Once a locust plague sets in it intensifies, devouring vegetation for miles. With summer here and harvest due in two months, a locust invasion would wipe out the crops. The prefect could not treat the matter lightly and reported it at once.

Zhao Yu’s face darkened as he summoned the chancellor, Zhang Youzheng, and other senior ministers for a council.

In the last dynasty, massive locust swarms and resulting famine helped spark rebellion—an incompetent, self-indulgent regime’s misrule had driven people to the brink. Only after two eras of wise governance had the land recovered under Great Qi.

Zhao would not permit the same specter of famine to return.

Hearing of the locusts, the ministers were alarmed. You cannot kill locusts wholesale; they move fast. The immediate plan was to send people to assess and attempt control measures.

But who to dispatch?

Zhao’s expression was bleak; hands hesitated to name a candidate.

With earthquake and locusts both breaking out, guiding voices rose up, people murmured: was the emperor stirring people and expense without cause, so Heaven punished the realm?

After all, the court had recently recruited many young men for the army under the incentives of lowered taxes, and sent much military material to the frontier—ostensibly to counter the barbarians—but there had been no border war!

Zhao said nothing.

At the border the new soldiers thought the same and even secretly rejoiced: no war meant no real battle, and once the alarm passed they might return home in safety.

Gu Changfeng berated them and drove them to work. The recruits, seeing his austere face, grumbled among themselves.

This heir of the Duke’s house hardly resembled the delicate stereotype of a dandy. He was rough-featured, tall, burly, and a man of prodigious strength. He drilled them mercilessly—seemingly mad.

Gu Changfeng watched the untroubled recruits with a frown.

Five ten-thousand recruits had been rounded up; aside from a few felled by illness, most had endured the march and adapted to garrison life.

The frontier is harsh: daily drills at dawn, day in and day out, grind novelty away and simmer unrest into anger. If nothing changed, these men would be fodder before the barbarians’ iron hooves.

He wanted to return alive to see Shen Yanbei, and he wanted the soldiers Shen brought to come back whole to see those who mattered to them most.

The thought lodged heavy in his chest. He ignored the chorus of complaints and ordered the drills to continue.

Night fell. Gu Changfeng stood atop the high gatehouse, looking over the empty, desolate plain in the cool darkness, his thoughts tangled.

A broad, weathered hand patted his shoulder. “Haste makes waste,” a voice said.

He turned. “General,” he replied.

Tai Qigang stood beside him, sharing the chill night. June had come and the south was warm, but the border remained bitterly cold. The diurnal swing was extreme: the sun brought heat by day and a chill after dusk.

“New recruits are like this,” the famed general said. “Only through tears and blood can one forge an elite force.”

Tai Qigang’s face grew stern. “Scouts report barbarian patrols in Yan Gu. Take a hundred men, strike them by night—bring them in.”

Gu Changfeng’s dark eyes flashed with a spark. “I will obey.”

“Go,” Tai Qigang sighed.

Gu Changfeng bowed and then disappeared into the night with his men.

That night, under the bleak wind, a hundred-man detachment, almost a single shadow in the dark, sped across the plain. A strong man led them: all senses alert, eyes sharp, gaze heated and resolute. The recruits, starving for action after months in camp, burned with excitement as they followed.

After an hour on forced march, still not at Yan Gu, the leader suddenly halted them with an outstretched hand.

In the night a soft murmur carried on the wind. Gu Changfeng’s pupils narrowed. He split the detachment into two: Zhou Yu would take one half, he would take the other. He ordered both teams to encircle and wait until he struck. Above all, no one was to act before him.

Unfortunately, the inexperienced troops, giddy with first blood’s promise, exposed themselves when they spotted two barbarian scouts on patrol.

“Who goes there?”

The barbarians’ call alerted their patrol, and the moment their eyes met the eager charge of the recruits—who, thinking themselves already detected and resolved to strike first—both sides rushed forward.

Seeing the whistle about to be blown, Gu Changfeng’s face darkened. He surged in a flash, and with a single horizontal slash his blade painted the air—hot blood splattered.

The brutal move stunned his men. Warm blood spattered one recruit’s face and he froze. Another barbarians’ shout sent a second enemy sounding the bone whistle. Zhou Yu arrived and felled an opponent with a punch—but it was too late.

The barbarians were alarmed, grabbed weapons, and, though few in number, were mounted. If they fled they would easily outpace the foot soldiers.

“Don’t let them mount!” Gu Changfeng barked, a blur as he kicked a barbarian who was leaping into the saddle.

The enemy’s howl woke the recruits, who—seeing Gu Changfeng’s merciless killing—panicked and did their best to intercept the fleeing men. Their first combat was clumsy, but the numbers held the barbarians at bay; yet they hesitated to finish the job.

In the end the slaughter was carried out by Gu Changfeng alone.

Bodies lay warm on the ground. He stood in the night among the fallen, meeting the recruits’ terrified eyes; a fire seemed to burn in his chest.

“Do you even understand what you’re here for?”