BST - Chapter 12
Chapter 12: Finding Life in Deadly Peril
"He has grown thoroughly disillusioned with the great families..." Wang Xun murmured to himself, his face betraying a panic he could not conceal.
He had already understood where part of the calamity that would later wipe out the Wang Clan of Langya had come from.
Had it not been for the great families' persuasion and their efforts to hold things in balance, Wang Gong, with someone working for him inside the walls, would surely have taken Jiankang and kicked Sima Daozi from power. Even if the emperor remained a fool, the ministers would have been of one mind, and Yong'an was willing to serve the state; that would have been far better than the so-called "internal and external checks."
But now?
Once Wang Gong withdrew, Sima Daozi would have leisure to deal with those "inside collaborators," and Yong'an, as the mastermind behind the scenes, would inevitably face enormous trouble.
It was the great families who had forced him to this!
When he gained power in the future, how could he not take his revenge?
If Sima Daozi's end was being torn apart by chariots, what would become of Wang Xun?
Seeing Wang Shen'ai turn to look at him, Wang Xun hurried to defend himself: "The account on the Heavenly Screen is brief. There may well be circumstances it does not tell."
Wang Shen'ai fought down the twitch at the corner of her lips and said quietly, "Uncle, that is not something you should be explaining to me. You should be explaining it to the ministers and the common people."
Circumstances? What circumstances could he possibly have! By the Heavenly Screen's account, he had not even been in Jiankang at the time; he had been in Wang Gong's army...
Were it not that she still had to conceal her identity, she would dearly have liked to prise Wang Xun's skull open and see what on earth he was thinking.
Then again, when she had mustered the Beifu army earlier, she had received no support in provisions from the Wang Clan of Langya, and she seemed to understand these people's way of thinking perfectly well.
The arrogance of the great families.
Only when the slap lands on their face and the blade sinks into their flesh do they feel any pain.
Just so now: moments ago Wang Xun had thrust out his chest before the crowd for his part in putting Sima Daozi to death, yet now he held his head half-bowed, raising only his eyes to sweep quickly around him. As he expected, he met several faces that wanted to speak but held back, and then, as if scalded, he looked away again to what lay before him.
He squeezed out a sentence: "The Crown Princess is wise. Can we use what the Heavenly Screen has said to work out who Emperor Yong'an is?"
"...Uncle." Wang Shen'ai sighed softly and reminded him, "Forgive my bluntness, but anyone else in the world may go about this business of silencing someone for good; only you cannot. Did you not hear what the Heavenly Screen said? Emperor Yong'an has personally seen the people's hardships and truly made 'Yong'an' (lasting peace) a reality for the common people. Though the Heavenly Screen has not yet told us exactly what Emperor Yong'an has done, he may already have some standing beyond the capital."
That the common people regarded the Heavenly Screen as a miracle far more than the ministers did was an indisputable fact.
Yet Wang Xun had been branded by the Heavenly Screen, having once stood on the side opposing Yong'an.
If he now searched for Yong'an's whereabouts with such fanfare, would others think he had seen the error of his ways and meant to demonstrate his loyalty to Yong'an? Or would they think he was enraged and humiliated, intent on killing someone to vent his spite?
The latter, most likely.
If the Wang Clan of Langya meant to keep its name clean, it would never permit Wang Xun to do such a thing.
Wang Xun was ready to stamp his foot: "Who said I meant to silence anyone? I only wanted to know who it is first, so that the remedy might fit the ailment..."
If this person had already fled Jiankang because of the Heavenly Screen and risen on the tide of events, never to be easily destroyed, then all he could do was first secure a few more bargaining chips to keep himself alive.
Besides, on the Heavenly Screen, Emperor Yong'an had not yet done away with Sima Daozi and had only temporarily removed one nuisance; but beneath the Heavenly Screen, Sima Daozi and his son had already been put to death, and Wang Xun had had a hand in it. If Emperor Yong'an was broad-minded, perhaps no blame would fall on Wang Xun for what had yet to happen.
Wait. Speaking of staying alive...
He spoke in a voice only he and Wang Shen'ai could hear: "Your earlier suggestion to the Empress Dowager, that the Crown Prince should not ascend the throne for the time being lest the Heavenly Screen change its tale, was also meant to guard against the possibility that the Second Prince is the emperor destined by Heaven. But now the Heavenly Screen has never revealed Emperor Yong'an's identity, and has instead said things unfavorable to us. Might we... alter our strategy?"
Wang Shen'ai looked thoughtful. She had already guessed Wang Xun's meaning, yet still asked, "What do you mean, Uncle?"
Wang Xun said: "Have the Crown Prince ascend the throne as soon as possible, and spread word to recruit talented people!"
His tone was hurried, and anyone could hear the urgency: "Yong'an has not yet made his move. The Sima clan is still the legitimate line. If he does not wish to raise a rebellion, he can very well enter the court as a subject. The Crown Prince is slow-witted; you have a quick mind. Better that you hold the court as regent, and use the chance to gather military power into your hands, so as to protect the Wang clan entire."
At present the military authority had fallen temporarily into the Crown Princess's hands only by the Empress Dowager's edict; that was still not safe enough. Better to take one step further.
Make Wang Shen'ai the empress. A reigning empress with real power!
Wang Shen'ai shook her head at once: "You're making your intentions far too obvious. The Jiankang court is no gathering of fools; how could they fail to see what you're after, Uncle?"
Were it not that she already knew she herself was that Emperor Yong'an, she would be crying injustice on her own behalf.
To go from Crown Princess to empress; when someone changed the dynasty in days to come, the danger would more than double.
He was doing it to save his own life, and had left her no way out at all.
"But this is something we can fight for," Wang Xun ground out. "They are ministers of the Jin!"
Besides, looking across the court, ever since the nine-rank system was put into practice the gap between the great families and the commoners had grown ever wider, and after the southward flight of the elite, how many of those who could stand in the court, stand before the Son of Heaven, were not of great-family stock?
Was Yong'an's disappointment with the great families directed at the Wang clan alone? No. Not one of them would escape it.
Never had he been more thankful than he was now that Wang Shen'ai still carried the blood of the Jin imperial house; it made her exercise of the sovereign's authority in his stead far less difficult.
Everyone had their own reckoning; he merely meant to lay his cards on the table a little earlier. What was wrong with that?
Wang Shen'ai's fingertips slowly eased away from her stung palm, and though she was in fact well pleased with Wang Xun's "tact" at this moment, she still hesitated: "...Let me think about it a while longer."
Wang Xun dearly wanted to ask: she had always been clear and decisive before, whether in summoning the Second Prince or in plotting to kill Sima Daozi, reacting faster than anyone else. Why did she have to drag her feet over this?
But seeing that she had turned her gaze back to the Heavenly Screen, her face grave and nothing like that of one who had given up the fight, Wang Xun pulled himself together again.
At last he gathered his wits out of his earlier daze, and let the voice from the Heavenly Screen find its way into his ears.
[...]
[In fact, after Wang Gong withdrew, the person in the most danger was not Emperor Yong'an, but Zhi Miaoyin.]
[Through all this maneuvering, Wang Gong's withdrawal was recast as an orderly return after a successful campaign to purge corrupt officials around the emperor. Naturally, there was no longer any need to keep Sima Yuanxian's head as a token. In light of Sima Daozi's grief at losing his beloved son, they returned the head to him.]
Of course!
Far away at Jianjing Temple, Zhi Miaoyin instantly grasped what these words meant.
The quiet monastic life amid curling incense smoke and the courtly slaughter playing out on the Heavenly Screen overhead seemed to belong to two entirely different worlds. But when the abbess, just past forty, raised her eyes and looked up, what the daylight lit up was a pair of eyes anything but tranquil.
"Abbess..."
"Do not trouble yourself," Zhi Miaoyin said mildly. "They have not even sorted out their own troubles. The knife will not reach my neck. They have no grounds to take my head over something that hasn't happened yet."
But even as she said it, she could not help breaking into a cold sweat for that other self.
If Wang Gong was to return Sima Yuanxian's head, it could not be merely a head he returned; he would certainly hand over the envoy she had sent along with it to Sima Daozi.
To him, it was a trifling matter, no more than a wave of the hand. For Jianjing Temple, now bereft of Sima Yao's protection, however, it was a calamity that could spell their ruin.
This made it impossible for Zhi Miaoyin to look away from the Heavenly Screen. She wanted to see how that other self had escaped death and later come to be assigned to compile documents, and to see, too...
what response that Emperor Yong'an, playing the mastermind behind the scenes, would make when faced with such a situation.
[...It must be said, even Huan Xuan, who had opposed Emperor Yong'an, could find little fault with Yong'an; at most, once in the underworld, he would complain about how miserably he had died. When their interests were aligned, Yong'an was the very best of partners.]
[General Liu certainly has a great deal to say on that score. After all, for a general with such distinguished military achievements to enjoy such a harmonious relationship with his sovereign, with neither suspecting the other, and then live to a ripe old age and die peacefully, is extraordinarily rare.]
[As for Zhi Miaoyin, though she cannot yet be counted among the Emperor's subordinates, she was drawn into the game against her will and served as one of the Emperor's blades, even helping to kill Sima Yuanxian. In a sense, she counts as one of our own. And so, when she found herself in peril, she did not have to fight alone.]
[This was both repayment for a kindness and, with no one else at his disposal, the Emperor's way of recognizing Zhi Miaoyin's abilities and the people she could call upon, and of extending an invitation in advance.]
[In short, before Sima Daozi could get anything out of the envoy who had delivered the head, a grave crisis suddenly engulfed him, leaving him no attention for anything else.]
[No one expected so startling a turn. On the very night Wang Gong withdrew his troops, the emperor and empress hanged themselves.]
Beneath the Heavenly Screen, before Taiji Hall, the ministers' terrified expressions looked for all the world like mirrors of one another.
Hanged themselves? Who hanged themselves?
Who went and hanged themselves???
[Though, as it happened, a palace servant had received some kind of warning and passed by at just the right moment to save them, so that no lives were actually lost, for Sima Daozi this was nothing less than a fatal blow.]
[He had just talked Wang Gong into withdrawing with a string of arguments, telling him not to turn himself into a true rebel and to consider the consequences of storming Jiankang. Wang Gong had left, and now the emperor had nearly died. What was that supposed to mean?]
[Sima Daozi was frightened half to death!]
[If this news ever got out, the scholars of the realm... no, everyone in the realm who could so much as read a few characters would denounce him in speech and in writing. Those loyal to Jin would curse him; those not loyal to Jin would curse him all the more.]
[Huan Xuan, for instance, that opportunist, wrote a famous proclamation denouncing the traitor when he learned of this, excoriating Sima Daozi for failing to uphold his duties as a subject and nearly driving the emperor to his death.]
Huan Xuan narrowed his eyes. Though he did not know what an "opportunist" was, he understood what the Heavenly Screen meant.
If it were the Huan Xuan of today, he too would surely act on learning that a powerful minister at court had nearly driven the emperor to suicide. With such a strong justification for a punitive campaign, it would be folly not to seize it.
But the moment he thought that this handle had been deliberately handed to him by someone even more ambitious, someone who would also put him to death in the future, he felt as if he had swallowed a fly, unspeakably sick.
[Understand that a suicide by hanging in those days had far graver repercussions than it would now. As mentioned before, Sima Yao was a believer in Buddhism, and certain Buddhist doctrines had long been disseminated through the palace. Among the beliefs of the time was this: one who takes their own life can never again be born in human form.]
[True enough, the emperor was indeed a fool, and in this attempt at suicide he was merely one who obeyed orders. But what does that matter? The facts are already laid before all the world. They will only ask: to what depths of evil must Sima Daozi have sunk, that even the emperor could not bear it and chose death?]
[And then: was Wang Gong deceived by Sima Daozi, or was he in fact hand in glove with him, that he withdrew his troops so readily, disregarding the life and death of Sima Dezong?]
[And Wang Xun very nearly drove his own clan nephew to his death. Ought he not to bear some responsibility for it?]
[In that general uproar, no one had time to spare for Zhi Miaoyin. And on that very night...]
A bright fire blazed up on the Heavenly Screen, taking hold inside Jianjing Temple, which had already been swiftly emptied.
Zhi Miaoyin was a clever woman. A heaven-sent opportunity offered by Yong'an would never be squandered.
[The imperial palace was in an uproar, and it was then that Zhi Miaoyin fled the city with her disciples and the strategist who had come from the palace, setting out for Qiantang.]
[This was the next source of support Emperor Yong'an chose after experiencing the absurdity of the great families.]
[And the strategist traveling alongside Zhi Miaoyin under the assumed name Jiang Ding brought Emperor Yong'an's next plan.]
[...]
From the moment she heard the words "hanged themselves," Wang Shen'ai's hand had flown to her own throat.
A sharp hiss of breath.
After such a blow, that other self had been far crazier than she could ever have imagined: she had actually wagered her own life on this move.
But no one could deny that putting yourself in a desperate position to fight for survival had always been a highly effective tactic.
After this, Sima Daozi would surely never dare hold Sima Yuanxian's death against her again.
And this act of hers had provided everyone in the realm who wished to raise a force against the traitor with a weighty piece of evidence of his guilt.
It was well worth it!
If, through this, she could see clearly how the world stood, and let some people see her as well, it would be worth even more!
And besides...
At this thought, a light suddenly flickered in Wang Shen'ai's eyes.
The Heavenly Screen's narration had been discussing the situation with regard to Sima Daozi, treating emperor and empress as one; it had not, in fact, directly equated Emperor Yong'an with the empress.
To those who knew who Yong'an was, and to those who did not know her identity, it sounded entirely different.
This meant that, to everyone else, the empress's hanging was either something Yong'an had tricked or talked her into, or else she had simply been strung up by someone else.
But either way, it would be a pitiable situation in which the empress had no control over her fate.
This understanding seemed to be precisely the opportunity for her to move with the current!
Her hand remained at her throat, and a trace of fear now mingled with the gravity in her expression.
The flames blazing on the Heavenly Screen crackled without end in their ears.
It was then that Wang Xun heard her voice, faintly trembling: "Uncle, about your earlier suggestion... I have made up my mind."
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