BST - Chapter 3

Chapter 3: Let's Kill Him

On one side stood the Empress Dowager and Sima Daozi, Prince of Kuaiji.

On the other stood the Crown Prince, the Crown Princess, and the Second Prince.

Sima Daozi cursed inwardly. Why, all those years ago, had his elder brother indulged their sister Sima Daofu's wish, forcing Wang Xianzhi, the great talent of the Wang Clan of Langya, to divorce his wife Xi Daomao so that Sima Daofu could marry him? Only then had today's Wang Shen'ai come to be.

From their flight across the Yangtze and the founding of the capital to the rebuilding of the dynasty, the Eastern Jin royal house had never managed without the aid of the Wang Clan of Langya. Among the common people there was even a saying: "Wang and Sima share the realm."

Wang is the Wang of the Langya clan.

Sima is the Sima of the imperial line.

Just so, now: Wang Shen'ai, the Crown Princess, born of both the Wang Clan of Langya and the imperial house, carried far more weight than Empress Dowager Li Lingrong at his side.

...

And because what she said made sense.

Sima Daozi cocked his ear and could hear the murmuring in the crowd.

"...His Majesty's death was predicted exactly by the Heavenly Screen."

"A marvel like that hardly looks like some prank."

"If what the Heavenly Screen says is true, the Second Prince will become emperor too. Who knows whether he might not be that Emperor Yong'an."

"Exactly, exactly."

Sima Daozi had been able to seize sole power in place of the dead Sima Yao; if the Second Prince grew a few years older, why could he not use that idiot imperial elder brother as a puppet and accomplish something great?

It all sounded perfectly reasonable.

Even now he was still clutching Wang Shen'ai's sleeve like a child who had not been weaned. Without his cousin shielding him in front, he probably would not have had the courage even to lift his head and look at the Heavenly Screen.

The Crown Princess, by contrast, kept her back straight despite her fear, and looked far more like a person of consequence.

Yet the Sima clan had once ended the tripartite division of the Three Kingdoms and emerged the ultimate victor. Who could say the Second Prince would not simply need time to grow, and stand on his own sooner or later?

Bringing him here first and securing his safety was unquestionably necessary.

Sima Daozi clenched his jaw. He knew that Wang Shen'ai's challenge had made his position worse than ever, but all the same his grip slackened and he stepped back a pace.

The hand Wang Shen'ai had hidden in her sleeve finally loosened slowly.

The night wind blew across her faintly clammy palm, raising a film of cold.

Before she had crossed over, she had been nothing more than an ordinary working stiff, at most someone who had read a few more books of history. To be flung inexplicably into another world, and into this age notorious for its absurdity no less, was a calamity dropped out of a clear sky.

And now there was the Heavenly Screen besides, announcing that this era had gained yet another variable.

In a time of upheaval, even a commoner of ordinary birth had to worry about the future, let alone someone in her position.

If circumstances had allowed, she would just as soon have gone mad the way Noble Lady Zhang had, charging into people and taking down as many as she could.

But she wanted to survive, and she wanted to see whether there was any way back, so she had to seize every opportunity.

Fortunately, it seemed she had taken the right first step.

In the brief standoff, the transitional animation on the Heavenly Screen had come to its end.

Northern cavalry bore down in crushing weight; the South, facing a question of life and death, dared not relax its vigilance for an instant.

Even though everyone knew the outcome of this battle, the sight still pressed the breath out of them.

Coupled with the confrontation between the Crown Princess and the Prince of Kuaiji, the scene before the hall grew all the more tense.

The voice of the Heavenly Screen, however, remained steady.

[For an emperor to die so undignified and still receive the posthumous title Xiaowu, Filial and Martial, Sima Yao owed that entirely to this battle. Of course, fighting wars had nothing to do with him as emperor. It was purely his good fortune that during his reign he successively rolled out several staunch defenders of the throne, every one of them a man of ability.]

[Then there is the Wang Clan of Langya, which goes without saying. The Eastern Jin royal house was put on the throne by them, and they had no need to go against the Sima. Had not the butcher's blade been raised against them later by Emperor Yong'an, who cut down more than half their number, they would probably have carried smoothly into the next dynasty and gone on as its premier elite family.]

Wang Xun, General Who Conquers the Caitiffs, happened to be present. Hearing that line so abruptly, his eyes went wide and he nearly let the sword at his belt fall to the ground.

Ah? What do you mean, Emperor Yong'an raised the butcher's blade and killed more than half the Wang Clan of Langya? Is that even human speech?

As the Wang clan's representative at court today, Wang Xun not only bore the title of General Who Conquers the Caitiffs but held the office of Left Vice Director of the Secretariat and carried the nominal post of Supervisor of the Crown Prince's Household, tying his fate to that of the future emperor.

If Wang Shen'ai was the bridge between the Wang Clan of Langya and the Sima in the inner palace, then he, Wang Xun, was the leader in the outer court.

This spoiler from the Heavenly Screen mattered to him more than to anyone.

But the immortal on the Heavenly Screen plainly had no intention of digressing to explain the fate of the Wang Clan of Langya for his benefit, and went straight on.

[The other two key figures were named Huan Chong and Xie An.]

[When Sima Yao came to the throne, the authority of the Eastern Jin royal house was already tottering. Huan Wen, then Grand Marshal, had made his disloyalty plain and could have taken the throne at any moment. After all, if the Sima could betray their own sovereign and become emperors, why could not the Huan do the same?]

[But the Huan produced an anomaly in Huan Chong. Though born of the Huan clan, he wanted only to be a loyal servant of the imperial house and had no taste for rebellion. After Huan Wen wasted away and died, he handed over part of the military authority in his own hands to Xie An and, working with him, completed Eastern Jin's northern defense line.]

[In the Battle of Fei River, Huan Chong held Jingzhou and suppressed every objection within the Huan clan. On his own initiative he launched the northern advance first from the western and central sectors, pinning down large numbers of Qin troops in the north and buying Xie An and Xie Xuan the chance to counterattack from the eastern sector.]

[It was a coordination without precedent. The final outcome was that Fu Jian, Heavenly King of Great Qin, sought to swallow Eastern Jin in a single stroke, only to be catastrophically defeated at the Battle of Fei River. His boast that the whips of his riders thrown into the river would dam its flow came to nothing, and he was forced to flee in panic. The various tribes under his command seized the chance to rebel, and two years later he himself was killed by a rebellious general.]

[This battle was destined to be recorded on the most glorious page of the Eastern Jin annals. Not only did they achieve the brilliant feat of defeating a larger force with a smaller one and preserve a realm on the brink, but under Xie An and Xie Xuan they pushed the dividing line between north and south, which had run along the Yangtze and the Huai, northward all the way to the Yellow River. Had Eastern Jin's strength been a little greater, the dream of recovering the Central Plains and returning to the old capital might not have been so distant.]

[But most unfortunately, at just this moment Huan Chong died, and the bridge that could have served as a buffer between the Huan and the Sima snapped.]

[Xie An died too. He had planned to hold the Yellow River defense line together with Xie Xuan, and to wait until the civil strife in the north had ended and each side had worn itself down before pressing further. But his body could no longer hold out. Not long after he was forced to turn back, he died of illness.]

[While he lived, he devoted himself to balancing the power of the imperial house and the great clans. Out of loyalty, he made an extremely mistaken decision before his death: he would hand the power in his hands back to the imperial house.]

Within the palace on the Heavenly Screen, song and dance flourished.

Outside, the white banners of the Xie Clan of Chen Commandery hung high, yet they had no effect whatsoever on the festive mood of the place.

Though the man seated upright at the head did not resemble the corpse now lying in the hall, anyone could see that he stood for Sima Yao.

He shared wine and pleasure with a man in princely robes, contentedly enjoying the songs and dances of Jiankang, and at the banquet casually handed to Sima Daozi, Prince of Kuaiji, the authority Xie An had surrendered.

Sima Daozi took the power, cheerfully sought out his cronies, and drew up their plans for what came next.

The tone of the Heavenly Screen turned cold. [Soon this Sima Daozi, using the excuse that the campaign had gone on too long, recalled Xie Xuan from the front. If Xie Xuan had truly harbored disloyalty, and had the backbone of a general in the field who need not obey his sovereign's commands, he would have refused to surrender his troops and gone on holding the north. He did not. He returned from the front, gave up his military authority, sickened with grief and indignation, and died, only forty-six years old.]

Beneath the Heavenly Screen, all had fallen silent.

Back then Xie An and Xie Xuan, the leading powers of the Xie clan and representatives of the great families, had taken the field with the aim of recovering the north, and their cooperation with the Huan had begun to fall into place. But with the man in charge gone and someone in the rear stirring up trouble, their work came to nothing at the last.

Even now, amid today's drift and muddle, there were still those who regretted those years. And men of conviction hated themselves for not having fought harder back then to help the Xie withstand the obstruction coming from the court.

Before the national wrongs and the family hatreds, even the dread over Sima Yao's death vanished without a trace.

[If you ask me, Sima Yao deserves three slaps across the face, and as for Sima Daozi, ten would not be enough.]

[Small wonder that soon after Emperor Yong'an took power, he laid a trap to capture Sima Daozi and then ordered him torn apart by chariots, killing him and his hangers-on clean out of existence, all to prevent anyone in the rear from tripping them up and sabotaging the great northern expedition to come. On that I have only one thing to say: well done!]

"...!" Sima Daozi's face went rigid. He stared unblinking at the Heavenly Screen, hoping desperately that what he had heard was only a misapprehension.

But he had been hanging on every word from above; how could he have misheard!

The doom he had heard was exactly what the Heavenly Screen had said.

Not only had he established that he was not the Emperor Yong'an who would pacify the realm; he was instead a thorn in that bastard's flesh.

"...Is this fellow the reincarnation of a star of slaughter?" Sima Daozi muttered through his teeth.

He would slaughter even a premier clan like the Wang Clan of Langya, and he, a leading prince of the imperial house, would end up torn apart by chariots. By what right did such a man win the allegiance of others and sit secure as lord of all under heaven!

He had to identify the man as soon as possible to preserve his own life.

Whatever he might have done, he was the reigning emperor's own brother; couldn't he do some of the things he wanted to do?

Besides, taking imperial power back out of the hands of the great clans had always been the long-cherished wish of Eastern Jin's rulers. Don't think he didn't know: his imperial elder brother, for all his surface indulgence in wine and women, had already hoped to see exactly this when he handed power over.

How was it only his fault! He had merely gone along with the current.

At least he retained some remnant of dignity. He glared about him and forced back every one of those probing gazes.

But Wang Xun, sharp-eyed, noticed that within this pool of bright light wrapped in deep night, Sima Daozi had clenched the jeweled sword in his hand. The pampered flesh of his hands, gone soft with long ease, showed a vein standing out only through such strain.

The Heavenly Screen had no intention whatsoever of letting Sima Daozi off.

[Some will say that the great clans holding too much power does no good, and that some of what Sima Daozi did started out from the right place. I can only say, I suggest he not set out at all.]

[After he took overall command of the military and served as Inspector of Xuzhou and Yangzhou, he not only increased his fief households to fifty-nine thousand and styled himself the foremost man beneath the emperor, but also heavily employed such treacherous petty men as Wang Guobao, Zhao Ya, and Ru Qianqiu, preying upon the people and stopping at no evil.]

[After Sima Yao died and the fool-emperor Sima Dezong ascended the throne, Sima Daozi grew ever more unbridled in his actions, until at last he brewed catastrophe!]

[The Beifu Army, once led by Xie An, Xie Xuan and others, ought to have distinguished itself on the battlefield against the northern tribes. Yet in the second year of the fool-emperor's reign it was dispatched to fight a subject who had raised rebellion among the imperial clan, and in the third year it was sent to put down a peasant uprising flying the banner of the Way of the Five Pecks of Rice.]

[That was the fine work the imperial clan did in those days. To call that stretch of history 'the darkness before the dawn' is not the least bit an exaggeration!]

Only because Sima Dezong was a fool, unable to understand a word of what was on the Heavenly Screen, was he wholly oblivious to "a minister rebelling in the second year of his reign, a peasant uprising in the third".

The palace servants and court officials who grasped its meaning looked at the Prince of Kuaiji with changed eyes, in which an unspoken hostility now lurked.

No wonder the Heavenly Screen had said Sima Daozi was worse than a fool!

What right had a man whose virtue so belied his station to conduct the affairs of state!

If the Emperor Yong'an who would one day pacify the realm killed him, it could only be called setting the order straight and ridding the people of a menace, hardly the work of some cruel tyrant abusing the punishment of chariot tearing.

...

Wang Xun suddenly felt a poke at the small of his back.

He quickly looked away from Sima Daozi and turned, only to find a short palace attendant standing behind him, though he had no idea when they had arrived.

Seeing him turn, the servant pointed in a direction.

Wang Xun quickly swept his gaze around. Everyone's eyes, absorbed by the Heavenly Screen's revelations, were fixed on Sima Daozi, the "culprit". He at once strode over and stopped beside Wang Shen'ai.

His feelings about this Crown Princess were genuinely complicated.

She had to count as an important figure of the Wang Clan of Langya, yet probably no one in the Wang family had forgotten how Wang Xianzhi, that man of unrivaled grace, had gone so far as to cripple his own leg to escape the princess's pursuit, only to fail to stop the imperial decree that forced him to divorce and let the princess marry into his house.

And just a few years later Wang Xianzhi died of a broken heart.

When he died, Wang Shen'ai was not yet three.

But now that the Wang clan's future crisis had been laid bare, Wang Xun had to admit that Wang Shen'ai's conduct today was worthy of her station, and that she and the Wang Clan of Langya were in the same boat.

He bowed his head and murmured, "What does Your Highness the Crown Princess command?"

Wang Shen'ai gathered her cloak about her. Her youthful brows and eyes were as lovely as ever, yet beneath the surface calm of her gaze, currents churned.

In a voice only the two of them could hear, she asked, "Uncle, you are the court's General Who Conquers the Caitiffs and the pillar of our Wang Clan of Langya. May I ask, how many troops do you have under your command at present?"

Wang Xun's eyelid twitched, and he hesitated a moment. "Why do you ask?"

Wang Shen'ai said softly, "When I sent someone outside the palace to bring in the Second Prince earlier, I made a point of looking. The Heavenly Screen appears above the imperial palace alone, yet outside the walls it can be seen just as usual. Sima Daozi's perverse misdeeds have been laid bare before everyone, before all the people of the realm, yet he will never sit still and wait for death. Whom do you think he is most likely to seek out as an ally?"

Wang Xun was no fool, and immediately grasped what she meant.

Whether because of the ties between the Sima and the Wang, or because of the "list of victims" the Heavenly Screen had revealed, Sima Daozi's first choice of partner would be the Wang clan!

Yet so long as Wang Xun had his wits about him, he would never think there was anything to recommend that man.

But the man best placed to order Sima Daozi's execution now lay dead in the hall, and his heir was a fool.

They had no choice but to deal with Sima Daozi.

Since that was so.

Wang Shen'ai knitted her brows and fixed her gaze. Her slight frame looked all the more frail in the night wind, yet her words left Wang Xun no choice but to listen.

"It is hard to cooperate with a fool. Rather than let him drag us down and make things worse, we should remove him first and win back some measure of popular support. Perhaps... perhaps this is also the chance for the Wang Clan of Langya to save themselves."

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