BST - Chapter 7
Chapter 7: Mobilize Troops and Kill Quickly
She'd give it a try?
Under the shock of all that blood, Li Lingrong could not even recall what Wang Shen'ai had looked like when she was first received into the palace as Crown Princess.
The tear stains on her cheeks were not yet dry, yet her expression was resolute beyond all ordinary measure, and that alone was enough to overturn everything that had come before.
"But can I trust you?" Li Lingrong asked, her voice little more than a murmur.
Could she trust Wang Shen'ai's judgment? Trust where her loyalties lay?
When Sima Yao was still alive, he had said a few words to her on the matter.
He said that for the Wang and Xie clans, the way things stood, with the sovereign counting for little and the great houses for a great deal, was satisfaction enough. They had no need to overstep any further.
At times, their urge to hold the reins was in truth a kind of protection for the imperial house.
No emperor who wielded real power could ever tolerate such a situation. But when the old are old, the young are young, and the fools are fools, it no longer matters.
So beyond all doubt, by the time Li Lingrong asked that question, she already had an answer in her heart.
What other choice did she have but to trust her?
As for the grudge for her murdered son...
Wang Xun had waited a long while outside the door when he suddenly heard the creak of it opening; the next instant he saw Wang Shen'ai step out carrying two scrolls.
He let out a breath of relief at once and hurried to meet her.
Compared with the Crown Princess, the Empress Dowager's build was not merely a little taller and sturdier.
From the first he had feared that the Empress Dowager, upon being shown the head of her other son, might simply take to beating the Crown Princess.
And yet Wang Shen'ai, in the name of showing respect to the Empress Dowager, insisted on going in alone, which was little different from walking into a tiger's den in person.
"...Uncle?"
Wang Xun roused himself and pulled back his wandering thoughts. "What did the Empress Dowager say?"
Wang Shen'ai shook the edict in her hand. "What could she say? I told you before I went to her that I was going to persuade her with reason."
With. Reason. And. Persuasion.
Wang Xun was silent for a moment, at a loss to know how she could utter those words with such righteous conviction.
If killing a man's son and then ordering him about could also be called persuading with reason, then no one in this world would dare claim to deal in violence!
But the situation was far too pressing for him to press the matter any further.
Wang Xun smoothed over his speechless mood and turned to another question. "Why are there two edicts?"
One, needless to say, was for dispatching the Beifu Army to come and protect the Emperor.
That too was a decision Wang Shen'ai had made after asking him how much military force he could command.
The great families' practice of hiding unregistered households and keeping private soldiers was rampant, but when it came to real fighting strength, the Beifu Army stood first, and after it the Jingzhou army raised by the Huan clan.
There was no counting on the latter; the former still fell under the court's authority.
The Beifu Army, then...
In the old days, when the Jin court and northern elite fled south, the common folk who followed in their wake did not all get to enjoy the comforts of Jiangdong's interior. Instead, they gathered as refugees in Guangling and Jingkou.
From among them, the strong of body and the brave and battle-worthy were selected to form an army; and because Jingkou was also known as Beifu, it took the name Beifu Army.
Jingkou lay less than a hundred and fifty li from Jiankang. For troops to be brought to the rescue, the distance was exactly right.
Yet this order of mobilization was not fitting to be issued by the Wang Clan of Langya; it still had to be raised by the Emperor or the Empress Dowager to be considered legitimate.
Wang Shen'ai promptly handed one of the scrolls to Wang Xun, confirming his judgment.
"I suggested to the Empress Dowager that, against the possibility of the Heavenly Screen appearing again and bringing unexpected news, we might for the time being follow the example of Yao Xing of Later Qin: the Crown Prince does not ascend the throne yet, and the edicts go out as usual. At the same time, the Second Prince is to be appointed General-in-Chief..."
"He has never held a command. How can he serve as General-in-Chief?" Wang Xun objected, then quickly worked it out for himself.
One way or another, the Heavenly Screen had already informed all the world that Sima Dezong was an imbecile, and it was highly likely he would not get his wish to ascend the throne. On the contrary, the Second Prince Sima Dewen, thanks to that phrase about how the two brothers would each in turn become emperor, still stood a chance at the throne.
Starting out as General-in-Chief would make for the best transition.
If the Yong'an Emperor was not him, then deposing a general who knew nothing of war was far easier than deposing a Crown Prince.
"Rest assured, Uncle. The military authority remains in our hands for the time being."
She needed, urgently, a bargaining chip to secure her own life, and had no intention of laboring for another's gain.
"The Empress Dowager has only one request, and that is that I pick out a single elite unit from the Beifu Army, and that if anything stirs within the palace, they must see her and her people safely out of the palace and to a place where they can settle."
"I have already taken it upon myself to agree."
Wang Xun nodded, little ripple showing on his face, while within him a turmoil of mixed feelings rose once more.
The more outstanding Wang Shen'ai's conduct in the face of crisis, the more he worried.
With so capable a junior standing in front of them, the Wang Clan of Langya had still been brought to utter destruction. How powerful must that Yong'an Emperor be?
And yet although the images of the explanation had vanished, the Heavenly Screen still hung in the firmament, as though to remind him that a great blade was at any moment ready to fall on his head and take his life and the lives of his kin.
Wang Shen'ai's voice drew him back to the present. "The other edict is to summon Sima Yuanxian back to the capital to take his father's place."
She twitched the corners of her lips into a courteous smile. "I must trouble you again, Uncle, to make ready in advance at the palace gates. Since we are going to kill, we must root out the threat completely!"
Before she crossed over, she had grown up beneath the red flag. When had she ever imagined that one day the words "root out the threat completely" would come so smoothly to her lips?
Wang Xun knew nothing of what she was thinking; he simply could not help asking one more question. "...Who did you learn all this from?"
These were truly such venomous methods!
Wang Shen'ai's deduction proved exactly right.
When Sima Daozi's tally and the message that came with it were placed before Sima Yuanxian, the heir of the Prince of Kuaiji, only fifteen years of age, did not immediately set out at the summons. Instead he sat in brooding silence, his gaze heavy upon the tally before him.
His thumb rubbed over the pattern engraved on it, and a look of deep thought surfaced in his eyes.
Woken by his attendants in the night, he had watched the scene in the Heavenly Screen clearly, not daring to miss a single word, and had heard with perfect clarity the denunciation of Sima Daozi within it.
In circumstances like these, even though his father held the great power of the court, there was no guarantee he would not fall into danger now.
The most fitting response was to leave the precocious Sima Yuanxian outside the palace as a reserve, while also giving those within the palace reason to hesitate.
In truth, he should not have been made to enter the palace along with the rest at a time like this.
But when the Empress Dowager's edict arrived before him half a day later, he set aside all his earlier suspicions.
"Is the Heir truly to set out for the palace?" His attendants hurried along at his heels as he departed, but could not help questioning him with worry.
Sima Yuanxian swung up into the saddle, jerked the reins tight, and turned back to answer. "The Empress Dowager has always favored me over those two cousins of mine. With her own handwritten edict, I dare say matters stand rather differently than I imagined."
"My father's position may be dangerous, but the Empress Dowager is eager to protect him and can still mediate on his behalf. There is room to negotiate. I could take my father's place."
The Heavenly Screen had not denounced him yet.
He had his own confidence, and could say plainly that if he were the one to take charge of the government, it would be far better than those two brothers Sima Dezong and Sima Dewen.
If his father could no longer show his face, then let his capable son do the work.
He shouted, "Let's go!"
That single, resolute command set the course for him and his retinue.
The hurried drumming of iron hooves carried the heir of the Prince of Kuaiji into the palace at top speed.
The soldiers guarding the palace gates inspected the Empress Dowager's edict in his hand, asked no further questions, and let him through.
Sima Yuanxian swept a quick gaze over the surroundings of the palace gate and relaxed his vigilance, ever so slightly.
He found no one lying in ambush there to do him harm, nor anything in the gatekeepers' manner toward him that seemed out of the ordinary.
Good!
He rode slowly forward. He did not choose to dismount and walk, yet he had already let out a little slack on the reins, no longer holding to the manner of keeping soldiers at the front to shield his retreat at a moment's notice.
Only when his mount had passed through Yunlong Gate and gone by the Sanqi Court, with the Empress Dowager's palace before him, did Sima Yuanxian at last swing to the ground and assume the look of a dutiful grandson.
Even as he did, he saw a palace maid hurrying from the north, carrying an Empress Dowager's edict in her hands, seemingly bound for another quarter to deliver a summons. On catching sight of this party of fully armed men, her face went white; she forced herself to offer him a greeting and, without pausing, ran on.
The taut atmosphere within the palace at that moment spoke for itself.
He could not help wondering how his father was faring now.
Sima Yuanxian harbored no more suspicion. He signaled to the several generals at his side with a raised hand, and himself set off first down the palace passage.
But in the very instant he took that step, a heavy crossbow bolt suddenly hurtled toward him from far off with deadly force.
A sharp whistle.
Before he could so much as dodge, the heavy bolt had pierced him through the chest.
Sima Yuanxian's eyes went wide. He staggered back a step, and raising his eyes, saw to his horror a storm of feathered shafts crashing down without the slightest restraint, densely covering the sky before him.
It was an ambush long since prepared, lying in wait for the moment his guard was lowest.
Neither he nor any of those who had come with him stood the slightest chance of surviving such a rain of arrows!
Never had he imagined that having walked in, they would never walk out again.
That invitation from the Empress Dowager had indeed been a reassurance, but it was also a death warrant!
As Sima Yuanxian's body fell, and the bodies of his dozens of attendants fell one after another, the brickwork of the alleyway was soon soaked through with blood.
The autumn wind was strong that day, and it scattered the smell of blood throughout the palace precincts.
So much so that when Wang Shen'ai pushed open the palace doors before her, for a moment she could not tell whether the smell of blood in her nostrils had drifted in from outside the hall or lingered within the room.
She steadied her mind and looked into the hall. There, beside a pillar in one corner, a figure was bound in fetters.
Curiously, if one chose to ignore those fetters entirely, the figure leaning at its ease seemed far too comfortable, in no way like one held in confinement.
Beneath the black hair still hanging loose, that face with its beautiful brows and eyes was only somewhat pale and distracted, in harmony with the shadows of the hall, and it wore a kind of demonic beauty.
"Noble Lady Zhang."
Perhaps she had gradually recovered from the madness with which she had killed the Emperor earlier, for at that soft call Noble Lady Zhang raised the gaze that had been lowered, and a flicker of surprise crossed her dark eyes.
"Why is it you?"
She had thought that someone might come to her door while she was imprisoned here awaiting her reckoning, but she had never expected that person to be Wang Shen'ai.
She was only a favored consort, hardly a senior to the Crown Princess, and the two had had little to do with each other.
There was neither enmity nor friendship between them, and these were troubled times; the Crown Princess seemed to have no reason to come see her.
Wang Shen'ai strolled inside and seated herself on a couch more than ten paces from Noble Lady Zhang.
Seeing this, Noble Lady Zhang's fine brows knotted together. "Don't tell me you've come to laugh at me."
"No. Quite the opposite." Wang Shen'ai sighed softly. "I've come to tell you that within the next few days you should be released for a time. Because... rather than have her son smothered to death beneath the bedding by a favored consort, as the so-called Heavenly Screen and the 'history books' say, the Empress Dowager would far rather accept that her son was killed in an uprising of the imperial clan. Do you take my meaning?"
Noble Lady Zhang said nothing, but within her, Wang Shen'ai's words had raised monstrous waves.
What did she mean, that rather than by a favored consort, the Empress Dowager could better accept her son's death at the hands of treason among the imperial clan?
On her account, one could well fear that by now some member of the imperial clan, quite possibly the Prince of Kuaiji, Sima Daozi himself, had taken up the sin of regicide on her behalf.
However furious the Empress Dowager might be with her, in order to convince others, she would have to set her free for a time.
And that meant...
She had a chance to escape for good.
It was the only possibility!
A light kindled at once in Noble Lady Zhang's eyes, yet they were also filled with an unconcealable suspicion. "But I don't understand. Why would you help me?"
From the Empress Dowager's behavior that day and all Zhang knew of her, she was certain the Empress Dowager would never have changed her attitude so readily without outside intervention.
And when one considered who it was that had appeared before her today, certain things went without saying.
Noble Lady Zhang spoke in a hoarse voice. "You and I have no friendship to speak of, and I am of no use to you."
As for the things the Heavenly Screen had spoken of, her thoughts had been in such a blur that she had even missed a great deal of it, and she was far more bewildered than the Crown Princess before her.
But what she heard in reply was a strange answer.
"No. You're wrong. I'm not helping you. I simply feel that..."
Wang Shen'ai gazed fixedly at Noble Lady Zhang before her, her expression unreadable.
Noble Lady Zhang thought it must be because the room was too dark; otherwise, how could she have seen in that gaze a trace of a child's sulking and vexation?
Wang Shen'ai seemed to have subjected her to a long, searching scrutiny before she finally gave her answer. "Someone who dares kill an emperor must surely have the courage to break free of a fate already written. Wouldn't you say?"
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