How to Serve in the Army Twice — 1

Call it kindly, and Later Liang was a buffer caught between two great powers. Call it honestly, and it was a puppet kingdom Sui had left alive because it was convenient.

And yet, when Later Liang—whose position, if nothing else, had been fantastically good—was swallowed by Sui, the shock ran the length of the continent.

It was the ministers whose reactions burned the hottest.

"Liang is in our hands. Now only Chen remains."

"With Jiangling on the side that means to attack, there is no need to fear even the Yangtze."

"They say the Censor-in-Chief is assembling a fleet to strike all the way to Jiankang. At last this age of chaos can see its end."

The moment Yuwen Yong, that brilliant sovereign of Northern Zhou—the state from which Sui itself had sprung—cast down Northern Qi and unified the North, the master of all under heaven had, for every practical purpose, been decided. It would be Yuwen Yong, and Northern Zhou.

But the true master of the realm died an absurdly early death of illness, and the one who followed was a piece of trash on whom even the slur a dog whelped by a tiger would have been wasted. Northern Zhou then perished in spectacular fashion. When the sovereign is worthless, a usurper stepping forward to announce that he, too, would like to be emperor is simply the house rule of a chaotic age, is it not?

And so, while Northern Zhou was remaking itself into Sui, the glory of unifying the realm was inevitably pushed back. It could not be helped. From where the ministers sat, it was still enough to sour the stomach.

"We have no Tufa Shujineng to snare our heels, and no Lu Kang to bar the way ahead! We have only brave officers and men, who will break the Yangtze with the force of splitting bamboo!"

"The realm lies before our eyes! Take the Lord of Chen alive, and bring him to his knees before the true Emperor!"

In that same stretch of years, Sui had split the Göktürks of the north in two and disposed of the Northern Qi remnants who had been raising havoc in Liaoxi. It had gone further still, and seized Jiangling, the linchpin of the Yangtze defense. For ministers who dreamed of unification waking and sleeping—and for the military officers among them most of all—working themselves into a frenzy was simply the natural course of things. Here was their chance to go down in history as meritorious subjects who had helped unite the realm.

And amid all that uproar, what was I doing?

"What a fine aroma, my lady. Your skill seems to improve with every day that passes."

"Hehe. Does it? I am ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠glad it pleases you, my lord."

Lady Xiao and I were living the peaceful life of professional idlers.

What did it matter to me whether Sui went charging off toward the unification of the realm? If the frontier had been breached and the danger had reached Chang'an itself, that would have been another matter. This was the opposite. Sui was on the verge of hurling its armies beyond its own borders.

A royal of not yet twenty had only to keep breathing. A prince who was not even the Crown Prince, throwing himself about as if he meant to accomplish something, was madness from the start.

"This is a problem. From now on, without my lady's tea, I suspect I would simply sit here with a parched throat and never ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠stir."

"This humble wife will always be at your side, so please do not worry."

At that, both she and I broke into laughter, and the nursemaid standing beside us smiled, plainly pleased.

Good.

This peaceable air was so very good.

In truth, until not long ago I had braced myself for an awkward marriage once Later Liang fell. Somehow we had only drawn closer than before.

Is it because I farmed her favor properly all this time?

I had, admittedly, played the model husband from the day I married Lady Xiao. I gave no other woman so much as a glance. I never slighted her as a princess who was all but sold off by some minor state. I spoke with her as often as I could, and wore the awkwardness down. In a strange land, the only person she could lean on was her husband, and if that husband proved worthless, the cruelty of it would have been past bearing. I had done what I could to leave her with at least this: that her husband was a man she could trust. Even if the end of all that effort was resentment and despair over the ruin of her homeland.

"My lady."

"Yes, my lord."

"This evening I shall try brewing the tea. I cannot vouch for my skill, but it ought to be drinkable, at least."

Lady Xiao smiled, soft and bright.

What I saw there was reliance and trust, not resentment and despair. If my prediction had missed, nothing could have pleased me more. A bleak forecast is welcome to be wrong whenever it likes.

The days passed in that fashion until the year 588, and before I knew it I was twenty.

Three years had gone by since my father-in-law's death.

Not once, since I had come to inhabit this body, had I seen Dugu Qieluo smile so openly.

"To bring this mother news of such joy. As expected, the Prince of Jin is a filial son without peer."

The reason was simple. Lady Xiao was with child at last. There had been no cause left to delay, so we had tried, and succeeded at once.

Twenty: an adult even by the standards of the twenty-first century. The three-year abstinence from the marriage bed that I had promised Dugu Qieluo was at an end. And my bond with Lady Xiao remained remarkably sound, for all that Later Liang had fallen. Under those conditions, refusing to consummate would have been the problem. Lady Xiao trusted me and leaned on me. She might have been badly hurt.

"The joy I might have offered long ago, I bring before you only now, through your son's dullness and stubbornness. I am truly ashamed, and I have no face with which to look upon Your Majesty, my royal mother."

"Not at all, Prince of Jin. Your choice was made out of consideration for your wife, and to keep the proper rites toward your wife's father. Who would dare find fault with that?"

Perhaps it was only that the result had been good. Whatever the cause, Dugu Qieluo let those three years—years in which she must have burned with impatience—pass without a word of blame.

Thank heaven.

Yes. A man produces the result first, and only then does he apologize.

Put it bluntly. If I had still been keeping to that abstinence, or if no new life had been growing in Lady Xiao's belly, Dugu Qieluo would have poured out three years of suppressed fury without a pause for breath. I would have been beaten until I could not breathe at all. But I had gone and produced the result before she could vent a single spark of rage, and that rage turned, in an instant, to happiness and satisfaction.

"Princess Consort of Jin. Should the Prince of Jin ever show himself immature, come and tell me at any time. I have borne a child before you. I can help."

"Y-you do me too great an honor."

How thoroughly pleased she must have been, to look at Lady Xiao beside me with a gaze that warm. This, too, was the fruit of all the favor I had so diligently farmed, and of having kept, to the letter, a promise I myself had spoken aloud.

A man who declares three years of abstinence to honor his father-in-law's death, and gets his wife with child the moment those three years are up. In other men's eyes, I was now a mad Confucian who kept his word no matter the case, was I not? For an empress, and for a birth mother, there could be no son more commendable than this. Mmhmm.

"If only the Crown Prince would show something of the Prince of Jin's example."

I decided I had not heard the Empress's irritated mutter.

Even I had to admit that Yang Yong's conduct was... the sort one could barely defend by dragging out that old line about heroes and their weakness for beauties.

How do you manage to have a child by a concubine before you have one by your principal wife?

He knew. He knew perfectly well how much Dugu Qieluo loathed the keeping of concubines. So how had he managed to make one? She had pressed it upon Yang Jian himself: look at no woman but her, and above all get no child upon any other. Even Yang Jian, the Emperor, had nodded to the terms laid down by that extraordinary woman. And in the midst of that, a mere son had found the nerve. I had no wish to take him for a model, but he was an impressive creature, in his way.

And if I remember right, the principal wife was a match Dugu Qieluo herself arranged.

I caught myself watching her mood. Her brow had been gathering tighter and tighter; she smoothed the expression away at once.

"The Princess Consort's body must be heavy, and I have kept you far too long. Go and rest now."

"Yes, Your Majesty. I pray this day, too, passes in peace for you."

Fortunately, the look Dugu Qieluo turned on Lady Xiao and me was still soft, and still warm.

Yang Yong, you bastard. If you want an easy life as Crown Prince and an uneventful ascent to the throne, then at least while Dugu Qieluo lives, keep to one wife. Is that so difficult?

Please. Just be average.

My life as an idle royal lasts only if you are the sort of man who can ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠manage, more or less, to do the work of one.

As time went on, Lady Xiao's belly slowly rounded.

Every time I looked at her, a feeling too tangled for words came over me. Before I was crisped to cinders in that bombardment, I had not so much as married, let alone had a child. That same man had become the head of a household, and now, if he waited only a little longer, he would have a child of his own. For no good reason the tip of my nose stung, and the corners of my eyes grew hot.

"My lady. Is there nothing you would like to eat today?"

"I am quite all right. Whether it is out of worry for us, the child never fusses and demands something to eat."

She answered with a smile, one hand stroking her belly.

Our child, there inside her. The child we had taken, for the time being, to calling Teunteuni—Sturdy—in the hope that the baby would grow up healthy. Just as Lady Xiao said, the child had never once thrown a tantrum and demanded something to eat, as if fretting over the father and mother waiting outside. They say a woman with child will suddenly crave what she never sought before. Our Teunteuni had not even given Mother morning sickness. How commendable was that?

So please, just come out healthy. That is all I ask.

This father intends to live as an idle royal, and you will grow up an idler with nothing in the world to envy. You will have no need of talent fit to astonish the age. You need only be healthy.

That was why, at first, I had meant to call the child not Teunteuni but Jiankang—Health. Of all the luck, Jiankang was the name of Chen's capital down ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠in the south. It would have been like giving an unborn child the nickname Pyongyang, or Beijing. I swallowed the urge and settled for Teunteuni.

And the sex does not matter either.

Naturally, I was not fretting over whether the child was a boy or a girl. As I remembered it, the first child of the original Yang Guang had been a son, but that child was born in 584. History had already bent off its course. There was no guarantee that the first child would be a boy this time, either. Wondering which it would be was a considerable pleasure in itself. I hoped the day of the birth would come soon.

Or so I had thought, a few days ago.

Huh?

Huh...?

In the space of a few days, I had been swept into something enormous.

Why me.

Yang Jian's bombshell left my head swimming.

Of course, the Yang Guang of actual history had taken part in the Conquest of Chen. That was because that Yang Guang had been a man of some attainment in both civil and military arts, and a man with ambition. Yang Jian had had reason to take notice of him and commit him to a war. But the me of the present had flaunted nothing, neither letters nor arms. I had lived as nothing more than a Confucian zealot, harmless to man and beast. Why had that man been made a Campaign Marshal?

And not merely a Campaign Marshal—saddled with the insane central charge of attacking the enemy capital itself.

No. This will not do.

Setting that aside—a war? Lady Xiao was soon to give birth.

If I joined the campaign, I would not be able to stay at her side when the child came...!