The Return (5)
The punishments of the magnates proceeded without a hitch.
In an age like this, any imperial household came with professional torturers included as standard equipment, so there was little need to worry about the process hitting a snag midway through.
This particular round of execution by boiling had been settled as a boiling rather than a frying, and the reason was simple.
Oil was expensive.
How exactly was one supposed to produce oil in the old days? It naturally took far more hands-on labor than in modern times, and the quality that came of it was relatively poor. And the more labor something demanded, the higher its price climbed.
Filling an enormous cauldron to the brim with oil for the sake of killing a single man was waste, nothing more and nothing less. ...Though the very idea of dropping a person into a boiling pot and turning him into human stew was bizarre to begin with.
And then there was the castration...
To put it in plainer terms, it was the punishment of slicing off a man's stones and making a eunuch of him.
Ordinarily, a man sentenced to castration was spared his life as a matter of principle — but no such mercy existed under my watch.
When one thinks of Chinese punishments, the first that comes to mind is lingchi — death by a thousand cuts — standing alongside the boiling that cooks a man alive and the chariot dismemberment that tears him limb from limb. But lingchi only emerged in the days of the Liao dynasty, so it did not yet exist in this day and age.
The Liao dynasty — the one that would someday squabble with Balhae and Goryeo — was still a long, long way off. Lingchi was reckoned the most excruciating punishment ever devised, and even the boiling and the dismemberment were said to rival it. From the condemned men's point of view, I supposed that counted as a mercy.
Off in the distance, a burly man charged with carrying out the castration was dragging the condemned away toward somewhere or other. Ordinarily, punishments were carried out in public, but the people around here had been far too worked up about it.
What was it they had said, exactly? Something along the lines of, who in their right mind wants to watch that fellow's nether regions?
And so the castration — the punishment that would make a eunuch of him — was decided to be carried out somewhere quiet and out of sight. The audience, too, was restricted to a tiny handful of spectators of the same sex.
The condemned man was about to bid farewell to another self that had been with him from the day he was born, but I didn't feel particularly sorry for him.
The only woman among the magnates I had taken alive was sentenced to death by dismemberment. That one had not been my choice — her case felt somehow ambiguous to me, so I left the decision to Her Majesty the Emperor. Smiling, she chose it without a moment's hesitation.
"One of them has already been boiled, so should not the other rightfully be torn asunder?"
"..."
So she meant to execute them one of each kind, then.
Not a single person around me raised any objection to these cruel sentences.
"The attempted assassination of the Grand General was treason, plain and simple."
Zhuge Liang, the White Feather Fan raised to veil her mouth, spoke in a tone that treated the matter as self-evident.
"If you ask me, even this is going easy on them."
Sima Yi remarked, her face set in that brusque expression I'd be sorry to see gone.
But if even this fell short of her standards, what on earth did she want? Would she only be satisfied once I opened an actual butcher's shop?
It went without saying that a scene of traitors being executed was far too gruesome for young children to watch. I began forcibly shooing away the little ones who tried to stay rooted to the spot.
"Right. Time for you all to head back now."
"W-wait just a moment! I'm practically all grown up already!"
Yeah. No.
Sima Yi, having watched me do this, voiced her objection — but it never stood a chance.
Sima Yi had been born in 179, so she would be roughly thirteen years old by now, wouldn't she? In this era, fifteen marked the age of adulthood, so there was nothing factually wrong with her argument — but by my standards, she was out.
"Uuuugh..."
No matter how resentfully she glared, what couldn't be couldn't be. Sima Yi must have realized I had no intention of bending, because she whipped around on her heel.
"Fine! It's not as if I wanted to watch anyway!"
"Is that so?"
I humored her childish sulking and gave her a grin.
"Hmph!"
Having confirmed the look on my face, Sima Yi stomped away, her footsteps thudding like drumbeats of fury. She might carry on like this now, but come tomorrow she would reappear, brusque as ever, as though none of it had happened.
"..."
"..."
I turned my gaze to Zhuge Liang, who — a mere year or two Sima Yi's junior — was also regarding me with a smile far too composed for a child her age.
True to form, Zhuge Liang caught my meaning at once and spoke.
"Then, with your leave, I too shall withdraw."
"Very well."
Addressing me with impeccable courtesy, Zhuge Liang bowed and excused herself with a quiet grace that stood in perfect contrast to Sima Yi.
Having swept our faction's little ones from their seats, I returned to my place at the Emperor's side.
"Is your business concluded?"
"It is, Your Majesty."
At my answer, the Emperor gave the faintest of nods.
"Then carry out the sentence."
"Yes, Your Majesty!"
The soldiers standing nearby kindled a fire beneath the enormous cauldron. Thanks to their efforts — sweat pouring down their faces — it was not long before the water-filled cauldron came to a rolling boil, and the magnate, who until that moment had worn the calm face of a man who had surrendered everything, went deathly pale the instant the bubbling pot loomed before his eyes.
Facing him, the Emperor spoke with perfect composure.
"What seems to be the matter? Has your courage deserted you?"
"Th-that is..."
"If you cannot enter of your own accord, then I suppose we must lend you a hand."
Scarcely had the words left her mouth before the soldiers behind him stepped forward in crisp unison.
Poking and prodding at the magnate's body with long poles, they pressed him forward.
"U-uhh?!"
Offering no resistance whatsoever, the man was driven back one step at a time — until at last his foot slipped from the platform.
As for what came after... there was no need to describe it in detail.
I turned my eyes away from the sight of human broth simmering in real time. The Emperor watched the condemned man wail with utter placidity — a face so devoid of feeling that it sent a faint chill down my spine. Seo Yeo and Lü Bu were no different, and the likes of Jia Xu and Zhang Liao wore the very same look.
...Am I the strange one here?
Seized by the doubt, I glanced this way and that as discreetly as I could, and before long my wandering gaze found others who, like me, were there to observe the execution.
"Ugh..."
"...How brutal."
The spectators who had no stake in any of this each watched the boiling unfold in their own way. They shared one thing in common: every last one of them showed an instinctive revulsion at the gruesome sight. Seeing that, I felt a flicker of relief.
So I wasn't the strange one after all, was I? Staring dead-on at that nightmarish scene — that was the strange part, surely.
Just then, screams rang out from somewhere a short distance away. Judging by the direction, the castration had presumably just been carried out.
Was the man who had suffered it scheduled to be disposed of by dismemberment afterward?
In that case, it wouldn't be a dismemberment into five parts — it would be six.
...Now that thought went a step too far, didn't it.
Having entertained a notion that would never come to pass, I kept glancing around, only half-watching the condemned man as he went on wailing.
Nearby waited the prisoner whose own dismemberment had already been scheduled. Unable to endure the fear closing in around him, he finally crumpled to the ground as his legs gave out beneath him.
I understood. I would have done the same.
Once the execution ceremony for the magnates had concluded, the Emperor turned at last to honoring my achievements in earnest.
"Governor Liu Biao of Jing Province never went so far as to style himself the Son of Heaven — but judging by all he has done until now, had the opportunity presented itself, he was a man who would assuredly have done so, and more."
"..."
"An arch-traitor, prepared to defy the imperial throne itself in pursuit of his ambition, had been squatting brazenly in the backyard right beside Sili Province."
Liu Biao did indeed carry the blood of the imperial house in his veins, but a distant clansman was all he was; he possessed none of the legitimacy required to depose the reigning Emperor and mount the throne in her place.
The high ministers loyal to the crown could not help lamenting how far the authority of the imperial house had sunk.
"And so I commanded the Grand General to subjugate Jing Province — and the Grand General, accepting my command, restored that vast province to me in a matter of mere days."
The Emperor, continuing in her usual measured tone, turned her gaze upon me.
"Grand General."
"You called, Your Majesty."
I bowed before her with all due courtesy.
With every eye in the hall fixed upon us, the Emperor spoke.
"I believe that with your talents, it will not be long before you bring this realm to stability."
"I, Jeong Reung, shall spare no effort in repaying the trust of Her Majesty the Emperor."
Neither too short an answer, nor too long a one.
"Ah — and there is a matter I have lately been meaning to pursue."
"...?"
At the Emperor's sudden declaration, puzzlement spread across every face present.
As though she had anticipated exactly this, the Emperor continued without missing a beat.
"I will not reveal it just yet. But should there be any who would oppose it, I shall not stand in their way."
Having said that much, the Emperor smiled sweetly.
"Only — whoever opposes it will answer for it in full."
"..."
The ministers had already been scrambling to keep their heads down ever since witnessing the boiling and the dismemberment carried out before their eyes — and with the Emperor coming out like this, how else could anyone possibly behave?
"We shall bear it in mind!"
There was no other answer to give.
As the ministers cried out in unison, the Emperor nodded in satisfaction.
The magnates had offered up their very bodies — quite literally — in service of strengthening the crown's authority.
In truth, were they not loyal ministers rather than traitors?