One Victory
The melody of the Bai Family Army Song was simple yet majestic. The moment the singing swelled through the hall, it filled the heart to overflowing, raising gooseflesh from head to toe. Strength surged from the soles of the feet up through the chest, the blood boiled hot, and tears welled unbidden. It stirred even the urge to take up a long spear and defend these mountains, these rivers, and the people who lived under them.
Fanjuelou, which had been roaring with song and dance only moments before, fell silent as if someone had dashed water over it. The impassioned voices of the noble dandies upstairs rang through the building and turned the whole atmosphere grave. To listen to that song was to feel oneself become a hero — to feel power rise up in the blood.
Even after the singing and the instruments fell still, the echo lingered long, and a profound quiet settled over Fanjuelou.
"Hahaha……"
And then, a sneer utterly at odds with that solemn mood rolled out from somewhere in the hall.
"Now they're singing about the Bai Family Army! What Bai Family Army song, of all things! This is no time to be hymning the Bai Army — you ought to be remembering how the Bai family's eldest daughter slaughtered a hundred thousand surrendered soldiers of Xiliang! She's turned our Jin into a beast of a nation that every state in the realm fears!"
A disheveled man shoved aside the beauty he'd been clutching to his chest and rose to his feet. Then, through wine-hazed eyes, he swept his gaze over the guests and courtesans whose eyes still glistened with hot tears.
"There was an old saying — the cruelest heart of all is a woman's — and not one word of it was wrong! A full hundred thousand! A hundred thousand souls means a hundred thousand families! They had parents, they had children! And that woman wiped them out to the last man without so much as a blink! Mark me — when the next war comes, no one will spare a single Jin prisoner of war! Because she lit the fires at Yongshan, calamity will fall upon every man in this country willing to throw down his life to defend it! And here you all are, raising toasts!"
"Well said, sir!"
A man of Wei, still leaning in a beauty's embrace, laughed and clapped along.
"Jin's name for butchering prisoners echoes through every court in the realm! When the next war comes, the slaughter of Jin's surrendered soldiers will be treated as nothing more than common sense!"
Caressing the slender fingers of the frail beauty beside him, the man of Wei went on in a low chuckle.
"No need to glare at me so! Wei and Jin are far apart — we've never once gone to war. I merely spoke the truth. That's all there is to it, no? No country feeds grain to men who simply sit idle. They surely didn't want to go on feeding those surrendered soldiers! Kill them all, and how convenient! Am I wrong?"
Jin's position was an awkward one. It shared borders with every state in the realm save Wei.
And so, had any other nation's man said such things, he would have been beaten where he stood — but coming from a man of Wei, who bordered Jin not at all and had never once fought her, the words landed with a strange ring of plausibility.
The people of Jin, whose blood had been boiling only moments ago, were forced to calm their hearts and sink into troubled thought. At length, someone spoke up.
"We have the Little White Marshal of the Bai Army. Even if war comes, we can never be beaten."
"Even if the Bai family's eldest daughter carries on the undefeated legend of the Duke of Zhenguo, the Little White Marshal is but one person, is she not? Jin has the Rong-Di barbarians to the east, Great Yan to the west, Xiliang to the south, and the state of Yang to the north. What happens if all four start a war at once? Does the Bai family's eldest daughter know some sorcery of splitting herself into many?"
The man of Wei narrowed his eyes, took a slow pull at his wine, and continued.
"A pity, truly! If the Zhenguo King and the men of the Bai family were still alive, Jin would have had nothing to fear even if all four nations rose against her at once. But was it not King Xin — now fallen to commoner — who drove the Zhenguo King and those men to their deaths?"
Perhaps he was deep in his cups, for the man of Wei went on laughing, his gaze swimming.
"And so I say, whether Jin's slaughter of a hundred thousand surrendered soldiers to win Xiliang turns out to be a blessing or a curse, who can say? Blessing or no, it puts me in a fine mood. Wei borders Xiliang and has suffered nothing but her raids and sieges — but with Xiliang's elite troops all dead, I doubt they'll be coming to plunder Wei for a long while yet."
"If Bai Jingyan killed a hundred thousand Xiliang prisoners, then one day the other nations may kill a hundred thousand of ours — two hundred thousand, three hundred, four hundred…… even more!"
The man whose robes had been in disarray for some time now looked around at his wine-soaked companions and said with a grin.
"And yet here you all are, enjoying yourselves. Do you think the Bai Family Army so magnificent? Are you raising toasts for the great Jin host that will one day be slaughtered?"
Lu Yuanfeng, well into his cups, had been listening to the exchange between the Jin man and the Wei man downstairs for some time, and his fury had finally boiled past all restraint. He hurled aside the wine cup in his hand, led his companions down for a single glance at the lower floor, and began rolling up his sleeves.
"Did the hundred thousand soldiers of Xiliang have no children of their own? Those children will grow up seeking vengeance, will they not? And how many sons of Great Jin will lose their fathers then? How many old men will lose their……"
"You wretched little bastard!"
Lu Yuanfeng was the first down the stairs, and he drove his foot into the Jin man who had been holding forth. The man toppled to the floor, and Lu Yuanfeng pressed his heel down on his chest.
Sima Ping seized the Wei man by the scruff of the neck, hauled him out of the courtesan's arms, and began swinging his fists.
Screams rang out from every corner of Fanjuelou, which only moments before had been ringing with song.
Lu Yuanfeng had heard something from his grandfather. A portion of the court, the Left Prime Minister included, was committing deeds unworthy of human beings, and they had submitted a memorial to the Emperor demanding that Bai Jingyan be punished. Killing surrendered soldiers was a cruel act indeed, they said, and when war came again, the enemy states would slaughter every one of Jin's prisoners in turn. They were worrying over things that had not yet come to pass.
"Caught red-handed, haven't you! I can't stand the likes of you. Good for nothing at anything that matters, but trailing after the noble dandies day in and day out, drowning in wine and women. And so cowardly, too — men without the guts to march to war themselves, doing nothing but tearing down the ones who came back victorious. Do this, don't do that, wrong if you do, wrong if you don't……
If you're so great, then you go! You and that coward Li Mu both — put either of you on a battlefield and you'd piss yourselves in terror, that much is certain! What's that? What about the killed prisoners, this and that? Then take fifty thousand men and go fight an army of a hundred thousand yourself!"
Lu Yuanfeng drove his foot hard into the chest of the half-stripped man beneath him.
"Leave the prisoners alive and go fight them yourself, then!"
The man under his heel coughed up a mouthful of blood on the spot. Sima Ping, wild-eyed, hammered away at the Wei man until, half-drunk as he was, the man was flung across the room. He struck a folding screen and collapsed.
"What was that — kill our men of Jin? Dishing out judgment before the wars of tomorrow have even begun! If dying frightens you all so much, then crawl back to Wei!"
The courtesans of Fanjuelou darted this way and that, shrieking for fear of being hurt in the fray, while the fainter-hearted guests bolted for the doors.
The house's head keeper and Fanjuelou's staff crowded the entrance, blocking guests who tried to slip out in the chaos without paying. The madam stamped her feet atop the stage, flapping her handkerchief and wailing.
"Stop it! Stop fighting! Oh, my lords, I beg you — enough! Stop before you smash the whole place!"
Fanjuelou was in an uproar that day. The most infamous noble dandies of the capital smashed the establishment from corner to corner, and it nearly cost someone their life. The Patrol Division eventually arrived and brought the situation under control — but by then, no one could have stopped them anyway.
Fan Yuheng, Commander of the Patrol Division, had stormed over to Fanjuelou in high dudgeon — only to learn that every last brawler belonged to one of the capital's powerful families, and his head began to ache.
After conferring with his subordinates, Fan Yuheng had no choice but to dispatch men to each of the households to come collect their precious "young lords."
By breakfast the next morning, the previous night's doings at Fanjuelou had become the talk of every breakfast table, and Chun Xing's mouth itched to share it until she told Bai Jingyan everything.
Bai Jingyan wiped her mouth with a handkerchief, slowly rinsed her mouth, and asked.
"What did they fight over?"
"Young Master Lu's party was singing the Bai Family Army Song at Fanjuelou, they say. Then someone brought up the matter of the prisoners killed at Yongshan, and it came to blows with his party."
Chun Xing spoke in a low, hushed voice, her tone tinged with affection for Lu Yuanfeng and the other noble dandies. Her view of them had changed.
The dandies of the great houses were men whose sole occupation was idleness and pleasure. They were always roving the streets in a raucous pack — yet last night, they had fought to stand up for the Bai family's eldest daughter.
"Before I came in, were many people in the capital talking about this?"
Bai Jingyan asked, already strapping on her weighted sandbags.
Chun Tao knelt and fastened a sandbag around one of Bai Jingyan's legs.
"People were speaking of it even before you returned to the capital, but it wasn't nearly so loud then. Most of the people cared far more about the fact that you had won."
Chun Xing, kneeling at the other side and binding the sandbag around Bai Jingyan's remaining leg, looked up and said with a smile.
"They say Young Master Lu's father marched straight into Fanjuelou, dragged his son out by the ear, and hauled him home."
Bai Jingyan laughed, rolled up her sleeve, and turned to Chun Xing.
"Chun Xing, stop by Nanny Dong's on your way and get a jar of zongzi candy — the sweet rice-dumpling kind — take it over to Jinbu, and give it to Yin Shuang. Tell her not to eat too many at once. They'll rot her teeth."
Chun Xing rose, answered that she would, and left the room.
Once she was gone, Bai Jingyan spoke to Chun Tao.
"In a little while, send people to Pingshu. Have them find out what rumors are circulating outside. And have them look into the Jin man and the Wei man who tangled with Lu Yuanfeng's party."
Chun Tao bowed her head.
"Yes, my lady."
While Bai Jingyan was still adjusting her clothing, Nanny Dong came in and paid her respects.
"Eldest Miss, Nanny Zhang is here. She says she has already paid her respects to the Madam, and wishes to see you."
Bai Jingyan, standing before the bronze mirror, was silent for a moment before she answered.
"Show her in."
Bai Jingyan sat down on the window-side couch. She could hear Nanny Zhang asking Nanny Dong after her health. The voice drew steadily closer. Bai Jingyan lowered her head and fiddled with her sleeve again. A tangle of feeling rose in her chest.
Her grandmother, hearing that she had returned to the capital, must have sent Nanny Zhang.
In truth, she should have stopped by the imperial palace yesterday to pay her respects to her grandmother. And, properly speaking, she should also have told her grandmother the news that her seventh and ninth younger brothers were still alive.
But there was one fact she could not forget — that her grandmother was, first and foremost, the Grand Princess of the Great Jin royal house, and only afterward their grandmother.
Of seventeen brothers, only two had survived. She could not very well test the limits of her grandmother's mercy against the safety of those two lives.