Rendering Full Loyalty
"Prefect, I thank you for your care and attention. And Master Ju, you have labored hard as well."
Even a carrot had to be tossed at just the right moment.
"If His Highness the Crown Prince should ask, I will report the truth exactly as it happened."
"Your subject Ha Guan has done many wrong things in his time. As the administrator of Suyang's people, I feel nothing but shame that I could not step forward on their behalf! To aid my sovereign and lend my strength for the people's sake is a joy — how could I ever call it toil! Commandery Princess, when you have need of me, call upon Ha Guan at any hour. I will render my loyalty to the last."
Prefect Ju answered thus.
"Then from the tenth day of the fifth month, we shall begin training the troops in earnest. Once their training is complete, we will crush the bandits without delay."
Bai Jingyan lifted her teacup and continued.
"Gentlemen, I leave it in your hands. And my thanks to the clan head as well."
Prefect Ju's eyes rolled for a heartbeat, and then he immediately dragged his two sons forward.
"Commandery Princess, these two are Ha Guan's sons by his lawful wife. I beg your leave to send them to the Bai clan head, that they may lend their strength. Whether they are set to training soldiers or raised as ordinary common troops, any post will do. I ask only that you, Commandery Princess, grant my two sons the chance to gain good experience."
Bai Jingyan looked over Prefect Ju's two young sons and gave a nod. Then she turned her gaze to Bai Jingping.
"Master Ju's two sons seem close to your age. It would do you all good to work together."
At those words, a light kindled in Prefect Ju's eyes.
Bai Jingping rose, bowed his head in acknowledgment, and greeted Prefect Ju's two sons with a proper formal salute.
The two boys hurried to return it.
Watching Prefect Ju, the Prefect smiled to himself. Opportunists who wedged themselves in at every opening like this one — in a court as rotten to the core as Jin's, inside and out — such men would get everything they wanted.
Just as Prefect Ju was offering his thanks to Bai Jingyan, Nuo Ping strode hurriedly into the great hall. He circled past the ebony pillars draped with curtains on either side of the chamber, drew close to Bai Jingyan's side, covered his mouth with one hand, and spoke in a low voice.
"Eldest Miss, news from Miss Shen. Liang launched a night assault on Jin's camp. War has broken out."
The teacup in Bai Jingyan's hand froze midair. She lifted her head and looked at Nuo Ping.
"Is there any word on how General Zhang Danyue responded?"
Bai Jingyan, too, asked in a lowered voice.
"Apart from General Zhang having fallen back some ten li, there is no other intelligence yet."
Nuo Ping answered.
Bai Jingyan gave a nod. When she turned her head, she found every person in the hall staring at her. Seated as she was, she straightened her spine and spoke with unhurried ease.
"Everyone, I have word passed on by His Highness the Crown Prince — Liang and our Jin have opened hostilities at Mount Chunmu."
At that, the Bai clan members exchanged uneasy murmurs.
The Prefect and Prefect Ju, however, were busy gauging just how significant a figure Bai Jingyan must be to the Crown Prince. Even if there were no romance between man and woman, it was plain that she was someone the Crown Prince trusted and leaned upon deeply. All the more reason, they thought, to serve the Zhenguo Commandery Princess with utmost devotion.
"The war in the Southern Border has only just ended, and now fighting has flared in the north. The court has no strength to spare for crushing the bandits of Suyang. The bandit hordes will only grow bolder from here, so I ask you to attend all the more closely to the training of our troops. This work is for the people, and it roots out a threat to the state — we must give it our utmost."
"We will give our utmost!"
Prefect Ju was the first to answer.
The Bai clan members one and all shouted the same.
Once the banquet had ended, the household scholar-official saw the Prefect, Master Ju, and the Bai clan kin off in Bai Jingyan's stead.
Bai Jingyan sat in the pavilion by the window of Bayun Courtyard and read the letter Shen Qingzhu had sent in careful detail. It matched what Nuo Ping had told her, and set down the matter in far greater depth. Shen Qingzhu wrote that she had already dispersed the people.
Bai Jinchi read the letter at her sister's side, then frowned and asked,
"Sister, can General Zhang Danyue truly win this war?"
Bai Jingyan did not answer. After a long while, she lifted the cover of the rattan oil lamp and set the letter in her hand alight. A faint blue flame swallowed the paper, and the sparks that leapt from it faded into the air. Watching the letter burn down to ash, Bai Jingyan spoke slowly.
"He cannot win."
General Zhang Danyue was a commander of outstanding ability, but he had too many things to weigh, and that caution would have made him timid. Jin had lost a great many soldiers in the Southern Border. In this war against Liang, General Zhang would be unable to commit his full strength, so reluctant would he be to spend his men.
Xun Tianzhang, the grand marshal of Liang, wielded his soldiers with savage ruthlessness. However many common troops were sacrificed, it never troubled him — he was a man who fought for victory alone.
Where there is no ground left to retreat to, it is the man who does not fear death who wins.
The more General Zhang Danyue deliberated, the less able he would be to defeat Xun Tianzhang.
Hearing this, Bai Jinchi felt a weight in her chest. She knew that only if General Zhang Danyue met defeat would the Emperor send her eldest sister to war — and yet she did not want him to lose.
After the bonds of blood, the ties that could never be severed were those forged by those who had faced life and death together.
Bai Jinchi had fought shoulder to shoulder with General Zhang Danyue in the bloody campaigns of the Southern Border, and the bond between them was thick and unbreakable.
"If Eldest Sister takes the field, can we win?"
Bai Jinchi humbly asked to be taught.
"Xun Tianzhang is a man who values the lives of common soldiers no more than ants'. Sending them to Mount Chunmu proved as much. He knew full well they would die — and felt not a shred of guilt over it. If he can confirm his own guesses with the lives of his men, he counts it not a loss but pure gain."
Bai Jingyan tapped her fingers against the table in an uneven rhythm.
"Since Xun Tianzhang cares nothing for sacrificed soldiers, the only way to victory is to split the Liang forces into small handfuls and kill them piece by piece. There is a saying — to devour like a silkworm, gnawing away leaf by leaf. This, then, one might call slaughter by silkworm."
Bai Jinchi grew anxious and pressed on.
"Sister, why not send word to General Zhang Danyue right away? Shouldn't we tell him how he must fight Xun Tianzhang?"
Bai Jingyan gazed a moment at the candlelight, its flame left uncovered, then nodded.
"That is the plan."
If General Zhang Danyue could win his war against Liang, Bai Jingyan would not need to go to Mount Chunmu at all.
And then she could train her soldiers in Suyang with an easy heart.
"If that is your will, Sister, then I will go to Mount Chunmu myself and tell General Zhang Danyue in person."
Bai Jinchi said, clearly excited.
But Bai Jingyan shook her head at her.
"The moment you leave Suyang, someone will carry word of it to the imperial family in Dadu. The Emperor and the Crown Prince will believe I sent you to Mount Chunmu, and their suspicion will fall upon the whole Bai clan. That would delay the training of the troops — and worse, it would hinder the great design."
Bai Jinchi nodded and sat back down in meek obedience.
Bai Jingyan instructed Nuo Ping to send a trustworthy person to Mount Chunmu — one who would meet General Zhang Danyue, teach him how to defeat Xun Tianzhang, and remain there to watch the tide of battle. And should victory prove beyond reach, that person was to help Shen Qingzhu disperse the people.
Bai Jingyan had been far from alarmed when the news of war reached her, but in the imperial palace at Dadu, the Emperor's head ached terribly. Never had he imagined that Liang would dare strike at Jin on so bold a scale.
"Cowardly dogs! Despicable wretches, the lot of them!"
Blazing with fury, the Emperor hurled his teacup to the floor.
The palace maids in the great hall, terrified that sparks of his rage would land upon them, dropped to their knees in a rush and trembled so violently they dared not even breathe deeply. One careless move, and they might well lose their heads.
The Crown Prince, having received the news, hurried into the palace. Hearing the Emperor's roaring, he did not dare enter, and stood hesitating at the threshold.
A eunuch sidled cautiously up to Gao Demu and reported the Crown Prince's arrival, and Gao Demu hurried out on quick little steps to meet him.
"Your Highness, please go in at once!"
The Crown Prince showed not the slightest intention of moving, and only looked at Gao Demu.
"Is Father Emperor... very angry?"
"Indeed he is! Before the war dispatch even arrived, memorials came pouring in one after another — from the newly appointed Prefect of Yanwo, and from Li Mingshu, son of the Left Chancellor. Prince Liang failed utterly to manage the disaster, and the people have risen in armed militias; he sits waiting for the palace to send someone to suppress the uprising!
His Majesty was already in a fury when, hardly any time later, word arrived that Liang and Jin had gone to war. His Majesty has been raging like a storm ever since."
The Crown Prince gave his fingers a small, idle flex. The thought that the man he had sent had handled things so thoroughly put him in high spirits.
Militias rising in Yanwo, and war breaking out at Mount Chunmu besides — with two such troubles striking at once, the Emperor would surely visit a far heavier punishment upon the Liang King.
Gao Demu studied the Crown Prince's face. His Highness looked, if anything, calmer than he had moments before, and a faint flush had risen to his cheeks. Seeing it, Gao Demu pressed urgently,
"Your Highness, if some good plan has come to you, then for heaven's sake tell His Majesty at once. His Majesty's headaches have flared up again, and still his rage will not subside. Something truly terrible will happen at this rate."
The Crown Prince cleared his throat.
"Gonggong, do not be hasty. Let me think a little longer, that the matter may be resolved without mishap."
The Crown Prince's mind turned swiftly. War had broken out between Liang and Jin, and militias had risen in Yanwo. Jin was short of soldiers.
And Bai Jingyan came to mind. If a fierce battle was to be fought at Mount Chunmu against Liang, only someone of Bai Jingyan's caliber could snatch victory from so small a force.
Yanwo... the Liang King had ruined it. He ought to have been the one to set it right — but whatever the outcome, Father could never lay that failure at his door. Call it an uprising in Yanwo if you liked; it was all the doing of lowborn commoners. Settling a popular revolt would be far easier than facing Liang's elite soldiers.
Having settled his thoughts, the Crown Prince followed Gao Demu into the great hall and paid his respects to the Emperor.
"Your son greets Father Emperor."
"You recommended a truly remarkable fellow!"
The Emperor flung a memorial down before the Crown Prince, then pressed a hand to his forehead and paced about in anxious, restless circles.
The Crown Prince started, shuddered, and bowed low at once.
"Father, be not angry. Your son never dreamed Prince Liang would let matters come to this. Since the man your son recommended failed in his charge... your son will step forward and set it right in his place. Father, I beg your leave to personally lead troops to Yanwo and calm the uprising."
Watching the Crown Prince bow with such dutiful reverence, the Emperor narrowed his eyes. His son, striving to help his younger brother, looked terribly pure and kind-hearted.
"Neither the war with Liang nor the uprising in Yanwo can be delayed. Relocating the soldiers garrisoned on the frontier will take time, and if you march off with the capital's garrison, Dadu will be left hollow to its bones."
The Crown Prince sprang to his feet to answer.
"Then your son recommends the Zhenguo Commandery Princess to Father Emperor. She is the rightful eldest granddaughter of the Zhenguo King — a master of winning wars with only a handful of men. Send an imperial edict swiftly to Suyang, commanding the Commandery Princess to go to Mount Chunmu and take over the grand marshal's post. If the Commandery Princess holds that line, Liang will not dare move recklessly."
The Emperor clenched his teeth. The headache struck again. Covering his brow with his palm, he circled around the table, sank into his dragon robes, and gave the matter long, hard thought.
It was not that he had never considered sending Bai Jingyan. But the Emperor feared that she would become a second Bai Weiting. She was a woman, yes — and yet he could not set his mind at ease for all that.
And with good reason: Bai Jingyan was bolder in temperament than the Zhenguo King had ever been, and seemed the sort to commit even more ruthless acts. The smallest motion of her hand had shaken the world, and she never gave up on anything she wanted, not until she had it in her grasp.
Above all, he feared that amid the chaos of the Yanwo uprising, she might lead her soldiers to Mount Chunmu and raise the banner of rebellion.
The Zhenguo King Bai Weiting had sworn his oath before the Emperor's very face, and still the Emperor had never fully trusted him. How, then, could he do anything but fear Bai Jingyan — more unbridled than Bai Weiting had ever been?