Killing King Xin
Bai Jingyan turned her head, and with bloodshot eyes as deep as an abyss, she looked at the Grand Princess. Her voice had grown noticeably lighter.
"Grandmother, are you trying to stop me?"
The Grand Princess saw her eldest granddaughter—whom she had raised with her own hands—looking at her with nothing but disappointment and wariness, and her third granddaughter standing rigid, on the verge of an explosion of fury. For a long moment, the words that had climbed to her throat could not be spoken.
Having weathered the storms of a long life, the Grand Princess radiated dignity even standing still. That solemn majesty had only deepened with the years. Though her appearance had grown somewhat haggard, the hair swept neatly behind her ears showed not a single stray strand, and her back remained as straight as ever.
Her eyes were red-rimmed from weeping too much. Clutching her walnut cane tightly and supported by Nanny Zhang, the Grand Princess walked toward Bai Jingyan. Then, meeting her granddaughter's gaze, she spoke. It was the same voice that had always been so gentle—but now it was steeped in iron.
"How could I let my granddaughter lead the charge when it is the Bai family's vengeance to be won? I am the wife of the Duke of Zhenguo, of the Zhenguo Estate! This old body of mine is not yet dead! He was my husband. My son, my grandsons! Even if I must throw this body away, I will see justice done for my family—by any means necessary!"
It was not what Bai Jingyan had expected to hear. And yet it was only what she should have expected all along.
Her eyes reddened, and her heart slowly began to thaw. She had lost her father and her brothers—but the one who had suffered most was not her. It was her grandmother, the Grand Princess. In a single morning, her husband, her son, and her grandsons had all been buried in the Southern Border. And the one who had committed that atrocity was, of all people, kin from the Grand Princess's own family.
It is said that life holds three great sorrows: losing a father in childhood, losing a husband in middle age, and losing a son in one's old age.
Perhaps they were all pitiful souls, each carrying the same grief.
Bai Jingyan stepped forward and, taking the Grand Princess's arm, her voice choked with tears.
"Grandmother... I will go with you."
The Grand Princess gripped Bai Jingyan's hand tightly and turned her head. Her grave, solemn gaze swept briefly across several of her daughters-in-law. Then she spoke with a calm, steady look in her eyes.
"Eldest daughter-in-law, I leave the estate to you, to the second and third daughters-in-law. Look after the fourth and fifth well. Keep the Bai family safe."
Lady Dong barely held back the sorrow threatening to spill from her aching chest. She bowed deeply in the direction where the Grand Princess stood, then spoke.
"Mother, do not worry. We will guard the estate—nothing will go wrong!"
The Grand Princess, the Emperor's own paternal aunt, strode forward with her granddaughter at her side, and the commoners followed behind them. They walked all the way to the palace gates.
"Let's go! We're going too! We'll submit a petition to the throne alongside Her Highness the Grand Princess! Let us demand justice for our heroes!"
"Let's go! All of us, together!"
The commoners, too, were burning with grief and indignation.
The Grand Princess went forward, one hand resting on her black cane, the other clasping Bai Jingyan's. Her steps were firm, and her voice still rang out like the tolling of a great bell.
"Ah-Yan, moving to have King Xin killed under pressure was too rash on your part. You were too impatient! You are, at this moment, threatening His Majesty—demanding he kill his only legitimate son. Do you not understand that even if you slay King Xin through public outcry and the people's fury, that same blade could yet pierce your own heart? In the end, you did not trust this old grandmother. Did you?"
Bai Jingyan looked down at that hand—withered like an old tree's bark, trembling without cease—and gripped her grandmother's hand all the tighter.
"Over a hundred commoners are walking through the capital with us right now. The bamboo slips bearing the campaign records have already been laid bare before the people. If the Emperor of Great Jin truly does not fear losing the mouths and hearts of his people, then let him strike off this head and be done with it! I fought for this dynasty. I was grievously wounded in the war and left unable to bear children. My grandfather, my father, my uncles and brothers—all of them died in the Southern Border. I laid this trap in the belief that the Emperor would not dare kill me while all the people looked on. If, as a woman of the Bai family, I did not even have the courage and resolve to stake my own life, then I would have no right to speak of vengeance at all."
The Grand Princess stopped walking. She closed her eyes for a brief moment, then opened them and resumed her steps as she went on. Her voice trembled, ever so slightly.
"Ah-Yan, why do you still not understand that the living matter most? This old woman... I cannot afford to lose a single one of you ever again."
The Grand Princess's voice was steeped in the ruthlessness of passing years. Between the deep furrows carved across her brow, brown scars stood out plainly—marks that looked exactly like her disappointment in Bai Jingyan, and her worry for her.
The guards standing outside the palace gates were scanning the crowds on either side, their eyes following the long road to its end. They could see people flocking toward the palace gates.
It was a crowd surging with unstoppable momentum.
The guards moved to intercept it. One of them returned to the barracks to report the matter to the gate captain. By the time the gate captain had hastily dressed himself and emerged, the Grand Princess—leading the First, Second, Third, and Fourth Young Ladies of the Bai family in mourning white, along with the commoners—had already arrived before the Wude Gate.
The gate captain stepped forward, bowed to the Grand Princess, and rose to ask:
"Your servant pays his respects to Her Highness the Grand Princess. Your Highness, what brings you here—"
Before he could finish, the Third Young Lady of the Bai family drew out her drumsticks and began striking the drum with all her might.
The Dengwen Drum, which had guarded the palace gates in silence for centuries, had long since rusted over—forgotten by all. Now its thunderous roar rolled across the grounds. Even the birds within the palace, startled, scattered into the sky with a beating of wings.
The Grand Princess clutched her walnut cane, staggered, and knelt outside the palace gates. The gate captain, startled, dropped to his knees as well.
Then, in a great rush, the young ladies of the Bai family, the servants, and the commoners all knelt in a wave behind the Grand Princess—like a tide crashing ashore, magnificent in its momentum, so sudden that no one had time to react.
The Emperor, lounging against a tiered platform as he sipped tea and admired a beauty playing the pipa, heard the faint sound of the drum and furrowed his brow. Then he bellowed for someone.
"Gao Demu!"
Gao Demu, the chief eunuch who held the Emperor's every trust, hurried in and knelt.
"Your Majesty..."
"Where is that drum being struck? I cannot even enjoy a single piece of music in peace!"
The Emperor looked thoroughly displeased.
"Your Majesty, from what this humble servant can hear, it seems to be coming from the front gates. I have already sent a eunuch to find out."
Gao Demu replied.
Outside the Wude Gate.
Bai Jinxiu knelt at the Grand Princess's side, tears held in her eyes, and read out from the bamboo slips, word by measured word.
Though her voice was thick with sobs, Bai Jinxiu forced strength into every character. She read with a clarity that reached everyone present—clear enough to be heard by all, yet swift and unrelenting.
Six bamboo slips held nothing more than a record of troop movements. But Bai Jinxiu wove rhythm and inflection through every line, and the listeners felt as though they had been cast onto a wretched battlefield—where the sky itself bled crimson, blades and swords filled the air, and blood sprayed in every direction.
The traitorous general Liu Huanzhang had spread false reports: that the army's grain had reached Fengcheng, but Southern Yan's cavalry had launched a surprise raid, and fifty thousand horsemen had surrounded the city. With the grain and baggage trains pinned at the walls, and before the Duke of Zhenguo had even given his orders, King Xin had arrogantly wielded the full weight of his authority. He ordered Bai Qiying, second son of Duke Bai Weiting and General of Chariots and Cavalry, to lead forty thousand elite troops in a relief march to Xinzhou.
Drawing on his years of hard-won campaign experience, the Duke of Zhenguo judged at once that there must be a trap. But King Xin produced the golden command arrow bestowed upon him by the Emperor and pressed it upon him, and the Duke had no choice but to accept the order. When the scouts later returned and reported, it was revealed that Xiliang's main force of two hundred fifty thousand was lying in ambush in the Tianling mountain region—and Bai Qiying's forty thousand relief troops were caught squarely within it.
Only after falling into the trap did King Xin panic. Terrified, he commanded Bai Weiting to lead every remaining soldier to the Tianling mountains, where they were to coordinate with Bai Qiying from within and without and annihilate Xiliang's main army. Bai Weiting suspected another trap—but King Xin had come bearing the Son of Heaven's command to oversee the war, and he threatened Bai Weiting into marching. What choice was there? If the Duke did not obey, King Xin warned, he would report the matter to the Emperor directly—and defying a golden command arrow was a crime punished by the extermination of one's entire clan.
Pressed beyond endurance, Duke Bai Weiting staked everything on a desperate gamble. He ordered General of Agile Cavalry Bai Qijing to lead twenty thousand troops around Fengxian and strike at Xiliang's camp. He sent Vice Marshal Bai Qishan with five thousand elite troops to reinforce Fengcheng. Bai Jingming and Bai Jinghou were to command ten thousand Bai family elite troops and hold the vital pass at Linggu, lending support on every flank.
Bai Weiting himself led fifty thousand troops toward the Tianling mountains, while the traitorous Deputy General Liu Huanzhang was ordered to take the main army of one hundred eighty thousand men and lie in wait at Black Bear Mountain, striking the Tianling mountains when the moment was ripe.
Everything unfolded exactly as Bai Weiting had foreseen. The moment they led their fifty thousand troops into the Tianling mountains, the trap sprang shut. Bai Qiying's forty thousand elite soldiers were slaughtered to the last man. Xiliang's great army of four hundred fifty thousand had been waiting for nothing more than the Duke of Zhenguo to walk into their snare. All of the Duke's remaining hope rested on Liu Huanzhang—on his leading the great army into the fray and fighting them with everything he had.
On the twenty-sixth day of the twelfth lunar month, the great army of Jin had fought three days and nights of brutal warfare. Their fifty thousand men were on the very brink of annihilation—but Deputy General Liu Huanzhang never came.
Xiliang's marshal demanded a face-to-face meeting with Duke Bai Weiting, and revealed the truth: Liu Huanzhang had betrayed the Duke in exchange for power. He had passed the marshal's troop dispositions to both Xiliang and Southern Yan. Xiliang had committed nearly its entire strength—seven hundred thousand troops—and Southern Yan had sent four hundred thousand of its finest. This time, their design was nothing less than the total annihilation of the Bai family army and everyone of the Bai name—to snap the backbone of Great Jin in two.
Xiliang's marshal went on to tell of how Liu Huanzhang had forged the Duke of Zhenguo's name to lure out the men of the Bai family—and five had taken the bait and been captured. Liu Huanzhang had fled with his troops, spreading the rumor that the Duke of Zhenguo himself had betrayed the nation, and then marched straight on Fengxian. The great army of Jin, already struggling in the jaws of death, heard the news and their morale shattered. Like a flock of sheep encircled by wolves, they could not resist at all.
Marshal Bai Weiting took arrow after arrow across his whole body. In his final moments, he ordered Bai Qinghui and Bai Qingyang of the Fierce Tiger Battalion to carry the military records to King Xin, and to warn him that Liu Huanzhang had committed treason and that he must beware! At the cost of the great army itself, Bai Weiting carved out a road for the two young men to escape the encirclement alive.