The Eastern Depot and the Brocade Guard (1)
Zheng He's face remained perfectly composed, but inside he was seething. The reason was simple: this affair had passed through the hands of Huang Yan and Gu Ryun. Through the hands of eunuchs. Not outsiders — fellow castrati.
Men who knew better than anyone what would follow if Noble Consort Wang's poisoning came to light. Jangan Palace alone kept a small army of eunuchs on its rolls. Thousands of lives hung in the balance, and still they had moved without so much as a word to him — hiding behind the curtain of a "strange rumor."
Huang Yan... Gu Ryun... you bastards!
For a eunuch to seize another eunuch's lifeline and shake it in broad daylight, outside the clan's own fence — that was betrayal of the brotherhood. Treason, plain and simple.
A sound transmission reached him from Jin Myeong.
"This is something we had to do before founding the Depot anyway, isn't it?"
The meaning was unmistakable. The second and third seats of the Eastern Depot had already been promised to two of the Brush-Holding Grand Eunuchs. Huang Yan had stepped beyond the clan's fence with his own two feet. Why not use the occasion to cut down the man who headed Prince of Han Zhu Gaoxu's faction?
There was a limit to leaving a fish stall in a cat's care. Half the palace's power and half the realm's intelligence could not be placed in hands like Huang Yan's.
"Grand Director, let us settle Brush-Holding Eunuch Huang while we have the chance. This humble servant and the Directorate of Ceremonial will stand at your back."
Jin Myeong had disliked Huang Yan since before the regression. This was the age of the Yongle Emperor and Zheng He, true enough — but in the Zhengtong years, when eunuch power would reach its zenith, Huang Yan was the kind of man who would have eaten the Eunuch Emperor Wang Zhen alive and picked his teeth afterward. Eaten him with stupidity and greed.
Stupid, and yet greedy as the Yangtze in flood season. Huang Yan had wormed his way into the Brush-Holding seat after fetching Consort Kwon from Joseon, a woman who had once enjoyed the Yongle Emperor's favor. That single errand had bought him the Emperor's trust, and he had been riding that borrowed authority ever since.
Even that would not have been enough to make Jin Myeong hate him this much. The real reason was simpler: Huang Yan hated him.
He had felt it that day in Yeongan Palace, when he had stood before Prince of Han Zhu Gaoxu and Huang Yan had drawn back a hand to strike him. He had known then that the two of them would collide, and that when the day came, one of them would have to crawl into a coffin clutching his own jar of severed manhood.
Without that incident, what possible reason would he have had to pick a fight with the third-ranked eunuch in the palace? He should have been shaking the man's hand and wringing every drop of advantage from the connection. The only difference now was that the reckoning had arrived a little early.
You dug your own grave.
Jin Myeong watched Huang Yan smirking down at Gu Ryun, who still lay prostrate before the Yongle Emperor, and his eyes went cold.
Zheng He heard the transmission, and nodded.
"Do as you please. This official and the Directorate of Ceremonial will be behind you."
A eunuch, once he believed, believed to the end. Once he did not, he did not to the end. And the man in question had been placed under Zheng He's own Name. Zheng He had unshakable faith in Jin Myeong — a young eunuch whose gifts already stood in a different dimension from the ones Zheng He himself had possessed at that age.
"How could it be otherwise? As you and our clan protect this humble servant, so shall this humble servant protect our clan and you."
Now one of them had to answer the Emperor's gaze. Zheng He stepped forward first.
The Yongle Emperor was a dragon — and not just any dragon, but one of the fiercest the Central Plains had ever produced. Zheng He was not afraid of him.
"Your Majesty. The grace that Director Jang has received from Your Majesty and from the Great Ming is vaster and deeper than the world itself. How would he dare deceive the throne? A strange rumor is nothing more than a strange rumor — a slander cooked up by men who envy Director Jang's accomplishments."
Thirty-seven years had passed since the day Zheng He had been captured by the Yongle Emperor's army and castrated. He had forgotten the feeling of fear on that same day — the day a twelve-year-old boy's manhood had been cut away. When a eunuch died, he died, and death was only the long road home at last, after years of wandering. A ragged old eunuch's journey back to his door. What, at this late hour, was there left to fear?
The Emperor glanced at Zheng He, received no further answer, and turned to Jin Myeong.
"You. Speak."
Every ear in the plaza stretched taut.
"This humble servant is innocent. This servant is but nineteen years of age. By what art would he have recognized a poisoning? And had it truly been poison, he could not have held the Consort's life until Imperial Physician Jo Sik arrived. May Your Majesty see clearly."
Heads nodded here and there along the dais. There was not a single hole in what he had said. Holding a life against a poison strong enough to drop a person into unconsciousness was no small feat by itself. Holding that life until an imperial physician arrived? At nineteen? Perhaps if he had been a son of the Sichuan Tang Clan, weaned on toxins in the womb. But a man had to know something, had to have been taught something, to pull off a miracle like that. It was absurd on its face. And a son of the Tang Clan was never going to end up a eunuch.
"...There is reason in it. But this is a grave matter. An imperial physician is on his way. We shall see whose words hold. Is the physician still far?"
"He will arrive shortly, Your Majesty."
Gu Ryun answered, and the Emperor sat back upon the throne.
Jin Myeong, for his part, was turning over the source of the rumor.
Where did it leak? Not Jo Sik. Not Jangan Palace either.
The Imperial Academy of Medicine and Jangan Palace had to be ruled out first. They were the ones who would be slaughtered the moment the Consort's poisoning came to light. The Academy would be asked why it had failed to diagnose her for so long, and once a charge of false reporting was piled on top of that, they would be looking at Lingchi nine times out of ten. No one would leak a thing like that unless their mind had been seized. The same held for Jangan Palace. Even the mere fact that they had not known of the Consort's poisoning would have been more than enough to draw the Emperor's wrath.
And yet Gong Jun of the Academy is coming here...?
That was the part that refused to sit right. Gong Jun was walking in to trade his own life for the lives of the entire Academy, the attending officers of Jangan Palace, and everyone else connected to the case — all of them bound for the execution ground. The arithmetic did not work. If he simply kept his mouth shut, everyone walked away whole.
Unless Gong Jun...
A suspicion flickered through him. Jin Myeong lifted his head a fraction and looked at Noble Consort Wang.
"Your Highness. Was Gong Jun the physician who has been attending you?"
She nodded, her face tight with worry for him. Gong Jun had examined her not once but many times — needling her, compounding decoctions. None of it had done any good. She was deeply anxious for Jin Myeong and for the situation unfolding around her, but she was a gentle soul, and she did not know what her stepping forward might unleash. She kept still.
As I thought.
Jin Myeong's guess had been right. Gong Jun was clearly carrying the terror that, if the Consort's poisoning were exposed, his three clans might be exterminated. Then the rumor had reached him, and the impulse to save his own skin would have been more than enough to send him walking into this plaza. People had a way of thinking poorly, and choosing shockingly, when their own lives — or the lives of their blood — were on the table.
It could also be instigation. Or a threat.
Either way, the ideal outcome was that the whole thing be quietly buried. If the physician simply stonewalled, who was going to confirm whether the Consort's symptoms had been poison at all, or what toxin had been used? Even if they dragged in an expert, the Consort had already been cured. So a threat or a backer's hand remained possible. And if it was a threat or a backer's hand, the likely suspects were two people and one organization.
The two people were Palace Ladies Yeo and Eo, who had presented the Consort with the sachet and the swastika ornament. But Yong Hui-yeon, who had been the one to bring those gifts to the two ladies in the first place, had judged it unlikely that Yeo and Eo belonged to Suchengye. It could have been an act, she had said — but she had not caught the telltale habits of planted agents in either of them.
Strike those two from the list, and one organization remained.
Suchengye.
Every circumstance he knew pointed at Suchengye. The three objects that composed the Heart-Piercing Fragrance Poison — the sachet, the swastika ornament, and the agarwood. The only people who knew all three were Yong Hui-yeon and her former backers in Suchengye.
The bastards have pipes running into every wall of this palace.
Jin Myeong was certain. Gong Jun had been put up to this, or threatened into it, by Suchengye or one of their strings. It was almost a given, when he thought about it: Suchengye had plants not only throughout the palace, but in high places. A physician who had spent decades saving lives deciding overnight to put hundreds, even thousands, to the blade? Far more convincing to believe he had been handed an offer — or a threat — he could not refuse.
With them, at least, the motive is clean.
Suchengye was aiming at the restoration of the Jianwen Emperor. Whether Zhu Yunwen was actually alive, Jin Myeong did not know — but the odds that he was their leader were high. To an organization like that, Zheng He and the Eastern Depot were a burden in the flesh.
When you did not know who stood behind a thing, you looked at the result, and asked who gained the most from it. If the Consort's poisoning were exposed, Jin Myeong would die, and his eunuch master Zheng He would not escape ruin. The momentum behind the founding of the Eastern Depot would collapse overnight. And among the current Brush-Holding Grand Eunuchs, there was no one of Zheng He's caliber — whoever inherited the Depot would be a scarecrow for some time to come. Set that result on the table, and the factions who gained the most were Suchengye and the Demonic Cult. Of the two, Suchengye had already been shown — in the cases of Yi Yugyeong, Nam Woo-jeong, and Yong Hui-yeon — to have been operating in Yingtianfu. That made them the strongest suspect.
Huang Yan. That bastard is a—
The thought had barely formed when Gong Jun arrived.
Several people, wound too tight, started up from their places without thinking. Gong Jun hurried forward in short, quick steps and prostrated himself before the Yongle Emperor. In the sliver of a moment before his forehead touched the stone, his eyes met Huang Yan's. No one else caught it.
"Long live the Emperor! Long live the Emperor! Long, long live the Emperor!"
"Enough. Speak. The Directorate of Ceremonial's report names you as the proof of Noble Consort Wang's poisoning."
"Th-the strange rumor is that the Consort has, for the past month or more, suffered severe headaches, dizziness, and vomiting, and that those symptoms are the symptoms of poisoning..."
Whether it was the Emperor's savage gaze, the weight of the moment, or both, Gong Jun looked terrified. But he was hardly the first man to look terrified in front of the Yongle Emperor, and no one thought much of it.
"And?"
"Th-this humble subject examined the Consort on several occasions, and it was indeed on account of those very symptoms."
A collective gasp tore through the assembly. In that instant, the chests of every imperial clansman, eunuch, palace lady, and guard upon the dais — and of every civil and military official and Brocade Guard in the plaza — dropped as if a stone had been cut from a rope.
A physician who had actually examined her had just testified that Noble Consort Wang had sought treatment for severe headaches, dizziness, and vomiting. And yesterday the Consort had collapsed and hovered at the edge of death. Circumstance and testimony locked together with a click.
The Emperor's eyes kindled. Every other gaze in the plaza swung back to Jin Myeong — no, drove into him.
Someone swallowed. In the plaza before Fengtian Hall, even the air seemed to have taken fright and fled.
Then, all at once, the civil and military officials in the square stepped forward.
"Your Majesty! Command the Imperial Brocade Guard to investigate Director Jang Jinmyeong, the Directorate of Ceremonial, the Imperial Academy of Medicine, and Jangan Palace!"
"Your Majesty, issue the decree!"
"Command that the Directorate of Ceremonial and Grand Director Zheng He be investigated!"
"Your Majesty, issue the decree!"
The officials packing the plaza dropped as one, pressing their foreheads to the stone and pleading. The only men who did not go down were the Brocade Guards.
Hol-hol-hol! Since when does a Grand Director have some special seed? We're all seedless stock anyway. Zheng He. Ma Sanbao. You've fed at this trough long enough — isn't it time you came down?
Huang Yan watched it all and crowed inside. Everything was unfolding exactly as he had wished. What did it matter if the eunuchs of Jangan Palace went down, or the whole Directorate of Ceremonial with them? What did the Academy matter, one way or the other? A few palace ladies dying — what of it? Physicians were thick on the ground, and palace ladies could be restocked with the next tribute. The Eastern Depot would be founded soon enough, and a eunuch's world would open. He had to seize eunuch power before it was too late, and to do that he had to pull Zheng He — that iron fortress — down from his seat.
He had cultivated the Sunflower Manual. He would not live past sixty. But if he could get the Grand Director's hat on his own head before then, he could stretch his allotted years. He would pull Zheng He down in their place, do them a few favors, and be reborn through the Star Absorption Art they would give him in return.
I want to live a long time, you see. Long enough to enjoy every last scrap of this power. Hol-hol-hol!
A martial art created by Guangma, founding patriarch of the Sun Moon Sect. The true ultimate technique of the Sensual Pair, who had died only recently in a Guan Yu Temple in Yingtianfu after surrendering their inner energy to Jin Myeong. With the Star Absorption Art, a man could abandon the Sunflower Manual and build his power anew. He could take yin and yang energy from man or woman as needed, and so keep the two from running wild. There was the risk of a scattered foundation from turbid energy, true — but the Sensual Pair had been nearly sixty and still going strong. He had heard that only a few months ago they had drained Wudang Daoists in Wuchang and fled. It was a far better choice than the Sunflower Manual, and it was the engine driving Huang Yan this very day.
Strange bedfellows... sleeping with the enemy isn't always a bad thing. Hol-hol! So long as each side gets what it wants, that's all that matters.
He did not know who they were. He did not need to. Toppling Zheng He was what he had wanted, and the favors they had asked were nothing at all. Favors like this one.
Hol-hol-hol! First I bag that insolent little eunuch brat. Then I take Zheng He.
Even the civil and military officials who had long resented Zheng He and the Directorate's power had smelled blood and come out howling. This was the chance of chances. Huang Yan smiled a victor's smile and looked from Zheng He to Jin Myeong and back again.
The situation, however, did not flow as Huang Yan intended.
"Your Majesty. Gong Jun is lying."
Jin Myeong's voice rang out, unflinching, in a place where both the healer and the healed were present. The real lie was the one in Jin Myeong's own mouth — but lies and truth had always been two faces of the same coin. Truth became a lie and a lie became truth often enough. In this world, both were proven by their results.
"What. A lie? You mean Gong Jun never examined the Consort? That she never suffered those symptoms?"
"So far as this humble servant knows, that is so. If Gong Jun had examined the Consort, he would have left a record of it in accordance with the Great Ming Code. Your Majesty, command him to produce those records."
A murmur of astonishment rolled through the hall. The atmosphere reversed in a single breath. Records could be found in a matter of moments. To speak with that much steel in a moment like this could only mean he was telling the truth.
Every eye in the plaza, the Emperor's included, snapped to Gong Jun.
And Gong Jun was shaking so hard he could barely keep his limbs under him — because he had just remembered the words one person had pressed on him again and again, as if her life depended on his hearing them.
The very words Noble Consort Wang had worn on her lips, terrified that her investiture as Empress might come undone.
Gong Jun's mind was a wreck; he could not even hold himself up. Jin Myeong drove the wedge home.
"Is it not the way of things that a record should be trusted over a man's word?"
Jin Myeong smiled.