Chapter 6
Edward Quan ·
Some were delighted. Others were troubled.
When Hui was fifteen, war broke out on the frontier again.
At court, he asked to accompany the army.
His Majesty hesitated briefly, then agreed.
After court, Jingze stumbled and scrambled all the way to the imperial study.
“Father, Hui is my only son. Please don’t send him to war!”
“If anything happens to him, my family line will end!”
He was crying, his face covered in tears and snot.
The Emperor was both angry and disgusted.
“If he wants to hold that position securely, he must command military power.”
“He volunteered.”
Jingze stupidly lifted his head.
“Hui wants to go?”
“Go home and ask him yourself.”
Back at our residence, Jingze saw his son, taller and sturdier than he was, and swallowed the words on his tongue.
Dinner was unusually quiet that evening.
Before bed, he suddenly said, “Our son really has grown up.”
I lay wide-eyed, unable to sleep.
“Yes.”
The next day, I withdrew all the available cash from Nishang Pavilion in the capital, leaving only enough to keep the shops running.
By now, Nishang Pavilion had branches in nearly every province, and its annual profits were astonishing.
I gave Hui a million taels of silver.
“Your father and I know you have things you want to do. We can’t stop you.”
“But remember that you’re our only child. If anything happens to you, we won’t be able to go on either.”
By the last sentence, I was almost too choked up to speak.
I’d watched him grow from a tiny baby into this tall young man.
He was my life.
Now he was grown, and he was going to the most dangerous place of all, where life and death could turn in an instant.
I had no way to stop him.
Hui wiped my tears with a handkerchief.
“Mama, I’ll come home safely.”
14
In the first three months after he left, I lost ten jin.
Every night, I woke in terror from my dreams.
I kicked Jingze.
Hadn’t he said he was worried too? Why was he sleeping like a pig, snoring loud enough to shake the heavens?
He was indignant, but didn’t dare complain.
Military reports arrived in the capital one after another.
Jingze told me what he’d heard at court: Hui had fought bravely, leading two thousand cavalry to rout thirty thousand enemy troops.
“Nothing can stand in his way. He’s unstoppable.”
He was immensely proud. Every official at court, he said, praised Hui’s unmatched courage.
As I listened, tears fell again.
“Why are you crying?”
My heart ached.
“He’s only fifteen. I don’t even know whether he’s been hurt.”
Jingze stared at me, speechless.
We both fell silent and looked toward the door.
Hui’s campaign lasted three years.
Reports of victory kept coming.
In his letters home, he wrote that the campaign had utterly defeated the foreign enemy and would secure at least twenty years of peace on the frontier.
At last, the people there would be able to enjoy a peaceful New Year.
In the capital, the Emperor was aging. Jingze said he sometimes grew distracted during court.
More and more memorials called for the appointment of a crown prince.
Some supported Jingze. Others favored the Sixth and Seventh Princes, who were growing up.
There was only one reason to support Jingze: his son Zhou Menghui was exceptional. Neither among the princes nor their sons was there anyone to equal him.
The opposition had a strong argument too.
“But we are appointing a crown prince, not an imperial grandson as heir. However brilliant Zhou Menghui is, he is still a grandson. Disrupting the order of succession will bring endless harm and no benefit.”
“And among the princes, Zhou Jingze has no ability worth mentioning.”
All these years at the Ministry of Rites, he had been little more than a decorative mascot.
The court descended into a muddle of arguments over the succession.
The Emperor never revealed his position.
Almost everyone understood that he was waiting for someone to return.
But there were people who did not want that person to make it back.
Soon, Hui was attacked by assassins on his way to the capital.
15
When I heard, everything went black.
When I woke, Jingze was sitting beside the bed.
My tears poured down.
He hurried to reassure me.
“Hui’s fine. Before the assassins could even get close, lightning suddenly struck and split them apart.”
I stared.
“What?”
Hui had feared we would worry, Jingze said, and sent a rider racing back with the news.