When masters make their moves, you can’t tell what techniques they’re using.
For Emperor Hongwu, Guo Zixing was actually his Achilles’ heel.
The grudges and gratitude between Emperor Hongwu and his father-in-law Guo Zixing were like a play: recognition and kindness, marrying off the adopted daughter, the rise of one and decline of the other, suspicion arising, imprisonment, the virtuous wife saving her husband, compassionate heart, reconciliation, entrusting orphans before death, killing the orphans to establish himself, taking the daughter as concubine, swallowing up the family property.
If Emperor Hongwu had truly wanted to repay kindness back then, he definitely wouldn’t have killed Guo Zixing’s only surviving son Guo Tianxu, exterminating the entire line. Nor would he have taken Guo Zixing’s only daughter as a concubine under the pretext of repaying his benefactor – letting Lady Guo marry into a respectable family as a legitimate wife with her dowry would have been proper.
He had to claim Lady Guo as his own to legitimately swallow up Guo Zixing’s territory and army.
Actually, Emperor Hongwu had another choice then: divorce and remarry, making Empress Ma a concubine and marrying Lady Guo as his legitimate wife.
Emperor Liu Xiu had used this very maneuver, marrying Guo Shengtong as empress to dominate the realm while his original wife Yin Lihua was demoted to noble lady. Once Liu Xiu was firmly established, he immediately deposed Guo Shengtong and made Yin Lihua empress.
But Emperor Hongwu couldn’t bear to let Empress Ma suffer such humiliation. He chose to use forceful means to absorb and control the Guo family army – killing. Kill anyone who disobeyed.
If fifty years had passed, probably few would know the unsavory origins of Emperor Hongwu’s first fortune. As Emperor Hongwu’s power grew stronger, becoming a regional overlord, winning the great struggle for hegemony, overthrowing the Yuan Dynasty and other achievements, his early disgraceful acts had gradually been forgotten.
No one knew what possessed this minor censor to think of “grave-digging,” actually bringing up Guo Zixing in court for lavish praise. Emperor Hongwu couldn’t scold him – after all, Guo Zixing was Empress Ma’s adoptive father, Consort Guo Hui’s biological father, and grandfather to five children.
Emperor Hongwu was now emperor, no longer the local regime leader of old. He now cared about face. Only a dead father-in-law was the best father-in-law. Emperor Hongwu didn’t begrudge giving posthumous honors to a father-in-law whose line had been extinguished.
Anyway, honoring Guo Zixing posed no threat to Emperor Hongwu’s regime. On the contrary, respecting Guo Zixing could burnish Emperor Hongwu’s image, creating a glorious image of tolerance, daring to face the past, and self-reflection.
Therefore, Emperor Hongwu not only approved but personally drafted the inscription, and sent Prince Shu Zhu Chun, son of Consort Guo Hui, to personally supervise the monument construction for his maternal grandfather Guo Zixing.
In the inscription, Emperor Hongwu lavishly praised Guo Zixing as a heroic gentleman, saying “what we call immortal though dead, with fame passed down forever, only applies to Prince Xuyang,” and mentioned Guo Zixing’s past kindness “when I served under him, his kindness and courtesy were profound.” However, when writing about killing Guo Zixing’s son Guo Tianxu, he used the Spring and Autumn Annals’ subtle style: “when the prince died, his son couldn’t control the various heroes, and the troops lacked provisions.”
Meaning after Guo Zixing died, his successor couldn’t command respect, everyone followed him to defeat and couldn’t even eat their fill, so Emperor Hongwu stepped up to the crisis, “feeding horses and sharpening weapons, campaigning east and west,” finally “achieving imperial accomplishment.”
History is in the hands of victors – whatever he wrote became truth. Emperor Hongwu’s inscription would be recorded in history. Fifty years later, when those who experienced these events had mostly died out, people learning about Emperor Hongwu’s rise would only think him magnanimous and benevolent, the Guo descendants useless, gaining control through popular support.
Once the inscription was published, it was recited throughout the realm. Empress Ma told Hu Shanwei, “Generously rewarding the dead and highly praising Guo Zixing’s achievements and virtue can be called the utmost in benevolence and righteousness. Now there’s no need to reward the living – Consort Guo Hui is out.”
“Ah?” Hu Shanwei hadn’t expected Consort Guo Hui, mother of five children, to be eliminated so quickly. “They say the rear palace must not interfere in government, but court affairs can influence the rear palace with almost immediate effect. The rear palace seems calm on the surface, but one inscription from court has blocked Consort Guo Hui’s path to Noble Consort.”
Empress Ma showed an appreciative expression. “Exactly. The rear palace and court actually have intricate connections, influencing each other. To establish oneself in the rear palace, one must understand court rules. Actually, logically speaking, Consort Guo Hui had the most sufficient reason to kill me. Back then, she nearly replaced my position as legitimate wife, becoming a second Guo Shengtong. But now her power in court is precisely the weakest. Others made one surprise winning move, and Consort Guo Hui had no power to fight back. So I think we can rule out Consort Guo Hui as a suspect – it’s not that she doesn’t want to, but that she can’t.”
Hu Shanwei frowned deeply and said, “Who is making moves against Consort Guo Hui? Steady, accurate, ruthless, all using others’ knives to kill, winning with one stroke – it’s somewhat like the style of creating the silkworm room assassination incident. But the minor censor who petitioned for the monument has no background – I have no clues at all.”
Empress Ma said, “You must stay calm and patient. The bait has been cast, and the fish are starting to test it. As long as I control the Six Bureaus and One Department, I can guarantee safety within the rear palace. You must stay steady at the fishing platform.”
Prince Shu Zhu Chun happily went to build his grandfather’s monument. The imperial prince education he received naturally erased the bloody truth of seizing power – what he understood was just the content of Emperor Hongwu’s inscription. He felt his father emperor was simply too good to his grandfather.
For princes not yet of age, ignorance was the best protective umbrella. Seeing her grateful son, Consort Guo Hui had to temporarily extinguish her heart for pursuing fame and profit. The Noble Consort position wasn’t as important as her sons’ futures. If her sons developed resentful hearts toward Emperor Hongwu due to uncovering the Guo family’s past and lost imperial favor, that would be the beginning of disaster.
Consort Guo Hui summoned her eldest son living in the Eastern Fifth Residence to Jingyang Palace, giving him reassurance in advance: “When you go build your grandfather’s monument this time, it’s your first solo journey at this age. There will surely be people whispering poison in your ears.”
The eleventh prince Prince Shu Zhu Chun was only eleven years old and still somewhat naive. “I understand. Your son will surely get close to worthy ministers and distance himself from petty people.”
Reciting standard phrases, Consort Guo Hui could only smile and ask, “What kind of people are petty people?”
Zhu Chun said, “Those who speak flattering words and try to please your son are petty people.”
“You’re quite right.” Consort Guo Hui first encouraged her son, then corrected him. “Besides that, petty people will also speak divisive words to create discord between brothers, father and son, mother and son. If anyone says such things to you, don’t rebuke them first. Wait until they finish speaking, showing no emotion on your face. When the monument construction is complete and you return to the palace to report, tell His Majesty and Her Majesty these petty people’s names and words. Then His Majesty and Her Majesty will naturally deal with these petty people for you.”
Zhu Chun didn’t understand: “Your son could just have the slanderers dragged out and beaten with boards. Why return to the palace and trouble His Majesty and Her Majesty?”
Consort Guo Hui instructed her son, “You must remember, you’re going out to build your grandfather’s monument. You only need to do one thing – don’t meddle in other matters, don’t create complications. You’re still young. Doing one thing well would already be remarkable. I’m proud of you.”
Zhu Chun obediently agreed: “Your son remembers – don’t show off, don’t disappoint Mother Consort.”
Consort Guo Hui watched her son’s thin silhouette disappear around the corner of the tall palace walls. Her gaze turned cold. Eliminated just like that? I’m not resigned. I can’t become empress after bearing five children for the Zhu family – can’t I even reach Noble Consort? Which vixen calculated against me?
Consort Guo Hui thought the same as Hu Shanwei. Thanks to Empress Ma’s guidance about court-rear palace relationships, Hu Shanwei’s attention wasn’t limited to the rear palace – she began pondering court movements. The fastest way to understand court affairs was reading gazette reports.
She had Haitang bring boxes of gazette reports from the past year. When not serving Empress Ma, she buried herself in her study reading gazettes.
Spring drowsiness and autumn fatigue. In the third month of spring, with spring breezes intoxicating and such weather, it was indeed sleep-inducing. When Hu Shanwei grew tired of reading, she looked up at the scenery outside her window. By the window was a Cherokee rose trellis with soft, intoxicating tendrils and a cluster of peonies blooming brilliantly.
Suddenly a thought popped into Hu Shanwei’s head: Does Mu Chun in Yunnan have this same spring scenery?
That soft, warm, tingling emotion surged forth uncontrollably, difficult to dispel, climbing up section by section – just leaving her brow, it rose to her heart.
In the deep palace, spring feelings were hard to dispel.
Hu Shanwei suddenly felt parched. She drank cold tea, but it was useless. Irritably closing the gazette reports, like Tang Sanzang with his Buddhist heart disturbed, she paced back and forth in her study.
Outside, Haitang heard the commotion and knocked to enter, saying, “These gazette reports are dry and boring, quite sleep-inducing to read. Why don’t you take an afternoon nap and continue reading after you wake up?”
Opening my western chamber door, spreading my eastern chamber bed. Vase holding purple azaleas, incense burner adding aloeswood fragrance. Haitang served Hu Shanwei as she lay down, closed the doors and windows, and guarded outside.
Smelling the faint aloeswood fragrance, Hu Shanwei used drowsiness to overcome the hard-to-dispel spring feelings and soon fell into deep sleep.
In her hazy dream, she passed through the Cherokee rose trellis outside her window and walked to the swing set in the courtyard, swinging high. The swing rose extremely high, seeming to enter the clouds – quite exhilarating.
When landing, her skirt moved. She looked down and saw a small pebble rolling and stopping at her feet.
Just as she wondered about this, another pebble flew over and hit the curled grass pattern on her skirt’s knee area.
This was Mu Chun’s usual style of greeting her. Hu Shanwei looked in the direction the pebble came from and saw Mu Chun standing under the Cherokee rose trellis, waving at her.
Hu Shanwei got down from the swing and went to the Cherokee rose trellis, but Mu Chun had disappeared. Another small pebble hit her skirt. Hu Shanwei followed the pebbles’ direction, walking and stopping. Suddenly turning back, she saw Mu Chun standing in a pavilion by the pond where lotus buds barely emerged, luminous like pearls and jade, dreamlike and ethereal, his whole body seemingly glowing.
As if possessed, Hu Shanwei blurted out a line from the Book of Songs: “Thinking of the gentleman, gentle as jade. In his wooden house, he disturbs my heart.”
Mu Chun stared with innocent eyes and asked, “Sister Shanwei, what does that poem mean? I don’t understand. Can you explain?”
Hu Shanwei said, “You demon, stop entering my dreams, disturbing my mind, disrupting my heart.”
Mu Chun said, “If you don’t dream, I won’t come.” Then he embraced her, “If you dream of me, I must come.”
He whispered in her ear, “Things done in dreams don’t require responsibility. You can do whatever you want to me.”
“Get away!” Hu Shanwei pushed Mu Chun away. “Demon, stop pestering me.”
Mu Chun seemed boneless. With her push, he fell backward into the pond, crying for help.
Hu Shanwei panicked and quickly jumped into the pond to save him. But Mu Chun in the water laughed, coiling around her like a snake, dragging her to the bottom to sink together…
At the same time, thousands of miles away at the Guizhou Regional Military Commission, Mu Chun was napping in the military camp. He was having some indescribable beautiful dream, with bright drool flowing from the left corner of his mouth onto his pillow.
In the dream, he held Hu Shanwei as they surfaced from the pond and sat on the shore. Mischievously he said, “You still couldn’t bear to let me die, so you jumped down to save me. Actually, I can swim – you didn’t need to save me. Look, your clothes are soaked through. Let me help you take them off to dry before putting them back on.”
He removed her clothes but saw the back was crimson red with bloodstains. Looking closer, Hu Shanwei’s back was a bloody mess, covered with wounds.
“Ah!” Mu Chun jolted awake just as his subordinate Chen Xuan rushed in frantically saying, “Lord Mu, trouble! The Yi people are about to rebel!”
Mu Chun wiped the cold sweat from his forehead. “The Yi people have already turned from darkness to light, cut ties with the Northern Yuan’s Prince Liang, and have been sending horses and provisions to the Great Ming army. Why would they suddenly rebel?”
Chen Xuan said, “Lord Mu, come outside and see for yourself.”
Mu Chun followed Chen Xuan on horseback to the army’s drill ground execution platform and saw a person bound to the torture rack, bare-backed, receiving whip punishment. The welts were swollen thick as thumbs, yet no matter how the executioner whipped, the victim bit their teeth and remained silent.
“Truly a tough fellow,” Mu Chun praised.
Chen Xuan suppressed his urge to roll his eyes at his superior. “Lord Mu, please look at her headdress – clearly a woman. She’s the acting regional commissioner of Guizhou Regional Military Commission, Lady She Xiang!”