What does it mean to cooperate mutually, each taking what is needed?
Even if one could not speak of an equal fifty-fifty split, there should at least be a sixty-forty or seventy-thirty division. Yet what Prefect Xie had received was nothing more than table scraps and cold leftovers.
“A fully ranked fourth-rank officer” spoken from Prefect Xie’s own lips was a self-debasing disguise for a man who had been exposed. The same phrase, repeated back from Pei Shaohuai’s lips, was a bare, unsparing piece of mockery.
Prefect Xie’s fist slammed down on the dining table with a dull thud, the bowls and chopsticks clattering and rattling. His flushed face turned iron-grey — one could almost say: “On one half of the river the dying sun pours a strip of red, on the other half the water glitters cold and grey.”
Outside the Wangjiang Tower, the Luo River flowed eastward toward the sea with considerable force and grandeur.
“This moment of glory is beyond compare in its time — the insult given today by the Pei high clan, Xie will hold firmly in memory.” Prefect Xie said in a fury, as if to tell Pei Shaohuai — we shall see what comes of this in time. He then said with impassioned emotion: “Does he not know that beside the Wujiang Pavilion, someone once recited: ‘In military matters defeat and victory are no sure thing; the true man knows to endure shame and hardship’?”
Rather than rebutting Pei Shaohuai, one might say he was consoling and numbing himself, as Prefect Xie was crowning himself with the title of “one who endures humiliation for the sake of great deeds.”
Because Master Du Mu’s latter two lines read: “The talented youths of Jiangdong are many, and a comeback may still be possible.”
Pei Shaohuai burst out laughing — freely and contemptuously.
“Master Muzhi had a direct and principled character his whole life, refusing to curry favor. If he knew his poem was being cited by Prefect Xie in such a manner, I dare say he would wish he had never put brush to paper in the first place — what a sorry fate for his work.” Pei Shaohuai shot back.
Someone like Prefect Xie — a corrupt official who committed every manner of wrongdoing and preyed upon the common people — what claim did he have to “enduring shame and hardship” and “a possible comeback”?
“Moreover, such an ambitious and bold oath should be made with incense and ritual bathing, done with full propriety before the Xie family ancestral shrine, before one’s ancestors — what is the point of saying it before this official?” Pei Shaohuai continued: “This official is not your ancestor, after all.”
“You…”
A well-trained dog is kept on a leash with a tight collar. Prefect Xie was choking on his own fury, suffering an internal wound.
Pei Shaohuai did not stop speaking, but instead moved a step closer and said: “The Xie clan of the Western Jin had long been known as a ‘house of virtue’ — maintaining strict family discipline and conduct within the household, while observing the grand trends of the world from without. They could withdraw to rest on Eastern Mountain, yet also devise strategy and command affairs from behind closed curtains. Their virtue and talent commanded respect. They were a first-class prestigious family. Yet who could have foreseen that after the passage of several dynasties, by the time of Prefect Xie, it has become ‘feeling no shame in preying upon the common people, feeling no disgrace in being a corrupt official’ — still speaking of enduring shame and hardship, which would surely draw the scornful gaze of all the virtuous scholars of the realm?”
Whether the “Xie” of Prefect Xie’s family was descended from the Xie clan of the Western Jin, Pei Shaohuai had no way of knowing, but it seemed likely there was some connection — and so he would speak of it this way first.
“Prefect Xie has the leisure for impassioned declarations of lofty ambition — it would serve him far better to think about why, given that both are the continuation of prestigious families, others are able to command the situation and reap profits at their ease, while Prefect Xie can only be manipulated and directed by others, ending up in this sort of…state.” As he finished, Pei Shaohuai did not forget to glance at the yellow-coated stray dog outside the doorway.
Prefect Xie’s face had gone a livid blue-green, his eyes darting left and right. Under Pei Shaohuai’s provocation, it seemed as though at any moment he might clutch his chest and vomit blood.
“Pei Shaohuai, what exactly did you come here today to do?” Prefect Xie said through gritted teeth, his hatred palpable — yet he didn’t dare to meet Pei Shaohuai’s eyes and could only stare at the floor.
This behavior and manner clearly showed that Pei Shaohuai had not come for what Prefect Xie had assumed — to submit and beg for terms.
“To humiliate you.” Pei Shaohuai’s objective had been achieved, and he said it quite plainly: “Only this official’s humiliation is temporary — your master’s humiliation is for life. If being far from the capital in a distant region is truly so advantageous, why did others enter the high halls of the imperial city while Prefect Xie was left here, taking a bandit’s sister as concubine, staining the vessel of a noble family?”
Seizing upon a person’s persistent resentments is the way to keep them in perpetual unease.
Some of those words had been crafted specifically for Prefect Xie.
Pei Shaohuai rose, prepared to leave. As he passed by the doorway, the yellow stray dog panted and wagged its tail at him. Pei Shaohuai did not withhold his praise: “Now there is a good dog.”
Pei Shaohuai descended the stairs. The stray dog still squatted outside the door waiting for food. It seemed to have caught the scent of Prefect Xie’s murderous intent to kill a dog and drink its blood, and with a yelp bolted down the stairs, following behind Pei Shaohuai to beg for its life.
Along the spiral wooden staircase of the tower, the sound of measured footsteps paused for a moment, and the words “even a stray dog knows to choose a good master” drifted softly upward.
After several moments of silence — suddenly, without warning, the sound of an overturned table came from upstairs, followed by bowls and dishes shattering across the floor.
Hearing this, Pei Shaohuai turned back, looked up at the upper floor of the wine tower, and murmured in mock regret: “A good thing he hadn’t ordered many dishes. Wasting food — shameful, truly shameful.”
The yellow stray dog, greedily sniffing at the fragrance drifting down from upstairs, hesitated and lingered. Without Pei Shaohuai’s warning or restraint, it ultimately charged straight back in and went up the stairs.
……
……
The wild country is cloaked in night, the long pavilion lies deep in darkness; heavy mist obscures the moon over the sea.
In the dead of night, Pei Shaohuai and Yan Chengzhao had not returned to their residences. They sat together on a fishing boat outside a wild river crossing in Quanzhou Prefecture, a fishing lamp hung above them. With the gentle rocking of the waves, their bodies swayed slightly, and the wine in their cups swayed with them.
It was not wasted effort — they had been waiting and watching half the night. Beneath the deep darkness, a medium-sized fast-oared vessel came speeding from the direction of Qun Island toward the wild river crossing.
Outside the crossing, on a small road, a carriage had also come to meet it.
A powerfully built man of great height, broad-shouldered and thick-waisted, stepped off the boat and climbed into the carriage, heading in the direction of Quanzhou city.
This man was none other than the pirate chief of Qun Island, Xu Wu. That night he entered the city to meet with his brother-in-law.
They also noticed that a youth followed close at his side, shadowing his every step, rather slightly built.
From inside the fishing boat, Yan Chengzhao said admiringly: “The pirate chief could not resist and recklessly entered the city — Prefect Pei’s stratagem of sowing discord has proven truly ingenious.”
“Commander Yan flatters me.” Pei Shaohuai responded with modesty: “The so-called art of sowing discord has never been about fabricating something from nothing and manufacturing it out of thin air. The discord was there all along, in its original form — all it lacked was someone to set it ablaze, and pour a bowl of oil to make it burn all the higher.”
For discord to work, there had to be existing grievances and rifts to begin with. If things were seamlessly tight, what opening would anyone else have?
Between a master and a subordinate, it was never a tranquil relationship — especially when the subordinate was an ambitious one who had studied, sat for examinations, and become an official.
Between a corrupt official and a pirate, though they were cut from the same cloth of villainy, the pirate was always wary of the official, while the official always looked down on the pirate. How could a single concubine taken from one side’s family bridge that gap?
That was precisely where their vulnerability lay.
There was still some time before Xu Wu entered the city. The two men continued leisurely filling each other’s cups.
In the preceding days, Yan Chengzhao had conducted a thorough investigation of all the Lin, Chen, and Shangguan clan members currently serving as officials, their relatives by marriage, and the protégés they had funded — and had given the complete list to Pei Shaohuai.
Now, with Shuang’an Prefecture facing difficulties on multiple fronts, Yan Chengzhao was somewhat curious and puzzled — the people on this list held various official positions, and while they were connected to the difficulties, they were also merely adding fuel to the fire; none of them looked like the person who had first “thrown the stone to stir the waves.”
The investigation was still ongoing, following the vine to find the melon.
Yan Chengzhao asked for Pei Shaohuai’s conjecture: “Having looked at that list, what is Prefect Pei’s assessment — which clan is the one manipulating events from behind the scenes?” A reasonable conjecture could save the Embroidered Uniform Guard considerable effort.
The hand holding Pei Shaohuai’s cup paused, and he fell into deep thought.
Ever since receiving the list, it was not only Yan Chengzhao who had been puzzled — Pei Shaohuai had been puzzled as well, and had been turning it over in his mind.
The Lin, Chen, and Shangguan clans, though possessing considerable influence in Fujian, had ultimately made their way by colluding with officials, conducting trade, and cultivating talented descendants to enter officialdom over the generations. It all came back to one word: “official.” Their abilities and power were always constrained by the court, and their wealth was always limited by monopoly.
Local powers are, in the end, just local powers.
Yet the tactics Pei Shaohuai was now facing were relentless, carefully calculated pressure — one link fastening onto the next. This did not look like something a group of local powers could have devised.
If the Lin, Chen, or Shangguan families had someone among them who was deeply versed in the arts of governance, human psychology, and commerce, he would long since have been sent to court as an official to grow the family’s influence — why would such a person remain unknown and unrecognized?
A clan that had only recently risen to prominence was often still operating at a shallow, surface level.
Moreover, the official positions on that list included both capital officials and those posted to the provinces. At court it appeared to be a web of networks and factional alliances — yet in reality, it was nowhere near the level of the Hexi faction that had only recently collapsed. If even the Hexi faction had been unable to accomplish what they set out to do, how could the mere three great clans of Fujian succeed?
Turning it over and over in his mind, it seemed the only possible conclusion was that the imperial clansman behind this affair was exceedingly skilled in political maneuvering.
One could think it, but could not say it to Yan Chengzhao in those terms.
Just as he was about to say something to deflect, a thought suddenly arose in Pei Shaohuai’s mind. From Prefect Xie’s surname “Xie” he thought of the saying “Wang and Xie” — and then of the “five surnames and seven noble houses,” and of the phrase “the Wang family and Ma family ruled the realm together.”
Throughout the long sweep of history, dynasties rose and fell. Even if the great aristocratic clans had lost their former dominance, ancient surnames whose noble traditions and scholarly lineages had been passed down intact — as long as the line was unbroken — were still far more capable of producing outstanding talent than those of common origin.
It was not necessarily impossible that such an old clan — relying on its status connected to imperial blood — might be pulling strings behind the scenes in the shadows, helping some prince or imperial son ascend to the Son of Heaven’s throne, and in return seizing the power of the meritorious founding contributors.
Pei Shaohuai offered his conjecture to Yan Chengzhao, saying: “Has Commander Yan ever considered whether there might be someone who has retreated to Eastern Mountain in seclusion and refused to serve at court, yet privately places their bets and manipulates the development of affairs, operating entirely outside the court itself?”
Yan Chengzhao understood clearly — Pei Shaohuai was speaking of an aristocratic clan. His own wine cup also paused for a moment, and after a brief interval, he was not entirely convinced by this conjecture. He said: “Since the founding ancestor of Da Qing, where in the realm would there still be any thousand-year noble houses?”
From the very founding of the dynasty, these great clans had been trampled beneath hoofbeats and buried in pits. The founding ancestor had risen from humble poverty, and his methods after becoming Emperor were rather brutal.
The nobility of Da Qing consisted mostly of those who had earned their rank through brilliant military accomplishments, and after more than a hundred years, not many dukes, marquises, and earls had managed to survive intact to the present day.
Imperial sons marrying commoner women, and princesses marrying common men — was that not precisely to prevent imperial relatives and aristocratic clans from uniting through marriage alliances?
“On the surface, naturally there are none left,” Pei Shaohuai said, and then added: “But as the line goes: ‘The swallows of the old Wang and Xie mansions have flown into the homes of ordinary people’ — certain arts of wielding power, cultivated and passed down over generations, rekindled in service of restoring the family’s glory and influence — who is to say they have not re-emerged in the world?”
The vast emptiness of four walls, the confinement of a small patch of sky — these cannot necessarily imprison such people.
These words plunged Yan Chengzhao into deep thought.
If things were as Pei Shaohuai described, this matter would require far greater vigilance — the Son of Heaven feared, above all else, not corrupt officials, but exactly this sort of covert manipulation that would keep the imperial household in turmoil, and thereby keep the entire realm in turmoil.
“Yan will look into this carefully,” Yan Chengzhao said, partly persuaded, partly still uncertain.
He would investigate in secret before saying more.
Pei Shaohuai glanced out at the night, which had grown several shades deeper, and judged the time was about right. He said: “Commander Yan, it is time to pour another bowl of oil onto the fire.”
Sitting watch here through an entire night had not been simply to observe Xu Wu coming ashore and entering the city, nor merely to share wine and conversation — it was time to get down to real business.
To shoot an enemy, first shoot his horse; to capture bandits, first capture their chief.