On this day, ten thousand li away in the city of Chang’an, the sky was murky and indistinct, with dark clouds churning overhead. The entire imperial city seemed to have transformed into a realm of shadowy ghosts. Li Shimin was rowing a boat on the Southern Sea Pond, feasting and drinking while music played and singers performed, and he had grown somewhat drunk. But just then, a shooting star suddenly streaked across the darkened sky, the clouds and mist parted, and the planet Venus appeared on the horizon, unusually brilliant.

Li Shimin was taken aback. “What day is it today?”

“The fourth day of the sixth month, Your Majesty,” said Yang Consort, who stood nearby.

“The fourth of the sixth month!” Li Shimin started in alarm and looked around at those beside him, suddenly finding the clothing worn by the eunuchs and consorts around him rather strange. In the fifteen years since he had ascended the throne, Tang dynasty fashion had grown increasingly magnificent, yet the garments these people wore were still coarse and plain — as if in the style of the founding era of the Great Tang.

At that very moment, the sounds of battle cries suddenly erupted from outside Xuanwu Gate — the clashing of swords and spears, the thundering of hooves, the screaming of warhorses and the agonized wails of the wounded rang out as if right beside his ears. Li Shimin leapt to his feet and looked toward Xuanwu Gate. A figure dressed in imperial prince’s robes came stumbling out from the Linhu Hall, an arrow shaft protruding from his back.

“Imperial Father, save me——” that prince cried out in a wretched shriek.

Suddenly, from the thicket of trees outside Linhu Hall, a man came charging in pursuit. He was clad head to toe in armor, carrying a severed head in one hand and a longbow in the other. As the prince was about to reach the edge of the Southern Sea Pond, the general bit down on the hair of the severed head, drew his bow and loosed an arrow, and as the prince was mid-stride, the shaft pierced clean through his throat. The general walked slowly forward, gripped the prince by the hair and tilted his face up toward Li Shimin, then smiled coldly and sliced off his head with one stroke of his blade.

“Who is causing this chaos? And who are you?” Li Shimin was terrified beyond measure.

The general carried the two heads to the edge of the pond, knelt on one knee, and raised them high. “Your Majesty, your two sons raised a rebellion, and my lord the prince mustered troops to execute them. My lord is benevolent and filial, and feared you would be disturbed — therefore he commanded this servant to come and protect you!”

“My two sons?” Something was wrong with heaven and earth — Li Shimin seemed to be gazing at the moon reflected in water, with ripples everywhere, every face blurred and indistinct. “Which two sons of mine are these? And which of my sons is your lord?”

“Three princes slaughter one another at the gate, and the Tang house sees its cycle of retribution.” The general smiled grimly and hurled the heads onto the boat. “If Your Majesty wishes to know, then let Your Majesty see clearly!”

Li Shimin cried out in horror and sat bolt upright with a gasp. Cold sweat drenched his body from head to toe. Outside the window, the crescent moon hung like a hook, casting its light through the latticework. It had been nothing but a nightmare.

“Your Majesty, whatever is the matter?” A pair of smooth white arms wound around him from beside. Yang Consort, who had been attending him for the night, also sat up in alarm and held him close.

“What day is it today?” Li Shimin’s whole body trembled.

Yang Consort glanced at the night sky beyond the window. “It has already passed midnight — it is the fourth day of the sixth month.”

“The fourth of the sixth month — heh!” Li Shimin closed his eyes. Fifteen years ago, on the fourth day of the sixth month, the pools of blood before Xuanwu Gate had burned themselves into his eyes. He had now been emperor for fifteen years. Every year he tried to forget this date, yet every time, this date clung to him with deadly persistence, entering his soul, entering his dreams, boring through to his marrow, tearing apart his heart and lungs.

Only now did he understand — he had actually reenacted the terror his imperial father Li Yuan had once felt. On the fourth day of the sixth month, fifteen years ago, while Li Yuan had been boating on the Southern Sea Pond, he himself had launched the Xuanwu Gate Coup, shot Jiancheng dead with his own hand, while Yuchi Jingde had hunted down Yuanji and shot him dead outside the Hall of Wude, then severed his head and sent it to Li Yuan. Perhaps the fear his father felt in those days was just like his own today — three sons slaughtering one another at the gate, a grimacing general delivering two heads before him.

“Summon Wang Xuance, Chief Secretary of the Right Guard Commandant’s Office, to audience at the Sweet Dew Hall,” Li Shimin instructed those outside the door, then rose from bed.

“Your Majesty, it is only the third watch of the night!” Yang Consort quickly got up, retrieved a handkerchief, and wiped the sweat from his body as she helped him dress.

Li Shimin said nothing. After bathing and changing his clothes, attended by the eunuchs, he rose and made his way to the Sweet Dew Hall. This was the emperor’s sleeping quarters and also the place where he received his close ministers day to day.

Wang Xuance held the nominal title of Chief Secretary of the Right Guard Commandant’s Office, but in reality he was the Chief of the Undesirables — the Great Tang’s secret organization that answered directly to the emperor. This organization called the Undesirables had been established during the Wude reign period. At the time, fires of rebellion burned throughout the country and along its borders. The Supreme Emperor Li Yuan had set up the Undesirables, recruiting from across the country those with criminal records to serve as his eyes and ears, to conduct investigations and make arrests when necessary. Its members were not only Han people but also included many Turks, Tibetans, Sogdians, Tuyuhun people, Qiang people, and various other peoples from the western regions.

After Wei Zheng took up the post of Secretariat Monitor and began participating in court governance, he judged this organization to be a monstrosity at odds with enlightened politics, and demanded that Li Shimin bring it under the jurisdiction of the Secretariat Monitor.

In the third year of the Zhenguan reign, when the Great Tang launched its war to annihilate the Eastern Turks, Wei Zheng — in order to enhance intelligence gathering on foreign affairs — set his sights on Wang Xuance, the county magistrate of Huangshui County in Rong Prefecture. This man had been born in Luoyang, had lived among foreign peoples since childhood, could speak various foreign tongues, and was crafty and decisive in judgment, particularly skilled in the statecraft of great powers. Thus Wei Zheng transferred Wang Xuance to Chang’an to serve as Chief of the Undesirables.

But Wang Xuance was a man of exceptional ability. In the third year of Zhenguan, in order to support the Tang’s campaign to destroy the Eastern Turks, he had followed Xuanzang out through the passes and gone on a diplomatic mission to the Western Turks, attempting to persuade the Yabghu Khagan of the Western Turks not to intervene. The result was that he single-handedly ignited an internal conflict among the Western Turks, leading to the Yabghu Khagan’s death and the splitting of the two major tribal factions of the Western Turks — to this day, the Western Turks remained mired in the vendetta and strife between those two factions, having fallen directly from an unrivaled great power to a heap of loose sand. (See Cases of the Western Journey: Chronicles of the Western Region Kings.)

Wang Xuance had completed his mission brilliantly, but Wei Zheng was alarmed by it. He issued orders stripping the Undesirables of their power of arrest, leaving only the functions of investigation and intelligence gathering, and expressly stipulated that the rank of the Chief of the Undesirables could not exceed the fifth grade — he used every means available to bring this secret organization under the supervision of the official court system.

Wang Xuance had come up through the Confucian tradition and knew full well how wary Confucian men were of such a monstrous entity. He himself was entirely indifferent, and simply spent twelve years serving in the position of Chief Secretary of the Right Guard Commandant’s Office at the junior fifth grade. Now that the Great Tang’s national power was magnificent and its prestige commanded the world, apart from some minor friction along the western frontier borders, there were no great affairs in ordinary times, and Wang Xuance’s Undesirables went about in idle contentment — gathering intelligence, helping the offices of Chang’an and Wannian counties catch petty thieves and solve minor cases. But tonight, when he heard the emperor’s summons at the third watch, Wang Xuance immediately became agitated. He rolled out of bed at once and hurried to the Sweet Dew Hall.

The Undesirables operated out of a secret office located in the Directorate of Palace Buildings in the northwestern corner of the imperial city, not far from the palace compound. In less than half an hour he arrived at the Sweet Dew Hall. Wang Xuance was a man of easy and open temperament, but being summoned by the emperor at this hour left him feeling rather uneasy. He composed himself, reining in his usual air, and conducted himself with the utmost propriety.

“We just had a dream.” Li Shimin recounted the nightmare he had just experienced. Wang Xuance listened until cold sweat ran all down his body. Everyone in the Great Tang knew that the Xuanwu Gate Coup was a wound Li Shimin could not bear to have touched — having the emperor suddenly speak of it aloud in person made the fortune or misfortune of this conversation impossible to predict.

“Your Majesty’s meaning is——” Wang Xuance dared not presume to speculate on his own.

“We wish to know — which of our three sons are they?” Li Shimin looked somewhat haggard. “Is someone seeking to imitate us and launch a coup like Xuanwu Gate?”

“Your Majesty!” Wang Xuance broke into a cold sweat, and said in great trepidation, “This servant dares not place the imperial princes under surveillance.”

Li Shimin fixed him with a cold stare. “Don’t think We don’t know what you’ve been doing. It’s not merely the imperial princes — which one of the court’s civil and military officials have you not had someone watching? As We see it, apart from Wei Zheng, whom you don’t dare touch, you know exactly how many bowls of congee every other minister ate for breakfast, do you not?”

Wang Xuance was deeply embarrassed but dared not answer.

“The Crown Prince and the Prince of Wei — have any troubles arisen between them lately?” Li Shimin paid him no further attention and asked directly.

Wang Xuance hesitated for a long moment and dared not answer. The reason was simple: these past years, the succession struggle between Crown Prince Li Chengqian and Prince of Wei Li Tai had been the most significant political topic in the Great Tang court.

Li Chengqian was the legitimate eldest son born of Li Shimin and Empress Zhangsun. After his birth in the second year of Wude, he had been named “Chengqian” by Li Yuan — a name of deep significance, seemingly foretelling some kind of promise Li Yuan had made to Li Shimin. Li Shimin had been enormously pleased and lavished affection on Chengqian without measure. At the very start of the first year of Zhenguan, having just ascended the throne, he established Chengqian as Crown Prince.

At eight years old, Chengqian had delighted Li Shimin greatly — “keen and perceptive in nature, exceptionally brilliant and kind, magnificent in bearing and dignified in mien, humane and filial to his very depths.” Li Shimin intended to cultivate him into a flawless wise ruler for the ages, and successively appointed the great Confucian scholars Lu Deming and Kong Yingda to teach him Confucian learning, while also naming the renowned minister Li Gang — who had tutored the former Sui Crown Prince Yang Yong and the Hidden Crown Prince Jiancheng — as the Grand Tutor of the Crown Prince.

When Chengqian was twelve years old, Li Shimin already had him hear legal cases and adjudicate litigation. Chengqian was not in robust health; when he once fell ill, Li Shimin not only had Daoist priests pray for his recovery but after Chengqian recovered also summoned three thousand persons to take monastic vows and had two temple compounds built to pray for his son’s blessing. From the time Chengqian turned sixteen, whenever Li Shimin went on tours of inspection, the Crown Prince would serve as regent and handle all military and state affairs at his own discretion.

It could be said that in striving to perfectly shape this son, Li Shimin had poured into it almost the full measure of his emotions and capabilities. Three years ago, he had even set up the Hall of Venerated Literature in the Eastern Palace for the Crown Prince, sending there all manner of classic texts and books, competitive examinations, and recommended candidates. Yet, ironically — whether owing to the ill fortune of studying under Li Gang, that teacher who had tutored two deposed crown princes, or whether it was fated by destiny — in the thirteenth year of Zhenguan, the Crown Prince developed a foot ailment, and after it healed he walked with a slight limp. In a court that placed extreme importance on dignified bearing and imposing presence, this dealt a devastating blow to the Crown Prince’s sense of himself.

What was more damaging was that Li Shimin’s vision of a perfect heir had been realized even more perfectly in another person — namely, Prince of Wei Li Tai.

Prince of Wei Li Tai was the second son born of Li Shimin and Empress Zhangsun. From the moment of his birth he had shared in the distinction that Chengqian enjoyed as the legitimate eldest son. Because Li Tai was more pleasing to Li Yuan, before he was even one year old he was granted the title of Prince of Wei at the first grade of the first rank, to succeed to the title of the Prince of Wei Li Xuanba, who had died young. Having two princes from one family — this was also a supreme honor for Li Shimin.

After Li Shimin became emperor, he lavished even greater favor and affection on Li Tai. When Li Tai was nine years old, he was appointed Governor-General of Yangzhou and Governor-General of Yuezhou, with command over the military affairs of sixteen prefectures, while his enfeoffed territories covered as many as twenty-two prefectures. Li Ke, another imperial prince receiving enfeoffment at the same time, was granted only eight prefectures. At fourteen, Li Tai was appointed to the post of Administrator of Yongzhou, making him the highest official of the capital region of Chang’an.

When the imperial princes came of age, it was customary for them to relocate to their enfeoffed territories, but Li Shimin could not bear to part with Li Tai. Not only did he keep him in Chang’an, he even wished to have him move into the Hall of Wude — the Hall of Wude was within the palace compound, just separated from the Eastern Palace by a single wall. The symbolic implications were far too obvious; Wei Zheng could endure no more and remonstrated vigorously, which finally put a stop to it.

If one could say that having the Crown Prince serve as regent during the emperor’s travels was a mark of favor, then what to make of the fact that Li Shimin took Li Tai with him on every single one of those travels — Li Chengqian himself could not make sense of it. In his heart he always carried a feeling as if his father had taken the second son on a holiday trip while abandoning him at home to study.

What pained Chengqian most of all was that Li Tai himself was capable — “matchlessly keen and perceptive, an avid devotee of literature, skilled in grass and clerical script calligraphy, with a collection of ten thousand volumes of books” — the author of a twenty-volume collected works, with an enormous reputation throughout the court and the wider realm.

Li Shimin’s doting on Li Tai had reached the point where a day without seeing him left him clawing at his heart with a hundred itches. Li Shimin kept a white gyrfalcon, and whenever he could not see Li Tai, he would send the gyrfalcon to deliver messages to him — the gyrfalcon made several round trips in a single day. On one occasion, Li Shimin went to visit his son in Yankang Ward and was so pleased that he pardoned all prisoners in the capital region and Chang’an who had committed crimes below the death penalty, and also exempted the entire Yankang Ward from one year’s taxes and duties. On yet another occasion, someone submitted a memorial to Li Shimin claiming that Wei Zheng, Fang Xuanling and others had not shown sufficient respect to Li Tai. Li Shimin flew into a thunderous rage and summoned Wei Zheng, Fang Xuanling and the rest into the palace for severe questioning. Fang Xuanling and the others were so frightened they dared not speak, but Wei Zheng became agitated and, stiffening his neck, got into a quarrel with the emperor. Li Shimin had never once gained the upper hand in a confrontation with Wei Zheng, and had no choice but to admit his mistake. By that time, there were already those in court speculating whether the emperor harbored intentions of changing the Crown Prince.

Before the foot ailment, Chengqian could still barely maintain psychological equilibrium with respect to Li Tai, but after the foot ailment, he could no longer contain the jealousy and anxiety welling up in his heart.

This twenty-year-old young man wanted to vent the rage that had been building inside him. He planned to have an additional building constructed, and Yu Zhinong submitted a memorial to the emperor criticizing him for his love of lavish extravagance. Feeling dejected, he drank wine with the eunuchs, and Yu Zhinong reported this too, accusing him of imitating the ways of the Second Emperor of Qin. Kong Yingda and the Junior Chamberlain Zhang Xuansu watched him with unblinking eyes — the moment something was even slightly amiss, they either admonished him to his face without flinching or reported to the emperor, demanding that he be severely disciplined.

This was because the emperor had said he wished to cultivate the Crown Prince into a wise ruler for the ages. So the standard Kong Yingda and the others had set for Chengqian was: sage.

Later even the Crown Prince’s wet nurse could not bear watching such relentless demands and said to Kong Yingda, “The Crown Prince is still growing — how can it be proper to reproach him so repeatedly to his face?” Kong Yingda replied, “Having received so much grace from the state, I would die without regret.” The eventual result was that his remonstrances grew even more pointed and insistent.

At first, Chengqian played a double game: at court he spoke in full compliance, with every other sentence invoking loyalty and filial piety, but after withdrawing from court he would abandon himself to frivolous amusements. Before Kong Yingda and the others had even opened their mouths to remonstrate, he would sit up straight and compose himself, reproaching himself and taking responsibility for his faults. His teachers Kong Yingda and the rest were quite gratified, feeling that the Crown Prince had finally come to his senses under their scolding and counsel.

But something that happened this year shattered Chengqian’s hopes completely.

Two years earlier, Li Tai had begun summoning literary ministers to compile a large-scale geographical work, Kuodi Zhi — the Compendium of Terrestrial Records. This year, upon its completion, it was presented to the emperor. This epoch-making masterwork of magnificent proportions comprised five hundred and fifty volumes, recording for every prefecture and county across the nation their historical evolution, geographical situation, origin of their names, rivers and mountains, city walls and moats, ancient sites, myths and legends, and major events — drawing extensively from classic texts, with broad and sweeping citations.

Li Shimin received it as a priceless treasure, regarding it as the supreme cultural achievement of the Zhenguan era, and showered Li Tai with lavish rewards in succession — for half a year running, every single month bringing enormous quantities of valuables, in amounts and on a scale that far surpassed what was given to the Crown Prince. Eventually even the court officials found it unseemly, as this had truly already overstepped the established ritual protocols. Chu Suiliang submitted a memorial of remonstrance, arguing that the standards befitting the Prince of Wei ought not to surpass those of the Crown Prince. Li Shimin received the counsel with broad-minded openness and expressed his agreement — yet made no reduction to Li Tai’s spending, and instead elevated the Crown Prince’s allowance as well.

Chengqian was deeply shaken, adrift and at a loss. He could not even be bothered to pretend anymore. Having heard that slaughtering cattle was against the law, he deliberately had a cauldron built within the palace and privately stole draft cattle to slaughter and eat in secret. He also had more than a hundred servants style their hair in the fashion of foreign peoples, cut up colored silk to make clothing, beat gongs and drums and carouse day and night without rest. He even had a Turkic tent erected in the palace, divided into separate tribal encampments, and he and Prince of Han Li Yuanchang each led their respective encampments into battle against each other.

Li Shimin was greatly puzzled as to why this son of his had come to be this way, and felt it was because the teachers had not taught him well. He therefore dispatched more than ten elder statesmen to go to the Eastern Palace to instruct the Crown Prince — these men encompassed nearly all the renowned ministers of the Zhenguan era, such as Du Zhenglun, Fang Xuanling, Wei Zheng, and Ma Zhou. But just at this moment, Li Shimin received a blow to the head: the Undesirables reported in secret that the Crown Prince was privately keeping a young male musician from the Court of Imperial Sacrifices, consorting with him day and night, and had given him the name Chengxin.

Li Shimin flew into a towering rage and ordered Chengxin to be executed. Chengqian was grief-stricken and set up a memorial tablet for his male favorite in the palace, offering sacrifices to him day and night, and also erected a mound over a burial marker, posthumously conferring an official rank on him. Li Shimin was so furious he nearly lost his mind, and came very close to stripping Chengqian of his position as Crown Prince.

Chengqian believed that Li Tai had been the one to report him. He sent men to assassinate Li Tai — fortunately without success. Li Shimin ordered an investigation, but the would-be assassin had fled without a trace. Though there was no proof, the court officials all knew this was Chengqian’s doing.

Meanwhile, Prince of Wei Li Tai had gradually nursed ambitions of his own to seize the succession. Both sides cultivated their respective factions and attacked each other, creating an atmosphere of anxiety throughout the court in which everyone feared for themselves. A muddied whirlpool of this kind — how could Wang Xuance dare to wade into it lightly?

“Very well, very well,” Li Shimin said impatiently. “Stop imitating Fang Xuanling — trembling with fear the moment We say one hard word. Everyone knows that you, Wang Xuance, are bold enough to outrage heaven itself. In the third year of Zhenguan, you took a mere hundred or so men and dared to stir up an internal revolt in the Yabghu Khagan’s own court, and even the Yabghu himself died as a result. We tasked you to protect the Venerable Master Xuanzang, and you nearly cost him his life. In which of these matters did you not act on your own initiative?”

“This… regarding the Crown Prince and the Prince of Wei, there is nothing of particular significance at the moment.” Wang Xuance chose his words carefully. “It is only that in recent days the Crown Prince and the Crown Prince Chamberlain Yu Zhinong have had rather considerable friction between them. A few days ago the Crown Prince again privately recruited several Turkic men to carouse in the Eastern Palace. When Chamberlain Yu learned of this, he submitted a memorial rebuking him. The Crown Prince is quite resentful and has been loudly abusing Yu Zhinong.”

“Unfilial wretch!” Li Shimin erupted in a fury. “The Crown Prince Chamberlain is his teacher — to hurl abuse at one’s teacher is absolutely… simply…” Li Shimin thought at length, but still could not bring himself to spit out any particular curse word. “Keep watch on the Crown Prince for Us. Whatever transgression he commits, you must report it to Us without fail.”

Wang Xuance received the command.

Li Shimin added another instruction. “The sordid and shameful affairs you uncover need not be routed through the Secretariat Monitor — We cannot afford to lose face over this!” Even a man of such brilliant martial might as Li Shimin, when thinking of his own biological sons, could not help feeling profoundly weary. “Three princes slaughter one another at the gate — the gate must be Xuanwu Gate. Investigate and find out clearly for Us who the remaining one of the three princes is!”

“Yes!” Wang Xuance did not dare say a single word more, and rose to acknowledge the command.

Wang Xuance returned to the office and dared not be negligent. He summoned his Undesirables and the night-patrol enforcement officers that very night, took personal command, and distributed tasks one by one. That entire night Wang Xuance traveled through the streets and alleys of Chang’an, ordering men to keep watch on the residences of the Crown Prince’s and the Prince of Wei’s key subordinates, bribing the household servants within their residences to gather intelligence. Fortunately, his special status exempted him from observing the curfew.

Yet just as he was passing through Qinren Ward, Wang Xuance suddenly spotted two figures vaulting over the ward wall and entering the ward within. The Undesirables and enforcement officers beside him were greatly startled and were about to cry out, but Wang Xuance stopped them. He was a man who had weathered many storms, and his eyesight was extraordinarily keen. This Qinren Ward lay to the east of Vermilion Bird Avenue, close to the imperial city, and had always been the residence of high officials and noble families. The ward wall stood a full zhang high — the fact that these two would-be assassins could vault over it with a single leap meant they were absolutely not ordinary petty thieves; their intentions were surely of no small scale.

Wang Xuance had his enforcement officers form a human ladder, then leapt over the wall after them and had everyone follow in quiet pursuit. He watched as these two figures in black weaved east and turned west, and then arrived at the outer wall of Yu Zhinong’s residence. The two dark figures in black leapt over the high wall in a flash and vanished from sight.

Wang Xuance was instantly stunned — someone was going to assassinate Yu Zhinong! Besides serving as Crown Prince Chamberlain, Yu Zhinong held the official post of Vice Director of the Secretariat — the senior official of the Secretariat Department, a full third-rank minister. An assassination attempt on a figure of this standing would be a most serious affair.

“Quickly!” Wang Xuance immediately instructed. “Get over the wall and protect Director Yu!”

Everyone scrambled about and scaled the human ladder just barely over the wall top, when they saw in the moonlight the two assassins moving in silent concealment, quietly creeping toward Yu Zhinong’s sleeping quarters. In the moonlight, the two wore black scarves over their faces, and the longswords they held gleamed in the darkness of the night.

One assassin used his longsword to pry open the door latch and was about to push the door open. Wang Xuance grew anxious and was just about to shout aloud when suddenly a figure plunged down from the rooftop, kicking that assassin into the room with one strike. With a tremendous crash the door splintered apart, and the assassin fell to the ground.

The other assassin was startled, and in that instant the figure swung both arms — and in his hands was a saber-staff with a blade fully seven chi long, weighing more than ten jin! This kind of saber-staff was the weapon carried by the heavy infantry of the Great Tang army, used primarily for cutting down cavalry. Anyone who wielded a saber-staff was a man of great strength — the blade was too heavy to use with the arms alone; one would spin and slash using the power of the waist, and anything in the path of the blade would be reduced to powder. Unexpectedly, one had appeared here tonight!

Wang Xuance knew there were deeper complications at play and immediately lay flat on top of the wall, holding his position. By this time, the two assassins and this saber-staff wielder had already become entangled in close combat. The two assassins were skilled fighters as well, but their opponent’s weapon was simply too powerful, and they kept dodging repeatedly. Wherever the saber-staff went — whether at a corridor column or a garden stone — everything shattered, with a roar like muffled thunder. Occasionally sword and blade would meet, ringing out sharp metallic clangs.

At this point Yu Zhinong was also jarred awake, stumbled out in a panic, and stood in the doorway with a blank stare. The three men fought with extreme ferocity — from the sleeping chamber all the way out into the courtyard. In the midst of the fierce struggle, one assassin’s longsword was cleaved in half by the saber-staff wielder with a single slash. As that assassin’s soul flew from his body in terror, the saber-staff wielder snatched off his face covering with one sweep of his hand, then let out a cold laugh and kicked out. The assassin’s entire body was sent flying, crashing straight into the main gate — the gate, a full inch thick, was smashed to pieces. The assassin coughed up fresh blood and collapsed in the main street, unable to get up.

“Kill me!” the assassin shouted toward his companion.

The other assassin bellowed and hurled his longsword in a sweeping throw. The saber-staff wielder flicked his blade carelessly to deflect it, and the longsword clattered to the ground. That assassin then bolted through the ruined gate, propped up his companion, and the two fled. The saber-staff wielder pursued a few steps, then veered off in another direction, and in an instant vanished without a trace.

At this point an enforcement officer asked, “Chief, shall we give chase?”

Wang Xuance let out a long breath. When the assassin’s face covering had been ripped away, he had already recognized him — it was one of his own colleagues: a Mounted Guard of the Crown Prince’s Left Guard Commandant’s Office, a devoted bodyguard of the Crown Prince named Agan Chengji.

Wang Xuance shook his head. “The storm is about to break. Order men to reinforce their numbers and keep a close watch on the Crown Prince’s Eastern Palace!”

This assassination incident did indeed set off a storm. First the court was shaken — that someone had dared to carry out an assassination of a senior court official within Chang’an was brazen defiance of the court’s dignity. Li Shimin was furious and ordered an investigation. But strangely, before any findings had emerged, the truth was already spreading through the general public: the mastermind behind it all was the Crown Prince himself, and the assassin was the Crown Prince’s confidant Agan Chengji, who had already escaped Chang’an.

Li Shimin at first did not believe it, but sent men to the Left Guard Commandant’s Office to investigate — sure enough, Agan Chengji had disappeared without a trace from the night of the incident onward. Li Shimin erupted in a fury and summoned the Crown Prince to question him; the Crown Prince, however, wept and absolutely refused to confess. Li Shimin had no solid proof, and moreover was unwilling to push the Crown Prince too hard, so he merely punished him with confinement to the Eastern Palace.

Li Shimin still harbored doubts and summoned Wang Xuance to ask him. Wang Xuance had already done his homework over the past few days, and immediately reported: “Your Majesty, this servant witnessed it personally — the assassin was indeed Agan Chengji.”

“We know the assassin was him!” Li Shimin said in agitation. “We want to know whether the person directing it from behind the scenes is the Crown Prince.”

Wang Xuance drew a deep breath. “It is indeed the Crown Prince.”

Li Shimin snapped his gaze onto him and said through clenched teeth, “You dare to be certain of this?”

“This servant is certain,” Wang Xuance said. “On the very night this servant personally witnessed the assassination attempt, he immediately launched an investigation. Over the past several months, the Chamberlain Yu Zhinong, in view of the Crown Prince’s dissipated behavior, imposed strict discipline on him — besides submitting memorials rebuking him, he also had the Turkic men the Crown Prince had recruited flogged thirty lashes apiece and expelled from the Eastern Palace. The Crown Prince harbored a deep resentment over this, and it was therefore that he ordered Agan Chengji and Zhang Shizheng to go and assassinate Chamberlain Yu. Your Majesty may investigate: after the incident, Zhang Shizheng was also dispatched by the Crown Prince out of the capital.”

“That miserable creature — it really was him!” Li Shimin erupted in a string of curses. “What else have you uncovered? Speak — We don’t mind family scandals.”

“There is also…” This time Wang Xuance genuinely hesitated, and after a long moment lowered his voice. “The Prince of Wei is also implicated in this.”

Li Shimin was taken aback. “Prince Tai? What does this have to do with Prince Tai?”

“Three days ago, a sorcerer by the name of Wei Lingfu attached himself to the Crown Prince. This person had previously been recruited by the Prince of Wei and spent three months at the Prince of Wei’s residence, but received little favor there, and so transferred his allegiance to the Crown Prince,” Wang Xuance said.

“Prince Tai handled that very well,” Li Shimin said with considerable approval. “Such a sorcerer should have been cast out the door long ago.”

Wang Xuance gave a bitter smile and said, “After Wei Lingfu attached himself to the Crown Prince, he revealed a secret — it turned out that the three Chamberlains, Yu Zhinong, Zhang Xuansu, and Kong Yingda, who had been demanding that the Crown Prince meet an impossible standard, were all being manipulated from behind the scenes by the Prince of Wei.”

“Utter nonsense!” Li Shimin was furious. “The three Chamberlains are great Confucian scholars of upright character and lofty integrity — even We cannot direct their actions. How could they be directed by Prince Tai?”

“Your Majesty, the Prince of Wei’s methods are quite extraordinary. The Prince of Wei cultivates friendships with literary men and poets. Each time one of the three Chamberlains would rebuke the Crown Prince, the Prince of Wei would always arrange for these literary men and poets to compose verses extolling their steely integrity and their qualities as teachers worthy of emulation. The result was that whenever these three Chamberlains saw the poems and essays written in praise of themselves, they were greatly gratified and became even more harsh in their discipline of the Crown Prince, driving the Crown Prince to ever greater resentment toward them. The conflict between the two sides thus escalated steadily and grew more bitter, ultimately reaching the point where the Crown Prince dispatched assassins to kill his own teacher.”

Li Shimin listened with his eyes wide and jaw dropped. In his eyes, Prince of Wei Li Tai was honest and candid, brilliantly talented, utterly uninterested in power, spending his days absorbed in literature and poetry. Yet how had he come to be this way in the end?

“Your Majesty, after Wei Lingfu revealed this matter, the Crown Prince realized he had been tricked by the Prince of Wei and was furious in the extreme,” Wang Xuance said quietly. “When the assassins went to kill Chamberlain Yu that night, the saber-staff wielder appeared there as if he had known in advance, waiting precisely in order to save the man. Although this servant has not been able to determine who the saber-staff wielder is, there is no question whatsoever that this person was sent by the Prince of Wei.”

Li Shimin sat there in a daze. Suddenly he recalled the ten characters from the nightmare that day: Three princes slaughter one another at the gate; the Tang house sees its cycle of retribution. He smiled a forlorn smile. “Can it truly be that his sons are fated to walk the path he himself once walked? That within Xuanwu Gate, two heads will truly be delivered before him? That the wrong he committed can never, ever be erased? Is this the retribution and the cycle of existence that the Buddhists speak of?”

This was a question Wang Xuance dared not venture to answer. He lowered his head and said nothing.

“You are well acquainted with the Venerable Master Xuanzang,” Li Shimin asked. “If the Venerable Master Xuanzang were still here, could he answer our question?”

Wang Xuance said quietly, “This servant does not know.”

Li Shimin said nothing further. He silently stood up and walked toward the sleeping quarters. He was only forty-three years of age now, yet his retreating figure looked aged and haggard — even a few strands of white hair had appeared. Wang Xuance bowed his head in farewell, and not until the emperor disappeared behind the bed curtains did he rise and withdraw.

The following day, Li Shimin forced himself to be in good spirits and rose early, attended by eunuchs who helped him don his court robes. For today was the auspicious occasion of Hou Junji’s presentation of war captives at the Hall of Observing Virtue. Just the previous year, the Minister of Personnel Hou Junji had commanded a great army to annihilate the Kingdom of Gaochang and take prisoner its king, Qu Zhisheng — this was the first western-region kingdom destroyed by the Great Tang.

As it happened, after Gaochang King Qu Wentai survived that internal strife, he had enjoyed more than a decade of stability, but then reverted to his old ways, and his policies once again began to vacillate and shift. He colluded with the Western Turks, first attacking the Yimu Commandery of the Great Tang, and subsequently occupying three cities of Yanqi. The King of Yanqi appealed to the Great Tang for aid. Li Shimin issued an edict of rebuke, to which Qu Wentai shamelessly replied: “The hawk soars in the sky and the pheasant hides in the marshgrass; the cat prowls the hall while the mouse gnaws in its burrow — each finding its own place, is that not enough to sustain life by itself?” At the time, when the states of the western regions came to pay tribute to the Great Tang, they all had to pass through Gaochang — and Qu Wentai actually detained the envoys of these various states and refused to let them offer tribute. This finally provoked Li Shimin to fury, and he ordered Hou Junji to lead troops to attack Gaochang.

Only then did Qu Wentai grow frightened. He fell into a state of anxiety night and day, and when the Tang forces pressed to the city walls, he died in terror. On his deathbed, Qu Zhisheng returned to Gaochang, succeeded to the throne, and then went out from the city to surrender.

Li Shimin was greatly pleased. He ordered the establishment of the Anxi Protectorate at Jiaohe City. It was not until this year that Hou Junji escorted Qu Zhisheng and the other members of the Gaochang royal family back to Chang’an to present the captives.

This was the achievement of destroying a kingdom. After the presentation of captives, Li Shimin hosted a banquet at Taiji Hall, and Wang Xuance also attended. The Tang emperor and his ministers drank until they were pleasantly inebriated at the banquet, smiling and laughing. But in one corner, a single person held his wine cup with a face full of sorrow — the former king of Gaochang, who had just this day been enfeoffed as a General of the Left Militant Guard and Duke of Jincheng: Qu Zhisheng.

Wang Xuance carried his wine cup and walked over to him. Qu Zhisheng raised his eyes and looked at him, and a smile slowly spread across his face.

“Chief Secretary Wang, you too have grown old!” Qu Zhisheng sighed.

“Indeed! In the blink of an eye, twelve years have passed since we last met.” Wang Xuance also felt boundless emotion. The Qu Zhisheng before him had still been a young and handsome prince in the third year of Zhenguan; now he was in middle age, his face aged and haggard, his expression weary and careworn, with even a patch of white hair at his temples.

“Has my teacher, the Venerable Master Xuanzang, returned?” Qu Zhisheng asked.

Wang Xuance shook his head. “The Master has been traveling west beyond the passes for more than ten years since he set out. To this day, there has been no news of him whatsoever — not even whether he is alive or dead.”

Sorrow appeared in Qu Zhisheng’s eyes. Back then in the royal city of Gaochang, he and Long Shuangyue had lived and died in a desperate love — had it not been for Xuanzang breaking through those life-or-death crises one after another, the Kingdom of Gaochang would likely have been destroyed more than a decade ago, and Qu Zhisheng’s own burial mound would have had saplings grown into towering trees by now. (See Cases of the Western Journey: Chronicles of the Western Region Kings.)

“If the Chief Secretary should ever be able to meet my teacher, please tell him — tell him that Zhisheng has done well. He has kept the people of Gaochang safe and has not let them suffer through the ravages of warfare.” Qu Zhisheng broke down weeping.

Wang Xuance too was moved to sympathetic sorrow. The two of them wept together and drank toast after toast until they were thoroughly, blissfully drunk. As the wine reached its heights in him, Wang Xuance danced with abandon — fortunately by this point everyone in the hall had drunk a great deal, and quite a few people had even broken into the whirling dance of the foreign peoples; no censor took note of his undignified behavior.

Even Li Shimin himself had become somewhat unrestrained. In a burst of elation, he ordered the eunuchs to bring out six glass goblets presented as tribute from Persia, fill them with grape wine, and distribute them as gifts to Zhao Commandery Duke Zhangsun Wuji, Liang Commandery Duke Fang Xuanling, Zheng Commandery Duke Wei Zheng, and three others. The eunuchs carried the glass goblets on a golden tray. The six dukes were deeply honored and gratified, and they all bowed deeply in unison to express their thanks, waiting to drink their wine — but unexpectedly, just at that moment, Wang Xuance came over carrying his wine and collided head-on with the eunuch. With a resounding crash, the golden tray fell to the ground, and all six glass goblets shattered to pieces.

The six dukes were all thunderstruck. They all knew these were the emperor’s most treasured glass goblets — he normally spared even himself from using them. Well, now no one would get to use them anymore.

“Outrageous!” Li Shimin was consumed with anguish and let out a furious roar, flinging away the wine cup in his own hand. “Wang Xuance — do you know your crime!”

Wang Xuance was also scared out of his wits. His whole body jolted — all the fine wine he had drunk transformed into cold sweat that poured out of him, and he sobered up immediately. He knelt to the ground and kowtowed repeatedly.

“Someone come — drag him out for Us——”

Before Li Shimin could finish speaking, Wei Zheng quickly fell to his knees. “Your Majesty! Please do not punish a minister over a mere trinket!”

Li Shimin was still somewhat drunk. Looking at the shattered fragments of the glass goblets on the ground, his heart ached terribly. “But these were Our——”

Zhangsun Wuji also caught on. If the emperor were drunk right now and the glass goblets, however precious, were ultimately just wine cups, and he truly punished a minister for smashing a few cups, then the mockery from historians of later generations would be unavoidable. He too quickly knelt to the ground and said, “Your Majesty — in ancient times, King Zhao of Yan paid a thousand gold for the bones of a horse. What he was after was not the horse, but the worthy men. Now if Your Majesty were to punish a minister over a few wine cups, what would posterity think?”

Li Shimin was most attentive to his posthumous reputation, and was immediately brought to his senses. Zhangsun Wuji quickly got to his feet and instructed the eunuchs to bring hot wet towels to wipe the emperor’s face. After several rounds of wiping, Li Shimin finally came back to himself. He stared silently down at Wang Xuance on the ground, and for just one brief moment, he truly harbored a thought of having him killed — this man had come to know far too many of the imperial family’s secrets lately. But he also knew that today was not an opportune occasion.

Li Shimin said, “You have committed a breach of decorum before the throne — even setting aside the glass goblets, We cannot but punish you. We can give you two choices. Now that the Kingdom of Gaochang has come under the jurisdiction of our Great Tang, all troops and provisions must be transported through eight hundred li of the Mohe Yancuo desert. You may go to Yimu Commandery, then, and garrison those eight hundred li of drifting sands.”

Wang Xuance gave a shudder. He knew full well the hardship of the Mohe Yancuo desert — once he went there, he would have to give up his position as Chief of the Undesirables. He thought for a moment, then summoned his courage and said, “Your Majesty, may this servant ask what the second choice is?”

“The second choice…” Li Shimin thought for a moment. “For some reason these past few days We have suddenly found Ourself missing the Venerable Master Xuanzang. He went to the lands of India to obtain scriptures — more than ten years now — and there has been no news of him, not even whether he lives or has died. You may make a trip to India, then, find the Venerable Master Xuanzang, and go be his disciple. Tell him that We miss him greatly.”

Wang Xuance knew he had learned far too many imperial secrets lately and that the emperor wished to send him far away — but at the very least, going to India still offered the prospect of one day returning. He accepted without a moment’s hesitation. “Your Majesty, this servant chooses the second!”

Not far away, Qu Zhisheng held his wine cup and suddenly broke into soundless sobbing.