“Haha, exactly. That Ba-something… ahem, there was a reason he made a male-attired statue of the Princess. You see, during the chaos at the end of Sui, even the capital wasn’t safe. There were frequent break-ins and robberies, and rumors of food shortages kept spreading. Many official families feared being trapped and starving in the city, so they frantically sought ways to escape and survive. Hu County south of the capital was close by, with plenty of fertile fields near mountains and water, making it easy to hide in the Southern Mountains during chaos. Many noble families’ estates there took in numerous guests seeking refuge. Our Chai family also had an estate in Hu County. In the thirteenth year of Daye, the Princess went there to avoid danger and socialized with neighboring scholars. Among those writers I can remember now were Lord Ouyang, the Chu father and son, Du Yan, Wang Gui, the Yan brothers Lide and Liben, and Sun Yaowang—yes, Master Sun of the neighboring Qian Jin Guan. They were all guests at the Princess’s gatherings!”
“So Sun Yaowang knew Princess Pingyang that early!”
“Indeed. Master Sun spent years gathering herbs and practicing medicine in the Zhongnan Mountains. He met the Princess by chance, found they shared similar views, and continued their association until our Great Tang’s founding when the Princess recommended him to the Emperor Emeritus and Prince Qin. Master Sun even served as a military physician in the Celestial Strategy Office for a while, and during the Wude era, he frequently interacted with both mother and daughter.”
In the back courtyard, the towering Chinese toon tree was sprouting green buds in the south wind, while clumps of daylilies below the steps were pushing out new shoots. Wei Shubin added incense in the connecting hall, and paced along the corridor, occasionally gazing at the blue sky enclosed by high walls on both sides, listening to the faint chanting of bells and drums from the temple to the west.
“This ‘Qian Jin Guan’ temple to the west was also originally established with the Princess’s gold. Ah… that’s quite a story. You know, Lady Wei, at the end of Sui, our Third Lady personally recruited soldiers and went to war, raising an army of 130,000 women. More than half the forces that attacked Chang’an were under her command! But after Emperor Emeritus took Chang’an and ascended the throne, although the Princess was still willing to lead troops in battle, the Emperor Emeritus wouldn’t allow it… He said that during the founding of the dynasty, you, a daughter, going to the battlefield was forced by circumstances, for self-preservation—that could be considered a fine tale and left at that. Now that the court has established rules and officials each have their duties, how could a woman neglect staying home to support her husband and educate her children, instead of going out to lead troops? What kind of example would that set? It would make the scholars of the realm laugh at us Li men, pushing out a young woman to serve as a military commander?”
When first seeing Princess Pingyang’s jade statue, one only noticed her peaceful smile, but looking more carefully, one could see her eyes held no mirth—the black pupils stared blankly forward, with helplessness and loss lingering like mist in her gaze.
“Of course, the Emperor Emeritus still loved the Third Lady dearly—after all, she was Empress Dowager Dou’s only daughter! When bestowing rewards for the dynasty’s founding, he immediately awarded Princess Pingyang a thousand gold pieces, explicitly stating it was compensation for her military achievements. The Princess used this reward money to buy the dilapidated residence to the west, renovate it into a Taoist temple, and give it to Master Sun to live in. She said at the time that since she was born a woman and no longer allowed by her sovereign father to fight wars to end wars, she would wholly support Sun Yaowang in his medical research and saving lives—at least that way she could still do something useful for the times.”
So that’s why the temple was named “Thousand Gold,” Wei Shubin thought. The Li family’s Third Lady had seen too much of the people’s suffering during the chaos at the end of Sui and wanted to use her strength to save the masses from disaster, yet…
“Was Princess Pingyang’s preference for male clothing related to this?”
“Young Lady Wei guesses correctly… Ah, this servant has strayed from the topic. The statue-maker Yuchi what’s-his-name Ba-something also met the Princess around the thirteenth year of Daye at the Hu County estate. He was taking refuge at Caotang Temple, painting murals there. One day, this servant accompanied the Third Lady to make offerings and donations. The Third Lady saw his painting, liked it very much, and they started talking—that’s how they met. At that time, the Princess was wearing these male clothes… She often wore men’s clothing then, partly for reputation’s sake—it wouldn’t sound good if word got out that a young woman was constantly entertaining a bunch of men in her home. Also, by then news had spread of the Emperor Emeritus and his sons raising troops in Taiyuan, and the capital’s garrison commanders had made lists of Li family relatives to arrest, with both the Commissioner and Princess high on the right column. The Commissioner had already escaped north to Taiyuan by then, and when the Sui court found out, they intensified their search for ‘Li Third Lady of the Chai family,’ posting sketches and offering rewards. Wearing men’s clothing was safer for her.”
“Not just men’s clothing, but… fake mustaches too?”
“Yes, haha! After all, she was a young beauty—her feminine features were too obvious, and wearing a headwrap and round-collared robe wasn’t enough; people could tell at a glance it was a woman dressed as a man. Look, the formal cap and loose-sleeved robe could conceal her figure, and with a fake mustache on her lips and sometimes long whiskers on her cheeks and chin, passersby truly couldn’t recognize her. That day when Yuchi whatever-his-name first met the Princess, the Third Lady was dressed exactly like this. Later when they became familiar, they would joke about this disguise. After the Princess passed away in the sixth year of Wude, whatever-his-name didn’t tell the household in advance—it’s said he spent an entire year focused on carving this statue. When he delivered it to the family, the statue’s chin even had real whiskers attached… exactly like when he first met the Princess.”
Jing Xuan smiled sadly, and Wei Shubin smiled along, thinking that foreign artists must have greatly admired Princess Pingyang to remember their first meeting so clearly.
Nearly twenty years ago, in the thirteenth year of Daye of Sui. During the chaos of war when everyone feared for their lives, how many Li family men were hunted down and imprisoned, forced to flee? The Princess’s eldest brother Li Jiancheng, only four or five years old, was ordered to care for the family in Hedong. When the righteous banner was about to be raised, he couldn’t protect the whole family of old and young, let alone raise troops to help. In the end, he only managed to escape to Taiyuan with his agile and brave fourth brother Yuanji, while the remaining younger brothers, wives, and children were captured by Sui officials and tragically killed.
Their cousin Li Shentong fled the capital with his son into the mountains to hide, nearly starving to death, reduced to depending on his filial son to beg for food. The fifth sister’s husband, Zhao Cijing, wouldn’t flee because he was concerned about his elderly mother in the capital. He was arrested, but being from an outside family, he was lucky enough to survive until his father-in-law took control of Chang’an.
Li Third Lady’s husband Chai Shao had escaped—she had actively encouraged him to leave. Young and with a small daughter and several servants, returning to the countryside estate, being able to protect herself was already fortunate. Amid danger and crisis, she didn’t passively hide but rose to the challenge, showing her face and rushing about everywhere, personally raising a large army to support her father and brothers and shock the Guanzhong region… Where did such courage and ability come from?
It must have been this same courage and ability that made her radiate such vibrant beauty.
Imagine that woman in men’s clothing moving among scholars and heroes of the time, talking and laughing with graceful courtesy, her spirit soaring, causing the master artist who had immersed himself in ink and paint for many years since entering China to fall in love at first sight and never forget. She fell in her beautiful prime years, not permitted to see old age in this world, leaving only people’s sighs of regret, and causing that foreign artist to pour his heart into carving this jade statue of her. Thanks to this, though she had been gone for over ten years, her form could still appear lifelike before later generations.
The light smoke rose gracefully from beneath the lotus of the gilt turtle-footed silver incense burner, filling the hall with a subtle fragrance.
Whenever she had free time, Wei Shubin would linger and sit cross-legged before the jade statue in the connecting hall, resting her hands on her knees and gazing up lost in thought. Thinking too much, her vision blurred, feeling that if in this life she could emulate Princess Pingyang even once—rising with righteous vigor to leave an eternal legacy—even if she died young, it would make her time in this world worthwhile.
She saw this tall woman with elegant eyebrows and phoenix eyes enter the connecting hall, walking straight toward her, lips curved in a smile but brows slightly furrowed with worry. She even smelled the woman’s fragrance and heard the tinkling of ornaments at her waist…
“Shubin,” she heard the jade statue call to her, “get up, let’s go out. I’ve found Former Sui Empress Xiao.”
Note: The novel mentions Yuchi Bazhina and his son Yuchi Yiseng, both famous painters of the late Sui and early Tang dynasties, who were likely of Central Asian descent from the royal family of Khotan (present-day Hotan, Xinjiang). Father and son specialized in painting foreign customs, figures, and Buddha images, and painted large murals in many temples in both capitals during Sui and Tang, bringing the Western “concave-convex method” of painting from Khotan to Central Plains.
The National Art Museum of China’s website states that “Yuchi Bazhina excelled in color gradation methods, namely the concave-convex painting technique, which greatly influenced Central Plains painting. This technique shares its origin with the shading methods used in India’s Ajanta cave murals, particularly in distinguishing light and shadow.
Yuchi Bazhina further developed this concave-convex technique. In terms of brushwork and line drawing, Yuchi Bazhina’s style was free-flowing and majestic. Although no works remain for us to verify, from the Sui and early Tang murals seen in Dunhuang, the brushwork is indeed strong and bold, magnificent in spirit, using vigorous and solid line drawing to create vivid and lively figure images, from which we can imagine Yuchi’s free-flowing brush strokes and the spirited air of the bodhisattvas dancing on the murals.”
As for the interaction between the Yuchi father and son and Princess Pingyang, there is some evidence. In the Southern Song notebook “Wei Lue,” there is an entry: “Yuchi Yiseng painted a portrait of Princess Pingyang, seated in the saddle wearing a quiver, an extraordinary brush of early Tang. His horse painting was particularly excellent, above Han Gan.” The author was Gao Sisun of Southern Song, and from his tone, it seems he saw this painting where Princess Pingyang was riding a horse and wearing a bow and arrows. Of course, there’s also a good chance this painting was a later forgery…