As the morning sun rose, Li Yuanji, dressed in plain clothes with a formal headpiece, climbed the steps of Wanchun Palace one by one, his thoughts troubled and restless.
The past few days had been chaotic—after he and Kang Sumi successfully intercepted the escaping Tuyuhun captives in Qin Prefecture, they had already packed and prepared to continue their journey northwest to Gaochang. Unexpectedly, an urgent imperial edict arrived from Chang’an, ordering their special envoy group to “halt their journey and return swiftly to the capital.”
It seemed something had happened in the capital, and the Emperor and his ministers had changed their minds again. Li Yuanji questioned the postal officials and local administrators who delivered the edict, but none could explain what had occurred. The old merchant Kang Sumi didn’t mind, even laughing and advising Li Yuanji, “Just go back for a while, it won’t delay us too many days.”
Yes, it wouldn’t delay you, and might even help you make more money, Li Yuanji rolled his eyes internally. The Hu merchants had acquired some horses in Qin Prefecture for free and later struck another deal with the local pastoral supervisors. They were eager to return to Chang’an first to properly arrange their merchant business. At Kang Sabo’s command, the camel caravan cheerfully turned back.
What outsiders didn’t notice was that among the merchant group was a young barbarian wearing a Hu hat that covered his face—Sang Sai, son of the Tuyuhun Tianzhu King.
Looking at that dark-skinned boy made Li Yuanji’s blood boil. On the day of the interception, when Kang Sumi informed him that he had captured Sang Sai on the battlefield, Li Yuanji had wanted to return this important captive to camp along with the Tuyuhun Queen and others to be escorted back to Chang’an and submit a memorial explaining the circumstances. But Kang Sumi had adamantly refused, alternating between saying “This melon kid has real ties with my family, Fourteenth Lord, consider my old Kang’s face” and “He caused us much suffering, we can’t let him off easily.” No matter what he said, he insisted on secretly keeping the boy to handle himself.
Considering he still had an IOU for fifty thousand rolls of silk in the other’s possession, Li Yuanji had no choice. He already understood Kang Sumi’s thoughts well—he felt he had invested considerable capital in Sang Sai and couldn’t let it go to waste. He wanted to at least recoup his investment before handing the boy over to the Tang court for disposition.
They weren’t Tang people, to begin with, and Li Yuanji never expected old Hu Kang to be truly loyal to the Great Tang—he was loyal to his Zoroastrian god and perhaps silk and gold—to be honest, this time Kang Sumi had already been quite accommodating.
After Li Yuanji discovered the Tuyuhun captives’ escape attempt, he had poor communication with the Prefect of Qin and General Zhang Shigui and could only lead a small force to intercept them. However, Kang Sumi had used his merchant network channels to warn several nearby military garrisons to prepare troops for any disturbance. Thus when Zhang Shigui received confirmed news of the captives stealing horses, he immediately ordered local garrison troops, allowing them to organize several hundred men overnight to remedy the situation, preventing more disastrous consequences.
Since the special envoy group was also returning to Chang’an from Qin Prefecture, they simply traveled together with Zhang Shigui’s escort of prisoners and tribute horses, helping supplement the escort personnel. Li Yuanji and Zhang Shigui still harbored mutual resentment, and the journey relied entirely on Kang Sabo’s jovial conversation to ease the atmosphere. The return journey was downhill, making for faster travel. After a few days, they reached the Kaiyuan Gate of the capital. At the postal station, Li Yuanji received an imperial order commanding him to enter Wanchun Palace to participate in court discussions the morning after entering the city.
Wanchun Palace was located between Liangyi Palace and Lizheng Palace. Though small, it was where the Emperor regularly convened his ministers for discussions. While its scale couldn’t compare to regular court sessions at Liangyi Palace, let alone grand ceremonies at Taiji Palace, its importance far exceeded both. Li Yuanji naturally understood that fewer participants meant more crucial matters being decided.
The last time he was summoned to participate in discussions at Wanchun Palace was under Crown Prince Li Chengqian’s supervision during the Three Halls trial, where he ultimately won the opportunity to escape charges of treason and go on the Western Regions diplomatic marriage mission. This time… what would it be? He didn’t dare hope for any good fortune to fall upon himself.
Outside Wanchun Palace, he encountered Left Prime Minister Fang Xuanling. This famously amiable minister greeted him warmly with concern and smiles, showing earnest humility, but when asked about today’s discussion topics, Fang Xuanling avoided the question and wouldn’t reveal anything. The two modestly yielded to each other while entering the hall to take their positions. Li Yuanji looked around and saw that besides several ministers, there were also some officials from the Ministry of War and the Court of State Ceremonial. More striking was a large figure—Duke of Qi, Minister of Works Long Sun Wuji.
Uncle Long Sun currently held no official position, and despite his high rank, usually only attended the imperial court and handled temporary assignments from the Emperor. His presence seemed to indicate this court discussion was rather private but extremely important…
Before Li Yuanji could finish his thoughts, the announcement came that the Emperor was entering the hall, and all officials performed the grand ceremonial greeting. As a prince, Li Yuanji stood quite close to the front. After rising from the greeting, he stole a glance at the imperial dais and saw his imperial brother wearing a serious expression, his face stern as if harboring anger.
Led by Fang Xuanling, they first presented several urgent matters of state, which the Emperor all approved with “Let it be so,” and the Secretariat went to draft the edicts. Then they moved to the main topic. At the Emperor’s signal, Supervising Secretary Liu Ji stepped forward holding several documents, and began:
“The details of our army’s great victory over Tuyuhun are already fully known to all present, so I shall not repeat them. Staff officers under the Grand Commander of the Western Sea Route discovered correspondence between Tuyuhun and the Kingdom of Gaochang among the collected documents from the surrendered city, concerning the matter of our Great Tang’s displaced people returning home—the cruelty is unspeakable. The Duke of Dai specially dispatched men to quickly deliver these documents for imperial review. His Majesty also ordered a search among the captured Tuyuhun royal family members for those with knowledge of this matter. They were sent to Chang’an a few days ago, and Duke Qi and I received imperial orders to question them personally, confirming the truth of the matter. His Majesty holds all people in his heart, his benevolence vast as the sea. He cannot sit idly by while barbaric rulers torture our Chinese people. Ministers, please discuss.”
As he spoke, he handed the documents to palace attendants who passed them among the senior officials. Li Yuanji also hurriedly scanned several letters and registers. The matter being sudden, at first he could only understand that Chinese names were being recorded for labor in certain places. Later he noticed many entries marked “detained person” and was shocked.
Liu Ji stood below the steps and further explained. After Tang forces defeated Jieli Khagan in the north in the fourth year of Zhenguan, many Chinese who had scattered beyond the frontier during the Sui Dynasty chaos wished to return home, to their original counties to re-register households and farm-allocated land. For some who had already sold themselves into slavery, the court even provided government funds to help redeem them. This should have been beneficial for both public and private interests, but unfortunately, the northern frontier routes were distant. Those scattered in areas closer to the east fared better, but Chinese people near the Western Regions, blocked by vast deserts and snowy mountains, often had to travel through Gaochang and then via Yumen Pass and the Western Liang route to return to the Central Plains.
The Gaochang King Qu Wentai, partly under pressure from the Western Regions’ Yebgu Khagan of the Turks, and partly out of greed, calculating that the Tang court’s authority couldn’t reach so far, had secretly detained many returning Chinese over these years. Their personal belongings were plundered and confiscated, men and women forced into slavery, and particularly skilled craftsmen were often castrated and made into royal household slave craftsmen, even given as gifts to neighboring royal families like Tuyuhun. These reports had vaguely reached the ears of Tang rulers and ministers before, but without concrete evidence, the Emperor and ministers hadn’t paid much attention.
After this great victory over Tuyuhun, when General Li Jing and other front-line commanders discovered related documents in their capital’s royal tent, they realized the severity of the situation and quickly reported to the Emperor. The Emperor ordered trusted confidants to conduct interrogations, confirming the truth of the matter. According to just the Tuyuhun officials responsible for foreign relations, there might be over ten thousand Chinese displaced people currently suffering in the Kingdom of Gaochang.
“Over ten thousand?” Li Yuanji exclaimed in surprise.
Before departing for Gaochang, he had thoroughly studied and memorized all the court’s archived information about the Western Region’s countries. According to his knowledge, agriculture was difficult in the Western Regions, which were vast but sparsely populated. Although the Kingdom of Gaochang governed three commanderies, five counties, and twenty-two cities, covering considerable territory, it only had a few thousand households with a total registered population of no more than thirty or forty thousand. If they truly detained over ten thousand returning Chinese people, that would mean nearly every household had a detained slave—an astounding ratio.
“Your servant Ji questioned the Tuyuhun captive named Murong Xiaojun, who was once appointed by Fu Yun as ‘King of Gaochang’…”
Before Liu Ji could finish his explanation, the Emperor, seated on the imperial throne, interrupted him:
“How many of my Chinese subjects Qu Wentai has detained and enslaved can be investigated later. Even if he had enslaved just one person, as the father and mother of the common people, how could I ignore it? Also, Fourteenth Brother—”
The Emperor’s dark eyes turned to the Prince of Wu standing below the steps, his tone icy, yet speaking the warmest, most benevolent words Li Yuanji had heard in his life:
“You need not rush to become that Gaochang prince consort. Qu Wentai has already enslaved over ten thousand of my subjects—he doesn’t need you as one more!”
No… we’re not going to Gaochang anymore.