Minu, still kneeling, simply shifted his position to kowtow again, repeatedly addressing Yang Xinzhi as “My Prince and Lord” with boundless joy. The tall, strong guard, however, shrank back in confusion and fear, turning aside to avoid accepting the gesture, and asked his mother in a low voice:
“Mother? What’s happening? Who… who am I?”
“Your foreign name is Nuohepo, born in the second month of the first year of Wude, within the garrison of the former Sui temporary palace at Jiangdu. Your father is Murong Shun, Crown Prince of Tuyuhun, and your mother is the daughter of Yang Xiong, Prince of Guan of the former Sui royal family, granted the title ‘Princess Dehua,’ who was sent to strengthen relations through marriage in the twelfth year of Daye.”
A clear, authoritative male voice carried over to them, and the crowd of onlookers hurriedly stepped back and bowed. The Tang Emperor, wearing hemp mourning clothes, approached with his hands behind his back. Yang Xinzhi, his mother, and Wei Shubin knelt as he continued:
“Your father, Murong Shun, was himself born to a Han princess sent for a marriage alliance, and grew up in the Central Plains, admiring Chinese customs. After returning to Chang’an in the first year of Wude, he served the Late Emperor devotedly and showed loyalty to the Great Tang. The Late Emperor appreciated this but later sent him back to Tuyuhun at his father Fuyun’s request. Fuyun, old and confused, listened to treacherous officials and passed over the elder son to establish the younger. In recent years, he repeatedly violated our borders and raided our frontiers, finally meeting his fate, dying in the desert. Your father maintained his integrity and never became our Great Tang’s enemy. Now he has succeeded to the position of Khan, occupying Fuyi City, leaving the positions of Queen and Crown Prince vacant, waiting for you and your mother.”
As the Emperor spoke above them, Wei Shubin glanced sideways. She couldn’t see Yang Xinzhi’s expression, but she saw his ten thick fingers like wooden clubs scratching and clenching in the yellow earth.
“Help your mother up, Nuohepo,” the Son of Heaven sighed. “This is sudden news, no wonder you’re at a loss.”
Yang Xinzhi helped his mother, Princess Dehua, to her feet, his round face still full of disbelief as he looked at her and stammered, “Mother, am I really… really…”
“During the palace uprising in Jiangdu, your father escaped alone back to Chang’an. I carried you, not yet a month old, enduring countless hardships along the way. When we finally returned home, he had already left again, returning to the Tuyuhun capital to be Crown Prince,” Princess Dehua told her son softly, looking down. “In such chaotic times, I didn’t want to go to a foreign land, and even less did I want you to go… so I left you with my family, took the tonsure to become a nun, thinking at least mother and son could preserve our lives in the capital…”
No, you didn’t just “leave him with family,” Wei Shubin thought. You hated Murong Shun for his callousness and were terrified he would come to claim you and your son for the foreign land. You begged your full brother Yang Shidao until he agreed, replacing his original wife Lady Ma and her son, changing from uncle to father, passing off a Tuyuhun prince’s grandson as the son of a former imperial son-in-law’s wife, living in obscurity for eighteen years.
During the two days accompanying her in Lizheng Palace, Princess Dehua Yang Guanniang had intermittently told Wei Shubin much about the past. She knew that Yang Shidao’s birth mother had been a favored concubine of Prince Yang Xiong of Guan, extraordinarily beautiful, who bore three children: the father of Yang Buyao, Princess of Hailing, Yang Guanniang, and Yang Shidao. Among Yang Xiong’s many children, these three siblings were often neglected due to their mother’s humble status and grew up supporting each other, developing deep bonds. After their elder brother died early, leaving behind his orphaned daughter Buyao, Yang Shidao took her in. Guanniang was selected as a princess for a marriage alliance, and after the Jiangdu palace uprising, she and her son were taken north by Yu Wenhuaji along with the palace women, then fell into the hands of Wang Shichong’s Luoyang garrison forces.
It was in Luoyang that she unexpectedly encountered Yang Shidao’s original wife, Lady Ma, and her son. After two to three years of horrific siege warfare, Lady Ma and her son died, while Guanniang and her son struggled to survive. In the fourth year of Wude, when the Tang Prince of Qin captured Luoyang and dispersed the Sui palace personnel, Guanniang brought her son back to Chang’an and begged her full brother and his wife, allowing her to assume Lady Ma’s identity and have Nuohepo adopted as Yang Shidao’s son.
Yang Shidao, by then married to Princess Guiyang and a Tang imperial son-in-law, was already grieving and guilty about the death of his original wife and eldest son. Feeling sympathy for his full sister who had endured such terrible suffering and barely survived, he agreed. Though he knew Nuohepo was a Tuyuhun prince’s grandson with a special status, he thought that since his father Murong Shun had returned to his country, young and noble, he would surely take new consorts and have more children within a few years, and wouldn’t care about the wife and child he’d abandoned in the Central Plains, so there shouldn’t be any future trouble.
At that time, Princess Guiyang and the handsome Yang Shidao were in newlywed bliss. Though she was reluctant to suddenly acquire a stepson, she couldn’t resist her husband’s repeated pleading and joined him in committing the crime of deceiving the emperor. So Yang Guanniang took the tonsure at Cihe Temple, while Nuohepo moved into Princess Guiyang’s mansion under the name “Yang Xinzhi.” He was only four years old then and naturally couldn’t remember anything. His “father” and birth mother had no intention of telling him the truth, only hoping he could live safely as a member of the Yang family.
Over more than a decade, this secret faced its greatest challenge in the fourth year of Zhenguan when, after Tang defeated the Turks’ Jieli Khan, former Sui Empress Xiao and her grandchildren returned to Chang’an. Empress Xiao had long wished to become a nun and often visited various nunneries to worship Buddha. Since Cihe Temple was known as the Yang family temple, she naturally wouldn’t miss it, and on her first visit, she recognized Princess Dehua Yang Guanniang.
Fortunately, Empress Xiao herself had endured wandering, humiliation, and suffering after the fall of her dynasty, so she sympathized with their similar fate. After a long talk with Guanniang, the two women embraced and wept, and Empress Xiao swore never to reveal their identities to others. She indeed tried her best to keep this oath – even when Chai Yinglu threatened her with her only grandson’s marriage, she wouldn’t disclose the truth, still trying to dismiss Chai Yinglu and Wei Shubin with vague words about “no longer being in this world.”
But she dared not, and could not, be vague and evasive before Empress Zhangsun.
When Li Yuangui’s carefully selected and trained false Tuyuhun prince’s grandson, Zhou Twelve, was summoned for an imperial audience, the Emperor was dissatisfied. After reporting back to Empress Zhangsun at Lizheng Palace, the Empress sensed something was amiss and, despite her illness, summoned Empress Xiao to the palace for a personal conversation. Under persistent questioning, Empress Xiao finally dared not conceal it any longer and revealed that “Princess Dehua is still alive, living as a nun at Cihe Temple.”
So the Empress summoned Yang Guanniang to the palace, persuading her to consider the greater national interest and return with her son to Murong Shun’s side, to assist in governance and succession. In the future, when her son becomes the Khan of a great northwestern nation, he will be a regional hegemon with limitless glory. Guanniang was devastated and wished for death, returning to Cihe Temple intending to commit suicide by poison, thinking that this way there would be no one to prove Yang Xinzhi’s identity and he could remain in the Central Plains without having to go beyond the frontier.
“Now the internal situation in Tuyuhun has stabilized, and Murong Shun has ascended to the throne. Externally supported by our Great Tang’s heavenly army, internally enriched by commercial trade taxes, all is peaceful and prosperous, everything is ready for you and your mother to return home to endless glory and wealth waiting for you,” the Emperor said with a smile. “Nuohepo, your mother is unwell. Take her to stay at the Court of State Ceremonial’s guest house for a few days. I will send imperial physicians to treat your mother, and the officials will prepare some goods. After the Late Emperor’s burial mound is secured, you can set out for Fuyi City.”
Wei Shubin turned her head again to look at the princes’ procession behind the Emperor, and this time saw Li Yuangui. The thin young man’s face also showed an expression of disbelief, pale-faced with thin lips tightly closed.
He had been tasked with finding the Tuyuhun prince’s grandson for nearly half a year, and the person he was looking for had been beside him all along.
The other imperial brothers and princes were mostly whispering and discussing among themselves. Not just them – Wei Shubin glanced around and saw many foreign envoys also pointing and discussing in amazement. She suddenly understood why the Emperor and Empress had arranged for Murong Shun’s special envoy Minu to identify Princess Dehua and her son in this setting… This was more convincing to various countries than if the court had suddenly issued an edict announcing they had found the new Tuyuhun Khan’s original consort and legitimate son.
However… she felt that the expressions of those foreign envoys and chieftains still showed more shock and doubt than anything else. Making such a scene in public was enough to attract the attention of various countries, but might not convince these foreign chiefs and envoys that a Tang guard was the Tuyuhun new king’s only son, lost for eighteen years.
“Enough,” the Emperor turned and walked toward the funeral cart bearing his dead father’s body. “Let’s complete the ceremony. Bring the wine!”
Only the final ritual of the coffin-moving ceremony remained: officials presented wine, the Emperor drank, shattered the goblet and knelt to make offerings, the Chief Minister proclaimed the imperial edict, and the funeral cart set out toward Xian Mausoleum.
From early morning until now, all ceremony participants were thirsty, exhausted, sunburned, and hoarse from wailing. Hearing the ceremony was ending, everyone immediately took their positions. Military music and drums played, the Chief Music Officer conducted, and a line of palace servants carrying sacrificial food, wine, and ritual vessels filed out through the Shuntian Gate.
In the Ceremonial Usher’s already notably hoarse announcement of “The funeral cart is about to depart, the Emperor bows again to make offerings,” the Son of Heaven lifted his robes and knelt to bow. Two palace servants stepped forward, one holding a tray while the other poured wine from a golden vessel into a goblet, first offering one cup to the Ceremonial Officer to taste, then after a moment, filling another goblet and presenting it with both hands to the Emperor.
The Emperor accepted the goblet, raising both arms slightly, about to take the ceremonial sip. At this moment, a shout came from among the princes:
“Your Majesty, stop!”
A thin figure leaped forward, grabbing the wine-pouring palace servant and knocking off his cage-like hat. With the hat that had completely covered his cheeks and half his face falling away, the revealed brown-black young face was recognizable even to Wei Shubin.
Sangsai, son of the Tuyuhun Prince Tianzhuwang.
The Emperor also dropped the wine goblet to the ground, where the yellow earth immediately bubbled up strangely, revealing at a glance that it was a cup of poison.
[Note: The “shoulder carriage” specially granted by Empress Zhangsun to the weakened nun in the palace was the predecessor of later human-powered sedan chairs, also known as “walking carriage” and other names, like the vehicle Emperor Taizong sits in in the famous painting “Walking Carriage Picture.” In the “Portraits of Successive Emperors” attributed to Yan Liben, Emperor Xuan of Chen sits in an almost identical walking carriage. Their seating arrangements were of relatively high rank; the most common and lowest-ranking shoulder carriages were carried by just two people, one in front and one behind, somewhat similar to the “sliding poles” still used for mountain climbing in places like Sichuan today.]