After solemnly announcing at court that he intended to submit to Qi, Emperor Li Ye dispatched two delegations. One, led by Left Chancellor Zhou Tai, was sent to Jianmen Pass to present the formal declaration of surrender to Zhao Xuan, Crown Prince of Qi. The other, led by Li Congshan, commander of the imperial guard, traveled to Yucheng with orders for Zhu Tao, commander of the naval forces, to cease hostilities and admit the other Qi army into Shu.

Both delegations needed time to make the journey there and back. During those days, Du Yizhen grew accustomed to the palace she had newly acquired as an adopted princess. She began sleeping soundly and eating well again.

Her elder cousin had been the first Shu general to surrender to Qi, while her maternal grandfather had been the first civil official to urge the Emperor of Shu to submit. Judging by the Qi emperor’s record of rewarding and punishing the officials of conquered states according to merit and employing those with ability, the Du and Zhou families would surely retain a place in officialdom.

What did she have left to worry about?

Instead, it was the members of the Shu imperial household who began losing sleep.

Li Ye fared somewhat better. He poured all his anxiety and grief into the calligraphy and painting he loved so much.

Empress Liu, who had no such outlet, was less fortunate. She seemed to age ten years overnight.

Since her imperial husband was immersed in his own sorrow and had no strength left to comfort her, Empress Liu came to see Du Yizhen.

Looking at the young girl’s soft, fair skin, then at her own hands, which were still scarcely less beautiful, Empress Liu burst into tears.

“Zhenzhen, what are we going to do?”

Over the course of barely twenty years, Qi had successively swallowed up state after state, north and south alike. Men tended to speak of Qi’s glory and lament the fall of the conquered kingdoms.

Empress Liu cared far more about what had become of the fallen emperors’ consorts.

There had been two or three rulers who refused to surrender even unto death. Most of their women had ended up as playthings for the generals who took their cities, or were sent to Qi to serve as slaves and maids.

The consorts of emperors who surrendered voluntarily were permitted to remain with husbands demoted to dukes or marquises. But beauty itself invited disaster. Once a fallen ruler no longer had the power—or the inclination—to protect his women, those beauties could still become secret courtesans for high-ranking Qi officials.

Not every powerful official was lustful.

But there were always a few who delighted in violating the women of fallen kingdoms, and the more exalted a woman’s former status, the more pleasure they took in it.

Empress Liu was only thirty-five and still beautiful. She had suffered nightmares for several nights in a row.

Du Yizhen was young. She had never gone out of her way to learn what had happened to the consorts of distant fallen states, and her maternal grandparents had forbidden the servants from telling her such sordid stories.

She therefore assumed Empress Liu was merely afraid of what might happen when the Qi army entered the capital.

“Your Majesty, don’t be afraid. My elder cousin told me that other Qi generals might allow their soldiers to run wild, but the Crown Prince of Qi enforces military discipline extremely strictly. As long as he is here, neither the imperial household nor the ordinary people of the capital will be disturbed.”

Du Yizhen trusted her elder cousin’s judgment, so her reassurance was entirely sincere.

Empress Liu raised a handkerchief to wipe away her tears, using the gesture to hide the bitter curve of her lips.

She had been foolish.

Why was she pouring out such fears to an unmarried young girl?

***

Ten days later, Left Chancellor Zhou Tai and his delegation returned first.

He conveyed the Crown Prince of Qi’s terms to Li Ye.

First, Qi accepted the Emperor of Shu’s surrender. The Qi army would break camp immediately and march for the Shu capital, and Shu’s ruler and ministers were to make preparations to receive them.

Second, the wealth, provisions, and armaments stored in the Shu imperial palace and all government storehouses throughout the capital now belonged to Qi. Li Ye would be permitted to remove enough property from his private palace treasury to fill a single boat and take it to the Qi capital as the Li family’s personal wealth. Everything else was to be sealed, with Du Yuanhui temporarily assuming command of the imperial guard to keep watch over it.

The Shu imperial palace had completely changed hands.

Li Ye, his consorts and children, and the palace servants he intended to take with him to Qi would now merely be “lodging” in the three courtyards of the Eastern Palace that the Crown Prince of Qi had set aside for them.

No amount of weeping could change what had happened.

With matters having reached this point, the large imperial household became intensely concerned with exactly what possessions they would be allowed to take.

Zhou Tai had tactfully explained that when the Crown Prince spoke of “one boat,” he meant an ordinary passenger vessel. Its load-bearing capacity was limited. If it were filled entirely with heavy gold, it could carry only about ten chests—roughly sixty thousand taels.

Sixty thousand taels of gold equaled six hundred thousand taels of silver.

For an ordinary official’s household, that would have been an unimaginable fortune.

But Shu had prospered for more than thirty years. Li Ye’s private treasury alone contained many times that amount in gold and silver, never mind the state treasury.

And they could not simply fill the boat with gold.

The journey from the Shu capital to the Qi capital took a full two months. The Qi army would provide Li Ye and the others with meals, but the enormous household would have to provide its own clothes and daily necessities.

After all, Li Ye was the ruler of a conquered state surrendering because he had no other choice. He was not an honored guest from Shu whom Qi was obliged to treat with deference.

Even so, for the Crown Prince of Qi to allow Li Ye as much as sixty thousand taels of gold in personal property was already exceedingly generous.

“Your Majesty, how are we supposed to divide the space on one boat? Can I bring my gold and silver jewelry?”

“Your Majesty, I still have several bolts of Shu brocade I only received before the New Year. May I take those?”

“Your Majesty, I—”

Excluding Empress Liu, Li Ye had more than a dozen favored consorts.

Every one of them began fighting for her own interests.

Empress Liu looked numb.

Li Ye’s head throbbed from the noise. Irritated and overwhelmed, he shifted his gaze—and noticed Du Yizhen standing quietly behind the other consorts.

After a moment’s thought, he said to her affectionately, “Zhenzhen, I’ll give you room for one chest. Take whatever things you like best.”

Du Yizhen stared at him.

“I’m going to the Qi capital too?”

Li Ye guiltily looked away once more.

In his ears echoed the heartfelt advice Eunuch Sun had given him on the night Du Yuanhui returned.

“Your Majesty’s decree bestowing the title of princess has already been proclaimed throughout Shu and has probably spread across the realm. If you revoke it now, wouldn’t that be as good as announcing to everyone that all the affection and praise for Du Yizhen in the original decree were lies, and that Your Majesty adopted her only to control Generals Du and Zhu?

“Your Majesty has been forced by circumstances to relinquish the throne. The world can understand that. But if you adopt a daughter and then abandon her less than a month later, what will people say? The late emperor was wise and mighty, and his word was law. Yet when Your Majesty makes someone a princess, even that can be treated like a child’s game?”

“There is another matter. The one entering Shu this time is the Crown Prince of Qi himself. I hear he has yet to marry. With Du Yizhen’s beauty, there is every possibility she may catch his eye.

“Du Yuanhui is too young. Even after surrendering to Qi, he is unlikely to receive a very high post. Zhou Tai possesses great ability, but he offended the Qi emperor in the past. Once he arrives there, at most he will probably receive some middling office.

“With such a family background, the Crown Prince of Qi would likely take Miss Du only as an ordinary concubine. But if she also possesses the distinguished status of a former princess of Shu, and since Qi will still need to stabilize popular sentiment in Shu, then he would at least have to give her the position of secondary consort.”

“So, Your Majesty, keeping Miss Du from returning home is not only for her own good. Through her connection with the Du family, you can also preserve some dignity for your household once you reach the Qi capital. It benefits both sides. Your Majesty must not ruin Miss Du’s future merely because your heart softens for a moment.”

Li Ye had asked, “…And if the Crown Prince of Qi has no interest in Yizhen?”

Eunuch Sun had answered, “Then Miss Du will be in even greater danger. So many great Qi generals have come on this campaign. Once they hear of Miss Du’s beauty, how many of them will remain unmoved?

“Du Yuanhui and Zhou Tai themselves will have to watch the Qi emperor’s expression. Can those two alone truly protect her?

“But so long as Du Yizhen remains Your Majesty’s daughter, none of those generals will dare make designs on her before the Qi emperor has settled Your Majesty’s position.”

Li Ye had found Eunuch Sun’s reasoning very persuasive.

Du Yizhen, meanwhile, lost every last trace of respect she still held for Li Ye.

She turned at once to find her elder cousin, who had assumed control of the palace defenses.

She had been born in Shu and raised in Shu. She had no intention of traveling thousands of li to the Qi capital—least of all as a princess of a fallen kingdom.

Eunuch Sun made a token gesture to stop her, his tone helpless.

“Yes, His Majesty no longer has soldiers of his own. Your Highness may return to the palace with General Du, and no one here can stop you.

“But Your Highness’s title has already been entered into the Shu imperial genealogy. Even if you return home now, once the Crown Prince of Qi escorts the Shu imperial household back after the campaign and compares the records, he will discover that one princess is missing. He will certainly send for Your Highness again.

“Or does Your Highness believe that, for the sake of General Du’s modest merit in surrendering, the Crown Prince of Qi would break the rules governing the prisoners under his escort and give others grounds to criticize him?”

Eunuch Sun himself would certainly be following Li Ye to Qi.

Only if Li Ye lived well could Eunuch Sun live well.

And now, the one person Li Ye could still hope to rely upon was his adopted daughter, Du Yizhen.

Du Yizhen heard him.

But she still went to discuss the matter with her elder cousin.

She could not understand it.

“Why is Eunuch Sun so determined to drag me to the Qi capital?”

There was no need to guess. It had to be Eunuch Sun’s rotten idea. Li Ye did not possess that much cunning.

Du Yuanhui said, “That eunuch is selfish and devious. He obviously wants to lash our Du family securely to the same boat as his former master so he can continue enjoying a comfortable life alongside him.”

Du Yizhen asked, “Then do you think the Crown Prince of Qi will let me go, even though I’m technically a princess?”

Du Yuanhui recalled Zhao Xuan’s bearing and thought for a moment.

“I’ll do everything I can to persuade him. A man as formidable as he is can hardly be worried that if one false princess remains in Shu, she’ll spend the rest of her life running around plotting on behalf of the Li clan.”

Du Yizhen had reached the same conclusion.

How muddleheaded would she have to be to abandon the comfortable life of her own family and insist on rebelling for the former Emperor of Shu?

“Fine. I’m going home right now. I refuse to move yet again just to follow them into the Eastern Palace.”

Du Yuanhui looked at his sister and smiled.

“All right. I’ll take you home.”

***

Du Yizhen neither valued her status as a princess of Shu nor wished to bear the burdens that came with being a princess of a fallen kingdom.

She therefore took only the belongings that she and her four maids had owned before entering the palace. Of the gifts Li Ye had bestowed on her, she took nothing.

Once she returned to the familiar Zhou household, Du Yizhen immediately threw herself into her maternal grandmother’s arms and had a good cry.

Li Ye and Eunuch Sun had gone too far!

Madam Yang held her granddaughter and gently patted her back, though her worried gaze went to her husband.

“Can she truly avoid going?”

Zhou Tai sighed.

“Even if she doesn’t go with the imperial household, what if the Qi emperor appoints Yuanhui and me to posts in the capital? Would you and the children go then?”

Madam Yang fell silent.

Of course she wanted to remain with her husband.

Du Yizhen’s maternal uncle, Zhou Wencheng, said, “Father is Left Chancellor. He must accompany His Majesty to Qi. My own rank is low, so I needn’t go. The Qi emperor will most likely leave me in my present post.”

In other words, if Du Yizhen did not want to go north, she and her younger brother could continue living in Shu with their maternal uncle and aunt.

Du Yizhen hesitated.

She wanted even more to stay with her maternal grandparents.

But the Qi capital was a completely unfamiliar place…

“All right, all right,” Zhou Tai said. “In the end, it will still depend on the Crown Prince of Qi’s decision. There’s no sense worrying about it yet.”

***

At dusk on the seventh day of the second month in the fourteenth year of Yongsheng by the Great Qi calendar, the fifty thousand troops commanded by Crown Prince Zhao Xuan joined the seventy thousand troops led by Prince Ning and Geng Jin, Marquis Who Pacifies the South, twenty li outside Jincheng.

Zhou Tai went out to receive them and agreed upon the hour for the formal surrender the following morning.

That night, the Qi armies remained encamped outside the city while Zhou Tai hurried back to Jincheng and reported all the arrangements to Li Ye.

Li Ye agreed readily enough.

Yet on the morning of the eighth, when Zhou Tai and a group of former Shu ministers arrived at the palace to escort the imperial household outside the city, Li Ye refused to emerge.

Only Eunuch Sun appeared.

“The Shu imperial household is still missing one princess. With the imperial clan incomplete, my master does not dare leave the city for fear that the Crown Prince of Qi may hold him responsible.”

Du Yuanhui snapped, “Today is the surrender ceremony. The women of the imperial household aren’t required to attend in the first place!”

Eunuch Sun’s expression did not change.

“The consorts need not attend, but the Empress, imperial princes, princesses, princes of the blood, and others must be present to witness the ceremony. This is my master’s demonstration of sincerity in submitting to Qi.

“I ask General Du and Left Chancellor Zhou to consider the greater good. Do not delay today’s surrender ceremony for the sake of personal concerns.”

Du Yuanhui had disliked Eunuch Sun for a long time already.

He lifted one foot, ready to charge over, shove the eunuch aside, and drag Li Ye and the rest of the imperial household out by force.

Zhou Tai stopped him.

He glanced at the rows of former colleagues who had already been waiting behind them for some time, then said to Du Yuanhui, “Go. Bring the princess here.”

If anything went wrong with the surrender one hour from now and the Qi army responded by attacking the city in anger, neither the Du nor Zhou family could bear the consequences.

At the Zhou Residence, Du Yizhen learned that she was expected to accompany Li Ye’s family outside the city, wait around, kneel, and choke on dust.

Her eyes reddened with grievance.

But she knew her maternal grandfather had no choice.

She hurriedly changed into a plain white blouse and skirt that looked little different from mourning clothes, pressed her lips together, climbed into the carriage, and set out for the Shu imperial palace.

Only after Eunuch Sun saw her with his own eyes did he go inside and invite Li Ye and the others to emerge.

The enormous procession then made its mournful way beyond the southern city gate as though attending the funeral of their own parents.

There was still half an hour before the Qi army was due to arrive.

Li Ye stood at the very front beside the fifteen-year-old former Crown Prince of Shu.

Behind them stood Empress Liu, accompanied by the unwilling Du Yizhen, as well as Li Ye’s younger brother, a prince, and his wife.

With four people standing in that row, Du Yizhen ended up at the outer edge.

There was nothing in front of her at all to block the light.

By early second month, the morning sun in Shu was already bright, and it shone directly upon her face.

After standing there for a while, Du Yizhen began to feel uncomfortable beneath the glare. Her legs and feet were growing sore as well.

She glanced back at her maternal grandfather, whose expression remained grave, endured a little longer, and only then quietly shifted her feet.

Empress Liu noticed.

For a moment, she actually envied the young girl for still being able to care about something as trivial as physical discomfort.

At last, just as Du Yizhen’s patience was nearing its limit, the intimidating, perfectly synchronized tread of more than a hundred thousand soldiers reached her ears.

The first ranks of the Qi army entered her field of vision.

They had, after all, been enemies until very recently.

And there were as many of them as a plague of locusts.

Du Yizhen grew frightened.

The hands hidden inside her sleeves began trembling uncontrollably. She lowered her eyes until her gaze rested on the white hem of Li Ye’s robes.

The former Shu officials looked upon the Qi soldiers as though they were wolves and jackals.

The Qi soldiers looked back at them like prey that had already abandoned all resistance.

A few flippant jokes even drifted over on the wind.

Zhao Xuan glanced behind him.

The generals who had spoken immediately fell silent as death.

Even Prince Ning, riding half a horse-length behind the Crown Prince, deliberately schooled his expression into solemnity.

Zhao Xuan turned his gaze forward again.

The former Emperor of Shu, Li Ye, was forty years old and possessed dignified, refined features.

Unfortunately, he looked far too delicate.

The young former Crown Prince of Shu was pale. There was neither anger nor hatred on his face.

Only fear.

Behind father and son, Zhao Xuan saw another pale face.

And even after he drew on the reins and stopped fifteen paces from the former Emperor of Shu, he was still looking openly at the face of that delicate beauty, without the slightest attempt to conceal it.

Chapter 3

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