Chapter Text
第七回：Policy
“Which prince would be offered as marriage material, do you think?”
This question was posed by Rites Minister Xing Lin, who met her friend at the Bamboo Teahouse outside the august enceinte of Taiwei Hall after Court had ended. The friend in question was Justice Minister Bian Tao, who returned a wooden expression.
“You’re not involved in foreign relations, Minister Bian,” Xing Lin sighed. “So? Opinions?”
“…”
Xing Lin took a sip of tea. “You weren’t listening, were you?”
Bian Tao shook her head. “I was thinking about a conundrum for a case.”
“…you’re not going to think about other things until it’s done, yes?” Xing Lin rolled her eyes. “Fine. Case details?”
“A man was accusing a woman of pressuring a marriage by getting pregnant,” Bian Tao’s enunciation was quiet, but the two Ministers had gained a private room by using their rank and smiling at the waiter. “He produced a witness who claims that the woman bought the remains of his semen and then… used it,” she added as Xing Lin turned over her teacup. “The man wants the boy child, but not the concubine that would come with the child.”
“…I see your point,” Xing Lin finally said. “There’s nothing under the legal code that states this, yes? He wants the child, the mother refuses to give up custody unless she enters the household, there’s something that stops him from taking a concubine? Was it even worth the risk of… err, stealing the male essence?”
“There is a child involved, which should make the woman a concubine,” Bian Tao agreed. “The problem, though, is that the man wants the child but not the additional woman, and the woman will not relent despite having been offered money to drop the case. Without being able to prove that he is the child’s father, the man will be forced to take the concubine, at which the family code will enter into force.”
Long years of warfare and much interaction with the tribes on the boundaries of Great Yang had made the social status of women much equivalent to men. Women’s influence in society had yet to reach the stage of allowing ‘three husbands and four attendants’[1] for a woman, as the late Great Grand Princess[2] Kunxing had famously argued in court. However, the current Emperor’s late aunt had set the groundwork for poor female scholars like Bian Tao to enter the Court and reach high office. The legal consequences of such a change, though, was still being handled by the Ministries of Rites, Justice, Personnel, and Works.
Xing Lin hummed. “So, the conundrum lies… in that the man is unwilling to risk his morals?”
“I have sentenced the woman to the felony of misleading with intent to disrupt family life.” Bian Tao’s lips pressed together. “I do not agree with the law of choice, but it is useful in such cases. The case is closed, but it posed an interesting exercise.”
“Then why did you keep thinking about it…” Xing Lin shook her head. “The basis of the law lies in the household registration.[3] The fact that Taohua,” she added an emphasis to Bian Tao’s courtesy name, “has a record is much due to the Xing family’s influence and our Apricot Forest Academy.”
“Jiaheng, you would name the school that you set up after yourself,”[4] Bian Tao used Xing Lin’s own courtesy name here with a small smile.
“Well, let me play the teacher once more…” Xing Lin smiled across the table to her tea companion. “Which prince? We don’t have a princess of age, so to guard against Xuan Yue allying with Fulahun, we would need to offer a prince.”
“Xuan Yue, eldest princess of the Xuan family which rules the Kingdom of Ling…” Bian Tao furrowed her brows in thought. Her slow speech continued: “Titled as Grand Princess Shuiyue, an unprecedented honour from winning the Battle of Tongtian River three years ago. Even before that, the story of the seventeen-year-old princess scolding her brother Xuan Ce to adulthood and up to the throne of Ling has spread across the land under the heavens.”
“Scolding her brother to adulthood… I wish I did that to Jiajue,” Xing Lin wistfully referred to her younger brother, the General Xing Du. “Otherwise why would he be so unsophisticated?”
She said this with a look at Bian Tao.
Bian Tao sipped her tea. “A Royal Prince would be the best offer for a princess from an external kingdom. Out of the Royal Princes of the generation, the Prince of Yongchang is already married, and the Prince of Rongyu is not. There are other Royal Princes, but to entrap Xuan Yue requires attractive bait.”
“You mean, that lunatic actually has taste, and won’t take the bait for anything other than an actual blood relation with some talent,” Xing Lin scoffed. “We can’t even demand much from Ling, because we were the ones who started to sue for peace talks… what about Fulahun, then?”
“Our Court sends the Chidi tribe a princess every decade.” From Bian Tao’s tart statement, she neglected to mention that these princesses were little more than noble daughters randomly bestowed an imperial title of ‘princess’ and then sacrificed to the altar of marriage alliances. “None of them have ever become the Khatun.”
“There are smart people amongst them,” Xing Lin agreed.
“Fulahun is smart enough to recognise that allying with Great Yang would be more beneficial, though?” Bian Tao mumbled.
“If the Chidi and Ling ally, we would have to fight on two fronts, which is why His Majesty is placing so much emphasis on settling this before the Banquet of Many Stars,” Xing Lin complained. “As for his order for you to investigate the trespasser in the Palace last night, Taohua, what you need is to dig out any foreign spies. You’d need to start with the witnesses then.”
“Very good. If I rush, I should be able to conclude the first interview before sunset.”
“Interview?” Xing Lin echoed as Bian Tao stood up.
“Interviewing witnesses. There is nobody else with the rank to talk to our Emperor.”
“Before Bian Tao comes here, we need to figure out which one of you is going to marry Xuan Yue,” Lí Xi was telling his younger brothers in the Imperial Study. His lunch lay cold and untouched on a small table on one side, before an attendant hurriedly carried it away to be replaced.
“Second Imperial Brother is married, and there is no way that Imperial Eldest Brother would let that Rakshasa into the Inner Palace,” Lí Rong said. “Your brother and subject, is the only other Royal Prince.”
Lí Chang patted his shoulder in sympathy – a rare gesture amongst these two who were once bitter enemies on the political front. “There is no other reason why Xuan Yue would even look at you, little brother.”
Lí Rong sighed. “I would rather avoid her forever. Is she really as crazy as the rumours say?”
“The rumours,” said Lí Chang, “make her look like a saint. I heard that the King of Ling is far more eager to see her married off, so that she would stop monitoring his work.”
“Can I not have such a Princess Consort, Imperial Elder Brother?”
“…the Consort Dowager may beg to differ.”
“Consort Mother would rather not see an outsider as the Princess Consort of Rongyu,” Lí Rong shook his head, glancing in the direction where the Emperor’s lunch had been. “Once that happens, I would lose all affinity with the throne.”
“Little Fifth, you actually told me that you would rather be a carefree prince, and that all your efforts in Court was because of Consort Dowager Bai,” Lí Xi sighed. “I ascended to the throne, and you became your carefree prince. The Bai clan might make you propose strange fiscal policies every now and then, but you are now entirely free to ignore them, as I am entirely free to leave the Consort Dowager in Huagai Palace. Now I need you to talk to your Consort Mother, and explain to her that I, this emperor, am very unhappy about the Bai clan and if you do not receive support, I might consider executing the whole family unto the third generation.”
“…would Imperial Brother do that?”
“Little Fifth, they are your maternal relations. You’re being offered to Xuan Yue.”
Lí Rong slumped.
“You can go to the Imperial Kitchens now,” Lí Xi dismissed him, and then turned to Lí Chang. “Chang-di, was I too strong on him?”
“That assumes,” Lí Chang answered, “that Little Fifth can actually hook Xuan Yue. That woman fixates on a large variety of people. Men, women, even some in between.”
“Certainly adventurous,” Lí Xi faintly sighed. “I called you here about the Chidi tribe – the red barbarians, as we say. They call themselves the Wulan?”
“Ulaan. For ‘red’,” Lí Chang clarified. “The Rites Ministry’s Bureau of Diplomatic Relations[5] claim that they name themselves after a colour because of their most venerated heroic figure – the Red-Clothed Hero, Ulaan Bator.”
“Red…” Lí Xi swallowed. “The JieJue Sect associates itself strongly with the colour red. Yan, Xing, Fei... these are only three of the Six Harmonious Families that made up the Sect.”
“You think that the Sect is behind the Chidi?”
“Think about what we call them.” Lí Xi rubbed his temple. “Chidi (赤狄), for ‘red barbarian’. The other families have the surnames of Jiang, Zhu, and… Chi, for ‘scarlet’. It stands to reason that the Chidi have more than a simple alliance with the Sect.”
Realisation dawned on Lí Chang. “If Imperial Brother is correct… then the JieJue Sect are colluding with foreigners!”
“The Red-Clothed Hero may be someone wearing a Clothes of the Heavens,” Lí Xi grimly agreed. “The last time that Great Yang faced the Chidi was when the Grand Lord donned Wufeng into battle. To face them… Chang-di, you might have to wear it.”
[1] 三夫四侍 – this is the gender-reversed equivalent of 三妻四妾 ‘three wives and four concubines’.
[2] 大长公主 – refer to footnote 3 of 第一回 about the title of ‘princess’. This title refers to the aunt of an Emperor, because when an emperor dies, and his son succeeds the throne, all the royalty of the late emperor’s generation become the elders of the new emperor’s generation.
[3] The hukou户口 system, also called huji户籍, is a household registration system dating back to ancient pre-imperial China. A household registration record officially identifies a person as a resident of an area, and includes identifying information such as name, parents, spouse, and date of birth. In its early forms, the system was used for taxation and conscription, as well as regulating migration, and then later used for the purposes of creating accountability. This is also where the phrase ‘nine familial exterminations’ comes from, because ancient Chinese capital punishment for very serious crimes extended not only to criminals, but also their families up to nine degrees of relations.
[4] Xing Lin 腥林is a homophone of 杏林, ‘apricot forest’. In Chinese culture, an apricot forest can either refer to a hospital or to an examination hall, depending on context. Nowadays it mainly refers to a traditional Chinese medicine hall.
[5] 主客清吏司 – Bureau of Diplomatic Relations. This is a misnomer; the actual translation works out like ‘Master-Guest Clear Functionary Bureau’. This is because of the concept of Tianxia 天下 ‘all under the heavens’. Tianxia denoted the lands, space, and area divinely appointed to the Emperor by universal and well-defined principles of order. The centre of this land was directly apportioned to the Imperial court, forming the centre of a world that centered on the Imperial court and went concentrically outward to major and minor officials and then the common citizens, tributary states, and finally ending with the fringe "barbarians". The ancient Chinese were therefore the ‘master’, and other states were ‘guests’. This worldview would persist until the Qing dynasty’s downfall.