Chapter 5
Pei Guannan stared at me.
“Heavy snow has sealed the northern mountain passes. Countless people have frozen to death on the roads.”
“Xie Yuanzhen, you need two more layers of winter clothing than anyone else.”
“How do you propose to go?”
I raised my head and met his eyes.
“I have studied the sages for many years.”
“I know that the people come first, and that one who accepts his sovereign’s bounty must share his sovereign’s burdens.”
“The north is suffering.”
“Though I hold no office, I wish to do what I can.”
“I beg Your Majesty to grant my request!”
I bowed low on the jade steps. The wind and snow soaked my sleeves.
Grand Secretary Chen was the first to react.
That oldest of foxes understood at once.
If I simply left, His Majesty would never allow it.
But if I went for the sake of the people, Pei Guannan could not stop me.
“Your Majesty! Young Master Xie is of the Xie clan. He is well versed in the classics and understands agricultural administration.”
“The court currently lacks someone to supervise disaster relief.”
“I beg Your Majesty to grant his request!”
The other ministers followed, one after another.
Pei Guannan still stared at me, seething with anger.
“Xie Yuanzhen, have you thought this through?”
I clenched my teeth and spoke each word distinctly.
“I beg Your Majesty’s permission. I am willing to go north and make something of myself in your service.”
“Good. Very good.” He spoke through gritted teeth.
“Since you are so intent on distinguishing yourself,”
“would it not be unjust of me to refuse you?”
He laughed coldly. “Draft the edict at once.”
“Appoint Xie Yuanzhen Pacification Commissioner for the North, with oversight of relief grain and funds and full discretionary authority.”
“Send the decree to the Six Ministries immediately. He is to leave… tonight.”
I kowtowed in thanks, lowering myself into the snow. “Your servant accepts the decree and thanks Your Majesty.”
Outside the council hall, the snow on the palace paths had already piled half a foot deep.
Xiao Shunzi hurried after me and thrust an umbrella into my hand.
I took it but did not open it, letting the snow settle on my shoulders.
The great gates slowly closed behind me, shutting away the towering imperial city.
I looked back once.
Snow covered the palace walls. The avenue was silent. Behind me, there was no one.
The empress dowager was right.
It was no one’s fault.
It was simply that Pei Guannan was the emperor.
And an emperor should not be condemned for a thousand years for the sake of one Xie Yuanzhen.
On the seventeenth day after leaving the capital,
the wheels sank into the snow again. We could go no farther.
An officer up ahead swore. “Damn it, we’re stuck again.”
I lifted the carriage curtain. Heaven and earth were a vast expanse of white.
Xue Mingyuan, riding at the front, glanced back at me.
“Another sixty li, Lord Xie.”
“At this rate, we won’t reach Yongzhou even tomorrow.”
He had taken thirty strokes, and the wounds on his backside had not fully healed. His words still carried barbs.
I ignored him, climbed down, and tested the snow underfoot.
It came above my calves.
The grain convoy ahead stretched beyond sight.
The officer escorting it paced in distress.
“If this snow keeps up, the grain will never reach Yongzhou. People will starve first.”
Xue Mingyuan sneered.
“The court supports so many officials every year.”
“And when it matters, not one of them is any use.”
I crouched and scooped up a handful of snow.
“Are there any hunters nearby?”
The grain officer paused. “There are.”
“Bring them here,” I said.
Xue Mingyuan frowned. “What do you want hunters for?”
I stood and brushed the snow from my hands.
“To move the grain.”
An hour later,
several dozen hunters were brought to camp.
I asked them to lay out all the planks, hides, and hemp ropes they had brought.
The longer Xue Mingyuan watched, the more baffled he became.
“Xie Yuanzhen, what exactly are you planning?”
I ignored him and took a plank.
I drew it across the snow.
“Wheels can’t get through.”
“Sledges can.”
The hunters understood first.
An old hunter slapped his thigh. “Of course!”
“That’s how we bring deer down from the mountains!”
“Why didn’t we think of it?”
Xue Mingyuan stared.
I went on.
“Dismantle the carts. Keep the grain.”
The grain officer hesitated.
I looked at him. “The imperial decree gives me discretionary authority.”
“If anything goes wrong, I will answer for it.”
That night, more than three hundred grain carts were dismantled and made into sledges.
Early the next morning,
the first grain shipment entered Yongzhou.
When the city gates opened, weeping rose from within, loud enough to shake the sky.
Xue Mingyuan stood in the snow, silent for a long time.
It suddenly dawned on him
that the man he had denounced as a wicked favorite in the throne hall might actually know how to get things done.
The grain had reached Yongzhou, but the disaster was far from over.
Countless houses had collapsed beneath the snow.
More refugees poured into the city every day.
I led my men from place to place.
Setting up porridge kitchens, clearing snow, finding shelter for the displaced.
Sometimes I slept only four hours a day.
Xue Mingyuan still disliked me, though less fiercely than before.
Sometimes, when my coughing grew bad,
he would even frown and have someone bring my medicine.
“If you die up here, I’ll have a hard time explaining it when I get back.”
I smiled and did not expose him.
A fortnight before the beginning of spring, disaster struck Liuhe Village outside the city.
Half a mountainside collapsed, burying dozens of households.
The soldiers dared not go in. They all said another avalanche was coming.
To enter would be to throw their lives away.
By the time I arrived on horseback, cries filled the air.
Some people knelt in the snow and knocked their heads against the ground.
Others dug with their bare hands, all ten fingers bleeding.
Xue Mingyuan grabbed me. “What are you doing?”
I unfastened my cloak and handed it to someone beside me.
“Saving lives.”
His face changed. “Xie Yuanzhen!”
“You’re a pacification commissioner, not a soldier on a suicide mission!”
I ignored him, turned, and crawled into the snow.
That day, I brought out twenty-seven people.
As I carried out the last child,
a tremendous crash sounded overhead.
The snow gave way. A roof beam came down.
All I had time to do was shield the child in my arms.