Chapter 10
Chapter 10
[Prince Consort, the Princess Has Been Beaten to Death – 9]
Emperor Gaozu retired late that night. Few people in the harem managed to sleep either.
The consorts left Fengyi Palace with their own thoughts churning. They picked at a few bites of supper, then devoted themselves to waiting for the evening summons to the imperial bedchamber, eager to see who would take first place on the Empress’s first day back in the palace.
Most of them believed the emperor would go to the Empress. She was ill and unfit to attend him, true, but this was still the first day of her return. Even if they did nothing but sleep beneath the same quilt, appearances had to be observed.
Some thought the emperor might visit one of the Lady Chang sisters, either to console Consort Shu Chang after her rebuke or to preserve the dignity of the old noble houses at court by favoring Consort De Chang.
One or two particularly fanciful women even thought the emperor might visit Lady Qin in the cold palace. She had been his beloved consort for so long. Perhaps he had acted in a moment of fury, and once his anger cooled, he would bring her back out.
The palace consorts were not the only ones awaiting the result. Eunuchs and palace attendants watched with equal anticipation. In this immense imperial city, the emperor’s attitude was the compass needle. Which consort had fallen? Which had risen? Far too many interests depended on the answers.
At the appointed hour, the consorts gathered outside the hall. A eunuch went inside to request the emperor’s selection. Emperor Gaozu happened to be buried in military reports from the past several years. He listened with half an ear, then waved impatiently and dismissed him. “We are in no mood for that. Tell them to disperse.”
The eunuch answered with utmost deference. Once outside the hall, he conveyed the message and asked the consorts to return to their palaces.
Consort Shu Chang had dressed herself in dazzling splendor, only to find that all her effort had been wasted. Anger crept between her brows. Consort De Chang gently consoled her. “Elder Sister, there is plenty of time ahead. His Majesty is probably tired today.”
Consort Shu Chang sneered. She did remember the emperor’s rebuke, however, and lowered her voice so only Consort De Chang could hear. “It is all because of that old woman in Fengyi Palace!”
Consort De Chang frowned, a trace of reproach in her voice. “Elder Sister!”
Consort Shu Chang flung out her sleeve and strode back toward her own residence. Consort De Chang sighed inwardly and hurried after her.
Every consort in the Six Palaces assumed the emperor would spend the night in Fengyi Palace. In fact, after Emperor Gaozu saw the two ministers off and took the opportunity to get some fresh air, he went nowhere. He retired in nearby Taiji Hall. When the consorts arrived at Fengyi Palace the next morning to pay their respects, they could not help looking puzzled.
While the consorts felt alarmed and uncertain, Empress Miao thought nothing of it. The emperor had already offered a solemn apology for what had happened, shown her every consideration before both court and harem, and restored all the authority due an Empress. She had nothing more to ask for.
From the moment her husband took his first concubine, she had understood that he did not belong to her alone. To say it had not hurt would be a lie. To claim she had wanted to live or die over it would be absurd.
She had sons and daughters. She held the status of principal wife. Her husband respected her and the court officials trusted her. She possessed so many things that others could only yearn for. Why pursue a perfect, single-hearted love as insubstantial as flowers in a mirror or the moon upon water?
If husband and wife lived in harmony and treated each other with the respect due an honored guest, that was already very good.
Seated upright upon her phoenix throne, Empress Miao smiled. “Admit them.”
…
The consorts of the Six Palaces had to pay their morning respects to Empress Miao. Emperor Gaozu, meanwhile, had to attend morning court in the front hall.
After rising, he ate a simple breakfast. Eunuchs helped him dress in the Son of Heaven’s robes and crown, and he went to court with a sword at his waist.
The emperor’s actions the previous day had been so sweeping that they had shaken a great many people. First, he brought Empress Miao back to the palace. Second, he stripped Noble Consort Qin of rank and confined her to the cold palace. Third, he halted construction of the imperial mausoleum and the traveling palaces along the route to Luoyang. Men of ambition rejoiced, but the old noble houses trembled.
Before Noble Consort Qin’s fall, her arrogance had run high, and the Qin Clan of Southern Anhui had shown every sign of becoming the leader of the old nobility. Then the winds changed in the space of a single day. Qin Rao went from Noble Consort Qin to the commoner Lady Qin.
The Qin family’s terror upon receiving the news went without saying. Their old allies among the nobility were equally uneasy. Therefore, as soon as the court session began, Attendant Censor Feng Yan was the first to step forward.
He did not dare meddle in the harem or plead for Qin Rao, so he confined his argument to Empress Miao and declared that the emperor should never have borne a bundle of thorns to beg her forgiveness. “A sovereign takes Heaven as father and Earth as mother. He is the Son of Heaven, and his person is beyond price. Yet Empress Miao forced Your Majesty to abase your priceless person, bear thorns upon your back, and beg her forgiveness. She has overturned the cardinal order and cast Heaven and Earth into confusion. How can she serve as the motherly model of the realm?!”
No sooner had Feng Yan finished than another four or five censors stepped forward and echoed him. “The Attendant Censor speaks truly. We beg Your Majesty to accept his counsel!”
When Miao Xiangping saw their blades point directly at Empress Miao, a fierce light flashed in his eyes. He stepped forward, ready to leave the ranks, only to see Liao Yuanyan turn slightly at the front left and give him a small shake of the head. His heart jolted. He composed his expression and stepped back.
Liao Yuanyan smiled faintly, stroked a strand of his beard, and closed his eyes with the serene composure of an old immortal.
The Son of Heaven’s family affairs were affairs of state. Once imperial authority became involved, many matters could no longer be openly disputed.
In an ordinary household, a husband might be egged on by a concubine and drive his wife back to her parents, only for her elder brother to come pounding on his door afterward. None of that was unusual. But how could the Imperial House be compared to an ordinary family?
Thunder and rain alike were imperial grace. Even if the Empress were sentenced to death, her maternal family could do nothing but offer thanks.
There were reasons Empress Miao had left the palace. At root, the palace consorts led by Noble Consort Qin had incited the conflict, while the emperor himself had lost his senses. Everyone knew the emperor was at fault, but Miao Xiangping could not say so.
It was one matter for the emperor to admit his own mistake. It was quite another for the Duke of Zheng’s Residence, as the Empress’s maternal family, to condemn the emperor’s conduct and judge its sovereign as a subject.
If anyone was to refute Feng Yan and the other censors, it had to be the emperor himself.
Emperor Gaozu understood that as well. Through the twelve strands of beads hanging from his crown, he caught the silent exchange between Liao Yuanyan and Miao Xiangping. He cursed the old fox inwardly, but his face did not change. “If that is so, then We ask Minister Feng this: how can an emperor dwell within the palace while his Empress lives outside it?”
Feng Yan stiffened. He forced himself to answer, “Husband and wife have always been one body. Naturally, there can be no such arrangement.”
Emperor Gaozu nodded. “In that case, why did the Empress leave the palace and take up temporary residence at the Duke of Zheng’s Residence?”
Feng Yan dared not answer. He bowed again. “This subject deserves ten thousand deaths.”
Emperor Gaozu neither showed anger nor appeared pleased. His voice remained level, giving away nothing. “Zilu rejoiced when told of his faults, and Yu the Great bowed when he heard virtuous counsel. If the sages of antiquity could do so, why should We not seek to emulate them? The Empress is the wife who shared Our privation. She has weathered every storm at Our side for twenty years. We favored a concubine and drove her from the palace. We were plainly in the wrong. Once We recognized Our mistake, why should We be afraid to admit it? We explained this principle before the gates of the Duke of Zheng’s Residence, but Minister Feng evidently did not take it to heart. Now We have repeated it in the imperial court. Can Minister Feng remember it this time?”
When Feng Yan saw that the emperor cared so little for saving face that he would repeat the episode before the entire civil and military court, he knew Empress Miao’s position could never be shaken by a few impeachments. He immediately kowtowed. “Yes. This subject will remember.”
Emperor Gaozu nodded with satisfaction but did not tell him to rise. In a mild voice, he said, “We recall that when Minister Feng pursued his studies, he specialized in the Legalist school.”
Feng Yan did not know what he intended and grew increasingly nervous. He could only answer, “It is as Your Majesty says.”
Emperor Gaozu raised an eyebrow. “In ‘Signs of Ruin’ from the Han Feizi, it is written: ‘If a ruler delights in palaces, towers, terraces, ponds, carriages, garments, vessels, and curios, and delights in exhausting the people and consuming the wealth of the state, ruin may follow.’ What does this mean?”
By this point, Feng Yan could hear the danger in the emperor’s questions. Terror seized him, and the faces of the other censors who had supported him also changed.
He immediately prostrated himself and answered solemnly, “It means that if a sovereign delights in palaces and towers, undertakes grand construction, covets carriages, fine clothes, and costly objects, and exhausts the people’s labor and wealth, his state may fall.”
Emperor Gaozu nodded, then continued. “‘If the principal wife is debased while concubines are honored, if the Crown Prince is humbled while sons of concubines are exalted, if chief ministers are slighted while palace gatekeepers carry weight, then inner and outer courts will turn against each other. When inner and outer courts turn against each other, ruin may follow.’ What does this mean?”
Cold sweat streamed down Feng Yan’s body. He struggled not to lose his composure before the sovereign, but his voice had begun to tremble. “It means that if the Empress is debased while concubines are honored, if the Crown Prince is humbled while sons of concubines are exalted, and if the ministers who govern are treated as less important than those who merely announce visitors, the inner and outer courts will be divided. Once that division occurs, the state may fall.”
Emperor Gaozu gave a noncommittal hum. “Does Minister Feng have nothing to say?”
With a few seemingly casual sentences, the emperor had sealed off every path of retreat. Feng Yan dared not argue. He kowtowed again and again as he confessed, “This subject has failed Your Majesty, failed the state, and failed the office of Attendant Censor…”
Emperor Gaozu nodded. He turned to the other remonstrating officials who had spoken for Feng Yan and asked pleasantly, “And you? Do you have anything to say?”
His voice remained unhurried before the full court, but the officials caught the cutting intent to kill beneath it. They prostrated themselves, not daring to rise, and repeatedly declared that they had failed their sovereign’s grace.
“If you know you have failed Us and failed the state, how do you still have the face to wear a censor’s robes, hold forth in this hall, and pass judgment upon the realm?! If We were you, We would die of shame!”
Emperor Gaozu’s expression turned cold in an instant. He struck the desk with one palm and thundered, “Draft the edict! Feng Yan and these other four men occupy their posts without performing their duties. Their heads are empty, and they are unfit for great responsibility. Strip them of their offices as censors this very day, drive them from the hall, and never employ them again!”
His voice was low and edged like a blade. Before the might of the Son of Heaven, every official in the hall bowed his head, avoiding the frigid gaze behind the crown’s twelve strands of beads.
Feng Yan had imagined several possible outcomes before coming to court. He had even considered whether the emperor might grow angry. The one thing he had never expected was to be stripped of office and forbidden from serving as an official for the rest of his life.
Had the emperor not always enjoyed making a show of honoring virtuous men and humbling himself before the learned?!
Feng Yan was stunned beyond measure, but time waited for no one. The emperor had given his order. Imperial guards came forward and dragged the censors away. In less than a quarter of an hour, they had vanished from everyone’s sight.
The emperor used to be very fond of playing the gracious sovereign who valued worthy men. For some reason, today he had suddenly stopped indulging them.
The assembled court officials were silent as cicadas in winter. No one wished to provoke the emperor at such a moment. Emperor Gaozu gave a slight nod, softened his voice, and said, “Continue.”