Xu Zhan raised the golden goblet and drained the strong liquor bestowed by the emperor in a single gulp.
He then thanked the emperor for his grace and strode back to the ranks of the military officers.
The red-robed generals hastily stepped aside, their eyes filled mostly with awe.
The music of strings and bamboo instruments in the great hall did not begin at once.
The old emperor sat high upon the dragon throne, setting the now-empty golden goblet on the imperial desk.
He looked directly at Xu Qinghuan.
All the civil and military officials in the hall were shrewd men. Following the emperor’s gaze, they turned to look as well.
The entire Hall of Heavenly Mandate fell so silent that even the sound of breathing could be heard clearly.
The old emperor rested his fingers on the imperial desk and tapped twice, lightly.
“Xu Zhan broke the enemy through his own ferocity and the sacrifice of his soldiers,” the old emperor said slowly. “But the fact that the four hundred thousand soldiers and civilians of Zhenbei Pass survived was not something that could be achieved through blades and spears alone.”
“Xu Qinghuan.”
“Your Majesty.”
Xu Qinghuan rose and stepped out from the seats reserved for the wives and mothers of officials.
She came to the center of the hall, below the steps leading up to the throne, and performed a solemn bow.
Looking at the woman kneeling before him, the old emperor praised her from the bottom of his heart.
“Faced with that deadly corpse paste, which rotted anyone it touched, you neither feared nor retreated.”
“You made the decisive choice to seal off the entire city, and even devised a method of inoculation. You forcefully snatched the lives of tens of thousands of people back from the King of Hell.”
“Xu Qinghuan, your merit in saving those lives is truly worthy of being recorded in the history books. It may well benefit the empire for a thousand generations.”
The officials on both sides of the hall lowered their heads, each weighing the implications in his heart.
That was far too high a praise!
Throughout history, the fates of ministers credited with merit lasting a thousand generations had rarely been good.
Xu Qinghuan kept her head lowered.
“This servant does not dare claim the heavens’ merit,” Xu Qinghuan said. “The corpse paste came with terrifying force. I am merely a woman who issued an order to isolate the infected according to common sense.”
“As for the method of inoculation that truly overcame the deadly poison, it was developed through repeated experiments with their own flesh and blood by the senior physicians of the Imperial Medical Bureau and the condemned criminals in the army.”
She paused for a breath before continuing.
“Furthermore, without Commander Tie stationed there to direct the defense, and without the prestige accumulated by the successive emperors of Great Qian to intimidate the Hu barbarians…”
“Several documents issued by this servant alone could never have kept the people and soldiers of the city under control.”
“The merit of saving lives belongs in truth to the medical skill of the Imperial Medical Bureau and the courage of the soldiers guarding the frontier. This servant merely conveyed their efforts and absolutely dares not claim the slightest personal credit.”
The old emperor listened quietly to Xu Qinghuan’s response.
He was deep in thought. She had distributed all the credit to others, leaving not the slightest portion for herself.
She had shown perfect restraint and knew exactly how to advance and retreat. There was not a single fault to be found.
The old emperor’s fingers stopped tapping against the imperial desk.
“You certainly are not one to claim credit,” the old emperor said. Then his tone suddenly shifted, becoming somewhat playful. “However, I have recently heard quite a few things about you in the palace.”
“As everyone knows, Miss Xu not only understands medicine and military affairs, but is also extraordinarily gifted in literature.”
At those words, Xu Qinghuan’s heart gave a sharp leap.
The old emperor leaned back against his chair.
“Do you know that the poems you wrote in the past have now become widely circulated throughout Great Qian’s literary world?”
“There are even quite a few teachers in various prefectures who have copied your poems down. They are nearly becoming primers for schoolchildren in private academies across the realm.”
The atmosphere in the hall changed once more.
The moment the old emperor finished speaking, several red-robed officials stepped out from the ranks of civil officials.
The men at the front were all senior officials from the Ministry of Rites and the Hanlin Academy, most of them natives of Jiangnan.
The Vice Minister of Rites strode into the center of the hall, his face wearing a genial, modest smile. He clasped his hands and bowed.
“Your Majesty is absolutely right!” the Vice Minister said in a loud voice.
“Magistrate Xu’s poems are lofty in conception, and every word and phrase is of the highest caliber.”
“The great scholars of several renowned academies in Jiangnan have all read and appraised Magistrate Xu’s poetry. Their praise was heartfelt: they call Magistrate Xu the greatest literary talent of the past hundred years in Great Qian!”
“Such learning truly makes those of us who have spent our entire lives studying the sages’ teachings feel ashamed of ourselves.”
Another Hanlin Academician immediately joined in.
“Magistrate Xu has achieved extraordinary military merit on the frontier despite being a woman, and possesses literary talent that surpasses all others in the age. She is truly a prodigy Heaven has bestowed upon our dynasty!”
These officials sang each other’s praises, every word devoted to elevating Xu Qinghuan.
Yet anyone in the hall with even the slightest understanding of officialdom knew what was really happening. By crowning her with such lofty titles, these men were placing Xu Qinghuan on the edge of a precipice.
The old emperor followed their lead, a smile appearing on his face.
“Today, with the victorious army returning, civil governance and military accomplishments shine together.”
The old emperor raised a hand slightly and pointed toward Xu Qinghuan in the center of the hall.
“Since all my ministers hold your literary talent in such high regard, Xu Qinghuan, compose a poem here and now before all the civil and military officials.”
“Give me—and Great Qian—a proper celebration.”
The emperor’s command descended with all the weight of imperial authority, leaving no room for refusal.
Standing in the center of the hall, Xu Qinghuan felt the countless gazes directed at her. Some were there to watch the spectacle, while others concealed murderous intent.
Her thoughts raced.
Should she write about flowers, the moon, and an age of peace and prosperity?
The censors would impeach her at once. So many people had just died at Zhenbei Pass, and the bones of the northern dead had not yet grown cold.
“Xu Qinghuan is here to sing of wind and moonlight? How cold-blooded and heartless! Her virtue is wanting!”
But if she wrote a battle poem about warhorses and slaughter…
That would immediately deepen the old emperor’s suspicions of her.
“A military commander who thirsts for blood, a warmonger who exhausts the nation’s strength—how could the Son of Heaven allow another to sleep peacefully at his side?”
Forget it. Forget it all…
Just as the officials expected her to evade the request or struggle to compose something, Xu Qinghuan began reciting in a clear voice.
“Bitter frontier winds pierce the soldiers’ coats,
While northern sands conceal the ancient mounds.”
The moment the lines were spoken, the great hall fell silent.
As the words rang in their ears, several officials in the front rows could not help shivering.
The bone-chilling cold and suffocating scent of blood conveyed by the verses rushed straight toward them.
Just as everyone assumed she intended to use that grimness to claim military credit, Xu Qinghuan’s tone suddenly changed.
“Generals of a hundred battles bear their empty grief,
While garrison wives alone hold sorrow deep.”
With those two lines, she drew in the poem’s bloodlust and tragedy.
Then Xu Qinghuan continued:
“May war cease soon, the frontier know peace;
May beacon fires fade, and tender grass soften the borderlands.
When shall we cast off armor and return to our native soil,
Forge swords into plowshares, and praise a thousand years of peace!”
When the words “forge swords into plowshares” fell, the poem’s meaning rose instantly to a higher plane.
She did not mention a single bit of her own merit, nor did she complain of any personal grievance. Instead, she voiced the hopes of Great Qian’s hundred thousand frontier soldiers and its common people:
They had shed blood through a hundred battles not to win rank or riches, but simply so that Great Qian might know everlasting peace.
Let the weapons be stored away. Let the world be at peace!
In the face of such a grand and selfless vision belonging to the military spirit, the dark intentions of the Jiangnan officials, who had tried to praise her to death, did not dare reveal themselves.
Xu Qinghuan had not only avoided being placed over the fire; with this poem, she had also made her principles and the innocence of the Xu family perfectly clear.
The great hall fell silent for ten full breaths.
Xu Jie, seated in the foremost position on the left, picked up the golden goblet before him and was the first to break the silence.
“Good!” Xu Jie rose to his feet, his voice full of vigor. “What a splendid line: ‘Generals of a hundred battles seek no title of ten thousand households!’ And what a magnificent ideal—to forge swords into plowshares!”
Xu Jie stepped beyond his desk and raised his cup high toward the old emperor.
“Your Majesty! Magistrate Xu’s poem portrays the unyielding spirit of our Great Qian frontier soldiers with breathtaking vividness!”
“What is even more commendable is that our soldiers, having achieved victory, did not become enamored of battle. Their hearts are filled only with the hope of securing everlasting peace for Great Qian! That is the true backbone of the nation!”
Once the Grand Secretary had spoken, the matter was settled.
Seeing this, the other officials immediately put on an entirely different face. They hurriedly raised their cups, loudly praising the soldiers’ undying loyalty and lauding the emperor’s wisdom.
The old emperor sat upon the dragon throne, staring intently at Xu Qinghuan below the steps.
He watched her for several breaths. The wariness in his eyes—an inscrutable look born of fear that the military commanders might grow too powerful—gradually melted away. Then he threw back his head and burst into laughter.
“Good! Grand Secretary Xu is right. What a fine ambition—to turn swords into plowshares!” the old emperor proclaimed.
“Eunuch Li, go to the inner treasury and bring out that finest Duan inkstone and the Xuan prefecture lake-brushes. Bestow them upon Xu Qinghuan!”
“To have soldiers of Great Qian harbor such lofty aspirations is a great comfort to me!”
“Your Majesty, thank you for the reward. Long live Your Majesty—may you live ten thousand years, ten thousand times over.”
Xu Qinghuan once again knelt and offered her thanks.
Inwardly, however, she was secretly delighted. “Trying to use the reputation of a talented young lady to put me on the spot? Hmph…”
The tense atmosphere in the hall vanished completely, and Xu Qinghuan emerged victorious.
Eunuch Li soon came down carrying a red-lacquered tray and handed the writing brush and inkstone to Xu Qinghuan.
Xu Qinghuan accepted the tray and had just turned around to return to her seat when—
“Xu Qinghuan, stop there.”
The old emperor’s voice drifted over from behind her.
Xu Qinghuan halted, then turned back around.
“Since you said in your poem just now that the soldiers stationed at the border seek nothing more than peace throughout the realm, I presume you can see the greater picture more clearly than all the civil and military officials assembled here.”
The old emperor suddenly spoke as though making casual conversation.
“A few days ago, during court, I brought up an old matter with my ministers. Today, I would also like to hear the advice of an outsider such as yourself.”
At those words, the expressions of every official in the hall changed at once.
Even the usually unruffled old face of Xu Jie twitched faintly.
“There is an old farmer whose ancestral home has fallen into disrepair. Whenever the rainy season comes, the roof leaks without end,” the old emperor continued slowly. “Every year, the old farmer spends a great deal of money repairing it. Yet once one leak is fixed, another part begins to leak.”
The old emperor stared down at Xu Qinghuan from his lofty seat, his gaze sharp as an eagle’s.
“This old farmer also has another residence on higher ground in the mountains, an estate that has never leaked.”
“Xu Qinghuan, give this old farmer your advice.”
The emperor leaned forward slightly and posed the dilemma:
“Should he continue pouring his wealth into that leaky ancestral home?”
“Or should he simply take his entire family and move to the estate on higher ground, where they can live in peace and quiet?”
