Chapter Eighty-Eight: The Poet Who Did Not Like to Write Poetry, Part One

The two men’s eyes fell at once, dull with disappointment, like boys who had lost a love letter and sunk into a glum silence.

Zhang Qian found the sight highly amusing and hurriedly added with a smile, “But I have plenty at home. If the two of you are in a hurry for them, come with me and fetch them there. There is still some time before the city gates close, and I can lend you my carriage. It will be enough for you to get back in time.”

“Many thanks, Brother Yongzhao!” Wang Zhihuan and Wang Han were instantly overjoyed and bowed to Zhang Qian in unison. “Since I have nothing pressing today, I shall trouble your residence for a while!”

“Many thanks, Brother Yongzhao. I have also had nothing to occupy me lately, and was just thinking of paying a visit to your home. With Brother Yongzhao’s carriage, we shall certainly be back by daybreak tomorrow...”

“Send the carriage to the Armory Office and give it to my junior brother!” Zhang Qian was in excellent spirits and, without the slightest hesitation, invited the two of them along. “Get in. We may as well call on Uncle Zhang on the way. He ought not to have anything urgent on his hands either.”

With that, he opened the carriage door, sent Wang Zhihuan and Wang Han into the compartment one after the other, then leaped in himself and ordered the servant to drive at once toward Zhang Ruoxu’s house.

In the afternoon there were many entering the city and few leaving it, so the carriage rolled along unhindered all the way. Along the road, the three brothers could not help talking about what each had seen and heard in Chang'an of late, and all of them grew sentimental.

It turned out that the matter of Bi Gou petitioning the court to forbid the buying and selling of offices and ranks, only to be banished to Liuzhou as a result, had spread like wildfire through the Imperial Academy, the Great Academy, and the Four Gates School. Though there were a very few dissolute young men, with fortunes of a million and powerful backing, who rejoiced at Bi Gou’s removal from the court, most other students secretly seethed at his fate.

The reason was simple. The civil service examination system and the system of state schools, which had gradually been established and refined since the founding of the Tang, had many flaws. Yet they still gave most people a sense of fairness. They also allowed scholars from modest families to glimpse the hope of breaking through social barriers through hard study and personal talent.

But the recent rise of office-selling and rank-trading had shattered the fairness everyone dreamed of. It not only sealed off the path of advancement for those born to small households, it also rendered the learning taught in the Imperial Academy, the Great Academy, and the Four Gates School nothing more than a showpiece.

Ask yourself: if you can buy an office with money, and then buy priority in the waiting roster with more money, why should the great academies of Chang'an exist at all? Especially the Four Gates School, which admitted only the sons of officials of the fifth to seventh ranks and a small number of outstanding commoners. How many of its students had elders who could immediately produce a thousand strings of cash to pave the way for them? If study no longer mattered, what significance remained in studying well or poorly?

“When the wicked hold power, the state’s fortunes must decline! We had all thought that once the Empress Dowager withdrew from office, government would swiftly return to clarity and rectitude. Who could have imagined that, in the end, it would come to this?”

“How tragic that the sons of the frontier are still risking life and limb for the Tang. Yet after ten years of bloody battle, they are worth less than another man’s casual throw of a thousand gold pieces!”

...

Wang Zhihuan and Wang Han had both only just reached manhood, and by age reckoning were still under twenty. Thus, though brilliant, each of them carried a certain hot-blooded youthful fervor. As they spoke, their voices gradually rose out of control.

By contrast, Zhang Qian was a little older than either of them, and also knew something of history’s direction. Fearing that they might invite disaster through careless words, he kept trying to soothe them and urged them to look farther ahead. They must not lose faith in the court or in the future over a few drifting clouds before their eyes.

Wang Zhihuan and Wang Han understood that he meant well. After venting their outrage over current affairs, their emotions gradually settled. The three of them, in tacit agreement, shifted the topic and began talking of love and moonlight, of flowers and wine, and the mood soon grew pleasantly warm.

The reason was simple: the most talked-about affair of romance and elegance in Chang'an these days was how Zhang Jiuling and the famed master of music and rhythm had joined forces to beat down the Turkic prince Zhenu, who had come to cause trouble, in a tavern.

One side was an acquaintance of theirs; the other was a foreigner. There was no need to think twice. Everyone knew which side to support.

And the outcome was immensely gratifying. It was said that on that day Zhenu and his four attendants had their clothes cut to ribbons and were thrown from the second floor straight onto the main street, where they ran naked for more than half a li before discovering that the word "base" had been written on each of their backs in brush ink. Zhenu was the second son of the khan of the Turgesh. He was the younger brother of the Prince of Huai de, and had colluded with Mo Zhuo to kill his elder brother and seize power, only to be killed in turn.

“On that day I only saw Brother Bego write such fine calligraphy and compose such a splendid poem. I never imagined he was so agile in a fight as well!” Zhang Qian listened, his heart yearning, and could not help clapping in admiration.

“In his case, the main feat that day was writing. Zhenu and his four attendants were all knocked down by the master of music and rhythm alone,” Wang Han said, unconvinced and a little sourly. “If someone else had been standing beside the master of music and rhythm, the result would probably have been about the same!”

“Then if it had been someone else, the fight might never have happened to begin with!” Wang Zhihuan said with a sidelong glance, laughing as he retorted. “As the old saying goes, a woman adorns herself for the one she pleases. But in our Tang, a woman draws her sword for the one she pleases. She is no less valiant than any man. If it had been some fellow she did not care for, the master of music and rhythm would never have drawn steel for you. She would only have watched the two sides beat each other black and blue, then clapped her hands and cheered from the side!”

“You...” Wang Han was choked so badly by this that he nearly went breathless, glaring and flexing his fists.

“Don’t fight. To fight now would be to prove you have something to hide. Who was it that just said that?” Wang Zhihuan said as he shrank back into the corner of the carriage, hurling Wang Han’s own words back at him.

...

As they laughed and joked, time flew by. Before they knew it, the carriage had left the main road and taken the dirt track toward Zhang Village.

The wooden wheels had no shock absorption, and the dirt road, made pitted and uneven by the recent frequent rains, made the carriage lurch terribly, forcing the driver, Zhang Gui, to slow to a crawl.

Seeing that their own estate was almost within reach, Zhang Qian leaned half his head out of the carriage to find a familiar tenant and send word to Zijuan, asking her to arrange a family banquet. But before he could spot a single familiar figure by the roadside, a burst of violent hoofbeats suddenly sounded behind them. Then four or five riders in gaudy colors, impossible to tell male from female, flashed past the carriage.

“What sort of young lords are so bold? To gallop so wildly by the edge of the village—what if they hit someone?” Zhang Qian jumped in fright and quickly withdrew back into the carriage. Before he could even tell the driver to be careful, a harsh roar suddenly rang out by his ear. “Make way, make way! You there driving the cart, don’t block our path!”

Before the words had even faded, another seven or eight warhorses swept past the carriage. One of the riders thought Zhang Gui was too slow to get out of the way and, with a fierce swing of his whip, lashed the lead horse hard across the eye.

The poor lead horse’s pupil was struck blind; it gave a mournful cry and reared up on all four hooves. In an instant the carriage lost control and, dragged by the lead horse, went lurching wildly across the dirt road.

“Brother Zhang, Jiling, jump!” Wang Han, experienced and decisive, grabbed Zhang Qian and kicked the carriage door flying. “You go first!”

“Abandon the carriage!” Wang Zhihuan’s voice followed at once. Then, like a kite, he leaped into the air and landed in the wilderness beside the road in a blink. “Brother Zhang, don’t panic. The ground is soft. Jump toward me and I’ll catch you!”

“Thanks! I’ll manage myself!” Though Zhang Qian was horrified and his hairs stood on end, he had not spent so long training in combat for nothing. Realizing that the carriage might overturn at any moment, he decisively sprang toward the other side.

The moment his feet touched down, he used the momentum to rush forward, placed one hand on the ground, bent his elbow to absorb the force, and rolled his body like dough. Then he added a crisp turn to the side. The whole sequence was seamless, taking no more than a few heartbeats, and before long he was standing firmly in the bare farmland beside the road.

As for Wang Han, he actually stepped onto the carriage wheelboard, leaped up onto the shaft, then lifted the already terrified servant Zhang Gui with one hand and sprang down. Like a kite carrying a lamb in its talons, he traced a long arc through the air before landing steadily on the ground more than eight chi away.

“Hurry, hurry, don’t let Shaliwang and the others fall too far behind! We must not let Zhumeng look down on us!” Crude Tang-influenced speech came again from the front, every word grating on the ear. It was the culprit who had blinded the lead horse, calling to his attendants from more than ten zhang away to hurry and keep up. From first to last, the man never once looked back.

“Dog thief, did your father never teach you how to ride?” Wang Han flew into a rage. He dropped Zhang Gui, pointed at the culprit’s retreating back, and shouted abuse.

“You Han whelp, seeking death!” Behind him, several voices roared in answer. They were the culprit’s other attendants, just managing to catch up on horseback, each dressed in brocade caps and pelts in Tibetan style. They bared their teeth and claws at the others, swaggering with unbearable arrogance. “Our young lord thinks highly enough of you to merely blind your horse. Get down on your knees and apologize at once, or else...”

“Who are you calling a barbarian?” Being insulted by several Tibetans at the edge of Chang'an as a slave, how could Wang Han possibly take it lying down? He glared and put his hand on the sword at his waist.

The Tang valued martial skill, and scholars of the dynasty commonly wore swords when traveling. But most of those swords were mere ornaments, not even sharpened, let alone blooded. So when the Tibetan attendants saw Wang Han preparing to draw, they were not frightened at all; instead, their competitive spirit was aroused. They abandoned the plan to rejoin their companions ahead, tugged hard at their mounts, turned about, and prepared to charge in and give the scholar a harsh lesson.

With a thud, before they could urge their horses into speed again, a fist-sized clod of earth suddenly flew through the air. Neither high nor low, it struck the eye of one Tibetan brute’s warhorse dead on. The horse let out a mournful cry, its forelegs flying up.

Thump! The arrogant Tibetan lackey, who had been strutting on horseback with insolent pride, never imagined retribution would come so swiftly. He was thrown to the ground like a stake, his head split open and blood streaming.

“Kill the Han slave!”

“Cut him down, cut him down!”

“Cut him down and avenge Wulire!”

The shouting exploded at once. The other brutes dropped their whips, drew their sabers, and charged toward Wang Zhihuan, who had just thrown the clod of earth. Their blades gleamed coldly in the setting sun.