Chapter Seventy: Celestial Signs

Trying so hard to change things, only to discover that the very history one sought to avoid may come to pass precisely because of one’s own interference—does this count as tragedy, or comedy? Is it pure coincidence, or an unalterable fate? If Wang Zhen had not directed the army toward his hometown of Weizhou, would the disaster at Tumu Fortress still have occurred? Had Wang Zhen already been planning to parade the emperor through his hometown before Guo Jing met him? What compelled Wang Zhen to order the army to detour to Xuanfu? Was it truly because the soldiers had trampled the crops of his hometown, and so, as the powerful Director of Ceremonial Affairs and de facto commander-in-chief, he ignored the nearness of the Zijing Pass and forced the army to turn back?

What is the true story? How did this calamity, unmatched through the ages, actually unfold? Lu Qing did not know the answer. He only knew that he seemed trapped in a strange loop—as a traveler from another time, he kept circling within it, trying desperately to use the history he remembered to break free, but never able to escape. The beginning was also the end; all his efforts had merely ensured that history would play out exactly as it had before. This was something Lu Qing could neither imagine nor accept.

If history truly could not be changed, why had fate brought him into this era? Was it only to let him experience for himself the iron law that history cannot be altered?

No!

Something must have happened in between. There was nothing wrong with returning to the capital via the Zijing Pass—the mistake was forcing the army to turn back after already making half the journey! How could someone who had risen from the ranks of a castrated teacher brought into the palace to wield the imperial seal—becoming the emperor’s irreplaceable mentor, even honored posthumously with a temple in the capital during the Tianshun era, with successive emperors showing reverence for his memorial, even the famously absent Wanli Emperor ordering renovations and re-gilding his statue—how could such a man be what civil officials called an infamous eunuch villain? In the eyes of Ming emperors, Wang Zhen was not a mere servant, but a symbol, an indispensable pillar of the state.

Ruler, kin, mentor—Wang Zhen undoubtedly filled the latter two roles in the royal heart.

A person of such caliber must have been extraordinarily intelligent; otherwise, how could he have won the confidence not just of the current emperor, but of those who followed? It required no detailed analysis for Lu Qing to conclude that Wang Zhen could not possibly have turned the army around simply because his hometown’s crops had been trampled. The Zijing Pass was only a few dozen miles from Weizhou, but turning toward Xuanfu and returning by way of the Juyong Pass would add over two hundred miles to the journey. All later histories agree that morale was already collapsing; if so, the urgent need was to return to the capital as swiftly as possible, not to extend the ordeal by so many extra miles. Wang Zhen would have to be mad to make such a decision—and even if he were, was the emperor mad as well? Were all the civil and military officials accompanying them also collectively insane?

And yet, that’s precisely what happened. What drove these people to such madness? Lu Qing was at a loss. He did not know, nor could he ever know. History was like a shroud of mist, obscuring the truth from his sight.

Several times, he wanted to turn and pursue Eunuch Guo, but each time he forced himself to resist. He knew that if he chased after Guo, he might witness firsthand the onset of this collective madness, just as a future magician might bear witness to the occurrence of a “miracle.” But he also knew that if he left, the three hundred pitiable women inside the fortress would pay with their lives.

These women were all of Han descent, all living souls, forming part of the Han dynasty’s legacy, the very mothers of Han bloodlines. Perhaps among them were Lu Qing’s own ancestors. Of course, that was unimportant and the odds negligible. What mattered was that they were his compatriots.

The Han people are the most outstanding and noble of all the races of China; their lives are worth infinitely more than those of base, unclean foreigners. The life of a single Han woman is worth more than ten thousand of the others.

Because of hesitation, because of so-called higher priorities, Lu Qing had not gone to save the old, weak, women, and children at Junzibao. He tried to comfort himself with the thought that perhaps leaving the border would not mean certain death. Yet, when he saw the piled female corpses in the commandant’s office, the hair floating in the black depths of the well, the girl who had died in her mother’s arms—Lu Qing could no longer deceive or numb himself. He could not bear to witness the brutal deaths of any more compatriots. He would protect these women, every Han person he could see, even at the cost of his own life.

Salvation or abandonment hangs on a single thought, and whether rescue is possible depends entirely on fate. Lu Qing did not possess the ability to save everyone, but in the disaster at Tumu Fortress, he had done all he could. If heaven would not allow him to change the course of history, then he would do his utmost to save as many as possible, even if it meant his own death—he would accept that fate.

Archimedes once said, “Give me a lever long enough and a fulcrum on which to place it, and I will move the world.” Lu Qing could not move the world, but give him a chance, and he would redeem his earlier numbness and offer his life to protect every person around him.

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In the capital, at the Hanlin Academy, Academician Xu was painstakingly trying to persuade his colleagues to submit a petition to the Prince Regent, urging immediate reinforcement of the capital’s defenses and the urgent redeployment of troops from the surrounding garrisons to reinforce Juyong and Zijing Passes, in case of an assault by the Oirat Mongols.

Reasonably, such a suggestion should have been welcomed, but none of Xu’s colleagues paid him any heed. Instead, they thought him deranged. The older ones managed to keep their composure, but the younger scholars openly laughed at him.

It was hard to blame these young scholars for embarrassing Xu so thoroughly, for he had just confidently declared that the emperor’s campaign would end in utter defeat, and that the emperor himself might even be captured by the Oirats. Xu’s alarming prediction was based on his observations of the heavens the previous night, an explanation that left the classically trained scholars dumbfounded and eager to mock him.

This was the Hanlin Academy, not a Daoist temple. Xu was an academician, not a charlatan fleecing the public on the street! Besides, how many times had Xu pored over the stars and then whispered his mysterious prophecies to them—how many times had he been right?

His obsession with arcane arts was one thing, a private hobby no one cared to interfere with, but to make a spectacle of himself and joke about the emperor’s campaign was intolerable.

“You’ll regret not believing me!” Xu shouted over their laughter, flinging his flowing beard in anger as he strode out of the academy without looking back. He gave up seeking cosigners for his petition, and instead, disheartened, began making preparations to flee for his life.

The emperor’s expedition had drained the capital’s three main garrisons of all able-bodied soldiers. If the Oirats, emboldened by victory, should attack the capital, the city’s defenses could never hold. Fools! You’ll see when disaster strikes just how right I was!