China by Edward Rutherfurd (historical books to read TXT) 📕

They like the emperor and his servants to make a fine show—just as they like their temples to be full of beauty and scented candles, and gleaming gold. It makes them feel good. The emperor shows them their land is great; the temples bring them closer to the heavens.”

“And if the people are poor?”

“The peasants like to dress up, too. Even in the poorest hill villages. Look at the colorful tribal costumes they put on at festivals. It’s amazing how they manage it all, but they do. It’s just human nature.” He paused. “And they like to be entertained. That’s part of the art of ruling. You mustn’t let the people starve, but they’ll forgive you almost anything else if you keep them entertained.”

“They respect justice and good morals,” Shi-Rong declared.

“When they need them,” Lacquer Nail replied. “But mostly they want to be entertained.”

“Perhaps you are too cynical about the people,” said Shi-Rong stiffly.

“I come from the people,” the eunuch riposted. “We were dirt poor when I was a boy.” He let his gaze rest for a moment on a fine piece of porcelain standing on a table by the wall. “Perhaps that’s why I like the finer things of life so much.”

“I was brought up to respect Confucian order,” Shi-Rong observed.

“Ah yes,” said Lacquer Nail. “So shall we call our arrangement a Confucian bribe?”

Shi-Rong winced as if he had been punched. He couldn’t help it. He thought of his father. He looked helplessly at Lacquer Nail, but the eunuch seemed suddenly weary.

“I believe our business is done for today,” Lacquer Nail said. “I’ll send word as soon as I have news. Please just be patient.”

The two men rose.

“It has been my privilege to meet you, honored sir,” the eunuch murmured, his manner disconcertingly servile again as he conducted Shi-Rong towards the entrance.

And Shi-Rong was just about to pass between the two warrior gods in the doorway and out into the street when he stopped for a moment.

He felt the need to speak again. Not to have the last word. Just to speak again. To say something, anything, that might allow him to quit the field of battle with his colors still flying. “Forgive my asking,” he said, “but I am curious. To what use will you put the money I give you? Towards buying this splendid house, perhaps?”

“No,” Lacquer Nail replied calmly. “I have another matter to attend to before that. I need to buy back my private parts, so that when the time comes, I can be buried as a complete man. Often eunuchs do not accomplish this until late in life, and sometimes never. Naturally, it is a point of honor—both for me and for my family.”

“Ah,” said Shi-Rong. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

—

The entrance to the Tsungli Yamen, the Bureau of Foreign Affairs, was just wide enough to allow a carriage through. It resided inconspicuously amongst the larger ministries in the Imperial City. For despite the vigorous advocacy of Prince Gong over a period of a dozen years, many mandarins still saw the bureau as only a temporary department. Many of the officials who worked there also held positions in other parts of the government.

Some thought otherwise. Young Ru-Hai certainly did. “We’re going to be more important as time goes by,” he told his father. “This could be a quick way to the top.”

As a good father, Shi-Rong always spoke respectfully of the Tsungli Yamen to anyone who would listen, even if in private he wasn’t so sure his son was right.

Be that as it may, he’d been delighted when Ru-Hai suggested they meet there. I daresay my son’s proud of his father, he thought. Wants his friends to meet me. It would be interesting to talk to the boy’s colleagues and find out what these young fellows thought.

He’d woken that morning in a cheerful mood. He almost forgot the humiliation of his meeting with Lacquer Nail. All he remembered was that the eunuch knew how to handle the Dragon Empress, and that soon the salt inspector’s post would be his.

In centuries to come, his descendants, when they tended the family graves on Ancestors Day, might speak in awe of the achievements of others, even of his own son Ru-Hai perhaps—he certainly hoped so—but at least when they came to his own grave, they’d be able to say: “He was a prefect, he attained the honorable fourth rank, and he left the family richer than it had ever been before.”

So he arrived at the gateway of the bureau with a smiling face.

—

One cannot always assume, because one is in a happy mood oneself, that other people will be, too. As his son greeted him and led him towards his office, Shi-Rong noticed that they were passing through the ministry kitchens. Like many such places, they were none too clean.

“I don’t think much of this, I must say,” he said jovially. “Taking your old father through the kitchens. Who gets to come through the front door?”

Ru-Hai didn’t smile. “This is the only way in,” he said tensely. “When the bureau was created, they divided up an old building to house us.”

“You mean you bring foreign ambassadors in through the kitchens?”

“If they’re having a formal audience, they go to the Imperial Palace. But private meetings between officials take place here in the bureau.” It was clear he was embarrassed. “I daresay we’ll get rehoused one of these days.”

Shi-Rong frowned. Such lack of ceremony hardly signified that the court thought much of the foreign ambassadors—or of the mandarins they were to meet, for that matter. Personally, he didn’t care about the barbarian ambassadors. But he cared about Ru-Hai’s career. His cheerful mood was somewhat muted, therefore, as he entered his son’s office.

It was a long, narrow, dusty room with tall windows that looked into a silent yard containing one stone lion and a tree with a broken branch. There were three desks. At the far end, a large map hung on the wall.

Ru-Hai introduced his two colleagues.