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

The shock of the explosion was so great that even standing on their vantage point onshore, Shi-Rong and the admiral were literally blown off their feet. When the smoke cleared, there was nothing left to see of the war junk or its crew. Hull, masts, and men were all gone, atomized. In the place where they had been, there was just a gap.

And it was while Shi-Rong was staring openmouthed at this vision from a new world that two runners came racing across the hillside towards him.

“Mr. Jiang,” one of them called. “You’re to come with us to Beijing at once.”

“Beijing? What do you mean? Who says so?”

“The emperor.”

“The emperor? Why? Are you sure? I’ll have to prepare.”

“You do not understand,” one of the men cried. “The emperor wants you at once. You’re to leave with us right now. Immediately!”

—

When Genghis Khan had designed the imperial postal service that his heirs had brought to China, his edicts were carried across the vast empty plains of Eurasia by Mongol messengers. The toughest horsemen who ever lived, they rode night and day without stopping, their bodies tightly bound in cloth to hold them in one piece, throwing themselves onto fresh horses at each staging post, often riding several days without sleeping, before handing over their letter to the next rider in the great relay.

In the southern parts of China, these arrangements had been modified to suit the terrain. Through the lush valleys of rice paddies and in the mountain passes, runners might carry the emperor’s letters. But the principle was the same.

And Shi-Rong was to be treated like a piece of urgent mail.

At first, when he left Guangzhou, swift runners carried him in a bamboo litter. That wasn’t so bad, except that at each staging post, where new runners were provided, the litter did not rest for longer than it took Shi-Rong to attend to the calls of nature. If he was given a little food, he had to eat it on the road. Day and night he traveled, sleeping as best he could in the litter while it swayed and jerked its way along. Soon he was wretchedly stiff and short of sleep.

And cold. For the mild January weather of the southern Gulf of Canton was a world away from the bitter cold of the northern plains into which they were traveling. After three days winter clothes were found for him at one of the staging posts. With relief, he put on soft fur-trimmed leather boots, a long, padded Manchu coat, and a thick felt Manchu hat. Initially these kept out the cold. But a damp snow was falling as they went through the mountain passes, and the snow seemed to cling to him, waiting to seep into any tiny crevice it could find.

It was after they’d crossed into China’s northern plains, however, that his torture really began. For now he was expected to ride.

The temperature was now below freezing. The breeze cut into his face like a knife. The ground was hard as iron. The horizon seemed endless. And the Mongol horsemen expected him to keep up with them.

He’d been used to riding since he was a boy. But not long journeys like this. Mongol horsemen covered a hundred and fifty miles in a day. They told him he was slowing them down. By the end of the first day he was badly saddle-sore.

The next day he was in agony and bleeding, and so tired that he twice fell off his horse. When he complained at the next staging post, the official in charge told him: “We were ordered to bring you with all possible speed.”

“Did they say,” he asked, “that they wanted me alive?”

He was allowed to sleep three hours, and when he awoke, he found they had rigged up a sort of hammock for him between two packhorses, into which he was strapped and covered with blankets. This way the couriers could continue their journey day and night, transferring his hammock to fresh horses at the staging posts, and he could sleep or not as he liked.

Finally, after thirteen days of ceaseless travel, haggard, bruised, sore in every joint, with a vicious rash that made him wince when he sat, Shi-Rong saw the mighty walls and towers of Beijing ahead in the distance and knew that this part of his ordeal was about to end.

But what new ordeal lay ahead of him? That was the question. For he still did not know why he was here.

They took him to an official guesthouse just outside the Forbidden City. He was allowed to bathe, was given clean clothes, and was fed. The mandarin in charge was polite, but Shi-Rong noticed that there was a guard at the outer gate of the house. Whether he would have been stopped if he tried to go for a walk, he didn’t try to find out. He was told that someone from the palace would come to prepare him in the morning. In the meantime, he’d better get some sleep.

And he was about to turn in when his door opened and, to his great surprise, he found himself face-to-face with old Mr. Wen, his former tutor. “Mr. Wen! Master.” Shi-Rong bowed low to the old scholar. “This is such an honor. But how did you know I was here? Or that I was coming?”

“We have all been expecting you,” said Mr. Wen.

“We?”

“The lord Lin has many friends and admirers in Beijing. I am proud to be one of them. You do not know why you are here?”

“I know the emperor sent for me, honored teacher. But I don’t know why.”

“Let me explain, then. Ever since he was dismissed, the lord Lin has been writing to his friends here, especially myself. And we have busied ourselves in his cause. We know you have been working for the marquis and reporting to Lin, and that the marquis has been undoing all the good work that the lord Lin—and you yourself—had accomplished. And that the marquis