Chapter 2918: Fang Zhenghua (1)

Fang Zhenghua had been waiting outside Rijing Gate since dusk for the summons. He watched the palace lanterns hoisted one by one, their warm yellow light spilling across the carved ramp of the dais, where the coiled dragon's scales and claws writhed in the light and shadow, grappling after that pearl of fire that seemed never to stop leaping. Within the Palace of Heavenly Purity a palace maid with a hand bell paced slowly to and fro, and every little while, to the measured clang-clang, she cried out in a cadence level as still water: "All — under — Heaven — at — peace—" At first this still startled the crows roosting in the scholar trees, sending them wheeling above the great hall's roof and under its eaves, now and then striking the iron chimes hung at the corners into tinkling clangor. As the hours dragged on even the crows ceased to mind; the cry of "All under Heaven at peace" took on a half-dead, listless tone, dissolving at last into the heavy twilight-miasma that the vast palace complex breathed forth.

Standing so long, his back and waist ached, yet he dared not shift by a hair's breadth. The chill of the bluestone paving outside Rijing Gate seeped through his thin clothes, working its way inch by inch into the seams of his bones. He stole a glance upward at the sky — the last smear of dying red in the west had been swallowed by the gate towers of the Forbidden City, and in its place a pale shadow of a moon hung thin on the eastern horizon, pasted flat against it.

The wind sweeping past the great hall carried from afar a burst of a man's roaring, low and muffled. Of course Fang Zhenghua needed neither to listen nor to guess which man alone held the right to roar aloud within this forbidden precinct. The voice rose and fell — now upbraiding someone, now muttering to itself, venting a chestful of pent fury. Hard on it came the crisp report of vessels dashed to the floor; the spatter of shattering porcelain echoed between the vacant halls, startling the crows up once more, cawing wildly, wheeling through the dusk a good while before they settled back onto their branches.

At the sound of that breaking, Fang Zhenghua's heart clenched hard. Instinctively he bowed his head lower still.

After a long interval a eunuch came running out from within the gate, hurrying so fast his boot soles drummed on the stone steps. The figure rushed headlong; rounding the screen wall he very nearly plowed into Fang Zhenghua waiting at the gate's side, whereat he hastily set down his lantern, dropped to his knees with a thump, and spoke in a trembling voice: "Forgive this one, Lord Fang! Forgive this one, Lord Fang! This little one is blind — I never saw Your Lordship standing here—"

By the lantern's glow on the flagstones Fang Zhenghua made out the qilin robe on the eunuch's body — the rank badge only a fourth-rank palace eunuch might wear, gold-woven figured silk streaming iridescence in the firelight. His eyes narrowed slightly; a smile of no small meaning surfaced at the corner of his mouth. "Qi Benzheng. How fast you rise."

"All thanks to His Majesty's regard — and to Your Lordship Fang's pointing the way." Qi Benzheng knelt on the ground, the beads of sweat on his forehead glittering in the lantern light — from running or from fright, there was no telling.

"Rise, then." Fang Zhenghua lifted a hand, his tone softening a shade. "What has stirred His Majesty to another tempest? You were on duty within; you must have heard something."

Qi Benzheng scrambled up, edged two steps closer, and dropped his voice. "To answer Your Lordship: it is the Ministry of Revenue memorializing that the last day of the fourth month draws near and the grain boats have yet to pass the Huai; unless they are urged on more strictly, the tribute grain may never be delivered on schedule into the two capital granaries of Beijing and Tongzhou. And as ill luck would have it, just then Minister Zhu's own routine memorial arrived, saying that Nanzhili has had no rain these three months; that the two hundred li of grain canal from Gaoyou to Suqian lies mostly bared to its bed, the grain boats glued fast in the mud; that the grain troops on the tow-ropes have had the skin peeled off their backs by the sun and still cannot haul them an inch; and that nothing will serve but to cut open Qingkou and lead the waters of the Huai into the canal. His Majesty read this and his bile rose. He flayed Minister Zhu for squandering rations and ruining the state — the words came down very heavy indeed."

At the words "Minister Zhu," Fang Zhenghua gave a small snort through his nose. "Zhu Dajian, is it? Last year he already held back a hundred thousand taels of golden-flower silver — to dredge the locks of Qingjiangpu, so he said — and shifted another fifty thousand on loan from the Salt Administration at Huai'an. A hundred thousand-odd taels of silver scattered on the water, and never a ripple from the river works. Yet one hears he has raised himself a very grand mansion in his native Jinhua. One begins to suspect the river works have all been built onto that mansion in Jinhua." He paused, casting Qi Benzheng a glance. "You are due on duty at the Documents Office? Go then — go quickly. Do not keep His Majesty waiting."

His contempt for Zhu Dajian was not, in truth, founded wholly on the man's bottomless graft and borrowed name. It was that a year or two past, this same Zhu Dajian had rounded up a band of court officials to attack the Merchants' Bureau's seagoing ships for secretly carrying "Kun shares," alleging it a peril past reckoning to entrust them with the grain tribute — and by that clamor had hacked a good two-thirds off the flourishing sea-borne grain route. Which had cost the Inner Ministers of the Directorate of Ceremonial heaven knows how much bright white silver in unpaid profit — an account that he, Fang Zhenghua, had been quietly keeping for them all this while.

Qi Benzheng assented with a murmur, took up his lantern, and hurried away bent low as a cat. Fang Zhenghua resumed his stance and watched that speck of lamplight dwindle down the long passage, until it vanished behind the vermilion doors of the Palace of Heavenly Purity.

He waited not much more than half a watch before a young eunuch carrying a name tally came walking toward him. The eunuch's step was neither hurried nor slow; on drawing near he said nothing, only inclined his body slightly and gestured in the direction of the Palace of Heavenly Purity. Fang Zhenghua took the meaning, straightened his cap and robes, and followed.

Up the stone steps of the Palace of Heavenly Purity: the kneel, the kowtow, the chanted salutation — all of it smooth as a recited classic, flowing like water. In the intervals between kowtows, Fang Zhenghua swept the hall with the tail of his eye: several of the three-cross-six-petal lattice windows stood open, east and west, to vent the smoke; the evening wind came through them and set the candle flames swaying. The hall was packed so full of golden palace candles that within it was bright as noon — nine-branched candelabra stood to either side of the imperial desk, and at the center rested two palace lanterns with glass shades, objects of Western tribute; their flames, passing through frosted glass, pooled into soft orbs of light. Fang Zhenghua could even make out the traces of spilled tea not fully swept from the floor tiles, gleaming dully in the candlelight — and, naturally, the figure in the round-collar robe with its four dragon medallions who sat behind the imperial desk.

"Come in." Chongzhen's voice came from behind the desk. He had taken up the fresh cup of tea a maid had just brought; at the first sip he saw Fang Zhenghua enter the hall and kneel once more, and with a touch of impatience he pointed before the imperial desk. "Come forward and speak."

Fang Zhenghua advanced on his knees and prostrated himself before the desk. A strong scent of tea mingled with the smell of ink rushed into his face. Several memorials lay open on the desk; the vermilion brush rested on its stand, the cinnabar at its tip not yet dry.

"Do you know what this is?" Chongzhen's voice came from above his head.

Only then did Fang Zhenghua dare look up. Lying across the imperial desk was a great map: a copy of the complete chart of Fujian from the Atlas of the Two Capitals and Thirteen Provinces of the August Ming, compiled and drawn by the Ministry of War. The paper was still new, the ink lines fine, mountains, rivers, and city walls all set out plain as day. Around one harbor inlet a circle had been drawn in vermilion — a cinnabar so red it stung the eye, laid on, plainly, only moments before.

Fang Zhenghua looked closely, then answered with deference: "To answer Your Majesty: this place is the Moon Harbor of Haicheng. In the first year of Longqing it was opened by imperial rescript, and the people of Zhangzhou and Quanzhou were permitted to put to sea and trade in the outer ocean. Later, when the sea troubles flared up again, merchants for the most part dared not go; in the Tianqi years it was closed for a time, and in the early years of Chongzhen the matter of reopening was debated once more — but in the end nothing came of it."

"You are not ill informed." Chongzhen's gaze rested on Fang Zhenghua's face an instant, as if the answer had genuinely taken him aback. Unconsciously he tapped the imperial desk with his fingers, knuckles rapping the wood in a muffled tok-tok that sounded uncommonly distinct in that vacant hall. "Last year Qian Taichong, Zheng Sen's advisor, came to court and urged me to establish a Supervisorate of Merchant Shipping at Songjiang and open the seas to trade — and to move Zheng Sen's garrison to Shanghai besides. I referred his scheme to the Grand Secretariat and the ministries for deliberation, and sure enough the court roared itself hoarse; the matter thereafter died of inanition. Later, a minister memorialized again, saying that Shanghai lies within Nanzhili, hard by the southern capital, and that opening a port to foreign trade there would be most improper — better to cede the island of Zhoushan to Zheng Sen to serve as the trading mouth. I referred that proposal to the Six Ministries for joint deliberation, and to this day no settled conclusion has emerged. And now Zheng Hongkui submits a memorial of his own, urging that the foreign mart at Haicheng be reopened and the Duty Supervision Office reestablished. This uncle and this nephew — what, in the end, are they reckoning?"

Fang Zhenghua did not answer at once. Head bowed, his mind raced — Zheng Sen, Zheng Hongkui, the brothers Zheng Lian and Zheng Cai, Qian Taichong: no strangers to him, these names. In the Documents Office of the Directorate of Ceremonial alone, the garrison dispatches, memorials, and secret memoranda concerning the Zhengs stood stacked a full foot thick; as for the private letters he had seen and the solicitations he had received below stairs, they were past counting. He weighed his words a moment, then spoke with deliberation. "Shen Youlong has indeed memorialized that the several branches of the Zheng house are not entirely at peace among themselves. Yet neither has Zheng Hongkui any recorded offense of encroaching on his nephews' waters. In your servant's shallow view, uncle and nephew of the Zheng family, though each keeps his own counsels, yet keep up appearances tolerably well. Only..."

"Only what?"

"Only that the Zhengs, styled the Great Wall of the Southeast, hold war fleets in their grasp and squat entrenched upon the Fujian seas — and now shuttle north and south, running about high and low through the capital. Your Majesty's perspicacity is manifest: should such men plan singleheartedly for the court, it is of course the fortune of the altars of state; should they harbor other designs, then I fear..." He let the sentence die there, deliberately, leaving a tail heavy with meaning.

Chongzhen gave a cold laugh, a laugh out of which no feeling could be read. "Shen Youlong's memorial says the same — that the Zheng branches fight tooth and claw in the dark over their shares of the sea trade. The ships Zheng Zhilong left at his death, the trade routes, the webs of dens and stations strung along the Fujian and Guangdong coasts — all have been carved to the bone among the branch heads. Zheng Hongkui holds Quanzhou; Zheng Cai holds Xiamen; Zheng Sen, lawful son though he is, must bide at Anping with scarcely a ship in his own hand. The one uncle would shift his garrison to Shanghai; the one nephew would reopen Moon Harbor; and now they have dragged in Zhoushan too. Strip the matter to the bone: are they not quarreling over a single imperial tally from the court — over a name, a standing?"

Fang Zhenghua was secretly startled. That an emperor dwelling deep behind the palace forbiddings should know the inside affairs of the Zhengs, a thousand li away, in such detail — it had never crossed his mind. Evidently the garrison dispatches and secret memorials sent up were read by this Sovereign Lord, character by character, line by line.

"To report to Your Majesty: since the Zhengs are styled the Great Wall of the Southeast, the Zheng family's household affairs are affairs of state. As matters stand, each of them keeps his own story, and the court can hardly judge between them." Fang Zhenghua seized the moment to press his suit, and an earnest note came into his voice. "Your servant is willing to serve Your Majesty as a night scout — to go south to Fujian at once and sift the whole matter clear. How many ships, how many men, how many guns each branch of the Zhengs truly commands; what their relations in truth are with the Red Hairs, with the Franks, with the Kun bandits; whether reopening the trade ports is loyalty to the state or a screen for other aims — such things cannot be made out from a few memorials, if one does not see them with one's own eyes."

At this, Chongzhen's gaze gathered and fixed, and he stared at Fang Zhenghua a long moment. In that gaze was something not easily named — scrutiny, or perhaps a weighing. To Fang Zhenghua it felt like two knives, scraping him from crown to sole, and every hair on his body stood on end.