Sandalwood Death (48 page)

“You can trust me on that,” Ma Longbiao said as he took out a new pistol he was carrying and handed it to the Magistrate. “Elder Brother Qian,” he said, “keep this with you, just in case.”

The Magistrate waved the gesture off. “In the name of all the inhabitants of the town, I ask Elder Brother Ma to see that von Ketteler does not fire his cannons.” With that, he mounted his horse and headed for the open gateway.

“I am the Magistrate of Gaomi County,” he called out. “A friend of your commander. I need to speak with him. It is of the utmost importance!”

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5

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The Magistrate rode unimpeded into town, where he gave the trap a wide berth, but not before looking down into the pit, where a dozen or more German soldiers were struggling and screaming in pain. The floor of the pit, which was at least ten feet deep, was lined with pointed bamboo and metal spikes; some of the trapped Germans were already dead, while others had suffered grievous wounds and lay there like frogs on a spit. The stench rising out of the pit was proof that Sun Bing, not content merely to line the bottom of his trap with sharp objects, had dumped in a layer of excrement as well. That reminded the Magistrate of the time, decades earlier, when the foreigners had first come to China, and a certain frontier ambassador had petitioned the Emperor with a plan for dealing with them: the foreigners, he said, were obsessed with cleanliness and sanitation, and anything to do with bodily waste horrified them. So, he suggested, if each imperial soldier carried a bucket of shit into battle, all he had to do was spread his filth on the ground to send the enemy fleeing in disgust, holding their noses and maybe even vomiting until they died. The Xianfeng Emperor was said to have enthusiastically approved what He considered to be an especially creative suggestion, since it not only had the potential to vanquish this new enemy, but required a minimum of expense. The Magistrate’s wife had told him this, treating it as a joke, and he had had a good laugh over it. Never in his wildest imagination would he have thought that Sun Bing would employ that very method, with a bit of modification, a military tactic that had all the characteristics of a practical joke; he did not know whether to laugh or to cry. In point of fact, in the wake of the farcical hostage exchange of the previous day, the Magistrate had gained an understanding of Sun Bing’s approach to military tactics. Juvenile, to be sure, the stuff of children’s games, and yet, contrary to all expectations, they made people stop and think, as more often than not they proved effective. As he rode past the pit, the Magistrate also saw a good many dead and dying Boxers on both sides of the fortification, as well as smashed porridge pots whose steamy contents lay in pools of blood. The wounded were voicing their agony. Red-kerchiefed Boxers, as well as women and children, were running headlong up and down the street on which he had traveled not so long before. For all practical purposes, the town had been laid waste, the Magistrate concluded. The Germans could take it almost without a fight, and this realization underscored his sense of self-worth. By sacrificing Sun Bing, one man, he could save thousands. Sun Bing had to be delivered, at all costs. If persuasion failed, force would have to have to be employed. Even though he had refused Ma Longbiao’s offer of a pistol, the Magistrate was confident that Sun Bing was no match for him. He had such a deep sense of valor and solemnity that he could all but hear drums and horns heralding his arrival. Spurring his horse into a gallop, he flew down the street, heading straight for the mat shed that stood at the bend in the river, where he would find Sun Bing.

There he saw hundreds of Boxers down in the dry riverbed ingesting Taoist charms. Using both hands, each man held a bowl in which paper ashes were mixed with water. Sun Bing, the man he sought, stood atop a pile of bricks and filled the air with a loud incantation. His primary outside help, the Caozhou Righteous Harmony Boxer Sun Wukong, was nowhere to be seen; the second-in-command, Zhu Bajie, was demonstrating martial skills with his rake to lend an impressive air to Sun’s ritual. The Magistrate slid down off his horse and walked up to the brick pile, where he kicked over the incense altar in front of Sun Bing.

“Sun Bing,” he said loudly, “how can you continue to beguile and bewitch your followers when rivers of your men’s blood already flow across the fortification?”

When Sun Bing’s bodyguards rushed up from behind, the Magistrate quickly moved around Sun, took a glistening dagger from his sleeve, and placed the point in a spot directly behind Sun’s heart.

“Do not move!” he commanded.

“You dog of an official!” Sun Bing hissed. “Once again you have broken my boxing magic! I am iron head, iron waist, iron body, impervious to bullets, resistant to water and fire!”

“Fellow townsmen, go take a look at the fortification, then tell me if flesh and blood can stand up to cannon shells!” He chose this moment to make a bold assumption: “There you will even find the mangled body of your finest warrior, the mighty Sun Wukong!”

“You lie!” Sun Bing screamed.

“Sun Bing,” the Magistrate said callously, “have you really mastered the art of resisting knives and spears?”

“Nothing can penetrate my body, not even shells fired by those dog soldiers!”

The Magistrate bent down, picked up a brick, and struck it against Sun Bing’s forehead before he had time to react. Sun fell backward, but the Magistrate caught him by the collar and held him up.

“Now show these people your indestructible body!”

Dark blood snaked down from Sun Bing’s forehead, like worms squirming across his face. Zhu Bajie swung his rake at the Magistrate, who jumped out of the way and flung his dagger; it stuck in Zhu’s abdomen, sending him tumbling off the brick pile with agonizing screams.

“Have you seen enough, fellow townsmen? These are your altar master and one of his senior aides. If they have failed to withstand even the modest brick-and-dagger efforts of a local official, how are they going to repel enemy cannon fire?”

The adherents’ confidence was shaken, to which the buzzing below the platform bore irrefutable witness.

“Sun Bing,” the Magistrate said, “as a man of valor, you must not send these people to certain death just to satisfy a personal desire. I have secured a promise from the German Plenipotentiary that he will withdraw his troops if you surrender to him. You have already accomplished something so astonishing it has captured the attention of the whole world, and if you are willing to sacrifice yourself in order to keep your fellow townsmen from harm, your legacy will live forever!”

“Heaven’s will!” Sun Bing said with a sigh. “It is heaven’s will.” Then he began to sing: “
Ceding territory and vanquished by the Jin~~I forsake the Central Plain and abandon the common people, a decade of exploits squandered in a single day~~Humiliated, we sue for peace, remorse follows an overturned nest~~I fear the whale will swallow our land away. Do not falsely consign me to confinement with no end, for when I am gone, the Yue army will stay~~
Fellow countrymen, disperse!”

The Magistrate led Sun Bing down from the brick pile, taking advantage of the chaos below to head to the township’s main gate. He forgot that he had come on horseback.

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6

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As he single-handedly brought Sun Bing out of Masang Township, the Magistrate was bursting with a sense of his own valor. What happened next dealt him a crippling blow, causing anguish over the knowledge that he had made yet another imbecilic mistake, this one far worse than the humiliating hostage exchange. Instead of withdrawing his troops, as he had promised, von Ketteler ordered the artillery commander to open fire the moment the Magistrate and Sun Bing were standing before him—with a roar, twelve cannons sent deadly shells flying past the defenses. Explosions erupted all over town, sending flames and smoke into the air. The screams of dying townspeople raised a terrible cacophony as an enraged Sun Bing spun around and began throttling the Magistrate, who put up no resistance, welcoming the death he felt he deserved. But Ma Longbiao signaled his guards to pull Sun Bing away and save his colleague’s life. County Magistrate Qian Ding closed his eyes as Sun Bing railed against him. Though he was lightheaded, he heard the clamor of the German attack, and he knew that Gaomi County’s most prosperous township had ceased to exist. Who had caused that to happen? Sun Bing, perhaps, or the Germans. Or maybe he himself.

B
OOK
T
HREE

C
HAPTER
F
OURTEEN

I am Zhao Jia, preeminent executioner in the Board of Punishments for more than forty years, a period during which I lopped off more heads than I can count, a wagon or a boatload at least. In my sixtieth year, thanks to the grace of the Empress Dowager, I was permitted to return home in retirement with a grade seven official rank medallion for my cap. At first I planned to conceal my identity in a butcher’s home in a humble lane in this little town, to engage in moral cultivation, conserve my nature, and live out my allotted time, from duties released. What spoiled my plan was my qinjia, Sun Bing, who beguiled the local throngs, hoisted the flag of rebellion, and, by running afoul of the nation’s laws, ignited armed conflict with the alien beast. To unnerve unruly subjects and preserve discipline and the rule of law, the Shandong Governor, Excellency Yuan, invited me out of retirement to inflict the sandalwood death. A popular adage has it that “A scholar will die for a true friend, a bird will sing for an admirer.” So as to repay a debt of gratitude to Excellency Yuan, I picked up the knife again, my burden increased. Truly a case of:

In the early morning my hand burned as if it held hot cinders, and I knew that heavy responsibilities awaited my shoulders. (ya-ya-wei) The self-important Magistrate of Gaomi County, Qian Ding, felt that I, Zhao Jia, was unworthy of his attention (wei-ya-ya), yet a gift from the Emperor had him groveling at my feet. (ha-ha ha-ha) As they say, People are spirited when good things happen, a triumphant general has a broad view of the world. (ya-ya-ah-wei) I lost two of my teeth, for which Qian Ding’s right to an official’s cap has ceased. Old Zhao Jia sits in front of his house, wind in his face, as grumbling yayi carry favored objects, item by case by basket by chest, into my yard, north, south, west, and east.

—
Maoqiang
Sandalwood Death.
Soliloquy and nonsense

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1

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The chief yamen attendant, Song Three, only yesterday a browbeating toady who took advantage of his favored position, a universally feared man whom people called Third Master, today stood at my door with an ingratiating smile. A petty servant who only the day before had stood tall and proud was now bent nearly double. You young men, in more than forty years, there is nothing I did not see in the capital, men and affairs, and I tell you that shitty little functionaries are all like that. If one from this county were to be the exception, then Gaomi would be outside the Great Qing Empire’s sphere of influence. He bowed deeply at my door and sputtered:

“Old . . . old . . . sir, if it please you, shall we carry in what you requested?”

I curled my lip and smiled inwardly. I knew that the “old” dripping from that dog’s mouth was intended to be followed by “master,” but clearly I was not his master. I think he wanted to be familiar by calling me Old Zhao, but I was sitting in a chair bestowed upon me by the Emperor Himself. Having no choice, he had to settle for “old sir.” A wily son of a bitch. With an almost imperceptible wave of my hand, I said, “Bring everything in.”

Mimicking a stage voice, he announced loudly:

“Bring the old gentleman’s things inside!”

Like a line of black ants, the yayi entered the compound carrying everything I had requested from Excellency Yuan. Each item was presented at the door for my approval:

A purple sandalwood stake five feet long and five fen wide, like the metal spike used by the Tang general Qin Shubao. The absolutely indispensable item.

A large white rooster with a black comb, legs tied with a strip of red cloth, which lay in the arms of a fair-faced yayi like a bawling, unhappy baby boy. A rare breed, one of which they had managed to find somewhere in Gaomi County.

New leather straps that still gave off the pungent smell of tanning salt, light blue in color, as if grass-stained.

Two wooden mallets with a reddish luster that had been used in an oil mill as far back, perhaps, as the reign of the Kangxi Emperor, two centuries before. Made from date-wood knots and in constant contact with oil, they had by now drunk their fill and were heavier than their metal counterparts. But they were nonetheless wood and not metal, and thus more yielding. Hardness with a bit of give was what I had specified.

Two extra-large baskets, each filled with a hundred jin of the finest white rice. The unique fragrance and blue tinge were proof that it had come from Tengzhou Prefecture, which produced rice of a quality unmatched anywhere in Gaomi County.

Two hundred jin of flour packed in four gunnysacks stamped with the Tonghe Refined Flour Mill trademark.

A basket of red-shelled eggs, one of which, a first egg, was stained by real blood. Just seeing it evoked the image of a little red-faced hen straining to lay her first egg.

A sizeable cut of beef on a large platter, the sinews in the meat seemingly still vibrating.

An enormous cauldron, carried by two men, big enough to cook a whole cow.

Song Three was carrying half a jin of ginseng under his clothes. He took it out and handed it to me. Even through the paper wrapper, the bitter smell of fine ginseng was strong.

“Old sir,” Song Three said as his face lit up, “your humble servant personally visited the herbal shop and kept his eye on Qin Seven, that wily old fox, as he opened a catalpa cabinet with three locks and selected this ginseng from a blue and white porcelain jar. ‘If it’s not the real thing,’ he said, ‘you can twist my head right off my shoulders.’ This is prized ginseng. Just by carrying it next to me this little while and smelling its fragrance, your humble servant grew light on his feet, sharp-eyed and clear-headed; I felt like I was becoming an immortal. Just think what eating it could do!”