001 The Makeshift Troupe
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Early spring, 1649.
In the northeastern corner of the capital, Needlework Alley, lay a residential district for members of the Plain Yellow Banner of the Han Army.
Although the war on the southwestern front was still raging, everyone was filled with confidence in the future. The Great Qing had been established for five years, and those who had followed the founding ruler from the beginning had all received generous rewards.
The second house in the alley, the Jiang residence beside the old locust tree, belonged to a junior officer of the Plain Yellow Banner of the Han Army.
The study was warm and cozy.
“Green Pearl, bring me ink and brush.”
“Coming~”
Jiang Qingyun glanced at his tall, handsome personal maid, dipped his brush generously in ink, and began writing swiftly.
“Green Pearl, what do you think of my calligraphy?”
“I cannot read, Young Master. You simply enjoy teasing me.”
“Take it away and burn it.”
“Yes.”
…
This had been a test.
What he had written on the paper was:
“Green Pearl, a sly and deceitful maid in the household of Jiang Zhongcheng, Cavalry Commandant of the Plain Yellow Banner of the Han Army, is hereby sold to the Sun Family Brokerage for five taels of silver, with no possibility of regret or reversal.”
If Green Pearl had been literate, the test would have exposed her at once.
Jiang Qingyun leaned back in his chair and rested with his eyes closed.
In his former life, he had been an ambitious deputy section chief in a government organization, possessing both intelligence and emotional acuity. Unfortunately, fate had treated him poorly, and his road to promotion had suffered one setback after another.
Then, after getting drunk, he had unexpectedly traveled through time to the capital during the reign of the Shunzhi Emperor.
He had not been depressed in the slightest. On the contrary, he felt a small, secret thrill.
Born under the Red Flag, Jiang Qingyun intended to deconstruct the Qing Empire according to his own will, thereby carrying out a grand social and political experiment the likes of which human history had never seen.
From the outside, the Qing Empire resembled a piece of forged iron—solid and seamless.
But viewed from within, as if through an X-ray machine, that metal would be seen to contain countless hidden fractures.
What did the Aisin Gioro clan know about governing a country?
For the sake of his descendants, Jiang Qingyun intended to climb to the very top.
…
A pair of fair little hands kneaded his shoulders, gentle and skillful.
“Young Master~”
“Hmm?”
“Should I learn to read?”
“There is no need. For a woman, ignorance is a virtue. You are perfectly fine as you are.”
Just then, footsteps sounded outside the study.
“Qingyun~”
“Mother, what brings you here?”
Madam Wen glanced at Green Pearl, who stood with her head bowed and eyes lowered, then said quietly, “I came to remind you to go out as little as possible these days. The capital is not safe.”
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“What happened?”
“More and more people in the capital are catching smallpox. Even Prince Yu has… Rumor has it that he may not have much longer to live.”
Jiang Qingyun’s expression grew solemn, and he nodded repeatedly.
…
Suddenly, inspiration struck him. He drew Madam Wen outside the study and asked in a low voice, “Mother, how much silver do we have left?”
“About two hundred taels in ready cash. Why do you ask?”
“To buy an official post. But it seems that will not be enough…”
“Your father is a Cavalry Commandant of the sixth rank. The position may be humble, but these days military officers are promoted solely on the basis of battlefield merit. Are you planning to send your father to the southwestern front to fight the Ming army?”
Anger was plainly visible on Madam Wen’s face.
“No, no, that is not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean?”
“People are falling ill with smallpox, and Prince Yu will die. Other officials will die as well. Our whole family should move to the outskirts and stay there for a while. A month or two at the least, perhaps three to five months at most. By then, many vacancies will have appeared in the capital’s government offices.”
Madam Wen stared at her son in astonishment.
He seemed somehow different from before.
“I will speak to your father and have him spend some money to request sick leave from the Commander-in-Chief’s Office.”
“By the way, Mother, you must remind him never to get a girl pregnant before his principal wife enters the household. If word gets out, people will laugh at him for the rest of his life.”
Green Pearl’s face turned crimson. In a voice as faint as the hum of a mosquito, she said, “Madam, please do not worry. I know my place.”
…
By evening, Jiang Qingyun had come up with another idea.
He sought out his father, who was pouring himself a drink.
“Father, do you have any way to send a memorial into the palace?”
Jiang Zhongcheng, a burly, dark-skinned man, nearly burst out with a laugh like a squealing pig.
“I am merely a lowly Cavalry Commandant, a long way from the palace gates. You, on the other hand, should study hard and strive to pass the provincial examination so you can bring honor to the family.”
The empire had only just been founded. Passing the provincial examination was more than enough to secure an official career.
Every dynasty was like this: in the early years, there were more pits than turnips; in the later years, more turnips than pits.
At present, even someone of Jiang Qingyun’s poor background could probably scrape into the Six Ministries as a copying clerk, but his prospects would certainly remain limited.
“Father, you can ask someone else to do it.”
As he spoke, Madam Wen arrived.
People said sons took after their mothers, and Jiang Qingyun did indeed resemble Madam Wen, who had been born into a scholarly farming family in the south of the Yangtze.
…
“Smallpox—the despicable ambush launched against the Great Qing by an enemy hiding in the shadows.” Qingyun, are you trying to tear open the heavens?”
“Mother, wealth and rank are always sought amid danger. I have thought it through carefully. The consequences of submitting the memorial are manageable. Even if the court rejects my conjecture, it will not behead our entire family over this. After all, my intentions are good. Everything I am doing is for the Great Qing.”
Jiang Zhongcheng and Madam Wen exchanged glances, both feeling that something about those words sounded strange.
“Father, Mother, my studies are mediocre, my martial skills negligible, and our family is desperately poor. If I merely muddle along, when will I ever bring honor to the family? Whether there are dates on the tree or not, we may as well swing the pole once and use a single coin’s worth of ink to wager on a future.”
Madam Wen muttered, “But you are making it sound far too terrifying.”
“Mother, that is called making an impression with startling words.”
…
Smallpox raged through the capital. Even corpses were carried out of the imperial city every day.
Panic spread.
For a new dynasty, this was disastrous. It could easily lead people to conclude that the Great Qing had accumulated too little virtue, and that Heaven was sending down punishment.
Jiang Qingyun understood how to take advantage of momentum.
To accomplish great things, one first had to become a great official.
The family’s modest assets and connections could not support his ambitions, so he had no choice but to take a slight risk. In an age that was anything but proper, becoming a proper man was itself an extravagant hope.
The following morning~
Father and son first sought out Jiang Zhongcheng’s former superior, Sheng Yong, a Banner Colonel of the Plain Yellow Banner who lived in Handkerchief Alley.
They requested leave.
Sheng Yong was a blunt, unsophisticated man, with nothing but muscle in his head and not the slightest political instinct.
He accepted the silver with a broad smile, approved two months of sick leave without a word, and even promised to have the memorial forwarded through the Commander-in-Chief’s Office as soon as possible.
The Qing court at this stage still bore the strong air of a makeshift operation.
…
Needlework Alley, where the Jiang family lived, was only a few steps from Dongzhi Gate, making it easy to leave the city.
Inside the walls, the streets were packed and bustling. Outside, they were empty and desolate.
Twenty miles beyond the city, the Jiang family rented a small estate from a local rural landowner. It lay far from the main road.
A dozen or so members of the household tidied the place as best they could and settled in quietly.
No one complained. Compared with the terror of smallpox, living healthily on plain food was itself a kind of happiness.
Life in the countryside was calm and peaceful~
Jiang Qingyun knew that the capital at this time was one enormous culture dish. He neither rushed nor worried. Every day he practiced calligraphy and swordsmanship, and rode horses and went fishing with his maid, Green Pearl.
The memorial on which he had placed such high hopes lay quietly on a desk in a forgotten corner of the Secretariat, one of the empire’s three central administrative offices, entirely ignored.
…
Day seven.
Prince Yu, Dodo, died.
The Imperial Father and Regent, Dorgon, hurried back from the front at Datong in Shanxi upon hearing the news. Wearing plain clothes, he entered the capital, wept bitterly before the coffin, and vomited blood several times.
In the capital, the rate of smallpox infections reached its peak.
Cart after cart of corpses was hauled out of the city. The living fled in a frenzy. All manner of rumors filled the streets and marketplaces. Even the nobles of the imperial palace could not escape smallpox’s scythe. Consorts, guards, and members of the imperial clan all died of the disease.
Dorgon also fell ill, but not with smallpox.
The Imperial Medical Office diagnosed him with severe depletion of vital energy and blood caused by the strain of campaigning and excessive grief.
Everyone in the capital bureaucracy with even the slightest political instinct knew that a great upheaval was brewing.
Someone had quietly spread the word that a deathly pallor had already appeared on the Regent’s face.
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