Chapter One: To Be Continued in the Next Installment, Part One

In the first year of the Great Cause era, the new emperor Yang Guang issued an edict appointing Yang Su, Yang Dahe, and Yu Wenkai to oversee the construction of the eastern capital.

He abandoned the old Luoyang of the Han and Wei dynasties and chose a site eighteen li west of it, where the Luo and Yi rivers met. Each month, two million laborers were deployed, while rare timber and strange stones from the south were transported to Luoyang in an endless stream. By the first month of the second year of the Great Cause era, the new city was complete. Its circuit measured more than fifty li, its bearing majestic and its scale immense, far surpassing the old capital.

The entire new Luoyang consisted of three parts: the imperial palace city, the outer court city, and the encircling city.

The palace city contained the imperial palaces and stood in the northwest corner of the new capital. The outer court city housed the central government offices, lay north of the palace city, and faced the Luo River to the south. The encircling city was built in ward blocks, spread across both banks of the Luo River, and formed the quarters where the common people lived in mingled diversity.

A ward was roughly one li square, and so it was also called a ward-li.

The whole new Luoyang contained 132 wards. The people of the old Han-Wei city, nearby residents, wealthy merchants from across the realm, and craftsmen from the southern dynasties, numbering in the tens of thousands of households, were relocated into the new capital. By the fourth month, Emperor Yang Guang ascended the tower of the End Gate at the outer court city and proclaimed a general amnesty to all under heaven, abolishing the people’s rents and taxes. At once, the whole country rejoiced, and the gloom of the past few years was swept away like smoke.

After Emperor Wen of Sui, Yang Jian, died, the Prince of Han, Yang Liang, rose in rebellion.

Though he commanded hundreds of thousands of elite troops, under Yang Su’s swift and stormlike assault the uprising scarcely lasted three months before it collapsed into nothing. During those three months, Yang Zhan, the son of the former prefect of Xingyang and of the deposed Crown Prince Yang Yong, attempted to answer Yang Liang’s rebellion; the other sons of Yang Yong were also stirring; one of them, the eldest, even gathered old retainers and tried to assassinate Yang Guang. Yet the plot was exposed, and all was over. Li Yuan executed the brothers Yang Zhan and Yang Hao in Xingyang, while the rest of Yang Yong’s sons were successively put to death in Chang’an. A rebellion that should have drenched the land in blood and storm was pacified by Yang Guang in utter silence.

After Yang Liang was captured, he was imprisoned in Chang’an.

Yang Guang shed tears and spoke of his “inability to bear the slaughter of brothers,” yet by the end of the first year of the Great Cause era, one year after Yang Liang’s defeat, Yang Liang died suddenly at home in Chang’an, at the age of thirty. In the same year, Yang Guang had Lady Xuanhua and Lady Ronghua boiled to death on the charge that they had used witchcraft to murder the sovereign. As for Princess Leping, Yang Lihua, she was sent by Yang Guang to Renshou Palace on the pretext that her health was poor and she needed quiet rest. Several years later, when she accompanied Yang Guang on a tour to Zhangye, she died suddenly of illness...

At the head of Tianjin Bridge stood a notice board, and every day many people gathered before it.

This Tianjin Bridge in the new Luoyang was not the Tianjin Bridge of the old Han-Wei city. It was built in the spring of the third year of the Great Cause era, spanning the Luo River and linking the thoroughfare of Jianguo Gate Street with the route leading to the End Gate of the imperial city. Since the old city had been destroyed and the old Tianjin Bridge torn down, this new bridge was given the same name. The traffic here never ceased, and it was the liveliest place in the whole of New Luoyang.

“Zhang Yide flew into a rage and cried out, ‘Traitor of three surnames, here stands Zhang Fei of Yan...’”

Before the notice board, a thin middle-aged man dressed like a scholar was reading, with great relish, an article posted there. Whenever he reached a brilliant passage, the onlookers nearby could not help but cheer in unison. Some scholars stood aside copying it down, while others stamped their feet and shook their heads, or nodded in approval. To those listeners, he seemed oddly out of place.

At the edge of the crowd, Yan Shigu wore a wry and helpless smile.

Beside him stood several young men, all looking rather indignant.

“Brother Yan,” one of them said through gritted teeth, “this Half-Boundary Gentleman is simply talking nonsense. Is not Hulao Pass just Hulao Pass? What ‘Guan Yu slaying Hua Xiong over warmed wine,’ what ‘the three heroes battling Lu Bu’... It was clearly Sun Jian who slew Hua Xiong. How has it all been twisted in his hands?”

Another young man cursed bitterly, “That fellow knows nothing at all, yet dares to claim he can compete with Brother Yan and explain the Three Kingdoms?”

“Brother Du, that is not quite fair,” said another. “If you were calling some other man ignorant, that would be one thing. But to call Half-Boundary Gentleman ignorant—have you forgotten what became of Wang Tong back then? Besides, Half-Boundary Gentleman wrote at the beginning of his work: this book is but a page of absurd fancy; if fate allows, it will be understood in time... He has already said it plainly: this is merely a story of his own invention, written to entertain the world. I do not see anything wrong with that.

“As for historical compilation, Brother Yan’s recently completed Annotations on the Three Kingdoms is indeed a great work seldom seen in recent years. But its prose is refined, and for ordinary people it may be difficult to understand. By contrast, Half-Boundary Gentleman’s Romance of the Three Kingdoms is rather interesting. Some time ago I copied several passages and studied them carefully at home; the more I read, the more I felt that Half-Boundary Gentleman’s learning is truly broad and varied.”

Having said that, he cupped his hands toward Yan Shigu. “Please do not take offense, Brother Yan. I mean no disrespect at all.”

Yan Shigu smiled. “Brother Xue need not be so formal. This Romance of the Three Kingdoms composed by Half-Boundary Gentleman does indeed have its merits. Heh, to be honest with all of you, sometimes I cannot help wondering: where does that young whelp get all these strange and wondrous notions? At first glance they seem absurd, even bordering on impiety. Yet on closer thought, one feels there is another flavor hidden within them.”

Some among the crowd nodded, some shook their heads...

But this did nothing to diminish the listeners’ enthusiasm before the notice board. One after another, they listened with delight as the scholar recited the text.

Romance of the Three Kingdoms had appeared at the beginning of the year, with a new installment roughly every half month.

At first, not many people paid attention. It was only later that someone stumbled upon it and began spreading it about. Because this Romance of the Three Kingdoms was not written in the familiar folksy style, but in official script, it naturally did not cause the same sensation as Zheng Yanqing’s other writings. Yet little by little, people began to savor it.

Thus, whenever the first and fifteenth of the month came around, people would gather before this notice board and wait.

The one delivering the new installments was a lame man. Someone who knew him said that the cripple was named Mao Wang and had once been a tenant of the Zheng family in his youth. Later, because his younger son Mao Ba ran into trouble, he was driven out of the Zheng family’s estate. Now he had been taken in by Zheng Shian, and the whole family worked in the Bamboo Garden. Speaking of which, that Mao Ba had once tried to frame Half-Boundary Gentleman, but Half-Boundary Gentleman repaid resentment with kindness, and truly lived up to his reputation.

Yet the appearance of Romance of the Three Kingdoms caused a tremendous uproar among the scholar class.

There were those who approved, those who opposed, and even those who cursed loudly, calling Zheng Yanqing a falsifier of history and the greatest villain of the age. But more people merely watched coldly from the sidelines. The affair of Wang Tong three years earlier had still not fully subsided. Though Wang Tong had won in the end, he had no face left to meet the world; the famous man of Hejian, Liu Xuan, was also ruined in reputation because of it. His friend Liu Zhao even broke off all ties with Liu Xuan over the matter. In the first year of the Great Cause era, Liu Xuan moved his entire household to Qinzhou.

Yan Shigu’s thoughts were exceedingly complicated.

He was a rigorous man himself, and he did not much approve of Zheng Yanqing’s compiling the Three Kingdoms. Yet the man had said from the outset that it was merely for his own amusement, or for the amusement of others. Moreover, Zheng Yanqing called it fiction and never claimed that the book was orthodox history. Any work of fiction must inevitably contain things that are not true; when such tales circulate among the common streets, some exaggeration and alteration are unavoidable.

As Yanqing himself said: what evidence is there for the affairs of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors? If the sages had not compiled and gathered those records, who would know of Yao, Shun, Yu, and Tang? Would one then say that even the Sage Confucius was falsifying history?

Thinking of this, Yan Shigu could not help but let out a soft sigh.

“If you would know how matters turn out, listen to the next installment...” By then the scholar had reached the end. He stood stunned for a moment, then suddenly flung his sleeve aside. “Absurd. Utter nonsense. I do not know whether that Half-Boundary Gentleman understands the Three Kingdoms; if he does not, I could instruct him myself.”

At once, a chorus of jeers rose around him.

A scholar raised his head, glanced at him, and said with a cold laugh, “Every time Half-Boundary Gentleman publishes something new, you are always here. Every time a new chapter of the Romance is read aloud, we also always hear you say these things. Count them up—how many times have you said it from then until now?

“And yet I have never heard that you have ever gone to the Bamboo Garden to pay a visit... If you do not dare, then speak no more of such things. But if you truly dare to stand face to face with Half-Boundary Gentleman, then we will naturally cheer you on. Though to my eyes, you most likely do not dare confront him at all.”

“You...” The scholar was so choked by the retort that his face went red. Around him, people kept jeering, as if mocking him. Still, he truly did not dare go and trouble Zheng Yanqing. Heaven knew what further tricks that Half-Boundary Gentleman might produce. Three years ago, Zheng Yanqing had been able to write the verse, “From the boundless sea, none can be water; aside from Mount Wu, there are no clouds.” Three years later, after studying in seclusion in the Bamboo Garden, he had scarcely shown himself in public, and not even a single brushwork treasure of his had leaked out. Heaven knew what kind of monster he had become now.

The scholar seemed disdainful of further argument. He flicked his sleeve and left.

The third installment will be updated around eight in the evening.