Chapter 44: A War of Words

Gao Yang feigned surprise. "Oh? Tell me more, how is this keeping the state and family in mind?"

"In the early days of the Han Dynasty, Shanyu Modun commanded three hundred thousand archers and repeatedly plagued the northern borders. Emperor Gaozu of Han was troubled by this. Lou Jing, Marquis of Jianxin, knowing that the Xiongnu coveted the abundant treasures and silks of Han, presented a strategy of peace through marriage. Thus, the Han Dynasty was able to recuperate and restore its national strength, and Lou Jing was consequently granted the imperial surname of Liu by Emperor Gaozu."

"Towards the end of the Wei Dynasty, Yujiulu Anagui, ruler of the Rouran, also sent his daughter to Jinyang. Emperor Shenwu accepted her, and ever since, the Rouran border has been at peace. Down to the end of the Wuding era, diplomatic missions and tributes followed one after another."

"This unworthy grandson lacks talent, yet he wishes to follow the example of the sages, dedicating this body to the country by sending an envoy to the Tujue to request the Khan's daughter in marriage. This will bind the two nations in amity and allow us to jointly conquer the West!"

Gao Yin's voice was not loud, but his words resonated with weight, each sentence striking heavily into the hearts of the three people present.

Especially Empress Dowager Lou Zhaojun; upon hearing Gao Yin's words, her heart was filled with both burning rage and extreme fear.

The Rouran were formerly known as the Ruran. When the Ruran were powerful, Yuwen Tai desired an alliance with them. To prevent this, Gao Gao took the initiative to dispatch Du Bi on an embassy to the Ruran, proposing a marital alliance to the Ruran Khan, Yujiulu Anagui, asking him to give his daughter, the Rouran Princess, in marriage to Gao Gao's eldest son, Gao Cheng.

However, Gao Cheng had not yet come to power at the time, and Anagui stated that he would only agree if Gao Gao himself married her. Gao Gao hesitated, but his wife Lou Zhaojun, his eldest son Gao Cheng, and his brother-in-law Wei Jing all joined forces to persuade him to place national interests above all else. Only then did Gao Gao reluctantly agree to sacrifice himself for the state, taking the fifteen-year-old Rouran princess as his bride at the venerable age of fifty.

Before sending away his daughter, Anagui specifically instructed his younger brother, who accompanied her into Wei, that he was only permitted to return to the Rouran after seeing his daughter give birth to a grandson by Gao Gao.

Gao Gao also attached extraordinary importance to this marital tie with the Rouran. The princess was received into Wei with extraordinarily high-spec protocol. When a imperial consort vied with her for favor, Gao Gao directly built a temple and locked the consort away to become a nun. Even Lou Zhaojun, the legitimate prime minister's wife, lost her primary access to Gao Gao and was forced to vacate her main chamber to accommodate the princess.

Gao Gao himself did not escape either; even when ill, he could not refuse the Rouran princess's conjugal summons, dragging his sickly body to fulfill his marital duties.

Later, Gao Gao passed away, and his eldest son Gao Cheng inherited the princess according to Rouran customs, even fathering a daughter with her.

The affair of the Rouran princess was an embarrassing chapter in Lou Zhaojun's past—this woman had toyed with her husband and then slept with her eldest son, while she herself had been forced to step aside. Therefore, every single word of Gao Yin's pierced deeply into Lou Zhaojun's heart. Even Lou Jing, who had previously offered the strategy to Liu Bang, sounded like a veiled sarcasm implying that the Lou family was habitually skilled in arranging marital alliances, not to mention that Lou Jing was originally a man of the former Qi state.

Consequently, Lou Zhaojun flew into a towering rage!

"You are merely a bookish Han scholar's brat! This surely does not stem from your true intent; who taught you to utter such words? You deserve to die!"

Yet Gao Yin showed none of his former timidity. Facing his grandmother's scathing reprimand, instead of trembling with fear, he remained calm and poised. "No one taught your grandson; it is something your grandson figured out on his own. The festering affliction of our Great Qi is precisely that band of rebellious bandits in the Western state. If we do not eradicate them soon and allow a stalemate to develop, countless variables will arise out of nowhere, perhaps repeating the late Han and Three Kingdoms era, or the chaos of the Five Barbarians and Two Zhaos."

"If we can unite with the Tujue and vanquish the Western state, the northern frontiers will be unified, restoring the grand enterprise of the former Wei. When that time comes, we shall wave our banners southward and merge the barbarians and the Hua into one. Those who accomplish great things do not sweat trivial details; as long as our House of Gao can achieve greatness, why quibble over petty matters?"

Lou Zhaojun trembled slightly with anger. Fortunately, she was dressed plainly with few ornaments, otherwise the jingling sound alone would have betrayed her chaotic state of mind.

By contrast, Li Zu'e made quite a distinct sound; she covered her mouth and chuckled softly, mocking Empress Dowager Lou while seemingly cheering on her imperial son.

Lou Zhaojun steadied her mind, sorted out her thoughts, and continued, "Our Great Qi is a flourishing state of Guandong, inheriting the orthodox lineage of the former Wei. How can we consort with the northern di tribes?"

As she spoke, Lou Zhaojun involuntarily felt a pang of awkwardness, her own dark history having just been exposed by Gao Yin. She hurriedly added, "The past marital alliance with the Rouran was truly devised for the sake of the country. Now that our national foundation is secure and old age is upon me, why must my descendants stoop to forge external ties once more? Furthermore, the Tujue are merely an offshoot of the Xiongnu, formerly the smithing slaves of the Rouran. Their tribe honors the strong and despises the elderly, devoid of modesty and shame, lacking in propriety and righteousness. Later, they even betrayed their master to set themselves up independently, attacking the Rouran and driving their former lord to his death. Such tiger-and-wolf people—are they truly things you can control?!"

She tried hard to drown out Gao Yin with the volume of her voice, but her arguments failed to convince anyone.

Speaking of betraying masters, Yuwen Tai and Gao Gao—this entire lot from the Six Garrisons were rebels who had revolted against Northern Wei. Following that, anyone entering the upper echelons of the Eastern and Western Wei who did not bear the surname Yuan was a usurper. Nor was Northern Qi's national strength all that secure; otherwise, Gao Yang would not have needed to campaign constantly in the south and north.

Lou Zhaojun was forced to resort to discussing the ethnic composition of the Tujue. However, the Tuoba Xianbei origins of the Great Wei meant that the pot could hardly call the kettle black. Her racial prejudice was even more ludicrous, spoken as if the Xianbei were paragons of respecting the elderly, loving the young, and possessing a deep sense of morality.

The only point she managed to hit upon was her final phrase about controlling tigers and wolves. Yet this counterargument was overly flimsy and easily and lightly pierced by Gao Yin:

"This child is not acting alone; above, there is the Son of Heaven of Great Qi, and below, hundreds of millions of subjects. When the Tujue invade, there is the Great Wall; behind the Great Wall, there are iron lances."

"Are tigers and wolves never harnessed simply because they are terrifying? Precisely by harnessing these tigers and wolves, the might of our Qi state is displayed."

"Are you not afraid that the Tujue will turn and devour you?!"

Enraged, Lou Zhaojun raised her walking stick, pointed it at Gao Yin, and shouted curses.

Gao Yin waited until she finished cursing, bowed respectfully, and continued his smooth articulation: "It is precisely because we are apprehensive that we must devise every possible means to win them over. After the Tujue annihilated the Rouran, they came into sole possession of the lands beyond the frontiers, commanding hundreds of thousands of archers, with ambitions directed toward the Central Plains."

"The Western state is weak and unable to contend with our Qi for supremacy; they will undoubtedly exhaust all efforts to befriend the Tujue and secure their aid. Back then, the Muhan Khan even wanted to grant his daughter in marriage to Yuwen Heita, only failing to accomplish it because Yuwen Heita died beforehand. At this very moment as we speak, perhaps new envoys from the western bandits have already reached the presence of Muhan!"

"This grandson begs to ask Her Imperial Grandmother: if the Western bandits and the Tujue unite to attack us, how shall our country defend itself?!"

This belonged to the realm of professional military strategy; Lou Zhaojun did not know how to answer and naturally fell speechless.

Striking while the iron was hot, Gao Yin turned to address his imperial father, Gao Yang: "In the seventh year of Emperor Gaozu of Han, King Xin of Han rebelled and colluded with the Xiongnu to attack the Han Dynasty. Emperor Gao was trapped at Baideng, finding relief only after seven days, whereupon he finally adopted Lou Jing's suggestion."

"At that time, the Han court begged the Xiongnu for peace through marriage, offering daughters of the imperial clan to the Xiongnu Shanyu. The four successive Han emperors—Gao, Hui, Wen, and Jing—all maintained this policy. Only then came the prosperity of Emperor Wu's reign, when the Xiongnu were thrice heavily defeated, leaving no royal court south of the desert."

"By the reign of Emperor Yuan, the Northern Xiongnu had already been exterminated, and the Southern Xiongnu leader, Shanyu Huhanye, voluntarily requested to become an imperial son-in-law. Emperor Yuan sent Wang Qiang into the Xiongnu territories to harmonize the borders, and Huhanye addressed her as the Ninghu Yanhui, submitting a memorial to Emperor Yuan expressing his wish to guard the borders for the Han court. Hence, the Han borders were tranquil and closed, horses and cattle blanketed the fields, three generations passed without the alarm of a barking dog, and the common people suffered no campaigns of war and weaponry."

Wang Qiang was none other than Wang Zhaojun. Through the ages, she has been celebrated as Zhaojun departing the frontiers, but as it happened, the Empress Dowager of Qi was named Lou Zhaojun, sharing the same given name as Wang Qiang. Therefore, Gao Yin could not directly utter the name Zhaojun, as that would constitute disrespect toward the Empress Dowager.

Nevertheless, Gao Yin showed a certain lack of deference at this moment: "Dare I ask if the territory of our Qi surpasses that of the former Han? If even the Han Dynasty required such measures, can our Qi claim to be free of external threats and rest easy without a care?"

No one in the grand hall responded. The intense words echoed against the beams, vibrating with a certain latent power.

Lou Zhaojun felt intensely resentful, her breathing heaving violently. Gao Yang signaled the palace attendants to step forward and tend to her.

Under the soothing pats of the attendants, she slowly regained her breath. Her gaze had turned venomous, though she quickly averted her face so others would not see.

Deep regret welled up within her heart. Had she known it would come to this, she ought to have agreed with Li Zu'e's idea and allowed Gao Yin to marry that Li Lansheng.

Heaven have mercy! If Gao Yin truly formed a marital alliance with the Tujue princess, it would be equivalent to having a ruling father-in-law in the north. In the future, any move against Gao Yin would require taking the thoughts of the Tujue people into consideration.

Along with them, the status of the aristocratic clans of Jinyang would correspondingly decline, and some would surely see which way the wind was blowing and defect to Gao Yin...

Splendid! What a brilliant scheme!

Fortunately, aside from the kneeling palace attendants, only the four grandparents and grandchildren were present in the hall. The sight of Lou Zhaojun being exposed for her past dark history by Gao Yin and being refuted point by point was seen by no one else.

This was not because Gao Yang wished to spare Lou Zhaojun's face, but rather because Gao Yin's status was, after all, that of a grandson. He had to demonstrate filial piety; no matter how wrong an elder might be, one could not directly confront them. Instead, one had to offer tactful remonstrance. If speeches like the one just given were witnessed by other ministers, even the ministers most supportive of the crown prince would inwardly feel that the crown prince was overbearing and cold-natured, actually daring to speak to the empress dowager in such a manner.

However, Gao Yang had relished every moment of it.

"Hmph! You foolish boy, how is that you speak to the Empress Dowager? Why do you not apologize at once?!"

Gao Yang stood up and delivered two slaps to Gao Yin's shoulders, though the force felt much more like an encouragement.

Gao Yin smoothly stepped down from the slope, repeatedly pleading guilty and saying he was merely considering the state's welfare out of foolish opinions, hoping the Empress Dowager would deign to guide him.

Li Zu'e said nothing more. Having been a wife to Gao Yang for many years, she had known not to interfere from the moment Gao Yang fed Gao Yin his lines and let the boy play his part.

At this juncture, there was even less need for superfluous words. Although she understood nothing of Tujue affairs, she could grasp at least two things: first, that Gao Yang believed Yin'er's words were entirely correct, and second, that the Empress Dowager was furious. That was quite enough—especially the second point, which brought Li Zu'e no small degree of gratification.

The old widow has finally met her match today. Serves her right!