A Thousand Pieces of Gold (15 page)

By going along with Zhao Gao, Li Si placed himself in the hands of a Chinese Iago. More significantly, his own deviousness eventually made him loathe himself. Nominally he was still the prime minister, but he and his coconspirators knew what he really was. Although he tried to guide the young ruler to the best of his ability, the Second Emperor viewed Li Si with such contempt toward the end that he would not even see him. Bound to the other two inextricably and forever by his crime, Li Si found his life doomed from that moment on, and he died a sad and broken man.

Yan Que Yong You Hong Hu Zhi

D
uring my years at a Catholic boarding school in Hong Kong, when I was between the ages of eleven and fourteen, no one ever came to visit me and I was not allowed to go home at Christmas or summer holidays. Often I was the only student left behind in the convent, incarcerated like a prisoner and wandering listlessly between the empty refectory and silent school library. The place was like a tomb. The nuns did not know what to do with me. Day after day there was no one to play with and nothing to do.

Aimlessly flipping through magazines at the library one morning, I stumbled upon an advertisement in an English journal announcing a playwriting competition. It was open to all English-speaking students between the ages of ten and nineteen. I was sorely tempted to send in a request for an entry form.

But I did not do so. A part of me thought it presumptuous that I would dare to think of competing against native English speakers. Although I had entered and won a few writing competitions under the tutelage of my primary school teachers back in Shanghai, they were all in Chinese. I thought that my knowledge of English was too elementary and that I had no chance of success.

A few days later I developed pneumonia and was admitted to hospital. After I was released, my stepmother allowed me to go home for a week to recuperate. Because our apartment was small, I was told to sleep on a cot in my grandfather’s room.

Neither of us knew it then, but that would be the last time I saw my grandfather. He died a few months later. Perhaps he had a premonition that his days were numbered, because he made a deliberate attempt to boost my morale.

“Be smart!” he told me. “You have your whole life ahead of you. Study hard and be independent. Everything is possible! Don’t be married off like your big sister, Lydia. The world is changing. You must rely on yourself. Regardless of what else people may steal from you, they will never be able to take away your knowledge. I have faith in you. Go out there and dare to compete in the most difficult examinations. Create your own destiny. No matter what happens, always remember that my hopes are with you. One day you’ll show the world what you are really capable of.”

At the end of my week at home, just before Father’s chauffeur drove me back to school, Grandfather gave me a large envelope. Impatient to see what was inside, I opened it in the car. I found a rectangular sheet of paper with the proverb
yan que yong you hong hu zhi,
“little sparrow with dreams of swans,” beautifully scripted in Ye Ye’s distinctive calligraphy. It turned out to be his final farewell present.

Heartened and encouraged, I wrote to the address listed in the English journal on my return to school and entered the competition, dedicating the play to my grandfather. Ye Ye died in March the following year, just three months before I won first prize. This unexpected triumph changed my life because it convinced my father to send me to university in England. More significantly, I began to believe from then on that everything was possible if I tried hard enough.

The belief that all men (women were thought to be second class in those times) are born equal originated in the teachings of Confucius (551–479
B.C.E.
). Previous to his time, the king was considered to be the Son of Heaven by virtue of his lineage. He and his relatives were known as
jun zi,
“aristocratic gentlemen,” who possessed the exclusive right to rule by virtue of their noble birth. A man who was not of noble birth could never hope to become a
jun zi,
no matter how talented or virtuous.

Confucius came up with the revolutionary notion that any man could become a
jun zi
regardless of his heritage, provided his conduct justified it. No man was to be considered a
jun zi
on birthright alone; this honor could be earned only by his behavior and character. Contrary to traditional feudal beliefs, Confucius taught that the right to rule depended not on blood but upon ability, conduct, and education. In short, any man could properly occupy the throne, provided he was virtuous and just. Rulers were supposed to hold their power only in trust, subject to revocation by Heaven if they did not use it wisely.

It is impossible to overestimate the impact of these Confucian ideas on the history of China. From then on, it became feasible for any man to claim that he had just been given the mandate to rule from Heaven. A few of these claimants happened to possess talent or virtue and eventually did metamorphose into founders of successful dynasties. Unfortunately, many more evolved into unscrupulous leaders of religious cults or power-hungry warlords, all the while making preposterous assertions to attract a following. It was often difficult to distinguish between the two, especially in the early stages.

The leader, often from a humble background, would allege that he was endowed by Heaven with special powers to cure disease, perform miracles, and protect his followers from harm. Viewed with hindsight, these declarations can easily be perceived as ridiculous or even laughable. But when conditions are ripe for change and the man is charismatic, he may become just the spark necessary to ignite the whole country into revolt.

This was what happened one year after the death of the First Emperor. As Sima Qian wrote in
Shiji,

Other messianic movements that have occurred in later dynasties include the Taoist Yellow Scarf Society during the Han dynasty, the Wu Dou Mi Religious Society during the Jin dynasty, the Bai Lian Sect, the Taiping and Boxer Rebellions during the Qing dynasty, and many others.

Recently, there have been reports of a new Chinese spiritual movement called Falun Gong, led by a former granary clerk named Li Hongzhi. In his books, Li asserts that he will implant a wheel in the abdomen of each of his disciples and that his
fa shun
(“saintly body”) will protect his followers from harm. He challenges the very etiology of all diseases, denying even the germ theory in causing infections. He ascribes moral qualities to inanimate objects such as stone and wood, and speaks of old cultural ruins bearing relics from eras that existed “hundreds of millions” of years ago.

Regardless of the teaching of Li Hongzhi, the Chinese government currently views the group as a threat to public order and is attempting to suppress Li’s followers. However, if a government is faced with a potential David Koresh (leader of the Waco Branch Davidians) or Osama bin Laden, how should it respond?

The ancient philosopher Han Feizi showed us by his proverb “watching the tree to catch a hare” that the only thing that does not change is that everything changes. Perhaps we should learn from him that there are no universal moral standards. People respond to cult figures differently, depending on their own cultural background and psychological conditioning, and there is but a fine line between devoted follower and fanatical terrorist.

When the reign of the Second Qin Emperor failed, a revolt was begun not by princes or military generals but by two penniless peasants.

Chen She and Wu Guang were both farm laborers from the state of Chu (present-day Henan Province), living in “humble shacks with tiny windows and wattle doors,” according to a Han dynasty poet. When Chen was a teenager, he worked as a hired hand in the fields.
Shiji
states that times were hard and work was strenuous. One day, while standing on a hillock, he suddenly stopped plowing and gazed out with a look of profound disgust at the countryside. Then he said to his fellow workers, “If one of us should become rich and important one day, he must not forget the rest.”

His companions laughed and said, “Don’t be ridiculous! How can anyone like us ever become rich and important?”

Sighing deeply, Chen replied, “
Yan que an zhi hong hu zhi,
‘can little sparrows ever truly understand the dreams of swans?’”

More than anything else, sharing a meal together is an important symbol of family unity in China. The day after Bob and I arrived in Hong Kong in September 1990, my brother James invited us to lunch. His other guests were our oldest sister, Lydia, and our older brother, Gregory. Throughout the meal James seemed preoccupied and nervous. He ordered innumerable dishes of dim sum and piled our plates with food while eating next to nothing himself. I began to have a horrible feeling of déjà vu. I was eight years old again. Niang was about to come into the room, and something bad was going to happen to me. I felt my heart racing and my mouth going dry. I tried to reassure myself and said to James, “Things are going to be different from now on; Niang is dead.”

James replied coldly, “So she is dead. Why should things be different?”

“I don’t know why,” I confessed candidly. “But I feel awful right now, just the way I used to feel when we were little and she ruled over us. For some unknown reason, I feel left out!”

James looked down at his plate and said nothing. The mood at the table was more ominous than ever. I clenched my fists under the table, the way I used to do as a child when things were terrible and felt my nails digging into the palm of my hands. To break myself out of my fear, I forced a laugh and announced gaily, “Now that Niang is dead, I’m going to write the books that I’ve always wanted to write. Remember those occasions in Shanghai when Father and Niang used to travel by themselves to Tianjin on business, James? Sometimes Ye Ye would take us to Do Yuan Gardens for picnics. He’d practice tai chi while you and I would pretend to be characters from my kung fu stories, speaking the lines and acting the parts. Now that I have the urge to write again, perhaps I might even get something published one day if I’m lucky!”

To everyone’s amazement, James suddenly snapped out of his reverie and said, almost violently, “You have a perfectly good job as a doctor. Why do you want to give it up and become a writer all of a sudden? Besides, who on earth is going to read your childish kung fu stories at this stage of our lives? I might have enjoyed them when I was twelve and you were nine, but certainly not now. I predict that you’ll never find a publisher. Even if you were to spend lots of money and publish your work yourself, nobody is going to read them. If I, as your older brother, am already telling you that I’m not even going to open the cover of any of your books, who else would buy them?”

I stared at his flushed and excited face, knowing that I had upset him in some mysterious way. After a while, I said feebly, “Ah, James! Cannot a
yan que yong you hong hu zhi,
‘little sparrow have dreams of swans’?”

In the seventh month of the year 209
B.C.E.
, Chen She and Wu Guang were conscripted and chosen by the military command to lead a group of 900 peasants for garrison duty at the northern frontier. On the way they encountered such terrible weather that the roads became flooded and impassable. The two men said to each other, “We face execution if we arrive late. However, they’ll kill us also if we run away and get caught. Since we’re going to die either way, why don’t we encourage everyone to stick together as a group and die fighting?”

To gain support, they wrote the words
Chen She will be a king
on a piece of silk and stuffed it secretly into the belly of a fish that someone had caught. One of the soldiers bought the fish, cooked it for dinner, and was greatly astonished to find a divine message from Heaven in the fish’s belly.

Later that night Wu hid himself under a basket and wailed like a fox, crying, “The Great Kingdom of Chu will rise again, and Chen She will be its king!” Hearing this, the soldiers were alarmed but highly impressed. The next morning they whispered to one another about Chen and pointed him out with awe.

Having laid the groundwork, the duo next plotted to kill the three commanding officers. Wu had always been well liked and popular. He knew that the men would do anything for him. He waited until the officers were drunk, then deliberately provoked them by announcing that he was going to run away.

As expected, the commander sprang up and began to beat him. While doing so, his sword fell out of its scabbard. Wu seized the sword at once and killed the officer. Chen rushed to his aid, and they killed the two other officers as well. They then called a meeting and announced, “Because of bad weather, we will never reach our destination on time. The chances are that they will execute us for being late. However, even if you were spared and actually became a guard at the frontier, we all know that out of ten conscripts, six or seven are bound to die during the course of garrison duty. Now, if you are afraid of death, we have nothing more to say to you. However, if you are brave and wish to take a chance, then we beg you to put your life on the line for the sake of renown and honor instead
of dying for nothing.
Wang hou jiang xiang ning you zhong hu,
‘kings and marquises, prime ministers and generals, such men are made, not born.’”

The men replied in unison, “We will follow you and carry out your wishes.”

To promote themselves and gain loyalty from their men, Chen falsely proclaimed that he was really Prince Fu Su and Wu was Xiang Yan (a renowned general from Chu who had died in battle while fighting the First Emperor). They set themselves up as commander and colonel of a new army dedicated to restoring the Great Kingdom of Chu, bared their right arms (by rolling up their right sleeves symbolically to pledge their support), built an altar, offered the commanding officers’ heads as a sacrifice, and swore an oath of allegiance to their cause before it.

Because the First Emperor had confiscated all the weaponry in the land and transformed them into the twelve giant decorative metal figures in Xianyang, the rebels were forced to make do with wooden clubs. They cut down trees, made them into weapons, and raised their flags on garden poles made of bamboo. Over the years, the term
jie gan er qi,
“to hoist a bamboo pole as a banner of revolt,” which was first coined by Sima Qian in
Shiji,
has become a proverb to describe any popular revolt against tyranny.