A Thousand Pieces of Gold (23 page)

“Of course.”

“In your own estimation, who is braver on the battlefield, you or Xiang Yu?”

After a long silence Liu Bang said, “I am not as brave as Xiang Yu.”

Hahn Xin bowed and said, “I agree with your estimation. Your Majesty has the vision to know yourself and the courage to admit the truth. These are unusual traits. Another of your strong points is your ability to listen to advice from others. This comes from a generosity of spirit that not many people possess.

“As for Xiang Yu, I used to work for him and know him well. When he shouts in anger on the battlefield,
chi zha feng yun,
he appears to be ‘commanding the wind and the clouds’ and ‘earthshaking in his power,’ so much so that he can frighten away a thousand brave warriors. However, he is unable to delegate authority and is jealous of those who are capable. That is why I consider him to be
pi fu zhi yong,
‘an ordinary man whose bravery is really recklessness.’ Toward his friends and subordinates he appears soft and kind. When they are wounded, he cares for them and shares his food, often with tears in his eyes. But when an officer performs a valiant deed deserving of promotion, Xiang Yu is frequently reluctant to hand over the appropriate award.
Fu ren zhi ren,
‘his benevolence is like that of a woman.’ (Note the prevailing misogyny in the ancient historian Sima Qian’s comments about women.) Even though presently he rules the world and is overlord of all the kings in the empire, he has not the wisdom to recognize the importance of geographical location in determining his own ultimate destiny. This lack of foresight resulted in his choice of his native state of Chu as his base rather than the vastly superior ‘Land Within the Passes.’

“In front of the whole world, Xiang Yu went against the covenant. Wherever he sends his army, he allows his soldiers to burn, rape, rob, and steal. He rules by fear, and
tong ru gu sui,
‘everyone hates him to the marrow.’ Although nominally he is Lord Protector and rules All Under Heaven, in reality he has already lost the heart of the people and no one wants to be ruled by him.

“The three kings set up by Xiang Yu to rule ‘The Land Within the Passes’ were all surrendered generals from Qin. Many of their troops were killed while under their command. Remember that less than a year ago, Xiang Yu executed 200,000 surrendered Qin soldiers and only spared the lives of these three generals. How terrible that of all the people under heaven, Xiang Yu should appoint these three as the Qin people’s new kings! What arrogance! What stupidity!

“When Your Majesty entered Xianyang last year,
qiu hao wu fan,
you did not ‘trespass against the smallest downy hair’ (encroach on the interests of the people to the slightest extent). Not only did you liberate them from the cruel and complicated Qin laws, you made a pact with the elders to adopt your three simple codes. You have the Qin people’s support, and they are on your side. Should you decide to attack, I think you will be able to take the Land Within the Passes without difficulty.

“Many of your officials and soldiers are from east of the mountains and are longing to return home. If you use their homesickness
ji feng er shi,
‘without delay, as a weapon when it is still sharp,’ you can accomplish a lot. But when everything settles down and people become accustomed to their new surroundings, their homesickness disappears and that weapon is gone. Therefore it is better to move forward as soon as possible.”

Liu Bang was highly pleased with Hahn Xin’s analysis and knew that he had chosen the right man to be his general in chief. Hahn Xin worked out a plan whereby Xiang Yu’s three kings could be outwitted and the Land Within the Passes taken over in a surprise attack. Liu Bang and Hahn Xin trained the officers, drilled the troops, and piled up provisions. They also deployed spies to the other states to gather information while preparing for a major assault to the east.

The concept of using homesickness as a weapon demonstrates that the yearning for one’s
lao jia
is a natural and universal phenomenon that has been recognized by the Chinese for over 2000 years. When one moves away and adapts to her new environment, homesickness gradually lessens but never entirely disappears.

My
lao jia
still stands in the heart of Shanghai in the old French Concession. To reach it, you walk through an imposing gate into a long
tang,
a complex of similar houses built in the same style, surrounded by a communal wall. On each side three narrow alleys open onto a central main lane ending in bustling Avenue Joffre, now called Huai Hai Central Road.

So many of my childhood memories are connected to that house. They start with the living room where we had our family reunion and I as a six-year-old spoke up against my stepmother’s beating of her baby daughter, thereby incurring her wrath. The curved, wooden banister on which I used to slide instead of using the stairs. The landing where a leaking water tank caused my three brothers to be whipped by Father. The room that I shared with my Aunt Baba and the hours and hours
we spent reading together. The feeling of sheer joy when I watched my pet duckling, PLT, wandering between our beds before she was bitten and killed by my father’s German shepherd. The countless evenings when I did my homework or wrote my kung fu stories with the door closed. The closet where my aunt kept her safe deposit box. The day my stepmother caught me attending a friend’s birthday party and my terror as she drilled me in my room. The awful afternoon twelve of my classmates secretly followed me home to give me a surprise celebration party for winning the election for class president and I was summoned upstairs by my stepmother, where she screamed at me and slapped me for breaking her rules and letting them into the house. The final hours I spent with my aunt before I was wrenched away from her at the age of ten, when she made me promise that I would try to do my best at all times, and we went through the contents of her safe deposit box together.

This is the house where my aunt lived for most of her life. It is also where much of my autobiography was recorded and written. Between 1990 and 1994, I spent many days there alone with my aunt, taping an oral history of our family and reliving my past. She spent the last days of her life in this house and died there. At the age of eighty-nine she became bedridden following a fall that broke her hip. X rays showed that she had cancer of the colon, which had already spread. She categorically refused to consider surgery or even hospitalization, chiding me for my grandiose plans of rescue and telling me that she did not wish to prolong the agony of dying.

A few days before she died, she asked me to find a black handbag buried beneath a pile of towels in her closet. From it she extracted a pair of jade earrings, which I had given her for her eightieth birthday, and a large envelope, telling me, “These are for you.” When I opened the envelope, I saw with a pang that it contained all the American dollars I had given her since we met again in 1979. Instead of spending them, she had saved them all and was now returning them to me.

My aunt was almost ninety years old when she died, and I had the privilege of spending her last days with her. Toward the end she could no longer see but continued to ask me to read to her and tell her stories from America, saying it was the one remaining activity we could still share. She and I both knew that her days were numbered, but she wished to listen and learn even to the last, looking forward to as yet another adventure with every turn of the page.

It has been eight years since my aunt passed away. Since then I have received many offers from would-be buyers who are interested in purchasing my Shanghai house. But somehow, I cannot sell it. It still seems incredible that I, the unwanted
daughter who was thoroughly despised as a child, should end up owning the Yen family residence from which I was so terrified of being banished at the age of ten.

Recently, I leased the house to three young men, one of whom had read
Falling Leaves
and professed an interest in restoring the house to its former glory. In less than three months they succeeded in transforming the dilapidated building into a slice of Old Shanghai. Tears welled up in my eyes when I visited my renovated
lao jia
recently. Its beautiful parquet floors were polished and glistening. The original window frames, metal grilles, and old-fashioned handles were neatly painted and glazed. A beautiful Chinese lantern hung in the hallway above the gracefully curving wooden stairway. Outside in the replanted garden, granite stones bordered a neat lawn that surrounded the giant magnolia tree, under which I had buried my beloved duckling, PLT.

As I stood in the radiance of my redecorated former bedroom looking down at the dewy green grass where Father’s German shepherd used to roam, I was filled with a sense of nostalgia. I knew that my three young tenants had put their hearts into the project, and I was deeply moved. Since two of them were Chinese and one was American, I silently dared to hope that my
lao jia
would be a dwelling where East and West would live in amity and where Shanghai’s past would step harmoniously into a bright new future in the twenty-first century.

If this dream should become reality, then instead of
yi jing ye xing,
“dressing in the finest brocades to parade in the dark of night,” I would be
yi jing huan xiang,
“returning to my
lao jia,
hometown, in silken robes after having made good.”

Fan Jian Ji

A
lthough my father was still alive in 1985, he was already suffering from advanced Alzheimer’s disease and had been hospitalized in the Hong Kong Sanatorium for over two years. One evening, at home in California, I received an urgent phone call from my stepmother. She informed me that Aunt Baba, who lived alone in Shanghai, was seriously ill from colon cancer. Would I fly there to help her?

Less than a week later I was in Shanghai. At Aunt Baba’s bedside I found my oldest sister, Lydia, who, unlike the rest of my siblings, had never left China. In those days Lydia was extremely affectionate toward me, hooking her arm protectively in the crook of my elbow whenever we crossed the street and placing the tastiest morsels from her bowl onto my plate at every meal. She would also thank me repeatedly for
helping her two children out of Communist China and getting them educated in America. My hunger for my family’s approval was so strong that I was blithely unaware of her true feelings.

I bought two new bicycles at the Friendship Store in Shanghai and gave one to my aunt’s surgeon and the other to the administrator at the best hospital in the city. The very next day they hospitalized my Aunt Baba, excised her tumor under general anesthesia, and discharged her five days later to recuperate at home.

One morning after breakfast, I was clearing the dishes when Aunt Baba said to me, “Let me comb your hair and give you a new hairstyle. Remember how you used to wear your hair when you were little? I think you will look so much prettier without a fringe on your forehead.”

“Let me comb your hair first,” I said. “Then you can do mine.”

We were happily engaged in combing each other’s hair when Lydia walked in. She watched us in silence for a while. Aunt Baba said, “Younger women like you two with lots of hair should spend at least twenty minutes every morning combing your hair. Use a fine-toothed comb like this one here, which I’ve had for fifty years. Be sure that the comb touches the scalp with every stroke. This way, the scalp gets repeatedly massaged and will remain healthy. By doing this, I still have some hair left on my head even though I’m already eighty.”

Lydia suddenly said to me, “Come into the kitchen for a minute,
Wu Mei,
Fifth Younger Sister! My eyes are failing, and I need you to read a label.”

Somewhat reluctantly, I followed Lydia into the kitchen. I was feeling relaxed and a little drowsy. It had been enormously comforting to have my hair lovingly combed by my aunt, reminding me of another era when she and I shared a room and meant everything in the world to each other.

In the kitchen Lydia said, “Actually, there is no label for you to read. I just wanted to tell you something in private. How can you let your clean, shampooed hair be touched by that filthy old comb of hers, which probably has never been washed? You are in Communist China, not the United States of America! I know for a fact that during the Cultural Revolution, she didn’t have a bath for years. Nobody did! Aren’t you scared of picking up some awful disease like head lice? Just look at the flakes of dandruff on her collar! I’m only telling you this because you are my sister and I want to protect you. For heaven’s sake, keep this conversation between us private and don’t breathe a word! Let’s not hurt her feelings!”

Images of creepy-crawlies invading my hair entered my mind in spite of myself. On returning to Aunt Baba’s bedroom, I suddenly had no further wish for her to comb my hair.

This episode came back to me when I was doing research on the continuing struggle between Liu Bang and Xiang Yu for the control of China. In hindsight, I now realize that Lydia’s words and actions were part of a deliberate plot on her part to sow dissension between my aunt and me. Far from wishing to protect me, Lydia was trying to alienate me from my aunt.

While reading
Shiji,
I came across a passage in which the Grand Historian Sima Qian coined a special term to describe stratagems similar to the one that Lydia used. It is called
fan jian ji,
“plot to sow distrust by spreading rumors.” Over two millennia before Lydia was born, professional military advisers were already devising similar plots in order to divide and conquer.

To Liu Bang’s delight, his spies reported that most of the new kingdoms created by Xiang Yu were in a state of turmoil. Those who were given kingdoms considered them too small whereas those who were denied felt excluded and left out.

A case in point was Xiang Yu’s decision regarding Qi (present-day Shandong Province on the northeast coast of China).

Before unification, the Tian family ruled Qi for many generations during the Warring States period. King Jian, the last king of Qi, surrendered to the First Emperor against his ministers’ advice without a fight in 221
B.C
. Considered a coward by his countrymen, King Jian’s capitulation did not earn him the reprieve he expected. Instead, he was imprisoned in a remote area and starved to death.

Following the frontier guards’ rebellion one year after the death of the First Emperor, aristocrats from the old ruling Tian family resurfaced. The nobleman Rong rose and declared Qi to be a new and independent kingdom. He named himself as Prime Minister and his nephew Shi as King. Wishing to remain neutral, Rong did not send troops to assist Xiang Yu in the battle of Julu. One of his junior officers, Commander Dou, disagreed with Rong’s policy and brought his own troops to Xiang Yu.

Subsequently, Commander Dou accompanied Xiang Yu in storming the Hangu Pass. Wishing to reward his friend, Xiang Yu divided Qi into three parcels. He bypassed Rong, who had ruled Qi for four years and held all the power in that area. Of the three men he named to govern the three sections of Qi, the first was his friend Commander Dou, the second
was Rong’s nephew Shi, and the third was a grandson of the last king of Qi, who had been starved to death.

Not only was Rong left out in the cold, he was expected to give up his army and subordinate himself to his rebellious former army officer, his young nephew, and the grandson of a cowardly king whom he despised. It was an impossible situation for Rong and he revolted.

He began by refusing entry to his former junior officer Commander Dou. The latter complained to Xiang Yu. Rong heard of this and responded by killing the two other newly nominated kings of Qi. He re-united the three parcels and declared himself the only king of Qi. Far from kowtowing to Xiang Yu, Rong began openly recruiting others to join him in a revolution against him.

The first to respond was Peng Yue, a minor warlord and guerrilla fighter with a band of ten thousand men who was itching to prove his mettle. Rong immediately made him a general and sent him the appropriate seal.

The second to join the “anti-Xiang Yu forces” was Scholar-General Chen Yu from Zhao. Chen Yu was the one who had written the famous letter that successfully prompted Treasurer Zhang Han to surrender to Xiang Yu after the battle of Julu. Chen Yu held a grudge against Xiang Yu because the latter did not make him a king and gave him only three small counties to govern, whereas his counterpart (and ex-partner) Scholar-General Zhang Er was made king of the entire former state of Zhao. He now requested to borrow some troops from Rong to even the score.

Rong obligingly sent over an auxiliary division to augment Chen Yu’s small army. With this new force, Chen Yu was able to defeat his ex-partner Zhang Er and topple him from the throne. Zhang Er fled but, to everyone’s surprise, he turned to Liu Bang instead of Xiang Yu for refuge.

This was a slap in the face for Xiang Yu. Immediately after the battle of Julu, Xiang Yu’s power and prestige had been such that all the nobles had fallen to their knees when they were summoned into his camp, and none dared look him in the eye.

Now, less than a year later, Xiang Yu’s reputation had already diminished to such an extent that warlords of the area were turning to his arch rival, Liu Bang, instead. It did not help that on returning to his capital city of Pengcheng, Xiang Yu continued to behave as if he were still the almighty commandant of All Under Heaven, answerable to no one but himself.
Resentful of Emperor Yi for not going against the covenant, he had him murdered. Following this atrocity, he had King Cheng of Haan killed as well, thereby further aggravating the enmity of Liu Bang’s strategist, Zhang Liang, who was born and bred in Haan.

Having gathered all the reports, Liu Bang concentrated his efforts on expanding eastward. Following General in Chief Hahn Xin’s war plan to the letter, Liu Bang first made a public announcement that a few hundred soldiers were being dispatched to repair the burned
zhan dao,
“planks built along the face of a cliff.” Everyone knew that this was a time-consuming and intricate task that would take at least a year.

Meanwhile, in October 206
B.C.E.
, General in Chief Hahn Xin and Liu Bang led their well-drilled army by way of the little-known
Chen-cang gu dao,
“former road,” and made a surprise attack on Treasurer Zhang Han. Utterly unprepared, Zhang Han suffered two major defeats and fled. Thereupon Liu Bang subjugated the area with ease and entered the former capital city of Xianyang. He was enthusiastically welcomed by the Qin people. Of the three kings of Guanzhong appointed by Xiang Yu, Zhang Han committed suicide while the other two defected to Liu Bang.

Hahn Xin’s famous war plan, which resulted in Liu Bang’s rapid capture of Guanzhong, has become a proverb:
ming xiu zhan dao, an du Cheng Cang,
“openly repairing the plank roads but secretly crossing via Cheng Cang.” The proverb means “outwardly pretending to advance along one path while secretly following another route” or “doing one thing under cover of another.”

Throughout the Cultural Revolution, Mao Tse-tung’s wife, Jiang Qing (Madame Mao), actively promoted the cult of Mao’s personality throughout China. She traveled from province to province, lectured at political rallies, produced ballets, movies, and musicals, and appeared frequently on television. I once commented to my father that she and Mao Tse-tung did not seem to spend much time together. With a twinkle in his eye, Father replied,
“Ming xiu zhan dao, an du Cheng Cang!”
By saying this, Father meant that while Mao’s wife was extolling his virtues to an adoring public, Mao was actually having secret affairs with other women.

Xiang Yu was beside himself with fury at the turn of events. Torn between attacking Liu Bang for taking the Land Within the Passes or Rong for taking Qi, Xiang Yu could not decide what to do. At that moment he received a letter from Liu Bang’s strategist, Zhang Liang.

Zhang Liang was traveling in his native state of Haan pacifying his people after Xiang Yu executed King Cheng of Haan. In his heart he hated Xiang Yu for this deed but did not dare voice his resentment. In his letter Zhang Liang wrote, “Liu Bang’s only desire is to go according to the covenant and possess the Land Within the Passes. Once he has done so, he will stop his conquests.”

Soon afterward, Zhang Liang sent Xiang Yu a second letter in which he related the rebellion of Rong and his military alliances. “Your servant has heard that Rong and Scholar-General Chen Yu have joined forces for the sole purpose of destroying Your Majesty and Chu. Their accord will pose grave dangers for Your Majesty. These two are your real enemies.”

Convinced, Xiang Yu attacked Rong instead of Liu Bang. He marched northward into Qi and inflicted a total defeat on Rong. The latter fled in panic to a city nearby, where he was killed by the local people. Qi then surrendered to Xiang Yu.

In spite of the Qi people’s surrender, Xiang Yu’s soldiers rained destruction on their homes, temples, and shops. They burned their city walls, buried alive Rong’s surrendered soldiers, and kidnapped the women. Then Xiang Yu went north along the coast, allowing his troops to kill and destroy wherever he led them.

Thereupon the people of Qi rose and rebelled against Xiang Yu again. Rong’s younger brother and son gathered 50,000 men and retreated to the city of Chengyang. They dug in and made that city a fortress of opposition against Xiang Yu. Although Xiang Yu’s troops surrounded the city walls, the people were determined not to surrender and resisted valiantly.

While Xiang Yu was causing havoc in the state of Qi, Liu Bang was busy in his own way. First he proclaimed a general amnesty in the territories he ruled. Besides Han and Bashu, his kingdom now included the Land Within the Passes. He ordered his people to remove the Qin dynasty’s gods of the “land and grains” and establish the Han dynasty’s gods instead. (Traditionally, a change in the gods of the “land and grains” was only made at the beginning of a new dynasty.) He showed his bounty by exempting his people from land tax for a period of two years. Those who were fifty years or older, incorrupt, respected their parents, possessed leadership qualities, and did good works were elevated to the position of
san lao,
a respected elder, one in each district. The
san lao
s were exempt from forced labor and garrison duty and were given wine and meat at the new
year. One of the district
san lao
s was selected to be the prefectural
san lao.
The latter served as a consultant to the prefect and the chief of police.

San lao
is an interesting term. The two words mean “three olds,” but there are many meanings. As the first part of the proverb
san lao si yan,
the words
san lao
mean “three honests,” or being honest in thought, deed, and words; and the words
si yan
mean “four stricts,” or setting strict standards for work, organization, attitude, and observation of discipline. However,
san lao
also implies someone who has been recommended to those in power as possessing certain desirable qualities such as moral fiber, filial piety, leadership, and intelligence. It is interesting to note that in 1989 the second-generation Communist Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping (Mao was the first-generation leader) handpicked the third-generation leader Jiang Zemin as his successor precisely because Deng thought Jiang possessed these
san lao
qualities. President Jiang has held the reins of power since Deng’s death in 1997. He and Premier Zhu Rongji are widely perceived in Chinese circles as being incorruptible ministers who have successfully managed the difficult task of maintaining political stability while fostering economic growth for the last thirteen years.