Sandalwood Death

CHAPTER THIRTEEN





A City Destroyed





1




The County Magistrate set out in his four-man palanquin for Masang Township. In order to project a commanding aura, he took twenty county troopers—ten archers and ten musketeers—along with him. Two hundred forty German soldiers were going through their paces when the procession passed the Tongde Academy parade ground. Outfitted in colorful military attire, the tall, muscular soldiers displayed an impressive battle formation, rocking the area with their cadenced shouts. The Magistrate was shocked by what he saw, but did not show it. More than the tight formation and the Mauser weapons the soldiers carried, what truly impressed him was the row of twelve Krupp cannons crouching on the edge of the parade ground. Looking like enormous tortoises with bright shells and short, thick necks raised skyward, they rested on iron wheels that sat heavily on the ground. When Yuan Shikai had assumed office as Governor of Shandong, the County Magistrate and dozens of other County Magistrates had traveled to Jinan to observe a new force of five thousand soldiers that Yuan had brought from Jinan; it was an eye-opening experience for men who believed that the country now had an army that could stand up to the Great Powers. But compared to the German troops on the parade ground, it was a second-rate military force, even after receiving German weapons and training by German officers, who would not likely put their most powerful weapons in the hands of people whose country they had invaded. Excellency Yuan, what a fool you are.

Truth is, Yuan was not the fool, the County Magistrate was. And that was because Yuan had no intention of confronting the Great Powers with his newly created force.

Back on the Jinan parade ground, Yuan had ordered his artillery unit to fire three volleys. The shells flew over a river and a mountain and landed on a gravelly sandbar. In the company of his fellow officials and led by the artillery unit commander, the County Magistrate had ridden to the spot where the shells had created deep triangular craters in the sandbar, shattering the stones and sending their sharp-edged shards flying in all directions. Several young trees in the nearby wooded area had been truncated, with beads of sap dotting the new stumps. All the County Magistrates had gasped in admiration. But the cannons fired that day might as well have been the sons of the twelve cannons crouching at the edge of the Tongde Academy parade ground. The County Magistrate now understood why Yuan always acquiesced to the Germans’ unreasonable demands, and why, in regard to the Sun Bing incident, he acted like a feckless father who slaps his own son in a cowardly display to ingratiate himself with a powerful man whose son has bullied his. No wonder he warned the people of Gaomi in his proclamation: “Let it be known that the German forces are invincible. Stir up more trouble, and you will come to even greater grief. Only a fool would ignore this advice. Have you not heard the adage ‘Obedience is the path to survival, stubbornness leads only to trouble’? I trust you will keep this wise adage in mind.”

The musketeers and archers under the Magistrate’s once-proud command were a pathetic contrast to the German troops. Qian could barely hold up his head in the face of such disparity. And his embarrassment was shared by the men, who felt like adulterers being paraded naked past the Academy grounds. The Magistrate, a representative of the mighty Imperial Court, had come to the negotiations with an armed escort as a show of strength for the Germans, but now realized that this was as foolish a gesture as facing a mirror with his eyes covered. No wonder his men grimaced when he ordered them to dress in full battle attire. They had seen the military hardware and the disciplined troops at the Tongde Academy back when he lay ill in the yamen. He recalled being informed by subordinates that German troops had entered the county’s capital without formal approval and had turned the Tongde Academy into a military camp, their excuse being that the Academy’s name—Tongde—could be interpreted as meaning “for De-guo, or Germany.” Having decided to end his life, he had turned a deaf ear to the shocking news. But once his death wish had passed, he realized that the Germans’ arrogant entry into town and forcible occupation of the Tongde Academy grounds was nothing less than a piratical act in defiance of the sanctity of Gaomi County as well as that of the Great Qing Empire. He wrote a stern diplomatic note to the German commander, von Ketteler, which was hand delivered by Chunsheng and Liu Pu, demanding an apology and an immediate return to the base site stipulated in the 1898 Sino-German Jiao-Ao Treaty. His messengers returned with von Ketteler’s response that Yuan Shikai and the Imperial Court in Peking had approved the establishment of a camp in Gaomi’s capital. As he contemplated the report—unsure whether or not he should believe it—a messenger from Laizhou arrived on horseback with a telegram from Excellency Yuan, sanctioned by Prefect Cao. Yuan had ordered the County Magistrate to extend every courtesy to the Germans as they established a camp in Gaomi and to gain the release of the German hostages taken by the criminal Sun Bing. Brooking no nonsense, Yuan wrote:

“In a recent incident involving foreign missionaries in Juye, Shandong Province suffered a significant loss of sovereignty, and if any of the captives are killed this time, it is hard to imagine what the cost to us will be. Not only will the nation be forced to cede precious land to the foreigners, but our lives will be in jeopardy. In difficult times such as we face today, you must think only of the national well being; you must work unstintingly, and you must successfully resolve issues. People who act out of personal considerations or pervert the law, and those who shirk their responsibilities and hamper the implementation of their duties will be severely punished. As soon as I have dealt with the Boxer rebels here in Northern Shandong, I will come to survey the situation in Gaomi County . . . in the wake of the February 2nd Incident, I sent a telegram ordering Magistrate Qian to arrest and imprison the rebel leader Sun Bing to ensure that no further incidents occurred, only to receive a return telegram asking that the rebel bandit be absolved of his crimes. I have rarely seen a more muddleheaded request. Such attempts at shifting responsibility and equivocation will inevitably lead to chaos and instability. For this dereliction of duty, Magistrate Qian, you deserve to be removed from office, but the nation is in need of competent officials, and you have ties to a former high official of the current dynasty, so I am prepared to show leniency. Now that you have committed a serious error, I expect you to redeem yourself with devoted service. Devise a plan, without delay, to free the hostages and appease the Germans . . .”

When he finished reading the telegram, he turned to his wife, who wore a clouded look, and heaved a long sigh.

“Dear wife,” he said, “why did you not let me die?”

“Do you honestly believe that what you are facing now is worse than what my grandfather faced after his defeat at the hands of the Taiping rebels at Jinggang?” The First Lady’s eyes blazed as she looked at her husband.

“But your grandfather jumped into a river to kill himself!”

“You’re right, he did,” she said. “But he was pulled from the river by subordinates, and drew a lesson from the experience. Spurred into rallying his forces, he staged a comeback, refusing to yield and enduring every imaginable hardship as he fought his way into Nanking, where he wiped out the Taiping ‘Long Hairs,’ an exploit that earned him a reputation as an official of great renown, a pillar of the state. His wife received honorary titles, and his children were given hereditary ranks along with considerable wealth. Memorial temples were erected in his honor so that his good name would live for all time. That is the essence of a man worthy of the name.”

“In the two centuries and more since the beginning of this dynasty, there has been only one Zeng Guofan.” The Magistrate looked up at the photograph of the posthumously named Lord Wenzheng hanging on the wall—even in his dotage he had lost none of his dignity. “I have little talent and insubstantial learning,” he said feebly, “and I am weak-willed. You saved my life, but not my reputation. How sad, dear wife, that you, the daughter of an illustrious family, should be married to someone who is little more than a walking corpse.”

“Why, my husband, must you belittle yourself?” she asked gravely. “You are possessed of great learning, are well versed in military strategy, enjoy good health, and have exceptional physical skills. You have had to submit to others not because you are inferior to them, but because your time had not yet come.”

“What about now?” he asked, the hint of a mocking smile on his lips. “Has my time finally come?”

“Of course it has,” the First Lady said. “The Boxers are inciting the masses to rebel, the Great Powers are like tigers eyeing their prey, and the Germans are enraged over Sun Bing’s rebellious actions. All this has put the nation in a precarious position. If you can develop a plan to rescue the hostages and take Sun Bing into custody at the same time, you will gain favor with Excellency Yuan. Not only will your punishment be expunged, but you will be rewarded with a high-level position. Can you deny that it is time for you to accomplish great things?”

“What you have just said has caused me to look at everything with new eyes,” the Magistrate said with a hint of sarcasm. “But the unpleasant Sun Bing business has its roots.”

“Yes, my husband. Sun Bing could be pardoned for avenging his wife’s humiliation by beating the German transgressor. But the Germans can also be pardoned for avenging their countryman. Following the incident, Sun Bing should have accepted his punishment instead of joining the outlawed Boxer movement and, after taking it upon himself to set up a sacred altar, leading an attack by his followers on the railway shed. Most inexcusable of all, he took hostages. If that is not a rebellious act, I do not know what is,” the First Lady said sternly. “Your livelihood is guaranteed by the Great Qing Court, and as its official representative, instead of single-mindedly coming to the defense of the nation in its hour of peril, you sought to absolve Sun Bing of his crimes. Your apparent sympathy was actually an act of harboring the guilty; what you considered benevolence was in truth collusion with the enemy. How could anyone as well read and sensible as you do something so foolish? And all because of a woman who peddles dog meat!”

The shamefaced Magistrate bowed his head under the penetrating gaze of his wife.

“I know that being barren is one of the seven causes for divorce, and I am grateful to you, my husband, for choosing not to abandon me,” she remarked delicately. “That is something I shall not forget . . . once things have settled down, I will find a woman of virtue for you, someone who will bear your offspring to carry on the Qian name. But if your infatuation with the Sun woman endures, we can arrange a divorce from her butcher husband so you can install her as your concubine. You have my word that I will treat her as family. But this cannot happen now. If you fail to free the foreign hostages and arrest Sun Bing, you and I are fated to come to a bad end, and you will be denied the pleasure of her charms.”

As sweat soaked the Magistrate’s back, he tried but failed to stammer a response.





2




As he sat in his palanquin, the Magistrate’s mood oscillated between righteous indignation and utter dejection. Rays of sunlight filtering in through gaps in the bamboo curtain landed first on his hands and then on his legs. He saw the sweat-soaked necks of the bearers up front through those same gaps. His body shifted with each rise and fall of the shafts, a reflection of his drifting thoughts. The dark, sedate face of the First Lady and the bewitchingly fair image of Meiniang entered his mind, one after the other. The First Lady represented reason, his official career, and the dignity that went with it. Meiniang was emotion, life, romance. He would not willingly give up either one, but if he had to choose, then . . . then . . . it would have to be his wife. The granddaughter of Lord Wenzheng was, without question, the proper choice. If he failed to rescue the hostages and take Sun Bing into custody, all would come to naught anyway. Meiniang, oh, Meiniang, your dieh may be your dieh, but you are you, and for you I must take him into custody. It is for you that I must arrest your dieh.

The palanquin crossed the Masang River stone bridge and headed toward Masang Township’s western gate along a badly pitted dirt road. It was the middle of the day, but the gate was tightly shut. Broken bricks and shards of roof tiles had been piled atop a rammed-earth wall, behind which men with knives and spears and clubs were on the move. Flapping high above the gateway was an apricot banner embroidered with the large single word YUE, representing the Song Dynasty hero Yue Fei. Young men in red kerchiefs and sashes, their faces smeared with a red substance, kept guard over the banner.

The Magistrate’s palanquin was lowered to the ground in front of the gate. He stepped out, bent slightly at the waist. A voice from high up on the gateway demanded:

“Who comes calling?”

“Magistrate Qian of Gaomi County.”

“What is the purpose of your visit?”

“To see Sun Bing.”

“Our Supreme Commander is practicing martial skills and is unavailable.”

With a sardonic little laugh, the Magistrate said:

“Yu Xiaoqi, you can stop putting on airs for my benefit. When you held a gambling party last year, I spared you from the obligatory forty lashes for the sake of your seventy-year-old mother. You haven’t forgotten that, have you?”

With a smirk, Yu Xiaoqi replied:

“I have taken the place of the Song general Yang Zaixing.”

“I don’t care if you’ve taken the place of the Jade Emperor, you are still Yu Xiaoqi. Summon Sun Bing, and be quick about it. Otherwise, the next time I see you will be in the yamen when you are getting the lashes you deserve.”

“Wait here,” Yu Xiaoqi said. “I’ll take a message in for you.”

Wearing an inscrutable smile, the Magistrate glanced at his attendants. They are nothing but simple farm boys, he was thinking.

Sun Bing, wearing a long white gown and a silver helmet adorned with a pair of stage-prop plumes, appeared in the gateway. He was still carrying his date-wood club.

“Visitor at our city wall, state your name!”

“Sun Bing, oh, Sun Bing,” the Magistrate said sarcastically, “you still know how to put on a show.”

“The Supreme Commander does not converse with the unidentified. I repeat, state your name!”

“Sun Bing, you are truly lawless. Hear me out. I am a representative of the Great Qing Empire, Gaomi County Magistrate Qian Ding, with the style name Yuanjia.”

“So, it is the trifling Magistrate of Gaomi County,” Sun Bing remarked. “Why have you come here instead of functioning as a good official in your yamen?”

“Will you let me be a good official, Sun Bing?”

“As Supreme Commander, my only concern is to exterminate the foreigners. I have neither the time nor the interest to bother with an insignificant County Magistrate.”

“Exterminating the foreigners is what I have come to see you about. Open the gate and let me in. We will both be losers if their army decides to come.”

“Whatever you have to say, you can say it from out there. I can hear you.”

“What I have to say is extremely confidential. I must talk to you privately.”

After a thoughtful pause, Sun Bing said:

“All right, but just you.”

The Magistrate stepped back into his palanquin.

“Raise the chair!” he ordered.

“The chair stays outside!”

The Magistrate parted the curtain.

“As a representative of the Imperial Court,” he said, “I am expected to be carried in.”

“All right, but only the chair.”

The Magistrate turned to the head of his military escort. “Wait for me out here.”

“Excellency,” Chunsheng and Liu Pu said as they held on to the shafts, “you must not go in there alone.”

The Magistrate smiled.

“Don’t worry,” he said, “Supreme Commander Yue is a sensible man. He will not do injury to this official.”

With a series of loud creaks, the gate opened inward to permit the Magistrate’s palanquin to enter, swaying from side to side. The musketeers and archers of the escort attempted to storm their way in after him, only to be pelted by rubble raining down from atop the wall. When they took aim at their attackers, the Magistrate ordered them to lower their weapons.

The palanquin passed through the newly reinforced wooden gate and was quickly enveloped in the heavy fragrance of pine oil. Through gaps in the bamboo screen, he spotted half a dozen furnaces that had been set up on either side of the street, the fires kept red-hot by large bellows. Local blacksmiths were hard at work forging swords, their clanging hammers sending sparks flying. Women and children walked up and down the street with flatbreads and leeks stripped of their hard skins; lights flashed in the eyes of the glum-looking women. A little boy with tufted hair and an exposed belly who was carrying a steaming black clay pot cocked his head to gape at the Magistrate’s palanquin, then suddenly raised his juvenile voice in a rhythmic Maoqiang aria: “A cold, cold day and heavy snow~~northwest winds up my sleeves do blow~~” The boy’s high-pitched voice made the Magistrate laugh, but what came next was a dose of bone-chilling sorrow. Reminded of the German soldiers who drilled alongside cannons lined up on the Tongde Academy grounds, the Magistrate took a hard look at the ignorant Masang Township residents, who had been whipped into a state of fanaticism by the bewitching black arts of Sun Bing, and he was struck by feelings of obligation to rescue them from their plight. The sonorous inflections of a pledge rang out in his mind—what the First Lady had said made perfect sense: at this critical, perilous juncture, he must reject all thoughts of dying, whether in the name of the nation or of the people. To seek death at this moment would be shameful and cowardly. A world in turmoil gives rise to great men, and it is incumbent upon me to take a lesson from Lord Wenzheng, who defied difficulties and laughed at danger, who fought to save desperate situations and liberate the masses from peril. Sun Bing, you bastard, you have led thousands of Masang residents into the jaws of death, all to satisfy your thirst for personal vengeance, and I am morally and legally bound to see that you are punished.

Sun Bing rode ahead of the Magistrate’s palanquin on a dejected-looking chestnut horse. Its harness had rubbed the hair off the starving animal’s forelegs, exposing the green-tinted skin. Bits of watery excrement hung on the bony hindquarters of what the Magistrate easily identified as a plow horse, a pitiful animal taken from the fields to become Supreme Commander Yue’s personal mount. A young man with a red-painted face led the way, hopping and bouncing down the street with a shiny club that looked like a hoe handle, while a more somber young man, whose face was painted black, walked behind the horse carrying his own shiny club, also, apparently, a hoe handle. The Magistrate assumed that they had fashioned themselves after combatants in the novel The Story of Yue Fei, with Zhang Bao leading the way and Wang Heng bringing up the rear. Sun Bing sat tall in the saddle, reins in one hand and date-wood club in the other, his every stylized move and affected gesture the sort that a man might make astride a great galloping charger as he guarded a frontier pass under a chilly moon or while crossing vast open plains—What a shame, the Magistrate was thinking, that all the man had was an old nag with loose bowels, and that he was riding down a dusty, narrow street on which hens pecked at food and spindly dogs ran loose. The palanquin followed Sun Bing and his guards up to the bend in a dried-out river in the heart of the township, where the Magistrate was treated to the sight of hundreds of men in red kerchiefs and sashes sitting quietly on the dry riverbed, like an array of clay figurines. Other men in bright garb sat on a platform made of piled-up bricks in front of the seated men, intoning funereal strains of Maoqiang opera at the top of their lungs, the meaning virtually incomprehensible to the Magistrate, a celebrated graduate of the metropolitan examination: A black tornado blows in from the south~~a white cat spirit set free by Grand Commander Hong in camp~~white cat spirits, oh, white cat spirits~~white coats and red eyes~~intent on sucking our blood dry~~most exalted Laozi, appear in our midst~~train the magic fists as protectors of the Great Qing~~slaughter the white cat spirits~~skin them, gouge out their eyes, and light the heavenly lamp~~ Sun Bing dismounted in front of a makeshift mat shed. The horse shook its dirty, ratty mane and began to wheeze as it bent its hind legs and released a burst of watery excrement. Zhang Bao stepped back and tied the horse’s reins to a dried-up old willow tree; Wang Heng took the club from Sun Bing, who glanced back at the palanquin with an expression that seemed to the Magistrate to be a cross between arrogance and doltishness. The carriers laid down their shafts and pulled back the curtain for the Magistrate, who scooped up the hem of his official robe and stepped out. Head high and chest thrust out, Sun Bing entered the shed, followed by the Magistrate.

The tent was illuminated by a pair of candles, whose light fell on the image of an idol on one of the walls. Pheasant tail feathers rose above the head of the figure, which was clad in a ministerial python robe and sported a magnificent beard, looking a little like Sun Bing and a lot like the Magistrate. Thanks to his relationship with Sun Meiniang, the Magistrate knew quite a bit about the history of Maoqiang opera, and he immediately recognized the image as that of Chang Mao, the school’s founder, who had somehow been appropriated as the revered Taoist protector of Sun Bing’s Boxers of Righteous Harmony. Upon entering the tent, the Magistrate was greeted by intimidating sounds and the sight of eight wild-looking youths, four on each side of the image. Half had black faces, half had red; half were dressed in black, half in red. Their clothing rustled in the stirred-up air, as if made of paper, and when he took a closer look, he saw that that’s exactly what it was. Each was holding a club, the shiny surfaces indicative of hoe handles. They served to further diminish the Magistrate’s respect for Sun Bing. Can’t you manage something new, something fresh, Sun Bing? After all this time and energy, the best you can come up with is some tired old rural opera tricks. And yet he knew that the Germans did not share his disdain; nor did the Imperial Court or Excellency Yuan. Nor, for that matter, did the three thousand residents of Masang Township, the youthful attendants in the tent, or their leader, Sun Bing.

Following a ragged series of shouts announcing the discussion of military matters by Supreme Commander Yue, Sun Bing strutted over to a rosewood chair and swayed his way into it. With a dramatic flair, he intoned hoarsely:

“State your name, visitor!”

With a sarcastic laugh, the Magistrate said:

“Sun Bing, that’s enough of your insatiable play-acting. I have come neither to listen to you sing opera nor to share the stage with you. I have come to tell you that either the cinders are hot or the fire is.”

“Who do you think you are, speaking to the Supreme Commander like that?” Zhang Bao, the horse preceder, said, pointing his club at the Magistrate. “Our Supreme Commander leads an army of tens of thousands, men and horses, unimaginably greater than anything you can boast of!”

“I trust you haven’t forgotten, Sun Bing,” the Magistrate said as he stroked his beard and stared at Sun Bing’s scarred and scabby chin, “how you lost your beard.”

“I always knew that it was you, you double-dealer,” Sun Bing raged. “I also know that prior to our battle of the beards, you—crafty, petty tyrant that you are—treated your beard with a mixture of ashes and a glue-like substance, which is the only way you could have beaten me. Losing is one thing, but you had no right to pluck out my beard after pardoning me.”

“Would you like to know who really did it?” the Magistrate asked with a smile.

“It had to be you.”

“Right,” the Magistrate replied calmly. “Without doubt, you had the better beard, and if I hadn’t taken precautions, you would surely have won. I pardoned you to show the people that I am a generous, forgiving man. Then I covered my face that night and ripped the beard off your face in order to quell your arrogance and turn you into an obedient member of society.”

“You dog!” Sun Bing pounded his fist on the table and jumped to his feet enraged. “Grab this lousy dog of an official, men, and pluck out his beard! My chin has become barren thanks to you, and I am going to turn yours into the Gobi Desert!”

Zhang Bao and Wang Heng raised their clubs threateningly and bore down upon the Magistrate, aided by shouts from the wild youngsters.

“I am an official representative of the Imperial Court,” the Magistrate warned them, “dignified and properly assigned. Don’t you dare so much as touch a single hair on my body!”

“I curse the merciless, insignificant little Qian Ding~~In your role you are a moth that has flown into the fire, fallen into a trap, landed in my hand~~a blood debt will be paid on this day~~” With the Maoqiang aria on his lips, Sun Bing charged, raised his club high over his head, yelled “You rat . . . !” took aim at the Magistrate’s head, and swung mightily.

Calmly, the Magistrate moved backward, easily sidestepping the blow, and grabbed hold of the offending club, pushing it ahead of him and forcing Sun Bing down on all fours. Zhang Bao and Wang Heng raised their clubs and swung in the direction of the Magistrate’s head; he dodged their blows with a cat-like leap backward and then sprang forward like a leopard, causing the two heads to bang together with a loud thud. Somehow both of their clubs landed in his hands. With his left he hit Zhang Bao, and with his right Wang Heng. “You damned freaks,” he cursed, “get out of my sight!” The two men shrieked and scampered out of the shed, holding their heads in their hands. With them out of the way, the Magistrate tossed one of the clubs away, but held on to the other. “And you little freaks,” he cursed, “are you waiting for me to do the same to you, or will you clear out on your own?” Seeing how fast the tide had turned, the eight wild youngsters took the latter course, some throwing down their clubs, others dragging theirs out the door with them.

The Magistrate grabbed Sun Bing by the neck and lifted him off the ground.

“Sun Bing,” he said, “where are the three German hostages?”

“Qian,” Sun Bing said with a teeth-grinding snarl, “go ahead, kill me, if that’s what you want. Everyone else in my family is dead, so it makes no difference to me if I live or die.”

“Tell me where the Germans are.”

“Them?” With a sarcastic grin, he began to sing: “When you ask where all the German dogs are~~that makes this Supreme Commander’s spirits fly far~~they are sleeping in heaven~~they are hidden deep in the ground~~they exist in latrines~~they line the stomachs of dogs, that is where they are~~”

“Have you killed them?”

“They are alive and well, and it is up to you to go find them.”

“Sun Bing,” the Magistrate said as he let go of the neck and adopted a friendlier tone, “I have to tell you that Meiniang is now in the hands of the Germans, and if you do not release their people, they will hang her from the city gate.”

“That is up to them,” Sun Bing replied. “Marrying off a daughter is like spilling a pail of water. She is no longer my concern.”

“But she is your only daughter, and you owe her a lifetime of debts. If you refuse to free your German hostages, then I have no choice but to take you back with me today.” The Magistrate took Sun Bing by the arm and walked him out of the shed, where they were met by a burst of crowd noise. There on the dry riverbed, hundreds of men in their red kerchiefs, red sashes, and painted faces, under the leadership of several other men in stage costume, were heading their way, a bawling, raucous wave of black heads closing in and surrounding the Magistrate and Sun Bing before they could react. One of them, a general in a tiger-skin apron, his face painted like a monkey, leaped into the center, pointed his iron cudgel at the Magistrate’s head, and, affecting an accent from somewhere, said:

“Alien evildoer, how dare you cause our Supreme Commander to suffer such an outrage!”

“I, Gaomi County Magistrate, have come to negotiate the release of hostages and to take Sun Bing into custody!”

“County Magistrate, you shall do nothing of the sort! You are an evil spirit in human form. Destroy his evil powers, my children!”

Before he knew it, the people behind the Magistrate had dumped a pail of dog’s blood over his head, followed by a coating of manure. This was more filth than had ever degraded and soiled the fastidious Magistrate’s body. As his stomach lurched and nausea began to claim him, he bent over to vomit and, in the process, let go of Sun Bing’s arm.

“Sun Bing, bring the hostages to the north gate of the county seat tomorrow at noon, or your daughter will suffer grievously.” The Magistrate wiped his face with his hand, revealing a pair of eyes clouded with manure and blood; he presented a sad sight, and yet spoke with firm self-assurance: “Do not let what I say drift past your ears on the wind!”

“Kill him! Kill this dog-shit official!” many in the crowd shouted.

“I am doing this for your own good, fellow townsmen.” The Magistrate spoke from his heart. “After you deliver the hostages tomorrow, you may do whatever you please. Do not make the mistake of following Sun Bing.” He turned to the pair of Righteous Harmony Boxers and said in a mocking tone, “Then there’s you two. His Excellency Yuan, Governor of the Province, has sent an edict that Boxers are to be killed, down to the last man. None are to be spared. But since you have come from far away, that makes you guests of a sort, and I am willing to send you on your way in peace. Leave now, before provincial troops arrive, for by then it will be too late.”

His words had a stupefying effect on the men in the roles of Sun Wukong and Zhu Bajie, so he quickly took advantage of the changed mood. “Sun Bing,” he called out loudly, “your daughter’s life is at stake, and you must meet your responsibility. At noon tomorrow I will be waiting for you at the San Li River Bridge outside the north gate.” With that, he parted the crowd and strode purposefully down the street. His carriers rushed to pick up the palanquin and trot after him. He was also followed by the slightly off-tune strains of a Maoqiang opera, intoned by Sun Wukong:

“Righteous Harmony, we sacred Boxers~~slaughter the foreigners to preserve our land! Boxers of Righteous Harmony~~our power is great~~indestructible ~~together we band . . .”

Once he was on the outskirts of town, the Magistrate began to run, faster and faster, his carriers and attendants straining to keep up, like a flock of sheep. The stink of the man’s body easily reached them, and the sight he presented, a mixture of red and brown, so completely flummoxed them that they dared not laugh, they dared not cry, and they dared not ask what had happened; so they just kept running. When they reached the Masang River Bridge, the Magistrate jumped in, spraying water in all directions.

“Eminence!” Chunsheng and Liu Pu shouted together.

Suicide was what they were thinking. They ran down to the riverbank, prepared to jump in and save their Magistrate, until they saw his head break the surface. Though it was by then the fourth lunar month, a bit of wintry weather lingered on, and a chill rose from the clear blue water. Still in the middle of the river, the Magistrate shed his official clothing and rinsed it out in the river. He repeated the action, this time with his hat.

With his clothing now clean, he waded unsteadily up to the riverbank, aided by his attendants. He seemed shrunken, thanks to the cold water, and had trouble straightening up, but after draping Chunsheng’s jacket over his shoulders and stepping into Liu Pu’s pants, he crawled into his palanquin. Then, once Chunsheng spread his official garments over top of the palanquin and Liu Pu hung his hat from one of the shafts, the carriers picked up the chair and hurried home, followed by the Magistrate’s troops and attendants.

“Damn!” he was thinking as he was carried along, “I look like one of those opera-stage adulterers!”





3




The story that the Germans had taken Sun Meiniang hostage was a complete fabrication, either something the Magistrate had made up on the spot or what he had assumed the Germans would do if Sun Bing refused to repatriate their countrymen. Now he led his personal attendants to meet the German Plenipotentiary, von Ketteler, and his entourage at the prearranged site on the San Li River bridgehead near the city’s north gate, where they awaited the arrival of Sun Bing. The Magistrate had not mentioned a hostage swap to the German official, telling him only that a repentant Sun Bing had agreed to release the hostages. The Plenipotentiary, inordinately pleased by the news, told the Magistrate through his interpreter that if his countrymen were returned unharmed, he would praise the Magistrate’s efforts to Excellency Yuan himself. This did little to ease the Magistrate’s misgivings, and he responded with a bitter smile as he recalled the dreadful premonition that Sun Bing’s ambiguous comments had left him with the day before, a fear that the three German captives had already come to grief. He prepared for the meeting trusting to luck that all would end well, and with that in mind, he mentioned Sun Meiniang to no one, including Chunsheng and Liu Pu. He merely told them to ready a two-man palanquin, in which he had them place a large rock.

The Plenipotentiary, who was growing impatient as the sun rose high in the sky, kept looking at his pocket watch and telling his interpreter to ask whether Sun Bing was playing them for fools. The Magistrate equivocated as much as possible, avoiding a direct response to the man’s questions and his growing suspicions. Though he was churning with anxiety, he put on a brave, jovial face.

“Please ask the Plenipotentiary for me,” he said to the rat-faced interpreter, “why his eyes are blue.”

The befuddled interpreter could only sputter in response. The Magistrate had a big laugh over his little joke.

A pair of magpies were chattering loudly in a nearby willow tree, their black and white feathers making a lively show around branches that were just turning yellow. The scene was a work of art. Across the river, men with handcarts or carrying poles were making their way up the levee; before they reached the bridgehead, they spotted the foreign Plenipotentiary, who had remained in the saddle of his mighty steed, and the County Magistrate, who was standing in front of his palanquin; they turned tail and ran back down the levee.

When the sun was directly overhead, the sound of horns and drums signaled the arrival of a delegation from the north. The Plenipotentiary hastily lifted his field glasses to his eyes; the Magistrate shaded his eyes with his hand and strained to see who was coming, and heard the Plenipotentiary shout out to him:

“Qian, where are the hostages?”

The Magistrate took the field glasses the official held out to him. The still-distant contingent of men leaped into his line of vision. He saw that Sun Bing was still wearing his tattered stage costume, still holding his date-wood club, and still riding the same old nag. It was hard to tell whether the smile on his face was that of a dull-witted man or a crafty one. In front of his horse, as always, was Zhang Bao the monkey, while the silly-looking Wang Heng was walking behind him, followed by Sun Bing’s senior attendants, Sun Wukong and Zhu Bajie, who were both on horseback. They were followed by four musicians—two playing the suona and two on horns—who preceded a slow-moving mule-drawn wagon with wooden wheels on which a tent had been set up. Next in the procession were a dozen red-kerchiefed young men carrying swords and spears. Only the Germans were missing. The Magistrate’s heart turned to ice, and his vision blurred. Even though this was what he had anticipated, he held out a ray of hope that the three German captives were there in the tent on the slow-moving mule-drawn wagon. He handed the field glasses back to the foreigner and avoided the German’s anxious eyes. In his mind’s eye he gauged whether or not the tent could accommodate three good-sized Germans. Two scenarios played out in his head: One was that Sun Bing was according his German hostages the courtesy of riding to their salvation in a mule-drawn wagon. The other was that three bloody corpses were piled inside that tent. Neither superstitious nor much of a believer in ghosts and spirits, the Magistrate surprised even himself by offering up a silent prayer: All you spirits and demons in heaven and on earth, I beg you to let those three German soldiers step unharmed from that wagon. If they cannot walk, being carried off is acceptable. As long as there is still breath in their bodies, all is not lost. If three bloody corpses were carried out of the tent, the Magistrate could not bear to think of what that would lead to. A bloody, full-scale war was a distinct possibility, or a massacre. One thing was certain: his career would be over.

While thoughts thronged the Magistrate’s mind, Sun Bing’s procession approached the bridgehead, making field glasses unnecessary to see all the men, their animals, and the mysterious mule-drawn wagon; the Magistrate’s attention was focused on the wagon, which bounced and bumped its way along, appearing to have plenty of heft without being overly heavy. The iron-rimmed wooden wheels turned slowly, creaking noisily with each revolution. As soon as it reached the bridgehead, the procession halted, and the musicians put down their instruments. Sun Bing spurred his horse up the levee, and when he reached the top he shouted, “You are in the presence of the great Song general Yue Fei. I demand to know the name of the general I face!”

The Magistrate responded loudly:

“Sun Bing, release your captives at once!”

“First tell that dog beside you to let my daughter go!” Sun Bing replied.

“The truth is, Sun Bing, they never did take your daughter,” the Magistrate said as he pulled back the curtain of his palanquin.” There is nothing but a large rock in here.”

“I knew it was a lie,” Sun Bing said with a smile. “This Supreme Commander has eyes and ears everywhere in the city. You cannot make a move there without my learning of it.”

“If you do not free the hostages, I cannot guarantee Meiniang’s safety,” the Magistrate warned him.

“This commander’s emotional attachment to his daughter no longer exists. You decide whether she lives or dies,” Sun Bing replied. “But in the spirit of magnanimity, and despite the alien dog’s lack of humanity, this commander must retain his righteousness, and so I have brought the three alien dogs with me and herewith hand them over.”

With a casual wave, Sun Bing signaled the Boxer troops behind him to remove three burlap sacks from the mule-drawn wagon, which they dragged up to the bridgehead. The Magistrate saw signs of struggle inside the sacks and heard strange muffled sounds. The Boxers stood in the middle of the road waiting for Sun Bing’s command:

“Let them out!”

They opened the three bags, picked them up from the bottom, and dumped out the contents: a pair of pigs dressed in German uniforms and a white dog wearing a German soldier’s cap. With squeals and frantic barks, the animals scrambled across the ground, heading straight for the Plenipotentiary, like children rushing into the arms of family.

“They turned themselves into pigs and dogs!” Sun Bing announced earnestly.

His troops echoed his words:

“They turned themselves into pigs and dogs!”

Magistrate Qian did not know whether to laugh or cry at the scene playing out in front of him. The Plenipotentiary, on the other hand, drew his pistol and fired at Sun Bing, hitting the club in his hand and producing an unusual sound. But to look at Sun Bing, one would have thought that his club had hit the bullet rather than the other way around. At the very instant when the foreigner fired his pistol, one of the young musketeers behind Sun Bing took aim at the German and fired a spray of buckshot, some of which struck the man’s horse, which reared up in pain and threw its rider; his foot was caught in the stirrup, and he was dragged by the blinded animal toward the river. The Magistrate flew to the rescue, like a panther pouncing on its prey; he wrapped his arms around the horse’s neck and slowed it enough for the foreign attendants to rush up and free the Plenipotentiary, who had been hit in the ear by a buckshot pellet, from the stirrup. He reached up to feel his ear, and when he saw the blood on his hand, he screamed something unintelligible.

“What did His Excellency shout just now?” the Magistrate asked the interpreter.

“He sa . . . said he . . . he’s reporting you to Excellency Yuan!” the man stammered.





4




After marching all night from Jinan, German troops, in a joint operation with a battalion of Imperial Right Guardsmen, surrounded Masang Township and attacked, Chinese troops in front, Germans bringing up the rear. The County Magistrate and Infantry Regiment Commander Ma Longbiao stood on opposite sides of the Plenipotentiary, whose wounded ear was bandaged, as if they were his personal bodyguards. In the woods behind them, German cannons were in place and ready to commence firing, with four soldiers standing at attention behind each piece, like wooden posts. The Magistrate did not know whether von Ketteler had already telegraphed a complaint to Yuan Shikai, since Ma Longbiao and his infantry troops had arrived, travel-worn and weary, on the afternoon of the hostage-exchange farce.

After arranging board and lodging for the regiment, the Magistrate held a welcoming dinner for Commander Ma, a modest man who, throughout the meal, proclaimed his enormous respect for Lord Wenzheng and made a point of saying that he had long admired the Magistrate as a learned man. When the meal was nearly over, Ma whispered to him that Qian Xiongfei, who had suffered the slicing death in Tianjin, had been a close friend, a revelation that convinced Qian that he and his guest had a special relationship, as if they had been fast friends for years, someone from whom there were no secrets.

To help ensure Commander Ma’s success in his mission, Magistrate Qian lent him fifty of the county militiamen, who were assigned as scouts for the government troops and foreign soldiers, deploying them around the township in the darkness just before daybreak. The Magistrate himself made a personal appearance to help compensate for the ridiculous travesty the day before, when the anticipated hostage swap had blown up in his face. Sun Bing had made fools out of him and the German; his proclamation and the shouts of his followers rang in the County Magistrate’s ears: “They turned themselves into pigs and dogs! They turned themselves into pigs and dogs!” I should have known they would not let those three German soldiers live, he was thinking. As a matter of fact, he had heard that Sun Bing and his followers had tied the captives to trees and taken turns urinating in their faces. After that, he was sure, they would have offered the men’s hearts and livers in sacrifice to the souls of their twenty-seven dead. I should have followed my instincts instead of blithely believing that the German soldiers were still alive. Even more laughable was my thought that if I rescued the hostages, Excellency Yuan would take note of my achievement and view me with favor. My mistake was listening to my wife and letting what she said convince me to do something incredibly stupid. Von Ketteler’s luck was hardly better than mine. By taking a shot at Sun Bing, he had set in motion the creation of a legend that Sun’s martial skills were so advanced he could redirect bullets in midair, while his followers could fire a fowling piece without aiming and not only bring down a powerful horse but put a hole in its rider’s ear. The Magistrate assumed that von Ketteler had already sent his telegram, but even if he hadn’t, it was only a matter of time. For all he knew, Yuan had already left Jinan for Gaomi, and his only hope of keeping his head attached to his shoulders was to capture or kill Sun Bing before His Excellency arrived.

The County Magistrate watched as his militiamen, under the command of Liu Pu, approached the fortified town at a crouch from a position in front of the Imperial Right Guard troops, who treated ordinary citizens with the ferocity of wolves or tigers, but as soon as fighting broke out, they were as gutless as mice. They started out in a loose formation, but each step nearer to the fortified wall drew them closer together, like chickens huddling for warmth. Though he had no battle experience, the Magistrate had read everything Lord Wenzheng had written many times, and he knew that a tight formation was an invitation to be wiped out by fortress defenders. He wished he’d given them a bit of basic training before heading into battle, but it was too late now. They pressed forward, drawing closer and closer to the wall, which appeared unmanned; but he knew by the puffs of smoke rising every few yards above the wall and the smell of porridge cooking that there were people on the other side. He had learned from Lord Wenzheng’s military writings that defenders of walls did not prepare pots of boiling porridge to satisfy their appetite; the real purpose was something he knew only too well, yet tried not to think about. His militiamen stopped when they were but a few yards from the protective wall, and began the attack—musketeers shooting their fowling pieces, archers letting their arrows fly. The anemic sound of gunfire—some twenty or so shots altogether—was no demonstration of military might. Then the guns fell silent. Some of the archers’ arrows had sailed over the wall; others were lucky to have made it to the wall, a showing that failed to match even that of the musketeers. It was more like a children’s game than anything. After firing their fowling pieces, the men knelt in place and reached for the powder horns hanging from their belts. The horns were actually bottle gourds coated with tung oil, which made them glossy and strikingly attractive. In earlier days, when the Magistrate had led his musketeers out searching for bandits and highwaymen, those twenty gleaming powder horns had been a source of pride. Now, seen alongside the Imperial Right Guard and German battle formations, they looked like toys. The kneeling men finished loading their fowling pieces with powder, fired off a second scattered volley, and stormed the fortified wall, filling the air with battle cries. Last year’s straw on the ten-foot gently sloped wall quivered under the onslaught of running feet. Or was it the County Magistrate’s quivering heart? A pair of palanquin bearers ran up carrying a ladder. Years of carrying a palanquin had left them with a prancing gait that was in evidence even now; they no longer knew how to actually run. Despite the fact that this was an assault against an enemy fortification, they moved as if they were carrying the County Magistrate’s chair through the countryside. As soon as they reached the wall, they leaned the ladder up against it, and still there was no sign of defenders; the Magistrate was prepared to thank his lucky stars. Now that the ladder was ready, the bearers steadied it for their comrades, who began climbing with their fowling pieces and their bows and arrows. Three men were on the ladder, the first having just about reached the top of the wall, when the heads of Boxers in red kerchiefs appeared on the other side; they dumped full pots of steaming porridge onto the county militiamen. The screams were like stakes driven into the Magistrate’s heart. At any minute, he felt, the accumulated filth in his colon would empty into his trousers, and he had to bite down on his lower lip to hold it in. He watched as his men fell backward into their comrades, who had already begun beating a chaotic, panicky retreat to the raucous delight of the Boxers on the wall. But then a regimental bugler gave a signal to the better-trained Imperial Right Guards, who shouldered their rifles and opened fire on the fortified wall.

After watching the defenders repel the first assault on their fortification by the Imperial Right Guard with boiling water, hot porridge, homemade bombs, bricks, roof tiles, and rocks, even a couple of powerful and enormous local cannons, the Magistrate began to wonder if he had underestimated Sun Bing. Up till then, Sun had impressed him merely as a self-styled mystic; he had never entertained the thought that the man might actually be a military genius. Performing onstage had given him the same knowledge the Magistrate had acquired through extensive reading, and not just in military theories, but in practical applications that produced results. The Magistrate was comforted to see the mighty Imperial Right Guard suffer the same setback as his own ragtag militia; it was the sort of outcome he could almost revel in. As his anxieties vanished, they were replaced by resurgent courage and self-confidence. But now it was time for the Germans. He glanced at von Ketteler, who was training his field glasses on the fortified wall, blocking a view of his face, except for his cheeks, which were twitching. Not only had his soldiers, who had taken up positions behind the Imperial Right Guard, not mounted an assault, they had actually moved far back to the rear. Something was in the works. Von Ketteler lowered his field glasses and faced the scene with a smile of contempt before turning to his artillerymen and shouting a command. The stick figures leaped into action, and in a matter of seconds a dozen cannon shells screamed overhead on their way to the fortification, like a formation of crows, sending geysers of white smoke into the air on both sides of the wall, followed by deafening explosions. The Magistrate saw shells make direct hits on the wall itself, shattering bricks and tiles and flinging the shards high into the air, mixed here and there with human body parts. Another volley pounded eardrums, and this time many more body parts flew through the air. Howls of pain and anguish rose from behind the wall, whose pine gateway had been reduced to rubble. At this point, von Ketteler waved a red flag handed to him by his adjutant, a sign to his foot soldiers to begin the assault on the gateway’s yawning gap, rifles at the ready, battle cries on their lips, long legs striding forward. The Imperial Right Guard, having regrouped, launched their assault from a different direction, leaving behind the Magistrate’s wounded militiamen, who lay in a depression in the ground and wept piteously. The Magistrate’s mind was in a state of shock; this time, he knew, Masang Township was doomed, and a bloodbath awaited its thousands of residents. The most prosperous township in all of Gaomi County would simply cease to exist. In the face of German swagger, the Magistrate’s love for the common man was reborn, although he knew that the situation had deteriorated to the point where he was helpless to alter the outcome. Even if the Emperor himself made an appearance, He would be unable to halt the Germans, for whom total victory was assured. Symbolically, he now stood with the citizens behind the fortification, and he fervently hoped that they might escape with their lives, heading south before the enemy soldiers entered town. They would, of course, be forced to cross the Masang River, but villagers who live near water know how to swim. There was, he knew, a squad of Imperial Right Guardsmen lying in ambush on the southern bank of the river, but he was confident that many of the villagers would be taken to safety downriver. The Guardsmen would not fire on women and children as they crossed the river, he assumed; they were, after all, Chinese.

But events did not unfold as the Magistrate expected. The German soldiers disappeared from sight after passing through the gateway opening. A cloud of smoke and dust was followed by howls in German, and the Magistrate knew at once that the clever and resourceful Sun Bing had set a trap by digging a deep pit just inside the gate. The look on von Ketteler’s face said it all as he frantically waved his flag as a signal for his men to fall back. The German soldiers’ lives were what counted, and von Ketteler’s plan, which had called for victory without the loss of a single man, had failed. He was certain to order a second bombardment by his artillerymen, who had been given enough shells to turn the town into a wasteland. The Magistrate would be fooling himself if he believed that this battle would result in anything but a German victory. As expected, von Ketteler turned to the commander of his artillery unit and shouted a command, just as the outline of an idea in the Magistrate’s mind was suddenly transformed into a bold plan of action. He turned to von Ketteler’s interpreter.

“Ask von Ketteler to hold off. I have something important to say to him.”

The interpreter did as he was told, and von Ketteler honored the request. Suddenly two pairs of eyes were fixed on the County Magistrate: the Plenipotentiary’s deep green eyes and those of Ma Longbiao, whose expression was one of dejection.

“There is a popular adage, sir, that goes, ‘If you want to defeat an enemy, first go after his king.’ The commoners in town are under a spell woven by Sun Bing. That is the only thing that would have led them to do battle with your honorable soldiers. Sun Bing is the sole culprit in this episode. As long as we capture him and punish him severely—in effect, execute him as a warning to the masses—there will be no more vandalism against the railroad, and you will have carried out your assignment. It is my understanding that you have come to China in search of riches, not to subject the people of either nation to bloodshed. If what I say strikes you as reasonable, I offer my services to enter the town and convince Sun Bing to give himself up.”

“Are you sure you don’t plan to go in there for the purpose of cooking up a new strategy with Sun Bing?” The interpreter was kept busy interpreting for both men.

“I am an official representative of the Great Qing Court. My family is still in the county yamen,” the Magistrate replied. “The reason I am willing to put my life on the line is to spare your men from injury or worse. They have crossed a vast ocean to be here, and each of their lives is of great value. If large numbers of them were to be killed or wounded, the Kaiser would not reward you for a job well done, I believe.”

“I will agree if Ma Longbiao stays behind as your guarantor,” the interpreter said.

“Elder Brother Qian,” Ma said, his heavy-hearted tone unmistakable, “I know what you have in mind. But if unruly people inside . . .”

“Commander Ma,” the Magistrate said, “I am fifty percent sure of success. I cannot stand by and watch one of the county’s most flourishing towns be leveled by these foreigners and, even worse, see my people cut down for no good reason.”

“If you manage to enter town and convince Sun Bing to surrender,” Ma Longbiao said earnestly, “keeping our Imperial forces from harm while also protecting the lives of countless civilians, I will personally testify to your achievement to Excellency Yuan himself.”

“We have reached the point where I can lay no claim to any achievements,” the Magistrate replied. “I only hope that I do not make matters worse. Please get an assurance from von Ketteler that once I bring Sun Bing out, he will withdraw his forces.”

“You can trust me on that,” Ma Longbiao said as he took out a new pistol he was carrying and handed it to the Magistrate. “Elder Brother Qian,” he said, “keep this with you, just in case.”

The Magistrate waved the gesture off. “In the name of all the inhabitants of the town, I ask Elder Brother Ma to see that von Ketteler does not fire his cannons.” With that, he mounted his horse and headed for the open gateway.

“I am the Magistrate of Gaomi County,” he called out. “A friend of your commander. I need to speak with him. It is of the utmost importance!”





5




The Magistrate rode unimpeded into town, where he gave the trap a wide berth, but not before looking down into the pit, where a dozen or more German soldiers were struggling and screaming in pain. The floor of the pit, which was at least ten feet deep, was lined with pointed bamboo and metal spikes; some of the trapped Germans were already dead, while others had suffered grievous wounds and lay there like frogs on a spit. The stench rising out of the pit was proof that Sun Bing, not content merely to line the bottom of his trap with sharp objects, had dumped in a layer of excrement as well. That reminded the Magistrate of the time, decades earlier, when the foreigners had first come to China, and a certain frontier ambassador had petitioned the Emperor with a plan for dealing with them: the foreigners, he said, were obsessed with cleanliness and sanitation, and anything to do with bodily waste horrified them. So, he suggested, if each imperial soldier carried a bucket of shit into battle, all he had to do was spread his filth on the ground to send the enemy fleeing in disgust, holding their noses and maybe even vomiting until they died. The Xianfeng Emperor was said to have enthusiastically approved what He considered to be an especially creative suggestion, since it not only had the potential to vanquish this new enemy, but required a minimum of expense. The Magistrate’s wife had told him this, treating it as a joke, and he had had a good laugh over it. Never in his wildest imagination would he have thought that Sun Bing would employ that very method, with a bit of modification, a military tactic that had all the characteristics of a practical joke; he did not know whether to laugh or to cry. In point of fact, in the wake of the farcical hostage exchange of the previous day, the Magistrate had gained an understanding of Sun Bing’s approach to military tactics. Juvenile, to be sure, the stuff of children’s games, and yet, contrary to all expectations, they made people stop and think, as more often than not they proved effective. As he rode past the pit, the Magistrate also saw a good many dead and dying Boxers on both sides of the fortification, as well as smashed porridge pots whose steamy contents lay in pools of blood. The wounded were voicing their agony. Red-kerchiefed Boxers, as well as women and children, were running headlong up and down the street on which he had traveled not so long before. For all practical purposes, the town had been laid waste, the Magistrate concluded. The Germans could take it almost without a fight, and this realization underscored his sense of self-worth. By sacrificing Sun Bing, one man, he could save thousands. Sun Bing had to be delivered, at all costs. If persuasion failed, force would have to have to be employed. Even though he had refused Ma Longbiao’s offer of a pistol, the Magistrate was confident that Sun Bing was no match for him. He had such a deep sense of valor and solemnity that he could all but hear drums and horns heralding his arrival. Spurring his horse into a gallop, he flew down the street, heading straight for the mat shed that stood at the bend in the river, where he would find Sun Bing.

There he saw hundreds of Boxers down in the dry riverbed ingesting Taoist charms. Using both hands, each man held a bowl in which paper ashes were mixed with water. Sun Bing, the man he sought, stood atop a pile of bricks and filled the air with a loud incantation. His primary outside help, the Caozhou Righteous Harmony Boxer Sun Wukong, was nowhere to be seen; the second-in-command, Zhu Bajie, was demonstrating martial skills with his rake to lend an impressive air to Sun’s ritual. The Magistrate slid down off his horse and walked up to the brick pile, where he kicked over the incense altar in front of Sun Bing.

“Sun Bing,” he said loudly, “how can you continue to beguile and bewitch your followers when rivers of your men’s blood already flow across the fortification?”

When Sun Bing’s bodyguards rushed up from behind, the Magistrate quickly moved around Sun, took a glistening dagger from his sleeve, and placed the point in a spot directly behind Sun’s heart.

“Do not move!” he commanded.

“You dog of an official!” Sun Bing hissed. “Once again you have broken my boxing magic! I am iron head, iron waist, iron body, impervious to bullets, resistant to water and fire!”

“Fellow townsmen, go take a look at the fortification, then tell me if flesh and blood can stand up to cannon shells!” He chose this moment to make a bold assumption: “There you will even find the mangled body of your finest warrior, the mighty Sun Wukong!”

“You lie!” Sun Bing screamed.

“Sun Bing,” the Magistrate said callously, “have you really mastered the art of resisting knives and spears?”

“Nothing can penetrate my body, not even shells fired by those dog soldiers!”

The Magistrate bent down, picked up a brick, and struck it against Sun Bing’s forehead before he had time to react. Sun fell backward, but the Magistrate caught him by the collar and held him up.

“Now show these people your indestructible body!”

Dark blood snaked down from Sun Bing’s forehead, like worms squirming across his face. Zhu Bajie swung his rake at the Magistrate, who jumped out of the way and flung his dagger; it stuck in Zhu’s abdomen, sending him tumbling off the brick pile with agonizing screams.

“Have you seen enough, fellow townsmen? These are your altar master and one of his senior aides. If they have failed to withstand even the modest brick-and-dagger efforts of a local official, how are they going to repel enemy cannon fire?”

The adherents’ confidence was shaken, to which the buzzing below the platform bore irrefutable witness.

“Sun Bing,” the Magistrate said, “as a man of valor, you must not send these people to certain death just to satisfy a personal desire. I have secured a promise from the German Plenipotentiary that he will withdraw his troops if you surrender to him. You have already accomplished something so astonishing it has captured the attention of the whole world, and if you are willing to sacrifice yourself in order to keep your fellow townsmen from harm, your legacy will live forever!”

“Heaven’s will!” Sun Bing said with a sigh. “It is heaven’s will.” Then he began to sing: “Ceding territory and vanquished by the Jin~~I forsake the Central Plain and abandon the common people, a decade of exploits squandered in a single day~~Humiliated, we sue for peace, remorse follows an overturned nest~~I fear the whale will swallow our land away. Do not falsely consign me to confinement with no end, for when I am gone, the Yue army will stay~~ Fellow countrymen, disperse!”

The Magistrate led Sun Bing down from the brick pile, taking advantage of the chaos below to head to the township’s main gate. He forgot that he had come on horseback.





6




As he single-handedly brought Sun Bing out of Masang Township, the Magistrate was bursting with a sense of his own valor. What happened next dealt him a crippling blow, causing anguish over the knowledge that he had made yet another imbecilic mistake, this one far worse than the humiliating hostage exchange. Instead of withdrawing his troops, as he had promised, von Ketteler ordered the artillery commander to open fire the moment the Magistrate and Sun Bing were standing before him—with a roar, twelve cannons sent deadly shells flying past the defenses. Explosions erupted all over town, sending flames and smoke into the air. The screams of dying townspeople raised a terrible cacophony as an enraged Sun Bing spun around and began throttling the Magistrate, who put up no resistance, welcoming the death he felt he deserved. But Ma Longbiao signaled his guards to pull Sun Bing away and save his colleague’s life. County Magistrate Qian Ding closed his eyes as Sun Bing railed against him. Though he was lightheaded, he heard the clamor of the German attack, and he knew that Gaomi County’s most prosperous township had ceased to exist. Who had caused that to happen? Sun Bing, perhaps, or the Germans. Or maybe he himself.