Bloody Night of the Imperial Capital

Section Six: Bloody Night of the Imperial Capital

In the Zichuan Family's official historical records, the account of the Bloody Night of the Imperial Capital consisted of only a few brief lines:

"Imperial Year 779, March 26, night. Former Family President Commander Yang Minghua launched a rebellion in the Imperial Capital. The Deputy Commander of the Far East Army entered the city on Commander-in-Chief Zichuan Canxing's orders to suppress the revolt.

"At midnight, heavy snow fell. Yang Minghua was defeated and killed. By dawn, thirty thousand heads had fallen. Several accidental casualties."

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Tang Chuan, a young historian of the Zichuan Family, described the events of the Bloody Night of the Imperial Capital in somewhat greater detail:

"At around ten-thirty that night, Sterling, Deputy Commander of the Imperial Guard, launched an attack on Yang Minghua's guards.

"Yang Minghua found it difficult to withstand the elite Imperial Guard. He repeatedly requested reinforcements from the Central Army and the military police units, but received no response. Finally, he sent his trusted chief aide, Luobo Minghai, to take command of the Central Army.

"Ten minutes later, the gates of the Imperial Capital opened on their own. Red Guard Captain Di Lin drove fifty thousand Far East soldiers into the city, their battle cries shaking the entire capital.

"Upon learning that Di Lin had entered the city, Yang Minghua and his troops were overjoyed, their morale soaring—but it lasted only one minute. The Far East Army began boldly hacking down Yang Minghua's guards.

"Yang Minghua's forces collapsed across the board.

"After all his guards had been wiped out or fled, Yang Minghua himself fought desperately to the very end, cursing, 'Di Lin, you dog of a traitor, may you die a miserable death!' This enraged the Far East soldiers who had originally wanted to capture him alive. They chopped him into pieces, causing Di Lin considerable trouble—he had no way to prove to the Commander-in-Chief that that heap of bloody mangled flesh was Yang Minghua, the uncrowned king who had ruled the powerful Zichuan Family for six years!

"Upon hearing of Yang Minghua's death, Deputy Commander Sterling sighed. 'The turmoil in the Imperial Capital is finally over. We can begin peace now.' With that, he left the city to pursue Yang Minghua's fleeing soldiers—in truth, he had spoken far too soon!

"Later, we could not help marveling at history's accidents: if the task of purging the 'remaining rebel scum' within the Imperial Capital that night had been entrusted to the rigorously disciplined Sterling or the mild-tempered Zichuan Xiu, many tragedies would not have occurred... Even the great disaster that later shook the very foundations of the Family, the Rebellion of the Three Heroes, had its roots planted on this very night.

"But we also had to stand in awe of history's inevitability: Sterling had to command the Imperial Guard out of the city to hunt down Yang Minghua's remaining armed forces, while Zichuan Xiu could only 'hold the fort' at Central Army headquarters to deter the pro-Yang Minghua Central Army from making any move—so the task of purging the 'remaining rebel scum' within the Imperial Capital that night could only be carried out by Di Lin!"

Tang Chuan's record ended there—just as he was about to write in detail about what the "tragedies" were, family military police came to his home in the dead of night and "invited" him to the Inspectorate for "coffee." After returning, he never wrote another word on the Bloody Night of the Imperial Capital.

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Hooves thundered throughout the Imperial Capital, while proclamations in Far East accents rang out everywhere: "Yang Minghua, defying all reason and morality, launched a rebellion and has been executed!"

"All rebel party members—kill them all!"

"Any resident who dares resist the righteous Far East Army—kill!"

"Any resident who dares shelter rebel party members—kill!"

"Any resident who dares disobey orders and refuse to open their doors for inspection shall share the rebels' guilt—kill!"

All 271 members of Yang Minghua's household, including servants, were executed. Headless corpses lay strewn haphazardly across the snow-covered long streets of the Imperial Capital, and the pristine snow turned red."

Xiao Long, the Chief Inspector who had already declared his resignation and noninvolvement in the struggle, and who had indeed restrained his subordinates from joining Yang Minghua's rebellion that night, was dragged from his home by Far East soldiers. Before his eyes, they killed thirty-five of his relatives—his parents, wife, son, and others. His daughter bit off her tongue and killed herself because Far East soldiers had attempted to rape her. Finally, they dragged Xiao Long behind a horse for ten li. When he still refused to die, the soldiers grew impatient and trampled him alive into pulp beneath their horses' hooves.

Li Ya, Deputy Commander and chief officer of Zhibu Shao, had carried out curfew duties with his subordinates under orders from the Commanders' Office—orders which, looking back, had been issued by the rebel Yang Minghua. The moment Di Lin's forces entered the city, they immediately threw down their weapons and surrendered—then were gathered at Zhibu Shao headquarters and massacred. When Di Lin learned of this, he merely frowned, then instructed his men, "Since they're already dead—kill Li Ya's family too. Saves someone coming after me for revenge someday."

Yang Minghua's secretary, Red Guard Captain Lin Lu, and all fifty-one members of his family were locked inside their own home. The Far East Army simply set it ablaze and called it done—they were already tired of killing.

Later, many people believed that every death of the Bloody Night of the Imperial Capital had come at Di Lin's command. This truly wronged Di Lin—he had personally ordered the deaths of fewer than a hundred officials close to Yang Minghua and their families, at most just over five thousand people. Yet the number killed and wounded that night reached thirty thousand. The explanation was not hard to find: the Far East soldiers had killed until their eyes turned red. Whenever they saw a wealthy household, or one with beautiful women, they would roar, "This is a secret rebel base!" Then they would kick down the door and rush in, followed by the screams of men and shrieks of women...

The most grievously wronged tragedy in that night's massacre was what happened to Luobo Minghai's family. Unaware of the truth, Di Lin sent Far East troops to arrest Yang Minghua's "number one confidant," Luobo Minghai. When the soldiers could not find him at home—after ordering the city gates opened, he had gone to the Commander-in-Chief's Mansion to see Zichuan Canxing and never returned home that night—they left. Before leaving, however, they casually beheaded all twenty-one members of Luobo Minghai's household, doused his house in gasoline, and tossed in a torch—brewing the blood-deep enmity between Luobo Minghai and Di Lin, the fuse that would ignite the Rebellion of the Three Heroes...

More than a hundred high-ranking Family officials became grave goods buried with Yang Minghua's ambition, and the blood of thirty thousand Imperial Capital civilians became burial offerings for those "grave goods"... No wonder Zichuan Xiu sighed, "Yang Minghua truly had a magnificent funeral—so many burial offerings!"

The entire city of the Imperial Capital groaned and bled beneath Di Lin's iron hooves... After returning from the Inspectorate, Tang Chuan could not help secretly writing one final line: "The snowflakes falling in the deep night of the twenty-sixth were a dazzling crimson..."

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At five in the morning, Deputy Commander Ge Shan, chief officer of the Administrative Department, urgently requested an audience with Commander-in-Chief Zichuan Canxing, asking him to stop Di Lin's atrocities. On the short journey from her home to the Commander-in-Chief's Mansion, she encountered three groups of disorderly soldiers. The first took her purse; the second took her horse; the third even tried to violate her. Fortunately, she was already close to the Commander-in-Chief's Mansion, and a squad of Imperial Guards came out and rescued her.

(Later, when Zichuan Xiu heard about it, he said, "Even if the Far East Army has gone too long without seeing women, such behavior is unforgivable—their taste is actually that terrible!")

Commander-in-Chief Zichuan Canxing's response after meeting Ge Shan was this: at five-thirty in the morning, an order was delivered to Di Lin, appointing him acting Chief Inspector and authorizing him to further purge the "remaining rebel scum" of Yang Minghua's faction from the Central Army!