Policy essay (recollection)

Winter, the seventeenth year of Jianxi.

Xiao Huaijin was thirteen.

Winter had come particularly early that year. Before the tenth month was over, a layer of white had already settled on the Forbidden City's glazed tiles. Four charcoal braziers burned in the hall during morning court, but the officials still kept their hands tucked into their sleeves, their white breath obscuring half their faces.

Today's court session was different. For the first time, the crown prince would attend to listen to affairs of state.

Some time earlier, the Censorate had submitted a joint memorial stating that, at thirteen, the crown prince ought to observe court proceedings in accordance with ancestral regulations. The memorial had languished for three months; Xiao Lin had retained it without issuing a response. In the end, Zhou Rucheng had gone personally to the Hall of Mental Cultivation. No one knew what he had said, only that the decree had come early the next morning.

"The crown prince is permitted to attend court to hear affairs of state on the first and fifteenth days and at ten-day intervals, standing at the head of the eastern ranks. He shall not offer presumptuous opinions."

The eunuch delivering the decree placed particular emphasis on those final words.

Xiao Huaijin received the decree on his knees outside the Eastern Palace. His forehead pressed against the icy floor tiles as "shall not offer presumptuous opinions" rolled through his ears, and he could not have said what he felt. But when he got up, he could not hide the smile on his face.

He dug out his newly made court robes. Apricot yellow, embroidered with four-clawed golden dragons, they looked very much like his imperial father's. He held them up before the bronze mirror again and again, asking his nursemaid, "Nanny, don't these look like Father's?"

His nursemaid smiled and said they did. The corners of Xiao Huaijin's mouth lifted, flattened, then lifted again.

But court was not what he had imagined.

During his first three sessions, he stood while Xiao Lin sat. The officials argued over disaster relief funds, over provisions for the frontier, over whose men should be promoted and whose demoted. When the arguments became most heated, someone would cast a cautious glance toward the head of the eastern ranks. Xiao Lin remained silent throughout, occasionally saying "Granted" or "Discuss it further," without a single unnecessary word. From beginning to end, he had only glanced at Xiao Huaijin when the first session opened. After that, he never looked at him again.

Xiao Huaijin stood very straight. His back was taut as a bow drawn to its fullest. He wore little beneath his court robes, and the wind poured through the hall doors and down his collar, so cold that his back teeth ached, but he never once hunched his shoulders.

He thought, Father told me to stand straight, so I will. Even for six hours, I won't move.

But at the fourth session, he moved.

That day's topic was the flooding in Huainan. The governor of Huainan had submitted a memorial stating that floods had submerged three counties, leaving three hundred thousand victims short of food and medicine, and requesting two hundred thousand taels of silver from the court. The minister of revenue did the sums on the spot, saying that seventy percent of the treasury's annual revenue had already been spent. If another two hundred thousand taels were allocated, military pay on the northern frontier would be strained. The minister of war immediately grew agitated, saying that the Tartars were watching the northern frontier like tigers eyeing their prey; military pay could not be touched. The two sides argued for an hour, their faces red and necks bulging. Xiao Lin reclined on his dragon throne, his fingers tapping the armrest at an unhurried pace, as though waiting for something.

Xiao Huaijin could see it. His father did not want to allocate those two hundred thousand taels. It was not that the court could not afford them, but that he did not want to set the precedent. Huainan flooded every year. Allocate two hundred thousand this year, and next year it would have to be three hundred thousand; the year after that, a bottomless pit.

But he had seen a picture of the victims tucked into the governor of Huainan's memorial, depicting their misery as they gnawed tree bark and ate Guanyin clay. The minister of revenue had pinned it beneath a stack of ledgers, leaving only one corner exposed.

He drew a deep breath and stepped forward.

"Your Majesty-your son has a proposal."

The entire hall fell silent.

The officials turned to look. A young censor standing several rows behind him even sucked in a breath. Everyone knew those words in His Majesty's decree: "shall not offer presumptuous opinions."

Xiao Lin's fingers stopped.

He slowly turned his head and looked at Xiao Huaijin, his gaze no different from usual. Yet Xiao Huaijin felt that something had changed. Before, that gaze had passed over him, through him, landing somewhere behind him. This time, it truly rested on his face.

"Speak."

Just one word.

Xiao Huaijin steadied himself and took out the proposal he had kept hidden in his sleeve for so long. He did not confine himself to whether Huainan should receive the money. What he offered was a long-term strategy: the root of Huainan's flooding lay not in the water, but in the embankments. They had not been repaired in ten years; a great flood was only a matter of time. Rather than allocate relief funds year after year, it would be better to fund their repair once and for all. Two hundred thousand taels would only cover disaster relief. Repairing the embankments would take three hundred thousand, but once repaired, they would protect Huainan for at least ten years.

"Where will those three hundred thousand taels come from?" Xiao Lin's voice was level.

"Divert one hundred thousand from northern frontier military pay, save fifty thousand through Ministry of Revenue spending cuts, and allocate another hundred and fifty thousand from the privy treasury."

The privy treasury-that was the emperor's own money. Using the emperor's money to repair Huainan's embankments: Xiao Huaijin truly dared to propose it.

The hall was so quiet that only the crackling charcoal could be heard.

Xiao Lin looked at his crown prince. He looked for so long that Liu An quietly shifted his weight beside him, so long that sweat began beading on the minister of revenue's forehead. But Xiao Huaijin did not lower his head. He stood straight, just as straight as always, except that the fingertips gripping his cuffs had gone white with tension.

"...Granted."

The officials lowered their heads in unison, each harboring different thoughts. After all, money taken from the privy treasury to repair embankments would sooner or later have to be recouped elsewhere. But His Majesty had granted it, and no one dared say another word.

After court, Xiao Huaijin emerged from the Hall of Supreme Harmony with weak legs.

His nursemaid waited at the palace gate and asked how His Highness's day had gone. He opened his mouth, wanting to say that his father had looked at him today, wanting to say that he had presented a proposal and his father had approved it, wanting to say that he thought his father did not dislike him after all. But none of it came out. He only smiled, a very, very faint smile.

"Nanny, I stood very straight today."

That night, the lights in the Hall of Mental Cultivation burned until the fourth watch.

Liu An stood guard outside, faintly hearing the intermittent rustle of memorials within. Sometimes a page turned with a swish; sometimes a long silence passed before the next page turned. He had served Xiao Lin for most of his life and knew that this man only reviewed memorials this way when his heart was unsettled.

After a long while, a voice suddenly came from inside.

"Tell me."

Liu An hurried in, bowing. Xiao Lin stood before the window with his back to him. The window was half open, and the cold wind pouring in made the memorials on the desk rustle.

"The crown prince's policy essay today-"

Xiao Lin paused, as though weighing his words. He weighed them for so long that Liu An thought he did not intend to continue. Then he heard His Majesty speak in a tone he had never heard before, uttering a sentence that chilled his spine.

"It was too much like something I would have written."

Liu An froze.

This was not praise. He could hear that. When His Majesty spoke, there was no gratification in his voice, only something indefinable-something like wariness, like bewilderment, more like an emotion even he himself could not name. In forty years in the palace, Liu An had grown accustomed to killing and bloodshed and had never feared anything. But these words frightened him.

"Your Majesty," Liu An ventured, "His Highness is intelligent. He takes after Your Majesty-"

"Takes after me?"

Xiao Lin turned. His face was expressionless, but there was the faintest curve at the corner of his mouth-a kind of self-mockery.

Liu An did not dare answer.

Xiao Lin said nothing more. He returned to the desk and picked up his brush again, as though to review the next memorial. But his brush hovered over the paper, and for a long time he did not write a single word.

Outside, the north wind howled, rattling the window lattice.

Zhou Rucheng learned of it the next day.

The old fellow sat all morning in the study of the Grand Tutor's quarters, a copy of the Comprehensive Mirror for Aid in Governance spread before him, without taking in a single word. At noon, Liu An came to deliver tea, and the two exchanged a few words beneath the covered walkway. After Liu An left, Zhou Rucheng returned to the study and picked up his teacup, his hand trembling.

He remembered how, on the Double Ninth Festival, Xiao Huaijin had asked him, "Does Father really dislike me?" He had not answered. Because he knew the answer, and could not bring himself to say it.

It was not because he disliked him.

Quite the opposite: the older the crown prince grew, the more he resembled that man.

And that man would never like himself. When someone who did not even like himself saw another version of himself standing before him, his first response was not gratification, but scrutiny, fault-finding, wariness. He would feel that the boy resembled him too closely, so closely that every bone, every breath reminded him-you have been seen through.

Snow began drifting down outside.

In the twelfth month, things began happening in the Eastern Palace.

First, one of the crown prince's study companions was replaced. The former companion was the son of the vice minister of revenue. He had no great faults, only a somewhat loose tongue. He was replaced because Chief Eunuch Liu An personally visited the Eastern Palace to investigate the conduct and speech of its attendants, and discovered that this companion had discussed the crown prince's policy essay behind his back, saying, "His Highness's speech bought him a reputation with His Majesty's silver." The next day, the companion was replaced. The reason given was "improper conduct."

Then the crown prince's bow was replaced. His old horn bow had been in use for four years, its string having loosened countless times. One day, Xiao Huaijin returned to the Eastern Palace and found a new bow on his desk-an iron-core bow, with at least twice the range of the old one. He asked who had sent it, and the steward said the Imperial Household Department had replaced it as routine.

But whenever the Imperial Household Department replaced the crown prince's possessions, it always sought approval beforehand, submitting the request to the Hall of Mental Cultivation. There was no record of an approval request for this bow.

Next, an extra soup appeared among the crown prince's meals. Made with red dates and longan, it was sweet and warded off the cold. Xiao Huaijin smiled after one sip. "Nanny, who ordered this soup?" His nursemaid hemmed and hawed, saying the Imperial Kitchen had arranged it themselves. Xiao Huaijin did not expose the lie. He knew his nursemaid's constitution could not tolerate longan, and he was the only person in the Eastern Palace who liked this soup. Yet the Imperial Kitchen had gone through three head stewards, and not one had known what he liked to drink.

After winter began, His Highness the Crown Prince went to Huainan.

Several days earlier, the crown prince had received orders to inspect the embankment works on the emperor's behalf. On the day he left the capital, before dawn, a row of officials stood outside Dongzhi Gate to see him off. From the Ministry of Rites, the Ministry of Revenue, the Ministry of Works-each face wore the courteous smile of officialdom.

Xiao Huaijin smiled and returned their courtesies, then climbed into the carriage.

As the carriage began moving, he lifted the curtain and looked back. The officials outside Dongzhi Gate had already dispersed, leaving the gateway empty. Snow began falling again, settling on the gate, on the passageway, on the distant glazed tiles.

He lowered the curtain.

The carriage traveled farther away.

In the upper chamber of the Hall of Mental Cultivation, a window stood half open. Xiao Lin stood behind it, watching the carriage recede into the distance. He stood there for a very long time, so long that Liu An beside him lost count of how many times he shifted his weight.

On the desk behind him lay the plans for Huainan's embankments, submitted by the minister of works the previous night. Xiao Lin had studied them all night. More than a dozen places had been revised, each in his handwriting. Where the embankments should run, how high the dams should be built, where the silver should be drawn from-he had revised every word and line, more meticulously than any memorial.

"Liu An."

"This servant is here."

"Station a few men in Huainan. Do not alert the crown prince."

"...This servant understands."

Xiao Lin closed the window.

As he turned, his sleeve stirred the faintest breeze, fluttering the embankment plans densely covered in revisions. The paper trembled, then settled again. He did not look at it again. But Liu An saw-for one instant, the corner of His Majesty's mouth seemed to move.

It was not a smile.

But it looked better than a smile.

It was something impossible to define.

Liu An lowered his head, pretending to straighten his sleeves. He did not want anyone to see how he sighed in his heart.

That night, the lights in the Eastern Palace went out earlier than usual. In the bedchamber, the cloak embroidered with five-clawed golden dragons still lay folded at the head of the bed, its color a little faded from washing. Xiao Huaijin was away, and the cloak had been folded neatly and tucked beneath the pillow, with one corner showing.

For ten years, he had placed it like that every night.