On the first day of the Sixth Month of the Fourteenth Year [i.e. 14th July AD 755], the emperor paid a visit to Florescence-purity Palace, it being Most-prized-empress Yang’s birthday. He commanded music from the Youth Orchestra (The Youth Orchestra was set up by the Taoist Orchestra, and consisted of thirty musicians in all, all aged fourteen or younger.), and they played a freshly composed, and as yet untitled, melody in Lasting-life Palace-hall. Presently, gifts of lychees from the South Sea region were presented to the emperor, so the melody was named Lychee scent. The courtiers cheered merrily, and the music shook the mountains and valleys.
In the Eleventh Month of that year [i.e. 6th of December to 6th January AD 756], An Lu-shan rebelled in Secluded Mound,
An Lu-shan was originally named Ya-lo-shan, and was a mixed-race part-northern-barbarian man. His mother was originally a shamaness. In his later years, he put on fat, his belly hung down past his knees, and he weighed himself on a steelyard as three hundred and fifty catties. When he danced the Hunnish Whirl dance before the emperor, he was as swift as the wind at it. The emperor once inserted a big Gold-cock Screen to the east of Government-stimulating Tower, set out a big wooden couch, rolled up the door-curtain, and had Lu-shan sit there, providing Hundred Games entertainments down in front of him, which he watched in Lu-shan’s company.
“Perusing writings through the ages into modern times,” the future Emperor Solemn-progenitor warned him, “I’ve never heard of a subject sitting with his monarch to watch entertainments.”
“It’s just because he’s got an uncanny threat-to-throne physiognomy, and I’m trying to exorcise any harm he might bring,” whispered the emperor in reply.
On another occasion, he was feasting with An Lu-shan at night, when Lu-shan, drunk, lay down to sleep, and turned into a pig, but with a dragon’s head. The courtiers hastily informed the emperor.
“That’s a pig-dragon,” said the emperor. “It can’t do anything.”
He ended up not killing him, and in due course An Lu-shan created havoc in China, on the pretext of wanting to execute Yang Kuo-chung. All said that Yang Kuo-chung, the Queen of the State of Kuo and Most-prized-empress Yang were all three guilty of crimes, but nobody had the courage to inform the emperor. The emperor wanted to make his heir-apparent regent, intending to pass on the throne to him, while he himself led a campaign against the rebels. He discussed the matter with Yang Kuo-chung, who was terrified.
“Our death is about to happen any time now,” he told his sisters. “If the Crown Prince now becomes regent, he’s sure to fight you ladies to the death.”
The sisters went weeping to confide in Empress Yang. She, holding lumps of soil in her mouth as a sign of humble contrition, begged the emperor to spare their lives. So the emperor put his planned measures to rest.
In the Sixth Month of the Fifteenth Year [i.e. sometime during the days 2nd July to 31st July AD 756],1280 T’ung Pass fell to the rebels. The emperor “took a tour” to Pa Shu, and Most-prized-empress Yang accompanied him. When they reached Ma Wei’s Slope, the Dragon-bellicose General of the Right Ch’en Hsȕan-li, fearing a mutiny, addressed his soldiers.
“The world’s now falling apart,” he said, “and our Lord of Ten Thousand Chariots is rocked and shaken. Without question, it’s due to Yang Kuo-chung’s exactions against and exploitations of the common multitude that this impasse has been reached. If we don’t execute him, what apology can we give the world!”
“We’ve had that in mind for a long time,” the troops replied.
It happened that the T’u-fan Harmony-and-friendship Ambassador was blocking the view of Yang Kuo-chung, standing at the gate of the posting-station, and confiding some matter to him.
“Yang Kuo-chung’s plotting rebellion with the foreigner!” yelled the soldiers.
Then the forces surrounded the posting-station, and killed Yang Kuo-chung, along with his son Yang Hsȕan and others. Yang Kuo-ching’s old personal name had been Chang, and he was the son of Chang Yi-chih. During the Heaven-bestowing reign-period [690-692] Chao Yi-chih was unrivalled in the affection and favours he received from his ruler. Whenever he returned home to his private residence, he issued a written order declaring that he was going to dwell up in a high building, and, moreover, removed the staircase to his rooms, surrounded the building with thorns and brambles, and would no longer have any female slaves to stand in attendance upon him. His mother feared that the Chang clan’s line would come to an end, with no heirs, so installed the female slave Wifely-compliant-beauty between the double walls of the tall building, she subsequently becoming pregnant by him, giving birth to Yang Kuo-chung she was afterwards married off to a Mr. Yang.
So the emperor then went out through the posting-station gates to try and calm the Six Armies down, but they wouldn’t lift their siege. He looked round at his entourage, and inquired the reason why.
“Yang Kuo-chung was guilty of a crime, and the generals punished him,” said Eunuch-chamberlain Kao. “Most-prized-empress Yang is Yang Kuo-chung’s younger cousin, but she’s still in Your Majesty’s close entourage, so how can your ministers and generals fail to be worried and afraid! I humbly beg Your Majesty to apply your sage consideration to the matter and provide a judgement.” (One book says: “The root of the roguery is still alive. Do you think they’d dare to disperse!” This being his rejection of Empress Yang.)
The emperor whirled round, and went into the posting station. Within the posting station gates, to one side, there was a small lane. But the emperor couldn’t bring himself to return to his travel-palace, and stood in the lane, leaning on his walking-staff, and his head lolling to one side. He felt dull confused and speechless, and stayed outside for a long while. The Metropolitan Record-keeper Wei E (Wei Chien-su’s son) came up to him.
“I beg Your Majesty,” he said, “to cut off loving favour, and bring yourself to sever with her, so as to bring peace to the state.”
After dithering and making no move, the emperor went into his travel-palace.
He caressingly ushered Most-prized-empress Yang out through the hall-gate, and on reaching the end of the wall of the horse-road, said goodbye to her, and sent Eunuch-chamberlain Kao to “bestow death upon her.”
Most-prized-empress Yang sobbed and moaned, prevented by her emotions from expressing herself adequately in words.
“I pray that you may all live well,” she said, “I’ve truly been ungrateful to the state’s loving favours, and die without any grudge. I beg that I be allowed to pay my worshipful respects to Buddha.”
“I pray that you, my Most-prized-empress, may be reborn in a good land,” said the emperor.
Then Eunuch-chamberlain Kao proceeded to garrote her at the foot of the pear-tree in front of a Buddhist temple. No sooner had she breathed he last than the presents of lychees from the southern region arrived. The emperor looked at them, gave a long wail, and uttered sigh after sigh.
“Hold me a sacrificial service for her,” he instructed Eunuch-chamberlain Kao.
After the sacrificial service, the Six Armies still hadn’t lifted their encirclement, so he covered a bed with an embroidered quilt, placed her on it in the middle of the posting-station’s courtyard, and ordered Ch’en Hsȕan-li and others to come into the posting station to see her. Ch’en Hsȕan-li lifted up her head, and knew that she was dead.
“That’s right,” he said, and raised the encirclement.
She was buried one li-mile or so outside the western outer city-wall in a pit north of the road.
At the time, Most-prized-empress Yang was thirty-seven years old.
“From now on, as we depart for Chien-nan,” said the emperor to Chang Yeh-hu, on horseback, and holding the lychees in his hands, “when birds call and blossoms fall, when the waters are fresh green and the mountains verdant, they’ll each and every one be reason for me to sadly mourn my Most-prized-empress.”
Previously, on a day when the emperor was in Florescence-purity Palace, he rode his horse out through the palace gates
, intending to pay a visit to the residence of the Queen of the State of Kuo.
“Before he’s proclaimed his command and reported to his ministers,” said Ch’en Hsȕan-li, “the Son of Heaven mustn’t lightly betake himself anywhere.”
Because of that, the emperor turned his “bridle” back.
Another year, when he was residing in Florescence-purity Palace, it was getting very close to the Fifteenth of the First Month, the Lantern Festival, and he was intending to go out for a nighttime tour.
“It’s a vast empty wilderness outside the palace,” Ch’en Hsȕan-li submitted, “you must make preparations. If you’re going to take a night-time tour, I pray that I may return home to the imperial palace.”
Again, the emperor was unable to act against his warning advice.
Now, the execution at Ma Wei’s Slope all came about because, having the opportunity, Ch’en made so bold as to speak out with his advice.
Prior to that, the necromancer Li Hsia-chou had composed a poem:
People have all left the market of Yen,
And the horses won’t go home to Box-valley Pass;
If you encounter a ghost at the foot of the mountain,
Tie on the Bangle some chiffon-silk dress.
The “market of Yen” refers to An Lu-shan’s going to the scholars of Chi-men. The “horses won’t go home to Box Valley Pass” refers to Ke-shu Han’s defeat at T’ung Pass. In the “If you encounter a ghost at the foot of the mountain”, the character for “mountain” over the character for “ghost” makes the character Wei of Ma Wei’s posting station. And as for “Tie on the Bangle some chiffon-silk dress”, Most-prized-empress Yang’s personal name was “Jade-bangle”, and when she died, Eunuch-chamberlain Kao garroted her with a chiffon-silk scarf.
Another thing, Most-prized-empress Yang always used a wig as her hair-decoration, and was fond of wearing a yellow skirt. Towards the end of the Heaven Treasure reign-period, a nursery-rhyme of the capital said:
Temple hair-pieces are chucked in the river,
Yellow skirt drifts with the stream.
And now that prophesy was fulfilled.
An Lu-shan once responded to questions before the emperor, and mixed in funny jokes. Most-prized-empress Yang was always present at their sessions, and Lu-shan’s heart was stirred by her. When he heard that she’d died at Ma Wei, he sighed in bitter regret for several days. Even though Li Lin-fu had reared him, and Yang Kuo-chung annoyed him, he held his own independent outlook.
At that time, the Queen of the State of Kuo first went to Kuan-tien in Ch’en-ts’ang. When Yang Kuo-chung was executed, it was asked where she’d got to, and the magistrate Hsȕeh Ching-hsien sent men in pursuit of her. She fled into the edge of a bamboo grove, and, thinking that rebel forces were arriving, first killed her son Hui, then killed her daughter.
“Why, madam,” said Yang Kuo-chung’s wife, P’ei Supple, “don’t you do me a good turn?”
So then she killed P’ei and P’ei’s daughter.
After that, she tried to cut her own throat, but didn’t die. In prison, she was still asking people: “Is it the state? Is it the rebels?”
“Some of both co-operating,” replied the jailer.
The blood clotted in her throat, and she died, whereupon she and the others were buried side by side in a pit at the foot of a willow-tree north of the road, ten or so paces from the eastern outer city-wall.
The emperor set out from Ma Wei, and travelled on until he came onto the Fu-feng road. There were flowers at the sides of the road, and by the side of a monastery he saw stone phoebe-trees1281 united like lovers in perfect harmony, and, cherishing and enjoying them, he called them the Upright-rectitude Trees, he feeling yearnings about “someone”.
In another instance, when he reached the mouth of Slant Valley, heavy rain fell, for into ten days, and in the rain, along the wooden strutted roadways, the sound of little bells was heard echoing to each other over the mountains. The emperor, already mourning longingly for Most-prized-empress Yang, accordingly brought the sounds together to compose his Rain dripping heavily on little bells melody, as a vehicle to express his bitter feelings of remorse.
In the Second Year of the Utmost-virtue reign-period [25th January AD 757 to 1th February AD 758], after the Western Capital had been re-taken, in the Eleventh Month [16th December AD 757 to 13th January AD 758] as the emperor returned from Ch’eng-tu, he had a sacrificial service held to her. Later he wanted to re-bury her elsewhere, but Li Fu-kuo and others wouldn’t obey him.
“The Dragon-bellicose General,” submitted the Imperial Director of the Ministry of Rites Li K’ui, “executed Yang Kuo-chung because Yang rebelled. If you now re-bury the late Most-prized-empress Yang, I fear that the Dragon-bellicose General will become suspicious and fearful.”
Emperor Solemn-progenitor then consequently put a stop to it.
Sublime August-emperor [the new title of Dark-progenitor], clandestinely moved her, and buried her in another place.
After Most-prized-empress Yang’s first burial, her flesh and skin had now melted and dissolved. She still had a brocade perfume-sachet on her breast. After the eunuch-mandarins had finished re-burying her, they presented the sachet to Sublime August-emperor, who put it in the top of his sleeve next to his breast.
He also had a painter-artisan paint a portrait of Most-prized-empress Yang in a holiday palace-hall, where day in day out he would look at it, and moan and sigh.
After Sublime August-emperor came to live in Southern Inner Flourishing Celebration Palace, he went in the depth of night up into Government-stimulating Tower, leaned on a balustrade, and gazed south, his eyes filled with the misty moon. Then he sang a song to himself, which went:
The wondrous-jade trees in the courtyard below me are already fit for plucking.
The far-traveller beyond the frontier just hasn’t returned.”
As he paused in his sighing, he heard such a faint sound from out in the ward, which seemed to be someone singing there. He turned and asked Eunuch-chamberlain Kao:
“Could it be some old member of my Pear Orchard? When dawn’s about to break, go and seek him out and bring him here for me.”
The following day, Eunuch-chamberlain Kao discreetly asked around in the ward, and invited someone to go with him to the palace: sure enough, it was a former pupil of the Pear Orchard.
Later on, Sublime August-emperor was there again with Most-prized-empress Yang’s maidservant Scarlet-peach, and she sang the lyric of Liang region, which had been composed by Empress Yang. He personally played the jade flute to provide her a backing melody. When the melody was done, they looked at each other, and everybody covered their faces with their hands and sobbed. He subsequently expanded the melody, The Liang region melody current nowadays has been added to yet further.
During the Utmost-virtue reign-period, he again visited Florescence-purity Palace, but his retinue-mandarins and wives were mostly not those of the old days. At the foot of Gazing-at-the-capital Tower, he commanded Chang Yeh-hu to play his Rain dripping heavily on little bells melody. Halfway through the melody, the emperor looks all around him, forlornly and bleakly, and found himself shedding tears. His entourage were also moved to grief by it.
In Hsin-feng, there was a female entertainer, Hsieh Southron, who was skilled at dancing Treading-the-ripples melody. In the old days, she’d frequented the forbidden precincts of the imperial palace, and Most-prized-empress Yang had been generous to her. On that day, the emperor commanded her to dance, and when she’d finished doing so, all dishevelled, and presented to the emperor a gold-grain arm-bangle.
“Most-prized-empress Yang gave me this as a gift,” she said.
The emperor held it in his hands, and sobbed wretchedly.
“This was one of two treasures my ancestor the Great Emperor obtained when he defeated the Koreans,” he said. “One of them was a Scarlet-gold Belt, and the other a Red-jade Stem. I gave the Gold Belt to the Prince of Ch’i for his Myriad Ponds piece
which he’d presented me. And I gave the Jade Stem as a gift to Empress Yang. Later, when they realised that these treasures had come into my possession, the Koreans submitted word to me, saying:
‘Because we lost those treasures, our country has suffered unseasonal rainstorms, and our people become disaffected and our military forces weak.”
I soon came to consider that having obtained them wasn’t worth prizing, so I commanded that the Scarlet-gold Belt be returned to them. But I didn’t return this. Since you obtained it from Most-prized-empress Yang, I now look on it once more, and it only arouses sad longings in me.”
So saying, he again fell to weeping.
On another occasion, He Huai-chih submitted word to the emperor.
“Formerly,” he said, “Your Majesty was one summer’s day playing chess with the imperial princes, and you had me play the p’i-p’a lute, solo. (The lute had a sound-box made of stone, and strings made from a phoenix’s sinews, and was played with an iron plectrum.) Most-prized-empress Yang stood by your chessboard, and watched the game. After several attack moves, you were about to lose, so Most-prized-empress Yang put her little Sogdian dog on your board, jumbling it all up, much to your delight.
Shortly, the wind blew Most-prized-empress Yang’s robe-flap onto my cloth hat, and only after a good long while, when she turned round, did it fall away. When I went home, I smelled her perfume all over me. So I took off my head-gear, and stored it in a brocade perfume-sachet. I now bring you as a gift that scholar-hat which I stored away.”
“This,” said the emperor,” opening the sachet, “is auspicious borneol perfume. I once spread some on jade lotus-blossoms in a warm pool, and when I visited there again, the scent was still wafting, meandering, and how much more so would it have clung to my lady, that silk-thread smooth creature!” Then he became endlessly forlorn and grief-stricken.
From then on, the sage emperor was seized with yearnings that he couldn’t banish, and all the poetry he composed was:
Appendices and Endnotes Page 5
