Journey of the North Star

By Douglas Penick

This fascinating historical novel brings to life the Chinese court of Zhu Di, the Yong Le Emperor, who reigned from 1403-1424 and made China a world power. The story is narrated by the fictional eunuch Ma Yun, who served in the emperor's court. Replete with military campaigns, religious ceremonies and the philosophical foundation that informs the Emperor's decisions through times good and bad, Journey of the North Star will appeal to readers interested in Eastern religions, history, philosophy and the political outlook that still influences China today.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: May 1, 2012
• ISBN: 9780985050436

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

Part I

He who rules by virtue is the pole star. He is the unwavering pivot. All others move around him. — Confucius

CHAPTER 1

A EUNUCH SLAVE’S LIFE

I have lived in the heart of the world. Amid many others of my kind, this eunuch slave has hurried silently, day and night, through the vermilion corridors of the Son of Heaven’s palaces to serve his needs as ruler of the world. Despite my utter insignificance, the Lord of Time has been so kind as to use this eunuch slave as one of his innumerable instruments in determining the way of life of unseen millions.

There is nothing so special in this slave’s character or talent that would merit such extraordinary fortune. But the Yong Le Emperor, Son of Heaven, Absolute Ruler of all China saw fit to lift this homeless eunuch slave out of the faceless stream of humankind. He is the sole author of my fate.

This eunuch slave was given to the Yong Le Emperor when I was a child. The Emperor provided for my sustenance and education and so made me useful. This eunuch slave was then entrusted with attending the Emperor and writing down his words. Although this slave labored to fulfill these tasks without calling attention to myself, the Yong Le Emperor granted me titles and high offices. Such things did not continue after the Yong Le Emperor left this world.

Following that Great Emperor’s death, Grand Secretary Yang Rong, most trusted of the late Emperor’s many officials, insisted that this eunuch slave provide a private account of the former Emperor’s reign, telling of my life and circumstances as well. Nothing can make a slave capable of such an undertaking. It is contrary to law and custom that a slave speak of a Son of Heaven. It is incorrect that one of such utter insignificance as I should speak about myself. Only with greatest misgivings and trepidation do I obey. Only because the Grand Secretary was so deeply trusted by the late Emperor can I bear to begin. Only because there is no alternative, does this eunuch slave begin.

This eunuch slave was born in Korea where my father was a minor noble, and a distant connection of the then ruling Koryo family. He was a scholarly man, a devout follower of the Buddha’s way, and lived quietly with his family on his estate near Kapyong near the center of the country. The fifty families on his estate lived by farming, tending apple orchards and harvesting the nuts from the pine trees on the hillsides. My father also served as a magistrate in the surrounding area.

During the twentieth year of the Chinese Emperor Heng Wu’s reign in Korea, General Yi Song-gye deposed the last Koryo King, exterminated or exiled his courtiers, and redistributed their land holdings. He accepted the mandate that the people conferred on him and ascended the throne, taking the name T’aejo. In order to establish his government according to the highest standards, he organized the country according to the Chinese system and instituted universities to train scholar bureaucrats according to the teachings of Confucius.

I was three years old when the Koryo dynasty fell. General Yi’s soldiers arrived suddenly and seized our house and captured all my family. My father and my eldest brother were executed in the front courtyard. My mother and my two sisters were taken away and sold as slaves. I never saw them again. My older brother and I were both taken and castrated.

For centuries, it has been a common practice to treat the families of defeated enemies in this way. There are many who think that death would be better than such a fate, and certainly many who have had a more full experience of life than I, never recover from their losses.

For myself, the surgical violence was so swift that, as I recall, this eunuch slave experienced only terror, savage pain and darkness. My genitals were removed suddenly and completely. There was no trace of my male organs left. The recovery period, in which one was denied water for three days and made to walk continuously, was far more painful. But my pain was made perhaps physically less severe and my suffering greater by the sight of my brother’s slow death. For weeks, despite all the doctor’s efforts, he thrashed and sobbed feverishly, and then lay crying, each day less, until finally he did not move at all. The heat that had consumed him faded, and with it, the last vestige of my family life. Thus I lost all that had given me a place in this world.

I was nursed back to health and, when it was certain that I was well, was sent to a school where eunuchs were trained for service. This school had been established in the previous dynasty, but had an increased importance for the new ruler. Eunuchs were cultivated to serve in the court, to be given as tokens of special favor to loyal retainers, and most important, to be sent as tribute to the Chinese Emperor.

Accordingly, young eunuchs were tended carefully and tutored not just in the Chinese language and in the protocols of service but also in the rudiments of literature, geography, calligraphy, music and so forth. These were the topics that would make us most useful, pleasing and valuable. The regimen was very strict and we were beaten for the slightest infraction. Those who were devoid of talent were soon sold off as common laborers and those with modest skill remained in Korea. The most accomplished were sent to China as gifts.

This eunuch slave then lived as part of a separate world, a world very different from the lives of normal people enmeshed in the continuity of family and clan. Cut off from any family life, this eunuch slave was made one whose only connection to human life is service. My survival and my place among other human beings depended completely on loyalty and usefulness. My instructors made this very clear. I had no particular ambition to exceed the accomplishments of my classmates or to go to China. I absorbed myself in training and sought to disappear within it. This became the only safety I could imagine. And so while others of my kind seemed to develop some kind of camaraderie, I did not. As is said in an ancient ballad, Without kin and family, how could one feel pride? This slave was created only as a gift, a token of faith between two rulers and came to live as such.

When the new Korean King had ascended the throne, one of his first acts was to send an embassy to China to the Heng Wu Emperor’s court, requesting that the Emperor support his dynasty and accept Korea as a vassal state. This first embassy was led by the new king’s eldest son and arrived in Nanjing in the twenty-first year of the Heng Wu Emperor’s reign. They brought tribute gifts of virgin concubines, eunuchs, horses, porcelain and many other valuables. The Emperor was pleased to accept the Korean King’s gifts, and responded with a proclamation in his own hand recognizing the dynasty, a gold royal seal for the dynasty’s use on official documents and other valuable gifts. Ever since then, many kinds of trade have flourished between the two nations. At first, Korea sent tribute missions to the Emperor every third year, but later they were more frequent. I was one of three young eunuch slaves sent as tribute on the third such mission.

This eunuch slave was ten years old when I arrived in China. All who live in the countries on the Empire’s borders know that China is the most ancient, the largest, the wealthiest and the most powerful civilization that exists or has ever existed. China’s land mass is more extensive than that of any other nation, and its Emperors have ruled there for more than three thousand years. Chinese philosophical views, Chinese rites, Chinese ways of governing, Chinese manners, Chinese arts, Chinese manufactures, Chinese architecture and engineering, Chinese military skills are all incomparably evolved. They are the models for all the countries on their borders. All outside the Empire know that China is the source of their own civilization. All know that China alone has cultivated time in the same way that lesser nations cultivate land. All outside the Empire know that their own cultures are crude and momentary reflections of China’s brilliant continuity. All other nations know that China is civilization itself.

When a foreigner looks in the mirror of Chinese civilization, inevitably he finds himself wanting. He is aware that the Chinese long ago took account of things he does not yet quite understand. In their cruelty, corruption, wisdom and humaneness, they fully inhabit the continuous and irreconcilable contradictions of this world.

But this eunuch slave was merely a frightened child and I remember quite a bit of my arrival. I remember the strange pervasive smell of vegetable rot. I remember the brown river broad as an ocean filled with all kinds of boats and I remember seeing a bleached white corpse floating past our boat. I remember an overwhelming mass of sweating men shouting and carrying huge bales of goods along the wharf. I remember the red and gold palace gates looming into the sky. I remember vast courtyards and an endless maze of dim corridors. I remember seas of blue silk robes and urgent whispers in a language still new to me.

As with all other tribute goods, this eunuch slave was inspected by officials from the Ministry of Rites and then by high-ranking eunuchs from the Bureau of Ceremonial. My clothes were pulled off to make sure that, having no male genitals at all, this slave was indeed completely pure. I was then questioned and tested to ascertain what my particular talents might be. I was a strong child, tall for my age, and not ill-favored. Even from an early age, I had shown an aptitude for calligraphy and could speak and read Chinese quite well. I believe that this eunuch slave gave an impression of seriousness and modesty.

This slave was also examined by Shin Guysheng, a large eunuch in his late thirties who impressed me with his fine robes and his sleepy and indifferent manner. This slave was surprised that Shin spoke Korean and to find, as he told me, that he had been born in Pyongchang, a town quite near my birthplace. Shin seemed very pleasant, and he put me at ease as he inquired into my past, my abilities and my character. Then Shin Guysheng leaned forward and whispered in my ear:

"Little slave, you must understand that in this empire all life is a sacrifice to the Way of Heaven. The Emperor has been raised above all men as the Son of Heaven. It is his obligation to carry out Heaven’s command concerning whom and what is to be sacrificed and it is for him alone to know when that sacrifice shall be carried out.

"Little slave, when you look at the mountains and farms of this great expanse, know that the earth is wet with human blood. When you gaze in awe at these great palaces, do not forget that the soil beneath is filled with human bones. All whom you see now and will ever see here, walking busily to and fro concerned with important or menial tasks, know this in their hearts. They may forget this truth, but it is best not to.

There is always a sharp knife poised near all our throats. At the Emperor’s slightest glance, or at the bidding of one who acts in his name, it will strike.

I was terrified. I threw myself to the ground and pressed my face to the cold stone floor. Although I was only a child, I believed him, and in all my life thereafter, I have never for a moment forgotten what he told me. Shin then patted me on the head and, with a smile, dismissed this eunuch slave.

At the time, I thought that Shin had been concerned for me because there were very few Korean eunuchs in China. I believe that he was responsible both for advising the Emperor to accept me, and for having the Emperor give me to his third son, Zhu Di, Prince of Yan.

Just before this slave was sent to the Prince’s household in Beibing, Shin again called for me. He was standing pensively in a small garden pavilion, staring at a pot of yellow orchids. He looked at me and smiled warmly. He called for tea and made an effort to put me at ease.

"Little slave, I wonder if when we last met, I was too severe. There are things to understand if you are to survive and flourish. I do not want you to leave for the North feeling afraid.

It may seem that, seen from outside, China is merely an immense, lavish, multitiered pavilion sustained by force, bribery, coercion. But as you observe the society of your masters, you will sense something irresistible. You will discover a civilization of immense intricacy, beauty, wisdom and infinite detail. You will sense behind that a vast ungraspable unity hovering just beyond your reach. Your desire to know this silent reality will lead you further into the world of our masters. You will find you make all sacrifices willingly. You will become one of us.

With his smiles, handing me the tea cup with his own hands and little pats on the shoulder, I found myself even more frightened than before. His words seemed somehow more menacing. Shin must have seen it for he smiled sympathetically, before nodding and sending me back to my quarters.

Leaving to serve the Prince of Yan, I was separated from the two other tribute eunuchs with whom I had arrived. One was kept by the Emperor and in turn given to his heir, later the Jian Wen Emperor. The other was given to the Prince of Xiang. I never saw either again. The first disappeared when the Prince of Yan captured the capital, and the second was said to have died when the Prince of Xiang committed suicide with all his family by setting fire to his palace.

Later in Beibing, Shin sent me a few friendly messages and small gifts. Later still, I found out that Shin Guysheng was feared throughout the court as one of the Heng Wu Emperor’s chief spies and assassins. I understand now that had he not died suddenly two years after our meeting, he would have attempted to use me to spy on the Prince. At the time of his death, it was rumored that he had been poisoned.

Shin’s advice was not the only shock when this eunuch slave first arrived in Nanjing. I was shocked that there were so many eunuchs there. This slave had been taught that, when the Heng Wu Emperor first founded the dynasty, he had considered reliance on eunuchs to be a sign of corruption. He did not permit eunuchs to become educated and forbade that they should attain any rank. However, over the years, the Emperor found the disloyalty of his ministers and officials hard to bear. No matter how often he had them flogged, the problem would not stop. Increasingly, the Founding Emperor had turned to eunuchs for help in his many tasks.

The Founding Emperor’s initial intentions were still made very clear. Soon after this eunuch slave had been inspected and accepted as a gift, I was led by a senior eunuch from the Bureau of Palace Servants and shown a large stone plaque that had been erected outside that Bureau. On it were inscribed the words: Eunuchs are not allowed to involve themselves in affairs of state. Those who do will be executed. This command was written and signed in the hand of the Heng Wu Emperor himself.

This eunuch slave was instructed to prostrate three times to this tablet and told to read it aloud three times. When this slave had done so, the eunuch who had brought me there warned me never to forget this Imperial Injunction.

Despite this injunction, by the time this eunuch slave arrived at Nanjing, the formal institutions to which eunuchs were appointed were both extensive and complex. Most important was the Bureau of Ceremonial. This bureau oversaw all Imperial ceremonies and protocols; it maintained the rules of etiquette and precedence, and was responsible for promulgating the Emperor’s decrees. The Bureau of Ceremonial also was in charge of the discipline, dress and deportment of all the Emperor’s eunuchs and had the power to exact summary judgment on any violator.

The other major eunuch institutions were the Bureau of Palace Servants, the Bureau for the Maintenance of Imperial Temples and the Bureau of Imperial Seals. Then there were the lesser Bureaus that were responsible for palace food, for the emperor’s clothing, his horses and other animals, his weapons, for the tribute gifts, for cleaning the palaces, for manufacturing court needs, and less formally, the Emperor’s secret police.

The buildings that housed these many agencies were clustered outside the walls of the Emperor’s palace. I was dazzled by the scale and opulence of the scarlet walls, the gilded roofs and marble balustrades shimmering in the sultry air, hinting at the power of those who inhabited them.

This eunuch slave was unprepared to encounter the vastness and great variety of eunuch society. This slave had been reared in the company of twenty or so young eunuchs who ranged in age from four to fifteen years old. We were looked after and tutored by ten older eunuchs. We were kept away from ordinary people, and on the rare occasions when we were taken outside our compound for walks, we could not help but notice the glances of pity and revulsion which greeted us. Perhaps for this reason, we eunuchs in Korea always carried with us an atmosphere of shame.

But here were thousands of eunuchs from across the empire and beyond. Some wore lavish silk brocade robes and had their own eunuch attendants, while others were dressed in the plain garb of common servants. Some were scholars and others artisans, some served in the Emperor’s household, others as his guards, as his secretaries and in many other ways. Many eunuchs had never seen the Emperor at all. For the first time, this eunuch slave had the sense of being part of a broad and vigorous caste of beings, all striving to surpass the others in making themselves indispensable to one man. Later, I came to see that many of my kind were as self-serving and rapacious as any men, and perhaps worse since they were excluded from the bonds of family and clan, which act as a restraint to self-indulgence.

After half a year in the capital, this eunuch slave was given to the Emperor’s third son, the Prince of Yan, and accordingly sent North with a caravan bringing many other gifts. After a three-week journey overland and by boat, the caravan reached Beibing. In contrast to the lush moisture of the South, here the air was dusty and the landscape somewhat bleak, but this eunuch slave was deeply impressed by the thick maroon walls of the city that dominated the tawny plains. Even then, long before the city was made capital of the empire and renamed Beijing, it had a great aura of power.

On arriving, this slave was taken to the Prince’s palace. There this slave was inspected by the Prince’s Chief Eunuch, then interviewed by the Prince’s main advisor Dao Yan and finally questioned by the Prince himself.

It was well before dawn when an older eunuch roused me brusquely and ordered me to dress. I was still half asleep as I was pushed through a dark cold labyrinth of halls and found myself suddenly in the warm humid light of a bath chamber. The Prince was just completing his bath and stood naked and dripping before this slave. He was a large man in his forties, but powerfully muscled and he seemed to radiate heat. His skin was darker than most Chinese and his body, particularly the lower part, was covered with black hair. Steam from the hot bath water rose off his body into the cool morning air. He had an imposing beard, a strong nose, and he glanced at me with the slightly protuberant dark liquid eyes of a hawk. I found myself quite afraid.

Eunuchs began to rub him with towels, and afterwards the Prince began to dress. As his robes were being buttoned, while his back was to me, he suddenly asked this slave about the new Korean King. This eunuch slave could only whisper that I knew nothing. The Prince shrugged, and at his nod, the eunuch who had brought me led me away.

That afternoon, this slave found that the Prince had assigned me to the eunuch’s dormitory and had provided me with two sets of plain winter clothes and two sets of summer robes. This slave was granted a small stipend to cover the cost of food from the palace cooks and to pay for purchases of needles, thread, shoes, medicine and so forth from the merchants who were allowed to sell goods within the palace walls. Should this slave wish to bathe I was permitted to use the public baths in a nearby Buddhist temple. The Prince also gave his eunuch slave the name by which I have been called ever since, Ma Yun.

At that time, the institutions for the Prince’s eunuchs were similar to those in the capital though much simpler, and this slave was eventually assigned to the Bureau of Ceremonial and remained there throughout the Yong Le Emperor’s life. Through his Majesty’s generosity, this slave later came to occupy the post of Vice Director of the bureau for the last five years before his death.

However, at that time, the Prince had perhaps about seven hundred eunuchs, and while most were servants, a surprising number were warriors and diplomats. This eunuch slave saw many of these impressive and powerful beings who had received the Prince’s complete trust, as they came for audience or went off on missions, and indeed their self-assurance and dignity was inspiring to a ten-year-old orphan eunuch slave. There were about a dozen eunuchs of my age of whom very few were native Chinese. Most were gifts or had been captured in war and castrated as small children. We had the very lowest ranking of all the eunuchs and all above us were free to beat and punish us. So, by dint of constant correction, our accents became good Chinese accents, our manner of speech became humble and our conduct and manners were made appropriate to our circumstances.

I believe it was the Prince’s principal and most trusted advisor, Dao Yan, who was first kind enough to notice that this slave might be of more use if I received a scholar’s education. Thus, even while this slave swept the palace hallways, I was sent to classes in the classics. I applied myself with great diligence to these studies. This slave’s attainments as a scholar were passable, and I have continued to study the classics, the histories and the odes to this day.

This slave’s affinity for literature was in some ways an outgrowth of misfortune. Our family had been relatively poor. We had only eight household servants, and for this reason, my mother herself often sat with us at night and told tell us stories until we fell asleep. It is to her that I owe my life-long love of literature and my good memory.

My mother would tell us stories about gods and demons, heroes, tales of voyages to far away places, the family lives of animals and the mysterious world of fox spirits. As I listened to my mother’s clear melodic voice, my body seemed to dissolve. The weight of my bedclothes, blankets, the smells of my siblings, the sounds of other voices in the house, and insects outside faded slowly away. Particularly when it was spring or summer, I would feel myself conveyed on the rhythms of my mother’s voice, out into the deepening twilight, and on into the world of other beings. I would fall asleep and my mother’s stories became the world of dream.

Later, when my family and our home were gone, such dreams were a refuge. Their appearance was the only evidence of my earlier life. Still later, when I learned to read, I discovered further worlds of refuge: human worlds of justice and harmony, of beauty, of love, worlds of gods beyond this world and worlds of final cessation and of peace. Always hovering beyond the pains and insults of daily life, these remained beacons of true hope for people such as this eunuch slave. So, though certainly not a scholar, this eunuch slave became a person devoted to reading, to books and to words.

Then, through the kindness of Heaven and the tenacity of one teacher in particular, it seems that this slave’s calligraphy was well received. This teacher was Shen Du. From his youth, Shen had been well known for his calligraphy as well as for his writings in poetry and prose. Though early in his life he had been implicated in some sort of lawsuit and had been exiled, later he had served the Heng Wu Emperor and been a tutor to that Emperor’s eldest son, Zhu Biao. Also during the Heng Wu reign he served as an assistant to General Zhu Neng. Later still, his calligraphy attracted the admiration of the Prince of Yan, and so Shen, his brother and his son all were sent to serve the Prince. They wrote out all his most important commands and memorials. They continued to serve in this way after the Prince ascended the throne.

This eunuch slave was assigned to study under Shen Du who developed my skill far beyond what it would have otherwise been. Shen Du was always very courteous and his corrections were always most revealing. Unfortunately, his brother, Shen Can thought that to instruct a eunuch was to waste the family teaching lineage. He treated this slave with contempt. Similarly, Shen Du’s son, who held the same opinion and was, in addition, a very jealous person, sought every opportunity to disgrace me.

Nonetheless, after three years, this slave’s abilities were considered adequate. I was assigned to the department responsible for transmitting the Prince’s decrees where it was my task to copy out official documents. This eunuch slave was content that my place in this world was to be a blank page, keeping faith only with my lord’s text.

Eventually, it pleased the Prince that his slave serve not only as an official in his Bureau of Ceremonial, but as one of the eunuchs whom he chose to accompany him throughout the day. Since I had no influential sponsors in the eunuch directories, it was again perhaps Dao Yan who intervened and suggested this to the Prince. It became this slave’s task to stand or kneel near the Prince until my services might be needed. Thus I might be required to take dictation of private notes, arrange slight changes in the schedule, have someone summoned or provide any other small service that might ease the Prince in the performance of his extensive duties. It was in this capacity that five years after my arrival, this slave accompanied the Prince of Yan at the end of his campaign to secure the throne.

CHAPTER 2

OBLIGATION

This eunuch slave has earlier referred to the obligation placed upon me to write this account, but it is difficult to continue without giving a further explanation of the circumstances which have constrained me to do so.

In the last year before his death, during his fourth Mongol Campaign, the Yong Le Emperor decided in secret to compose a memoir that presented his struggles and his accomplishments in the light of the many streams of wisdom that guided him in developing himself and ruling the empire.

Only Grand Secretary Yang Rong and this eunuch slave Ma Yun knew of this project and were entrusted with assisting the Emperor. Both the Grand Secretary and this slave were sworn to utter secrecy, and we began our tasks without anyone being aware of the existence of this work. Even the servants assigned to prepare ink and hold scrolls were banished, and this slave managed these tasks myself. The Emperor’s death during his fifth and final Mongolian Expedition prevented him from completing this project.

As soon as the Emperor had died and even before his death had become public knowledge, this eunuch slave, Ma Yun, gathered together all the writings and documents of this memoir and placed them in a cinnabar box. The box was kept hidden among this slave’s own possessions until we had returned to Beijing. Soon afterwards, I concealed the text in a Buddhist temple near the Forbidden City where I often bathe and rest.

During the next three months, this slave, Ma Yun, assisted Grand Secretary Yang Rong in overseeing the Yong Le Emperor’s burial and in arranging the ceremonies necessary for the Crown Prince to ascend the throne as the Heng Xi Emperor.

Soon after that Emperor’s accession, this eunuch slave was removed from office and replaced by another whose exclusive loyalty was to the new ruler. The new emperor had long felt profound ambivalence towards his father and on his accession sought to reverse many of his father’s policies. He and those close to him had no desire to see the disapproving faces of those whose first loyalty had been to the Yong Le Emperor. Thus I was evicted from my quarters.

But, at forty-eight, this eunuch slave was too young to be retired, nor as a Grand Eunuch of the late Emperor could I return to the eunuch’s dormitory and serve as a mere copyist in the Bureau of Ceremonial. This was an awkward situation, and it appeared that I would soon be denounced on trumped-up charges of one kind or another, dismissed and prosecuted. Had that been the case, I would have become, at best, a street beggar, since no one may employ an Emperor’s former possession. Even those who had formerly been friendly then shunned me to avoid sharing a similar fate. I wept for many days.

Nowhere in this Empire, even for the mighty, is there complete safety. Emperors may be cast down, virtuous ministers after years of faithful service executed on obscure accusations, loyal generals imprisoned on false charges, powerful landowners cut down by corrupt magistrates, merchants robbed by soldiers. For farmers, laborers, servants and their families, the perils posed by natural and man-made calamity are innumerable and unending. So in this life, we the small must chance our fate clinging to the great as a barnacle grips the hull of a great ship. And like the barnacle, we do not know our destiny or destination. We do not share in the riches or glory of a successful voyage nor the disappointments of an indifferent one. But should the great ship to which we have attached ourselves meet with disaster, we do inevitably share that end.

This eunuch slave was only saved from misfortune by the great kindness of Grand Secretary Yang Rong. Yang Rong was indispensable to the new Emperor and he used his favor to intervene on my behalf. This slave of the Yong Le Emperor was brought as a guest to the Grand Secretary’s own residence near the Forbidden City.

Thus I lived for several years as a guest of the Grand Secretary in his vast enclosure of many pavilions and gardens called The Apricot Garden. I was housed in a small guest room generally reserved for couriers. As a slave and attendant of the late Emperor, I was treated with cool formality by the other slaves. Masterless and without duties, they did not care to know me. So for the first time in my life, I was without an anchor in this world. I was still uncertain about my fate, and so this was a period of sorrow and desolation. I often prayed and meditated at the nearby Buddhist temple, which I had frequented for many years.

After several months, the Grand Secretary Yang Rong was able to take time from his many pressing obligations and send for me. Before this slave was to meet with him, I recovered the cinnabar box from the temple and brought it to the study where the Grand Secretary received me.

The Grand Secretary was a small man about my age, and always had an alert slightly feline look. His full moustache and thinner beard were only beginning to turn gray. He had evidently just returned from Court and was wearing a formal heavily embroidered blue brocade robe. When he saw the cinnabar box, he knew immediately what it contained. Without any ceremony, he led me to his private shrine room. There, in the gilded shadows of his ancestral tablets, he placed the box on the shrine, lit incense and we made three full prostrations. We then adjourned to one of the many garden courtyards within the Apricot Garden. It was mid-spring. The air was still slightly cool and filled with the fragrance of peonies blooming in profusion all around us.

Yang Rong showed this eunuch slave the unprecedented honor of seating me next to him. Always, this slave would stand in his presence, and I found his gesture very unsettling. Tea was served, and after the Grand Secretary and this slave exchanged greetings and shared reminiscences, he announced with great regret his inability to take responsibility for completing the Emperor’s manuscript. He said that many urgent duties now prevented him from working on these memoirs. The Grand Secretary explained that while he had himself written an account of all his conversations with the Yong Le Emperor concerning military matters, the task of ordering any other material was now too burdensome. Then, much to my shock, he said that this eunuch slave must take sole responsibility for fulfilling his and my own obligation to the late Emperor by completing the task myself.

In great anguish, this eunuch slave fell to the floor, prostrated before the Grand Secretary and, striking my head against the ground, wept. It was the grossest impiety for a eunuch slave to undertake such a task. It is a violation of all that the sages and ancestors have taught. It is contrary to history, custom and law that one so low as this eunuch slave be responsible for the legacy of the highest of the high. Beyond presumption, this is sedition. Should the resulting text and my part in it be discovered, there was no question that this eunuch slave would be denounced, tortured and executed. And such a sentence would be just.

Yang Rong tried to raise me to my feet, but I remained on my knees. The Grand Secretary waved his hands and tried to assuage my fears. He spoke of the Emperor’s trust in me. He spoke earnestly and insistently. He spoke of our long association, and of the trust he himself had developed in this slave over that time. He promised his protection. He promised that no one would ever know that the text existed. Finally, in view of the trust and kindness which the Grand Secretary had shown me and in view of my precarious circumstances altogether, this slave could not refuse to accept. The Grand Secretary then called for more tea and insisted that I resume my seat next to him.

This eunuch slave thanked Yang Rong for his kindness and agreed to do whatever he wished. Then, as our conversation turned to editing the secret memoir, this slave reminded the Grand Secretary that the text as the Emperor left it contained very little narrative. There were accounts of his principles of government, of the rites and ceremonies he performed, introductions to various writings, proclamations and shorter more visionary sections. Further, the official record of the Yong Le Emperor’s reign already existed.

The Grand Secretary suggested that this eunuch slave describe the Emperor’s reign as I had seen it myself. This again filled the Yong Le Emperor’s slave with horror and dismay. The Emperor had said many things in his slave’s presence, and his slave had attended him in innumerable private moments. This slave could not dare to repeat anything