In the seventeenth year of Yongping, at Yumen Pass. At dusk, a dying Han envoy crawled through the gate. His name was Zhao Yi. He had been trapped in the Great Yuezhi for three years, and of the nine men who had gone with him, he was the only one to make it back. Before he died, he shoved a copper tube into the hands of the garrison soldier Chen Jie. Inside was irrefutable proof that Wang Ben, Chief Clerk of the Protectorate of the Western Regions, had colluded with the Xiongnu. And Wang Ben was the person Ban Chao trusted most.
Chen Jie couldn’t read, and had no idea what was written inside the tube. He only remembered Zhao Yi clutching his hand and saying, “Get it to Protector Ban.”
For three hundred li across the Gobi, assassins hunted him every step of the way. The caravan on the old road was a fake; the hounds in the sandstorm were real. He fooled his pursuers with a decoy copper tube and survived on the skills he had honed over three years guarding the frontier. When he reached Shule City, Wang Ben publicly accused him of being a Xiongnu spy and threw him in prison. Whips, leg clamps, and brine. Three days and three nights. He endured it because Zhao Yi had endured three years.
Ban Chao returned. The secret letters proving Wang Ben’s guilt were as solid as a mountain. During the confrontation in court, Wang Ben drew his sword and lunged at Chen Jie. Ban Chao’s arrow pierced the back of Wang Ben’s hand.
“You’re a mere garrison soldier. What gives you the right?” Wang Ben rasped.
“The promise I made to a dead man. I said I’d deliver what he entrusted to me.”
Chen Jie returned to Yumen Pass and took over as the outpost commander. Three months later, a letter from Zhao Yi’s wife arrived from Luoyang. Enclosed at the end was a coin Zhao Yi had left her before leaving home. She wrote: Zhao Yi did not die in vain. His wife and children are at peace.
Chen Jie hung the coin from his belt beside his ring-pommeled saber. He climbed the beacon tower, looked northwest, and said softly, “Lord Zhao, your journey is over. I’ll walk the road ahead for you.”
The great desert wind howled, with the desert poplars bearing witness. The land remembers, and its heritage lives on.
