A resilient princess / an otherworldly general
In the twenty-second year of Taichu, an urgent military dispatch raced eight hundred li from the northwest. Three horses died on the way, and two reports were delivered to the capital.
The Chiman assembled an army of eight hundred thousand and advanced on Yumen Pass, threatening to march south and raze Great Zhou. Liang Yanheng, heir to the Marquis of Yaowen, led the northwestern army in a desperate defense. After half a month of deadly fighting, he ventured deep into the Chiman camp and beheaded the Chiman crown prince. He himself died at the Ten-Thousand-Fathom River, his body never found.
The emperor was overcome with grief, the officials were shaken, and the candles in the Hall of Supreme Ultimate burned all night.
That night, a torrential rain fell. In Changxin Palace, the palace women and maids wept together. Song Qingshu, dressed only in her underclothes, knelt on a prayer mat inside the hall, her shoulders slender and her long black hair cascading down her back. With her hands pressed together, she murmured, "Third Brother, you lied to me."
Tears slid down her cheeks as she reverently bowed three times.
Buddha above, his life was hard from beginning to end. Born into splendor, he grew up amid suffering. May you grant him a smoother passage along the road to the afterlife.
*
Princess Shenghe, Song Qingshu, was the lowest-born princess of Great Zhou. Her mother was a servant who died as soon as she gave birth to her, and before she turned fifteen, Song Qingshu was confined to a cold little palace.
When she was sixteen, Emperor Renzong summoned all the officials to hunt at Xishan.
She would never forget that day. In the dead of night, amid the winds and snow at Xishan, she was made to kneel for a long time in front of the hall.
Then she heard a sword being drawn. She lifted her eyes slightly and met a pair of eyes so strikingly clear they seemed almost otherworldly.
The newcomer wore a black cloak. Handsome and upright, he came through the wind and snow.
It was two days later that she learned his name: Liang Yanheng.
Later, at court, he knelt in his crimson robe and said, "I am willing to lead fifty thousand troops against the Chiman, with no regrets whether I live or die. I ask only one favor: may Your Majesty spare Princess Shenghe from being sent to the Chiman as a bride?"
She saw him off when he left for the front. Before the assembled troops, he made her a promise.
But he broke it.
*He
Theme: To see the light of day.
