Chapter 175: Xin Qiji

His youngest son returned from Shaoxing City with a newly issued gazette. Lu You took it, and on the front page, in bold characters, he saw the headline: "Grand Preceptor Han Swears the Army for Northern Expedition, a Million Mighty Troops Cross the Huaihe." He did not understand the flowery official prose on the gazette, but he saw a name—Han Tuozhou. He slapped the gazette onto the table, exclaiming "Good" repeatedly. Then he picked up his brush and added a line to the poem he had just finished: "Han Gong rises to fulfill Heaven's will, sweeping the barbarian dust clear for ten thousand li."

His son leaned in for a look and asked in a low voice: "Father, there is much discussion outside regarding Grand Preceptor Han. If you write such a poem, will it not..."

"Discuss what?" Lu You did not even look up. "Discuss his grasping of power? Discuss his arrogance? Discuss his suppression of opponents?"

His son dared not reply.

Lu You sneered, his brush not stopping: "I know what kind of man Han Tuozhou is. He is a powerful minister, an imperial in-law, a domineering figure who monopolizes the imperial weight. But he is the one for the Northern Expedition. That alone is enough. The Great Song has stood for two hundred years; many have wanted a Northern Expedition, but how many have truly dared to do it? Yue Wu Mu dared and was killed. Yu Yunwen dared and died. Zhang Jun dared and was defeated. Over the past few decades, how many people shouted about recovering the Central Plains, only for it to remain on memorials to the throne and in poem drafts? No matter how many faults Han Tuozhou has, at least he has stood up; at least he has drawn his sword. That makes him ten thousand times better than those who hide in Lin'an City, talking big."

He set down his brush, raised his head, and his eyes turned red again.

"I, your father, have lived over eighty years and written over ten thousand poems. Ten thousand poems cannot buy back a single inch of land in the Central Plains. Poems are useless; only the sword is useful. Han Tuozhou is the one who wields the sword, so I will write poems for him. Whatever poems he wants, I will write; however many he wants, I will write. I, Lu You, could not personally wield a sword to kill my way back to the Central Plains in this life, so I will use poems to drum for the one who wields the sword."

He looked down at the line he had just written, "Han Gong rises to fulfill Heaven's will," felt it was not enough, and added two lines before it. The final poem read: "The Sage Lord sits in court to decide the moment of battle; Han Gong rises to fulfill Heaven's will. The three armies and their generals are like bears and tigers; Shanhe for ten thousand li enters the drums and flags."

His son watched from the side, wanting to speak but holding back. He did not understand poetry well, but having grown up by his father's side, he could hear that these poems were different from his father's early ones. The early poems held anger, regret, bone-deep hatred, and flesh-cutting pain, like a blade tempered in fire. These poems now were too smooth, too bright, like a mirror polished too clean; they could reflect light but cast no shadow. But he dared not say it. His father had waited eighty years for this news; he had no right to pour cold water on it at this moment.

Half a month later, Lu You finally waited for the person he had been waiting for.

Xin Qiji had come.

Xin Qiji had come from Zhenjiang. He had been reappointed by the court as Prefect of Zhenjiang, concurrently managing the river defense. With the Northern Expedition imminent, he was one of the most important generals on the front line and should not have left his post at this time, but when passing through Shaoxing, he deliberately detoured to Shanhe. First to visit an old friend, and second to hear Lu You's views on the Northern Expedition—after all, in the entire Great Song, if one could find only a single person who was the most sincere, pure, and unreserved supporter of the Northern Expedition, it would surely be this eighty-something mad old man by Jinghu.

Xin Qiji arrived in the evening. He rode an old horse, brought only one attendant, wore no official robes, and draped only an old cloak over his shoulders. Seeing the faded military flag before the Lu family gate from afar, he reined in his horse. Xin Qiji looked at that flag for a long time. He recognized what it was—a military flag from fifty years ago, an old relic from the front line at Nanzheng. Of course he recognized it. Because he himself had once had such a flag; that flag was burned by fire in Geng Jing's camp, and later, during the uprising in Jiangxi, a new one was made. After many wanderings, no one knew if it still existed.

Lu You heard the hoofbeats from far away in his study. He put down his brush, rose, pushed open the window, and saw Xin Qiji in the twilight. Xin Qiji stood on the dirt road outside the gate, leading an old horse, his cloak flapping loudly in the wind, with a setting sun behind him, crimson as blood.

"You'an!" Lu You almost shouted as he rushed out to greet him.

Xin Qiji jumped off the horse and walked over quickly. The two embraced under that faded military flag, in the biting cold wind of deep winter. Xin Qiji carried a strong scent of strong wine mixed with sand and soil, a smell unique to those who had long guarded the border. Smelling this scent, Lu You felt as if he had returned to the Nanzheng camp of fifty years ago, to that winter night when snow filled the bows and swords.

"It is good that You'an has come. Come, enter the house, I will show you something." Lu You grabbed Xin Qiji's sleeve and pulled him inside, his steps large for an eighty-something-year-old. In the study, on the desk, on the shelves, and on the floor, there were poem drafts everywhere; some were finished, some only half-written, some blurred by ink stains so the characters were unreadable, and some with wet ink blown to the floor by the wind. The entire room was filled with a strong scent of ink and wine.

"Look, these are what I wrote in seven days." Lu You shoved a pile of poem drafts into Xin Qiji's hands, his eyes shining startlingly, like a child waiting to be praised.

Xin Qiji took the poem drafts and looked at them one by one. He read very slowly, nodding after finishing each one. He saw "Writing of Resentment," and that line: "Night snow at Guazhou Ferry on a boat of war; iron horses in autumn wind at Dasa Pass." His lips twitched slightly. He had been there too; he had seen that snow and that wind. He also saw the line: "Han Gong rises to fulfill Heaven's will, sweeping the barbarian dust clear for ten thousand li." When he saw this line, his gaze stopped, but he said nothing. He continued reading down and saw dozens of impassioned poems; some wrote of the bravery of the front-line soldiers, some of the expectations of the people in the Central Plains, some of the grand scenes after recovering Kaifeng, and some of gratitude toward the court. Every single one was written extremely well. Lu You's poetic talent had become even sharper in his old age; any one of these poems taken out at random would be enough to be recited for a thousand ages.

Xin Qiji finished the last page, neatly folded the poem drafts, placed them on the table, and pressed down with his palm. Lu You sat opposite him, eyes shining, waiting for a response.

Xin Qiji raised his head, his lips moving: "Brother Fangweng, your poems are truly good."

"Compared to your ci?" Lu You laughed heartily. He knew Xin Qiji never praised people lightly; to say the two words "truly good" was already the highest praise.

Xin Qiji did not take up the joke. He stood up, walked to the window, clasped his hands behind his back, and gazed at Jinghu outside, where the twilight was deepening. He stood by the window for a long time, so long that Lu You's laughter slowly faded, so long that the air in the study grew cold bit by bit. He turned his head to look at Lu You, as if wanting to say something. He opened his mouth, drew in a breath, and his chest heaved once.

Then he waved his hand.

It was not a formal, conscious declaration, but an unconscious movement that seeped out from the cracks in his bones. That hand waved weakly twice in the air, then fell back to his side, as if giving up on something.

Lu You was stunned: "You'an? What do you mean by this?"

Xin Qiji did not explain. He simply waved his hand again, then let out a long sigh. That breath exhaled from his chest condensed into a white mist in the cold air of the winter night.