Chapter 171: Orange and Trifoliate Orange

In late September, as the Qin soldiers' letters home from Chengnan County, Dangyang, were loaded onto transport wagons and slowly headed south, over a hundred li away in Huaiyang—the former Chen Ying—Lord Changping, Xiong Qi, also received a letter from the south…

He unfolded the plain white silk letter, and the delicate, elongated Chu-style bird-worm script met his eyes. But after only two glances, Xiong Qi crumpled it into a ball! He clenched it in his palm, not wanting to look at it again.

Without a doubt, although he was born in Xianyang and grew up on the Qin plains, this Chu bird-worm seal script was the very first writing he had learned as a child…

Xiong Qi's father was King Kaolie of Chu. In the twenty-seventh year of King Qingxiang of Chu (272 BC), Chu sued for peace with Qin. The then-crown prince, who would become King Kaolie, was sent to Xianyang as a hostage and remained there for a full ten years. During that time, King Kaolie of Chu married the daughter of King Zhao of Qin, and she gave birth to Xiong Qi.

Xiong Qi, bearing the bloodline of the Chu royal house, thus grew up in the city of Xianyang. From childhood he wore Qin robes, and his babbling first words were in the Qin tongue; he was no different from any ordinary Qin princeling. Only in the dead of night would his father personally teach him some Chu script, exhorting him never to forget his homeland.

Xiong Qi still remembered how, young and ignorant, he had foolishly asked his father, "Is Qin not my homeland?"

His father had fiercely beaten him with a thorny branch, teaching him what the thorn was, and what Chu was!

Thorny Chu—in Xiong Qi's earliest memories, it was synonymous with pain. Even now, whenever the word was mentioned, he felt a sharp pang from the depths of his soul.

Without a doubt, this letter had been sent from enemy territory in Chu.

"Who delivered the letter?" Xiong Qi looked to his subordinate, Chen Ta. Xiong Qi was now the governor of the newly established Qin commandery of Chen, but though his subordinates were many, only Chen Ta and a few dozen others were sworn men to whom he could entrust his life.

Chen Ta said, "A ragged old man. He only handed over this piece of silk, saying it was a family letter for my lord, and that it must be delivered…"

"A family letter?" Xiong Qi's expression grew heavier.

He walked to the pavilion of the palace, clutching the silk letter in his hand, and gazed out at the late autumn scenery in a long silence.

Chen Ying had once been the capital of Chu after its eastward relocation; this was the former Chu royal palace. By all rights, he should have had the chance to grow up here, but fate had played an enormous joke on Xiong Qi in his eighth year…

That year (263 BC), his grandfather, King Qingxiang of Chu, fell gravely ill, yet Qin detained the crown prince and refused to let him return. Xiong Qi's father plotted with Huang Xie and fled back alone, returning to Chu to become its king, while Xiong Qi and his mother were left behind in Qin, becoming detainees of awkward status.

From then on, Xiong Qi was ordered by his mother to cease learning Chu script and to switch to Qin seal script. It was even the case that only when visiting the residence of Lord Anguo to pay respects to Lady Huayang did he have the chance to wear the billowing, wide Chu robes and taste the sweet oranges from the south.

At that time, there was another who wore Chu robes coming and going from Lord Anguo's residence: a Qin royal grandson named Yiren. He was an unfavored son of Lord Anguo, later adopted by Lady Huayang and renamed Zichu, meaning "son of the Chu woman Lady Huayang"…

The true son of Chu, Xiong Qi, watched dumbfounded as the merchant named Lü Buwei directed all of this. It was from this very man that he learned what political maneuvering and statecraft were.

That year was the year Qin besieged Handan; he was only fourteen.

Another decade passed, and the Qin throne changed hands until it was finally Zichu's turn to be king. But his life was short, and he died after only a few years on the throne. Zichu's son—the boy who had once been detained in Handan for several years after Zichu fled back from Zhao—became the new King of Qin.

That year, Xiong Qi was twenty-four, and King Zheng of Qin was thirteen, obliged to call him "cousin-uncle."

Because King Zheng of Qin was young, the Queen Dowager Huayang, as his grandmother, began to rule alongside Queen Dowager Xia and Queen Dowager Zhao. For a time, the Chu-affiliated consort clan, which had lain dormant in Qin since the death of Queen Dowager Xuan, once again welcomed a springtime. And Xiong Qi, as a core member of the new generation of the Chu-affiliated consort clan, was entrusted with heavy responsibilities at the Qin court. As the King of Qin gradually came of age, Xiong Qi became his most trusted kinsman and uncle, as well as the most powerful advocate for the king's personal rule.

It was true that Qin and Chu were mutual enemies, and after King Huai of Chu died in Qin, a blood feud of deep hatred was formed. Yet the royal houses of the two states had also intermarried for four hundred years across eighteen generations. The tangled complexity of their relations had long since surpassed any simple distinction of "friend" or "foe."

Another nine years passed (238 BC). At the King of Qin's capping ceremony, during the rebellion when Lao Ai raised troops to attack the Qinian Palace, Xiong Qi was entrusted with a critical mission. He led his forces to crush Lao Ai's confederates and quell the revolt. This outstanding merit earned him the title "Lord Changping." That year, he was thirty-three.

That very same year, grievous news arrived from Chu: Xiong Qi's father, King Kaolie of Chu, had also passed away. After obtaining King Zheng of Qin's permission, Xiong Qi went to offer condolences as Qin's representative.

In Chu's new capital, Shouchun, he saw his father's coffin, from whom he had been parted for over twenty years, and three unfamiliar brothers…

Xiong Han, Xiong You, Xiong Fuchu.

Xiong Han and Xiong You, born of the same mother, stared at Xiong Qi with guarded eyes, fearing he had been sent by Qin to seize the throne—after all, he was the eldest of the four brothers.

Xiong Fuchu, however, wore a face full of smiles, calling him "Elder Brother, Elder Brother" incessantly the moment they met. At the time, Xiong Qi thought him a man of filial piety and fraternal duty, until a few years ago, when word came that Fuchu had murdered Xiong You and made himself king. Only then did Xiong Qi lament his own poor judgment of character.

Indeed, the current King of Chu, Fuchu, was Xiong Qi's last remaining "family" in Chu. So this family letter must have been sent by the King of Chu!

"Now that the great Qin army is at the gate, he finally remembers his elder brother? And he wrote those words in the silk letter—what is his meaning?"

"Besides the silk letter, this item was also delivered." Knowing his master's temperament, Chen Ta waited until Xiong Qi had finished pondering before placing the small basket of fruit before him.

Xiong Qi looked; it was a whole basket of mandarin oranges.

Yes, it was now deep autumn in September, the very season when oranges ripened fully. This was a specialty of Chu. Although he had eaten plenty of them since childhood at Lady Huayang's, it was not until he was thirty-three, the year his father the king died, that Xiong Qi first traveled to Huainan and saw a real orange tree.

A sour taste already welled up in his mouth, a deep memory left from his youth.

But when Xiong Qi peeled one open, he did not see golden-orange segments, nor did he smell the rich, fragrant, sweet-and-sour scent.

Beneath the thick peel, there was only the bitter, foul trifoliate orange.

Xiong Qi sniffed it, his face twitching several times. He opened once more the pure white silk letter he had crumpled into a ball.

Upon it, strikingly, was Qu Yuan's "Ode to the Orange," his father's favorite poem in life, one he had made Xiong Qi recite without missing a single word.

"It is a pity you children were born too late and never got to witness the elegance of Master Qu." Xiong Qi still remembered his father's sigh of lament and regret, which was why he had practiced the recitation with particular diligence. He could even chant the lines on it without looking at the silk.

"O noble tree of heaven and earth, the orange comes to abide.

Charged by fate not to uproot, born in the southern land…

Deep-rooted and hard to transplant, ever more single in purpose.

Green leaves and pure white blossoms, so delightful in their profusion."

After this passage of chanting, Xiong Qi shook his head and sighed.

"My younger brother Fuchu, you are a clever man. You are asking me this: is Xiong Qi a Chu orange, charged by fate not to uproot, born in the southern land, unchanging in purpose? Or is he a Qin trifoliate orange, transplanted to the north, his inner substance utterly changed?"

Xiong Qi gave no answer. He merely sighed, "I am no Boyi; why must you take me as your model?" Then he personally cast the silk letter into the brazier and burned it clean, and ordered Chen Ta to bury that basket of bitter trifoliate oranges.

As for himself, expressionless, he allowed the serving maids to dress him in the full official robes of Qin, removing any ornament or tall crown that might carry a hint of "Thorny Chu" and replacing them with the proper, restrained Qin style, thereby declaring his firm stance. Then he went out, boarded a carriage, left the temporary palace, and rode toward the great Qin army encampment outside Chen Ying…

Today was the day the Qin army's chief commander, Li Xin, and his deputy, Meng Tian, would arrive with the main force. As governor of Chen Commandery and also the chief logistics officer for this Qin campaign to destroy Chu, Xiong Qi had to go and meet them, so the three could discuss the strategy for conquering Chu together.

Li Xin and Meng Tian did not hold Xiong Qi's status as the Chu king's elder brother against him. Ever since the last successful persuasion of Chen Ying to surrender, Xiong Qi had dispelled King Zheng of Qin's suspicions, making him believe that Xiong Qi had already made his choice between Qin and Chu. After all, though nominally uncle and nephew, the two shared a twenty-year bond of lord and vassal, brother and friend.

Xiong Qi closed his eyes and rested in the jolting carriage, but within his wide sleeve, at some unknown moment, a fruit mottled green and yellow had appeared, quietly clutched in his palm.

Was this an orange? Or a trifoliate orange?

Before peeling open the rind to find out, no one could know…

(End of Chapter)