A Crane Cries in Huating

Lingering clouds, and drizzling rain;

The sky is dark and the road now difficult.

The side hall present in the Qingyuan Hall was where the emperor handled the country’s daily governmental affairs. Wang Shen attended Dingquan to clean up his appearance. 

Right after, Dingquan entered the hall and reported his arrival to the emperor, “Your Majesty, I wish you good health.” 

But the emperor holding a memorial ignored him. 

Dingquan didn’t hear the emperor responding for a long time, so he raised his head and called again, “Your Majesty?” 

The emperor raised his hand, and the memorial flew down whirling and hit Dingquan’s knee. It didn’t end with that and was followed by several more, one by one being thrown at him from under the imperial table. Seeing him still kneeling, the emperor’s expression became stiff. He pointed at Wang Shen and sneered at him, “You can’t do it yourself, but you ask this old man to help you?” 

Wang Shen was attacked for no reason. 

Dingquan felt slightly annoyed inwardly, and replied, “This is a memorial that the central government has sent directly to Your Majesty. If Your Majesty refuses, how can I overstep my authority and dare do it instead? I shall risk my life and step over these edicts of Your Majesty.” He picked up the few memorials under his feet and unfolded them one by one. First, he looked at the official name of the government office, then looked at the title stating such and such. Doing so, he found that the memorials were actually presented by some imperial censors he was unfamiliar with. All of them were requests of impeaching the current Minister of Justice, Du Heng, on the grounds that a few days ago, he had pardoned two minor officials charged with petty crimes from prison sentences. He was thinking about his defence and response when suddenly his eyes fell on a sentence in the memorial that reads: 

“Heng Tuoyang took refuge in Chonghua and seldom exercised self-restraint. Last year, he severely punished three generations of the Li clan. Many were of the opinion that the punishment given was excessive, saying that someone who held the law in his hand regards the laws of the land as nothing. Thus for various reasons, I hope that Your Majesty shall clearly and carefully judge…” so and so.

The word ‘Chonghua’ was used in a vicious way. Dingquan was startled in his heart, knowing that they had an axe to grind and that the pardon thing was just to establish the point. He couldn’t help but sneer inwardly. 

Dingquan thought for a moment and made up his mind. He closed the file, slowly tidied himself up, and signalled Wang Shen that he could retrieve those documents.

However, he heard the emperor’s stern voice asking above his head, “Why didn’t the three judicial chief ministries[1] report this matter? I want to investigate this matter thoroughly, then again, you participated in this year’s winter trial, didn’t you? What do you have to say?” 

Dingquan replied, “Your Majesty, there is no need to bother investigating this — Before this year’s summer trial, these two men had asked for my help to have the Minister of Justice handle this matter, and I agreed.” 

The emperor didn’t want him to answer so candidly. Instead, he was left stunned for a moment. He nodded, “So you just spread your hand.” 

Dingquan didn’t understand what the emperor meant. He moved his sleeves slightly and spread his hands on his knees. The emperor didn’t look at him, merely stood still before laughing, “No wonder you are so courageous, you’ve always had a big fist.”

Everyone in the hall was left frightened. Wang Shen was so anxious that he didn’t have words to use and explain. He stared at Dingquan desperately and saw his shoulders shaking, but he didn’t appear much flustered. Dingquan slowly put his hands away from his knees, touched the ground with his palms, bent down, and kowtowed, “I plead guilty.” 

The action was very respectful, but the tone was quite apathetic. The emperor had always hated such an appearance from him the most, and said angrily, “What? You have overstepped your authority and meddled in politics, but you still feel wronged?” 

Dingquan said insipidly, “I dare not. Please punish me, Your Majesty.” 

Wang Shen knew that the more he was like this, the more he fanned the emperor’s anger. Stealing a glance at the emperor, he saw that the corners of his mouth moved, and two deep snaky lines appeared immediately — clearly, his fury had reached its peak. 

For a while, the father and son were in a stalemate and everyone in the hall was silent in fear. Only the metal chimes hanging from the eaves rattled, as the wind was getting stronger and stronger.

TN Notes

TN Notes↲1These are respectively, the Ministry of Justice (刑部), Censorate (刑部), and Court of Judicial Review (大理寺). When a major crime occurs, the ministry of justice holds a trial, the censorate investigates it, and the court of judicial review overrules it.