The Ninja and the Diplomat, page 22
part #2 of The Chinese Spymaster Series
Li decided to attack Wang’s legs with a series of kicks. The knees were vulnerable, and he hoped that Wang would not be agile enough to avoid all his blows. Wang responded with kicks of his own and occasionally executed a leg sweep. Li expected the effort to move from an upright position to the floor and back again would tire Wang out quickly. Yet, Wang kept up with Li, kick for kick. He blocked and jabbed at Li’s head and chest to distract the Sergeant. But this session would not last as long as their usual sparring sessions.
Li remained in control of the tempo of the fight. He switched back from the attack on Wang’s legs and drove the Spymaster into a corner of the room with a series of kicks and knuckle jabs. Wang deflected this barrage with a graceful combination of arm sweeps and pivots away from the attack. Suddenly, Spymaster Wang lashed out with a forceful knuckle jab of his own. It was the only one of his blows that completely missed the Sergeant. Li ducked and twisted away. He launched himself up one wall then crossed over to another and landed perfectly positioned to send a flying kick directly at the Spymaster’s sternum. This kick would kill.
This time, the Spymaster could not block or twist away; his misjudged jab left him too far off-balance to do either. He just had time enough to brace himself and block the Sergeant’s attacking foot. He caught it half an inch from his chest. Without pausing or thinking, the Sergeant swung his other foot away to build sufficient momentum to wrench his foot out of the Spymaster’s two-handed grasp. He landed far enough away that it signaled the end of the combat exercise.
Both men remained in control of their breathing and bowed slightly to each other.
“Thank you, Sergeant Major. It was an excellent exercise.”
“Thank you, Spymaster. I am honored.”
“You let me off three times during our match.”
“Actually, sir, it was five times. But you let me off twice.”
“In battle, one does what one must do ‘in the moment.’ Who knows what might have happened if either of us had pressed our advantages as they appeared?”
“Combat is full of uncertainty.”
The Spymaster smiled grimly. “Perhaps I am getting too old for this.”
The Sergeant Major also smiled, a small smile, and replied, “I can think of none of your companions who could have lasted as long in this room.”
“Next week, we shall meet in another place. I shall let you know where, but you should come as if to this room.”
The Sergeant Major understood the significance of this request; he was to be unarmed. He was not worried, for he knew that his life had always been in Wang’s hands. The Spymaster commanded resources against which a dozen armed men would not prevail in a frontal attack, perhaps not even a dozen armored divisions. Li’s only opportunity to fulfill his promise to Comrade Commissar Jiang was during one of the weekly sparring sessions. But he closed his mind to those thoughts—his fate would be decided between the Spymaster and the Comrade Commissar.
The Spymaster, on the other hand, now allowed himself the luxury of thought as he left the combat room and made his way briskly to his office. He would shower and change on the way, stopping briefly at the infirmary for the usual balms and poultices, as well as the customary scolding from his old school teacher, now the chief medical officer at the agency, who thought Wang should stop putting himself in harm’s way.
Prioritize!
Do I need a bodyguard?
What about Sergeant Major Li?
What does Comrade Commissar Jiang really want?
What do I say at the Committee on Public Security meeting in two days—especially in light of the new activity in “Operation Kashgar”?
The Chinese Spymaster listing
EXTRACT FROM THE BATTLE OF CHIBI
Long ago, along a stretch of a river deep and wide but far away from the consciousness or imagination of anyone outside All under Heaven (China), a battle was fought that determined the unity of the empire for the next four hundred years. It was there along the Yangzi that Liu Bei, the Loyalist, and Zhou Yu, commander in chief of Wu, the kingdom established by the most successful of the Chinese warlords, defeated Cao Cao, the Usurper. In defeating Cao’s huge army and armada, Bei and Yu established Shu and Wu as powers together with Cao’s Wei that would divide China into the Three Kingdoms.
The south bank of that stretch of river was called Chibi, Red Cliffs, and that name was given to the battle. Cao was forced to flee northwards back to his base; he regrouped his forces and, by virtue of holding the last Han Emperor hostage and of having the largest body of men in arms, remained the “First Man” of China, but he was never again able to threaten South China.
The Romance of the Three Kingdoms asserts in its very first chapter the Chinese view of history—not as a linear progression from primitive to developed (first-world status), but as an alternation between the unity of the Chinese Empire and political chaos, “disunity.” It was a major achievement of Zhuge Liang to persuade his contemporaries that China could exist as a triangular balance of power—Loyalists, Usurpers and Wu/Jiangdong. Thus, after four hundred years of imperial unity under the Han dynasty, China came to be ruled by the Three Kingdoms. These kingdoms lasted only eighty years that with the three centuries that followed (before the establishment of a unified China by the Sui and Tang dynasties) became known as the Age of Fragmentation.
The Romance and hence this work is not merely about the military actions or political considerations of that era, but also about values. Perhaps the most crucial question was the implication for loyal subjects when Fate appears to have determined that a dynasty should end. (By the Ming dynasty, this was codified and thus resolved, but the Romance reflects the uncertain tension before such a resolution.) For many intellectuals, this conflict prompted a desire for the “contemplative life,” reflecting perhaps an escapist yearning, perhaps the quietist aspect of Daoist thought. This preference is mixed with a sense of fatalism. Zhuge Liang is unafraid when he is in Wu/Jiangdong because the end of his life has been decreed by Fate--but he also planned meticulously for his final escape from Wu on board a boat that he orders a month in advance.
To tell of his many stratagems is to learn that, for Liang, not everything has been written in the Book of Fate or if it had, there was still the possibility that with enough effort and the right angle of vision, one might change the course of Fate. Liang’s vision was to see China neither as an empire nor in chaos, as enunciated in the opening paragraph of the Romance; he believed that it could be ruled by three kingdoms and for a while he was successful. Perhaps he dared to think that this would enable him and “All under Heaven” to escape “Fate.” To achieve this, however, he “coughed up his life’s blood.”
Part of the price to pay was a continued battle of wits between Liang and Zhou Yu of Jiangdong. This battle was itself a continuation of the vendetta between the two regions since Sun Jian, the patriarch of Jiangdong, was confronted by Liu Biao, Bei’s kinsman and protector while he ruled Jingzhou; all retold in this volume. After Biao’s death, the dispute became one over territory—Jingzhou, which the Wu kingdom of Jiangdong regarded as an extension of its realm. The vendetta did not end with the death of Zhou Yu although this retelling of the Romance does, closing with Yu’s funeral at which Liang mourns with a moving eulogy.
From the Back Cover of the Battle of Chibi
"Fascinating insight into a whole new world of thought."
Hasan S. Padamsee, Professor of Physics, Cornell, NY.
"Lively and entertaining translation of a Chinese classic that deserves a wide audience."
Beryl S. Slocum, Salve Regina University, RI.
"Excellent translation, faithful to the spirit of the Romance as I recall from reading it many times (in Korean)."
Seung-il Shin, formerly Professor of Genetics, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, NY.
"Opens new vistas of fascinating history and thought."
Susan Wilson, Sierra College Library, CA.
Battle of Chibi listing
EXCERPT FROM Agamemnon Must Die
PROLOGUE: IPHIGENIA
(Before the ships sail for Troy)
For three weeks this ominous summer in Greece, the winds have gusted and moaned, the seas have roiled and the skies have remained dark, baleful and gloomy. It was this doom-laden murkiness that unsettled and unmanned those gathered to sail their thousand ships. Thus, uncertain of his hold over the many half-hearted chieftains who had brought their men and ships on this quest, Agamemnon chose to offer up his lithesome daughter—bright-eyed, dark haired, and merry as the whistling larks of the air, Iphigenia—as the human sacrifice demanded by the gods. He had not expected any other chief to volunteer a virgin daughter when the oracle had made known the mind of the gods. With supplies running as low as the morale of the men, he ordered his daughter, bound and gagged, to be brought before him and he himself performed the sacrifice.
A wild shriek pierced the gloom. Her mother’s cry, such a sound of love, loss, and anguish as had never before been heard, pierced the heart of every man there as Iphigenia bled quickly to her death. The shriek, the cry, now became a low moan as Clytemnestra threw herself beside the lifeless body of her child, who could have looked forward to years of play and young love, and (thought the queen, her mother) the many delicious decisions and rueful revisions she would now never make or unmake. This thought ignited the queen’s anger and her moan shaped itself into a growl and then to a full-throated, guttural howl.
It seemed as if the sound reached through her loins into the depths of the earth to commune with Persephone, another doomed victim of male willfulness, and then ascended to reverberate in her womb. It resonated in the belly that bore her firstborn and in her chest to which she had clutched her baby to suckle with her milk-heavy breasts. From earth through mother, the wail rose to the skies without a quiver. It was utterly without hope, achingly and piercingly full of frustration and fury.
Agamemnon’s lust stirred at the sight of Clytemnestra’s breasts beneath her loose robe, but then embarrassed, he ordered the fleet to set sail immediately.
The mother’s caterwaul continued. She howled in grief and longing for the life that was now gone. She raged against her husband’s implacable drive to lead the Greeks against the Trojans, she stormed in anger, anguish and resentful futility until she was the only one left on the beach in Aulis, whence the fleet sailed for Troy.
At the ritual slaughter of her daughter, the storm clouds had instantly dispersed and Clytemnestra now walked back to the encampment where her husband and his troops had gathered in the typically brilliant sunshine of a summer day in Greece. She would not forgive or forget this moment. The salty tang of the spray from the waves refreshed her even as they smelled like the tears now drying from her cheeks. No one of the remnant left looked at her as she slouched her grim way to join them for the journey back to Mycenae. One elder, Aristides, more sympathetic than the others, roused himself to face her.
“My lady.”
“Yes, councilor.”
“Mourn your daughter on the journey to Mycenae, for when we arrive, you must rule.”
From the Author of Agamemnon Must Die
Towards the end of the 13th century B.C., the "mother of all wars" for the millennium, the Trojan War is over. After ten years, Agamemnon of Mycenae who had led the Greeks on that epic battle, has returned. All his people want is for their lives to return to normal.
But the gods have unfinished items on their agenda.
In the middle of the 5th century B. C., Aeschylus wrote the Oresteia, a trilogy of plays, to give meaning to these memories. It was required reading for all classics major, but I didn't "get it" despite wrestling with a dozen or so translations.
This therefore is my retelling.
An early reader commented:
Agamemnon Must Die is a superbly-written retelling of the tale. The author combines verse with narrative in an effective way for 21st Century audiences.
Piper Templeton, author of Rain Clouds and Waterfalls.
Agamemnon listing
THE AUTHOR
Hock G. Tjoa was born in Singapore to Chinese parents. He studied history at Brandeis and Harvard and taught European history and Asian political thought at the University of Malaya in Kuala Lumpur. He is married and lives with his family in the Sierra Nevada foothills of California.
In 2010, he published The Battle of Chibi, selections translated from "The Romance of the Three Kingdoms" (one of four traditional Chinese classics). In 2011, he adapted Lao She's "Tea House," Mandarin original dated 1953, publishing it as Heaven is High and the Emperor Far Away, a Play. Both are part of his goal to contribute to a wider and greater understanding of China and Asia.
Hock published The Ingenious Judge Dee, a Play and The Chinese Spymaster, volume 1: Operation Kashgar in 2013 and Agamemnon Must Die, a retelling of Aeschylus’ Oresteia in 2014. He is pleased now to release The Ninja and the Diplomat, volume 2 of The Chinese Spymaster.
The Author’s blog is
hockgtjoa.blogspot.com
His Amazon Author’s page is
http://www.amazon.com/Hock-Guan-Tjoa/e/B001HPMVZY/ref=ntt_dp_epwbk_0
His Goodreads Author Profile is
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/4537067.Hock_G_Tjoa
He tweets very occasionally and can be reached via Twitter
@hgtjoa
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His email address is tjoa.books@gmail.com
Hock G Tjoa, The Ninja and the Diplomat
