“Intention”: War for the Han Frontier sample (Act I) -- T. P. M. Thorne

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“I don’t know,” Zhao Ang replied. “I… really don’t know.”
“…I’m being insensitive,” Wei Kang realised. “How is your family?”
“It was long enough ago that ‘insensitive’ is hardly appropriate,” Zhao Ang said as he adjusted the white scarf that covered his hair. “I shouldn’t be wearing this thing now, not really, but… but my sons meant a lot to me.”
“And I have not given you justice,” Wei Kang sighed. “All I can do now is to improve your standing, since you’re too good a man to be wasted in Qiangdao. I want to give you Liang Shuang’s head to offer to your sons’ spirits, but-”
“He didn’t just kill my sons,” Zhao Ang interrupted. “He killed a lot of people. But it was necessary that we negotiated with Liang Shuang from our undeniable position of weakness. That is how things are in Liang Province, Inspector. My folly was leaving my family in Xi District in the first place; I was the county magistrate, and therefore a target for kidnappers and seditionists.”
“…I wanted to ask, for I am justifiably cynical,” Wei Kang said. “I wanted to ask… whether it was true, what your wife did…?”
Zhao Ang laughed strangely and replied, “Yes, it is true; my Lady Wang is quite a formidable woman.”
Wei Kang nodded agreeably.

Lady Wang Yi had been left to raise her husband Zhao Ang’s three children - two sons and a daughter - in their family home in Xi District while Ang travelled to the county capital to take up the role of Magistrate, the senior administrative figure in the county. Like every other part of Liang Province, Qiangdao County was beset by lawlessness, and within weeks of Zhao Ang taking up the role a local agitator in Xi District, Liang Shuang, led a force of rebels and seized the area; Zhao Ang’s sons fought as part of the ragtag local defence militia and both of them ultimately died. Liang Shuang then took up residence close to Zhao Ang’s surviving family, including Lady Wang and her six-year-old daughter;

Lady Wang feared that Shuang would want to molest her, so after briefly contemplating suicide - which she could not go through with, since that would involve murdering or abandoning her daughter - she made herself undesirable by tearing her clothes, starving herself and rubbing her body with dirt and excrement. Her bizarre behaviour had the desired effect, and Liang Shuang kept his distance for the entire year that it took for a negotiated peace to be reached and a rescue achieved.

“She’s quite brave and resourceful, and unwilling to let foolish pride cost her greater dignity,” Wei Kang suggested. “Ruining her appearance and making herself repugnant to keep Liang Shuang at bay… very sensible.”
“That wasn’t how she saw it, Inspector,” Zhao Ang sighed. “She took poison afterwards, saying that she could not bear to live knowing that other women had borne the hardship or committed suicide rather than ‘disgrace themselves’. She did it to ensure that our daughter lived, but then… still, she didn’t die, so I suppose the whole thing resolved itself as best it could.”
“Liang Shuang will falter, and when he does I swear that I will punish him for that wrong and all the others,” Wei Kang declared.
“…That isn’t why I’m here, though,” Zhao Ang prompted.
“No, it isn’t,” Wei Kang replied. “I have been approached by one of Ma Teng’s many relatives with what they called ‘an offer’. I’m suspicious of it, and worry that it might mean that my worst fears will come to pass.”

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