JavaScript is off/unavailable on your browser. You will not be able to experience this website as it was intended without JavaScript enabled.
Grand Tutor Chen Fan was first alerted to the impending disaster when a
terrified servant rushed into his living room and suggested that he should
flee.
“We are discovered,” Chen Fan realised. “Blast it! I knew that-!”
Chen Fan lowered his head and started to sob.
“Please, Mister Chen, you should try and flee!” the servant urged. “You
are a pillar of the state, and cannot-”
“Yes… yes… this is not about me, but the state,” Chen Fan decided. “Have
someone tell Commander-in-Chief Dou Wu… as for me, it is over.”
“Mister Chen…!” the servant sobbed.
Chen Fan got to his feet and walked to the door, where a small battalion
of soldiers, led by a junior captain, was waiting for him.
“You came here to arrest me?”
Chen Fan bellowed deliberately.
“We did,” the captain replied. “Will you do so without incident, ‘Grand
Tutor’?”
“If I can,” Chen Fan replied; he watched with delight as several people
retreated to find fellow supporters.
The eunuch force led by Cao Jie and Wang Fu watched from a high aperture
within the palace as Chen Fan was led through the palace gates by the soldiers;
there was a swelling crowd of support for Chen Fan behind the soldiers, and
they were openly demanding his immediate release.
“Aiee… he has a whole rabble
with him!” Su Kang hissed.
“I’ll deal with this,” Wang Fu promised.
“Cur!” Wang Fu began as he marched into the courtyard to confront
the Grand Tutor. “Abusing your place to
plot sedition, and harm the true supporters of His Majesty! Your lies will bury
you now!”
“So what fiction have you
invented now, creature?” Chen Fan heckled. “No matter; you win, as you always win. So do your evil and be quick
about it!”
“You try this feeble attempt to
appear blameless, but it will not work!” Wang Fu retorted. “You are a Wang Mang, a man who plots the
end of the Han! You scheme with Dou Wu, and intend revolution so that you can
create a new dynasty and rule with decadence!”
“We passed your residence on the
way here!” Chen Fan said with amusement. “Were there as many good officials appointed by you as there are
expensive tiles on that roof, perhaps we might know order!”
“And your residence is humble, is
it?” Wang Fu shrieked. “You
appointed as many of your Partisan friends to high places recently, so if there
is chaos, who is to blame?”
“The men you call ‘partisans’
were wronged by you and your decadent, greedy allies, forced to sign
confessions and convicted of uncorroborated crimes!” Chen Fan retorted
boldly.
“Ah, so you disapprove of such
things, do you, Grand Tutor?” Wang Fu said with glee. “Well, then why is it that an attendant has been found, illegally
incarcerated by one of your associates - a fellow attendant that has been
corrupted, sad to say - and forced to sign a document labelling fellow
attendants as criminals without proof?”
Chen Fan’s face fell.
“A case was to be put before the
Dowager secretly, which opposes due process, in which the only evidence was a
confession extracted through torture: a fine example of Confucian values,
indeed!” Wang Fu cackled. “But now
that you are exposed, and your scheme is unravelled, do you know what will
happen…?”