“Yellow Sky”: Crisis for the Han Dynasty sample (Act I) -- T. P. M. Thorne
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“Dou Wu!” Zhang Huan hailed
again. “Why do you order the torture of
palace attendants without warrant, obtaining false confessions against honest
creatures, and make secret plans with your daughter the Dowager to supplant
them? Do you mean to outdo Liang Ji?”
More of Dou Wu’s followers moved away from him.
“Dou Wu!” Zhang Huan chuckled
as he saw that there would probably be no need for conflict. “Why do you now come here with armed men to
assault the capital, a place where men must not bear arms, when you are the
commander in charge of defending it? Do you not now choose to act in accordance
with your role?”
“You have been deceived!” Dou
Wu protested as more of his followers deserted him. “The attendants, they are corrupt! Do you not see the signs of it all
around you??? Their control of the court has ruined us! Why are you blind to
it???”
Zhang Huan laughed loudly and bellowed, “Dou Wu! Why do you now talk nonsense, speaking of eunuchs controlling
the court and wielding great power, when all that any man can see when they
look is your daughter as Dowager - not the Emperor’s own mother - while you
enjoy an enlarged fortune, an unrivalled position of military power, your
friend Chen Fan as Grand Tutor, and your friends the Partisans restored to
court as colleagues? Can it be that you think me a fool? Can it be, perhaps,
that you see us all as fools…?”
Dou Wu was now alone.
“Dou Wu!” Zhang Huan heckled.
“Your plan is thwarted, your wickedness
is exposed, your sedition plain for all to see! What will you do now?”
Dou Wu looked into the disapproving eyes of former allies, shook his
head miserably, and shouted, “Well
played, Zhang Huan! You win today… so sad, though, that this victory of yours
allows the wolf into the bedroom, where the child sleeps unawares. But I can do
no more… let some other poor fool bear the burden now.
What I shall do now,
Zhang Huan, is go home, if I am allowed; but you’ll not see me alive again.”
Dou Wu turned and walked away, a broken man with nothing left to
achieve.
Chen Fan met his painful end in prison at the hands and trampling feet of others, while Dou Wu ended his own life by running himself through with a sword. Dou Wu left a letter that protested his innocence and begged the Emperor - by which he meant the eunuchs - to spare his family. But the young Emperor Ling was not in a forgiving mood, and needed little encouragement from the eunuchs; he had been keen to remove the Empress Dowager and her family since his ascension, even if it was just so that his mother could be honoured properly. Empress Dowager Dou remained in detention in her quarters, and Emperor Ling gave her authority to Cao Jie and his eunuch allies. Dou Wu’s clan was otherwise exterminated, and the clan of former Grand Tutor Chen Fan suffered severe yet lesser punishment. But that still left the ‘partisans’ that had been allowed to return to society; the eunuchs were swift in recommending that they be punished for a second time, and this time, the eunuchs’ intent was that the ‘partisans’ could never know amnesty again.
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