Go north
The next morning, Qin Hui was still dreaming when he was awakened by a series of rapid knocks on the door.
"Father, please open the door!" Qin Hui's son Qin Hui kept knocking on the door of the Qin Mansion.
Qin Hui hurriedly got up, dressed, and walked to the yard. He looked up at the sky. It was still gray and just getting light.
"Who is it?"
"Yes, my son, father."
Qin Hui buttoned his clothes and opened the door. A gust of cold wind rushed in. He shuddered and asked in panic, "What happened?"
Qin Hui said nothing, took out a piece of paper from his bosom and handed it to Qin Hui.
Qin Hui opened it casually. After reading it, his hands trembled. He wiped the sweat from his forehead due to fear with his sleeve, stared at Qin Hui blankly and said, "Son, where did you get this copy of the memorial?"
Qin Hui replied, "The housekeeper picked it up from the street outside."
"Hurry and bring Qin Si here." Qin Hui walked towards the hall while tidying up his clothes.
In an instant, Qin Si came to the hall and waited for Qin Hui to ask questions.
"Qin Si, where did this piece of paper come from?" Qin Hui asked as he spread out the copy of the memorial in his hand.
"Your Excellency, our servants, Qin Shan and Qin Liu, found it on the street when they went to fetch water from the West Lake early this morning."
Qin Hui was surprised and asked, "How can there be such a thing on the street?"
Qin Si knew the situation was serious, so he didn't dare to say anything. He said tremblingly, "I heard from Qin Shan and the others that someone scattered it on the street, and many people picked it up."
Qin Hui was horrified. "Who is it?"
"Qin Shan and the others didn't see it either. They only heard it was spread at night."
Qin Hui knew the situation was serious and said to Qin Hui, "Send more people to the streets to see who spread the poison."
Then he said to Qin Si, "Hurry up and prepare the sedan chair for the court."
As soon as I arrived at the capital, I saw that Wang Shu's sedan chair had already arrived.
Wang Shu smiled at Qin Hui and said, "Oh, Lord Qin, why are you here so early today?"
The more Qin Hui watched, the more he felt that Wang Shu was gloating, so he replied, "Why is it so early, Lord Wang?"
Wang Shu's words were tinged with sarcasm. "I have a memorial to present to the emperor today, so I arrived a little early."
At this time, Zhao Gou had already arrived at the main hall. As soon as Zhao Gou sat down, the two prime ministers, Wang Shu and Qin Hui, bowed to him.
Wang Shu presented a memorial, saying, "My subordinate, Hu Quan, the editor of the Privy Council, submitted a memorial to me yesterday. I did not dare to delay, so I have hastened to present it this morning for your perusal."
Zhao Gou opened the memorial and his expression gradually became serious and shocked. After reading it, he remained silent for a long time.
Qin Hui presented the paper in his hand and said, "Your Majesty, I also found a copy of the memorial, which was deliberately printed by someone."
Zhao Gou asked, "Where did it come from?"
Qin Hui bowed and said, "My servant picked it up on the street."
Zhao Gou asked Wang Shu, "Why is this?"
Wang Shu hurried forward and said, "Your Majesty, I only received Hu Quan's memorial. I know nothing else. If you don't believe me, I am willing to confront Hu Quan face to face."
"How dare you accuse me of being worse than a three-year-old child. How disrespectful!" Zhao Gou slammed the table and said angrily.
Qin Hui, seeing the emperor's words, retreated to advance, feigning grievance and saying, "Your Majesty, I presided over the peace talks and provoked trouble. I have done wrong, but Hu Quan actually blamed you and should be severely punished."
Wang Shu hurried forward and said, "Your Majesty, although Hu Quan's words are harsh, his loyalty is commendable. Please make a wise decision."
Qin Hui immediately said, "Sir Wang, Hu Quan dares to criticize even the emperor. Where is his loyalty?"
Wang Shu angrily said, "Your Excellency risked your life in the Eastern Capital to fight for the survival of the Zhao family. Your sincerity is clear to see. But now you are proposing peace and wanting the Zhao family to submit to the Jin. Where is your loyalty?"
Hearing this, Qin Hui's face turned red and white, and he said no more. He thought to himself: You don't know what kind of situation I went through in the Jin camp.
In the winter of the seventh year of the Xuanhe reign, as light snow fell in Bianjing, Qin Hui presented the "Ten Strategies on Border Affairs," a document he had spent three days and nights writing, to Emperor Zhao Ji.
"Your Majesty, the Jin people have wicked ambitions. Is ceding territory and paying indemnities a long-term solution?" Qin Hui's voice echoed in the empty hall. "If we don't reorganize our army and prepare for war, our Song Dynasty will be in danger!"
His colleagues kept their heads down and said nothing. Since the Jin troops marched south, the peace faction had gradually gained the upper hand, and Qin Hui's remarks were already an anomaly.
"Yes," sighed the old censor Wang Xiang, "You know the emperor has been in poor health recently and can't stand hearing these talks about fighting and killing."
Qin Hui sneered: "Have you forgotten the shame of the Sixteen Prefectures of Youyun?"
At this moment, the eunuchs from the palace rushed in in a panic, their faces pale: "The Jin soldiers have crossed the Yellow River!"
The snow fell even harder in Bianjing City.
Qin Hui stood on the city wall, gazing at the dark, dense banners of the Jin army in the distance, his sword gripping him with a slight tremor. It wasn't fear, but rather a strange excitement. The sage books he'd read and the statecraft he'd learned over the past thirty-five years were finally being put to good use.
But he didn't expect that this stop would become the last proud posture of his first half of life.
Qin Hui would always remember that morning when heavy snow fell from the sky, and the snowflakes and the dark iron hooves of the Jin army all poured into the city of Bianjing.
When the city fell, the streets were in chaos, with civilians crying and fleeing in all directions. The Jin cavalry, brandishing scimitars, attacked anyone they saw. An old man selling pancakes was slashed in the chest before he could even pack up his stall. The steaming pancakes tumbled into a pool of blood, quickly crushed by the horses' hooves. The screams of women, the cries of children, and the wails of the elderly instantly filled the entire Imperial Street.
Qin Hui was escorting several colleagues back to the imperial palace when a stray arrow struck his left shoulder, soaking his blue official uniform with blood.
The palace was already in turmoil. Huizong Zhao Ji had already abdicated the throne to his son Qinzong Zhao Heng, but now the two of them were weeping and hugging each other like ordinary father and son.
"Your Majesty, the most urgent task is to organize the imperial guards to break out!" Qin Hui knelt on the steps and spoke despite his shoulder injury.
Zhao Heng raised his tearful eyes and looked blankly at the minister covered in blood.
At that moment, the palace gates burst open, and the Jin soldiers poured in like a tide. Qin Hui instinctively reached for his sword, but was knocked to the ground by a club. His last memory was a pair of muddy boots stamping on his face, and the shrill voice of Emperor Zhao Ji: "General, spare my life! I... I surrender..."
When Qin Hui woke up again, he found himself tied to a horse and marching north with a group of more than 10,000 prisoners. Among them were the emperor's mother, concubines, and his beautiful daughters. The two emperors Huizong and Qinzong were dressed in plain clothes, with ropes around their necks, and were led away by the Jin soldiers like livestock.
Qin Hui's wrists were bleeding from being rubbed by the rough hemp rope, and the cold wind was scratching his face like a knife.
"Look, this is the emperor of the Southern Dynasty!" The people of the Jin Dynasty gathered on the roadside laughed, and someone threw rotten vegetable leaves, hitting Qinzong in the face.
At night, the captives were locked in makeshift wooden cages. Through the cracks in the cages, Qin Hui saw the Jin soldiers roasting meat and drinking wine by a bonfire, while Zhao Ji was kneeling before a Jin general, holding a glass of wine in both hands, with a flattering smile on his face.
"Is that the Emperor of our Song Dynasty?" Zheng Wangzhi, the Minister of Rites beside him, said in a trembling voice.
Qin Hui didn't answer. Gazing at the bonfire, he suddenly remembered the oath he had taken before the Confucius Temple when he passed the imperial examination. He vowed to "establish a mind for heaven and earth, and a life for the people." The flames reflected in his eyes like a drop of congealed blood.
Three months later, they arrived at Shangjing, the capital of the Jin Dynasty.
It was extremely cold that day, and two of Qin Hui's toes had been frozen off.
The Jin people held a grand "Sheep-Leading Ceremony" to celebrate the harvest from this southward march.
The Song emperor and his ministers were ordered to remove their shirts, cover themselves with freshly flayed sheepskins, and kneel before the tent of Jin Taizong. Huizong Zhao Ji walked in front, his aged back covered in whip marks, crawling on all fours like a true old goat. Qinzong Zhao Heng followed behind.
Qin Hui was standing in the middle of the team. When the cold sheepskin touched his back, he suddenly shivered violently, not because of the cold, but because at that moment, he felt something die inside him.
After the ceremony, the captives were imprisoned in the dungeon. Qin Hui and Emperor Huizong Zhao Ji were placed in the same cell. The Daojun Emperor, who once painted and chanted to the moon, now huddled in a corner like a dying old dog.
"Your Majesty..." Qin Hui called softly.
Zhao Ji slowly raised his head, and a trace of clarity flashed in his turbid eyes: "It's Qin Qing..." He suddenly grabbed Qin Hui's hand, "Do you know what I dreamed yesterday? I dreamed that I was admiring flowers in Genyue, and Li Shishi was singing lyrics beside me... But when I woke up, I found myself in feces and urine..." As he spoke, he actually sobbed.
Qin Hui remained silent. He remembered that he had once written a letter to advise against the construction of Genyue, but was scolded by Huizong as "uncultured."
"Qin Qing," Huizong suddenly lowered his voice, "Tell me... can we still go back?"
Qin Hui looked at the emperor's expectant gaze and suddenly felt sick. This was the man who had drained the national treasury to build gardens, promoted Cai Jing and Tong Guan, and hastily abdicated when the Jin army approached... and now he was asking him if he could return?
"I will go back," Qin Hui heard himself say. But a voice in his heart sneered: I can't go back, I can never go back.
That night, Qin Hui developed a high fever. In a trance, he saw himself standing on the city wall of Bianjing, with the people cheering below. He waved, but found that his arm had turned to bones.
The Jin army used whips dipped in salt water to whip Qin Hui again and again. Qin Hui was hung on the rack with iron chains, and his back was already torn and exposed. The moment the salt water seeped into his flesh, bone-eroding pain spread throughout his body.
Wanyan Zonghan waved his hand to signal his men to pause. "Sir Qin, I've heard that you were the top scholar in the Song Dynasty, proficient in calligraphy and poetry. If you write this letter of surrender, I will reward you with gold, silver, jewelry, and a high position. How about that?"
Qin Hui spat out a mouthful of blood at Wanyan Zonghan with a "Pah" sound, "Although I am not a military commander, I have the integrity of a scholar. Don't make me betray the Song Dynasty."
Wanyan Zonghan suddenly jumped up and grabbed Qin Hui's hair: "You would rather die than surrender! I want to see how long your scholarly bones can hold up!" He turned to the jailer and shouted, "Throw him into the water dungeon! Don't let him die!"
The cold iron chains were untied, and two Jin soldiers dragged him through the dark corridor. The cells along the way were all filled with captured Song people. Someone recognized him and called out weakly: "Master Qin...Master Qin..."
The dungeon was pitch black, waist-deep in foul water, emitting a putrid stench. As Qin Hui was pushed into the water, his wounds felt like they were being gnawed by a million ants. He groped for a slightly elevated stone platform and barely managed to poke his head above the water. In the darkness, he heard a familiar groan from the cell next door: it was the voice of Li Ruoshui, the Minister of Rites.
"Brother Li?" Qin Hui called in a low voice.
"Qin...Brother Qin?" Li Ruoshui's voice was so weak that it was almost inaudible. "You were also...caught?"
Qin Hui was about to respond when he heard the jailer's footsteps. A red-hot iron rod thrust through the bars and stabbed Li Ruoshui directly. The stench of scorched flesh, along with a shrill scream, echoed through the cell. Qin Hui bit his wrist tightly to prevent a cry.
After an unknown amount of time, the jailer's grim smile gradually faded away. Qin Hui called out tremblingly, "Brother Li? Brother Li?"
The only answer he got was the silence in the room.
In the days that followed, Qin Hui endured different tortures every day. Sometimes it was whipping, sometimes it was branding, and the most terrifying was the thin steel needles, as thin as ox hair, that would be inserted into the cracks of his fingernails and rotated. But no matter how much torture he was subjected to, he could not agree to write the letter of surrender.
In the dead of night, Qin Hui carved the words "I will never surrender" into the damp wall with his fingernail. As he carved the last stroke of "surrender," his nail cracked, and blood flowed down his fingertip. Gazing at the bloodstain, he vaguely recalled the bamboo slips of the Analects clutched by Imperial student Zhou Yan before his death on the day Bianjing fell.
"A scholar must be broad-minded and resolute..." Qin Hui muttered to himself, resting his forehead against the cold stone wall.
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