20demayo 011 Despite a crushing defeat, they dared to report a "victory"; their "intelligence
011 Despite a crushing defeat, they dared to report a "victory"; their "intelligence
Zhen Xiaosi discovered that every piece of good news had three routes to Chang'an, but Zhang Shougui's lies could buy passage permits on every single route. It turned out that the empire's most sophisticated system wasn't its intelligence network, but rather its ability to make everyone tacitly pretend that the network still existed.
Rather than a lie, it was when the snow fell on the walls of Youzhou in the twenty-eighth year of the Kaiyuan era that Zhang Shougui finally understood one thing:
Some lies aren't about seeking credit, but rather like bandages to stop the bleeding. It's just that these bandages have been wrapped for so long that everyone has forgotten what the wound originally looked like.
The military council was convened at midnight. The oil lamp cast five faces onto the map, where the Huangshui River resembled a festering scar.
Wu Zhiyi hadn't removed his armor yet, and an arrow wound on his shoulder was only hastily wrapped in hemp cloth, the seeping blood staining the sheepskin of the Khitan territory even deeper. "We can't report any more victories." His voice was hoarse like a broken bellows. "Nieli's cavalry is only thirty miles north of the Huangshui River. Among the Xi people we killed—was his newlywed wife's uncle."
Military judge Cui Qi didn't look up, his fingers flying across the counting rods: "Last year, Youzhou received 400,000 bolts of silk and 250,000 shi of grain. This was approved according to the quota of '50,000 standing troops in case of war in the border towns.' If the actual number of casualties is reported due to defeats," he raised his eyelids, "the Ministry of Revenue will only give half at most this year."
Silence filled the military tent like ice water.
Zhang Shougui stared at the vermilion seal on the map representing his military governorship. Eighteen years ago, when he first arrived in Youzhou, three sections of the city wall had collapsed, and the warehouses held fewer than a thousand bows capable of firing. It was he who repeatedly wrote memorials pleading for funds, for artisans, and for the court not to treat this place as a wasteland for "settling disgraced officials." Later, he won several battles, and the emperor's rewards grew increasingly generous, attracting more and more attention from the court—so much so that now, with every breath he took, someone in Chang'an was calculating its value in silk.
"How much of the compensation for fallen soldiers is still owed?" he began, his voice unusually calm.
Cui Qi turned to a page of the ledger: "From last winter to now, a total of 3,700 people have died in battle. According to regulations, each person was entitled to 20 bolts of silk, totaling 74,000 bolts. Currently, the warehouse... has less than 20,000 bolts."
The oil lamp crackled and popped. Zhang Shougui saw Wu Zhiyi's hand trembling as he gripped the knife—not from his wound, but from rage. Among the fallen soldiers were his personal guards of ten years and a seventeen-year-old peasant boy on his first expedition beyond the Great Wall. Most of their bodies could not be brought back, and now even their families would be denied the compensation they deserved because of this absurd river-crossing raid.
The gears of moral shirking began to turn. Zhang Shougui told himself: This isn't about seeking credit, it's about having no other choice. If he reported the defeat truthfully, the Ministry of Revenue would cut military spending, the Ministry of War would investigate the commander, and the Censorate would impeach him for "recklessly provoking border conflicts." And then what? Then the walls of Youzhou would collapse again, the weapons would rust, and the granaries would be empty. When Nie Li truly launched a major southward offensive, this formidable pass guarding Hebei would be torn apart like paper.
“The results of the battle can be…adjusted.” He heard his own voice coming from afar. “The number of dead should be reduced to eight hundred, and the number of beheadings should be increased to one thousand five hundred. This way, the deficit in compensation can be covered, and the military merits can be distributed to the surviving brothers.”
Wu Zhiyi suddenly stood up, his wound reopening, blood dripping onto the mark on the map representing the Khitan's military headquarters. "Jiedushi! Those who are dead—"
“Those who died,” Zhang Shougui interrupted him, his gaze like iron, “their parents, wives, and children still need to live. Do you want them to receive full compensation, or do you want them to starve to death along with Youzhou?”
The sound of a night patrol soldier coughing came from outside the tent, hoarse and drawn-out, like the endless night on this frontier.
Seven days later, when Zhang Shougui stamped the "good news" with his seal, he recalled that spring of the twenty-second year of the Kaiyuan era.
At that time, he had just beheaded Ketugan and was escorting the captured Khitan nobles to Chang'an to present them as prisoners. The emperor personally held a banquet at the Hua'e Tower, bestowed upon him imperial robes and a gold belt, and even held his hand while saying to the officials, "I have Shou Gui, just as Emperor Taizong had Li Ji." After the banquet, Gao Lishi secretly told him, "The emperor was looking at the map of Youzhou in the inner palace and said to the imperial concubine, 'With Minister Zhang here, I can sleep soundly.'"
The glory of that moment was real. The weight on my shoulders at that moment was also real.
When did things begin to change? Perhaps it was when he discovered that the peace of the frontier no longer depended on the outcome of battles, but on the mood within Chang'an. The Emperor's interest in the Western Regions surpassed that of Liaodong, Li Linfu was busy eliminating potential political enemies, and the Vice Minister of Revenue was replaced by a young man who had never left Chang'an—this man, when approving rations and pay, asked: "Haven't the Khitans already submitted? Why does Youzhou still need to support so many soldiers?"
Systemic helplessness can gradually force people into complicity.
His last attempt to speak the truth was last winter. He submitted a detailed report on the Khitan-Xi alliance through marriage, the decline of border markets, and the aging and in need of replacement of military equipment. The report went unanswered, and three months later he received a reprimand: "Border generals should prioritize pacifying the borders and not bother Your Majesty with trivial matters." Along with the reprimand came an official document that cut military pay by 20% that year.
It was snowing heavily that day. He stood on the city wall, watching the messenger horses leaving hoofprints in the snow, and suddenly laughed. His laughter startled the crows on the battlements. He finally understood the rules of the game: Chang'an didn't want the truth about the frontier, but a clean and beautiful story that could be written in the history books.
Since the truth has nowhere to go, let's make it an embellishment to the story—sneak in some real needs in the fabricated victory report: "Three hundred fine horses captured from the Khitan (actually a request for additional warhorses)", "Five enemy granaries burned (actually a shortage of military rations)", "Our fallen soldiers fought bravely against the enemy (actually a request for compensation)".
Behind every lie lies a real, bloody cry for help.
When news of Niu Xiantong's execution reached Youzhou, Zhang Shougui was watching the new recruits train at the drill ground. The boys' faces were red from the cold as they practiced the "Breaking the Khitan Sword Formation" that he had personally revised ten years earlier.
After the guard finished reporting in a low voice, he added, "There's a rumor in Chang'an that the next one will be..."
Zhang Shougui waved his hand, signaling him to step back.
He stood in the cold wind for a long time, until dusk stained the drill ground blood-red. Then he turned and walked back to the governor's mansion, pausing for a moment as he passed the "writing room." The door was open, and three old scholars were still busy inside—one was correcting a chronological error in the previous "victory report," one was polishing a new "request for merit," and one was verifying the correspondence between the falsely reported number of beheadings and the actual weapons captured.
When they saw him, they rose respectfully to bow.
Zhang Shougui nodded, saying nothing. He knew that when the sun rose tomorrow, new lies would be fabricated, loaded onto post horses, and sent to Chang'an. And this time, he wouldn't even need to find reasons to convince himself.
Because the reasons had grown into his bones, into the very body that bore the title "Governor of Youzhou"—to defend this city, one must first defend the lies. To feed the soldiers, one must first provide stories for Chang'an. To ensure the dead are not forgotten, one must first weave their deaths into triumphant songs.
This isn't about seeking credit; it's about arithmetic.
It is a story of a general in dire straits, a story told with his conscience and the devil, a story that can never be settled.
Late at night, he picked up his pen to write a letter to his son, who was serving in Longyou. He paused for a long time at the end, ink stains spreading across the paper. Finally, he crossed out the line "A general should be loyal and trustworthy," and replaced it with:
"Protecting the borders and ensuring the safety of the people is the top priority. All other matters can be dealt with expediently."
Expediency. He chewed on those two words like he was chewing on a bitter fruit.
The city of Youzhou outside the window slept in the night. He had watched the city walls being built brick by brick, and the market had prospered because he had reduced commercial taxes. The people sleeping there were protected by his lies.
As the oil lamp was about to burn out, he whispered to himself:
"If I am guilty, the guilt lies solely with me."
But he knew that even he himself no longer believed these words. Sin had already seeped into this room, into every document sent to Chang'an, into this era that required generals to play both hero and liar.
All he could do was write the words "I deserve to die ten thousand times" with even more force at the end of the next victory report.
Nine days after Niu Xiantong's blood seeped into the soil of the West Market, Zhen Xiaosi found the answer to the question that had kept her up all night in front of the dusty "Records of Post Stations" shelf at the Honglu Temple.
The records show that in the winter of the twenty-seventh year of the Kaiyuan era, there were three channels for reporting official documents from Youzhou to Chang'an—
The first route was the official one: the military governor's office would formally dispatch an envoy via a 600-li express courier, passing through the Youzhou-Taiyuan-Tongguan post road, directly to the Secretariat. She had seen this memorial about the "Great Victory at Huangshui" before; it was ornately written, stamped with Zhang Shougui's purple ribbon and silver seal, and had even been specially mounted on yellow silk when the Ministry of War filed it.
The second route was clandestine: a secret report from the military supervisor. However, Cheng Yuanzhen, the military supervisor of Youzhou at the time, wrote only twelve characters in his private report on the same day: "The army has achieved some victories; details await the report from the military governor." — A copy of this secret report was in her hands at the moment, having been "unintentionally" brought out from the Privy Council.
The third route is a hidden one: the report of the Censorate's border patrol commissioner. However, that censor was transferred to Jiannan three months ago, and his successor has not yet arrived.
Zhen Xiaosi's fingertips traced across the three records, feeling icy cold.
The system crashed. It wasn't a single link that malfunctioned, but rather the entire multi-layered intelligence mechanism, which had been operating under checks and balances, went out simultaneously in the winter of the twenty-eighth year of the Kaiyuan era. She recalled the words of her father—the old man who had once served as the Chief Administrator of the Anxi Protectorate—saying: "During the reign of Emperor Taizong, three reports on the same battle would arrive in the capital simultaneously, written in different styles, like three mirrors reflecting each other. Now..." The old man didn't finish his sentence, but slammed his teacup heavily on the table.
At this moment, she finally understood the unspoken words: the current report was a funhouse mirror. And the person holding the mirror had already learned which way to point it.
Ten days later, while organizing the list of envoys from the Bohai Kingdom, she discovered a name that should not have appeared: Bai Zhen Tuo Luo.
The deputy general who "was the first to cross the Huangshui River" under Zhang Shougui's orders, the hero who should have been "fighting bravely despite being wounded multiple times" in the victory report, was now disguised as a "Khitan language translator" and entered Chang'an in the Bohai delegation.
A chill ran down Zhen Xiaosi's spine.
She pretended to check documents and found him in the second-class room of the Sifangguan. Bai Zhentuo was wiping a Khitan-style short knife. When he saw that the visitor was a young female official, a hint of relaxation flashed in his eyes—that relaxation instantly turned into vigilance when he saw the silver fish tally of the Honglu Temple at her waist.
"General, how have you been?" She gently placed a copy of the "Great Victory at Huangshui" on the table. "It says that you killed three Khitan chieftains in battle."
Bai Zhen Tuo Luo's Adam's apple bobbed. The sound of a foreign merchant hawking Persian carpets drifted in from outside the window; the intonation and rhythm of his foreign language sounded just like the howls of a battlefield.
"Does Registrar Zhen want to hear the truth?" His voice was as hoarse as the wind in the Gobi Desert. "When we crossed the Huangshui River, we killed the old and weak of the Xi tribe—because Xi tents were easy to find and their heads were easy to cut off. When the Khitan cavalry charged out of the mountain pass, General Wu Zhiyi was taking stock of the 'victories.' Later... later they fled, and less than 30% of them managed to escape back."
Why not report the truth?
He laughed, a laugh tinged with a kind of mockery on the verge of collapse: "Report? Does Clerk Zhen know that every report sent from Youzhou has to go through the 'writing office' before leaving the military governor's office? Among Zhang's staff, there are three old officials who are Jinshi graduates. Their job is to write 'defeat' as 'retreat' and 'loss of 30% of troops' as 'comparable casualties'."
He leaned closer, his scabbard gently pressing against the scroll of victory report: "And this polished text will be copied simultaneously to the military supervisor, the courier, and even the imperial censor passing through Youzhou. Everyone will receive the same copy—who are you going to send to report the 'strange news'?"
Zhen Xiaosi felt a wave of dizziness. This wasn't a system malfunction; it was a system hijacking. Zhang Shougui's lies were able to penetrate all audits because he provided a narrative that made all parties involved "safe": the military supervisor wouldn't have to bear the blame for negligence, the censor wouldn't have to confront the arrogance of the border general, the Ministry of War could continue writing the "Kaiyuan Military Achievements Record," and the Emperor... the Emperor could continue to receive the cheers of all nations coming to pay homage from the Hua'e Xianghui Tower.
The night she left Sifangguan, she took a detour to an abandoned house in the northern corner of Pingkangfang. There lived a blind old postman who had once run the Youzhou route during the early years of the Kaiyuan era.
As she explained her purpose, the old man's empty eye sockets turned toward the remaining snow on the eaves: "Young lady, you're asking about the review of war reports? Yes, there has always been. The Ministry of War has the Department of Military Affairs, the Secretariat has the Department of Memorials, and even when we couriers deliver them, the postmaster has to sign the seal on the clay—only if the seal is intact is it considered complete and proper."
"Then why..."
“Because the system is dead, but people are alive.” The old man fumbled for a piece of pottery by the stove, with crooked symbols engraved on it. “In the fifteenth year of the Kaiyuan era, I smuggled a private letter for someone for the first time—it was a letter from the Prefect of Youzhou to his wife’s family in Chang’an, which I slipped into the inner compartment of the box for auspicious omens to the Emperor. At that time, my hands were shaking so badly that I felt like the sky was about to fall.”
His withered fingers traced the engravings on the pottery shard, his records of the number of "special shipments." "By the twenty-fifth year of the Kaiyuan era, I could carry three contradictory secret memorials on the road at the same time without batting an eye: one to the prime minister, one to the general, and one to a certain 'eunuch' in the palace. I knew they weren't talking about the same thing, but my duty was simply to ensure they reached their intended recipients at the same time and intact."
"Then what is the truth?" Zhen Xiaosi heard her own voice trembling.
"The truth?" The old man tilted his head, as if he had heard a ridiculous question. "Young lady, from Fanyang to Chang'an, it's 1,600 li, with 23 post stations. At each post station, there are horses to feed, people to collect tips, and damaged documents to be rewritten—tell me, which li, which handover, was specifically reserved for 'the truth'?"
He concluded, "Niu Xiantong deserves to die, but not because he lied. It's because he forgot that the system can only function if everyone leaves themselves an escape route. He made Zhang Shougui's lie so blatant that it forced others who wanted to pretend to be asleep to open their eyes."
It was midnight when Zhen Xiaosi returned to the Honglu Temple.
She pushed open the door to the cardinal's office and saw a newly arrived document on her desk—an imperial edict from Li Linfu outlining the time limits for reporting matters to the emperor. Unfolding it, the vermilion annotations were clearly visible: "The border situation is urgent. Victory reports should be submitted first, followed by verification, to avoid delaying military operations."
She stared at the line of text for a long time, until the ink blurred in the candlelight, like a huge, indelible drop of blood.
There was no system crash at all.
What exists is merely a gradually evolving conspiracy structure: border generals need military merit, court officials need peace, eunuchs need bribery channels, and emperors need narratives of a prosperous era. The so-called "intelligence vetting mechanism" has long since transformed from a filter into a makeup artist—its role is no longer to distinguish truth from falsehood, but to provide all participants with a presentable facade.
When Niu Xiantong's heart was ripped out, those silent onlookers may have already planted their fears in their hearts: would the next one to be pushed to the execution ground be the system itself that forces everyone to face the truth?
She blew out the candle and sat in the darkness for a long time.
In the distance, the drums of curfew sounded, one after another, like the slow, heavy heartbeat of the empire. Meanwhile, in the more distant Youzhou, new "good news" had likely already been born from the pens of the scribes in the office. It would travel safely along the post road nourished by countless lies, reaching Chang'an and everywhere that needed it.
Zhen Xiaosi finally understood that the fear she felt on the execution ground that day did not stem from the bloodshed.
Rather, it was because she saw the abyss, and even more so, she saw the hands—including her own becoming—silently and skillfully pasting railings around the abyss.