Everyone was in high spirits under the influence of wine. When Prince Huainan assigned himself a penalty and proposed a performance, they reacted with excitement. No one thought they were running the risk of getting into Emperor Jingren’s bad graces; they all looked on with relish.

But when Prince Huainan produced his homemade darts, a loyal censor cried out, “A weapon! To His Majesty!”, and with a great commotion, a crowd of officials encircled Emperor Jingren. Before Prince Huainan could dare to say that he planned to throw the darts at fruit, he found himself held down.

Prince Huainan was astonished.

The imperial bodyguards who had grabbed him were all experienced. They frisked him and found many darts, which pitter-pattered to the ground.

“Bringing weapons into the palace! Prince Huainan’s intentions are all too clear.” A censor fell to his knees with a thud and said in a loud voice, “His thoughts are no different from Xiang Zhuang’s as he planned to kill Liu Bang, Duke of Pei, at the Hongmen Banquet. Your Majesty must punish him severely!”

At first Prince Huainan had been curious about why he had been captured, but when he heard the censor say this, his patience ran out. He shouted at once, “Imperial Brother, I didn’t mean anything by it. I’m only good at throwing darts, so I wanted to give a performance of throwing them at fruit. I didn’t even think of putting the fruit on people’s heads. I was just going to put the fruit in cups and draw designs in the fruit with the darts. I made these darts myself. They’re very dull. They couldn’t hurt anyone, anyway, Imperial Brother!”

Lord Qin, chamberlain of the Court of Judicial Review, came forward. He picked up one of the darts and drew it over his hand, immediately opening a cut. The skilled judge Lord Qin knelt at once and said, “Your Majesty, I have overseen many murder cases. Sometimes even the finest embroidery needle is a fatal weapon. I just tried this dart on myself—a dart this sharp requires only the slightest exertion of internal force from the user to take a life. Caution is of absolute necessity!”

“But I don’t know any martial arts…” said Prince Huainan.

One of the imperial bodyguards put a hand to Prince Huainan’s wrist and gently felt his pulse. Very soon, he knelt and said, “Your Majesty, Prince Huainan has studied martial arts since he was young. His first teacher was also my teacher, so our skills belong to the same lineage. His internal force is even greater than my own.”

Prince Huainan was thwarted.

When he had made his choice, he had chosen looks over abilities! Prince Huainan’s body contained internal force, but he didn’t know how to use it!

Prince Huainan had been caught in front of everyone along with his weapons. The evidence was conclusive. His villainy was enough to make everyone bristle with rage: on an occasion as celebratory as this one, he had actually attempted a public assassination on His Majesty. He had no regard whatsoever for the affection due a sovereign or an older brother. A disloyal, unfilial person like this had to be taken at once to the Court of the Imperial Clan’s prison to await trial by the three judicial departments.

Prince Huainan was stunned.

What could he say? He was reduced to gazing pitifully at Emperor Jingren, but in his heart he hadn’t a shred of hope. These officials spoke too savagely; he couldn’t even get out the words to plead for mercy. He really had only wanted to perform with his darts!

Since Prince Huainan had produced his darts, Emperor Jingren had kept still and upright in his seat. However fervently the ministers counseled him from the depths of their loyalty to withdraw and hide in the rear hall, he remained unmoved. He watched Prince Huainan, and silently observed the display put on by the officials.

When all the officials knelt before him and one after another begged him to bring Prince Huainan to justice, Emperor Jingren at last spoke. “Jing Xixian.”

Commander Jing appeared out of nowhere and presented a small slip of paper to each of the kneeling ministers, then stepped back to stand in a corner.

The ministers unfolded their notes, and at once their faces turned white.

On such a date, the second son of Lord Qin, chamberlain of the Court of Judicial Review, had gone traveling in Huainan. Passing through a small county, he had made an unsuccessful attempt to extort a bribe from the county magistrate, and he had been strung up and beaten by Prince Huainan.

On such a date, Prince Huainan was traveling incognito as ordered when he encountered the pupil of a certain grand secretary attempting to debauch an honest woman. Seeing this injustice, Prince Huainan had drawn his weapon to aid her, then strung the man up and beaten him.

On such a date, the young kinsman of a certain censor had used illegal means to seize the fertile farmland of a neighboring village. When Prince Huainan, traveling for pleasure in his fiefdom, had discovered him, he had strung him up and beaten him.

On such a date… so Prince Huainan had strung him up and beaten him.

On such a date…

When Emperor Jingren had first begun to suspect that the assassination attempt had been connected to Prince Huainan, he had ordered the Embroidered Guard to perform an investigation, the result of which had been the foregoing. It seemed that in the couple of years since taking control of his fiefdom, Prince Huainan had spent hardly any time at his residence. Instead, he had been all over the place, stringing people up and beating them. When he happened upon an injustice, he would take care of it himself. Citing as his motive that they had given offense to the vassal prince, he had strung up and beaten many corrupt officials, as well as their sons and nephews. In just two years at his post, Prince Huainan had offended practically every important minister at court.

Prince Huainan had also given shelter to many refugees. At the same time, many wandering fighters had been willing to enter Prince Huainan’s service because they admired his methods. It was true that the size of Prince Huainan’s personal forces exceeded the quota a little, but it was precisely because he had these soldiers that he had been able to clean up Huainan. One couldn’t say that there wasn’t a single greedy official in all of Huainan, but not one of them had the power to oppress the common people.

The court’s officials were inextricably tied to local governments. Huainan had been the granary of Xia since ancient times, and the gifts it offered up yearly by its lands were abundant, so many people had purchased farmland there. Prince Huainan, meanwhile, had cut off all the officials’ revenue streams; a third of the court’s officials bore him a grudge. His ability to attract resentment was quite remarkable.

Upon receiving this information, Emperor Jingren had been perplexed. A prince aiming to usurp the throne wouldn’t act like this. He ought to have been using Huainan’s resources to cozy up to the ministers, so that when the emperor “tragically passed away” without an heir, they would support his bid for the throne.

But he hadn’t done so. He had toiled industriously on behalf of the people of Huainan. Never mind cutting off many people’s avenues of wealth, he had also lowered taxes, and when the new law had been enacted, he had led the way in promoting its adoption, regardless of how many people he offended in the process.

How could Prince Huainan mean to rebel when this was his conduct? Yet the assassination attempt really was connected to him, and further investigation only turned up a deeper link. This left Emperor Jingren quite perplexed.

At last he had decided to summon Prince Huainan to the capital. Emperor Jingren wanted to see with his own eyes whether Prince Huainan was truly disloyal.

Now, at the New Year’s Eve banquet, he was presented with this magnificent scene.

Watching the ministers’ faces turn from red to white, Emperor Jingren said peaceably, “Everybody rise, and release Prince Huainan. Let him throw darts at fruit in peace.”

“Your Majesty…” Still some officials who did not fear death tried to struggle, to beat down this prince who had prevented them from making money and arrange for someone more tractable to be in charge of Huainan.

“Xiang Zhuang performing a sword dance while thinking of murdering the Duke of Pei truly was a Hongmen Banquet—but what if Xiang Zhuang’s sword had been a gift from the Duke of Pei?” Looking at Prince Huainan’s foolish face, Emperor Jingren continued, “When Prince Huainan entered the palace to see the empress dowager today, knowing that he was skilled at throwing darts, we ordered him to give a demonstration at the banquet tonight. We understand how loyal you all are, but this is merely a misunderstanding. Imperial Brother, why don’t you go ahead and show us the skills you are so proud of?”

Of course Prince Huainan knew that Emperor Jingren was lying, but the lie was an excellent one! Any plea Emperor Jingren had made on his behalf would have been rejected by the principled censors. But if Prince Huainan had informed Emperor Jingren of his plans to perform in advance, and even the weapons themselves had been a gift from the emperor? Then it was a matter between brothers, and it didn’t matter what the officials said. Of course, it was obvious that such distinctive darts had been made by Prince Huainan himself, making it impossible for them to have been a gift from Emperor Jingren, but so what? The emperor had said they were his gift, so they were; were the ministers going to accuse the emperor of lying?

So Prince Huainan furtively wiped sweat from his brow and began to perform in front of everyone. He piled up a bunch of fruit, inked a dot onto each one with a brush, and stood at a distance to hit each dot. And in the end, not a single one of the fruit had dropped. He used just the right amount of force, and his technique was very pretty.

When the performance was over, Emperor Jingren was the first to clap. He rewarded Prince Huainan. Of course, he also rewarded the officials who had attempted to stamp Prince Huainan into the dust. Emperor Jingren ordered the eunuchs to present each one with a small gold plaque that read: Loyalty to the Sovereign and Love for the People.

“You are all loyal and good subjects. We are aware of this.” Sitting in his high seat, Emperor Jingren’s gaze swept over the ministers as he spoke. “We award you this plaque not so that you can exchange it for a lesser penalty if you violate the law in the future, and not so that your descendants can use it to assert undue power over others. We award you this gold plaque only in the hope that your loyalty to your sovereign and your love for the people will be as gold: true gold does not fear the test of flame. Each one of you can proudly display this plaque in his house and tell anyone who sees it that his every action lives up to it!”

Those officials who had read a slip of paper and those who had not but had their own little designs all slowly bowed their heads before Emperor Jingren’s brilliant gaze. Guilt, shame, and fear made them settle down and hold their tongues.

No sooner did the question of an “assassination attempt” arise than His Majesty awarded these plaques; clearly he had been prepared in advance. Their number was just right: these weren’t gold plaques—they were swords suspended above their heads. If their conduct in any way besmirched these plaques, the sword would fall!

So all of Prince Huainan’s actions had been incited by His Majesty, perhaps even the attempted assault on the city gate. First, he had deliberately shown weakness, making them think that there was ill will between His Majesty and Prince Huainan, meaning an opportunity they could turn to their advantage. Then, at the New Year’s Eve banquet, the two of them had performed a pantomime of an assassination attempt, making the officials eagerly leap forward, casting themselves into the net.

With the turn of the year, Emperor Jingren would be only twenty-three years old. He was still a child before these old ministers, some of whom had seen the reign of three emperors, such as Grand Secretary Lin and State Chancellor Li; they had immense self-regard and even looked down a little on this untried boy. But today’s show of strength had sounded warning bells in everyone’s minds.

Emperor Jingren wasn’t an emperor to be easily fooled. He could perceive the finest detail and lay meticulous plans. Their own little schemes were entirely exposed before him.

After this, the New Year’s Eve banquet passed peacefully. The ministers whose ambitions had been doused in ice water calmly played their drinking game, which lacked its earlier energy. This made the banquet seem a little bleak, but Emperor Jingren didn’t care.

When the new year came in to replace the old, Jinluan Hall’s big clock was struck. Hearing the peals of the new year, Emperor Jingren raised his cup with a slight smile. “May the nation flourish in the coming year. May the people be happy and all families be reunited.”

The ministers drained their cups as one. After mouthing the appropriate civilities, they slipped out piecemeal to return home.

Only Prince Huainan, who ought to have been taken back to the Court of the Imperial Clan by its director, heard from Emperor Jingren, “It is the New Year, after all, and tomorrow you must pay respects to the empress dowager. Stay in the palace tonight.”