The Emperor's Tomb (Cotton Malone 6)

“Because the premier and I have spoken at length about you.”

TEN

SHAANXI PROVINCE, CHINA

TANG TOLD THE DIRECTOR TO REMAIN WITHIN THE PIT 3 building and stand guard at ground level, ensuring that he was not disturbed. Not that he would expect to be. He was the second most powerful man in China—though, irritatingly, others had begun elevating Ni Yong to that same plateau.

He’d been against Ni’s appointment, but the premier had nixed all objections, saying Ni Yong was a man of character, a person who could temper power with reason, and from all reports, that was precisely what Ni had done.

But Ni was a Confucian.

Of that there was no doubt.

Tang was a Legalist.

Those two labels had defined Chinese politics for nearly 3,000 years. Every emperor had been labeled one or the other. Mao had claimed to eliminate the dichotomy, insisting that the People’s Revolution was not about labels, yet nothing really changed. The Party, like emperors before it, preached Confucian humanity while wielding the unrelenting power of a Legalist.

Labels.

They were problematic.

But they could also prove useful.

He hoped the next few minutes might help decide which end of that spectrum would factor into his coming battle with Ni Yong.

He stepped through the makeshift portal.

The dank room beyond had been dug from the earth and sealed centuries ago with clay and stone. Artificial lights had been brought in to illuminate the roughly five-meter-square chamber. The silence, decrepitude, and layers of soot made him feel like an interloper trespassing in a grave of things long dead.

“It is remarkable,” the man inside said to him.

Tang required a proper assessment and this wiry and short-jawed academician could be trusted to provide just that.

Three stone tables dusted with thick layers of dirt supported what looked like brittle, brown leaves stacked on top of one another.

He knew what they were.

A treasure trove of silk sheets, each bearing barely discernible characters and drawings.

In other piles lay strips of bamboo, bound together, columns of letters lining each one. Paper had not existed when these thoughts had been memorialized—and China never used papyrus, only silk and wood, which proved fortuitous since both lasted for centuries.

“Is it Qin Shi’s lost library?” Tang asked.

The other man nodded. “I would say so. There are hundreds of manuscripts. They deal with everything. Philosophy, politics, medicine, astronomy, engineering, military strategy, mathematics, cartography, music, even archery and horsemanship. This could well be the greatest concentration of firsthand knowledge ever found on the First Emperor’s time.”

He knew what that claim meant. In 1975 more than a thousand Qin dynasty bamboo strips had been discovered. Historians had proclaimed those the greatest find, but later examinations had cast doubt on their authenticity. Eventually, it was determined that most of them came from a time after Qin Shi, when later dynasties refashioned reality. This cache, though, had lain for centuries within a kilometer of the First Emperor’s tomb, part of his grand mausoleum, guarded by his eternal army.

“The amazing thing is I can read them,” his expert said.

Tang knew the importance of that ability. The fall of a ruling dynasty was always regarded as a withdrawal of Heaven’s mandate. To avoid any curse, each new dynasty became critical of the one before. So complete was the subsequent purge that the system of writing would even be altered, making any later deciphering of what came before that much more difficult. Only in the past few decades had scholars, like the expert with him tonight, learned to read those lost scripts.

“Are they here?” Tang asked.

“Let me show you what I found.”

The expert lifted one of the fragile silks.

Wisps of dust swirled in the air like angry ghosts.

Qin Shi himself had assured that none of the writings from his time would survive his reign when he ordered all manuscripts, except those dealing with medicine, agriculture, or divination be burned. The idea was to “make the people ignorant,” and prevent the “use of the past to discredit the present.” Only the emperor would be trusted to have a library, and knowledge would be an imperial monopoly. Scholars who challenged that decree were executed. Particularly, any- and everything written by Confucius was subject to immediate destruction, since those teachings directly contradicted the First Emperor’s philosophy.

“Listen to this,” his expert said. “Long ago Confucius died and the subtle words were lost. His seventy disciples perished and the great truth was perverted. Therefore the Annals split into five versions, the Odes into four, and the Changes was transmitted in variant traditions. Diplomats and persuaders argued over what was true and false, and the words of the master became a jumbled chaos. This disturbed the emperor so he burned the writings in order to make idiots of the common people. He retained, though, the master’s original thoughts, stored in the palace and they accompanied him in death.”

That meant all six of the great Confucian manuscripts should be here.

The Book of Changes, a manual on divination. The Book of History, concerned with the speeches and deeds of the legendary sage-kings of antiquity. The Book of Poetry, containing more than three hundred verses laced with hidden meanings. The Spring and Autumn Annals, a complete history of Confucius’ home state. The Book of Ritual, which explained the proper behavior of everyone from peasant to ruler. And finally, the Book of Music, its content unknown, as no copy existed.

Tang knew that the Hans, who had succeeded the First Emperor with a 425-year dynasty of their own, tried to repair the damage Qin Shi inflected by reassembling many of the Confucian texts. But no one knew if those later editions accurately reflected the originals. Finding a complete set of texts, untouched, could be monumental.

“How many manuscripts are actually here?” Tang quietly asked.

“I’ve counted over two hundred separate texts.” The expert paused. “But none is by Confucius.”

His fears were growing.

Confucius was the Roman label given by 17th-century Jesuits to a sage whom disciples knew in the 5th century BCE as Kong Fu-Zi. His ideas had survived in the form of sayings, and his central belief seemed to be that man should seek to live in a good way, always behaving with humanity and courtesy, working diligently, honoring family and government. He emphasized “the way of the former kings,” encouraging the present to draw strength and wisdom from the past. He championed a highly ordered society, but the means of accomplishing that order was not by force, rather through compassion and respect.

Qin Shi was no Confucian.

Instead, the First Emperor embraced Legalism.

That counter-philosophy believed naked force and raw terror were the only legitimate bases for power. Absolute monarchy, centralized bureaucracy, state domination over society, law as a penal tool, surveillance, informers, dissident persecution, and political coercion were its fundamental tools.

Both philosophies desired a unified state, a powerful sovereign, and a population in absolute submission, but while Legalists knocked heads, Confucians taught respect—the willing obedience of the people. When the Legalist First Empire fell in the 3rd century BCE, Confucianism became its replacement, and remained so, in one form or another, until the 20th century, when the communists brought a return of Legalism.

Confucian thought, though, was once again popular. The people identified with its peaceful tenets, especially after sixty years of harsh oppression. Even more disturbing was the rise of democracy, a philosophy more troubling than Confucianism.

“There is some good news,” the expert said. “I found some further confirmation on the other matter.”

He followed the man to another of the stone tables.

?

?These bamboo scrolls are like annual reports of the First Empire.”

Tang knew that the ancient Chinese maintained detailed records of almost everything, especially natural phenomena. Within his specialty, geology, they classified rocks into ore, nonmetals, and clays. They noted hardness, color, and luster, as well as shape. They even isolated which substances were formed deep within the earth and determined how they could be found reliably.

“There are accounts here of drilling exploration,” the expert said. “Quite specific.”

He’d already spotted other silks. Maps. “Is our site noted?”

The man nodded. “The general area is shown. But without geographic reference points it’s impossible to know for sure.”

Though the ancients developed the compass and cartography, they lacked latitude and longitude, one of the few revolutionary concepts the Chinese did not first develop.

“Remove and preserve the maps, and anything else that directly relates to our search.”

His expert nodded.

“The rest are unimportant. Now, to the other problem. Show me.”

The man reached into his coat pocket and handed him a silver object, shiny in the light.

A watch.

Industrial looking, with a face and digits that glowed in the dark. A winding screw protruded from one side, and the word SHANGHAI indicated its place of manufacture.

“This is decades old,” he said.

“It was found inside when they broke through. This, even more than the manuscripts, is what the museum’s archaeologists became excited about.”

He now understood the gravity of the director’s containment problem. “Somebody has been in here before?”

The expert nodded. “Clearly. There were no watches in Qin Shi’s day. Turn it over.”

Engraved on the back were a series of Chinese characters. He stepped closer to the light and read the script.

SERVE THE PEOPLE.

1968

He’d seen a watch with the same inscription before. They were given to select Party members on the occasion of Mao Zedong’s seventy-fifth birthday. Nothing pretentious or expensive, just a simple remembrance of a grand occasion.