Images 16–30

Heaven-one gives birth to water. His bearing is endowed with sagely valour. He follows Heaven and answers men, without a now, without an antiquity.

Surrendering their lands: the one surnamed Qian and the one surnamed Li. The rest in turn come to court the Son of Heaven. Heaven hands unification to the true man, who does not kill the people, and keeps their lines whole.

Shengtan says: this image concerns Song Taizu receiving the abdication, with the capital at Bian, and the empire greatly settled. The two houses of Qian and Li led one another in submitting. This is one period of order.

The sound resounds. Shield and spear are laid down. The frontier miasma is swept. The realm and its towns are settled.

The Son of Heaven leads the campaign himself and has just crossed the river. Cheering for a hundred li rises into song. In the planning, luckily, there is the Wholly-Complete Woman. And the extraordinary merit reported lies in making peace.

Shengtan says: this image concerns Zhenzong's campaign at Chanyuan. ○ In the first year of Jingde the Khitan invaded in force. Kou Zhun urged the emperor to lead the campaign in person — 'the Wholly-Complete Woman' refers to Zhun — and so he went to Chanyuan.

Once he had crossed the river, near and far they caught sight of the imperial canopy and all leapt up crying 'Ten thousand years!' — the sound heard for dozens of li. The Khitan lost heart, and terms were then agreed.

The mother of all under heaven. Gold blade, crouching hare. In the year of thrice-eight, order and peace are made firm.

Flood and drought come again and again, and are not the disaster. With her strength she upholds the boy sovereign and steadies the bounds of the earth. In the court a hairpin's light is seen once more. Within the realm an age of peace opens out.

Shengtan says: this image concerns Renzong succeeding to the throne, with the Empress Dowager Liu governing from behind the screen. Beside her there is a dog — surely that is Di Qing?

The multitude heaped upon each other, all entering his chamber. A million valiant troops, and one stone above their heads.

In the morning a marvellous stratagem is adopted; by evening the army is lost. The people of the northwest are scattered to the winds. Though the bright years were fine, the spring light grows old. He regrets not having stayed deep within, seated on the palace steps.

Shengtan says: this image concerns Shenzong wrongly employing Anshi, who brought in a crowd of corrupt men and so opened quarrels on the frontier; troops were committed in the northwest and a million men were lost. ○ Early in the Xining reign Wang Shao submitted his Three

Strategies for Pacifying the Rong. Anshi was struck by them, took them for a marvellous stratagem, and pressed them strongly on Shenzong — which brought on this disaster.

The court is without light. Sun and moon are blind. None can match the Capital. And in the end, wandering bewildered.

Father and son of one mind and one road. Sun and moon at heaven's centre are things held in their hands. Strange clouds roll over the head of the northern sea. And in the phoenix towers and dragon court, grief is born.

Shengtan says: this image concerns the death of Sima Guang; Cai Jing and his son manipulating power; petty men rising in factions; the worthy proscribed. There is here the image of sun and moon darkened and blind.

Empty, the interior of his palace. The snow lies three feet deep. Alas — the primal □. The shaft points south, the wheel-ruts run north.

The baleful vapour not yet quelled, there is no peace. From the north the beacon-smoke sweeps; they look toward the imperial capital. A house of another surname sets up its court and ends the state's standing. The divined generations, thrice six — and again a march to the south.

Heaven's ⿰易彡 stands in the sky. When obstruction reaches its limit, peace appears. Phoenix, phoenix; waters wide and wide. Wood-Gou is the great reliance.

The royal aura of the sacred capital fills the southeast. Disaster's waters, vast, take up whip and shield. One wood meeting a branch, in the second and eighth month. At the moment of setting out, the horse's colour is half at peace.

Shengtan says: this image is the Prince of Kang crossing to the south and fixing his capital at Lin'an, with Qin Hui monopolising power, so that a settlement of half the realm came about. ○ Wood-Gou: the Prince of Kang's given name is Gou. One-wood-meeting-branch, in the second and eighth

months, points to Qin Hui. Wood plus meeting makes Hui. Half of spring and half of autumn together make the character Qin.

Seeming the Way, and not the Way. Qian sinks; Kun is borne out. Auspicious light within the realm. One river, and a broken oar.

The Hu lads make great display of the majesty of chastisement. Two pillars holding up heaven have not the strength. How is it that on nights when war-fire fills the sky he is still hanging lanterns and staging water-games?

Shengtan says: this image concerns Jia Sidao holding power, while men of the stamp of Wang Lixin and Wen Tianxiang could not hold up the Song house by their own strength alone. With Xiangyang and Fancheng hard pressed by siege, on the shore of West Lake Si-

dao was still hanging lanterns and feasting through the night. That the Song house perished was only fitting.

Mountain cliff, edge of the sea. Not an emperor, and yet an immortal. Twice nine, four eights, for ten thousand years.

Ten, one, divination, man — the small month ends. No strength to turn back heaven; the road is wholly spent. Weapons rise on four sides; there seems to be no way out. Pointing out into the vast breakers and the towering waves.

Shengtan says: this image concerns Emperor Bing removing to Yashan. ○ The Yuan ordered Zhang Hongfan to attack; the Song general Zhang Shijie's troops were routed; Lu Xiufu took the emperor on his back and went into the sea, and with that the Song house

perished.

A northern emperor, a southern subject. One Origin sets itself up. The waters of the Onon. The swallow's nest patched, and the slaughter.

Three legs of the cauldron contending for mastery — the affair was strange from the first. One wolf and two rats were decided in a moment. Though the northern pass's lock and key were firm, sons and grandsons, five and five, as was fitting.

Shengtan says: this image concerns the Yuan Taizu proclaiming himself emperor at the Onon River. Taizu's name was Temüjin. The Yuan had ten sovereigns in all. An axe is iron; its handle is wood; and an axe-handle in ten sections is precisely

the hidden sense of 'ten sovereigns'.

The hour has no night. The year has no rice. The flower does not flower. Bandits rise on four sides.

The Central Plain boils like a cauldron; wood-wood comes. Alarms from the four quarters rise at the frontier. In the bedchamber there is an art of long life. No wonder the capital's gates stood open all night.

Shengtan says: this image concerns Shundi being deluded by the western monks' bedchamber arts of circulating the breath, and drowning himself in pleasures — so that Liu Futong, Xu Shouhui, Fang Guozhen, Ming Yuzhen, Zhang

Shicheng, Chen Youliang and the rest watched like wolves and spread like owls, seizing their moment to rise; and the eunuch Buqa blocked the reports from reaching him, until Xu Da and Chang Yuchun marched straight into the capital, and the city

gates stood open at night with no guard at all. A whole dynasty of Yuan was lost in the end into the hands of a lecherous monk — is that not pitiful! ○ Liu Futong set up Han Lin'er as emperor, and so the text says 'wood-wood'.

Only the sun and the moon. The utmost of the people below. Rising in answer to the turning, its colour is called red.

Branch upon branch, leaf upon leaf, a golden light appears, dazzling and clear, shining to the four quarters. On the eastern bank of the river a brightness rises: talking of emptiness and reciting gathas, there is a true king.

Shengtan says: this image concerns Ming Taizu ascending the throne. Taizu had once been a monk at the Huangjue temple. Through the Hongwu reign the realm was harmonious, and its order reached great peace.

Grass for a head, fire for feet. The palace halls fly up as ash. In the house there is a bird. Beyond the walls there is a nun.

When the feathers are full, the day of high flight. Vying in beauty, there is the plum blossom. The true dragon roams the four seas. Beyond the world is my home.

Shengtan says: this image concerns the Prince of Yan raising troops; Li Jinglong welcoming the Yan army into the capital; great fire in the palace; and Jianwen shaving his head and fleeing.

The branch puts forth its glory. It becomes the ridgepole of the state. Broad and bright, glad and content: peace and joy profit the multitude.

One branch toward the north, one branch east. There is a southern branch as well, of the same planting. Within the realm all sing the worthy mother's virtue. Here truly is the surviving air of the Three Dynasties.

Shengtan says: this image concerns the time of Xuanzong, when the Empress Dowager Zhang employed Yang Shiqi, Yang Pu and Yang Rong — three men who were able to bring the realm to order and quiet, aspiring to the air of the Three Dynasties. This is one period of order.

○ People of the time called Shiqi the Western Yang, Pu the Southern Yang, and Rong the Eastern Yang.

Half a jade tablet, half a grove. Joined, they breed upheaval. The stone too has a spirit: glorious in life, base in death.

Lacking one it cannot be whole; 'also' takes the lead. The six dragons drive in person to the barbarian border. Heaven's heart is seen again, and men's hearts comply. Mutual conquest, mutual generation — the horse does not advance.

Shengtan says: this image concerns the death of Empress Dowager Zhang, power passing to Wang Zhen, and so the trouble of Esen; and afterwards the Retired Emperor's restoration, when Shi Heng, boasting the chief merit, ended by being executed for his arrogance.

This is one period of disorder.