Free The Three Kingdoms Volume 1 by Luo Guanzhong Page B

supplies of food and clothing gradually diminishing. The former ruler wept incessantly. One day he chanced to see a pair of swallows flying about in the courtyard, which moved him to verse.
Green in the mist grows the tender grass,
Graceful and gentle do the swallows dance.
Clear is the water in the rippling stream
Which travelers praise when they softly pass.
With lingering gaze the roofs I see,
Of the palace that once sheltered me.
May someone with a noble mind
Help me vent the grievance in my heart.
    The spy, sent by Dong Zhuo occasionally to the place for news of the prisoners, got hold of this poem and showed it to his master.
    “So he shows his resentment by writing poems, eh! A good excuse to put them all out of the way,” he said.
    Li Ru went with ten armed men to commit the foul deed. The three were in one of the upper rooms when they arrived. The deposed Emperor shuddered with fright when the maid announced the visitor’s name.
    Presently Li Ru entered and offered a cup of poisoned wine to the Emperor. The Emperor asked him what it meant.
    Li Ru said, “Spring is the season of harmony and the prime minister Dong sends you the wine of longevity.”
    “If so, you drink it first,” said the Empress Dowager.
    “You will not drink?” cried Li Ru furiously. He called his men to place the dagger and the roll of white cloth before her.
    “Take these if not the cup,” he bellowed.
    Then Lady Tang, the Emperor’s wife, knelt down and pleaded, “Let me drink the wine for my lord. Please spare the mother and son.”
    “Who do you think you are that can die for a prince?” he shouted.
    Then he presented the cup to the mother once more and pressed her to drink. She railed against her brother, the unresourceful He Jin, for bringing in the wicked Dong Zhuo and causing all this trouble.
    Li Ru approached the Emperor and pressed hard.
    “Let me bid farewell to my mother,” he entreated, and weeping heart-brokenly, he sang the following lines:
Oh, Heaven and Earth change places, the sun and the moon leave their courses,
I, deprived of my empire, am driven to the farthest confines.
Oppressed by a vicious minister, my life nears its end,
Everything fails me and in vain my tears fall.
    Lady Tang also sang:
Heaven is to be rent asunder, Earth to fall away,
I, having served an emperor, would grieve if I followed him not.
We are fated to part for the quick and the dead do not cross in their ways,
Alas, I am left alone with grief in my heart.
    When they had sung these lines they fell weeping into each other’s arms.
    “The prime minister is expecting my report,” shouted Li Ru, “and you delay too long. Do you think there is any hope of succor?”
    The Empress Dowager burst into another fit. “The vicious Dong Zhuo forces us, mother and son, to die. Heaven will not permit it! And all of you who help him to do this evil will surely suffer extermination of your whole clans!”
    Li Ru became more angry. He laid his brutal hands on her and pushed her down the stairs. Then he ordered the soldiers to strangle Lady Tang and poured the wine of death down the throat of the poor young Emperor. Then he reported the bloody deed to his master, who ordered him to bury the victims outside the city.
    After this Dong Zhuo’s behavior was more atrocious than ever. He spent nights in the palace, defiled the maids there, and even slept on the imperial couch. Once he led his soldiers out of the city, and came to a place called Yangcheng where the villagers, men and women, were assembled for an annual festival in the second month of the lunar year. Dong Zhuo ordered his soldiers to surround the place and begin killing and plundering. All the men were killed and all the women taken prisoners. They took away booty by the cart load, and they hung their victims’ heads under the carts. The procession returned to the city and fabricated a story that they had obtained a major victory over some rebels. They burned the heads beneath the city walls