April 2 Liberation Day! Unconquered unleashed!

Also posted on China Writers Blog

Anyone who reads my posts would know what I think about Trump. While it's only my opinion, it is a judgment based on Trump's words, actions and known facts about him. I haven't commented on him very much because nothing shows me he has learned anything or will make any changes. Another thing I like to do is to make predictions based on common sense. For example, shortly after Trump started the first trade war against China in 2018, I wrote a piece on Quora predicting the outcome of it. I recently re-read it and found no cause to change a word in the article. I often joke about Trump being as predictable as gravity. I must thank him for following my script so faithfully.

Some among our writers' group have been concerned about CK Hutchison's sale of its ports to Blackrock. Frankly, I never even paid any attention to the news. I have no insider information, but common sense tells me it won't happen. I finally posted my two cents worth saying, "If China didn't get bullied by America in the Korean and Vietnam Wars, why would they accept the bullying today?" It's common sense the sale won't go through. Sure enough, a day later, Reuters reported the sale would not happen on schedule, meaning the closing is postponed sine die (without a date). Quod Erat Demonstrandum.

I have also predicted Trump would wreak havoc in America if elected (please check out my blogs at https://chinawritersfaculty.boards.net/board/5/peter-man). Hopefully, he will do everything he promises come April 2, Liberation Day, starting a global trade war against everyone. He may, very well, get everything he wishes for, except it will be Liberation Day for the rest of the world. I once posted this truism, "An empire falls when everyone rebels." Verily, Trump is accelerating the inevitable. 

The problem with Trump and his toadies is they know nothing about their main perceived antagonist; otherwise, they would not have tried to attack a nation with an unconquered civilization of so many thousands of years. Without a shadow of a doubt, they have not read Unconquered, which recounts the entire history of China, including many untold secrets, and which I dedicate to the mixed-race members of my family, grandson Charlie Man Dunn, nephews Darcy and Sage Ramadge, and Sage's children Noa, Yossi and Micah, in case they may one day want to learn the meaning of being Chinese.

Unconquered (Sci-fi) paperback is available at your neighbourhood bookstore in most English-speaking countries through IngramSpark distribution. If they have no stock, you may ask them to order on your behalf from IngramSpark, quoting the title (Unconquered), author (Peter Man) and ISBN: 978-1-9994019-7-9. North American readers may directly order online from Barnes and Noble or Bookshop.org.

It will also be available on Amazon and Kindle later. Stay tuned.

Anyone interested in reading and critiquing the book may send me a message at:  [email protected]

Jeff and Godfree (of China Writers Group) have reviewed an early version, the ugly pupa of the final metamorphosized creature. You may read their and others' reviews at my book site: https://www.petermanauthor.com/

To give an idea of what one may find in the book, I share below a chapter titled "Girl Power," in which the protagonists, small-town girl Victoria and Toronto art dealer David, enter the metaverse to experience the early Tang Dynasty inside its capital city, Chang'an, "long peace," during the lifetime of Empress Wu Zetian, the only female emperor of China. Prepared to be gobsmacked.

Chapter 39

​Girl Power
​

DAVID snapped his fingers, and the two VR gamers found themselves in the middle of a monumental square within the forbidding walls of a grand palace. Several royal handmaids and eunuchs were ushering a dozen young girls to their living quarters. Victoria took on the role of a handmaid, whereas David passed off as a eunuch. Most of the girls were downcast and appeared to have been crying. While everyone shuffled along with their heads down and eyes to the ground, one girl stuck her head up and studied her surroundings. She seemed to be the only one curious enough to check out the prison where she would languish for the remainder of her often short, miserable life.

“Where are we?” Victoria whispered.

“We’re inside the imperial palace in Chang’an, Tang’s first capital,” David the Eunuch replied. “These girls are recently selected concubines of Emperor Tang Taizong, the second and greatest of Tang’s emperors. Most of these young concubines will count themselves lucky to meet their husband, who has more wives and concubines than he can shake a stick at. Well known to be a workaholic, Taizong is forty-one years old; these girls are but twelve to fourteen. Most of them will receive a life sentence of abject loneliness, deprived of a man’s love.”

“It must be terrifying. No wonder the girls have been crying.”

“Actually, in the seventh century, most girls were married off by fourteen. Don’t forget Juliet was not yet fourteen when she decided to elope with Romeo. These precocious girls might have shed a few tears when they bid farewell to their parents. But their only job from now on is to attract Taizong’s attention and hope to carry his child. Did you notice the girl who was poking her nose around? She is the concubine who would be king.”

“It sounds awesome, but doesn’t seem remotely possible.”

“Except you’re witnessing history. As the wind blows, twelve years flew by in the blink of an eye. Emperor Taizong died, leaving the concubine childless. It was bad news for the young woman, as she would have to spend the rest of her uneventful, meaningless life in the royal convent as a nun. If it had been so, no one would have heard of her. Instead, Taizong’s successor, Emperor Gaozong, espied his enchanting stepmother at the Buddhist temple. Before one had time to say ‘Queen Gertrude,’ the mourning widow became Gaozong’s favourite concubine.”

“This is so inappropriate,” Victoria said with a raised eyebrow.

“To the Confucian Chinese, perhaps, but perfectly apropos to the nomadic Xianbei. Indeed, most people in the concubine’s situation would’ve given up. Instead, she turned a funeral into a wedding and bagged herself a younger husband mesmerized by her charms. Eventually, despite universal objections, Gaozong sent his wife away and made his stepmother-concubine the official queen consort. After Gaozong’s death, the queen established a new dynasty, which she named Zhou, known in history as Second Zhou, and reigned as the Empire’s supreme ruler. We know her as Empress Wu Zetian, the only female emperor in Chinese history.”

How extraordinary was Empress Wu? While other women in China had wielded supreme power, she achieved the unthinkable by establishing her own dynasty. She proved unequivocally a girl can accomplish anything if she sets her mind to it. Her improbable rise was no accident. She established Zhou (690−705 CE), named after the ancient Zhou Dynasty. Her titular name had the word Tian, or “heaven,” Zhou’s supreme god. Zhou Ping Wang, the king who moved the Zhou capital east to Luoyang in Henan Province, sired a son with palm lines forming the word Wu, which means “martial,” hence naming him Wu. Empress Wu descended from this prince. She certainly knew about Zhou’s matriarchal ancestry. The name of the royal house, Ji (姬), displayed a female radical.

After migrating to Henan, where no land was available for development, the royal Wu clan of Zhou lost its mojo. To survive, they mingled with the Shang clans and learned to trade, making strategic matrimonial alliances. Empress Wu’s father was a Shang merchant whose family had relocated to the Tang area, or Shanxi Province, where the Shang clans thrived and later formed the powerful Shanxi Merchants Cartel. Centuries later, a prominent descendant of Confucius, Kung Hsiang-hsi, better known as H. H. Kung, would emerge from Shanxi. He married Soong Ai-ling, the eldest of the three Soong sisters, the most influential women in China during the twentieth century. A Shang descendant of Confucius was, therefore, the brother-in-law of Dr. Sun Yat-sen and Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek. The Soong family and H. H. Kung later built the financial power of the Shang clans in America. But that, my friend, is another story.

Empress Wu’s extraordinary life journey began when Gaozu, her first husband’s father and founder of the Tang Dynasty, sojourned at her home before starting the rebellion. Her father gave Gaozu a secret book of power. It was a story seldom told.

“Let’s check out the streets of Empress Wu’s capital,” David said. “Prepare to feast your eyes on the greatest city in the world and the gateway to the Silk Road.” And he snapped his fingers.

Victoria was gobsmacked by what struck her eyes in seventh-century Chang’an, a planned city shaped in a square with all streets running north-south and east-west, accommodating about one million residents, seven times the size of Constantinople, the centre of Western civilization. A scaled-down version of Chang’an survives in modern-day Kyoto, Japan. Horses, carriages and pedestrians thronged the fifteen-metre-wide boulevards lined with trees on both sides. Platoons of soldiers patrolled the intersections to maintain order and prevent crime. Some officers on horseback had exotic facial features. According to David, Turkic people lived under the rule of the Empire, and many joined the Tang army. During the chaotic period after the fall of Tang, military men of Turkic origin established three short-lived dynasties. Turkic people were Chinese emperors long before they were Ottoman sultans. During Gaozong’s reign, Narsieh, the commander of the Imperial Guards, was an exiled prince of the Persian Sasanian Dynasty.

During Tang, colourful clothing was the norm. Women slipped into revealing dresses with a deep vee in front, showing off their chemise and décolletage. A few arrayed themselves in male attire and rode astride on horses. Young women roamed the streets without chaperones. Matriarchs strolled in the parks attended by their servants. Most adult women wore fancy hairdos and had a red floral design painted on their foreheads as a part of their makeup.

The Tang capital teemed with people of different nationalities and religions, from Persian traders with their purebred horses entering from the West Gate to Bactrian camel caravans lugging gold, frankincense and myrrh to the bazaar, and multi-ethnic polo teams riding to a match. A Buddhist monk with three disciples arrived at the capital. They resembled the group trekking to India in search of Buddhist scriptures in the classic Journey to the West. The monk Xuanzang in the story is historical, whereas some say the Monkey King Wukong could be the Hindu monkey god Hanuman with Chinese characteristics. Scholars from Japan and Korea came in droves, many becoming officials of the Tang court.

Inside a park, players demonstrated fancy footwork with a cuju, the original soccer ball, while rambunctious kids raced across the playground with handheld windmills known as whirligigs. Teenage boys flew fancy kites while girls chased butterflies with silk nets. Kibitzers surrounded Backgammon, Go and Chess games; others gathered around cricket fights. Nearby, a handful of ne’er-do-wells gambled with tiles and dice. Next to them, a drunkard slept with his finch canary in a cage hanging from a branch above him.

As David and Victoria entered the bazaar in the western quarters, the cacophony of sights and sounds overwhelmed their senses. Booths and stalls lined the streets, hawking everything from handcrafted candy to exotic spices. An old lady peddled perfume pouches, baby shoes and handkerchiefs on the sidewalk. An artist sold paper fans with calligraphy. A puppeteer trod a fine line performing a silhouette show which parodied a corrupt official. A blind street musician played the two-string fiddle erhu while a young girl strummed the Asian lute pipa with her flying fingers in a playful duel. Street food stalls sold lamb kebabs and naan bread, infusing the air with the aromas of cumin and hot peppers. Other vendors offered noodles, snacks and tea while wandering sages dispensed medical and fortune-telling services. A row of inns doubling as pubs hugged the brothels frequented by fancy-dressed foreigners seeking comfort from exotic foreign dancers. Victoria found herself awed and speechless inside a kaleidoscope in motion.

“This is pretty amazing, eh!” David remarked. “While Western Europe groped for direction in the Dark Ages, China’s Age of Enlightenment is in full bloom during the seventh century. Under the rule of Empress Wu, Chinese women enjoyed unprecedented status. Foot binding went out of style. Girls received an education and contributed to law and literature. Women controlled household finances and wielded real power.”

David showed Victoria the incredible history of girl power in China to deliver a message—despite her small-town upbringing, Victoria had the potential to be a world conqueror. As exhibit number one, Tang girls led armies into battle. At age seventeen, Princess Pingyang, Gaozu’s daughter, independently raised and led an army of seventy thousand, helping her father conquer all of China. As exhibit number two, Tang girls served as court officials. Shangguan Wan’er, Empress Wu’s famous female chief minister, rose from being a child slave to becoming the highest official at Empress Wu’s court and later a favourite wife of the next emperor. She also won wide acclaim as a celebrated poet. Her life story is an epic second only to that of Empress Wu.

Contrary to the conservative social norms in later centuries, China’s liberal environment for women during the Tang era defied belief. For example, no taboo prevented intelligent and well-educated Tang women from working as professional courtesans, entertaining cultured guests and aristocrats by their grace and wit, besides the usual shenanigans. They made a ton of money, owned property and were independently wealthy. Society did not shame girls for having premarital relationships. Women divorced and remarried without stigma. In her old age, Empress Wu openly kept a stable of young studs for pleasure. No one batted so much as an eyelid. The early Tang and Second Zhou were the best times in the history of China for women.

Empress Wu was not merely a pretty face. She single-handedly shattered the glass ceiling. While she was a brilliant ruler, people close to the Empress, including her dearest kin, constantly challenged her authority. On the other hand, most of her capable ministers and officials served her loyally. Under Empress Wu, the Empire was, by and large, peaceful and prosperous. She died of old age at eighty-two as one of the longest-lived emperors of China. Abiding by her wishes, her tombstone was left blank with no pompous elegiac inscriptions, allowing future generations to make their own judgments. Empress Wu’s son succeeded her on the throne and promptly reverted the dynastic name to Tang.

Comments:

Amarynth (Administrator of China Writers Blog and Global South Website):

Hi Peter and thanks!

I developed a working slogan for this time:

"The strategy of empire going forward will be one of denial of world development through chaos creation. While the approach has shifted, imperialist aspirations endure. The fragile veil of a pretense of peace lies irrevocably torn asunder, its remnants eclipsed by the unrelenting tide of violence that now reigns.  The strategy is beginning to unravel both internally in the US and in international affairs, as the world is saying a resounding NO".

I would have loved to read your book Peter, but my time is so very limited and I'm such a bore as I only get to read serious stuff. I know your book is serious but I will not do it justice now.  

Response:

Hi Amarynth,

Feel free to read the book any time. The story is more about the long-lived and unconquered Chinese civilization than the ever-changing noise coming out of America. It can be enjoyed years from today, albeit only by the few who have the time and are willing to invest what little they have to read books about strange and esoteric ideas never previously explored.

As only one example amongst many, the first archaeologically established dynasty of China is Shang, and its culture exists today in the unbroken and unconquered legacy of the Chinese written language. But what happened to the descendants of Shang? Where are they, and why is their written language referred to as Han characters? For some reason, no one has ever asked these questions. Astonishingly, my research shows the Shang have always lived among us in plain sight, though we do not know it. As one famous example among numerous instances, Confucius is a descendant of the royal house of Shang. History has a clear record of it, though everyone ignores it. While the connection has become tenuous over millennia, for fun's sake, the book reveals Huawei's secret background at the end. 

Another mystery is the unicorn known as Qilin in Chinese myth. My research indicates it is the evolutionary product of a mythical creature of Shang called Zhi (廌), which is present in the Shang word for "law" or "method" (法), originally (灋). Even the Shang word for dragon (龙) shows a creature with one horn. While most of us are familiar with the Lion Dance, few realize the lion has a single horn and should be more accurately called a unicorn. Huawei's chipset is named Kirin, the anglicized Japanese form of Qilin. All are Shang cultural influences in plain sight, though we would not know about it. Needless to say, I had an in-depth discussion with DeepSeek, forcing it to admit my theory is not frivolous.

The last chapter, composed during Trump's first reign, predicted a dystopian future empire ruled by Trump, renamed Trombone. The name Trump comes from trumpet, and Trombone is a big trumpet. Unfortunately, this prediction has come true. On the other hand, Trombone is the world's first certified Paradoxymoron, the combination of paradox and oxymoron. He will inadvertently break the power of the Polygon and bring peace to the world. Let's hope so.