Liang Ziwong smiled and said, “If Your Lordship has a task for us to carry out, you need only say it and we will gladly do it. Unfortunately this old man's (referring to himself) kung fu is very shabby and weak. I fear that if I was to be entrusted with such a task by your Lordship I would fail and not be able to show my worthless face again, ha…ha!.” Peng Lianhu also added a few self depreciating remarks in the same vein. These men have always been the center of attention and power in their own regions. Their speech and manner showed that they did not consider themselves inferior to Wanyan Honglie.
Wanyan Honglie again toasted each guest in turn with a cup of wine “This humble prince is deeply moved by your presence here tonight. I will now speak of a great matter. This matter cannot be mentioned to any other person outside of this room. If word got out, it would cause great trouble for my Jin nation. This humble prince has great confidence in your ability to keep this secret.”
These words, although humbly spoken, implied great importance and caused everyone present to take note that this must be a very serious matter that required the utmost secrecy. Everyone therefore replied, “Your Lordship need not fear, no words spoken here tonight will be heard outside this room!” The five invited guests knew that the reason for their invitation must be a matter of great importance; something that would require no small measures to carry out. Having spared no expense at sending them presents of gold, silver and other valuables, Wanyan Honglie still had not made any mention of the task he would ask of them. Now that he was about to reveal this deeply held secret, there was not a person present who didn't feel extremely interested and excited.
Wanyan Honglie continued: “ During the reign of the Great Jin Emperor Taizong, in the third year of the Tianhui era [the seventh year of the Song Emperor Huizong’s Xuanhe era], our Jin soldiers, led by the generals Youzhanmeihe and Wolibu, captured the two Song Emperors, Huizong and Eagle Shooting Hero
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Qinzong. From ancient times there has never been such a great victory.” All the guests cheered his speech.
Huang Rong thought to herself angrily, “How shameless! Everyone, aside from that Tibetan Monk, is Chinese. The Jin Prince is boasting about how his country invaded our country and held our two emperors captive and you actually cheer him on!”
She heard Wanyan Honglie speak again, “At that time, our Great Jin soldiers were vigorous and their numbers vast, but now, after almost a hundred years, the Zhao officials serve our emperor from Huangzhou. Esteemed guests, can you guess why they serve from there?”
Liang Ziwong said “Please enlighten us Honored Prince.”
Wanyan Honglie sighed “The year Yue Fei defeated us and had us in his grasp, there was no one who did not know it, but who would dare say it out loud? Our Jin Generals knew how to lead soldiers, but when they encountered Yue Fei they were always defeated. Even after Qin Gui ordered Yue Fei's execution, our soldiers were still demoralized by their earlier defeats so that they lacked the willpower to act further against the Southern Song. Although this humble prince has the ambition to act, he lacks the abilities to succeed. If my guests, with their god-like skills, were to help with this enterprise, then there is no way that we cannot succeed and earn great merit.”
The guests looked at each other without fully understanding exactly what he meant. Each thought:
“Charging enemies and fighting valiantly, taking cities and seizing territory… these are not my strengths. Could it be that he wants us to assassinate some Southern Song generals?
Wanyan Honglie’s face showed self importance [de yi]. His voice trembled slightly, “A couple of months ago, this humble prince was looking through some old files in the palace when I stumbled across a letter left behind by the former emperor. It was actually a few lines written by Yue Fei, the phrasing of which was most peculiar. I puzzled over this for a few months until at long last I figured out its hidden meaning. It turns out that when Yue Fei was languishing in prison he realized that he had no hope of leaving with his life. His loyalty towards his country was so great that he wrote down his entire life's learning regarding battle tactics and other secret military arts in this letter in the hope that it could be passed on to other loyal countrymen who could use them in defending China against the Jin invaders. Luckily Qin Gui was very clever and feared that Yue Fei would try to communicate with people outside of the prison, so he was very careful to prepare against such an event. Every guard assigned to watch over Yue Fei was personally selected by Qin Gui and was known to be completely trustworthy and loyal to him (Qin Gui). If the soldiers formerly under Yue Fei were to get word from Yue Fei and rise up in rebellion against the court, who could stop them?
At that time, the only reason that there was not such a rebellion was entirely due to Yue Fei not being willing to rebel against his emperor. Had he changed his mind and decided to do so he would have certainly succeeded. What Qin Gui did not know though was that Yue Fei didn't have any desire to save his own life, only to save the ‘rivers and mountains’ [jiang shan…literally the country] of the Song Empire. Fortunately this letter never left the palace even after his execution.”
Everyone was listening intently to this story, so intently that they forgot to drink their wine. Huang Rong, hanging outside the window, was also listening mesmerized.
Wanyan Honglie continued: “Yue Fei had no alternative but to secrete his military manual in his clothing. Then he wrote four poems entitled ‘Buddhist Barbarian’ [Pu Sa Man], ‘Shameful Slave’
[chou nu er], ‘Congratulating the Imperial Court Sage’ [He Sheng Zhao], and ‘Level Heaven 248
Eagle Shooting Hero
Music’ [Qi Tian Yue]. Each piece of writing appeared to be nonsense. The style did not follow the proper rules and the tonal sequences were all wrong. The sentences were jumbled to the point of incoherence. Qin Gui, who was said to have wisdom and talent the size of the oceans, was not able to figure out what hidden meanings lay in these pieces, so he dispatched some men with these letters to the Jin. Many years later these four pieces of nonsense writing found their way into the secret files of the Jin palace. No one was able to comprehend the meaning of these letters. Everyone thought that Yue Fei, who was near execution at the time he wrote these letters, was venting to his anger and frustrations by writing such disjointed and senseless verse. Nobody guessed that the apparent nonsense verse was in fact a riddle hiding a very great secret!”
“This humble prince though continued to work on these letters until I finally discovered their secret.
It turned out, that if you took every third word in a piece and put them together, and then reversed the order, a hidden message was revealed. In these four letters Yue Fei instructed his successors in the arts of military strategy and to continuously attack along the Yellow River and wipe out our Jin armies. In spite of his diligent work for his emperor, it turned out to be in vain. Ha…ha!” The guests gasped in surprise, then, one after another, began praising Wanyan Honglie's intelligence for cracking such a difficult code.
Wanyan Honglie said “Yue Fei's military abilities were unparalleled; when he attacked there was no one more formidable or successful. Imagine if we were to have his book of secret military strategies, then the whole empire would be ours for the taking!"
Wanyan Honglie went on “This humble prince thinks that this great book must be with Yue Fei in his tomb.” At this point he paused. Everyone suddenly realized what was being asked: “Prince Zhao invited us here to do a bit of grave robbing!”
He continued, “Honored Guests, you are all brave heroes and by now you must be wondering how I could be asking you to rob a tomb? Although Yue Fei was the Jin's sworn enemy, his spirit and loyalty is something that is world renowned; we can't possibly disturb his resting place. This humble prince searched through the historical reports by spies of the Southern Song to look for further clues. It turned out that the day Yue Fei died he was buried beside the Zhongan Bridge.
Later, Emperor Xiao Zong moved his body to Lin’an’s West Lake [Xi Hu] to a temple he had built for him. His clothing and other personal belongings were placed somewhere else and this must be where his book is. This other place is also in Lin’an.” As he spoke this last sentence he watched his guests intently. Everyone was waiting for him to reveal the exact location of the book.
However, Wanyan Honglie suddenly changed the topic: “This humble prince had another thought; since someone moved Yue Fei’s belongings, I feared that the book must have been taken by them as well. After some very detailed research I now know that this could not be possible. The people of Song venerate Yue Fei so much that they would not have dared interfere with his belongings. We are certain to find the book at this place. However, in the south there are many martial people of high abilities. If we are to succeed we cannot allow the slightest word of this to get out or else some of them may try to search for the book themselves. That would cause no end of trouble! This task concerns the fate of two nations and it is not something I would lightly undertake unless I had the help of the greatest heroes of the Wulin world.” Everyone nodded their heads.