Categories > Movies > Mulan > The Ballad of Li
Chapter 2
Mulan lay awake in her new room still, a small space with a bamboo mat and blankets surrounded by transparent sliding screens. All the students in the school had the same type of sleeping units within the wooden dojo. But she was used to a more private sleeping arrangement now, and was somewhat uneasy with the fact that she could be seen through the screens that surrounded her. She'd been finding it hard to sleep ever since she'd arrived there a week before.
There was no way she could have remained at home. The Emperor would be sending men after her, a traitor who had fled from his service. She had already impersonated a man once, and they knew that. They would be searching for both the woman Mulan and the boy-disguised Mulan.
She was hoping they wouldn't recognize the boy-disguise as quickly, and she had been given the new identity Jiang Hu, the son of the school's teacher, in order to throw off anyone that might come looking for her.
She also didn't want to endanger her family. Luo Di's men would be going to their home first, most likely. Her family would tell them that she was not there; and at least now they would not be lying to the Emperor's men. They could even let them search the house and the grounds.
The calligraphy school was on the outskirts of her town. It had been built close enough to the village proper so that the teachers and students would be able to obtain supplies and food easily and messages could be sent back and forth to the town within a day, while still remaining reclusive enough for the students to concentrate on their art without distractions.
Now the rebels were based in the calligraphy school, posing as students there. They, as well as Mulan, were genuinely practicing this art while they planned their strategy and waited until it was time to take action, some of them just learning it. According to old Master Jiang, who had taught her when she was younger and was still running the school, the art of calligraphy and the art of swordsmanship were closely related. Both arts required discipline and precision and both involved wrist action and a steady hand.
It was still a mystery to her who had organized this so well. Master Jiang was a wise teacher, but he was truly an artist, not a military man. The others remained fairly quiet for safety's sake, refraining from discussing their true leader or any plans until it was deemed safe to do so.
There were young men and women in the school now. When she was growing up, her father had paid Master Jiang and others to tutor her privately. It was unheard of for young women in a small village like hers to be educated. Most didn't have the money, and it was not considered necessary for women to be educated, other than in the domestic arts of cooking, weaving and the like.
Her father, being the Emperor's general, had better means than the people of the village and could afford to pay for her education, even after his retirement. She was also fortunate in a way because he recognized his only child's keen mind, insatiable curiosity and thirst for knowledge. Whereas many fathers would not have paid attention to those qualities; Hua Zhou valued and nurtured her talents.
It was her father that had been continuing to fund the calligraphy school even in these hard times, and he had been aiding the struggling people of the village to help them keep their farms and businesses going. At least in this town, people were not starving to death and farms were still running and producing crops.
Her father showed up to talk to Master Jiang the next morning. He then sought her out and they went into one of the screened-off studies to talk.
"You had to leave us right away for your safety and we were never able to talk when you returned last week, Mulan."
She nodded. Her father looked somewhat sad and she felt the wave of guilt and the need to apologize descend on her. She spoke up quickly.
"I'm sorry, Baba. I know that it was a great honor to even be asked, as a man yet alone a woman, to be a member of the Emperor's council and I know how proud you all were of it. It is dishonorable and cowardly of me to have fled his service. And it's treason. If they find me I will be killed. But I couldn't stay there."
"Times are hard right now," he said simply with a nod. "Things have changed. They aren't as clear cut as they were before. What was the right and honorable thing to do three years ago is not necessarily so now. Our family has always been very lucky, Mulan. Because of my service to Wu Di, we have always lived well. There are many in this village that have been struggling to make a living and put food on their tables. I have been helping them. The situation is much worse in other villages."
"I know. I've seen it."
She changed the subject, hoping her father could answer the question that had been on her mind and that no one there would speak of.
"The set up here is excellent. Do you know who has been organizing this? Who is their leader?"
"I am."
Mulan stared at him in shock. He nodded.
"I am the military man of the village. I can no longer fight, but I can advise them, and help them plan strategy. The country cannot continue in this way; we must have wiser leadership. Sometimes change must come with rebellion. This is why we have had more than one dynasty on the throne."
"Baba, the Emperor sent troops in all directions to put down the rebellions. General Li is leading the troop heading in this direction."
He nodded with a grave expression on his face. "I have been expecting as much. They haven't moved in on this village yet. I'm not sure how much information the Emperor and the troops have about our location at this point."
"The Emperor would have spoken of it to Shang in private if he knew anything. One of the councilmen overheard that the troop coming east is headed toward this village. It is possible that they are headed here, or may possibly be camped somewhere in the area already."
Her father gazed at her with a concerned expression.
"Mulan, what happened? Conditions have been bad for a year now and yet you remained in the Imperial City. Did you come back here because of General Li Shang?"
She looked down at her hands clasped in her lap, feeling her face heating up with embarrassment at the suggestion.
"That was part of it. But it's not what you think."
"He was married two years ago."
"I know, Baba," she said quietly. "My reasons for wanting to find him have nothing to do with that."
"I'm sorry for your disappointment, Daughter."
She shook her head vehemently. "It's alright, Baba. I only fought in the war with him and he came once to return the helmet and have dinner. There was nothing more between us and to expect more would have been foolish on my part. Besides, we don't choose who we marry. Those things are to be properly arranged through the matchmaker."
He laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. "It was still obvious how you felt about him."
She felt a tinge of sadness as he said those words, but she suppressed the feeling with an effort.
"It was one-sided, Baba."
"I am not so sure about that."
"It doesn't matter. It's in the past now."
It was in the past. Talking about what might have been did her no good now, and at this point she enjoyed her freedom. She had always dreaded being trapped in the confines of a marriage, particularly an arranged one. As for Shang, there really wasn't anything between them and it really had been one-sided, on her part. Just because she would choose him didn't mean he would choose her. And then a few months after she had come to the Imperial City she heard that he had gotten married, to a traditional, dutiful wife who had passed the matchmaker's test.
She had seen Shang a couple of times in the Imperial City. She was there in the background the day he was made a general, remaining unseen and watching with pride as he took the new sword and helmet from Luo Di's hands.
She never let him see her though. She avoided him altogether, which wasn't difficult. The members of the council were in their meeting chamber or their own chambers most of the time and very rarely mixed with the military officers. The day Shang received his new commission was the only day she allowed herself to go anywhere near a gathering of officers.
She had no idea if Shang even knew she was there, and she did nothing to make it known to him. As far as he knew, she had turned down the Emperor's offer to be a member of his council and had remained at home. She was satisfied to let him go on believing that.
Once she was at the palace working, it was not widely discussed that China's heroine was now a member of the council. Most of the other ministers preferred to gloss over the fact that a woman was working on the same level as them, even though she did pass her civil service exams with flying colors. It had not been easy for her these past years working in the palace; those men never even called her by name, except for Li Tian-mu. She was referred to, sarcastically, as the /'young man'/. Shang, if he ever heard this reference, may have not had any clue as to who they were talking about.
Her father's voice interrupted her brooding.
"The heavens meant you for other things, Daughter."
She looked up and smiled wanly at him, gratified at his observation of her and his willingness to accept her for who she was, not what she was expected to be.
"What happened that made you flee the palace so suddenly, Mulan? You must have had a good reason to leave like that. And you have indicated that it is not just because of General Li."
"Luo Di executed Li Tian-mu and his family. Li Tian-mu was Wu Di's closest aide. And the one friend that I had at the palace."
"And you were worried you would be executed as well?"
"No. I wasn't in danger of that."
"Are you sure?"
"Positive."
"Was there something that this man said...?"
"No. If that were the case, why did they have to kill his whole family?"
She shook her head for emphasis.
"No. It's something else and it took me some time to figure it out. But I did. Too late, unfortunately," she added, with a sad sigh as she thought of her friend and mentor. "I was too late to warn Li Tian-mu."
Her father waited for her to continue.
"Some of the people Luo Di executed were military personnel; some of them were ministers and officials. The occupations and walks of life ran the gamut."
"They were all in the Imperial City?"
"No. Many of them were officials on the local levels. They were actually summoned to the palace, with their families, for the purpose of being killed summarily. The executions seemed completely random at first, I couldn't figure out what they all had in common. I made a list of the people that were executed along with their families. The one thing they had in common was their surname. They all had the surname Li."
"There are many families in China with that surname, and they are not necessarily related to each other. Li is one of the most common surnames here."
"I know. But that's the common denominator. It's not a coincidence. It's his reason."
"Why would the Emperor be executing people just because they have the surname Li?"
xxxxxxx
Historical Note
There are actually several different accounts concerning which dynasty Hua Mulan actually lived. The original poem and other accounts put her in the Sui Dynasty. Some put her in the Tang and still others put her in the Northern Wei Dynasty, the dynasty before the Sui. The technology used as well as the cultural setting in the Disney movie is more consistent with the Tang Dynasty and many fanfics from the movie are written in this dynasty for that reason. Most accounts agree that she most likely lived during the Sui Dynasty into the beginning of the Tang. I have modeled my story after the Emperors and events of the Sui Dynasty.
Mulan lay awake in her new room still, a small space with a bamboo mat and blankets surrounded by transparent sliding screens. All the students in the school had the same type of sleeping units within the wooden dojo. But she was used to a more private sleeping arrangement now, and was somewhat uneasy with the fact that she could be seen through the screens that surrounded her. She'd been finding it hard to sleep ever since she'd arrived there a week before.
There was no way she could have remained at home. The Emperor would be sending men after her, a traitor who had fled from his service. She had already impersonated a man once, and they knew that. They would be searching for both the woman Mulan and the boy-disguised Mulan.
She was hoping they wouldn't recognize the boy-disguise as quickly, and she had been given the new identity Jiang Hu, the son of the school's teacher, in order to throw off anyone that might come looking for her.
She also didn't want to endanger her family. Luo Di's men would be going to their home first, most likely. Her family would tell them that she was not there; and at least now they would not be lying to the Emperor's men. They could even let them search the house and the grounds.
The calligraphy school was on the outskirts of her town. It had been built close enough to the village proper so that the teachers and students would be able to obtain supplies and food easily and messages could be sent back and forth to the town within a day, while still remaining reclusive enough for the students to concentrate on their art without distractions.
Now the rebels were based in the calligraphy school, posing as students there. They, as well as Mulan, were genuinely practicing this art while they planned their strategy and waited until it was time to take action, some of them just learning it. According to old Master Jiang, who had taught her when she was younger and was still running the school, the art of calligraphy and the art of swordsmanship were closely related. Both arts required discipline and precision and both involved wrist action and a steady hand.
It was still a mystery to her who had organized this so well. Master Jiang was a wise teacher, but he was truly an artist, not a military man. The others remained fairly quiet for safety's sake, refraining from discussing their true leader or any plans until it was deemed safe to do so.
There were young men and women in the school now. When she was growing up, her father had paid Master Jiang and others to tutor her privately. It was unheard of for young women in a small village like hers to be educated. Most didn't have the money, and it was not considered necessary for women to be educated, other than in the domestic arts of cooking, weaving and the like.
Her father, being the Emperor's general, had better means than the people of the village and could afford to pay for her education, even after his retirement. She was also fortunate in a way because he recognized his only child's keen mind, insatiable curiosity and thirst for knowledge. Whereas many fathers would not have paid attention to those qualities; Hua Zhou valued and nurtured her talents.
It was her father that had been continuing to fund the calligraphy school even in these hard times, and he had been aiding the struggling people of the village to help them keep their farms and businesses going. At least in this town, people were not starving to death and farms were still running and producing crops.
Her father showed up to talk to Master Jiang the next morning. He then sought her out and they went into one of the screened-off studies to talk.
"You had to leave us right away for your safety and we were never able to talk when you returned last week, Mulan."
She nodded. Her father looked somewhat sad and she felt the wave of guilt and the need to apologize descend on her. She spoke up quickly.
"I'm sorry, Baba. I know that it was a great honor to even be asked, as a man yet alone a woman, to be a member of the Emperor's council and I know how proud you all were of it. It is dishonorable and cowardly of me to have fled his service. And it's treason. If they find me I will be killed. But I couldn't stay there."
"Times are hard right now," he said simply with a nod. "Things have changed. They aren't as clear cut as they were before. What was the right and honorable thing to do three years ago is not necessarily so now. Our family has always been very lucky, Mulan. Because of my service to Wu Di, we have always lived well. There are many in this village that have been struggling to make a living and put food on their tables. I have been helping them. The situation is much worse in other villages."
"I know. I've seen it."
She changed the subject, hoping her father could answer the question that had been on her mind and that no one there would speak of.
"The set up here is excellent. Do you know who has been organizing this? Who is their leader?"
"I am."
Mulan stared at him in shock. He nodded.
"I am the military man of the village. I can no longer fight, but I can advise them, and help them plan strategy. The country cannot continue in this way; we must have wiser leadership. Sometimes change must come with rebellion. This is why we have had more than one dynasty on the throne."
"Baba, the Emperor sent troops in all directions to put down the rebellions. General Li is leading the troop heading in this direction."
He nodded with a grave expression on his face. "I have been expecting as much. They haven't moved in on this village yet. I'm not sure how much information the Emperor and the troops have about our location at this point."
"The Emperor would have spoken of it to Shang in private if he knew anything. One of the councilmen overheard that the troop coming east is headed toward this village. It is possible that they are headed here, or may possibly be camped somewhere in the area already."
Her father gazed at her with a concerned expression.
"Mulan, what happened? Conditions have been bad for a year now and yet you remained in the Imperial City. Did you come back here because of General Li Shang?"
She looked down at her hands clasped in her lap, feeling her face heating up with embarrassment at the suggestion.
"That was part of it. But it's not what you think."
"He was married two years ago."
"I know, Baba," she said quietly. "My reasons for wanting to find him have nothing to do with that."
"I'm sorry for your disappointment, Daughter."
She shook her head vehemently. "It's alright, Baba. I only fought in the war with him and he came once to return the helmet and have dinner. There was nothing more between us and to expect more would have been foolish on my part. Besides, we don't choose who we marry. Those things are to be properly arranged through the matchmaker."
He laid a comforting hand on her shoulder. "It was still obvious how you felt about him."
She felt a tinge of sadness as he said those words, but she suppressed the feeling with an effort.
"It was one-sided, Baba."
"I am not so sure about that."
"It doesn't matter. It's in the past now."
It was in the past. Talking about what might have been did her no good now, and at this point she enjoyed her freedom. She had always dreaded being trapped in the confines of a marriage, particularly an arranged one. As for Shang, there really wasn't anything between them and it really had been one-sided, on her part. Just because she would choose him didn't mean he would choose her. And then a few months after she had come to the Imperial City she heard that he had gotten married, to a traditional, dutiful wife who had passed the matchmaker's test.
She had seen Shang a couple of times in the Imperial City. She was there in the background the day he was made a general, remaining unseen and watching with pride as he took the new sword and helmet from Luo Di's hands.
She never let him see her though. She avoided him altogether, which wasn't difficult. The members of the council were in their meeting chamber or their own chambers most of the time and very rarely mixed with the military officers. The day Shang received his new commission was the only day she allowed herself to go anywhere near a gathering of officers.
She had no idea if Shang even knew she was there, and she did nothing to make it known to him. As far as he knew, she had turned down the Emperor's offer to be a member of his council and had remained at home. She was satisfied to let him go on believing that.
Once she was at the palace working, it was not widely discussed that China's heroine was now a member of the council. Most of the other ministers preferred to gloss over the fact that a woman was working on the same level as them, even though she did pass her civil service exams with flying colors. It had not been easy for her these past years working in the palace; those men never even called her by name, except for Li Tian-mu. She was referred to, sarcastically, as the /'young man'/. Shang, if he ever heard this reference, may have not had any clue as to who they were talking about.
Her father's voice interrupted her brooding.
"The heavens meant you for other things, Daughter."
She looked up and smiled wanly at him, gratified at his observation of her and his willingness to accept her for who she was, not what she was expected to be.
"What happened that made you flee the palace so suddenly, Mulan? You must have had a good reason to leave like that. And you have indicated that it is not just because of General Li."
"Luo Di executed Li Tian-mu and his family. Li Tian-mu was Wu Di's closest aide. And the one friend that I had at the palace."
"And you were worried you would be executed as well?"
"No. I wasn't in danger of that."
"Are you sure?"
"Positive."
"Was there something that this man said...?"
"No. If that were the case, why did they have to kill his whole family?"
She shook her head for emphasis.
"No. It's something else and it took me some time to figure it out. But I did. Too late, unfortunately," she added, with a sad sigh as she thought of her friend and mentor. "I was too late to warn Li Tian-mu."
Her father waited for her to continue.
"Some of the people Luo Di executed were military personnel; some of them were ministers and officials. The occupations and walks of life ran the gamut."
"They were all in the Imperial City?"
"No. Many of them were officials on the local levels. They were actually summoned to the palace, with their families, for the purpose of being killed summarily. The executions seemed completely random at first, I couldn't figure out what they all had in common. I made a list of the people that were executed along with their families. The one thing they had in common was their surname. They all had the surname Li."
"There are many families in China with that surname, and they are not necessarily related to each other. Li is one of the most common surnames here."
"I know. But that's the common denominator. It's not a coincidence. It's his reason."
"Why would the Emperor be executing people just because they have the surname Li?"
xxxxxxx
Historical Note
There are actually several different accounts concerning which dynasty Hua Mulan actually lived. The original poem and other accounts put her in the Sui Dynasty. Some put her in the Tang and still others put her in the Northern Wei Dynasty, the dynasty before the Sui. The technology used as well as the cultural setting in the Disney movie is more consistent with the Tang Dynasty and many fanfics from the movie are written in this dynasty for that reason. Most accounts agree that she most likely lived during the Sui Dynasty into the beginning of the Tang. I have modeled my story after the Emperors and events of the Sui Dynasty.
Sign up to rate and review this story