7

Emperor Minghuang of Tang, a Daoist Devotee, Seeks Out Eminent Daoists

Consort Wu, a Buddhist Disciple, Witnesses Contests of Magic Power

As the poem says,

No men will be left in Yan;

No horse will return from the Pass.

Once the foot of Wei is reached,

A silk scarf will tie up the ring.

The above quatrain was written by Li Xiazhou, a Daoist, during the reign of Emperor Minghuang [or Emperor Xuanzong (r. 712–56)] of the Tang dynasty. A consummate practitioner of the Daoist arts, he was summoned by Emperor Minghuang in the Kaiyuan reign period [713–42] to the palace, from which he later moved to Xuandu Temple. In the last year of the Tianbao reign period [742–56], when An Lushan was abusing power, worries about An’s ambition spread far beyond the imperial court, but Emperor Minghuang remained blind to it and, if anything, showered even more favors on him.1 One day, Li Xiazhou the Daoist made an unobserved departure from his temple and went none knew whither, leaving the above-quoted quatrain on the wall of his room. But the meaning of the poem eluded everyone who happened to read it. It was not until An Lushan rose in rebellion, Emperor Minghuang fled to the Shu [present-day Sichuan] region, the troops mutinied, and Imperial Consort Yang was strangled that the poem came to be understood. It was in fact a prophecy. An after-the-fact explication of the lines is as follows: “No men will be left in Yan” means that An Lushan was to raise an army and recruit all the men in the Yan and Ji areas [close to present-day Beijing]. “No horse will return from the Pass” means that General Geshu Han was to suffer such a crushing defeat at the Tongguan Pass that even every horse was to perish.2 “Once the foot of Wei is reached” foresees the arrival of the fleeing emperor’s procession at Mawei Slope. As for “A silk scarf will tie up the ring,” the ring is part of Imperial Consort Yang’s given name, Jade Ring [Yuhuan], and at Mawei Slope, the eunuch Gao Lishi [684–762] ordered that she be strangled with a silk scarf.3 How accurate the predictions of the Daoist!

Emperor Minghuang himself was said to be the reincarnation of the Daoist sage Kong Sheng, which explains the emperor’s devotion to Daoism. Zhang Guo, Ye Fashan, Luo Gongyuan, and other eminent Daoist immortals gifted in the Daoist arts frequently gathered in the imperial court to display their magic powers. Li Xiazhou was but a minor figure hardly worthy of more description.

Let us turn our attention to Zhang Guo first. (MC: Zhang Guo enters the scene.) While serving as a retainer to King Yao of ancient times, he acquired a deep-breathing method and could go without food for days on end. Goodness knows how long he lived, but during the reign of Emperor Minghuang of Tang, he lived as a hermit on Mount Zhongtiao [in present-day Shanxi], Hengzhou. Coming and going on his white donkey, he could cover tens of thousands of li per day. On reaching his destination, he would fold the donkey as if it were a piece of paper and put it, now paper-thin, into his trunk. Whenever he wanted to ride it, he would sprinkle water on it, and it would immediately change back into a donkey. In fact, he is none other than the donkey-riding Zhang Guolao, one of the Eight Immortals, about whom stories still abound to this day.4

In the twenty-third year of the Kaiyuan period, Emperor Minghuang heard about Zhang Guo’s fame and dispatched a protocol officer, Pei Wu by name, to Hengzhou to bring him to the court. After arriving at Mount Zhongtiao, Pei Wu was somewhat displeased to find that Zhang Guo was an ugly, hoary-haired old man with many teeth missing, and he did little to hide his disappointment. What was going on in his mind was by no means lost on Zhang Guo. He had hardly finished exchanging greetings with Pei Wu when he slipped and fell. His last breath was expelled, and he did not inhale again. It was all over for him. (MC: The pranks immortals play on humans!) Pei Wu was horrified. “I had no idea you would drop dead on me like that!” he said. “Now what am I going to say to the emperor?” But then he thought, “I’ve heard that immortals like to test people. Maybe he’s not really dead. Let me try this.” He filled an incense burner with sticks of incense and lit them. Then he got down on his knees and began to pray with great concentration. As he stated the emperor’s sincerity in entrusting him with the mission to seek out eminent Daoists, Zhang Guo was seen to be gradually regaining consciousness. (MC: Pei Wu does know a thing or two.) Quite taken aback, Pei Wu realized that Zhang Guo was indeed no ordinary man. Not daring to put any pressure on him, Pei Wu returned to the capital posthaste and reported everything to the Son of Heaven. Emperor Minghuang was all the more impressed.

Disappointed by Pei Wu’s incompetence, the emperor reassigned the job to Xu Qiao, director of the Imperial Secretariat. Equipped with an imperial decree bearing the emperor’s seal, Xu Qiao mounted a carriage and went to extend a respectful invitation to Zhang Guo. With his delicacy and discretion, Xu Qiao talked Zhang Guo into following him to the capital. After depositing Zhang Guo’s luggage at the Academy of Worthy Scholars, they proceeded to the palace on sedan-chairs for an audience with the emperor.

At the sight of the old man, the emperor asked, “Since you, sir, have already acquired the Dao, why are your hair and teeth in such a deplorable condition?”

Zhang Guo replied, “I’m in such a sorry state precisely because I still haven’t managed to acquire the Dao in spite of my old age. I’m really ashamed of myself. Now that Your Majesty has brought this up, I might as well do away with my remaining hair and teeth.” Having said that, he pulled out every hair on his head and his chin right there in the emperor’s presence. Then he made a fist and thumped his own jaws left and right until his few remaining broken teeth fell out one by one into a pool of blood.

The emperor was aghast. “Why did you have to do this, sir?” he asked. “You’d better take a little rest outside.”

After Zhang Guo went out, the emperor said to himself, “What an old geezer!” Before long, he called Zhang Guo back. Lo and behold: Approaching the throne in his rolling gait, Zhang Guo was seen to be sporting a full head of black hair, a black beard, and a set of gleaming white teeth, looking more pleasing to the eye than a young man. Immensely delighted, the emperor granted him access to the royal inner chamber and had wine set out.

After drinking a few cups, Zhang Guo said, by way of declining more offers of wine, “This old subject of Your Majesty’s has little capacity for wine. Three pints is the maximum I can hold, but I have a disciple who can hold up to two gallons.”

Whereupon the emperor ordered that the disciple be brought into his presence. As Zhang Go mumbled something incomprehensible, a handsome young fifteen- or sixteen-year-old Daoist flew down from the eaves of the hall. After making his kowtows to the emperor, he walked up to Zhang Guo and saluted him with a raised hand, in the Daoist way. His manner was impeccable, his speech articulate, and his voice pleasant. When the emperor told him to take a seat, Zhang Guo objected, saying, “No! This will not do. My disciple should remain standing.” Accordingly, the young disciple bowed and stood off to the side. Liking the young man more and more, the emperor ordered wine for him. Every cup that was offered to him was filled to the brim, and he drained every one of them. He did not decline more offers after he had finished ten liters, but Zhang Guo rose and pleaded on his behalf, saying, “Please don’t give him more. This is as much as he can hold. If he exceeds his limit, he’ll surely make a fool of himself and incur Your Majesty’s disdain.”

The emperor said, “We don’t mind if he succumbs to the influence of the wine.” Turning to the young man, he continued, “We hereby grant you a pardon!” So saying, he stood up, had a jade goblet filled to the brim with wine, held the goblet to the young Daoist’s lips, and insisted that he drink it up. No sooner had the young man gulped it down than the wine gushed out from the top of his head and knocked his hat to the floor. The young Daoist bent down to pick it up, but he lost his footing and fell, to the merriment of the emperor and the palace maids by his side. Then they realized, as they looked around more intently, that the young Daoist had disappeared, leaving behind only a golden vessel filled with wine. It was found, on close examination, to belong to the Academy of Worthy Scholars. To the emperor’s astonishment, it held exactly ten liters of wine.

The next day, the emperor told Zhang Guo to join him as an observer in his hunting expedition outside the capital. The advance party encircled and then captured a stag. When the prey was delivered to the kitchen to be slaughtered and cooked, Zhang Guo exclaimed, “Don’t kill it! It’s an immortal stag, already a thousand years old. It was captured in one of Emperor Wudi’s hunting expeditions in the fifth year of the Yuanshou reign period [118 BCE, in the Han dynasty] in the imperial park. I was there in attendance. The stag was then set free out of compassion.”

With a smile, the emperor said, “There’s no lack of stags out there. How do you know it’s the same stag you’re talking about? (MC: Good point.) What’s more, so many years have gone by. How can you be so sure that the same stag has been spared by every hunter until today?”

Zhang Guo replied, “When setting the stag free, Emperor Wudi tied a brass tag to its left antler as a mark. Please check if the tag is still there.”

Thereupon, the emperor ordered that this be done, and, sure enough, there was indeed a two-inch-long brass tag dangling from its left antler. There were two lines of small characters on the tag, but they were quite illegible due to wear and tear over time. Only then was the emperor convinced. He asked, “Which cyclical year was the fifth year of the Yuanshou reign period? How many years has it been?”

Zhang Guo replied, “It was the kuihai cyclical year. It has been 852 years since Emperor Wudi built Kunming Pond until this jiaxu cyclical year [734, the twenty-second year of the Kaiyuan reign period].”

By the emperor’s order, the Grand Historian checked the dates and corroborated Zhang Guo’s story. The fact that Zhang Guo was about a thousand years old deeply impressed the assembled officials.

One day, Wang Huizhi, director of the Grand Secretariat, and Xiao Hua, vice director of the Office of Imperial Rites, went together to the Academy of Worthy Scholars to visit Zhang Guo. After greeting them and sitting down, Zhang Guo suddenly broke into a chuckle and said to them, “It’s a frightening thing to have a princess for wife.” Surprised at the irrelevance of this remark, his two visitors looked blankly at each other, wondering what he could have meant by that. In the midst of their conversation, they heard announcements from outside that a messenger was there, carrying an imperial decree. Zhang Guo promptly had an incense altar set out in anticipation of the messenger’s arrival. As it turned out, Emperor Minghuang had a daughter, Princess Yuzhen, who had been a Daoist devotee since childhood, and she had not yet been “lowered in status.” Now, when it comes to marriage, an ordinary woman “marries,” but a princess is “lowered in status.” An ordinary man “takes a wife,” but an ordinary man who marries a princess “elevates his status.” Since Zhang Guo was a real immortal and the princess was a Daoist devotee, Emperor Minghuang was struck with the idea of lowering his daughter’s status and marrying her to Zhang Guo. That way, the latter could pass on his arts to the princess through this alliance between an immortal and a mortal, so that she could also attain immortality.

After the decision was made, the emperor issued a decree and had a courtier go to the Academy of Worthy Scholars and read it aloud to Zhang Guo. When the retainer had finished reading it, Zhang Guo burst into a peal of hearty laughter (MC: It is indeed quite laughable.) and refused to say the obligatory words of gratitude for the imperial bounty. Noticing the presence of Mr. Wang and Mr. Xiao, the courtier told them about the emperor’s readiness to “lower the status” of the princess and asked the two of them to bring him around. Only then did the two officials catch on to the meaning of what Zhang Guo had said to them in the beginning. So they said to him, “The Venerable Immortal knew this all along, and he told us so.” The three men then began to plead with him, but laugh was all he did. Realizing that there was no bringing him around, the courtier resignedly went back to report to the emperor.

Displeased by Zhang Guo’s decline, the emperor consulted Gao Lishi, saying, “I understand that juice made from poisonous violet is a most powerful poison that causes instant death to whoever drinks it. Only a genuine immortal is immune. Why don’t we put that oldster to the test?”

It was an unusually cold, snowy day. Emperor Minghuang summoned Zhang Guo to the palace and had a palace attendant offer him a cup of heated wine laced with poisonous violet, ostensibly to warm him up. Without hesitation, Zhang Guo downed three cups of the wine in quick succession. As the blood rushed to his face, he cast his eyes around and said, clicking his tongue, “That wine tastes awful.” With a yawn, he flopped down to sleep. The emperor kept an eye on him and did not say a word. After a while, Zhang Guo woke up and muttered as he sat up, “How very strange! How very strange!” He retrieved a small mirror from his sleeve, looked into it, and found that his teeth had all turned black. Seeing an iron ruyi scepter on the emperor’s desk, he told the attendants to get it for him.5 He knocked out each of his blackened teeth with it (MC: Second time.) and then stuffed the teeth into his waistband. Next, he whipped out a packet of powdered medicine, poured some of it onto his gums, and flung himself down again to sleep. He slept soundly, unlike the last time. By the time he rose more than two hours later, he had regained most of his teeth, and the new ones were stronger and whiter than before. Awed and amazed, the emperor conferred on Zhang Guo the title The Ultimate Daoist. But misgivings about Zhang Guo’s origins began to assail his mind.

There lived at the time a certain Gui Yeguang, who was able to recognize a ghost in its true form. The emperor summoned him and told him to look at Zhang Guo. Gui Yeguang did but found little out of the ordinary.

There was a Xing Hepu who could tell fortunes with an abacus. Whenever anyone sought his advice, he would click away at his abacus and unerringly come up with the name, the fate, and the life span of the person involved. Having always marveled at his skills, Emperor Minghuang had him brought in for a consultation. Fervently moving the abacus beads up and down, Hepu made prodigious efforts until he reddened to the roots of his ears, but he could not come up with anything, not even Zhang Guo’s age.

There was another Daoist, Ye Fashan, who was also a master of arcane arts. (MC: Ye Fashan comes on the scene.) When the emperor privately sought his advice on Zhang Guo, he said, “This humble subject of Your Majesty’s is the only one with knowledge of Zhang Guo’s origin, but it’s a secret I’m not at liberty to divulge.” (MC: Clever transition to the second protagonist.)

“Why?” asked the emperor.

“Because I’ll surely die if I do.”

At the emperor’s insistence that he divulge the secret, Ye Fashan said, “I won’t die only if Your Majesty takes off your crown and your shoes in order to save me.” The emperor promised to do so. Only then did Fashan say, “He’s the spirit of a white bat born when the earth was first separated from heaven.” Before these words were quite out of his mouth, blood began to ooze from the seven apertures in his head. Death might not have overtaken him yet, but he had lost the use of all four of his limbs. The emperor rushed over to Zhang Guo, removed his crown and shoes, and apologized.

As for Zhang Guo, rather than being overwhelmed by the emperor’s gesture, he said, deliberately spacing out the words, “That wretch is too talkative. If I don’t teach him a lesson, he will wreak havoc with heaven and earth.”

The emperor pleaded, “But it was all my idea. Fashan is not at fault. Please forgive him, Venerable Immortal!”

Only then did Zhang Guo relent. He asked for some water and squirted it on Fashan. In a trice, the latter came back to life.

Now let me tell more about this Ye Fashan, courtesy name Daoyuan. He used to live in Songyang County, Chuzhou [in present-day southern Zhejiang], where he practiced Daoism, just as his forefathers, going back three generations, had done. At age twenty, he went on a tour of the Kuocang White Horse Mountains, where he encountered three divine beings wearing brocade robes and bejeweled crowns. They passed on to him secret injunctions from the Venerable Laozi. Thereafter, he devoted himself to exterminating evil spirits, vanquishing demons, and rescuing their human victims. After moving into the capital, Fashan incurred the wrath of the power-abusing Wu Sansi because he was always watching out for omens of woe or weal in order to protect Emperor Zhongzong [r. 705–10], the crown prince, and [the crown prince’s son, later to be] Emperor Minghuang.6 Fashan therefore fled to the southern seas. After Emperor Minghuang assumed the throne, Fashan went back to the capital, riding over the seas on a white deer, and arrived before the night was out. During Emperor Minghuang’s reign, Fashan made a point of reporting to him all omens that portended good or ill.

One day, a messenger from Tibet came to present a treasure, claiming that the tightly sealed box held secret contents and must therefore be opened by no one but the emperor himself. Not knowing the true intent of the messenger and why he had made such a request, court officials looked at one another uneasily and did not venture to say a word. At this point, Fashan communicated privately with the emperor, saying, “This is an evil plot. Better ask him to open the package himself.”

The emperor acted accordingly. As the unsuspecting messenger raised the lid of the box, an arrow flew out of it and killed the messenger. What happened was that the Tibetan chieftain had taken it into his head to assassinate the Tang emperor and had a booby trap set in the gift box. Even the messenger was not privy to the secret, but thanks to Ye Fashan, who saw through the plot, the emperor did not fall for the trick, and the messenger ended up the victim instead.

On the fifteenth night of the first lunar month in the first year of the Kaiyuan reign period [713], Emperor Minghuang went to Shangyang Hall in the palace to view the lanterns. Mao Shunxin, artisan of the Imperial Manufactories, had ingeniously designed and built a decorated two-story structure in order to show off his skills. The structure, 150 feet high with more than thirty rooms, sparkled with pieces of gold, emeralds, pearls, and jade. Seats on the ground floor commanded a spectacular view of the multitude of lanterns upstairs. Once ignited, the lanterns—in the shapes of phoenixes, different kinds of dragons, leopards, and a hundred kinds of birds and other animals—would dance in the air and wheel around. The ingenuity of it all could only have been divinely inspired. Immensely pleased, the emperor ordered that Venerable Teacher Ye be immediately brought to the palace to enjoy the lanterns with him.

It was quite a while before Ye Fashan showed up downstairs. To the emperor’s praise of the lantern show, Fashan had this to say, “Yes, it’s wonderful. But to my eyes, tonight’s lantern show in Xiliang Prefecture [in present-day Gansu] is just as good.”

“How were you able to see tonight’s lantern show there, Venerable Teacher?” asked the emperor.

“I was there watching the show before I rushed here on Your Majesty’s order.”

Intrigued by this explanation, the emperor asked pointedly, “Can we go and watch the lantern show there if we want to?”

“Of course! Nothing easier!” replied Fashan. He told the emperor to close his eyes, adding, “Your Majesty must keep your eyes closed or something terrible will happen.”

The emperor did as he was told.

“Rise!” shouted Fashan. Immediately the emperor rose on a cloud next to Fashan. A moment later, when their feet touched ground, Fashan said, “Your Majesty may open your eyes now.”

Opening his royal eyes, Emperor Minghuang saw lit lanterns stretching for tens of li along streets that were thronged with horse-carriages and men and women out for fun. It was indeed a scene no less glamorous than that in the capital. While the emperor was clapping his hands in glee, a sudden thought struck him. “Too bad there’s no wine with which to celebrate the glory of the night.”

Fashan asked in response, “What have you brought with you, Your Majesty?”

“Only a wrought-iron ruyi scepter.”

Fashan took it, went to a restaurant, and exchanged the scepter for a flask of wine and several dishes. He and the emperor sat down face-to-face and applied themselves to the wine and food. After Fashan returned the empty utensils, the emperor said, “Let’s go back.”

As before, Fashan told the emperor to close his eyes. They rose into the air and, in a matter of moments, were back at the lantern show in the palace. The song that was being performed at the time of the emperor’s departure had not yet finished, and in the meantime the emperor had traveled more than a thousand li. The emperor began to suspect that it had all been a Daoist magic trick that had fooled his eyes and doubted that he had been in Liangzhou at all. Then another thought suddenly crossed his mind: “My scepter paid for the wine. That did happen and is verifiable.”

The next day, he sent a court retainer on a mission to Liangzhou, ostensibly on some official business but in fact to track down the wrought-iron scepter. It was indeed in that restaurant. The restaurant owner said, “A Daoist used it to pay for wine on the fifteenth night of the first month.” Only then was the emperor convinced that his lantern-viewing trip had been for real.

On the evening of the Mid-Autumn Festival [the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month], the boundless sky was flooded with silvery moonlight. While leaning against the white jade balustrade and enjoying the moon surrounded by strains of music and between cups of wine, the emperor turned his face upward and gave himself over to thoughts about the vast universe. There is a ci poem in testimony:

Osmanthus blossoms adorn the immortals’ abode;

The full moon casts its glory over the sky.

The night air feels cool and clean;

The breezes chill the bones and ruffle hair and beards.

In the crystal palace where fairies live,

Snakes and dragons have come to a standstill.

Over temples, towers, and palace halls

Waft sounds of music and singing.

With the land bathed in moonlight,

How one wishes to ride the colorful clouds!

(To the tune of “Libation to River and Moon”)

The emperor was so overwhelmed with the grandeur of the universe that he said, “The moon that illuminates the whole world must be a very beautiful place. (MC: This is but an illusion.) Isn’t it said that Chang’e the moon goddess flew up to the moon palace after she stole an elixir? If there is a palace on the moon, it should be worth a tour. But how do I go up there?”

Immediately, he called for Venerable Teacher Ye. When Ye Fashan showed up, the emperor asked, “With your Daoist arts, can you take us to the moon palace for a little tour?”

“Nothing to it! Your Majesty may begin the journey right now.” So saying, Fashan tossed a tablet into the air, and it changed into a snowy white ribbonlike bridge leading straight to the moon. Fashan helped the emperor go up the bridge. It turned out to be steady and easy to cross, and the part of the bridge they trod on vanished as they walked along.

After covering more than a li, they came to a place where bone-chilling air descended on them and cold dewdrops collected on their clothes. An exquisite four-column archway loomed in front of them. They raised their heads and saw a large horizontal board bearing six gilded characters atop the archway. The emperor recognized them as “The Vast and Cold Moon Palace.” After going through the archway with Fashan, he saw a massive Osmanthus tree with a canopy that spread for goodness knows how many li around. At the foot of the tree, numerous white-robed fairy maidens were dancing on white phoenixes. In a nearby courtyard, another group of fairy maidens in the same attire, each with a musical instrument in hand, was playing music as accompaniment to the dance. They were unruffled by the approach of the emperor and Fashan, nor did they stop to greet them but went on playing music and dancing. As the emperor stood staring, Fashan said, pointing to the fairy maidens, “They’re called ‘White Maidens.’ Their white robes are called ‘Rainbow Feather Robes.’ The music being played is called ‘The Purple Clouds.’ ”

An accomplished musician, Emperor Minghuang clapped his hands in time to the music and memorized the melody. (MC: What an interesting emperor!) Later, after he returned to his palace, he passed it on to Imperial Consort Yang Taizhen and gave it the name “Rainbow Skirt and Feathered Robe Dance.” Through the Music Bureau, it became a much-prized melody of the Tang dynasty.7 But I am getting ahead of myself.

After he had listened long enough, the emperor felt cold and wanted to go back to his palace. Two colorful clouds appeared at Fashan’s command. They mounted the clouds and returned to the human world without having to take one step, and the ride was as smooth as if they had been walking on flat ground. As they passed Luzhou, they heard the night-watch drum strike the third watch. By the brighter-than-usual moonlight, they could see everything in the city clearly. But at that time of the night, all was still. Fashan said, “Since no one knows that Your Majesty and I are here at this time of night, why don’t you play the celestial music that you just learned?”

“Wonderful idea!” said the emperor. “But I didn’t bring my jade flute.”

“Where’s the flute?”

“It’s in my bedchamber.”

“That’s no problem,” said Fashan. As he jabbed a finger in the air, the emperor’s jade flute fell from the clouds. Overcome with delight, the emperor took it and, recalling the melody he had heard on the moon, played the tune. Then he extracted a few gold coins from his sleeve and tossed them down before he returned to his palace with the moon lighting their way. This story about Emperor Minghuang of the Tang dynasty touring the moon palace is still in circulation today.

Those unable to sleep that night in Luzhou heard the crisp, pleasant notes of a flute. Detecting something quite out of the ordinary about the music, some rose to listen more intently but felt mystified because the notes were coming from somewhere high up in the air. The next day, some people found the gold coins in the streets and reported the matter to the prefectural yamen. Believing these were auspicious omens, the prefectural officials wrote a memorial to the throne. (MC: These officials have nothing better to do.) After about ten days, when the memorial reached his hands, the emperor saw that it read, “On the fifteenth night of the eighth lunar month, celestial music was heard in this city and gold coins were found in the streets. These auspicious omens for the empire bring immense joy.”

Knowing all too well what had happened, the emperor abandoned himself to a peal of laughter. Henceforth, he held Fashan in as much esteem as he did Zhang Guo, often kept them in the palace for chess games and little contests of magic power, and made the games and contests more interesting by placing bets on them.

One day, Ye Fashan and Zhang Guo were playing chess in the palace when the emperor received a memorial from the prefect of Ezhou [in present-day Hubei] claiming that a local immortal boy, Luo Gongyuan by name, possessed a wide range of Daoist magic arts. (MC: Luo Gongyuan comes on the scene.) It went on to say that on the day the prefect presided over celebrations for the advent of spring, a white-robed, ten-foot-tall man with the strangest looks watched the event from among the crowd. Many of those who saw him were so frightened that they fled from his presence. A boy who was off to one side cried out, “Accursed vermin! How dare you leave where you belong and cause a disturbance at an official event? Be gone this instant!”

Not daring to let out a peep, the man hitched up his robe and ran off with the speed of the wind. Finding the boy’s behavior strange, the prefectural police seized him, took him to the yamen, and reported to the prefect. When the prefect asked his name, the boy said, “I’m Luo Gongyuan. Some moments ago, I saw the dragon who’s the guardian of the river out on the shore, watching the spring celebrations. So I ordered him to return to his proper abode.”

The prefect did not believe him. “How do you know he was a dragon?” he asked. “I’ll believe you only when I see him in his true form.”

The boy replied, “In that case, please wait until the day after tomorrow.”

When that day came, the boy dug a small pit one foot deep about ten feet away from the shore and diverted river water into it. The prefect and the assembled villagers saw a white fish five or six inches long swim into the pit with the current. After it jumped up and down twice, it grew in size. Then, as a plume of blue smoke rose from the pit, the sky immediately became overcast with heavy clouds. The boy said, “Please go to the pavilion by the shore for shelter!” As they were on their way there, flashes of lightning shot across the sky, and a heavy rain came down in sheets. When it stopped moments later, a great white dragon was seen rising from the middle of the river until its head touched the clouds, and it stayed in that position for about the time it takes to eat a meal and then disappeared. The prefect wrote an eyewitness account and instructed Luo Gongyuan to take the report to the court and submit it to the emperor.

After telling Zhang Guo and Ye Fashan about the memorial from the prefect, the emperor called in Luo Gongyuan so that he could meet Zhang and Ye. At the sight of the boy, Zhang and Ye roared with laughter. “What does a little village boy know?” said they. (MC: Could the emperor be testing the two of them, to see if they are too shallow?) Each of them took a handful of chess pieces, made a fist, and asked, “What do I have in my fist?”

Gongyuan replied with a smile, “Your fists are empty.” Sure enough, when Zhang and Ye loosened their fists, there was indeed nothing in their palms. All the chess pieces were now in Gongyuan’s hands. Only then did Zhang and Ye realize that there was something unusual about the little boy. The emperor told Gongyuan to take the seat below Ye Fashan. The weather was cold, so they sat around a stove.

In those times, there grew in the Jiannan Circuit [present-day Sichuan and Yunnan] a kind of fruit called “ripe in a day.” They normally were no longer fresh by the time shipments of them arrived at the capital, but Zhang and Ye had been putting their magic powers to use and having them delivered by messengers every day, so that the emperor was never short of a fresh supply after lunch. That day, however, they waited in vain until evening. Zhang and Ye were full of misgivings. Consulting each other, they wondered if Luo Gongyuan had anything to do with the delay. Turning their eyes to Luo, they stared at him with fixed intensity. In point of fact, Luo Gongyuan had stuck the fire poker into the ashes on first coming to the stove. It was only when he noticed their suspicious looks that he smilingly pulled out the fire poker. (MC: Such are the lengths to which immortals go in playing pranks on one another.) Soon thereafter, the messenger with the fruit arrived. Fashan asked, “Why are you so late today?”

The messenger replied, “I was about to arrive in the capital when a fire broke out, with the flames leaping into the sky and blocking all roads. I wasn’t able to continue on my way until the fire died out.”

Everyone present was awestruck by Gongyuan’s prowess.

Let me now tell of a Consort Wu [699–737], who monopolized the attention of Emperor Minghuang before Consort Yang had even entered the palace. The emperor was a Daoist devotee, but Consort Wu was a pious Buddhist; each was given to a different pursuit. Consort Wu’s teacher, with the Buddhist name Vajra Tripitaka, was also not of the common run, a man whose magic power rivaled that of Ye, Luo, and Zhang. (MC: Could Consort Wu’s devotion to Buddhism be attributed to family tradition?)8 Once, on a visit to the Work of Merit Monastery, the emperor suddenly felt itchy on his back. Luo Gongyuan broke a pine branch, changed it into a seven-jewel scepter, and presented it to the emperor so that he could scratch his own back. Delighted, the emperor turned to Tripitaka and said, “Are you, Your Reverence, also able to do this?”

Tripitaka replied, “Gongyuan had to make a scepter out of something else, but I have the real thing for Your Majesty.” So saying, he whipped a seven-jewel scepter out of his sleeve and presented it to the emperor. As the emperor reached for it, the scepter given by Gongyuan instantly changed back into a bamboo branch. On returning to the palace, the emperor told Consort Wu about what had happened and she, too, was overcome with delight.

When taken with a desire to visit Luoyang, the emperor said to Consort Wu, “You’ll be going with me, but I’m also thinking of taking Venerable Teachers Ye and Luo and Tripitaka on the trip so that they can engage in contests of their magic powers to see who will come out the winner. What do you say?”

Consort Wu said joyfully, “I’m all for it!”

By imperial decree, a grand procession set out for Luoyang, and in a matter of days, it reached its destination. As Linzhi Hall was still being built, a massive beam forty to fifty feet long and six or seven feet in diameter was lying on the ground in the courtyard. The emperor said to Ye Fashan, “Venerable Teacher, please try and raise it for us.”

Thus ordered, Fashan put his magic arts to use and raised one end of the beam several feet above the ground, but the other end did not budge. The emperor asked, “With your divine power, Venerable Teacher, why were you able to raise only one end of it?”

Fa Shan replied, “That’s because Tripitaka is making the deva guardians hold down the other end.”

As a matter of fact, Fashan said that on purpose, meaning to make Consort Wu look good. (MC: Immortals also know how to flatter just as humans do.) His plan was to wait until Tripitaka overplayed his hand and then to strike and come out the winner. Sure enough, Consort Wu was beside herself with joy at the implication that Buddhist dharma was gaining the upper hand. Tripitaka, too, thought Ye was being sincere and got a little carried away. But Luo Gongyuan, his head lowered, kept grinning.

Not quite ready to acknowledge defeat, the emperor turned to Tripitaka again and said, “If Your Reverence does possess greater divine power than Venerable Teacher Ye, can you chant an incantation and put him into this water jar here?”

Thus ordered, Tripitaka set the water jar in front of him, instructed Ye Fashan to sit properly in the Buddhist fashion, and began to chant an incantation. Before he had finished chanting, Fashan’s body began to move toward the jar. By the time he finished the incantation a second time, Fashan had already blithely gotten through the mouth of the jar, much to the emperor’s dismay. After a while, as Ye Fashan remained inside, the emperor said to Tripitaka, “Now that Your Reverence has put him into the jar, can you let him out?”

Tripitaka replied, “Getting him in was the hard part. Getting him out shouldn’t be a problem.” With that, he began chanting another incantation, but nothing happened after he finished chanting. Tripitaka began to grow frantic. He repeated the incantation several times in succession, still to no avail. (MC: This is hilarious.)

The emperor said in alarm, “Could the Venerable Teacher have ceased to be?” His countenance fell.

Consort Wu was aghast. Tripitaka also panicked. Only Luo Gongyuan was amused, his lips parting in a huge grin. The emperor asked him, “What’s to be done now?”

Luo Gongyuan replied gleefully, “Don’t worry, Your Majesty! Fashan is not far from here.”

Tripitaka resumed his chanting, but still to no effect. Just when he was at his wit’s end, Gao Lishi announced from outside, “Venerable Teacher Ye is here!”

The emperor said in astonishment, “The bronze jar is here. Where did he come from?” Without a moment’s delay, he called in Ye Fashan and asked him what had happened.

Fashan said, “The Prince of Ning invited me to dinner, but I was in the middle of a show of Daoist power. Your Majesty would not have let me go if I’d asked for leave. (MC: Hilarious.) So the timing of entering the jar couldn’t have been better. I took the opportunity to go to the Prince of Ning’s residence and came back after finishing the meal. If it hadn’t been for His Reverence’s incantation, I wouldn’t have been able to make it!” On hearing this, the emperor abandoned himself to mirth, to the great relief of Consort Wu and Tripitaka.

Ye Fashan continued, “Now that His Reverence is done with his incantation, it’s my turn to reciprocate.” He picked up Tripitaka’s red copper alms bowl, held it over the stove until it was scalding hot inside and out, and toyed with it as if he was not being hurt in the slightest. All of a sudden, he raised the bowl with both hands and lunged at Tripitaka, but before Fashan could put the bowl over his shaved head, upside down, Tripitaka let out a cry and managed to dodge him. The emperor roared with laughter.

Gongyuan said, “Your Majesty may find this amusing, but this is an inferior Daoist trick. Must Venerable Teacher Ye resort to it?” (MC: Gongyuan is the greater master because he refrains from showing off his prowess.)

The emperor rejoined, “Why don’t you, Venerable Teacher, also do a trick for our amusement?”

Gongyuan said, addressing Tripitaka, “Pray, Your Reverence, how do you want to do this?”

Tripitaka replied, “This poor monk will hide his cassock. You, sir, will try and find it. If you don’t find it, you lose. If you do, this poor monk loses.”

Immensely delighted, the emperor went with them to the Daoist ceremonial hall to watch.

Tripitaka set up an altar, lit incense, put his cassock in a silver box, laid the box in the smallest of a set of wooden boxes of increasing size, locked every box before he put it into the next one, and transferred the whole stack to the altar. He then sat down on the altar in the meditation posture. The emperor, Consort Wu, and Venerable Teacher Ye all saw on the altar a circle of bodhisattvas surrounded by golden-armored devas who, in their turn, were surrounded by a group of vajras. With so many deities shoulder to shoulder in a tight circle and Tripitaka keeping a vigilant watch with unblinking eyes, Gongyuan, seated on a rope bed, did nothing but talk and laugh as if nothing had happened. Everyone stared at him, but he looked as if he could not care less.

After a good while, the emperor said, “What’s taking you so long? You’re not stumped, are you?”

Gongyuan replied, “I don’t want to boast, nor do I know if I stand a chance, but please have Tripitaka open the boxes, and that will be that.”

So the emperor told Tripitaka to open the boxes and take out the cassock. Pleased that every padlock was in place, Tripitaka began to open them one by one. When he got to the silver box, he gave a mournful shriek. The cassock was not there. The box was empty. Tripitaka’s face went white with horror, and he could not find his tongue for the longest time. As the emperor clapped his hands and laughed boisterously, Luo Gongyuan said, “Please have someone pick up the cassock from the cabinet in my temple.” A court messenger duly went there and brought the cassock back shortly afterward. The emperor checked the cassock and said to Gongyuan, “I was an eyewitness to the deities’ tight encirclement of the boxes. How did you do it?”

Gongyuan replied, “The bodhisattvas and the vajras are of the middling sort among deities, and the golden-armored devas are minor figures, but the wonders of Venerable Laozi are beyond the ken of necromancers. The cassock was taken from the box by the divine maiden Jade Purity. She’s invisible to the bodhisattva and vajras. Taking the cassock was the easiest thing for her. There was nothing to stop her from doing it.”

An elated emperor showered Luo Gongyuan with imperial bounty. Ye Fashan and Tripitaka were also profoundly impressed with his divine powers.

The emperor wished to learn the art of body concealment from Gongyuan, but Gongyuan declined, saying, “Your Majesty is a reincarnation of the Sage. In your exalted status, which comes with the obligation to safeguard the empire and protect the people, you have no use for such a minor trick.” (MC: Said like the real master that he is.)

The emperor flew into a rage and heaped angry words on him. Gongyuan disappeared into a column in the hall and, from there, reeled off a long list of the emperor’s faults. All the more enraged, the emperor ordered that the column be cut down in order to capture him. After the column was smashed, Luo Gongyuan disappeared into the column’s pedestal, which was then broken into several tens of pieces. With each bearing the image of Gongyuan, nothing could be done to him. Only after the emperor apologized did Gongyuan suddenly appear again in the royal presence.

The emperor pleaded so vehemently to be taught the art that Gongyuan saw nothing for it but to relent. However, he did not teach the emperor everything. When the emperor was doing the body concealment trick with him, both were indeed visible to no one, but if the emperor tried it by himself in Gongyuan’s absence, something of him would always show, such as a waistband or the two corners of his cap. So he never succeeded in eluding anyone in the palace.

Knowing that Luo Gongyuan was holding things back from him, the emperor gave him lavish gifts so as to win him over but sometimes also threatened him, saying, “If you don’t teach me everything, we will immediately put you to death!” (MC: How stupid of the emperor!) But Gongyuan held his ground. In a towering rage, the emperor sharply ordered that he be tied up, taken out of the palace, and beheaded. Thus ordered, the executioners took him to the marketplace and beheaded him.

About ten days later, a court retainer, Fu Xianyu by name, was on his way back to the capital from a mission via the Shu region when he ran into Luo Gongyuan on a donkey. Cheerfully, Gongyuan said to the official, “The emperor doesn’t play by the rules.” Extracting a letter from his sleeve, he continued, “Please deliver this to the throne for me.” Then, producing a packet of medicine, he added, “If the emperor asks what it is, just say that it’s a Shu variety of angelica.”9 With that, he vanished into thin air.

Back in the capital, Fu Xianyu reported to the emperor. The emperor took the letter and was mystified when he saw that the signature looked like “Gongyuan” but each of the two characters was missing the top component. As soon as Fu Xianyu left, Luo Gongyuan appeared before the emperor. Realizing that the letter was from Gongyuan, the emperor asked, “Why did you change your name?”

“Didn’t Your Majesty have my head cut off ? Hence the new name.”

The emperor raised a hand in a Daoist salute and apologized. Gongyuan continued, “Oh well, so what if you don’t play by the rules?” Having said that, he walked out the door and went none knew whither.

When Emperor Minghuang proceeded to the Shu region during An Lushan’s rebellion at the end of the Tianbao reign period, Luo Gongyuan went to Sword Mountain County to greet the imperial procession and escorted the emperor all the way to Chengdu before departing with a flick of his sleeves. Later, when Emperor Suzhong assumed the throne at Lingwu [present-day Ningxia Autonomous Region], Emperor Minghuang suspected that he might not be able to return to Chang’an, and therefore, after greeting the new emperor in his capacity as the “Super Emperor,” he returned to the capital from the Shu region. Only then did he catch on to the meaning of “a Shu kind of angelica.” This and Li Xiazhou’s poem quoted at the beginning of the story testify to the divine foresight of Daoist masters.

Emperors of Qin and Han, Daoists though they were,

Little understood the laws of constancy.

However powerful the arcane arts,

None was able to save the Yangs’ lives.10