Empress Jiang
Copyright© 2026 by Megumi Kashuahara
Chapter 1
The Forbidden City, Beijing, Autumn, 1420
The palace was red.
Everything was red—the walls, the pillars, the robes of the eunuchs who carried her from the palanquin through gates taller than temples. Red like fire. Red like blood. Red like nothing she had ever seen in Korea, where palaces were painted in gentle greens and blues, colors that whispered rather than shouted.
Here, everything screamed.
The girl who did not yet have a Chinese name stood in the courtyard of the Forbidden City and felt the weight of stone and sky pressing down on her. The walls rose so high she had to tilt her head back until her neck hurt. Somewhere above, carved dragons twisted through painted clouds, their golden eyes watching her.
She was four years old and very small.
“Come,” said one of the eunuchs in Chinese.
She didn’t understand the word, but she understood the gesture—a sharp movement of his hand, impatient. She followed because there was nothing else to do. Her legs were wobbly from six weeks in the palanquin. Her new Chinese shoes pinched her feet.
They walked through courtyards that could have swallowed her father’s entire palace. Past guards who stood like statues, their faces blank as temple stones. Past servants who didn’t look at her because looking at royal children without permission could cost you your eyes.
She wanted her nurse. The Korean woman who had sung to her at night and braided her hair in the mornings. But her nurse was gone. Left at the border, the eunuch had explained in gestures and harsh sounds she couldn’t understand.
She wanted her mother.
But her mother hadn’t come to say goodbye.
The eunuch stopped at a doorway. Knocked three times. Waited.
A voice from inside—sharp, female, speaking the strange tongue that sounded like rocks grinding together.
The door opened.
The woman was old. Perhaps forty, perhaps a hundred—the girl couldn’t tell. Her face was smooth as jade but her eyes were ancient. She wore robes of deep blue embroidered with silver cranes. Her hair was dressed in the Chinese fashion, elaborate loops pinned with jade ornaments that clicked softly when she moved her head.
She looked down at the girl and said something in Chinese.
The girl stared back, uncomprehending.
The woman sighed—a sound of infinite weariness—and switched to heavily accented Korean. “You understand this language?”
The girl’s heart leaped. “Yes! Yes, I understand—”
“Good. You will forget it.”
The words landed like stones.
“What?”
“You will forget Korean,” the woman said, each word deliberate. “You will learn to speak Chinese. To think Chinese. To dream Chinese. If I hear you speaking Korean after the first month, you will be beaten. Do you understand?”
The girl’s throat closed. She nodded.
“Say it. In Korean, one last time. Say: ‘I understand.’”
“I ... I understand.”
“Good. That is the last Korean you will speak in this palace.”
The woman turned and walked into the room. After a moment, the girl followed.
The chamber was larger than her entire quarters back home.
Silk screens painted with mountains and mist divided the space. A brazier burned in one corner, filling the air with incense—sandalwood, she would later learn, though now it just made her eyes water. Scrolls covered in incomprehensible characters hung on the walls.
A low table sat in the center of the room. The woman knelt beside it with fluid grace and gestured for the girl to do the same.
She tried. Her knees didn’t bend the right way. Her feet tangled in her new robes. She fell, catching herself on her hands.
The woman watched without expression.
“Stand up.”
The girl stood.
“Kneel. Properly.”
She tried again. Failed again.
“Again.”
And again. And again. For what felt like hours, she practiced the simple act of kneeling in the Chinese fashion—back straight, weight distributed, hands folded just so. Each time she failed, the woman’s voice grew colder.
“Again.”
Her knees screamed. Tears leaked from her eyes, though she bit her lip to stay silent.
“Again.”
Finally, after what might have been the twentieth attempt or the hundredth, she managed it. Knelt properly, back straight, hands folded, posture perfect.
The woman’s expression didn’t change. “Acceptable. You will practice this one hundred times each morning before breakfast. If your form is imperfect, you will not eat.”
The girl’s stomach was already hollow from the journey. The thought of missing meals made her dizzy.
“You will learn,” the woman continued, “that in the Forbidden City, everything is ritual. Everything has form. The way you walk. The way you bow. The way you speak, eat, sleep, breathe. You will learn these forms, or you will be sent away.”
“Sent home?” Hope flickered.
“Sent to the servants’ quarters. To spend your life emptying chamber pots and scrubbing floors.” The woman’s eyes were flat as stones. “The Emperor does not waste resources. You are here to be educated. If you cannot be educated, you will be useful in other ways.”
The girl understood. This was not a threat. It was a fact.
“What is your name?” the woman asked.
“Princess—” She caught herself. The titles meant nothing here. “My name is—”
But what was her Korean name? In that moment, terrified and exhausted, she couldn’t remember. The syllables had fled from her mind like birds.
“You have no name,” the woman said. “Not yet. Names are earned in the Forbidden City. For now, you are waiguo nü—foreign girl. When you have proven yourself worthy, you will be given a Chinese name. A real name.”
She wanted to protest. Wanted to say she had a name, her mother had given it to her, it was hers.
But her mother hadn’t come to say goodbye.
And her name, whatever it had been, was already fading.
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