Empress Jiang
Copyright© 2026 by Megumi Kashuahara
Chapter 3: The Breaking
The Forbidden City, Beijing, Autumn, 1422 - Spring, 1423
Age 6-7
Two years in the Forbidden City had transformed Zhao Lanying from a terrified child into something harder.
She could read eight hundred characters now. Recite forty poems. Identify court officials by the embroidery on their robes. She walked with the gliding grace Madam Liu demanded, spoke Chinese with only the faintest accent, and could go three days without thinking a single thought in Korean.
She was becoming exactly what they wanted her to be.
But she hadn’t yet learned the most important lesson.
That would come during the winter of her seventh year.
It started with another foreign child.
His name was Batu, a Mongol prince sent as tribute from the northern steppes. He was eight years old, broad-shouldered even as a child, with wind-burned cheeks and eyes that refused to bow.
He arrived in autumn, wearing felt and leather that smelled of horses and open sky. The eunuchs tried to dress him in silk. He ripped it off and stood naked in the courtyard, shouting in Mongolian until they beat him unconscious.
Zhao Lanying watched from a distance, Mei beside her.
“Foolish,” Mei whispered. “He doesn’t understand. Resistance only makes it worse.”
But Zhao Lanying thought she saw something else in Batu’s defiance. Something she’d lost in her two years of perfect obedience.
Pride.
Batu was assigned to the same education program. Different tutor—a stern eunuch named Wei—but same curriculum. Same grinding process of erasure and replacement.
He fought every step.
Refused to speak Chinese. Refused to kneel properly. Refused to use chopsticks, eating with his hands until they stopped feeding him.
After three days of starvation, he relented. But his eyes never stopped burning with hate.
Zhao Lanying found herself watching him during the shared morning exercises. While she moved through the ritual stretches with perfect form, Batu stumbled and glared and radiated fury.
Madam Liu noticed.
“The Mongol boy is not your concern,” she said coldly.
“I know, Shifu.”
“Yet you watch him.”
“I ... I was just wondering if he’ll survive.”
“He won’t.” Madam Liu’s tone was matter-of-fact. “He lacks the intelligence to adapt. Within six months, he’ll either be sent to the servants’ quarters or beaten to death for insubordination. Either way, he’ll disappear.”
“Isn’t there anything he could do?”
“Submit. Learn. Become Chinese.” Madam Liu looked at her sharply. “Why do you care?”
Zhao Lanying didn’t have an answer.
But late at night, lying on her wooden pillow, she realized: Batu reminded her of who she used to be.
Before she learned to submit.
Before she became Zhao Lanying.
When she was still ... whoever she’d been before.
Three months later, Batu still hadn’t broken.
He could speak some Chinese now—enough to curse his tutors. His calligraphy was atrocious but improving. He knelt when forced but never without the guards’ hands on his shoulders.
And he’d found one small rebellion he could maintain: he refused to eat pork.
“It is unclean,” he said in broken Chinese. “Mongols do not eat unclean meat.”
The eunuch Wei smiled thinly. “Chinese do. You are being educated as Chinese. You will eat what you are served.”
The standoff lasted two weeks. They served him pork at every meal. He refused to eat. His face grew gaunt. His hands trembled.
Zhao Lanying saw him in the courtyard one afternoon, swaying on his feet during deportment practice.
She made a decision she would later recognize as the first truly dangerous choice of her life.
That night, she stole rice from the kitchen.
Stealing in the Forbidden City was punishable by beating.
Stealing food was punishable by death.
Zhao Lanying had watched Lian die for stealing a hairpin. She knew exactly what she was risking.
But something in her—some last ember of whoever she’d been before—couldn’t watch Batu starve for refusing to abandon his beliefs.
She waited until Mei was asleep. Slipped from her quarters. Moved through the darkened corridors with the ghost-silent walk Madam Liu had drilled into her.
The kitchen was locked, but she’d watched the servants. Knew where they hid the spare key.
Inside, she found the rice stores. Filled her sleeve with enough for several meals. Found dried meat—lamb, not pork. Some preserved vegetables.
She was nearly to the door when she heard footsteps.
Her heart stopped.
She pressed herself into the shadows behind a rice barrel as two guards passed, their lanterns swinging. They were talking about a card game. Laughing.
They didn’t see her.
She waited until their footsteps faded. Then ran.
Batu’s quarters were in the west courtyard, reserved for tribute children who hadn’t yet earned better accommodations.
She found his door and scratched softly.
Silence.
She scratched again.
The door opened a crack. Batu’s suspicious eyes peered out.
She held out the food.
His eyes widened. For a moment, he just stared. Then he snatched the bundle from her hands and retreated into his room.
She thought he would slam the door. Instead, he hesitated.
“Why?” he asked in halting Chinese.
She didn’t have an answer that made sense. “Because I remember what it’s like. To be told everything you are is wrong.”
Something shifted in his expression. Not quite gratitude. More like recognition.
“They will beat you if they find out,” he said.
“I know.”
“Then you are a fool.”
“Probably.”
He almost smiled. Almost. Then he closed the door.
Zhao Lanying returned to her quarters, her heart still hammering, and lay awake until dawn wondering if she’d just made a fatal mistake.
For three nights, she brought him food.
On the fourth night, Madam Liu was waiting in her room when she returned.
The stolen food was laid out on the table—rice, dried lamb, vegetables. Physical evidence of her crime.
Zhao Lanying’s bowels turned to water.
“Kneel,” Madam Liu said.
She knelt.
Madam Liu walked around her slowly, like a cat circling a mouse. “You have been stealing from the imperial kitchens.”
“Yes, Shifu.”
“You know the punishment for this.”
“Yes, Shifu.”
“Then why?”
Zhao Lanying kept her eyes down. “The Mongol boy was starving.”
“The Mongol boy is not your responsibility.”
“I know.”
“Then. Why?”
The question hung in the air. Zhao Lanying felt the weight of it crushing down on her shoulders.
Why had she risked everything for a boy she barely knew? A boy who would probably fail anyway, be sent away or beaten to death just like Madam Liu predicted?
“Because...” She struggled for words. “Because I didn’t want to forget.”
“Forget what?”
“That I used to be someone who cared about things. Someone who thought fairness mattered. Someone who—”
She stopped. She was crying. When had she started crying?
Madam Liu waited.
“I’ve forgotten my name,” Zhao Lanying whispered. “My real name. The one my mother gave me. I’ve forgotten her face. I’ve forgotten what Korea looks like. I’ve forgotten everything I was before I came here.”
The tears were falling now, hot and shameful.
“And I thought ... if I let Batu die ... if I just watched him starve because it wasn’t my problem ... then I would forget the last thing. I would forget that I ever believed in anything except survival.”
She wiped her eyes roughly. “I’m sorry, Shifu. I know it was foolish.”
Madam Liu stood silent for a long moment.
Then she said, quietly: “Yes. It was foolish.”
She walked to the table. Picked up the bundle of stolen food.
“But it was also the first intelligent thing you’ve done since arriving.”
Zhao Lanying’s head snapped up.
Madam Liu’s expression was unreadable. “You have been an excellent student. Obedient. Careful. Precise. You have learned everything I taught you about survival.”
She set down the food.
“But survival is not the same as power. And power requires something more than obedience.”
“I don’t understand, Shifu.”
“Power,” Madam Liu said, “requires the ability to make choices. Real choices. Not just following orders, but deciding when to follow and when to lead. When to submit and when to resist. When to be ruthless and when to show mercy.”
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