lay in pools of blood. The wounded were voicing their agony. Red-kerchiefed Boxers, as well as women and children, were running headlong up and down the street on which he had traveled not so long before. For all practical purposes, the town had been laid waste, the Magistrate concluded. The Germans could take it almost without a fight, and this realization underscored his sense of self-worth. By sacrificing Sun Bing, one man, he could save thousands. Sun Bing had to be delivered, at all costs. If persuasion failed, force would have to have to be employed. Even though he had refused Ma Longbiao’s offer of a pistol, the Magistrate was confident that Sun Bing was no match for him. He had such a deep sense of valor and solemnity that he could all but hear drums and horns heralding his arrival. Spurring his horse into a gallop, he flew down the street, heading straight for the mat shed that stood at the bend in the river, where he would find Sun Bing.
There he saw hundreds of Boxers down in the dry riverbed ingesting Taoist charms. Using both hands, each man held a bowl in which paper ashes were mixed with water. Sun Bing, the man he sought, stood atop a pile of bricks and filled the air with a loud incantation. His primary outside help, the Caozhou Righteous Harmony Boxer Sun Wukong, was nowhere to be seen; the second-in-command, Zhu Bajie, was demonstrating martial skills with his rake to lend an impressive air to Sun’s ritual. The Magistrate slid down off his horse and walked up to the brick pile, where he kicked over the incense altar in front of Sun Bing.
“Sun Bing,” he said loudly, “how can you continue to beguile and bewitch your followers when rivers of your men’s blood already flow across the fortification?”
When Sun Bing’s bodyguards rushed up from behind, the Magistrate quickly moved around Sun, took a glistening dagger from his sleeve, and placed the point in a spot directly behind Sun’s heart.
“Do not move!” he commanded.
“You dog of an official!” Sun Bing hissed. “Once again you have broken my boxing magic! I am iron head, iron waist, iron body, impervious to bullets, resistant to water and fire!”
“Fellow townsmen, go take a look at the fortification, then tell me if flesh and blood can stand up to cannon shells!” He chose this moment to make a bold assumption: “There you will even find the mangled body of your finest warrior, the mighty Sun Wukong!”
“You lie!” Sun Bing screamed.
“Sun Bing,” the Magistrate said callously, “have you really mastered the art of resisting knives and spears?”
“Nothing can penetrate my body, not even shells fired by those dog soldiers!”
The Magistrate bent down, picked up a brick, and struck it against Sun Bing’s forehead before he had time to react. Sun fell backward, but the Magistrate caught him by the collar and held him up.
“Now show these people your indestructible body!”
Dark blood snaked down from Sun Bing’s forehead, like worms squirming across his face. Zhu Bajie swung his rake at the Magistrate, who jumped out of the way and flung his dagger; it stuck in Zhu’s abdomen, sending him tumbling off the brick pile with agonizing screams.
“Have you seen enough, fellow townsmen? These are your altar master and one of his senior aides. If they have failed to withstand even the modest brick-and-dagger efforts of a local official, how are they going to repel enemy cannon fire?”
The adherents’ confidence was shaken, to which the buzzing below the platform bore irrefutable witness.
“Sun Bing,” the Magistrate said, “as a man of valor, you must not send these people to certain death just to satisfy a personal desire. I have secured a promise from the German Plenipotentiary that he will withdraw his troops if you surrender to him. You have already accomplished something so astonishing it has captured the attention of the whole world, and if you are willing to sacrifice yourself in order to keep your fellow townsmen from harm, your legacy will live forever!”
“Heaven’s will!” Sun Bing said with a sigh. “It is heaven’s will.” Then he began to sing: “Ceding territory and vanquished by the Jin~~I forsake the Central Plain and abandon the common people, a decade of exploits squandered in a single day~~Humiliated, we sue for peace, remorse follows an overturned nest~~I fear the whale will swallow our land away. Do not falsely consign me to confinement with no end, for when I am gone, the Yue army