Shang-Ti's Succession to the Throne

The following is a Xsian tale of the Celestial Emperor Shang-Ti. It details how, as a mortal, he became the successor to the throne of the Xsian Empire.

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It was said that Shang-Ti was the tenth son of his father, the Emperor, born from a lowly concubine whose station was somewhere beneath the Emperor's sixth wife. The Emperor had twin boys, Fang and Guo, by his first wife -- a Lunarian priestess -- and had devised a series of trials to determine which one of the twins would succeed him to the throne. The Emperor's trials were designed to quantify which of his sons possessed greater wisdom, compassion and strength: the three virtues required of the Emperor of Hai-Xsia.

The Three Trials

The first test was of wisdom, and was simply a measure of how many ideograms each son had studied and could write, define and explain. Both boys would be judged on the quality of their penmanship, on their oration before the Emperor's scholars, the accuracy of their assessments and the total number of characters they presented.

The second test was of compassion. The boys would be placed in a room along a great corridor, lined on either side by peasants from the city without the palace walls. While followed by the Emperor's judges, each of the boys was to treat each peasant in the corridor with a measure of compassion. They were to be judged on the quality and sincerity of their offerings.

The last test was of strength. It was the most open ended of the trials, for the boys would have but to devise each their own method of proving their strength to rule before the Emperor's ministers. A feat of strength was the most obvious choice, so either a demonstration or some proof (such as the trophy of an especially powerful kill) would likely be called for.

The Trials Begin

On the morning that the trials began, Shang-Ti went to the court of his father, and after being admitted past the ministers and courtiers, asked if he could follow after the twin brothers and also take part in the trials. While some ministers demanded that Shang-Ti be executed for his presumptuousness, Shang-Ti prostrated himself and begged his father that he meant no offense. The Emperor was pleased by Shang-Ti's humility and honored his request.

Trial of Wisdom

In the trial of wisdom, the twin sons of the Emperor's first wife were able to recall the exact same number of ideograms (29,999), but only because they cheated off of each other. Their penmanship, assessments and explanations were paltry, but because they thought their only competition was each other they did not bother to do any better than bare minimum. Then following their trial, Shang-Ti drew five million ideograms, explained each one perfectly by reciting a classical poem that revolved around each character, and where even the Emperor's scholars were shown characters they'd never seen before, Shang-Ti elegantly and eloquently taught them how to draw it. The judges lacked words to express their awe for Shang-Ti's great learning.

Trial of Compassion

As Fang and Guo were embarking to begin the trial of compassion, they heard that one of their brothers by a low concubine was also taking part in the trials, and that he had greatly impressed the judges with his knowledge of writing. Worried, they decided that they would outstrip this newcomer by virtue of their inherited wealth, distributing money to all of the peasants they passed by in the corridor of compassion. So they sent their servants to the vault to withdraw large amounts of coin and gems, but the servants were slow in returning and so Fang and Guo had them beaten very badly before embarking on their trial. In turn they advanced down the corridor, distributing a handful of wealth to each peasant in the line. During Fang's advance, one peasant near the end greedily noted that the peasant next to him had received more monetary wealth by virtue of the kinds of gems he'd been given. Fang, outraged, commanded the peasant to return his offering and kowtow, whereupon Fang crushed the peasant's fingers under his boot. Guo had a similar encounter near the end of his trial. Being wise, and knowing that he was being watched by his Father's judges, he simply smiled and continued moving down the line. Upon completing the trial, he had his guards take note of the offending peasant, and ordered them to discreetly have him and his family murdered.

When it was Shang-Ti's turn to walk the corridor, he brought with him nothing but a writing pad and paper. His progress through the corridor was more slow than that of Fang or Guo; with each peasant he encountered, he stopped, asked their name and then taught each one individually how to write out the characters that spelled their name. It was a painstaking process, and lasted a full three days. At last, midway down the corridor, Shang-Ti ran out of paper, and was about to depart the trial to get more when one of the peasants he'd already met with exclaimed "Teacher! Let me go and get your paper. You must not leave the corridor or you will forfeit the trial." And the peasant left and found more paper, bringing it to Shang-Ti, and the lessons continued. The judges watching were amazed at how quickly Shang-Ti earned the love of the people.

Trial of Strength

Hearing once again that Shang-Ti had performed perfectly in the trial of compassion, Fang and Guo became desperate. They ventured to spy on their competitor, and found him to be a slight, scholarly man, and then they laughed when they saw him. Both Fang and Guo were skilled warriors, and believed that, at least in the test of strength, they had nothing to fear from Shang-Ti. So believing they parted ways and focused on each undoing the other again. When they returned, it was after a successful hunt.

First Fang came before the Emperor's judges, and described of how he had faced a great red dragon in single combat. He brought as proof of his deed one of the dragon's fingers, still wet with the creature's blood where Fang had severed it.

Guo came before the judges scoffing at his brother, claiming that he had faced an even larger red dragon in combat. As proof, he produced an even larger finger, and also one of the beast's horns.

The judges gathered around the princes' trophies, scrutinizing and inspecting them, but stopped when Shang-Ti arrived and asked what he had to offer for the trial of strength.

To begin with, Shang-Ti took a reed and drew in the dirt before him the character for "strength," and proceeded to lecture upon the various meanings of the character and the word itself. He glossed over the more common, pedestrian meaning of the word: that being physical power or martial prowess. Far longer did Shang-Ti expound upon the meanings of moral strength, intellectual strength, strength of character, and other less-well-thought-on meanings.

From there he told a story whose relevence became quickly apparent to the judges: he told of two princes vying for their father's throne who were sent out into the countryside to prove their strength. The first prince came upon the lair of a sleeping dragon, and marvelling at the creature's enormity, he knew that if he were to defeat the beast he would surely be thought of as strong and thereafter win out over his brother. But, on reflection, he knew he had little chance to stand for long against the beast in single combat. So instead, carefully, he sliced off the creature's smallest finger with his razor-sharp sword. The Dragon, being aged, felt nothing even as he bled molten oil from the wound, and so the prince wrapped the appendage in his cloak and returned to the palace. The second prince, now, was following the first, and saw the incident with the Dragon. This second prince reasoned that if he were to remove a larger piece of the dragon while it slept, he could say he'd beaten a larger specimen, and be thought of as even stronger than his brother. So he cut off the dragon's middle finger, and for good measure he also took one of its horns -- all without waking the elderly beast.

At the end of Shang-Ti's story, he named the princes as Fang and Guo, and declared that because they had lied about their trophies in the presence of their father's ministers, they lacked the moral strength to hold the office of the Emperor. Fang and Guo, outraged, asked Shang-Ti to provide proof of his charges, whereupon a large red dragon descended from the sky. On it right and left hands, a finger was missing, and one of its horns had been sawed-off. Shang-Ti explained that the dragon had told him the story, and that Shang-Ti had promised the dragon that he would sue peaceably for the recovery of the severed appendages if the dragon would refrain from attacking the kingdom out of revenge.

The ministers were, by this point, prostrate before Shang-Ti, who had apparently saved the countryside from mass devastation. Fang and Guo were made to surrender their trophies, and not long thereafter they fled the Empire to join with their mother's people, the wicked Moon-Folk in Lo-Xsian. Shang-Ti was named the Imperial Successor, and in addition was also given gifts from the Dragon: the Dragon bequeathed his severed fingers unto Shang-Ti, attaching them to each of his hands so that he had twelve fingers. These were said to enhance Shang-Ti's already potent knowledge of the arcane. The Dragon also bestowed on Shang-Ti his severed horn, which was fashioned into a horsebow that could shoot farther than any other bowman alive.