2 After the war

The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms period was an era of political upheaval in 10th-century Imperial China. Five states quickly succeeded one another in the Central Plain, and more than a dozen concurrent states were established elsewhere, mainly in South China. It was the last prolonged period of multiple political division in Chinese imperial history.

The era started with the fall of the Tang dynasty in 907 AD and ended with the founding of the Song dynasty in 960. Many states had been de facto independent kingdoms long before 907. After the Tang had collapsed, the kings who controlled the Central plain crowned themselves as emperors. The war between kingdoms occurred frequently to gain control of the central plain for legitimacy and then over the rest of China.

Towards the end of the Tang, the imperial government granted increased powers to the Jiedushi, the regional military governors. The Huang Chao Rebellion weakened the imperial government, and by the early 10th century the Jiedushi commanded de facto independence from its authority. In the last decades of the dynasty, they were not even appointed by the court anymore, but developed hereditary systems, from father to son or from patron to protégé. They had their own armies rivaling the "palace armies" and amassed huge wealth, as testified by their sumptuous tombs.

Zhu Wen initially allied himself as Huang Chao's lieutenant. However, he took Huang's best troops and established his own power base as a warlord in Kaifeng. By 904, he had exerted control over both of the twin Tang Dynasty capitals of Chang'an and Luoyang. Tang emperor Zhaozong was ordered murdered by Zhu in 904 and the last Tang emperor, Ai Di (Emperor Ai of Tang), was deposed three years later. Emperor Ai of Tang was murdered in 908, also ordered by Zhu.

Meanwhile, Zhu Wen declared himself emperor of the new Later Liang in Kaifeng in 907. The name Liang refers to the Henan region in which the heart of the regime rested.

In 907 A.D. Zhu Wen, the king of Liang, invaded the Jin Kingdom with large troops. Li Ke Yong, king of the Jin dynasty, refused to recognize his regime and continued to use the name of "Tianyou" in the tang dynasty promise to recover Tang.

The darkest period in China's history, the five dynasties, and ten kingdoms began. For a hundred years, there were swords and wailing. In this dark age, a mysterious assassination organization emerged. Wandering between the military and political, lake and rivers, killing extravagance and disregard for human life. Some said it was clearly made up to appease the people, while others said it had been there since the Tang dynasty. The killer, it is said, has only one woman who can draw the human spirit away with a smile. There are also rumors that the killers is a group of women with different shapes and sizes. The only thing they have in common is red umbrellas covered with golden flowers.

Meanwhile, in a city that just been conquered by Liang Kingdom troops…

Life is going as usual since human is easy to adapt to changes with their environment. Liang Kingdom army is wise enough by did not raze the city and kill every people in the city. They only slaughter some influenced families in the city to scare the rest. Kill the chicken to scare monkey, that effective enough to keep people in the city to submit under the new ruler.

After the battle is over, some business is declining while other is prosperous. One of the businesses that is prosperous is burial business since there are many corpses left by previous battle. By using food as payment, the burial businessman can get many cheap workers especially from those poor people that lack food after the war. The city itself located in a mountainous area which makes the burial ground is not located in flat surfaces ground, but in the cliff instead. They dig many holes in the cliff to make burial chamber for those corpses.

In one of those burial ground in the west side of the city, bustling activities can be seen there. Many workers, men, and women are working diligently to earn some food for their family. The men digging the holes in the cliff while the women preparing the corpses in their respective coffins. The corpses were put in the sack and bring down using the rope to the lower part of the cliff where other workers will accept it and put it on the coffin.

Their activities were halted by a loud announcement,

"Pay time! Pay time!"

Those workers immediately leave their job and gather to the place where the announcement comes from. It's time for them to receive their payment for their work today. In a moment, a swarm of the crowd already gathered near the clerk.

"Quiet! I'll call your name one by one to give your payment. Everyone, please wait in order!"

The clerk is shouting loudly to calming down the impatient masses. Then he starts to read his records

"Su Qi Xue! Come here!"

A skinny and dirty young girl comes forward after squeezing herself from the masses.

"Here your payment. You're doing the final job. You know what to do to earn this, right?"

The clerk takes some taros and handed it to Su QI Xue. She received the taros with the happy face. After her mother died a few years before, she must take care of the household, her sick father and her little brother. Since her father can't go to work as herb forager because his health condition, Su Qi Xue take over her father duty to feed the family.

"Thanks, brother, I know my job, to bury the dead person"

"Go and do your job then"

Su Qi Xue squeezes her way out from the masses again to go to the workplace. As a female worker there, her job is to receive the dead bodies from the top of the cliff and put the body in the coffin before the male worker take the coffin to burial holes. If the dead person comes from the poor family, they did not put the body in the coffin but take the sack containing the corpses straight into the burial holes.

"Su Qi Xue, we will drop another one. Receive it carefully!"

The male worker in the top of the cliff shouting at Su Qi Xue below while preparing a sack to drop it below

"Okay!"

Su Qi Xue waiting for the sack down and after the sack arrived, she unties the rope on the sack. Because she did not hold the sack tightly, after the rope untied, the sack fell from her hand and rolling down on the ground. The dead body in the sack is a middle-aged woman from wealthy family since she buried in her best dress.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry…it's all my fault, I'm sorry!"

Su Qi Xue panicking and kowtowing the dead body, asking for the forgiveness over her clumsiness. Su Qi Xue hurriedly fixed the corpse into the sack again. But before Su Qi Xue put the bodies back to the sack, she noticed the dead person gripping something in her hand. Because the bumping after the falling, the hand that originally stiff become a bit loosen and reveal what inside the grip. Su Qi Xue carefully takes the thing inside the grip, it's a small transparent ball like pebbles with something like a violet flower inside. Attracted with that thing, Su Qi Xue put that small ball into her bosom and continues her works afterward.