Li E
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Li E (Chinese: 李萼; born 730) was a Chinese Hidden One who lived in the Tang dynasty during the 8th century.
Biography
In 754, Li E followed the trail of a massacre that occurred in Duling village just before the annual Flower Festival that was to be held in Chang'an.[1] The village was well-known for its exquisite flower farms, which were highly sought after for the contest for the grandest fleet at the festival.[2] Although Chancellor Yang Guozhong had already secured victory every year due to his vast wealth and influence, he also resorted to unscrupulous means to reinforce his chances.[1] This amounted to even the hiring of a gang of common city thugs to coerce the residents of Duling village into turning over peonies to Yang without compensation,[1][3] an act of robbery that culminated in the deaths of seven villagers.[4] Li E was outraged by this atrocity and was determined to avenge those innocent lives.[1]
A first meeting with a legendary poet
He arrived in Chang'an in time for the festival and, by chance, encountered the famous poet Li Bai on a balcony in what would be the first of many meetings. The Assassin did not pay Li Bai much heed, but the poet, then in a drunken stupor, rambled on freely about the affairs of the day: how the festival was the only day of any year that commoners were allowed into the imperial city, how Yang Guozhong's victory was inevitable, and how not even the finest peonies could compare with the beauty of Yang Guifei. He droned on about his distaste for court life, having once experienced it himself, and how he had once dreamed of being a xiake before finally revealing that he had only come to Chang'an to see off his friend Abe no Nakamaro for his return to Japan. Having received news of Abe's demise in a shipwreck on his journey home, Li Bai was then wallowing in his grief for his lost friend.[1]
Li E, who had been on the balcony to survey the streets and find his target, sighted a lone wagon being transported by three men, a wagon full of the very peonies violently seized from Duling. Before lowering himself onto the street to tail the cart, he at last gave Li Bai some acknowledgement, rhetorically asking "how many families have been destroyed for the sake of one peony", given the saying that "one peony was worth a thousand gold". At that, Li Bai got a sense for the kind of individual this youth beside him was, but Li E did not give him a straight answer as to his purpose in Chang'an, parting only with the words "nothing is true, everything is permitted".[1]
Assassin in a capital of flowers
Blending in with the throng of city life, Li E sneaked up to the wagon unnoticed. His ambush was swift and sudden, killing one man from behind, dragging his corpse with him into the wagon of flowers, then slaying another from the cover. Before the third could react, he had pulled him onto the bed of peonies as well, so as to interrogate him on the whereabouts of his boss. Though this last henchman answered truthfully that his boss had already entered palace grounds, Li E coldly rejected his plead for mercy, citing his and his colleagues' lack of mercy for the Duling villagers.[1]
Gallery
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Closeup of Li E -
Li E in the crowd of Chang'an -
Li E's Hidden Blade
Appearances
References
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