Yang Guozhong's flower delegates
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I wanted to ask you something. Which is... what's your name? This article title is conjecture. Although the article subject is canon, no official name for it has been given. |
The team competing on Yang Guozhong's behalf in the 754 Flower Festival were registered with Guozhong's signature Yichunkan flower wagon exhibit. Owing to Guozhong's penchant for cheating in the contest, this team consisted in reality of a gang of common thugs hoping to be rewarded with riches beyond their imagination. Although they managed to win the competition as planned, they failed to receive an audience with Guozhong and the court and, on the same night of the festival, were assassinated by Li E in revenge for their robbery of the Duling flower farm.
History
The employment of petty criminals to serve as his team in the 754 Flower Festival was not a first for Chancellor Yang Guozhong who had won the previous year by hiring a different gang.[1] According to the poet Li Bai, his annual streak of victories owed not only to his immense wealth but also to the reluctance of even those who had the means to contest him to do so.[2] At the time, the most famous and exquisite peonies were cultivated by Duling village, a community of farms which specialized in the flower trade.[3] Unwilling to spend money on the expensive peonies, the Yichunkan team resorted to seizing them by force,[2] murdering seventeen of the villagers in the process.[4] Their boss dreamed of a triumphant entry into high society—to be as a "carp leaping over the dragon gate"—at any cost.[5]
The day of the Flower Festival
Unbeknownst to them on the morning of the festival, that cost would prove to include their lives. The massacre at Duling village incited the wrath of the Hidden One Li E, who ambushed the last wagon of peonies seized from Duling that was on the way through the streets of Chang'an to meet up with the rest of the team. Two of the three men transporting it were felled immediately while the last was interrogated for the whereabouts of his leader. Despite answering honestly that his boss had already entered the palace grounds, Li E refused to spare his life, pointing out that he and his colleagues had not spared those of Duling.[2]
The absence of this wagon at the meeting spot did not go unnoticed by the boss, but he brushed aside his men's concerns that trouble had befallen it, reasoning that those transporting it were only running late. Their worries further evaporated when the the imperial city gates opened, signaling the commencement of the festival. At the completion of the opening performance, butterflies soared to the balcony of Hua'e Tower just as the host Yang Guifei appeared before the city. She redirected a butterfly towards team leader of the Yichunkan as a signal to her announcer, who thereupon declared Right Chancellor Yang Guozhong victor.[5]
The elated team was invited into Hua'e Tower to be honored and rewarded with the grand prize,[5] but this ultimately failed to come to fruition.[4][1] Rather, the boss and five of his men were kept waiting in a courtyard by one of Guozhong's servants while Emperor Xuanzong partied above with his court, having received his favorite jiedushi An Lushan instead. Guozhong, himself fuming over the powers and accolades An Lushan had just been frivolously granted by the Emperor, did not bother to meet with the Yichunkan team to discuss their own rewards.[1]
Celebrations cut short
Into the evening they waited until, at Chenxiang Pavilion, they encountered the lone Assassin Li E waiting for them. The stranger's threats and then allusion to the seventeen lives lost at Duling tipped them off. At their boss's command, all five thugs drew their daggers and charged at Li E. When they were all swiftly slain, the boss fled in a panic but was intercepted and executed with a Hidden Blade before he could get even a few paces away.[4]
Before the night was out, their corpses were discovered by Guozhong's servant who had returned to check on them. The servant fearfully reported this to Guozhong, who remained outwardly unperturbed, referring to the gang as nothing more than base ruffians of the city whose violent temperaments would naturally incur some individual's vengeance. Nonetheless, he ordered his servant to call upon the Yulin royal guards to secretly hunt for the killer, with express instructions not to raise the alarm or alert even the Emperor, lest they ruin the festivities.[6]