1410-1412: The Queen Mother has a holiday (or two)
Scene 1: News Year Day 1410
A meeting of the state bureaucrats. The room is elegantly furnished, tea is being served in fine china cups, the lightest of dim sums are being eaten. The only thing out of place is a European looking man with bad haliatosis.
"ah such a sophisticated tea"
"how many temples have we built this year?"
"is Yongle still alive?"
"time for a war maybe ... he so likes to lead the army"
"now lets discuss our main problem. We have had complaints from our loyal Korean allies. It seems as if one of her peacocks dropped peaches on their ships"
"ummh ... Senor Harold ... do you perhaps have some advice for us?"
"well maybe you should track her down and imprison her? ... I mean just follow the trail of peacock droppings and peach stones, she's not the neatest of travellors"
"ok, but where is she now?"
"well look, I know you lot have raised inertia past that attained by a very slow koala, but as some clues ... she's bonkers, goes around with a bunch of peacocks and has an addiction to peaches ... not too hard to find I'd have thought?
8 January 1410
Dear Diary
I have decided to take a nice winter-sun break this year. I was not invited to the New Years Party, and I hear that Vietnam is nice this time of the year.
The only problem is the beaches are full of Chinese tourists ... I'm off somewhere quieter.
28 January 1410
I hear reports that Yongle has done his best to fight his way to rescue me (I did forget to tell him I was on holiday), but of course the evil bureaucrats throw away all the gains
28 April 1410
Pah, Chinese tourists are everywhere this year ... I have to move on again
10 May 1410
Now they have permanently occupied my favourite beach, it will be in all the official guidebooks and full of visitors ... I'm going south
21 July 1410
Yet, another beach spoilt
22 July 1410
I have consulted with my travel agents, I mean after such an exhausting winter I think its time for my summer holidays
16 August 1410
I am not happy. My spies tell me these extra ships are to allow the bureaucrats to capture me.
(H – at last, she's worked out the horde of armed Chinese 'tourists' who keep on turning up may indicate someone has it in for her ... )
30 August 1410
That should give them something to think about ... all you have to do to encourage a Manchu to revolt is threaten them with a peach.
(H – nicely done ... I know another female diety with a similarly direct approach to such problems)
24 December 1410
Well he wasn't going to invite me over for the New Year, so that should at least give him something useful to do instead
14 May 1411
Ha, ha, that'll teach them ... now I have the beach to myself again
(H – whow, more vengeful than I thought she was capable of)
23 June 1411
It seems I just have to live with these disappointments
31 August 1411
It seems I am not going to have a quiet holiday this year ... I'm going back home.
18 September 1411
Yongle came to visit. For one so stupid he is sort of likeable but he seems to have fallen in with some bad types since I last spoke to him.
A lot of people seem to have it in for him these days?
30 April 1412
South ... south ... always the South, well, I expect little else from the bureaucrats. Have sent Yongle some special peaches for his birthday, he is quite likeable – if you like your rulers to be as dim as a giant amoeba that missed out on some early evolutionary events.
21 May 1412
The bureaucrats are blaming me for Yongle's death. Apparently he choked to death on a peach stone. The bit they are not mentioning is the peach and stone were stuffed into his mouth by a passing group of bureaucrats.
(H – way to go !!!! Must remember that one for future use)