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baihe_mediaOpening line I toyed with for this review #1: My teenage edgelord self would have liked this a lot.
Opening line I toyed with for this review #2: This is a story about an entire imperial clan of motherfuckers, and I mean that quite literally.
Dynasty of Beasts (禽兽王朝, pinyin: qinshou wangchao) is the story of Gao Che, sixth prince of the Qi empire, who was raised as a boy for Reasons. Gao Che has two ambitions in life: to become emperor, and to win the heart of her father's empress, the saintly Dugu Yuanzhen, who raised her in her own birth mother's absence.
The setting of this novel is based very closely (much more so than most historical-set novels) on the Northern Qi dynasty, which lasted for 27 years and was ruled over by six consecutive emperors. That statistic alone makes it clear what a turbulent time it was. Many of the characters are clearly based on historical figures from that time: Gao Che, for example, has similarities with the Prince of Lanling, one of the acknowledged four hottest men in Chinese history. Also of note is that the Northern Qi dynasty was culturally Xianbei, not Han, and conflicts between the Xianbei elite and Han commoners do crop up at times, though not really as a major plot point. The novel foregrounds heavily the brutal, amoral and debauched nature of the imperial family, which has some basis in history: the founder of the Northern Qi dynasty was known for his violent rages and erratic behaviour in later life. A lot of this is mirrored in the character Gao Xuan, Gao Che's father (who is also... kind of her brother, we'll get there), who is the emperor of Qi at the start of the novel. The opening of the novel drops you right in the middle of the royals' traditional spring hunt, only instead of deer or similar, they're hunting humans. To be precise, prisoners, who have been brought up from the dungeons and released in the woods for sport. That scene sets the tone for the book, as does another early scene where Gao Xuan holds an orgy, in the course of which he fucks one of his consorts in front of Gao Che to show the latter 'how it's done'. The debauchery somewhat tapers off in the second half of the novel, which features more traditional court intrigue, but it definitely sticks in the memory.
Gao Che, our protagonist, has major major mummy issues. Her birth mother is Empress Dowager Li, Gao Xuan's father's empress (though not related by blood to Gao Xuan), and she was conceived when Gao Xuan raped Empress Dowager Li shortly after his own father's death (...yeah). Gao Che was in fact born Gao Yu, one of a pair of fraternal twins; her twin brother, actually named Gao Che, died shortly after birth. For perfectly understandable reasons, Empress Dowager Li cannot stand the sight of her daughter, but in a bid to spare her the terrible fates that seem to befall women of the royal family, she declares her living daughter to be her son, while her dead son is buried under his sister's name. Eventually, Gao Xuan's empress, Dugu Yuanzhen, takes pity on both of them; she takes Gao Che into her care, and allows Empress Dowager Li (who at this point has been named Imperial Consort by Gao Xuan) to leave the palace and go into seclusion at a nunnery. At the start of the novel, therefore, only two (named) characters are aware that Gao Che is a woman: Empress Dowager Li, and Gao Che's concubine Han Ji, a former courtesan whom Gao Che plucked out of a brothel.
Structurally, the novel and key relationship shares a number of similarities with The Collapsing Palace (宫倾, pinyin: gong qing) by Ming Ye (明也), and given the notoriety of the latter (as well as how long ago it was written) I would not be surprised to learn that the author of Dynasty of Beasts had read it. Over the course of her childhood and teenagerhood (at the time the novel begins, she is sixteen years old, so still technically a teenager), Gao Che becomes hopelessly infatuated with Dugu Yuanzhen, but she's also almost equally obsessed with gaining the throne. She achieves the latter ambition after about the first third of the novel, having successfully played off two of the most powerful noble families against each other and in her favour, gotten rid of the kindly Crown Prince Gao Man (who is Dugu Yuanzhen's own son), and staged a coup against Gao Xuan. Her path to Dugu Yuanzhen's heart, however, is much rockier. While Dugu Yuanzhen does, we're told, have unmotherly feelings for Gao Che, she restrains herself from acting on them out of a deep sense of propriety and honour. Any hope (if hope is the word I'm looking for here) of a romantic relationship between them because completely closed off when Dugu Yuanzhen discovers that Gao Che was the one who murdered her son. In the end, Dugu Yuanzhen turns the tables on Gao Che by putting in place an elaborate scheme that involves: feigning amnesia, pretending (for a given value of pretending) to be won over by Gao Che's advances, and then revealing on Gao Che's birthday (which Gao Che had been looking forward to celebrating with her) that it had been a pretence all along, and forcing Gao Che to witness her cutting her own throat (with, of course, a sabre that Gao Che had gifted her as a protective token).
Following Dugu Yuanzhen's death, Gao Che seems to descend into madness, seeking out mediums and religious figures who might be able to let her communicate with Dugu Yuanzhen's spirit. Finally, a Daoist priestess who does seem to have this ability presents herself at court. Gao Che showers her with imperial favours, and begins taking a mysterious pill which the priestess claims will allow her to see Dugu Yuanzhen's spirit. The pills exacerbate Gao Che's mental deterioration, and also cause her to weaken physically. While out hunting one day, Gao Che falls from her horse, and is beaten to death by a soldier — who turns out to be the only prisoner who managed to escape the spring hunt at the start of the novel. We find out that the whole business with the Daoist priestess and the pills was part of a scheme put into motion by Dugu Yuanzhen before she died, aided and abetted by her daughter (and Gao Che's half-sister Princess Gao Zhi). We also find out in the first extra that Gao Che was perfectly aware that it was a scheme all along, and had gone along with it because... why not? Why shouldn't I die the way my mother figure/beloved wants me to? The main novel is followed by quite a long succession of extras, all of which confirm that every single member of the main branch of the Gao family is doomed to develop an obsession with their mother figures.
It's not often that I want a webnovel to be longer, but I did find myself wishing this one had been. The plot progresses at a fair clip, but at the expense of allowing the characters and emotions to breathe. It really did need more scenes between Gao Che and Dugu Yuanzhen, and more memories of their past together, to make their feelings for each other convincing, especially on Dugu Yuanzhen's side. There are a few more details in the extras, but those were hardly enough. The major on-page sex scene between the two of them (when Dugu Yuanzhen is feigning amnesia, and pretending to buy Gao Che's story about them being a married couple) needed much more in terms of Dugu Yuanzhen's emotions, especially since in one of the extras, we learn that Dugu Yuanzhen actually tops Gao Che during this encounter (I found this unexpected; of all the baihe gongs in existence, Gao Che is the one I would 110% believe to be all gong, all the time). How did she feel during this? Was it purely hate sex (the text indicates that she took no pains to be gentle)? Was it mixed with something else? How did it make her feel to be 'conquering' the all-conquering Gao Che? How did Gao Che feel about this act of 'surrender', come to it? This also applies to the secondary f/f couples: Princess Gao Zhi and Xiao Hui'an, a former princess whose family was overthrown by the Gaos, and Gao Che's concubine Han Ji and strategist-turned-consort Xu Zhongling.
The baseline of depravity and amorality also made it difficult for me to pinpoint exactly what would be 'normal' for various characters to feel in any given situation. Partway through the novel, for instance, we're told that Princess Gao Zhi is genuinely upset when her (full blood) brother Crown Prince Gao Man falls ill — and I was surprised at that. The characters' reactions to extreme behaviour is sometimes inconsistently handled. For instance, early in the book, we're told that Gao Che is known for sleeping with virgins and then killing/having them killed right after (to prevent them from revealing the fact that she's a woman — Han Ji is the only one who survives this process, out of sheer bloody-minded survival instinct that even Gao Che is impressed by). Yet she's still known among high society as a bright, sunny young man, with perhaps a few youthful peccadilloes, but nothing too bad. Even the saintly Dugu Yuanzhen seems to think of this as a mere youthful quirk. She does chastise Gao Che for it and tells her to stop (which she does, after taking Han Ji as a concubine), but at no point does she seem horrified at this behaviour. I also don't particularly like the fact that Gao Che's eventual downfall comes about in part because of several small (rare) acts of mercy, including not hunting down the escaped prisoner from the first chapter and sparing the life of Xiao Hui'an, who eventually uses her own death to reveal to Dugu Yuanzhen the truth behind her son Gao Man's death.
The most human character in the whole novel is probably Han Ji, Gao Che's concubine and eventually one of her consorts. She manages to make palace life bearable by focusing on the small pleasures: sweets from the kitchen, hot gossip from the maids, lavish jewels from Gao Che, and her budding relationship with Xu Zhongling, one of Gao Che's other consorts (who was previously one of Gao Che's strategists, in the guise of a man). Han Ji is not in love with Gao Che, nor is Gao Che in love with her, but in an odd way, the two of them come closer to being family than just about any other group of people in the novel. Gao Che is also more human when she's with Han Ji, and she actually makes plans for Han Ji's future and welfare. One of the Han Ji-focused extras has her just spending an ordinary day at the palace with Gao Che and the little girl who's functionally their adopted daughter,* and it's the most domestic this novel ever gets.
*The little girl is actually Gao Che's niece, the daughter of Gao Che's half-brother Gao Hong. Gao Che executed Gao Hong's entire family when she gained the throne, in large part as revenge for Gao Hong having once sent her a literal painting of her father literally raping her mother (honestly this is such a charming family). Gao Che chose to spare one of Gao Hong's concubines, who was pregnant at the time, because the woman's plight reminded her of Dugu Yuanzhen, who had just had a miscarriage not long before then. After Dugu Yuanzhen's death, Gao Che brings the little girl back with her to the palace, causing everyone to believe that the little girl is Gao Che (who is still publicly believed to be a man) and Dugu Yuanzhen's daughter, and basically confirming the rumour that's been hanging around for most of the novel that the two of them were having an affair. Gao Che does this, of course, because even a rumoured, reputation-besmirching connection to Dugu Yuanzhen is better than no connection at all.
There's a sort of feminist message in the novel, about how the royal women are basically used and discarded as objects of value and exchange between the men of their family, but I'm not sure that it carries through particularly strongly or consistently. Gao Che's gender is also oddly not very salient. I felt it was most relevant in the scene where her birth mother reflects that she elected to tell everyone that Gao Che was a boy to spare her the fate of royal daughters, but not particularly in any other scene. Even when Gao Che reveals her gender to Dugu Yuanzhen, it doesn't have much of an impact; Dugu Yuanzhen only thinks briefly: ah, that's just yet another taboo.
I read the Chinese original of the novel on Changpei. The uncensored versions of the sex scenes can be found on the author's Weibo here.
Opening line I toyed with for this review #2: This is a story about an entire imperial clan of motherfuckers, and I mean that quite literally.
Dynasty of Beasts (禽兽王朝, pinyin: qinshou wangchao) is the story of Gao Che, sixth prince of the Qi empire, who was raised as a boy for Reasons. Gao Che has two ambitions in life: to become emperor, and to win the heart of her father's empress, the saintly Dugu Yuanzhen, who raised her in her own birth mother's absence.
The setting of this novel is based very closely (much more so than most historical-set novels) on the Northern Qi dynasty, which lasted for 27 years and was ruled over by six consecutive emperors. That statistic alone makes it clear what a turbulent time it was. Many of the characters are clearly based on historical figures from that time: Gao Che, for example, has similarities with the Prince of Lanling, one of the acknowledged four hottest men in Chinese history. Also of note is that the Northern Qi dynasty was culturally Xianbei, not Han, and conflicts between the Xianbei elite and Han commoners do crop up at times, though not really as a major plot point. The novel foregrounds heavily the brutal, amoral and debauched nature of the imperial family, which has some basis in history: the founder of the Northern Qi dynasty was known for his violent rages and erratic behaviour in later life. A lot of this is mirrored in the character Gao Xuan, Gao Che's father (who is also... kind of her brother, we'll get there), who is the emperor of Qi at the start of the novel. The opening of the novel drops you right in the middle of the royals' traditional spring hunt, only instead of deer or similar, they're hunting humans. To be precise, prisoners, who have been brought up from the dungeons and released in the woods for sport. That scene sets the tone for the book, as does another early scene where Gao Xuan holds an orgy, in the course of which he fucks one of his consorts in front of Gao Che to show the latter 'how it's done'. The debauchery somewhat tapers off in the second half of the novel, which features more traditional court intrigue, but it definitely sticks in the memory.
Gao Che, our protagonist, has major major mummy issues. Her birth mother is Empress Dowager Li, Gao Xuan's father's empress (though not related by blood to Gao Xuan), and she was conceived when Gao Xuan raped Empress Dowager Li shortly after his own father's death (...yeah). Gao Che was in fact born Gao Yu, one of a pair of fraternal twins; her twin brother, actually named Gao Che, died shortly after birth. For perfectly understandable reasons, Empress Dowager Li cannot stand the sight of her daughter, but in a bid to spare her the terrible fates that seem to befall women of the royal family, she declares her living daughter to be her son, while her dead son is buried under his sister's name. Eventually, Gao Xuan's empress, Dugu Yuanzhen, takes pity on both of them; she takes Gao Che into her care, and allows Empress Dowager Li (who at this point has been named Imperial Consort by Gao Xuan) to leave the palace and go into seclusion at a nunnery. At the start of the novel, therefore, only two (named) characters are aware that Gao Che is a woman: Empress Dowager Li, and Gao Che's concubine Han Ji, a former courtesan whom Gao Che plucked out of a brothel.
Structurally, the novel and key relationship shares a number of similarities with The Collapsing Palace (宫倾, pinyin: gong qing) by Ming Ye (明也), and given the notoriety of the latter (as well as how long ago it was written) I would not be surprised to learn that the author of Dynasty of Beasts had read it. Over the course of her childhood and teenagerhood (at the time the novel begins, she is sixteen years old, so still technically a teenager), Gao Che becomes hopelessly infatuated with Dugu Yuanzhen, but she's also almost equally obsessed with gaining the throne. She achieves the latter ambition after about the first third of the novel, having successfully played off two of the most powerful noble families against each other and in her favour, gotten rid of the kindly Crown Prince Gao Man (who is Dugu Yuanzhen's own son), and staged a coup against Gao Xuan. Her path to Dugu Yuanzhen's heart, however, is much rockier. While Dugu Yuanzhen does, we're told, have unmotherly feelings for Gao Che, she restrains herself from acting on them out of a deep sense of propriety and honour. Any hope (if hope is the word I'm looking for here) of a romantic relationship between them because completely closed off when Dugu Yuanzhen discovers that Gao Che was the one who murdered her son. In the end, Dugu Yuanzhen turns the tables on Gao Che by putting in place an elaborate scheme that involves: feigning amnesia, pretending (for a given value of pretending) to be won over by Gao Che's advances, and then revealing on Gao Che's birthday (which Gao Che had been looking forward to celebrating with her) that it had been a pretence all along, and forcing Gao Che to witness her cutting her own throat (with, of course, a sabre that Gao Che had gifted her as a protective token).
Following Dugu Yuanzhen's death, Gao Che seems to descend into madness, seeking out mediums and religious figures who might be able to let her communicate with Dugu Yuanzhen's spirit. Finally, a Daoist priestess who does seem to have this ability presents herself at court. Gao Che showers her with imperial favours, and begins taking a mysterious pill which the priestess claims will allow her to see Dugu Yuanzhen's spirit. The pills exacerbate Gao Che's mental deterioration, and also cause her to weaken physically. While out hunting one day, Gao Che falls from her horse, and is beaten to death by a soldier — who turns out to be the only prisoner who managed to escape the spring hunt at the start of the novel. We find out that the whole business with the Daoist priestess and the pills was part of a scheme put into motion by Dugu Yuanzhen before she died, aided and abetted by her daughter (and Gao Che's half-sister Princess Gao Zhi). We also find out in the first extra that Gao Che was perfectly aware that it was a scheme all along, and had gone along with it because... why not? Why shouldn't I die the way my mother figure/beloved wants me to? The main novel is followed by quite a long succession of extras, all of which confirm that every single member of the main branch of the Gao family is doomed to develop an obsession with their mother figures.
It's not often that I want a webnovel to be longer, but I did find myself wishing this one had been. The plot progresses at a fair clip, but at the expense of allowing the characters and emotions to breathe. It really did need more scenes between Gao Che and Dugu Yuanzhen, and more memories of their past together, to make their feelings for each other convincing, especially on Dugu Yuanzhen's side. There are a few more details in the extras, but those were hardly enough. The major on-page sex scene between the two of them (when Dugu Yuanzhen is feigning amnesia, and pretending to buy Gao Che's story about them being a married couple) needed much more in terms of Dugu Yuanzhen's emotions, especially since in one of the extras, we learn that Dugu Yuanzhen actually tops Gao Che during this encounter (I found this unexpected; of all the baihe gongs in existence, Gao Che is the one I would 110% believe to be all gong, all the time). How did she feel during this? Was it purely hate sex (the text indicates that she took no pains to be gentle)? Was it mixed with something else? How did it make her feel to be 'conquering' the all-conquering Gao Che? How did Gao Che feel about this act of 'surrender', come to it? This also applies to the secondary f/f couples: Princess Gao Zhi and Xiao Hui'an, a former princess whose family was overthrown by the Gaos, and Gao Che's concubine Han Ji and strategist-turned-consort Xu Zhongling.
The baseline of depravity and amorality also made it difficult for me to pinpoint exactly what would be 'normal' for various characters to feel in any given situation. Partway through the novel, for instance, we're told that Princess Gao Zhi is genuinely upset when her (full blood) brother Crown Prince Gao Man falls ill — and I was surprised at that. The characters' reactions to extreme behaviour is sometimes inconsistently handled. For instance, early in the book, we're told that Gao Che is known for sleeping with virgins and then killing/having them killed right after (to prevent them from revealing the fact that she's a woman — Han Ji is the only one who survives this process, out of sheer bloody-minded survival instinct that even Gao Che is impressed by). Yet she's still known among high society as a bright, sunny young man, with perhaps a few youthful peccadilloes, but nothing too bad. Even the saintly Dugu Yuanzhen seems to think of this as a mere youthful quirk. She does chastise Gao Che for it and tells her to stop (which she does, after taking Han Ji as a concubine), but at no point does she seem horrified at this behaviour. I also don't particularly like the fact that Gao Che's eventual downfall comes about in part because of several small (rare) acts of mercy, including not hunting down the escaped prisoner from the first chapter and sparing the life of Xiao Hui'an, who eventually uses her own death to reveal to Dugu Yuanzhen the truth behind her son Gao Man's death.
The most human character in the whole novel is probably Han Ji, Gao Che's concubine and eventually one of her consorts. She manages to make palace life bearable by focusing on the small pleasures: sweets from the kitchen, hot gossip from the maids, lavish jewels from Gao Che, and her budding relationship with Xu Zhongling, one of Gao Che's other consorts (who was previously one of Gao Che's strategists, in the guise of a man). Han Ji is not in love with Gao Che, nor is Gao Che in love with her, but in an odd way, the two of them come closer to being family than just about any other group of people in the novel. Gao Che is also more human when she's with Han Ji, and she actually makes plans for Han Ji's future and welfare. One of the Han Ji-focused extras has her just spending an ordinary day at the palace with Gao Che and the little girl who's functionally their adopted daughter,* and it's the most domestic this novel ever gets.
*The little girl is actually Gao Che's niece, the daughter of Gao Che's half-brother Gao Hong. Gao Che executed Gao Hong's entire family when she gained the throne, in large part as revenge for Gao Hong having once sent her a literal painting of her father literally raping her mother (honestly this is such a charming family). Gao Che chose to spare one of Gao Hong's concubines, who was pregnant at the time, because the woman's plight reminded her of Dugu Yuanzhen, who had just had a miscarriage not long before then. After Dugu Yuanzhen's death, Gao Che brings the little girl back with her to the palace, causing everyone to believe that the little girl is Gao Che (who is still publicly believed to be a man) and Dugu Yuanzhen's daughter, and basically confirming the rumour that's been hanging around for most of the novel that the two of them were having an affair. Gao Che does this, of course, because even a rumoured, reputation-besmirching connection to Dugu Yuanzhen is better than no connection at all.
There's a sort of feminist message in the novel, about how the royal women are basically used and discarded as objects of value and exchange between the men of their family, but I'm not sure that it carries through particularly strongly or consistently. Gao Che's gender is also oddly not very salient. I felt it was most relevant in the scene where her birth mother reflects that she elected to tell everyone that Gao Che was a boy to spare her the fate of royal daughters, but not particularly in any other scene. Even when Gao Che reveals her gender to Dugu Yuanzhen, it doesn't have much of an impact; Dugu Yuanzhen only thinks briefly: ah, that's just yet another taboo.
I read the Chinese original of the novel on Changpei. The uncensored versions of the sex scenes can be found on the author's Weibo here.
