Jade Fish and the Qin: Book Two : 'Ming I' - The Darkening of the Light

"Jade Fish and the Qin" is the second book in the series "Jade Fish and the Master". Jade Fish (or Princess Yu Yù) has been the ruler of her state, the Zhou State of the Peacock Throne, for three years and she is now sixteen. All should be well, but the neighbouring Qin state (pronounced 'Chin') is threatening to invade. The regime under King Zhao Xiang is totalitarian and utterly ruthless in its desire for absolute conquest. The story is set around 280 BCE during the era known nowadays as the Period of the Warring States. Jade Fish's instincts are for diplomacy and negotiation rather than military action. Her people are scared and want to protect themselves. How should she react, given her Master's teachings? Bien Jin, her friendly young Emissary or diplomat, is behind her in wishing to negotiate, but Ling Hu, another young man and a warrior whom she also likes very much, thinks that if diplomacy fails, her country should seriously prepare to fight for their freedom. Jade Fish decides that first of all they must try to talk to the Qin and get them to see that more can be gained by friendship and trade than by aggression and war. But will anyone listen to her envoy in the Qin capital of Xian Yang? Bien Jin discovers, on his journey to Xian Yang, that Lao Tzu is being held prisoner there. Soon after that, Jade Fish's father, Yuan Song, is taken prisoner after a skirmish that led to a Qin atrocity at one of the border posts. With a growing crisis on her hands, Jade Fish is faced with difficult decisions and her Master is no longer around to advise her. She does, however, have good friends, and one, Chan Shui the Wise Woman who uses the I Ching as an oracle, offers her another Reading - 'The Darkening of the Light'. This has hard words of caution but there is still a hope that with 'perseverance' the 'light' will not be totally extinguished. But how does one stand up to a war-mongering tyrant?