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| | Treason by the Book |
 | | Yue Zhongqi is both blessed and cursed by being a distant descendant of another General Yue-Yue Fei-who six centuries earlier, in the time of the Song dynasty, tried to rally the Chinese of his own day to reclaim the lands they had lost in the north to barbarian conquerors. |
 | | Yue was on the man's staff at the time, and knows all the dangerous details.) But Zhang does not rise to the bait, and swears that he will never reveal where he and his teacher live, even if the general kills him for his silence. |
 | | Yue probes the logic of the messenger's claims, winning debating points as he proves his superior knowledge of local conditions-it is, after all, the governor-general's responsibility to know such things-and regularly exposing great gaps in the messenger's information. |
| partners.nytimes.com /books/first/s/spence-treason.html (4272 words) |
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