Chapter 297: The Emperor’s Demise
*Crack!*
*Crack!*
*Crack!*
The sharp report of whips split the air.
Then came the deep, powerful blast of war horns.
Situ Lei stood atop a war chariot in full armor.
His left hand gripped the railing before him.
His right supported a banner embroidered with the emblem of the Situ Clan.
Behind him on the chariot rested the ancestral tablets of every generation of Situ Clan patriarch, brought out from the ancestral temple.
Situ Lei did possess an Emperor’s Sword.
He also possessed a complete set of imperial ceremonial regalia.
But the State of Dacheng had existed for less than a year.
Never mind the soldiers below.
Even Situ Lei himself felt that the so-called Emperor’s Sword, the dragon robe, and every other layer of imperial ornament were nothing but cumbersome baggage.
Situ Lei remembered the sentence his father had loved using whenever he scolded his sons:
“A turtle in a pond, pretending to be the Black Tortoise.”
For a very long time, Situ Lei had believed that he truly was the Black Tortoise.
He was the finest heir of the Situ Clan’s generation.
Everyone acknowledged his excellence.
Once he reached adulthood, he was stationed in the south, where he defeated several incursions by the armies of Chu.
Later, after entering the court, he displayed the same competence in government.
He built his own wings.
Gathered talent.
Won people’s hearts.
Though neither the eldest son nor the son of the principal wife, he still pushed his two elder brothers completely aside and sent them away to gnaw snow on the snowfields.
His father grew old.
Situ Lei grew stronger.
Long before the throne changed hands, most of the Situ Clan’s power had already fallen into Situ Lei’s grasp.
He was the Black Tortoise.
The Black Tortoise that guarded the east.
He had always believed so.
When the Yan army entered Jin, Situ Lei did not resist.
Instead, he led his army northeast to suppress the rising savages.
People in court and countryside had discussed his decision.
Some said he had seized the banner of righteousness and used it to pressure the Emperor of Yan.
A brilliant move.
But no Emperor, no sovereign, would ever dare entrust the survival of his own realm to the personal morality of a neighboring ruler.
It was Situ Lei’s pride that had made him give that order.
What surprised him somewhat was that the Emperor of Great Yan had, to a certain extent, actually understood him.
Not only had Yan halted its advance, the Emperor even sent one of Great Yan’s greatest Marquises deep into the snowfields to relieve the pressure on Situ Lei’s front.
The pride of the weak was merely their final shabby dignity.
Only the benevolence of the strong could truly be called magnanimity.
Situ Lei had genuinely wanted to visit Yanjing someday.
He wanted to meet that Emperor of Yan.
Drink a cup with him.
Laugh together.
Of course, such a meeting would inevitably mean bowing his head.
It would mean legal submission.
Yet if he truly had to bow before Yan, Situ Lei did not think it would be completely unacceptable.
A proud man would only acknowledge someone even prouder than himself.
Unfortunately, the pride that had once belonged to him had been buried completely at Snow Sea Pass.
The finest forces cultivated by generations of the Situ Clan had been almost entirely annihilated across the endless snowfields.
The savages, who had not entered the pass for centuries, now ravaged the lands of the Three Jin.
It was humiliation.
Whether as a man of Jin, as a descendant of the Situ Clan, or as one of the surviving people of Great Xia, the shame sank straight into the marrow.
There had been many reasons for the defeat.
His own contempt for the enemy.
The betrayal of his two elder brothers.
The splitting of the clan’s strength.
And many more.
On countless nights, Situ Lei had been unable to stop himself from thinking about what he would do differently if he were given another chance.
But he knew better than anyone that nothing could be done again.
Outside Yingdu, the rebel army had already gathered.
Behind the rebels stood the savage army, holding the line.
They had not attacked Yingdu.
Situ Lei knew perfectly well what they were waiting for.
He knew what his two elder brothers were waiting for.
He knew what they were thinking.
Struggles over the great momentum of the realm were often like this.
Without outside intervention, true mutual destruction rarely occurred.
More often, one side weakened precisely as the other strengthened.
Many people believed he was going to lose.
Most believed he could no longer win.
“We... refuse to accept it!”
Situ Lei forced the three words through clenched teeth.
A trace of color surged into his originally bloodless face.
He was the Fledgling Phoenix of the Situ Clan.
He had inherited the Situ Clan’s pride.
When his aging father grew muddled and began fearing the Yan people, Situ Lei had borrowed the Sword Saint’s sword without hesitation and sent that decaying old man on his way.
He had wanted to prove to the world that his choice was correct.
That he could inherit his father’s mantle and carry the clan’s mission forward even better.
Better...
Palace eunuchs carried chest after chest of gold, silver, and treasure out from the palace.
Palace maids brought out wine from the government storehouses and began distributing it among the surrounding soldiers.
Before Situ Lei’s war chariot, rows of generals knelt across the ground.
In their ears still echoed the two things His Majesty had told them when he summoned them the previous night.
“Twenty years from now.
“Thirty years from now.
“When your grandchildren ask you about this day, how do you intend to answer them?
“What will you tell them their grandfather did today?”
And—
“We have already sent a letter of state to Yan.
“Dacheng’s internal submission to Great Yan is settled.
“You do not have to fight this battle for Us.
“But you must let the Yan people see that the sons of Jin are not all useless cowards.
“You are fighting for your own futures.
“The Yan people value fierce warriors.
“Show them something worth seeing!
“Only then will you still have a place to stand afterward!”
...
Yingdu was a great city.
Its scale was, in truth, considerably larger than either Quhe City or Litian City.
The political division in which the three great clans partitioned Jin had existed for a century.
That was more than enough time for the effects of political power to spread outward.
As a result, the old imperial capital of Jin had grown increasingly shabby and cramped over the years, while the three clan “capitals” gradually developed a grandeur that properly belonged to centers of power.
Power seemed to be the source of everything.
Wherever it gathered, everything else was drawn toward it.
Old Prince Situ Chunsheng sat comfortably in his grand armchair.
A maid stood beside him, gently waving a fan.
A string of bodhi beads rolled continuously between the old man’s fingers.
Inside this city, some people were frightened and restless.
Naturally, others felt perfectly secure, as though every event remained firmly within their grasp.
Situ Chunsheng clearly belonged to the latter group.
Beside him, his eldest son, Situ Youcheng, was peeling an orange for his father.
“Father, I heard from the people below that His Majesty left the palace and the city.
“He went to the military camps to call the generals and muster troops.”
“Heh.”
Situ Chunsheng gave a disdainful laugh.
“Our Emperor still hasn’t admitted defeat.”
Situ Youcheng said, “It does seem a little early to say he has completely lost, doesn’t it?”
“He can’t hold on.
“He can’t.
“The armies of the First Lord and Second Lord have already crossed the Wang River.
“They’re only a few dozen li from Yingdu now.
“This world is about to turn another page.”
“Father, what about the letter from First Lord and Second Lord?”
“I replied.
“Once the First Lord and Second Lord return, there will at least be a Ministry seat waiting for you.”
“That works.”
“From the day our Emperor ascended the throne, I felt something was wrong.
“A man who kills his own father is abandoned by Heaven.
“Look.
“Was this old man wrong?
“This fine realm, this inheritance left by our ancestors—he almost truly ruined all of it.
“Ah.
“A clan’s misfortune, producing such an unfilial descendant.”
“Yes.
“Father is right.”
“Just watch.
“Don’t be fooled by all those troops gathered outside the city.
“How many of them are truly determined to follow him all the way down this black road?
“At the root of it, this is nothing more than our Situ Clan fighting among ourselves over the seat.
“No one is truly stupid enough to throw his life away for that.
“Especially since the army commanders most loyal to our Emperor were all buried on the snowfields.
“Hardly any returned.
“Heh-heh.
“What an utterly pointless Emperor.
“His ass barely warmed the throne before he had to get up and make room for someone else.
“Right.
“Did you finish the matter Father asked you to arrange?”
“How could I dare neglect it?
“The commander of the western gate was recommended by our household in the first place.
“And the City Patrol Office is the yamen where your son used to serve.
“I merely let a little word slip, and they understood immediately.
“Nothing will go wrong.”
“Handing over one city gate should be enough to give First Lord and Second Lord an explanation.”
“The only thing I don’t know is what the savages intend to do.”
“The savages?
“A pack of livestock that has never seen the world.
“Once they’ve eaten their fill, drunk their fill, and made enough trouble, they’ll leave on their own.
“Do you know why they haven’t hurried to attack this place?”
“The savages are afraid.
“Afraid of the Yan people.”
“So that’s why...”
“You are not completely stupid after all.
“If neither side wants to see the situation truly collapse, then the situation cannot collapse too badly.
“Once First Lord and Second Lord enter Yingdu, First Lord will ascend the throne.
“To the east, we soothe the savages.
“To the west, we lower our heads a little before Yan.
“And life can simply continue.
“At the end of the day, our surname is Situ.
“How bad can life truly become for us?”
“Exactly.
“No matter how large Yan’s belly is, it cannot swallow everything in one bite.
“Its stomach would burst.”
“Ah.
“That is precisely the principle.”
*Bang!*
At that moment, the inner-residence gate was smashed open from outside.
A group of clan guards retreated continuously.
They held sabers in their hands, but none dared stop the people forcing their way in.
“Impudent!
“Who is it?
“Who!”
Situ Chunsheng roared in fury.
Situ Youcheng also stood.
His eyesight was better than his father’s.
At a glance, he saw that the men at the front were actually his second, third, and fourth brothers.
Behind them came a large group from the clan’s third generation.
Among them were Situ Youcheng’s own two sons.
“By His Majesty’s decree, execute the traitors!”
Situ Youde shouted.
Behind him, the Situ Clan descendants drew their weapons.
“Beasts!
“Beasts!
“Are all of you rebelling against Heaven?
“Rebelling against Heaven itself?
“This old man isn’t dead yet!
“I’m not dead yet!”
“Prince Jing’an, Situ Chunsheng, colluded with savage rebels and plotted treason.
“Execute him!”
Situ Youde swept his gaze across the surroundings.
“All of you.
“Put down your weapons.
“Stand aside!”
The guards looked at one another.
The old man’s second son had arrived with his younger brothers and a crowd of third-generation young masters to kill his own father.
What were the guards of this princely residence supposed to do?
Left with no choice, the guards moved aside together.
It was exactly as Situ Chunsheng had said earlier.
This was the Situ Clan’s own family business.
Why should outsiders interfere?
Situ Youde advanced with sword in hand.
He walked directly before his own father.
“Unfilial son!
“You dare!”
*Pfft!*
“Ugh...”
Situ Chunsheng stared.
There was no further argument.
The sword had already entered the old man’s body.
Situ Youde immediately pulled it back out.
Situ Chunsheng clutched his wound and sank to his knees.
His originally neat white beard was rapidly drenched in blood.
“Beasts...
“Beasts...
“The one on the dragon throne... is a beast...
“And he raised... a whole pack... a whole pack of beasts...”
Situ Youcheng looked fearfully at his second brother.
His brother was a Martial Artist whose cultivation was not weak.
Situ Youcheng himself had never practiced martial arts.
He was a civil official.
“Eldest.
“Second.”
Situ Youde called out.
Situ Youcheng’s eldest son and second son stepped forward with sabers in their hands.
They looked at their father.
“You...
“You...
“Unfilial sons...
“Unfilial sons...”
Situ Youcheng could not believe that a day had actually come when his own two sons would point blades at him.
The young men’s faces trembled.
Their eyes were red.
The eldest shouted, “The Situ Clan and the savages can never coexist!”
Then his saber fell.
“AAAAAAAHHHHH!”
The second son closed his eyes too and swung his saber down at his own father.
It was a tragedy of the human world.
Yet no one present cried.
There was no time for grief.
The ancestor of the Situ Clan had once been a fierce general beneath the Marquis of Jin.
During the great campaign that opened the lands of the Three Jin, he had repeatedly distinguished himself in battle.
Only afterward had the clan multiplied and spread into the great house it was today.
The Jin imperial house had long since declined.
The three great clans had long since risen.
Within these lands, the surname Situ had effectively become a royal surname in its own right.
The glory of their ancestors seemed to have faded into the distant river of history.
Annual rites at the ancestral temple were no longer enough to preserve the memory.
Among the Situ Clan descendants of the present day, only a minority still entered the court and held office.
Most simply lived as wealthy idlers.
Inside Yingdu, nearly every young master strolling about with birds or dogs seemed to have the two characters “Situ” stamped across his forehead.
Even those whose individual branches had fallen from favor could still rely on ancestral privilege and family connections to live comfortably.
At the very worst, they never lacked food, clothing, or household expenses.
When a Situ Clan descendant committed an offense in Yingdu, the case was handed to the Court of the Imperial Clan.
Ordinary yamen had no authority to intervene.
Generation after generation, no shortage of Situ wastrels had abused men and women, bullied merchants, seized markets, and committed every other kind of rotten act.
Calling them one of Yingdu’s great afflictions was not an exaggeration.
But now, these pampered young lords went digging through their homes and pulled out ancestral suits of armor no one knew how many generations old.
They took down family weapons that had been enshrined for years and had not been swung in decades.
Whenever an elder in the family harbored some other intention, they cut him down with their own hands.
Anyone who tried to stop them was cut apart as well.
To this day, stories still circulated in Yingdu’s teahouses about how His Majesty, when young, had been a wild tyrant of the city streets—the ringleader among Yingdu’s young bullies.
Back then, Situ Lei had deliberately blackened his own reputation to protect himself.
Only after entering the army in the south did he begin the truly magnificent portion of his life.
When he eventually returned to Yingdu, the former young tyrant of the streets revealed his real fangs.
Not only did he exile both elder brothers, he also seized control of more than half the court.
That story had circulated constantly among the younger generations of Yingdu’s great households.
Whenever their elders scolded them for behaving absurdly, they would even bring up His Majesty’s old deeds, stiffen their necks, and argue back:
“This Fledgling Phoenix is merely blackening his own reputation!”
The younger generation saw Situ Lei as an idol.
As for the middle-aged generation most of them had once drunk with Situ Lei, rampaged through the streets with him, and bullied men and women at his side.
Even the least involved had followed behind waving banners and cheering.
Later, Situ Lei rose.
They themselves grew older.
They became fathers.
Some even became grandfathers.
The days when they had roamed the streets beside His Majesty, drinking and calling one another brothers, only resurfaced when they accidentally drank too much.
But now, when that man issued his decree, many of them moved.
More and more members of the Situ Clan appeared in Yingdu’s streets and alleys.
Among them were even white-haired old men.
Some wore armor that no longer fit, hanging loose across their bodies.
Some could barely lift their weapons and had no choice but to drag them along the ground, faces turning crimson from exertion.
To call them a rabble would almost have been praise.
Yet a baleful killing intent hung between every pair of brows.
Demon beasts valued bloodline inheritance.
The stronger the demon beast, the more likely its bloodline was to preserve certain innate abilities across generations.
Humans, in truth, were not so different.
The inheritance of their ancestors, buried through no one knew how many generations, had awakened again.
Inside Yingdu, several thousand members of the Situ Clan marched out through the eastern gate.
White cloth was tied around their right arms.
When they saw the war chariot preserved from their ancestors, when they saw the ancestral tablets of generation after generation of Situ patriarchs, every one of them slowly knelt.
A murderous solemnity spread outward from the crowd.
Situ Lei pushed away the eunuch who tried to support him.
He forced himself shakily upright.
“We have failed the realm.
“Failed our ancestors.
“Failed the people of the Jin lands.”
At first, Situ Lei’s voice trembled faintly.
But soon, it became louder.
The flush across his face deepened.
At that moment, he seemed never to have been wounded at all.
He was once again the Fledgling Phoenix of the Situ Clan, the man who had risen through military merit.
“The ancestor of the Situ Clan was a vanguard general beneath the Marquis of Jin.
“He followed the Marquis of Jin into the lands of the Three Jin.
“He drove out the savages.
“He opened new territory for the peoples of Xia.
“Only because of those achievements has the glory of our clan endured to this day!
“Only because of those achievements did we possess the foundation to establish a state this year and call ourselves sovereign!
“Descendants of the Situ Clan—never forget where our family inheritance came from!
“People of the Jin lands—never forget how the homeland beneath your feet came to be ours!
“The Former Emperor sought to ally with the savages.
“We killed him!”
A reigning Emperor, before thousands of Situ Clan descendants, before the entire army, publicly admitted the rumor that he had killed his own father.
“Today, the savages have entered the pass and ravage our homeland!
“Dishonorable rebels serve as their claws and teeth!
“The state is broken and the rivers and mountains are shattered!
“At a time like this—what should the sons of the Situ Clan do?”
Around the war chariot, thousands of Situ Clan descendants roared together:
“Fight to the death!”
“Fight to the death!”
“Fight to the death!”
Situ Lei raised the banner in his hand.
His voice truly rolled outward like thunder.
“And what should the people of the Three Jin do?”
All around them, Dacheng soldiers smashed the wine bowls they had just been given.
They threw their newly distributed treasure onto the ground.
Weapons hammered against armor.
They roared:
“Fight to the death!”
“Fight to the death!”
“Fight to the death!”
Situ Lei swung the banner forward.
His roar tore through the air.
“If we fight to the death, then the sons of the Situ Clan shall die before ten thousand others!
“Beat the drums!
“Advance!”
...
The central army led by the First Prince had entered Dacheng first.
It did not rush forward.
Instead, it began by establishing contact with Dacheng’s local government offices and ensuring stable supplies of grain and provisions.
Everything proceeded steadily and methodically.
Then, that day, an urgent military report arrived from Yingdu.
Inside the commander’s tent, the First Prince finished reading it and set it on the table.
Before him sat Chief Commanders Li Bao and Li Fusheng.
“Your Highness, did something happen at Yingdu?”
Li Fusheng asked with some concern.
If the Situ Clan could not even hold its own capital, then the situation facing Yan would become difficult almost immediately.
The First Prince shook his head.
He clenched his jaw and said, “Situ Lei personally led the army into battle.
“He shattered the rebel-savage coalition and pursued them for eighty li.”
“Hiss...”
“Heh...”
Li Bao rubbed his chin with his remaining hand and sighed.
“This Situ Lei really does have something in him.”
No one wanted an ally who was genuinely nothing more than a pig.
And until now, Dacheng and the Situ Clan had given everyone far too strong an impression of being precisely that sort of disastrous teammate.
Li Fusheng nodded as well.
“That makes things much easier for us.”
The First Prince abruptly ordered, “Li Bao, receive your command!”
Li Bao immediately rose and knelt.
“This general is here!”
“You will lead thirty thousand iron cavalry.
“Ride through the night.
“Take position outside Yingdu.
“There must be no delay!”
“This general accepts the command!”
Li Fusheng immediately asked, “Your Highness, what is the meaning of this?”
The situation had just eased.
Was this not the perfect opportunity to continue steadily according to their original strategy?
The First Prince answered, “After the battle, that very night, the Founding Emperor of Dacheng passed away.”
[End of Chapter 297]
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