Chapter 311: Clouds over Yanjing

News of the Eastern Expedition Army’s defeat spread almost instantly.

Once the Departure Bell rang, there was simply no way to hide it.

Even if younger people did not know what the bell meant, older people did.

Ask around a little, and the truth quickly became clear.

Besides, the court made no attempt to seal off the news.

Back in the years before the Yan people had completely suppressed the barbarians the way they had now, losing battles was not uncommon.

Every time the Departure Bell rang, the men of Yanjing old and young alike would take up weapons, lead their warhorses out from the stables, prepare their own blades, armor, and mounts, bid farewell to their families, and ride out to war alongside the Emperor.

Yanjing had enjoyed peace for many years now.

But the confidence accumulated by the Yan people over these recent years was still more than enough.

One defeat?

That only meant the First Prince was no good.

It did not mean Great Yan’s army was no good.

There was nothing complicated about it.

Fight them again.

They had already beaten the barbarians flat.

Why should they fear some damned savages?

And if the people of Chu dared stick their noses into the matter and play dirty, then fight Chu too!

Across centuries of inheritance, many things changed.

But some things buried deep in the bones remained.

The imperial court had issued no mobilization order.

The military registers had not been distributed.

And yet throughout Yanjing, plenty of men had already begun preparing themselves.

Laborers hauling loads.

Accountants working abacuses.

Old veterans settled into civilian life.

Potbellied merchants.

There were even pimps from the Red Tent.

Do not laugh.

It truly was like that.

Every trade.

Every profession.

Whatever skin you normally wore, however new or old it was, however expensive or cheap once the Departure Bell sounded and everyone understood why, people began instinctively preparing to do what they believed they ought to do now.

As the old words said:

*The King raises his army.*

*We repair our spears and halberds.*

*Together with you, we share one enemy!*

Great Yan’s powerful national position across the past century, combined with the Emperor’s string of victories in foreign wars over the last two years, had made the people’s spirit eminently usable.

Among the families of Yanjing, go back a few generations which household did not have an ancestor who had served as a soldier or fought on a battlefield?

Fine.

Dig those ancestral weapons back out.

Some men even ran straight to pawnshops, asking whether the shopkeepers could return the sabers and armor they had pawned away years earlier.

Naturally, they had no money.

If they possessed money, they would never have been reduced to pawning ancestral heirlooms in the first place.

Pawnshops ordinarily made their living sucking blood.

But few outsiders understood that pawnshops also had their own code of “righteousness.”

They had to move through both the white and black sides of society.

Without at least some awareness of those rules, a pawnshop could never survive.

If the old item could still be found in the warehouse, the shop simply returned it first.

If it had already been sold, the pawnshop paid to purchase a replacement.

Those fallen-household men were bold enough too.

They said:

“We won’t deliberately take advantage of you.

“If we go to the battlefield and die, then Shopkeeper, you can curse your own bad luck.

“You lost money on the deal.

“If we survive, then we’ll come back with the court’s reward silver and settle the account with you.

“Principal and interest.

“Not one coin less!”

The men of Yanjing might live beneath the Son of Heaven’s feet.

Normally, they loved face.

Loved boasting.

Loved talking big.

But when real trouble came they genuinely did not shrink.

They were willing to throw everything into it.

...

Inside a small inn, the three yamen runners who had escorted congratulatory gifts into the capital with Yan Little Sixth were currently shouting at the top of their lungs.

They wanted to hurry back home, pack their things, and enlist.

They were full of passion.

Chief Constable Yan, by contrast, looked almost excessively calm.

The people’s hearts being usable was a good thing.

But Great Yan had not yet reached the point where it needed to support a war through this method.

Chief Constable Yan did not understand military affairs directly.

But he frequently read military texts.

Especially that military treatise written by the bastard surnamed Zheng.

He had already read it three times.

So he understood something clearly.

Without a period of organization and training, without deep accumulation and preparation, a rabble could not simply be transformed overnight into veterans of a hundred battles.

In earlier generations, the commoners of Yanjing had been able to boldly follow Ji emperors into personal campaigns against the desert because warfare had been frequent then.

Now, Yanjing had enjoyed peace for more than sixty years.

Trying to recreate the old scene exactly would be far too naive.

Still, as a descendant of the Ji Clan, watching the people of Great Yan display such admirable spirit did leave him feeling comforted.

Professional matters, however, ought to be left to professionals.

Damn it.

That seemed to be something that bastard had said too.

“Chief, what are you thinking about?” one of the yamen runners asked.

“I’m wondering— now that the wedding has been suspended, is the Commandery Princess still staying at the Western Garden?”

...

The court session ended under an atmosphere of suffocating pressure.

There were two reasons for that pressure.

First, the defeat at the Wang River had genuinely inflicted enormous losses.

No wonder the city-gate commander had immediately followed ancestral law and sounded the Departure Bell.

The main force of the left-wing army had been almost completely destroyed.

The other formations had suffered losses as well.

Second, the commander-in-chief of the Eastern Expedition Army was the First Prince, Ji Wujiang.

He had been personally appointed by the Emperor.

And he was the Emperor’s eldest son.

Ever since the Emperor had trampled the great clans beneath cavalry hooves and then won campaign after campaign abroad, his status as the unquestioned supreme sovereign had only become more deeply entrenched.

So even when officials spoke in court, they had to choose their words carefully.

No one wanted anything they said to sound like an indirect attack pointing at the mulberry while cursing the locust, casting shadows and insinuations at the Emperor himself.

Truthfully, everyone already knew what had to happen next.

How many men who could stand in this imperial court were actually fools?

After the First Prince’s defeat, he obviously could not remain commander-in-chief of the Eastern Expedition Army.

They needed a replacement.

Who?

Who else could it be?

Choose the nearest commander?

Choose the best battlefield commander?

Choose the man most familiar with the savages?

Wonderful.

All three answers pointed to exactly one person.

But that one person had spent the past several months shut inside his residence.

He would not even accept imperial decrees.

He had made it perfectly clear that he was refusing to give face to either the court or the Emperor.

How could the atmosphere not be oppressive?

The commander they intended to remove was not someone they could criticize too harshly.

The man they wanted to replace him with was not someone they could discuss too freely either.

In the end, the Emperor simply dismissed the court.

Only Zhao Jiulang and a group of other important ministers were ordered to remain behind and continue discussions in the imperial study.

The rest of the officials finally felt as though they had been granted amnesty.

After shouting “Long live His Majesty,” they hurried out.

Many officials performed exactly the same action after leaving the palace gates.

They shook their heads.

Looked up at the sky.

And sighed.

Such a perfectly good wedding.

How had something like this suddenly happened?

...

The scenery inside the Western Garden was indeed breathtakingly beautiful.

One had to admit something about the people of Qian.

They might be useless at fighting, but when it came to luxurious enjoyment, they truly stood at the top of the age.

The Commandery Princess had already removed her red wedding robes.

She sat on a stone stool in the courtyard, holding a plate of preserved fruit in her left hand.

Her legs swung lightly as she ate.

For once, she displayed something resembling the ordinary manner of a young girl.

Of course, a woman’s outward appearance was often the greatest deception.

And the more beautiful a woman was, the better she understood that principle.

At the very least, General Zheng would never forget how, almost immediately after he first entered this world, the Commandery Princess had nearly used him as bait and gotten him killed in the desert.

One could almost call that incident

General Zheng’s introductory lesson in understanding this world.

Li Liangshen stood in the courtyard, leaning on his sword and quietly watching her.

There were seven Chief Commanders in the Marquis of Zhenbei’s household.

All were adopted elder brothers of the Commandery Princess.

They had watched her grow up.

An elder brother was like a father.

In their case, that was no empty phrase.

“Brother.

“Do you think I’m too heartless?

“Brother Bao died in battle, yet I can still eat.”

Li Liangshen answered:

“If you’re hungry, you should eat.”

“I am hungry.

“I never imagined getting married would be this troublesome.

“Those old women from the palace started tormenting me last night and kept at it until morning.

“They were going to keep going through the day too.

“I simply couldn’t endure it anymore.”

“If you don’t want to endure it, then don’t.

“The Ji Clan being able to marry you does not mean you are climbing upward.

“You are marrying down.

“Remember that principle.

“Only then will they never bully you in the future.”

“If Father and Mother knew you were saying things like this, they would definitely scold you.”

“The Marquis and Marchioness are not here.

“That is exactly why I cannot allow you to suffer even the slightest grievance.”

“Still, Brother.

“Aren’t you going to prepare?”

“Prepare for what?”

“The Ji Clan’s eldest lost the battle.

“Not only did he lose soldiers and generals, there is no way he can keep sitting in the commander-in-chief’s position for the Eastern Expedition Army, right?

“You know Brother Fusheng’s temperament.

“I imagine His Majesty knows it too.

“There is absolutely no chance he would make him commander-in-chief.”

“If the First Prince cannot remain, that still does not mean the position will fall to me.”

“But isn’t that Marquis of Jingnan shut up at home?

“He won’t even accept imperial decrees.”

“He will accept one.”

“Not necessarily.

“His wife is gone.

“His child... might as well be gone too.

“You’re telling me he won’t harbor resentment?”

“He will.”

“Exactly.

“People are not grass or wood.

“How could they possess no feelings?

“I don’t believe this whole matter was done by Qian.

“The people of Qian may be poor at war, but in other matters especially schemes they have always been rather good.

“If they simply spent Dujuan like this, wouldn’t that make them far too stupid?”

“What are you trying to say?”

“I’m trying to say...”

The Commandery Princess raised one hand and pointed east.

There lay the imperial palace.

“Some words cannot be spoken.”

“Not even just between us?”

“No.

“There are things that, once spoken aloud, can never be taken back.

“You may think them privately.

“That is all.”

“But thinking alone won’t untangle anything.

“I’ve never met the Marquis of Jingnan.

“But if he can stand beside Father as an equal, then he must be a man capable of holding up Heaven and Earth.

“If something like this happened to Father, do you think Father would lock himself inside the Marquis’s Residence and do nothing else?”

Li Liangshen sighed.

“Commandery Princess.

“This is Yanjing.

“Not the Marquis’s Residence.”

“What are you afraid of?

“With you here, even if Wei Zhonghe came personally, he wouldn’t be able to eavesdrop on us, would he?”

“I cannot stay beside you forever.”

“I’m not stupid.

“But Brother— do you truly have no chance at all?

“I don’t believe you’re willing to remain outside Yanjing indefinitely, commanding the capital defenses.”

“The Marquis of Jingnan will not give me that opportunity.

“And the court and His Majesty would not trust me with that opportunity either.”

“Not even the slightest possibility?”

“No.”

“You’re that certain?”

“Because he is Tian Wujing.”

The Commandery Princess fell silent.

Li Liangshen glanced around.

Then he said:

“The Departure Bell has sounded.

“According to Ji Clan ancestral rules, once the Departure Bell rings, until the war is settled, no Ji Clan man may marry and no Ji Clan household may conduct a funeral.

“This place has pleasant surroundings.

“I expect you’ll be living here for a while.”

“I wasn’t eager to marry that early anyway.

“Right.

“What illness did Little Sixth actually come down with?”

“We haven’t been able to find out.”

“Fine.

“Brother, go handle your affairs.

“I still have Seventh Uncle here with me.”

At that moment, Seventh Uncle happened to walk over carrying a cloak.

Like a kindly elder, he draped it across the Commandery Princess’s shoulders.

Li Liangshen and Seventh Uncle exchanged a glance.

Then Li Liangshen turned and left the Western Garden.

“The weather is getting cold, Commandery Princess.

“You should go inside.

“If there’s anything you want to eat, I’ll send someone outside to buy it.

“Yanjing has far more good food than we do in the north.”

“Seventh Uncle...”

“Mm?”

“I want pickled garlic.”

Seventh Uncle froze.

Then he lowered his eyes.

Only then did he realize that the young woman sitting before him already had tears covering her face.

[End of Chapter 311]