Chapter 493: - Gathering Momentum

At last, the great men of Great Yan’s court understood what was happening.

They did not spend much time wondering how a memorial from the First Prince at Nanwang City had somehow, after enough discussion, transformed into:

A plea for His Majesty to launch a war against Qian and Chu.

Because this was the Imperial Study.

Because they stood before the sovereign.

Because His Majesty was sitting right there.

These men had spent years rising and falling through court politics. Their political instincts needed no explanation.

The almost embarrassingly obvious double act between the Sixth Prince and Count Pingye had probably not been badly performed at all.

They had merely been providing a pretext.

An opportunity.

Or perhaps a justification.

And who was that justification meant for?

Who else could it possibly be?

A war between states was often nothing more than this: I want to attack you, so I find an excuse.

If my national strength is weaker than yours and I believe I cannot beat you, then I can find a thousand excuses not to fight.

Between states, the strong had always preyed upon the weak.

No one sitting here could possibly fail to understand that.

His Majesty was preparing for war.

He intended to go to war even though Great Yan’s finances were so strained that the court was practically tearing down one wall to patch another.

For a time, gazes moved rapidly among the officials present.

Even Wang Lian, who had earlier stepped forward to appear “hostile” toward Zheng Fan, said nothing now.

He had not targeted Zheng Fan because he truly wanted to oppose him.

He had done so because he understood that His Majesty did not want the ministers beneath him to become one harmonious, unbroken bloc.

The Sixth Prince might be ascendant, but the Crown Prince had only just received authority to oversee the state.

His Majesty needed to see that there were still figures of genuine weight in the court willing to stand on the Eastern Palace’s side.

Otherwise, it would amount to refusing to give any face to His Majesty’s decision to have the Crown Prince oversee the state.

But now the spear had once more been handed back to the Emperor.

How everyone ought to speak from this point onward, what position everyone ought to take, required careful thought.

They had to watch His Majesty’s attitude.

If His Majesty rebuked the two young men, then everyone could follow along and kick them while they were down—or pull them out of trouble. Either way, there were countless methods for pushing the whole affair aside.

If His Majesty laughed and cursed them, then everyone could offer a few mild objections, pretending to dissuade him. After all, everyone understood what kind of risk Great Yan would bear by beginning another massive war right now.

If His Majesty seriously asked for their opinions, then everyone could only become clay idols.

No one dared openly defy the Emperor’s will.

Of course, if His Majesty...

Bang!

Emperor Yan slammed his right palm onto the imperial desk.

His voice sank.

“Qian and Chu remain filled with wolfish ambition. The two states have already made an agreement, yet they still dare betray their word and plot to raise armies together three years from now to invade Great Yan. Do they truly think I am made of clay? Do they think all the ministers of Great Yan’s court are made of clay?”

The double act had been blatantly obvious.

The most direct evidence consisted of nothing more than Count Pingye’s own words.

Admittedly, he really had met both the Regent of Chu and the ruler of Qian. Across the whole world, there were not many people who had met so many sovereigns.

But was one man’s word truly enough to launch a war between states?

And as for “betraying their word”— yes.

Great Yan had signed peace agreements with both Qian and Chu.

Then it turned around and slaughtered tens of thousands of Azure Luan Army prisoners.

Even after that, Chu still agreed to continue with the peace settlement.

Then Count Pingye ran into Chu territory and stole a princess.

The Marquis of Jingnan proactively moved troops to pressure Zhennan Pass.

As for Qian, Great Yan had spent every New Year and festival increasing the “annual tribute” it demanded from Qian, deliberately provoking the Qian people.

So in truth, it was Great Yan that treated peace treaties as toilet paper.

But what could one say?

A strong state naturally possessed the privilege of being unreasonable.

Emperor Yan’s attitude was now perfectly clear.

The two young men below had sung their little duet.

And he had taken it seriously.

He had even become furious.

The unspoken question was obvious:

Gentlemen, have you understood?

Imperial authority in Great Yan had risen far beyond anything seen in earlier generations.

Throughout history, ministers had possessed countless ways to restrain their own sovereigns.

And the heart of political power was military power.

The ruler of Qian, for example, had wanted to move the Imperial Guards of Shangjing and restructure the Three Frontiers. Yet he had only dared truly cut into those entrenched interests after the Yan invasion gave him the momentum to scrape poison from the bone.

In ordinary times, even though he was the ruler of Qian, he would have feared provoking a backlash if he acted too suddenly.

Outside the founding generation, later emperors usually found it extremely difficult to hold true military power in their own hands.

Generals commanding troops outside the capital possessed networks of relationships and interests of their own.

People naturally banded together to offset the sovereign’s power over life and death.

Emperor Yan was different.

One could even say he held no military power at all.

The two strongest armies in Great Yan, the forces that consumed more than half the state’s military grain and pay every year, were not actually in his hands.

And yet the two men who truly controlled Great Yan’s military strength showed not the slightest sign of rebellion.

They had always stood unwaveringly behind Emperor Yan.

Military power had been delegated downward.

Yet the sovereign’s position had been elevated without limit.

It was an almost unbelievable structure of power.

And yet it truly existed.

One could say that this structure was extremely unstable, even absurdly dependent on personal relationships. Any ordinary emperor would never have chosen to govern this way. Most would instinctively strangle such a possibility before it ever took shape.

Unfortunately— the current Emperor of Yan truly could make a single word weigh as heavily as nine sacred tripods.

After the great clans were eliminated, enormous vacancies appeared throughout the court.

This Son of Heaven could freely choose his own people to fill them.

On top of that, Zhao Jiulang stood at the head of the civil officials yet obeyed Emperor Yan with extraordinary loyalty.

Within Great Yan, nearly every force capable of constraining imperial authority had disappeared.

He truly stood alone at the summit.

The next moment, Zhao Jiulang rose.

He knelt before Emperor Yan and cried loudly:

“Your Majesty, Qian and Chu harbor wolfish ambitions for all to see. This subject begs Your Majesty, for the sake of our descendants, to raise a righteous army and punish Qian and Chu!”

The Chief Minister declared his position first.

Immediately afterward, Wang Lian, Cao Que, and Xu Qiutai rose and knelt.

“This subject begs Your Majesty, for the sake of the future, to punish Qian and Chu!”

The remaining ministers left their seats one after another and knelt to petition for war.

Only moments ago, the great men of the court had been worrying themselves sick over the pitiful condition of Great Yan’s finances.

Now every one of them was filled with righteous fury, begging His Majesty to begin a war between states.

Some wept old tears.

Some flushed crimson with passion.

Some refused to admit their age and begged for a long halberd so they could serve as the vanguard.

Some declared themselves willing to scatter their entire family fortunes to raise military funds for Great Yan.

Do the wrong thing, and at worst you would be punished.

Take the wrong political stance, and people would ask:

What use are you?

So everyone changed positions quickly.

Completely.

Without the slightest hesitation.

Even the Crown Prince lowered himself to the ground.

“This son begs Father to send out the armies and punish Qian and Chu!”

Count Pingye, who had grabbed himself a prime kneeling spot near the front early on, felt his blood begin to surge.

He had never been especially interested in that chair.

More precisely, the sanctity of imperial authority itself did not stir him very deeply.

In the world he had once lived in, after all, you could buy a ticket and stroll through the Forbidden City.

But this feeling— there had been no momentum at all.

And yet with a single attitude from Emperor Yan, momentum had been forcibly created out of nothing.

Count Pingye found himself fascinated by it.

Intoxicated by it.

At Snow Sea Pass, he himself operated in much the same way.

He could ignore any calculation of profit and loss and announce measures purely according to his own preferences.

The Demon Kings beneath him would not oppose him.

No one else would either.

But that was only Snow Sea Pass.

The man before him could command all of Great Yan, including the people of the Three Jin lands.

Countless lives.

Countless stores of wealth and grain.

All of it could be set moving down the road of conquest he desired.

If he wanted to go against the current, then all of Great Yan had to obey his decree and go against the current with him.

When Count Pingye was young, he had heard a story called *The Emperor’s New Clothes*.

Many people read that story and thought the emperor was stupid, the officials were stupid, and the people were stupid.

Then they sighed and praised the final child for preserving a child’s innocent honesty.

But look at it from another angle.

An emperor who could make every adult in the entire country with the ability to think cooperate in his performance— an emperor who could make everyone “call a deer a horse” together— how terrifyingly complete was his control over that country?

Inside the Imperial Study, the broad direction had already been settled.

Count Pingye even felt that if he had refused to take part in today’s performance, Emperor Yan would not have found it particularly difficult to force the matter through himself.

Zheng Fan’s involvement merely made the process smoother.

The consensus reached today in the Imperial Study would spread through the entire court at tomorrow’s session.

Then every part of the Great Yan Dynasty would once more begin turning for the war that was about to come.

But Emperor Yan was obviously a pragmatist.

He was not satisfied with slogans.

He desperately wanted the achievements of his lifetime to become reality at a speed he could see with his own eyes.

So he immediately threw out the next question.

“Qian first, or Chu first?”

Emperor Yan wanted the next court session to become nothing more than a formality on this matter.

He had no intention of throwing the actual wrangling into the full court.

The overall direction had already been reversed.

Whether anyone liked it or not, everyone now had to make choices within that direction.

Wang Lian spoke first.

“Your Majesty, this subject believes we should attack Qian first. Qian is rich.”

Qian’s wealth was known to everyone.

Most of its territory had been inherited from Great Xia itself.

Its geography was naturally blessed, and the land had been cultivated and developed for countless generations.

Attacking Qian made it easier to feed war through war.

Cao Que also spoke.

“Your Majesty, this subject believes Qian should be attacked first. Qian’s territory is vast and its population enormous. Its ruler has already revealed his intention to sharpen weapons and train troops. Given enough time, Qian will inevitably become a grave threat to Great Yan. Furthermore, Qian’s Three Frontiers face our Yinlang Commandery directly. By striking Qian first, we can stabilize the southern approaches of Great Yan.”

Although Great Yan had annexed the Three Jin lands, the Yan people still regarded their traditional territory as the land that truly had to be cherished.

Whatever happened, protect home first.

Attacking Qian would also make the movement of manpower and material supplies much easier, greatly reducing the logistical burden.

Attacking Chu, by contrast, meant battering against Zhennan Pass.

That would require Great Yan’s military movements and supply lines to leave Great Yan proper and cross the entire Jin region.

Anyone could see that attacking Qian right now was the more suitable choice.

In truth, if Zheng Fan were not Chief Commander of Snow Sea Pass, and if the Marquis of Jingnan were not stationed in Jin, Zheng Fan himself would also think Qian should be attacked first.

Qian had spent the past few years organizing and expanding new armies, but Zheng Fan did not believe Qian’s fighting strength could undergo a qualitative transformation in such a short period.

And when attacking Qian, the army could chew its way forward while taking resources as it went.

Even if the campaign still ran at a loss, it would never lose too much. There would be clear, visible ways to replenish part of the expenditure.

Unfortunately— if they attacked Qian first, what the hell did that have to do with him?

The Marquis of Jingnan might be ordered to transfer troops to the Qian front.

And Zheng Fan?

He would be left guarding home.

If Great Yan won, he could only stand far away and drool as he watched everyone else harvest military achievements.

If Great Yan lost, the entire strategic situation would collapse.

Forget the instability of the Three Jin lands for a moment.

The instant Chu marched north, Snow Sea Pass would become an isolated enclave surrounded by the Chu army.

And the Chu were not Savages.

Chu’s greatest military strength was its infantry.

If they truly surrounded Snow Sea Pass, their methods of siege warfare would be nothing like the Savages Zheng Fan had once faced.

In the worst-case scenario, Count Pingye might actually be forced north onto the snowfields with the Demon Kings and whatever remained of his forces.

Then he could become a genuine “Savage Count.”

War was a gamble.

Win or lose, damn it, at least you ought to be the one throwing your chips onto the table and satisfying the itch in your own hand.

Then even if you lost, you would not feel suffocated.

At least you had played.

At least you had lived it.

Whatever the final result, you could accept it.

But standing far away and watching someone else roll the dice while you passively swallowed the consequences?

What kind of bullshit was that?

Yet before Count Pingye could offer his opinion— before even Ji Chengjue could speak— the Crown Prince spoke first.

“Father, this son believes that if Great Yan intends to wage a major war, we must choose which enemy comes first.”

That part was obvious.

Great Yan’s finances were already in dire straits.

Even by overdrawing and squeezing the entire state, it could barely sustain one major front.

But the Crown Prince’s next words startled most of the people in the Imperial Study.

“Therefore, this son believes we should attack Chu first and remain on the defensive against Qian. There are three reasons. First, the Qian are timid by nature. If Great Yan attacks Chu first, Qian may choose to watch from the opposite bank while the fire burns. A century ago, while Great Yan was locked in a bloody war with the Barbarians, Qian still chose that moment to launch a northern expedition. That alone shows how short-sighted the Qian can be. Second, from Yanjing to Yinlang Commandery, then through the Qian Three Frontiers to Chu Commandery, the land is open and level. If Qian troops dare march north, Great Yan can still rely upon the superiority of our cavalry. And even if the situation truly becomes critical, Prince Zhenbei can transfer troops from Beifeng Commandery to reinforce the front in time. Third, the Marquis of Jingnan is already stationed in Jin and is familiar with Chu.”

At the end, the Crown Prince hesitated.

“There is also a fourth point.”

Emperor Yan’s fingertips tapped lightly on the imperial desk.

“Speak.”

“This son has long heard that the armies of Jin remain unstable. But Jin is vast, and Jin camps are still required to fill out its defenses. If we attack Chu, we can expend the young and able-bodied men of Jin.”

One of the greatest sources of instability in the Jin lands was the Jin soldiery.

Almost everywhere they were stationed, a Yan force had to remain nearby to watch them.

Those men could serve as cannon fodder in the invasion of Chu.

Any attack on Chu would inevitably be launched from Jin territory, making those Jin armies convenient to mobilize.

If Great Yan attacked Qian instead, then Yan troops would have to be drawn out of Jin and transferred to the Qian front.

Once the number of Yan troops in the Three Jin lands decreased, who would watch the Jin forces left behind?

Since they were already an unstable factor, why not simply use them as cannon fodder?

The logic was sound.

The strange part was that the Crown Prince was the one who said it.

Emperor Yan’s gaze sharpened.

“As the heir to the throne, you should cultivate virtue.”

Wang Lian immediately knelt.

“This subject also serves as Supervisor of the Eastern Palace. I failed to instruct the Crown Prince properly. This subject is guilty and begs Your Majesty for punishment.”

The Crown Prince’s proposal itself was not wrong.

The problem was that he was the Crown Prince.

For him to say such a thing aloud himself was inappropriate and damaged the dignity of his position.

It was like the slaughter of prisoners below Yupan City.

Emperor Yan had not even looked at Chu’s peace terms because he already understood what Tian Wujing would do.

In the end, he had simply followed the circumstances and stripped Tian Wujing of his princely title.

The Emperor himself remained clean.

The foul reputation was carried by the Marquis of Jingnan.

This was not a double standard.

Nor was it mere hypocrisy.

As Emperor, he himself served to gather the loyalty and hearts of the people.

So he had to appear pure.

The people needed to believe he could be relied upon.

That he was benevolent.

That he was father and mother to the realm.

The Crown Prince lowered his head.

“Father, forgive me. This son spoke recklessly.”

It was only a small interlude.

The Crown Prince’s proposal was excellent.

Its only flaw lay in the manner in which he had spoken.

And that flaw did not outweigh the merit.

Count Pingye instinctively glanced toward Old Sixth Ji.

Clearly, the Crown Prince had stolen his line.

Now that Old Sixth had decided to follow Zheng Fan’s advice, serve his father properly, and make his old man happy, he would naturally support attacking Chu first.

Otherwise Count Pingye, who openly and privately wore the same pair of trousers as him and was nominally the foremost general of the Sixth Lord Faction, would have nothing to do.

But the Crown Prince had said everything Ji Chengjue intended to say first.

Most infuriating of all— the Crown Prince had abandoned his old persona of “benevolence and kindness” and stolen Ji Chengjue’s character setting!

For a moment, even Old Sixth Ji could not figure out what game his second brother was playing.

One moment he was despondent.

The next he was aggressively hawkish.

Could gaining authority to oversee the state really have reignited his fighting spirit?

“Chengjue. You speak.”

Once called by name, Ji Chengjue had no choice but to answer.

And he could not simply repeat the Crown Prince’s arguments.

Repeating someone else’s political position was a major taboo.

“Father, this son believes we should attack Chu. If we are going to wage a major war, then naturally the battlefield should be as far from Great Yan proper as possible.”

The Jin lands, especially the eastern half that had once belonged to Cheng State, had already been devastated by the Savages and Chu.

Nine homes out of ten stood empty.

The place had already been smashed to pieces.

So let it keep getting smashed.

“Defending the enemy outside the gates of the state” had another interpretation: the farther the battlefield lay from the traditional homeland, the better.

The Three Jin lands were newly annexed territory.

Great Yan’s old lands were the realm painstakingly cultivated by the ancestors over eight hundred years.

They were the foundation of the Ji Clan.

The foundation of the Yan people.

Ji Chengjue continued.

“Furthermore, when our armies attacked Qian last time, we did indeed reach the walls of Shangjing City, but we never actually occupied the territory behind our advance. Qian’s Three Frontiers remain strong. If they simply hold fast there, our armies can advance but cannot properly secure what lies behind them, and we will inevitably become bogged down. But if we capture Zhennan Pass, then the initiative in the Chu theater changes hands. Whether or not the war expands further will become Great Yan’s choice. This son believes that if we attack Chu, Zhennan Pass must fall first. And even if we ultimately intend to attack Qian, Zhennan Pass should still be taken first so the Chu cannot march north!”

Emperor Yan turned his gaze toward Zheng Fan.

“Whichever one we attack first, there will be advantages and disadvantages. Analyze it long enough and there will still be no perfect plan. Count Pingye, you speak. Tell me something they haven’t already said.”

“This subject begs Your Majesty to attack Chu first!”

Emperor Yan smiled.

Very calmly, he said:

“Continue.”

Zheng Fan drew a deep breath.

Then his words rang out like iron striking stone.

“Because this subject is there!”

[End of Chapter 493]