Chapter 581: - Righteousness and the Spring and Autumn Annals

Three of Ying Capital’s gates had fallen.

One remained in Chu hands.

It was the oldest trick in the book, yet often one of the most useful: surround three sides and leave one road open.

As for that open gate?

Jingnan Army cavalry had already been stationed outside, sharpening their blades.

Tian Wujing did not know exactly what was happening there.

Nor did he care.

The moment he led his army this far, the fate of this city, this imperial capital, had already been decided.

Everything he was doing now was merely following the final procedure.

He wanted to see what last dish that man had left waiting for him.

The city was in panic.

Yet wherever Prince of Jingnan passed, everything became exceptionally quiet.

Ice and fire stood clearly divided.

The imperial city lay ahead.

Its towering walls, majestic palace gates, and broad ceremonial steps restored, to a remarkable degree, the imposing grandeur of Great Xia in its ancient age.

Chu people loved restoring antiquity.

They revered ancient rites.

Where had those rites come from?

Great Xia.

By comparison, Yan, Jin, and even the later-established Qian, though all formally claimed to be heirs of Xia civilization and loudly proclaimed themselves its legitimate inheritors, had long since altered Great Xia’s rites and institutions beyond recognition.

They shouted about the Mandate of Great Xia.

But in their hearts, it had already become little more than a business used to draw customers.

Outside the imperial city ran a narrow lane.

On one side stood the palace.

On the other, a princely residence.

At that moment, the princely residence’s doors were shut.

There should have been people inside.

Tian Wujing did not know which prince’s residence it was.

But any house able to stand directly beside the imperial palace must have possessed ancestors of tremendous glory.

And yet, now, with Yan warhorses already stepping across the ceremonial stones of the imperial city, that residence remained silent.

Today, silence was the true theme.

Those who could still speak, who still dared speak, were the minority.

In truth, if some other Yan general had entered Ying Capital today, the city would never have been this cold.

Especially after the higher nobles discovered that their sovereign was very likely no longer inside the palace, the practical side of Great Chu’s aristocracy would have begun showing itself.

Because the true foundation of Great Chu’s nobles was not in Ying Capital.

It lay in their fiefs.

They still possessed capital with which to bargain.

Emperor Yan trampling the aristocratic clans beneath cavalry hooves had revealed a philosophy of imperial centralization. To surrender to Great Yan did not necessarily mean immediate liquidation.

But what about the next Yan emperor?

Or the emperor after that?

The Chu nobles resisted Yan because their political instincts had long since told them exactly what road Great Yan intended to take.

On one side: hereditary great nobles whose titles passed forever.

On the other: wealth and privilege that would be liquidated by the next generation at the latest, perhaps the one after.

If you had a choice, which would you choose?

But now, many clan heads and core descendants were actually trapped inside Ying Capital.

So if the choice became: lose everything in the generation after next, or lose your own head right now, what then?

When circumstances made resistance impossible, people naturally chose to survive first and enjoy whatever time remained.

Let the flood come after death.

But why, of all people, had it been Great Yan’s Southern Marquis who entered the imperial city?

A demon who exterminated his own clan.

A butcher-god who slaughtered forty thousand Azure Luan soldiers beneath Yupan City.

How were they supposed to surrender?

How could they surrender?

Kneel before him wagging their tails, only to wait for him to say lightly:

“Kill them all”?

If today it had been Count Pingye entering the capital instead, then with his status as Great Chu’s Imperial Son-in-Law, once the nobles understood which way the wind was blowing, a large group of old loyalists would certainly still choose to die with Chu.

But the overwhelming majority would probably have rushed out to claim some connection.

After all, he was half family, was he not?

Chu people did understand hospitality.

They were perfectly capable of being warm.

They simply had no idea how to be warm toward Prince of Jingnan.

So, the city had now divided broadly into two camps.

One group had already begun organizing flight through the remaining open gate.

Anyone with even a little military knowledge understood that road was a dead end.

The Yan had not even bothered searching house by house.

A few cavalry charges across open ground would finish everything.

The other group belonged to what might be called the “unmoving as a mountain” faction.

They neither surrendered nor resisted to the death.

They simply sat there, drank tea, and pretended their expressions would not change even if Mount Tai collapsed before them.

Romance, after all, required performance.

Who could not put on a show?

So long as they survived today, tomorrow it would become another elegant anecdote.

Unfortunately, what this city meant, and what fate awaited it, no longer mattered to the only two men capable of deciding.

“Wontons! Hot wontons!”

At the mouth of the lane stood a wonton stall.

The stand was small.

There were no seats.

A banner behind it read:

“Wu’s.”

Every country had old-established food stalls in the lanes outside the imperial city.

Not old storefronts.

Stalls.

Ministers had to rise early and wait outside the palace gates before court.

Naturally they became hungry.

So sending servants to buy something hot from the stalls outside the lane was the obvious choice.

They could bring food from home, but it lost its heat. Eating inside a sedan chair or carriage while it rocked along was also inconvenient and risked dirtying court robes.

As for bringing cooks and ingredients to court?

That was too ostentatious.

Some great noble houses might own ten thousand qing of fertile land and countless servants.

But beneath the imperial city walls, they still had to preserve the dignity of appearing “poor as washed cloth.”

For officials, that had been an essential skill for centuries.

And so the stalls in the imperial city lane served an important purpose.

Of course, one should not assume these stallholders were truly ordinary peddlers.

Anyone permitted to sell here, even from a tiny cart offering cakes or flatbreads, had enormous backing.

An ordinary hawker could never afford the fees.

First, Phoenix Nest Guards screened every seller’s background. Otherwise, what if someone poisoned a group of senior officials and turned the entire court into a joke?

Second, the stalls themselves were auctioned.

The fees were one of the Phoenix Nest Guards’ private sources of income.

Every breakfast stall here had a banner behind it.

Most represented famous restaurants or century-old establishments in Ying Capital.

Selling breakfast alone could never recover the cost.

No matter how expensive the food, it was impossible.

But the customers were court ministers.

So the advertisement, the prestige, had to be maintained.

If you did not do it, someone else would.

Today, however, there was no court session.

And this was not even the proper hour.

Even if it had been, no ordinary peddler would have dared set up a stall under these conditions.

Yet somehow, one wonton stand had appeared.

Below it sat a small charcoal stove.

Freshly wrapped wontons lay across the board, large and small.

Every kind of seasoning was prepared so the flavor could be adjusted for each customer.

The owner was a middle-aged man wearing an apron.

Perhaps because he spent so much time dealing with flour, his skin looked unusually pale.

The Wu’s banner behind him belonged to an old-established name.

Many court officials had heard older colleagues mention eating Wu’s wontons before attending court decades earlier.

Some curious people, finding the wontons excellent, had tried to discover which great Ying Capital restaurant secretly backed Wu’s stall.

They found nothing.

Wu’s seemed genuinely to be nothing more than a simple wonton stand.

But even a fool understood that was impossible.

Still, if no one could uncover the truth, no one pressed further.

If the Phoenix Nest Guards had allowed a wonton seller to remain in the imperial city lane for a century, there had to be a reason.

Today, Wu’s had opened again.

Unfortunately, the black mass standing before it was not composed of Great Chu ministers waiting for court.

It was Yan soldiers.

“Your Highness must be hungry. How about a bowl of wontons to warm the stomach?”

The stallholder, Wu Mazi, called warmly.

He did not bother hiding anything.

Nor did he care to play mysterious games.

Since he had already appeared here, there was no need for some needless final disguise.

Tea-house patrons loved stories where people acted that way.

The people actually involved rarely enjoyed performing something so stupid.

Prince of Jingnan walked over.

At that same moment, a small sedan chair appeared at the imperial palace gate.

Two bearers lowered it.

An old man climbed out.

He was Great Chu’s Lingyin, effectively its Chancellor.

He was short.

Age had shrunk him even further.

The two sedan bearers were ordinary men.

Their loyalty could not be doubted.

But facing the wolfish cavalry of the Jingnan Army, both men’s legs trembled uncontrollably.

“Hahaha. Go. Go back.”

The Lingyin waved and dismissed them.

The two men’s grandfathers had already carried his sedan in their time.

Then the Lingyin walked toward the wonton stall, sniffed the air, and sighed.

“Ah. It has been a long time since I tasted this. I truly miss it.”

Wu Mazi smiled.

“Your Excellency grew tired of it.”

“That too. That too. Heh. Back when Old Wu was still here, I ate from this stall every few days. Since it came into your hands, though, these wontons truly have never tasted quite the same.”

Wu Mazi merely smiled without answering.

With practiced movements, he dropped two portions of wontons into the pot and covered it.

Then he took out two bowls and began adding seasonings.

“Your Excellency still wants the usual? Extra scallions, extra coriander, extra chili, extra sauce?”

The Lingyin rubbed his reddened nose.

“Good. At least you remembered.”

“And Your Highness?”

Prince of Jingnan replied:

“Whatever.”

“Very well.”

Wu Mazi turned back to the Lingyin.

“Look at the prince from Yan. He doesn’t fuss over food or clothing at all. Compare that with us and the gap becomes obvious.”

“Hmph.”

The Lingyin rubbed his nose again.

He clearly disliked the comment.

Unfortunately, he had to admit it was true.

“Eating and drinking are still only eating and drinking. Even if a man seeks the finest food beneath Heaven, can it truly surpass what immortals eat?”

Wu Mazi seemed to have opened the floodgates.

“Look at our imperial city lane. Buddha-Hand Cabbage, Delicate Jade Buns, Fresh Fish-Slip Soup. Anyone listening might think our Great Chu officials are wonderfully close to the common people. Such simple meals, right? What they do not know is how many chickens and ducks must be boiled down just to make the stock, how many rare medicinal ingredients get thrown in. Their mouths are eating ingredients worth fortunes, their bowls are filled with precious broth, and then they still speak of the hardships of the people and claim their hearts are with all under Heaven. Who believes that?”

“Wu Mazi, why the hell do you have so much to say today!”

The Lingyin finally snapped.

“You think Yan men don’t know luxury? Don’t know pleasure? Let me tell you, those Yan aristocratic descendants I knew back then...”

“They’re all dead.”

“...” The Lingyin.

Of course Yan nobles had known how to enjoy themselves.

Great Yan’s old aristocratic clans, like Chu’s nobles, possessed vast estates and private troops.

Pleasure?

Who did not understand pleasure?

And after enjoying themselves enough, perhaps once in a while they would eat the kind of “coarse tea and plain rice” ordinary people could afford only during New Year and feel wonderfully close to the people.

Chu people were human.

Were Yan people not human too?

But the Lingyin knew Wu Mazi was right.

Those Yan aristocratic descendants he had once known were all gone now.

Perhaps some were doing hard labor somewhere.

Perhaps some still survived as penal soldiers.

All of them had been swept away.

Cleanly.

Completely.

The Lingyin sighed.

“That way of doing things is not good. After Yan trampled the aristocratic clans, you still had Qian to fight and Jin to fight. So long as the victories kept coming, no matter how ugly the situation at home became, you could always keep one breath going, yes? What about Great Chu? Who can we fight? The hundred Shanyue tribes are basically dealt with. Those remaining have either long since been assimilated and tamed, or were suppressed years ago but keep flaring up again and again. The people’s hearts are like fire. Fire always needs somewhere to burn, does it not?”

“You yourselves are available.”

“...” The Lingyin.

Wu Mazi lifted the wontons from the pot, divided them between the bowls, then handed over spoons.

The Lingyin picked up his bowl and ate one.

Sipping the broth, he said:

“That will not work. The foundation of the Xiong imperial clan is the nobility. He can be emperor because we hold him up from below. Without the nobles supporting him, his claim to the throne would lack legitimacy.”

Prince of Jingnan seemed entirely unconcerned by the possibility of poison.

He took a sip of broth.

“The elders of my Tian Clan thought much the same in those years.”

“...” The Lingyin.

“This Prince has never believed in divine right or in ‘since ancient times.’ Mighty Great Xia itself still collapsed into ruins. In this world, there are not many truly important people. What there are, are many people who believe themselves important.”

“But now there are powerful enemies outside, Ying Capital has fallen, and the people’s hearts are scattering. Your Highness, tell me, how are we supposed to continue? I know Yan has thrown everything into this campaign against Chu. It is practically a war of the entire state. Difficult as it may be, with such a good situation before you, Yan will surely continue holding on, yes? What do we have to stop you? What does he have to stop you?”

Prince of Jingnan shook his head.

“This Prince does not know.”

He knew what the Regent intended by doing all of this.

But he truly did not know what confidence allowed the Regent to dare so much.

“An emperor treats all beneath Heaven as his Go board. Your Highness, if he had no road of retreat, would he dare leave his own gate this wide open?”

“You are asking this Prince?”

“Yes. Your Highness, if you withdraw now, there is still time. Leave Great Chu a measure of dignity. Cede land, pay annual indemnity, send tribute. Great Chu can satisfy Yan.”

Prince of Jingnan smiled.

“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.”

“What do you mean?”

“What this Prince does is this Prince’s affair. If you choose to give something, that is yours. But this Prince prefers taking it with his own hands.”

“Your Highness, after today the nobles of Great Chu will surely turn away from that man. Chu may even descend into chaos. Would it not be better for you to watch the fire from the far bank and reap the fisherman’s profit?”

“You will not manage to fight among yourselves.”

“Why is Your Highness so certain?”

“This Prince also bears the surname Tian.”

“...” The Lingyin.

Wu Mazi leaned on his stall and listened seriously to the two of them.

He smiled.

“That is true. If Yan could produce one Prince of Jingnan, why could none of Great Chu’s nobles produce a man willing to carve open a new road for the state?”

Those who did not understand thought the Southern Marquis of Yan, who exterminated his entire clan, was a complete monster.

Those who did understand knew exactly how important one Tian Wujing could be to a country.

The Lingyin sighed helplessly.

“But a figure like Your Highness is truly unmatched beneath Heaven.”

Was exterminating your own clan difficult?

Under enough threats and inducements, there were no shortage of men willing to become famously “filial sons.”

The difficulty was that Tian Wujing himself had already come from one of the foremost great houses in the state.

The difficulty was that after exterminating his own clan, he then led armies out and never lost.

“Your Highness, is there truly no room to turn this around? Are you not afraid that once you enter those palace gates, you will never come out again? Even if you crush Great Chu’s face and foundation beneath your boots today, if Yan loses you, are you truly not worried about what happens afterward?”

“Not worried.”

“Your Highness is that certain? Certain that you will enter the palace and still walk back out, or certain that you have already arranged everything that must happen after your death?”

“This Prince does not believe those palace gates can trap him. And this Prince also believes that even if one day this place no longer has this Prince standing here, your Chu will still be dreaming if it thinks it can march north.”

“Your Highness, allow this little old man one more fart of a sentence.”

Prince of Jingnan neither agreed nor refused.

“Peace is precious. Leave one thread between people today so that tomorrow there remains room to meet again.”

Prince of Jingnan looked at the Lingyin.

“Do you think you still have a tomorrow? Or do you think this city still has one?”

The Lingyin set down his bowl of wontons.

Tears streamed down his face.

He staggered toward the tightly shut palace gates.

“Enough. Enough. Whatever else may be said, this old man is Great Chu’s Lingyin. A Lingyin is Chancellor. I should offer myself to the state. Unfortunately, I know no martial arts, and at my age I cannot even lift a saber properly. So this old man will stand at the palace gate. Before Your Highness enters, please grant this old man a clean death.”

He walked a little farther.

Then stopped.

“And please leave this little old man a complete corpse.”

Another pause.

“Best if some blood still sprays out. Make it look as though my blood splashed across the palace gates.”

Another pause.

“I need both blood spray and a complete corpse.”

A final pause.

“Sorry to trouble Your Highness.”

The Lingyin walked straight to the palace gates.

He spread his arms wide and shouted:

“This old man stands here! If you Yan dogs want to enter the palace of Great Chu, you must step across this old man’s corpse!”

Wu Mazi chuckled twice.

Then turned toward Prince of Jingnan.

“What does Your Highness think of the wontons?”

“Passable.”

“Though this humble one knows Your Highness does not fuss over food, receiving even one word of ‘passable’ from you still feels like a great honor.”

Wu Mazi took two steps backward.

He pointed at the wonton stall.

“The old Lingyin was right. My master’s wontons really did taste better than mine. The reason is simple. I am a little stronger than my master. When he died, he had barely reached the Third Grade. Me? I am slightly stronger than he was. Everything works the same way. Spend more time cultivating and your cultivation rises. Spend more time boiling wontons and your wontons taste better.”

Wu Mazi looked once more at the stall.

There was nostalgia in his gaze.

Prince of Jingnan looked at the man who, moments earlier, had been deftly cooking wontons.

“This Prince has heard that a shadow has always guarded the imperial city of Great Chu.”

There had always been a “shadow” guarding the Great Chu imperial city.

It existed separately from the Phoenix Nest Guards.

It answered only to successive Chu emperors.

Very few people knew who that shadow was.

Or where it stayed.

Now the truth stood revealed.

That shadow’s lineage was passed down one disciple at a time.

They set up a stall in the imperial city lane.

And sold wontons.

Since the founding of Great Chu, no coup had ever succeeded in breaching the imperial palace.

That did not mean no coups had occurred.

Nor that none had succeeded politically.

But so long as the Chu emperor remained inside the imperial city, he was safe.

“Five years ago, when His Highness the Fourth Prince was not yet our sovereign, he came to my stall and ate a bowl of wontons.”

Memory entered Wu Mazi’s eyes.

“He said that if a man were hungry enough, even raw wontons could be scalded in hot water and swallowed without properly boiling them. I said no. Wontons must be boiled according to the rules. Those rules came from my master, and his master, and his master’s master, passed down all the way. Wontons have to be cooked through. Cooked to the proper point. Only then do they truly taste good.”

The Chu emperor died.

The Rebellion of the Princes began.

But one after another, those princes were defeated and captured by the future Regent.

The Imperial Clan Guards.

The Shi Clan.

Several first-rank noble houses.

All had stood behind the Regent early.

In other words, the Regent had long been the predetermined winner.

But the late emperor lay sick for years.

Which meant Great Chu wasted years.

During those years, Great Yan trampled its aristocratic clans, attacked Qian, and destroyed Jin.

By the time Great Chu prepared to annex the Cheng State, Chu had only just emerged from the Rebellion of the Princes and had time to send no more than Qu Tiannan with one Azure Luan Army north.

If Chu had not “lost” those years, if the Regent had been given several more years to prepare, perhaps the ownership of the Three Jin lands, perhaps even the present situation of Yan troops reaching the capital, would never have occurred.

Wu Mazi now revealed one old secret.

The Regent had indeed once considered acting early, sending his gravely ill imperial father to Heaven ahead of time.

But in the end, the Regent chose to wait.

Perhaps he wanted proper legitimacy.

Perhaps he did not want the infamy of patricide.

Perhaps he was not yet fully prepared, had not yet pacified court and noble interests.

Of course, there was another possibility.

Perhaps he had simply failed to persuade one wonton seller in the imperial city lane.

“Your Highness, all day today this humble one has been thinking about one thing. If I had broken the rules back then, perhaps today Your Highness would never have entered Ying Capital. Perhaps you would never have stood here before these palace gates. I wanted to preserve the rules because in those years I genuinely believed preserving those rules was what was best for Great Chu. But today, the very thing I wished to protect is about to be lost because I protected it. Your Highness, this humble one dares ask one question. Do you think... I was wrong? I suppose I was wrong. Our sovereign probably believes I was wrong too. That is why he did not take me with him. Of course, I would not have left. But he did not even ask. Haaah.”

As he spoke, a terrifying aura surged from Wu Mazi’s body.

The pressure of a Martial Artist at the peak of the Third Grade rose like the sun bursting from the horizon.

A peak Third Grade Martial Artist had guarded the imperial city lane.

Any prince who contemplated rebellion had first needed to weigh that fact carefully.

Tian Wujing stood there.

Alone, he bore the pressure pouring from the wonton seller.

Then slowly, he said:

“Whether men understand me or condemn me, let the Spring and Autumn Annals judge.”

[End of Chapter 581]