Chapter 594: - Made Marquis

Yanjing.

Ministry of Revenue.

Signing Room.

On Little Sixth Ji’s desk sat a plate of cornbread buns.

He was not eating them to remember bitterness and cherish sweetness. The grain was no ordinary grain, and there was even filling inside. Rather than cornbread, it would be more accurate to call them expensive pastries deliberately made in the shape of cornbread.

The reason for doing this was simple. Whenever officials from other yamens came over to make a fuss and demand funding from the Ministry of Revenue, the sight of this plate usually made them restrain themselves a little.

Look.

Just look.

Even an imperial prince had been reduced to gnawing cornbread to get by.

The Ministry of Revenue really did not have a single drop left to squeeze out.

Little Sixth Ji clapped his hands clean and pushed the memorial before him forward.

Lately, there had been three pieces of good news and three pieces of bad news.

The first piece of good news had come three months ago.

Prince of Jingnan submitted a memorial saying the front no longer required further shipments of grain, fodder, or military supplies.

Good.

Little Sixth Ji could finally breathe.

The bad news was that although the commander at the front had said military supply shipments could stop, the Ministry of Revenue still could not scrape together any surplus grain for disaster relief.

There was none.

None meant none.

There truly was none.

It was not that rich gentry or great clans were hoarding grain and trying to corner the market. After the aristocratic clans were trampled beneath cavalry hooves, ninety percent of Great Yan’s powerful families had been confiscated and exiled.

It was precisely by relying on the wealth and grain seized from them that Great Yan had been able to launch wars against Qian and Jin.

As his imperial father’s authority continued to grow, as power gathered firmly in his hands, and as Little Sixth himself had taken charge of the Ministry of Revenue and spared no effort suppressing local forces trying to divert revenue, no one dared obstruct them and no one dared resist.

Interest groups?

What interest groups?

They did not exist.

And because of that, in only a few years Great Yan had fought several more wars. Hundreds of thousands of iron cavalry had been mobilized back and forth, sent to the front, and used to open new territory.

Once the court had eaten nearly everything and then the court itself ran dry, that meant it was truly dry.

Looking around, apart from two or three mosquitoes, there was not a single fat pig left from which to borrow some lard.

The second piece of good news was that his eldest brother had won a battle on the Yinlang Commandery front and beheaded Qian’s commander of the Three Frontiers.

Yes.

When Little Sixth Ji first saw the report, he had been shocked too.

What was going on?

Everyone knew the Qian army was weak, but surely it could not be this hopeless?

Later, Little Sixth Ji worked out what had happened.

The man who died really was Qian’s commander of the Three Frontiers.

But he was not Yao Zizhan, Qian’s Governor-General of the Three Frontiers.

He was Zhong Wenmian.

Great Yan’s military bureaucracy was chaotic and cluttered at the lower levels.

Qian was the opposite. The higher one climbed, the messier the official titles became. Empty honorifics and real offices overlapped in every direction until even Qian officials themselves struggled to sort them out.

The story went like this.

Zhong Wendao died.

Qian kept his death secret for a period of time.

Because the Qian themselves understood perfectly well what situation they would face after losing Zhong Wendao. Across the entire Three Frontiers, there was only one person left with enough prestige to make every military commander submit.

That person was Governor-General of the Three Frontiers, Yao Zizhan.

They would submit.

After all, Master Yao was the Literary Saint of Great Qian.

Qian military officers had always possessed a fine tradition when dealing with civil officials.

If the first man was a military officer and the second a civil official, and they held the same rank, the military officer acknowledged the civil official as his godfather.

If the military officer ranked one step higher, he kowtowed.

If he ranked two steps higher, he performed a formal salute.

Behind Master Yao stood the literary tradition of Great Qian itself. He was practically a totem of the civil bureaucracy. Crushing a bunch of rough soldiers beneath him required no effort whatsoever.

But if someone truly wanted Master Yao to take command and lead a northern expedition?

Well.

Those same rough soldiers would roar patriotic slogans, or have their secretaries write stirring poems about serving the country, and then invent every excuse imaginable to obstruct and delay the campaign.

They knelt to civil officials because the Tattoo-Faced Chancellor had already set the precedent. That was how one stayed alive.

A northern expedition, and one commanded by Master Yao?

How was that different from going to die?

Fortunately, the Qian court was not stupid.

The Qian emperor had sent Yao Zizhan to the Three Frontiers to harmonize relations between the various commands, not because he expected the Literary Saint to suddenly transform into a Martial Saint.

But the problem remained.

Zhong Wendao was dead.

Who would replace him?

During the last year or two of his life, Zhong Wendao had repeatedly submitted memorials warning against the dangers of launching a northern expedition in haste. He had even spoken without restraint, saying that although Qian’s armies looked enormous on paper and had indeed trained hard after the Yan marched south four years earlier, all they had truly done was grow from children into adolescents. They were still far from becoming a genuine army of tigers and wolves.

There was no other reason.

The debts inherited from the past were simply too great.

Perhaps because he knew his life was nearing its end, Zhong Wendao stopped holding himself back. He told the Qian emperor and the ministers of court directly that if Great Qian marched north now, it would merely repeat the catastrophe of a century earlier.

Zhong Wenmian, meanwhile, was nominally the second-ranked figure of the Zhong Clan.

His brilliance had always been overshadowed by his elder brother.

Put another way, his political position had also been assumed to be his brother’s.

Zhong Wenmian submitted memorial after memorial saying they could fight, that they should fight, that the soldiers of the Three Frontiers and the Western Army were willing to risk their lives for the country and wash away their old humiliation. He shouted the same slogans again and again.

But in the eyes of the emperor and the chief ministers, the two Zhong brothers were simply singing in harmony and playing political tai chi.

Zhong Wendao took the position that a northern expedition was unwise.

Then Zhong Wenmian followed by declaring that army morale remained usable and that the soldiers still stood behind the court and the emperor.

Balancing political positions like this was an old trick.

Even Zhong Wenmian himself failed to realize that every memorial he submitted had been treated as seasoning meant to dilute his elder brother’s argument.

Only after Zhong Wendao died did the court finally understand.

Even if they did not march north, even if they genuinely sat on the far bank watching the fire while Yan fought Chu, they still needed a military man to speak for the Three Frontiers.

Otherwise, what kind of arrangement was that?

Then began another round of bargaining between every faction.

At this point, Zhong Wenmian was sending a memorial every three days.

Every memorial had one subject:

Northern expedition.

Northern expedition.

Northern expedition!

Only then did the great men at court finally understand that the two Zhong brothers had actually held opposing political views all along.

But there was another problem.

Before Old Minister Zhong died, reports from the Silver-Armored Guard within the army, together with his final fiercely worded memorial and the added weight of his death itself, had pushed the court into a new consensus:

Old Minister Zhong had been right.

At least, this was not the right moment for a northern expedition.

As for Chu?

Chu could manage by itself.

Surely it could hold on?

At that time, Zhennan Pass was still in Chu hands, while Count Pingye had already sailed south along the Wang River into Chu.

But viewed from the broader strategic picture, the Yan-Chu war still appeared centered on the Zhennan Pass front. That seemed to prove the Chu could withstand Yan well enough.

So there was no need to hurry.

And because there was no need to hurry, choosing a new commander became less urgent too.

This was not because everyone was occupying office without doing anything, or because there were too many idle officials.

It was simply because Qian genuinely had great difficulty finding a commander capable of independently holding up an entire front.

Eventually, after dragging their feet, the court issued an edict ordering Zhong Wenmian to temporarily assume Old Minister Zhong’s post. At the same time, it specifically instructed Yao Zizhan, as Governor-General of the Three Frontiers, to control logistics carefully and prevent Zhong Wenmian from acting recklessly in pursuit of merit.

On the other side, Zhong Wenmian had waited and waited without receiving any reply from court.

He had become rather disheartened. He felt that at his age, the hot blood still burning in his chest had ultimately been given to the wrong people.

Then, one day, he selected three thousand cavalry and rode north.

In earlier years, Zhong Tianlang had often led Qian cavalry north to raid Yan camps or plunder merchant caravans.

Partly this had been because he was young and hot-blooded.

Partly because Qian genuinely needed these small victories to raise morale.

Even though these tiny “great victories” never affected the wider situation.

But ever since Zhong Tianlang became an Imperial Son-in-Law, he had stopped doing such things.

The silver-spear youth who had once pursued Count Pingye had become far steadier. He now paid attention to the mundane details of army management and focused on training troops and drilling formations.

Together with Zhong Wendao’s dying instructions, this had caused Zhong Tianlang to temporarily put aside his former arrogance and stop dreaming every day about launching a northern expedition.

In short, he had matured.

His uncle, however, had taken over his old role.

And Zhong Wenmian’s luck was genuinely terrible.

Because on that very day, Great Yan’s First Prince, Ji Wujiang, personally led five thousand cavalry out as well.

His purpose was to provoke Qian deliberately, apply pressure, and use a threatening posture to make the Qian abandon any thought of exploiting Yan’s difficulties.

When two states faced each other, the side with genuine confidence rarely bothered with little tricks.

Ji Wujiang understood that in this theater, Great Yan was precisely the side lacking confidence.

The core strength of Great Yan, hundreds of thousands of iron cavalry, was all concentrated in eastern Jin.

Inside Yan itself, this year’s drought was extremely severe.

So when dealing with Qian to the south, it was better not to start a large war if one could avoid it.

Create some small clashes.

Generate some tension.

Make Qian pull back its hand from the fire before trying to snatch chestnuts.

Perhaps some men really did carry a kind of fate.

The sort of men Count Pingye liked to joke about as having “protagonist templates.”

That day, that night, outside that forest, the Yan cavalry led by the First Prince and the Qian cavalry led by Zhong Wenmian met.

Normally, when two cavalry forces encountered one another, the weaker side could usually flee even if it could not win.

Run toward your own territory.

The enemy generally would not dare pursue too deeply.

Who could have expected the Yan force to be marching in three separate parts?

Zhong Wenmian thought he had found a soft persimmon.

Relying on his numerical advantage, he tried to swallow that Yan detachment in one bite.

Then the First Prince surrounded him.

The quality of this Qian cavalry force was actually respectable.

Once Zhong Wenmian realized the situation was bad and ordered a breakout, more than a thousand riders still managed to carve their way free.

Only Zhong Wenmian himself was directly targeted by the First Prince riding a Pixiu.

It was absurd.

Like a scene from an opera.

But reality was often more theatrical than theater.

The First Prince rode the Pixiu, long saber in hand, and charged into the Qian troops trying to break out.

He aimed straight at Zhong Wenmian and brought the saber down.

Zhong Wenmian thrust his spear and struck the First Prince.

His martial cultivation was not weak either.

But Zhong Wenmian was old.

That was the cruel difficulty of Martial Artists.

The fist feared the young and strong.

Once age advanced, blood and qi inevitably declined.

Zhong Wenmian’s spear pierced the First Prince’s armor and wounded him.

But it failed to drive the First Prince backward.

The spear’s advantage in reach never had a chance to become decisive.

Instead, the Pixiu beneath the First Prince lunged forward with tremendous force and knocked down Zhong Wenmian’s warhorse.

The First Prince seized the opportunity.

One saber stabbed into Zhong Wenmian’s chest.

Then twisted.

Clean.

Efficient.

Zhong Wenmian died on the spot.

Immediately afterward, the First Prince’s blood and qi suddenly stalled.

He lost consciousness.

The Qian cavalry who had escaped saw their commander fall and immediately charged back, hoping to recover Zhong Wenmian’s corpse.

The Yan troops saw their own First Prince wounded and unconscious.

They quickly carried him away.

At the same time, they took Zhong Wenmian’s body with them.

The entire force covered itself in shifts and withdrew.

No more fighting.

So the Qian won that battle, yet did not look like victors at all.

The Yan cavalry retreated, yet somehow came away with a tremendous prize.

Four years earlier, when Yan invaded Qian, many Qian officers and soldiers had been captured or surrendered.

Among them were men who had seen Zhong Wenmian before.

Xu Wenzu saw how high a price the First Prince had paid to kill this man and immediately summoned Qian-born surrender troops to identify the corpse.

Very quickly, Zhong Wenmian’s identity became “clear.”

Zhong Wendao’s own younger brother.

The previous generation’s nominal number-two figure in the Western Army.

Slain!

Great merit.

Great merit!

Xu Wenzu immediately began drafting a memorial asking the court to reward the First Prince.

He knew perfectly well that the First Prince had never fully escaped the shadow cast by his defeat at the Wang River.

That was why Ji Wujiang cherished every opportunity to earn merit and redeem himself.

But before Xu Wenzu even finished the memorial, another piece of news arrived.

The Qian imperial envoy who had come to the Three Frontiers carrying the decree could not find Zhong Wenmian.

Naturally, the decree appointing Zhong Wenmian acting commander of the Three Frontiers could not be formally proclaimed.

But once that decree left Qian’s central government, its contents had already ceased to be secret within Shangjing.

Great Yan’s Secret Intelligence Department agents hidden in Shangjing immediately sent the information home.

A change in command of Qian’s Three Frontiers, temporary or not, counted as urgent military intelligence.

And then

Xu Wenzu suddenly discovered that the enemy general killed by the First Prince had transformed overnight from merely an enemy commander into the enemy’s supreme commander...

Xu Wenzu hesitated.

In the end, he submitted the military merit report using the wording:

“The First Prince slew the commander of Qian’s Three Frontiers in battle.”

Still, Fatty Xu was a cautious man.

Immediately after the merit claim, he attached a detailed explanation.

The First Prince was an imperial prince.

As a subject, Xu Wenzu naturally had to build the stage first.

That was politically correct.

Whether His Majesty chose to reward the First Prince directly under that description or cool the matter down afterward was His Majesty’s decision.

Once the report reached Yanjing, the Crown Prince immediately led Zhao Jiulang and other senior ministers to the Rear Garden again to request rewards for his elder brother.

Little Sixth Ji understood that his imperial father could only have received the memorial earlier than the Crown Prince did.

Then news came from the Rear Garden.

The First Prince, Ji Wujiang, had exhausted himself in service to the state, guarded the frontier for the realm, and taken the head of Qian’s commander of the Three Frontiers...

After a long sequence of rewards came the noble title.

After his defeat in the first Battle of the Wang River, nearly every noble title carried by the First Prince had been stripped away.

Because of his marriage to the Barbarian princess, he still received treatment equivalent to a prince.

But in actual title, he had nothing.

Xu Wenzu himself still carried a viscount title.

If not for Ji Wujiang’s status as an imperial prince, Ji Wujiang would technically have had to salute Xu Wenzu first.

By ordinary logic, after earning such great merit, and with His Majesty clearly intending to publicize the victory and wash away the stain of the Wang River defeat while cultivating one member of the Ji imperial clan capable of leading armies outside the capital, the First Prince’s princely title should have been restored.

Emotionally and politically, that would have made sense.

His Barbarian princess had already given birth to a child.

If the father had no title, what exactly was the child supposed to inherit?

The old Barbarian King had sent his treasured daughter into Yan.

Was Great Yan really going to let his grandson become a commoner?

For an ordinary official, one did not need to worry whether his ennoblement surpassed his parents.

But an imperial prince was a direct member of the imperial clan.

Such things could not be handled casually.

Yet the investiture decree did not restore Ji Wujiang’s princely title.

It gave him a marquisate.

The First Prince, Ji Wujiang, was enfeoffed as...

Marquis of Andong!

The court and the wider political world erupted in discussion.

It was not because the title seemed too low.

On the surface, Marquis was obviously below Prince.

But in reality, if this had been anyone else, especially a non-imperial prince, a princely title would have represented supreme honor.

Great Yan had existed for eight hundred years.

Only two men of another surname had ever been made princes: the Prince of Zhenbei and the Prince of Jingnan.

But Ji Wujiang himself belonged to the imperial clan.

As the emperor’s son, receiving a princely title was normally inevitable.

In fact, he had long addressed himself as “this Prince.”

Yet now he was being granted a marquisate, and specifically one tied to an external military command.

That carried a completely different political meaning.

His Majesty did not intend to bring his eldest son back to Yanjing and leave him as a decorative member of the imperial clan.

Even though Ji Wujiang had married a Barbarian princess and the bloodline of his descendants had been “tainted,”

His Majesty still intended for his eldest son to become a man capable of holding up one region alone.

During the eastern campaign, His Majesty had promoted him once.

He lost.

This time, His Majesty had promoted him again.

Alongside Ji Wujiang’s elevation to Marquis came another decree.

Xu Wenzu benefited as well.

He was promoted to Governor of Yinlang Commandery and placed in charge of its civil administration.

In Great Yan’s south, in Yinlang Commandery, the arrangement had effectively become Xu Wenzu handling logistics while the First Prince controlled the army.

The two men had worked together smoothly from the beginning.

Now their positions were merely being formalized.

Already, some perceptive observers had begun guessing whether His Majesty intended to imitate the old structure of the Jingnan Army and establish another force in Yinlang Commandery.

A new “Jingnan Army.”

Or perhaps an “Andong Army.”

As for the east, south, west, and north attached to noble titles, the actual direction mattered less than people imagined.

The Marquis of Zhenbei was called “Pacifier of the North,” yet his domain lay at the extreme west of Great Yan, which was also the westernmost edge of the Four Eastern States.

By strict geography, he should have been called Marquis of Zhenxi.

The Marquis of Jingnan had indeed originally been stationed in Yinlang Commandery facing Qian.

But the Jingnan Army had been campaigning in Jin for years now and no longer faced Qian directly.

East, south, west, and north had long since ceased to function as literal directional markers.

Much like Chu’s Left General and Right General, or Qian’s Four Directions Council.

Here, the directional word reflected parity in status more than geography.

That was the second piece of good news.

But there was also a second piece of bad news.

Zhong Wenmian was dead.

Little Sixth Ji imagined the Qian court must feel as if it had swallowed an enormous living fly.

But then, news came from Shangjing.

The Qian emperor appointed Zu Zhuming, Grand Commander of the Zu Clan Army in southeastern Qian, as Governor-General of the Three Frontiers.

Yao Zizhan was removed from the position entirely.

After receiving the summons, Grand Commander Zu immediately rode through the night with his personal guards to Shangjing.

The emperor received him with great ceremony.

It was said Grand Commander Zu was deeply moved. At the state banquet, he made a grand promise before the emperor and the chief ministers: give him five years, and he would establish a new Three Frontiers defense system capable of completely containing the Yan threat.

This became known as:

“Pacify Yan in Five Years.”

Of course, “Pacify Yan in Five Years” did not mean marching straight to Yanjing and destroying Great Yan.

It meant reversing the strategic situation in the north so that border raids returned to being merely border raids and no longer threatened the survival of the state.

Zu Zhuming had arrived.

This man had methods.

He had ability.

He knew how to train troops.

He knew how to fight.

And he possessed one more important trait.

His military philosophy was the same as Old Minister Zhong’s.

That was... turtle.

Qian had vast territory and a dense population anyway.

Its past military weakness was an old debt.

Fine.

Repay it slowly.

Develop slowly.

Turtle up and grow.

With this man in the Three Frontiers, the entire atmosphere there would inevitably change.

The third piece of good news was that Lingxiang was pregnant.

Then He Sisi became pregnant again.

The bad news this created was...

Little Sixth Ji was going to become a monk!

Truthfully, Little Sixth had hardly been some pure saint in earlier years.

He had possessed groups of concubines.

Call it part of his disguise if you wanted.

But saying he had never enjoyed it at all would be obviously false.

Still, life before marriage and after marriage was different.

A man often matured quite a bit after marrying.

Living like a monk was unpleasant.

But whenever he thought of that brother surnamed Zheng, who always claimed to have a taste for married women, Little Sixth knew perfectly well that Zheng Fan actually had only a handful of women in his life.

The higher one climbed, the more one experienced, the harder it became to fall into so-called love and romance.

There simply was not enough time.

Spending the evening with his son, listening to Ji Chuanye babble a few sounds, was also a kind of pleasure.

Little Sixth reached out.

Picked up one cornbread bun.

Took a bite.

At that moment, shouts suddenly erupted outside:

“Great victory! Great victory! Great victory!”

“Great victory in the campaign against Chu!”

“Ying Capital has fallen! Ying Capital has fallen!”

...

“Sixth Brother, the Ministry of Revenue’s burden is heavy these days, isn’t it?”

Inside a small side hall in the Rear Garden, the Crown Prince looked at Ji Chengjue as he asked.

Ji Chengjue shrugged.

Then smiled.

“Not too bad. We have nothing anyway. It saves me the trouble of deciding who gets more and who gets less. Peaceful, in a way.”

“Fortunately, the war is almost over,” the Crown Prince said with a smile. “Next should come peace talks.”

Little Sixth Ji replied:

“Hopefully.”

Little Sixth did not believe the Crown Prince had personally seen that far.

In other matters, the Crown Prince could be considered quite capable.

But in military affairs, his level should have been roughly the same as Little Sixth’s.

That meant there was someone beside the Crown Prince who understood war and had analyzed the situation for him.

It would not be Old Fourth.

Even if Old Fourth had genuinely thrown himself into the Crown Prince’s camp, there had not been time for him to come over and offer an opinion today.

It had to be someone else.

And words like “next should come peace talks” were not something a Ministry of War official ought to say either.

They had only just received news of a great victory.

Publicly, even if such an official wanted to speak, he should have said something auspicious like pursuing the victory and destroying Chu in one stroke.

He should not be saying “time to negotiate peace” immediately after the Chu capital fell.

Besides, Imperial Father had repeatedly issued strict orders that anyone who recklessly criticized or discussed frontline military affairs would be guilty of a serious crime.

So it should be someone inside the Eastern Palace.

Someone close to the Crown Prince.

The moment the Crown Prince received news of victory, that person had quickly provided his own judgment.

Worth investigating.

At that moment, Wei Zhonghe came out and said:

“His Majesty summons Chief Minister Zhao, the Crown Prince, and Sixth Highness for audience.”

Meaning the other ministers would not be seen.

Zhao Jiulang walked first.

The Crown Prince followed.

Little Sixth came last.

Wei Zhonghe led the three men into a small building.

The building was not large.

A curtain divided the room.

They could not see the man inside.

“This subject greets Your Majesty. Long live the Emperor.”

“This son greets Imperial Father.”

From behind the curtain came Emperor Yan’s voice:

“Rise.”

The voice sounded tired.

The three rose.

Little Sixth looked at the curtain before him.

From what he knew of his imperial father, unless there were absolutely no alternative, his father would never use such a superficial object to conceal himself.

He could use schemes.

His schemes were formidable.

But he disdained this kind of theatrical device.

Yet under the circumstances, refusing to see ministers or sons was impossible.

The Emperor of Yan had to speak with his own voice.

He had to let his ministers and sons know that he was still lucid.

Even Wei Zhonghe could not bear the charge of “cutting off communication between ruler and officials.”

The slightest hint of that behavior would be treated as treason.

The Emperor of Yan’s next actions confirmed Little Sixth’s judgment even further.

He did not ask questions and wait for replies.

Instead, he directly dictated arrangements.

That meant the emperor’s remaining energy had become a serious problem.

“For all matters concerning Chu from this point forward, follow Prince of Jingnan’s judgment. Crown Prince, carry out his decisions.”

“Yes, this son obeys.”

This meant Prince of Jingnan’s will would become the court’s will.

The Crown Prince, as regent of state affairs, would cooperate completely with Prince of Jingnan.

Whether to fight or negotiate.

If fighting, how to fight.

If negotiating, how to negotiate.

Everything would be decided by the commander at the front.

This was no longer merely confidence in Prince of Jingnan’s ability.

It was trust on an astonishing scale.

“Do not rush the matter of disaster relief. As long as we win the war, the old people of Yan will endure.”

This was reassurance concerning popular morale and also immense confidence.

“Yes, this son understands,” Little Sixth answered immediately.

“For this year’s annual payment from Qian, demand grain instead. Hold the Qian court responsible for Zhong Wenmian’s unauthorized violation of Our border.”

The Chu capital had fallen.

No matter how one looked at it, Great Yan’s campaign against Chu was going extremely well.

Under these circumstances, Great Yan could afford to behave more arrogantly toward Qian.

It could squeeze harder.

And the Qian would probably swallow their anger.

“Yes, Your Majesty,” Zhao Jiulang answered with a salute.

“That will be all...”

“Imperial Father, this son has one more matter,” the Crown Prince said.

“Speak.”

“In the victory memorial, Prince of Jingnan specifically listed every achievement Count Pingye made during the campaign against Chu.”

No one else’s.

Only Count Pingye’s had been written in detail.

Everyone understood what that meant.

Besides, the merit was genuine.

The war had not yet formally ended and the final settlement had not yet been produced, but certain preparations needed to begin in advance.

The future political and military structure of eastern Jin also had to be arranged early if stability was to return quickly.

The Crown Prince was actually asking for Zheng Fan to be rewarded.

Everyone knew Count Pingye was the number-one general of the Sixth Prince’s faction.

Yet the Crown Prince had hurried to petition on his behalf.

Seen cynically, one could say the Crown Prince was offering Count Pingye a jade ruyi and trying to dig into the Sixth Prince’s wall.

Seen brightly, one could say the Crown Prince placed state and public duty above faction.

“Enfeoff him as Marquis...”

The Emperor of Yan’s voice came from behind the curtain.

No one found that surprising.

Everyone considered it inevitable.

Assuming no major accident occurred in Chu from this point forward, Count Pingye becoming a Marquis was practically certain.

His military achievements had grown so great that no one could ignore them.

If he lacked powerful backing, they might have delayed the award using some excuse like his age being too young and recording the merit now for later ennoblement being better for him in the long run.

But the problem was

Prince of Jingnan had already named him directly.

When a sufficiently powerful person stood behind you, many supposedly inevitable rules had a way of suddenly disappearing just as inevitably.

A Marquis...

Little Sixth calculated silently.

Marquis of Zhenbei.

Marquis of Jingnan.

Marquis of Andong.

East, south, and north were already taken.

Only one remained.

At the same time, Little Sixth understood clearly that once Zheng Fan became a Marquis, he would almost certainly receive a frontier command.

Someone had to guard eastern Jin.

Just as the first Marquis of Zhenbei had once guarded the desert.

Which meant

Little Sixth might still be an imperial prince, but Zheng Fan would already have become a true frontier lord.

A genuinely powerful frontier lord could disobey even the court and the emperor’s decrees.

Much less a mere imperial prince.

And therefore, once a man became such a frontier lord, he no longer needed to hurry to choose sides between imperial princes.

Whoever became emperor would need to placate him.

The so-called merit of supporting the rightful heir held far less attraction for a frontier lord.

A long silence passed.

Just as Little Sixth was beginning to wonder whether his imperial father had fallen asleep, the Emperor of Yan’s voice came from behind the curtain again.

“Marquis of Pingxi.”

[End of Chapter 594]