Chapter 701: He Smiled

The day after the grand court audience passed in perfect calm.

Every yamen carried out its own duties. Everything seemed to have returned to the way it had been before His Majesty went to the Rear Garden.

The Crown Prince's faction was flushed with satisfaction. Its core members could barely suppress the smiles at the corners of their mouths, perfectly embodying the saying that the one who is favored will always feel secure in that favor.

The Sixth Master's faction was like fallen leaves in late autumn. For this faction whose backbone was made up of "young talents," it seemed to be their first true taste of helplessness within the imperial court.

The residences of the Northern and Southern Princes remained quiet.

The First Prince had gone to drink with Prince Zhenbei again, apparently determined to recover the face he had lost and fight another round.

Marquis Pingxi went to the Prince of Jingnan Residence every day, stayed for a while, then came back out. The Prince of Jingnan Residence remained every bit as peaceful as everyone imagined.

Inside Marquis Pingxi Residence, meanwhile, Xue San, Siniang, Fan Li, and A'Ming went out several times every day. Whenever they returned, they gathered around a small sand table and ran simulations.

The Fourth Prince continued leading troops at the imperial city, maintaining his role as an iron-faced gatekeeper.

Marquis Zheng had requested permission to enter the palace and return the Son of Heaven's sword.

The Son of Heaven refused.

The fifteen thousand Zhenbei cavalry remained stationed at three separate locations inside the city, all perfectly peaceful.

And so Marquis Zheng had no choice but to keep carrying the Son of Heaven's sword around, visiting the three encampments and repeatedly making his presence known.

By the second and third days, Marquis Zheng could already call many of the officers by name and mingle easily with the soldiers.

He had always been an idol within the army, the perfect example of a commoner rising from nothing. Before, there had still been a little distance between men of the northern and southern armies, but Zheng Fan himself was from Beifeng Commandery. Once he lowered his posture slightly, everyone accepted him readily enough.

So when he visited again, the enthusiasm of both soldiers and officers was noticeably greater.

Unfortunately, in such a short span of time, and with all of this happening inside the capital, actually gathering their loyalty and turning them into men he could truly use was almost impossible.

Still, he had to keep himself busy somehow.

As long as that impressive-looking but otherwise rather useless Son of Heaven's sword remained in his hands, Marquis Zheng had to keep acting as their nominal "big brother."

Being made to carry the blame never felt good.

But the process of waiting to carry the blame felt even worse.

If you were going to the execution ground, it was only one clean chop in the end. Before that, you could eat when you wanted, drink when you wanted, and spend the final moments before execution deciding which farewell poem to plagiarize.

This particular black pot, however, would not kill him.

He knew that.

But he also knew it would inevitably leave a disgusting taste in his mouth.

That was what made it so uncomfortable.

Most importantly... after carrying the Son of Heaven's sword around for three days, Zheng Fan had not come away empty-handed.

He had learned one thing.

The commanders who held real authority over these three forces were, at their core, genuinely loyal to the imperial palace.

These three units were absolutely not stationed inside the capital merely to suppress the atmosphere.

They had another use.

They had to.

As the days continued slipping away, what Marquis Zheng truly cared about was still Ji Old Sixth.

Win or lose, there had to be an answer eventually.

If the Crown Prince truly inherited the throne, Zheng Fan would have to bring out his second set of plans. Even the matter the Demon Kings beneath him were currently helping him prepare would have to be shelved.

Protect Ji Old Sixth's family and get the hell out of the capital while there was still time.

That would be the proper choice.

Because Zheng Fan had a vague premonition.

If the Crown Prince ascended the throne, perhaps he would never get the chance to kill that person.

Instead... that person might simply smother Zheng Fan to death inside Yanjing first.

The end of Great Yan's Iron Triangle was destined to be a magnificent drama, the closing of an age of surging waves and heroic grandeur.

But that era had never contained only the three members of the Iron Triangle.

Afterglow always remained.

Sun Ying had once specifically asked Zheng Fan why he did not use this opportunity to warm himself at the Crown Prince's stove.

If a regional military power showed sufficient respect, the men above would inevitably take that into consideration when weighing matters. Eastern Jin was an especially sensitive region, the key support point for all Three Jin.

Marquis Zheng had rejected the idea without even thinking.

His answer was so simple that even Sun Ying, a man of Jin who had always regarded Marquis Pingxi as wise and farsighted, found it almost unbelievable.

He did not want Little Sixth to be sad.

When Siniang explained it to Sun Ying, she said:

"When a young couple quarrels, one of them might shout, 'Keep treating me badly and I'll go live with so-and-so instead. That'll piss you off!' But shouting something like that during a quarrel and actually doing it are two completely different things."

Siniang thought the analogy was extremely apt.

Yet to Sun Ying's ears, the wind of Yanjing suddenly seemed strangely familiar, filled with the noisy clamor of some household quarrel.

...

Imperial Study.

The Emperor of Yan sat in the seat of honor.

The Crown Prince stood before him.

The Crown Prince's period of regency had already ended.

His father had returned.

Over the past few days, everything seemed to have gone back to normal.

And yet... everything also seemed unable to return to how it had once been.

Even Wei Zhonghe did not know how many days of life His Majesty truly had left.

But the civil and military officials could all sense something.

Since returning from the Rear Garden, His Majesty had made everything appear stable.

Yet beneath that stability lay an urgency that could not be completely concealed.

Unlike the Crown Prince's faction, which was practically "dusting off their official caps in celebration," the Crown Prince himself had remained depressed ever since the grand court audience.

For an ordinary son, being favored and loved by his own father was naturally a wonderful thing.

But in an imperial household, when you were the son of this particular Emperor, unless you were Little Seventh back when he was still young... if Imperial Father suddenly looked at you with deep affection and began showing the tenderness of a doting father... then fine.

Do not rush to rejoice.

First feel around your own body and make sure you still possess whichever useful part your father has taken a liking to.

A son was born from his father.

A father watched his sons grow.

And when that father also naturally carried the identity of sovereign-father, he could torment those sons however he wished.

But after years of being tormented by their own father... the sons gradually learned his habits in return.

The other princes might never reach Sixth Prince's level, where father and son could practically serve as worms inside one another's stomachs.

But even they had learned something akin to an old farmer reading the clouds on the horizon and guessing the weather.

The way Imperial Father had protected him during the grand court audience had caused the Crown Prince to lose even more weight over the past several days.

The Emperor of Yan sat above and looked at his Crown Prince standing below.

He no longer knew when it had begun.

The handsome and vigorous eldest legitimate son of years past had somehow become permanently gaunt and haggard.

The Emperor disliked that intensely.

Because he knew his eldest legitimate son was not ill.

No sickness.

No grave disease.

Yet he refused to eat properly.

Refused to sleep properly.

Kept ruining his own body.

And We...

What the aging Emperor hated most was that Heaven had not given him enough time.

The only reason he had survived until now was because, in the Rear Garden, he had kept swallowing medicinal pills and forcibly supporting his own life.

This was not seeking longevity.

It was trading a life worse than death for the right to keep breathing!

Then look at his Sixth Son.

In his youth, that boy had lived as a dissolute Prince and probably damaged his health somewhat.

Yet after returning to the capital, he had grown plumper by the day.

His residence had once submitted a large request to the Imperial Household Department for daily deliveries of cow's milk and goat's milk because of the children.

The amount was enough to raise ten children.

No need to ask who was drinking the rest.

That brat never allowed himself to suffer when it came to personal comforts.

Even his snuff bottles contained only the best tobacco.

And forget everything else.

Hadn't he ended up marrying the He family's daughter precisely because, after being banished to Nan'an County as a constable, he still could not suppress his appetite and kept going to the He family's shop every few days to buy braised pig-head meat?

Compared with him... this Crown Prince truly was far too affected.

You were not the only one who had suffered hardship.

Had he not suffered too?

Everything that happened to you... happened to him in even greater measure.

Why could he endure it while you stood here wasting away?

You... who exactly are you getting thin for?

The Crown Prince stood there.

Gradually, he noticed the atmosphere inside the Imperial Study changing.

It became more and more oppressive.

He raised his head and glanced at Imperial Father.

Deep inside those eyes, imperial anger seemed to be slowly gathering.

The Crown Prince had no idea why.

But... he still knelt.

The Emperor of Yan put down the memorial in his hand.

"Do you know where you lost?"

Lost.

Naturally, he meant the grand court audience.

Everyone knew the Crown Prince had lost.

The Sixth Prince had won with something almost like a stroke from the gods.

A magnificent victory.

But the arbiter had been His Majesty.

His Majesty had ruled again.

No.

He had redefined victory and defeat.

"This son..."

The Crown Prince genuinely did not know how to answer.

His father was reviewing the battle with him.

Teaching him where he had gone wrong in a struggle for the succession.

But that man was his father.

And the ultimate goal of struggling for the succession was to wait until that father died, then inherit smoothly.

If this were some uniquely favored son enjoying true tenderness between father and son, perhaps there would be no problem.

But the Crown Prince understood perfectly well.

His father was not that kind of father.

"All these years, you have actually done very well. Hold your position and perform the duties that come with it. You are the Crown Prince. In this world, the only person capable of deposing you is Us, because We were the one who established you as Crown Prince."

The Crown Prince remained kneeling.

"You should do nothing beyond your place. That is your strongest defense. Doing nothing beyond your place means leaving no weakness. And because you possess no weakness of your own, anyone who wants to strike you, anyone who wants to drag you down, has no choice but to strike at Us."

The Crown Prince understood that "do nothing" did not mean eating, sleeping, and waiting for death.

It meant doing the duties that belonged to him while refusing to fight, struggle, or snatch for more.

Because he already possessed the greatest treasure.

There was no need to keep reaching for others.

And Great Yan today was different from other states.

Elsewhere, noble houses, aristocratic clans, and countless interest groups could force imperial power to compromise.

Other states had such forces.

Great Yan did not.

That had always been one of Ji Old Sixth's greatest frustrations.

The Crown Prince was too steady.

His greatest mistake might have been that some of the policies enacted during his regency failed to produce ideal results.

But whoever sat in that position would face the same problem.

Even the Emperor of Yan could not guarantee that every imperial decree he issued would be flawless.

So if you attacked the Crown Prince through other routes, the final force of the blow would ultimately land upon the Emperor of Yan.

One sentence from the Emperor.

One imperial decree.

And an offensive that had looked overwhelming would dissolve into nothing.

The reason the grand court audience had offered such an excellent opportunity for so vicious an attack... was fundamentally because the Crown Prince himself had moved.

He had been unable to resist.

He wanted to follow the momentum, dig a pit, wait for Sixth Brother to jump in, then bury Sixth Brother completely.

Once you moved... you revealed a weakness.

And Ji Old Sixth caught that weakness instantly.

At the fastest possible moment and in the fastest possible way, he tore that opening wide and drove a knife directly toward the heart of the Eastern Palace.

If another sovereign with less absolute authority had sat on the Dragon Throne... the matter could never have ended inside the Golden Hall.

"For a ruler, when he moves, he must cut through thorns and brambles. When he is still, he must remain unmoving as a mountain."

The Emperor of Yan's gaze grew more severe.

"You should have endured."

"This son understands his error."

The Crown Prince admitted fault.

Looking back now... he truly should have maintained his previous style.

The Emperor of Yan shook his head slightly.

It was not that he had never given this eldest legitimate son opportunities.

In truth... he had given him many.

And now, at the very end of his own life, to see the successor he had personally chosen forced into such an embarrassing position... was not what the Emperor wanted.

Do not be fooled by the fact that the man sitting here ruled all beneath Heaven as the Ninth-Five Supreme.

The dangers of this seat were not something outsiders could predict.

They could barely even imagine them.

Especially when you wanted to be a wise and capable Emperor, rather than drift through your reign and seek nothing more than a flattering posthumous title.

Inside your mind, the empire's future direction never stopped circling.

Where did you stand inside the course of the empire's development?

What role were you supposed to play?

The more deeply you thought about those questions... the more you felt you could not be wrong.

You could not become confused.

A solitary sovereign.

That was not some phrase used while admiring the moon, a poetic embellishment meant to make loneliness seem elegant.

It was the loneliness of walking a road no one else could share.

Your ministers.

Your people.

Even your sons... none of them could truly stand beside you and see from the same height.

Unless... you stepped down.

And your son stepped up.

"Your state of mind still requires tempering," the Emperor of Yan said.

"Yes. This son thanks Imperial Father for the instruction."

For an Emperor to personally review your mistakes with you... that was a form of favor.

But the Crown Prince did not feel overwhelmed by gratitude.

Just as Imperial Father himself had said, his position had been established by Imperial Father.

The only man who could depose him... was Imperial Father.

So whether that position remained his or not... still depended upon his father's state of mind.

Upon his father's final choice.

Unless...

Imperial Father... at this very moment... had his life... abruptly stop.

Over this recent period, similar thoughts had appeared one after another in the hearts of the various imperial princes.

Even Little Seventh's birth mother may have imagined His Majesty suddenly softening toward his youngest son before death and changing the succession to a child ruler.

As for the others... when the First Prince looked at his wife, whose mood had become particularly bright after the friendly exchange between Yan and the Barbarians at the grand court audience, a faint shadow had crossed his own heart.

When the Fourth Prince received the oral decree ordering him to guard the palace gates, he had roared soundlessly inside as well.

The Fifth Prince had understood things long ago and fled early to serve as his "River God."

In the hearts of Great Yan's common people, the Emperor of Yan was the supreme Son of Heaven.

But in the eyes of his own sons... every one of them, in truth, hoped this father would leave sooner.

Compared with that... victory and defeat could almost become meaningless.

At that moment, Zhao Jiulang requested audience.

The Chancellor arrived carrying the draft of a newly revised Great Yan Code.

The Crown Prince was not permitted to leave.

He could only stand to the side and listen.

The new Great Yan Code was not some sweeping reform of the state.

But it would help consolidate the empire's foundations.

It was still a major affair of state.

The Emperor sat there and listened quietly.

Afterward... the Chancellor produced another document and once again explained it personally.

This one concerned tax reform.

It covered nearly every aspect of taxation.

This, in truth, was what would truly support the empire's future development.

Taxation affected the production and daily lives of the people.

At the same time, it directly determined whether the central government could continue maintaining its enormous cavalry forces and whether it could afford the consumption of another war between states.

There was another point as well.

A wealthy people and a wealthy country did not necessarily mean a wealthy central government.

At its core, taxation was still about balancing redistribution.

The best example was the State of Qian.

Qian's wealth exceeded Great Yan's several times over.

Yet even its horse administration had been turned into a grotesque mess.

The Crown Prince could clearly sense traces of his Sixth Brother's thinking throughout the new law.

"Your Majesty, this minister believes the new law should first be implemented on a trial basis," Zhao Jiulang said. "Improve it step by step, accumulate experience step by step, then gradually extend it outward."

"What does the Crown Prince think?"

The Crown Prince hurriedly answered:

"This son concurs. Governing a great state is like cooking a small fish. We should first conduct trials, identify and repair any flaws, then gradually implement the law throughout the realm."

The Emperor of Yan shook his head.

The sovereign whose remaining lifespan had already been reduced to only a handful of days seemed to have seen through some things even more clearly.

"There are no powerful enemies beyond our borders, so disorder will rise within. The new law cannot be slow. No matter how slowly you move, someone will still accuse you of moving too fast. Implement it everywhere first. Then discover the flaws and repair them."

The Emperor's perspective came from where he stood.

He knew perfectly well that once he was gone, the prestige of the central court would inevitably decline sharply.

After one generation... then another... it would continue declining.

For reforms like these, moving step by step would amount to no more than pouring one cup of water onto a burning cartload of firewood.

Better to use the authority of his own generation, then the next, and force the measures through with thunderous power.

Who dares oppose it?

Who wants to oppose it?

Who is capable of opposing it?

Name them.

Then flatten them.

If you intended to make people spit back out what they had already swallowed... you should not expect them to smile pleasantly at you while doing it.

This was not an Emperor's extremism.

It was an Emperor considering the whole board.

He could guarantee that the son who inherited the throne would be capable.

Because he would choose that son himself.

But the imperial grandsons?

The eldest grandson was still practicing his calligraphy.

The Emperor... no longer possessed the strength to personally raise the next generation.

Nor would he dream that Great Yan could enjoy wise sovereigns generation after generation.

That dream was too beautiful.

And far too naïve.

The Emperor of Yan would not indulge in it.

That was why founding Emperors throughout history always wanted to establish every possible rule for later generations.

They had personally endured the difficulty of founding an enterprise.

So naturally, they understood more clearly than anyone that their descendants would rarely possess the same ability or stand at the same height.

The Emperor of Yan picked up the memorial again.

And continued reading.

At that moment...

Wei Zhonghe entered.

He reported:

"Your Majesty, Lady Fengxin's residence has sent someone into the palace requesting an imperial physician."

The Emperor did not put down the memorial.

He did not even raise his eyes from the page.

He merely asked calmly:

"Is Lady Fengxin ill?"

His wet nurse was indeed advanced in years.

"To reply to Your Majesty, it is His Highness the eldest imperial grandson who has fallen ill."

Upon hearing that... the Emperor of Yan set down the memorial.

And at the corner of his mouth... a smile appeared.

[End of Chapter 701]