Chapter 789: The Emperor's Decision

Two blossoms bloom, each on its own branch.

Unlike eastern Jin and northern Chu, where war had erupted and cavalry thundered across the land, Yanjing had finally recovered a kind of tranquility suspended between bustle and clamor. The late Emperor had died. The Chief Minister had died. Those had been the city’s “darkest hours.” But with the new sovereign enthroned and the Barbarian Royal Court destroyed, life had gradually settled again.

It was true that the late Emperor had left his successor a Great Yan that was strong on the outside and hollow within. But the realm was hardly a wasteland waiting to be rebuilt from nothing.

It was more like a man who had exhausted his body. He had begun coughing, stooping, struggling even to climb out of bed.

There was no need for miracle tonics or immortal pills. Even if the new sovereign simply sat there and practiced governing through restraint, doing nothing drastic, the livelihood of the people would recover at a pace visible to the naked eye.

The Blind Man had once said that after every Emperor accused of exhausting the people through endless warfare, one often saw a so-called “great restoration” or “revival.”

The previous ruler tightened everyone’s belt, crushed the worst internal dangers and foreign enemies, and took the curses for it. Only then could his successor enjoy the peace needed to recover and develop, building prosperity upon the foundation purchased by the man before him.

Across history, it happened again and again.

There was another advantage. While the late Emperor still reigned and the present sovereign was merely a prince, Ji Chengjue had already immersed himself in the Ministry of Revenue. The finances of the entire state had passed through his hands long before he sat upon the Dragon Throne.

The great affairs of a state lay in sacrifice and war.

But in truth... finance was the root of the realm.

People said Qian was the richest of the states. And yet, what did Qian look like?

Then again, if Qian had not been rich enough, perhaps Qian would have ceased to exist long ago.

War required money and grain. Culture required enough people with full bellies and leisure before it could flourish. Court policy, court dignity, every movement of the state in every direction... all of it required silver and grain to clear the road first.

Before the new sovereign ascended the throne, the late Emperor had spent a long period living in the Rear Garden while the Crown Prince served as regent. Policies remained unchanged. The Crown Prince did not dare carve out some new path and begin reforming on his own.

That left the new Emperor enormous room to maneuver.

Zhao Jiulang’s death had caused a degree of turbulence at court, but Ji Chengjue’s own methods and ability, together with the arrangements the late Emperor made before his death, allowed the new sovereign to stabilize his position very quickly.

New policies were issued one after another without hurry. Reforms in every direction moved forward steadily.

The imperial clan and hereditary nobles had only just managed to send off a late Emperor who had been extraordinarily harsh toward them... only to welcome a new sovereign even more “cold and ungenerous.”

The new Emperor began by cutting into his own brothers. That alone announced that in his reign, even royal parasites dreaming of becoming idle rich men would not have an easy life.

Prince Jingnan had gone west.

At Prince Zhenbei Residence, the old Prince had died. After the new Prince inherited the title, he voluntarily requested that the court absorb the remaining Zhenbei Army. The court responded with great grace. Edict after edict soothed the residence, and in name the court continued recognizing Prince Zhenbei Residence’s hereditary duty of guarding the desert.

At the same time, however, the several Garrison Commanders stationed in the desert under the former Prince Zhenbei Residence were granted promotions and noble honors directly by court. The flow of money and grain was changed as well. Most supplies that once should have entered Prince Zhenbei Residence before being forwarded to the frontier army were now issued directly in the court’s name through the Prefect of Tuman City.

The relationship between a regional military power and the central court was always delicate.

And the central court’s most effective means of restraining a regional military power... was money and grain.

Nominally, the Zhenbei Army still answered to Prince Zhenbei Residence. In reality, the court’s influence had already penetrated it.

The old spectacle of Li Liangting giving one order and two hundred thousand Zhenbei iron cavalry turning their spearheads east toward Yanjing could no longer happen. The new Prince lacked the old Prince’s prestige, while court influence grew deeper with every passing day.

On the other side, Marquis Pingxi had already been the public face of Sixth Master’s faction back when Ji Chengjue was still an idle, frustrated prince. Some thoughtful men had quietly said that no one could predict what would happen later.

But at least for now... the relationship between court and Marquis Pingxi Residence was sweeter than honey.

The new Prefect of Yupan City was Sun Liang, formerly Transport Commissioner of Yingdu. The appointment came from court, but the upper circles of both Yingdu and Yanjing understood that the Sun Clan of the late Sun Youdao had long since attached itself to Marquis Pingxi Residence.

Sun Liang’s elder brother, Sun Ying, had even entered Yanjing in a wheelchair beside Marquis Pingxi himself.

In effect, the court had “given” Yupan City to Marquis Pingxi Residence.

From Wangjiang eastward, eastern Jin was now formally and completely handed over to the Residence.

In exchange, the court began reclaiming local administrative authority throughout Jin from the former Jingnan Army, Jin Camp, Zhenbei Army, and other military commanders. The old situation where one commander simultaneously controlled troops and served as the highest civil authority of a region was gradually disappearing.

Naturally, there was enormous resentment within the army.

After all, the court was smashing men’s rice bowls and cutting off their private streams of profit.

Enjoy a benefit for long enough and eventually you stop thinking of it as a benefit. It becomes something Heaven itself supposedly owes you.

Across history, when a new sovereign ascended the throne, his first move was usually to soothe the army and display imperial grace.

Great Yan’s new sovereign did the opposite.

But Prince Jingnan was no longer in Jin. He was not even in Yan.

And Marquis Pingxi, who had inherited Prince Jingnan’s mantle and now possessed both the status and prestige to raise one arm and rally the old military establishment, remained silent on this matter.

Without someone of sufficient weight to take the lead, the military commanders below could not make trouble.

They could only surrender the powers they were told to surrender, however unwillingly.

In short...

Great Yan looked extraordinarily stable.

Discontent existed across nearly every social stratum, but it was suppressed firmly enough that no true upheaval could emerge.

Quite a few old ministers were already looking five years ahead. Ten years ahead.

Once restraint became ordinary... once it became law and habit... the grumbling would fade.

At that point, even without expanding the borders, Great Yan, which already possessed the vast lands of Yan and Jin, could recover through years of rest and enter a peaceful, stable “golden age.”

Amid handling affairs of state, the new Emperor would even occasionally send men to ask his father-in-law how pork sales were going.

From that simple market price, he judged the stability of ordinary life and the people’s standard of living.

But then... a memorial arrived from eastern Jin.

Like a stone dropped into a still pond... it shattered Yanjing’s calm.

...

Marquis Pingxi requested an imperial decree authorizing a punitive campaign against Chu, citing repeated Chu border violations and attacks upon Yan frontier civilians.

The memorial reached the new sovereign.

Then it was passed into the Grand Secretariat.

Soon... its contents became known throughout court.

The ministers froze.

War again?

How long had peace lasted?

How long had they been allowed to breathe?

What happened to recuperating the realm?

What happened to beginning anew with the people?

Even so, no one immediately jumped out and tried stirring this muddy water.

The new sovereign’s attitude remained unclear.

And after all the experience accumulated under the late Emperor, everyone at court had developed a fairly strong tolerance for wars that seemed to begin at the drop of a hat.

Those with private grudges against Marquis Zheng remained silent.

Those who sincerely believed the realm needed rest remained silent.

Those who favored centralization and opposed regional military powers remained silent.

For a time... all of them reached the same tacit understanding.

Wait.

The Grand Secretariat completed the formal process and forwarded the matter to the Directorate of Ceremonial.

The new sovereign did not hesitate.

He gave the response most people expected.

Approved.

But the court issued no order for general war preparations.

No additional armies were mobilized.

Everyone breathed a little easier.

Good.

It looked like a limited war.

Marquis Pingxi Residence could handle it on its own. The central court would not need to provide additional troops, grain, or supplies.

Then came another feeling.

Not quite hindsight... but close enough to it.

Suspicion.

In the past, Prince Jingnan had been arrogant.

Fine.

Let him be arrogant.

Any Censor who dared impeach Prince Jingnan had better prepare himself for the possibility that the next time Prince Jingnan returned to Yanjing, he might casually exterminate the Censor’s entire household on the way.

The same had applied to the previous Prince Zhenbei.

No one dared impeach him either.

Li Liangting had personally led the cavalry that trampled Great Yan’s great clans into dust.

Who knew when the old man might decide to return to his former trade?

Under the late Emperor, the entire political structure had conditioned the court to accept such a state of affairs.

But now... the new Prince Zhenbei looked almost absurdly obedient in the ministers’ eyes.

So obedient that the court itself felt embarrassed to continue bullying the regional residence too openly.

One could not let the imperial table manners become too ugly.

Once Prince Zhenbei Residence grew meek...

Marquis Pingxi Residence began to stand out.

Before, Marquis Pingxi had been the leading general of Sixth Master’s faction. No one went running to Sixth Prince to complain about his own number-one man.

But now... sovereign was sovereign.

Subject was subject.

The line between them had been drawn clearly.

Most civil and military ministers naturally stood on the side of the Dragon Throne.

The former leading figure of Sixth Master’s faction... had instead become an outsider.

Marquis Pingxi Residence asked the court for no grain.

No soldiers.

It simply prepared to fight Chu directly.

On one hand, that reduced the burden on a Great Yan currently recuperating.

On the other... it proved something even more unsettling.

Marquis Pingxi Residence was unlike even Prince Zhenbei Residence at its old peak.

The old Prince Zhenbei Residence had possessed three hundred thousand iron cavalry at its height, but the entire court of Great Yan had needed to pour everything into sustaining them.

Marquis Pingxi Residence... could support itself.

And while supporting itself, it could still wrestle with a great state on the scale of Chu.

Even if the war remained limited and controlled... without enough confidence, who would dare begin such a thing?

This was slowly ceasing to look like a regional military command.

It was beginning to resemble a feudal state.

Worse... among the troops beneath Marquis Pingxi, soldiers of Jin and Barbarian origin formed the majority.

Pure Yan troops were not even the dominant element in the Residence’s military structure.

That fact made people even more uneasy.

And now... the Princess inside Marquis Pingxi Residence was pregnant too.

That... was another matter entirely.

Still, the new sovereign’s attitude remained unclear.

And everyone retained that strange impression that the Emperor and Marquis Pingxi were like husband and wife quarreling at the head of the bed only to reconcile at the foot.

Perhaps you would just finish speaking badly of Marquis Zheng... and the two men would immediately make peace again.

Then you would be the fool left exposed in the middle.

But as the next wave of news from eastern Jin arrived... the entire court exploded.

Great Chu’s Grand General Nian Yao had launched a surprise attack into Jin territory, broken military station after military station, and advanced as though no one stood before him!

Nian Yao had turned into Mount Meng. Chu armies pressed toward Fan City. Fan City stood in mortal danger!

Marquis Pingxi, enraged and humiliated, personally led every elite force of Marquis Pingxi Residence out of Zhennan Pass to attack Chu!

And only after departing did he submit another memorial to court, requesting that the Wangjiang Navy sail south, that several additional reinforcement columns be dispatched, and that Yingdu begin preparing laborers, grain, and supplies.

One report after another.

To the great figures of court, the meaning was obvious.

A national war.

A national war!

That lawless martial brute had ignored the larger situation entirely.

He had forced matters upward from below and dragged Great Yan back into the swamp of another national war!

...

“Heh-heh.”

Ji Chengjue sat atop Yanjing’s eastern wall.

A chessboard stood before him.

A tea table sat beside it.

Opposite the Emperor was a young scholar named Liu Dan, a native of Huwei Commandery.

Years earlier, Liu Dan had already caught Sixth Master’s eye. He had afterward been sent into the provinces to serve as a local magistrate and gain experience. Once Sixth Master ascended the throne, he summoned Liu Dan back and had him replace Lu Bing as Vice Minister of the Court of State Ceremonial.

Now that Lu Bing’s true identity had become public, there was naturally no need for him to keep occupying a respectable position in the open bureaucracy merely for appearances.

Liu Dan did not tremble while playing chess against the Emperor, nor did he waste thought on how to deliberately lose.

His Majesty’s chess skill exceeded his by far.

He would lose no matter what.

There was no pressure.

What truly made Liu Dan uneasy was Wei Zhonghe personally stepping over every so often to refill his tea.

Ji Chengjue was in a good mood today.

Years ago, the man surnamed Zheng had said that an imperial palace was a besieged city.

No matter how intelligent Ji Chengjue was, he could not possibly know the exact allusion Zheng Fan had been making.

But he could understand the feeling behind it.

Indeed.

After becoming Emperor, Ji Chengjue liked leaving the palace every so often to breathe.

He did not enjoy disguising himself and wandering among the common people of Yanjing. He had never been some sheltered Emperor raised in the depths of the palace without understanding ordinary grain and food.

He preferred coming atop the city wall.

Looking into the distance.

Basking in sunlight.

Enjoying the vast satisfaction that came from standing there.

“Your Majesty, you can still laugh?” Liu Dan said. “This minister has heard that memorials impeaching Marquis Pingxi have nearly filled the Grand Secretariat.”

Ji Chengjue merely shook his head, unconcerned, and placed another stone.

Liu Dan could only follow.

Not far away, Ji Chuanye was flying a kite together with Old He.

Grandfather and grandson had Eunuch Zhang nearby accompanying them.

There were also two younger children, one boy and one girl, each watched by their own matrons.

They watched their elder brother playing and clearly wanted to join him.

But they were too young.

A city wall was not a flower field.

A fall or collision here was no small matter.

Empress He and the Noble Consort sat together.

Since entering the palace, the two women neither competed for favor nor grew jealous. If anything, they got along even more harmoniously than they had back in the princely residence.

Of course... part of that was because the Emperor still had only the two of them.

Quite a few ministers had advised selecting palace women.

Even Empress He, eager to show the outside world she was not a jealous wife, had voluntarily urged the Emperor to do so.

Ji Chengjue rejected every proposal on the grounds that he did not wish to “waste the people’s wealth and labor.”

The ministers eventually let the matter go.

His Majesty was young.

He already had two sons and one daughter.

The Empress and Noble Consort were young as well and could presumably bear more children.

With no concern over the imperial succession, if the Emperor wished to practice a little “purity and restraint,” the ministers had little reason to interfere.

Liu Dan felt that His Majesty was one of the rare Emperors in this world who still possessed an ordinary human warmth toward his family.

There was none of the loneliness and cold detachment of a solitary ruler.

In that regard... he was very different from the late Emperor.

By now, Ji Chengjue’s mind had clearly left the chessboard.

Liu Dan suspected his earlier question had drawn the Emperor into thought.

So Ji Chengjue began placing stones faster and faster, hardly thinking at all.

But precisely because he stopped concealing anything and simply played according to instinct, his actual strength emerged naturally.

By the end...

Liu Dan discovered helplessly that he had lost both faster and more miserably than usual.

So all those earlier games...

His Majesty had actually been deliberately keeping him company longer.

“Put it away.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

Wei Zhonghe stepped forward to clear the board.

Liu Dan tried to help but was stopped.

Wei Zhonghe even gave him a meaningful glance.

Only then did Liu Dan notice that the Emperor had already walked to the battlements.

He hurried over and stood beside him.

“Fifth Brother will be back soon. I intend to have him take charge of Ministry of Works affairs.”

“This minister concurs,” Liu Dan replied directly.

“As for you, after some time, I’ll transfer you to Yinlang Commandery. Commandery Governor?”

“This minister lacks the seniority.”

“I have never cared much for seniority.”

“Then Prefect of Nanwang City, Your Majesty. This minister would like to walk one step at a time. Only then can I see things clearly, stand on firm ground, and become more capable when doing work for Your Majesty.”

“Fine. Prefect it is. Xu Wenzu did very well in Nanwang City and is doing very well now as Governor of Yingdu. In the future, I intend for you to take over Xu Wenzu’s post.”

“This minister will exhaust every effort and never disappoint Your Majesty’s expectations!”

The Emperor nodded.

“I delayed your rest day.”

“This minister is terrified.”

To be allowed, on his day off, to accompany the Son of Heaven and his family while they relaxed... what greater favor could there be?

“Wei Zhonghe.”

“This slave is here.”

“Return to the palace.”

“This slave obeys.”

...

Old He was sent home separately.

Empress He missed her father.

Old He missed his daughter and grandchildren.

Every so often, the palace arranged a small family reunion like this.

In Wei Zhonghe’s eyes, the new sovereign and late Emperor stood at two complete extremes in the way they treated family.

On the road back to the palace, the entire imperial family rode inside one large carriage.

Wei Zhonghe personally drove.

Along the imperial road in every direction, an unknown number of Secret Intelligence Department experts protected the Emperor.

Some stretches had already been cleared in advance.

Armored guards stood watch.

Inside the carriage, the Emperor sat in the chief seat with the little Princess in his arms.

After having two sons... he had somehow become even more tender toward his daughter.

Empress He looked as though she wanted to speak.

Then stopped.

The Noble Consort kept her head lowered.

The Emperor merely held the little Princess and said nothing.

Ji Chuanye looked from his father to his mother.

The legitimate eldest imperial son, whom the late Emperor had once praised as a “fine imperial grandson” for his intelligence, had no idea what he could say to ease the atmosphere.

The younger boy simply hugged the kite his elder brother had flown earlier and played by himself.

The relaxed family warmth they had shared atop the city wall was gone.

Soon... the carriage would pass through the palace gate.

At that moment, the people inside would cease being merely a family and return to being sovereign and subjects.

The Noble Consort finally gathered her courage.

“Your Majesty, you cannot treat Elder Sister this way.”

The Emperor smiled.

“Let the Empress speak for herself.”

Empress He drew a deep breath.

One hand stroked her eldest son’s head.

The other wiped lightly at the tear track beside her eye.

Then she forced a smile.

“This consort still remembers the day the late Emperor died. Everyone in the residence was terrified. Only after Marquis Pingxi’s men came and brought us over did this consort finally feel safe.”

After a brief pause...

Empress He added:

“It should be done.”

...

The next day... while court and country were filled with accusations against Marquis Pingxi, while memorial after memorial condemned his underestimation of the enemy, reckless advance, and isolated penetration deep into Chu, listing all the terrible consequences Great Yan might suffer if he failed... three edicts emerged.

Under the direct force of the Emperor’s will, the Grand Secretariat drafted them.

The Directorate of Ceremonial immediately affixed the seal.

They were formally proclaimed through the central government.

For the first time since ascending the throne... the new sovereign displayed the same absolute decisiveness that had once belonged to the late Emperor.

The Son of Heaven could not make mistakes.

Every mistake weakened imperial authority.

That was why, even when a policy or decision originated from the sovereign himself, court would often find someone visible to stand before it.

A spokesman.

A man to shoulder blame.

This time... the Emperor used no one.

The first edict:

The legitimate eldest imperial son, Ji Chuanye, was established as Crown Prince.

The second edict:

Zheng Fan, Marquis Pingxi of Great Yan, was appointed Grand Tutor to the Crown Prince.

The third edict:

Marquis Pingxi guarded the frontiers of the state and bore heavy military responsibilities. He could not return to court.

Therefore... the Crown Prince was ordered to leave Yanjing immediately.

Travel to eastern Jin.

Enter Marquis Pingxi Residence.

And receive instruction.

[End of Chapter 789]