Chapter 812: Internal Heat

Shopkeeper Miao and Shopkeeper Lu were now standing among the crowd below.

Whenever the surrounding soldiers and civilians cheered, they cheered along with them.

At first... only Shopkeeper Lu had shouted.

Lu Xiong was a man of the State of Lu.

He did not carry much attachment to his homeland in the first place.

After all, even among the cluster of small states in that region...

Lu itself was still considered a small state.

Miao Lin, by contrast, retained a certain Qian sense of dignity.

Kneeling to Prince Pingxi of Yan?

That was fine.

Cheering sincerely for a Yan Prince?

He was less willing.

But once everyone around him began roaring, and one suspicious gaze after another turned toward this conspicuously “calm” Shopkeeper Miao... he had no choice but to start shouting too.

Even while shouting, he tugged at Shopkeeper Lu’s sleeve, signaling him to move a little farther back.

“Yo. Lively enough, isn’t it? Those Garrison Commanders are all former Jingnan Army officers, right?” Miao Lin muttered quietly.

“What, already preparing the report you’ll hand in when you go home?” Lu Xiong glanced at him.

Both men had registered their names with the intelligence yamen of their respective states.

When they returned home, they would routinely report the local customs, geography, and things they had personally seen along the trade routes they traveled.

Prince Pingxi Residence in Fengxin City knew this perfectly well.

And its attitude was unusually open.

As long as you did not secretly build networks, carry covert messages, or bribe people, then anything you personally heard or saw could be repeated back home without much trouble.

In fact... sometimes the Residence actively needed men like these to spread rumors on its behalf.

“I’m just watching the excitement,” Miao Lin said dismissively.

“Heh-heh.”

Lu Xiong licked his lips.

Then he tugged Miao Lin even farther toward the edge of the crowd.

Only after confirming the space around them had opened up did he whisper:

“They’re squaring off.”

Miao Lin froze.

“How did this turn into something about me again?”

“Is your brain full of pig grease?”

“Oh, oh, oh. You mean Prince Pingxi and the Yan court are squaring... pig heads?”

“Exactly. The line has been drawn in plain sight. Before today, everyone already knew Prince Jingnan’s legitimate son was being raised in Prince Pingxi Residence, but the court had never officially said anything about it. Now look. Earlier, I thought the child Prince Pingxi carried onto the platform was the Crown Prince. I even thought, ‘The Princes of Great Yan truly are different. They can carry the heir to the throne around like that.’ Turns out I still didn’t understand Yan. Still didn’t understand this Prince. He leaves the Crown Prince following behind and carries the Heir of Prince Jingnan instead. Then look at this scene now. Tsk-tsk. When Great Xia collapsed, there was once a man who declared himself King and tried to hold the Son of Heaven hostage in order to command the feudal lords.”

“I know that story. He tried to use the Great Xia Son of Heaven to command Yan, Chu, and Jin. In the end, none of the three states paid him any attention. He was destroyed very quickly by the surrounding rulers, and even the surviving Great Xia imperial line vanished during that war.”

A darker version of the story claimed that the man’s “fantasy” had been destroyed so quickly because Yan, Chu, and Jin had each quietly signaled rulers already aligned with them to besiege him.

With the tacit coordination of three great states... his downfall came with astonishing speed.

“That fellow killed himself through stupidity,” Lu Xiong said. “But that doesn’t mean ‘hold the Son of Heaven hostage and command the feudal lords’ is a bad move. The key is whether the man making the move is strong enough. If you want to forge iron, your own hammer has to be hard. Prince Pingxi sits over eastern Jin. Beneath him are a hundred thousand iron cavalry. His trade and wealth are so abundant you can practically see the grease dripping from them. If some ordinary person held Prince Jingnan’s Heir, why would those arrogant generals Prince Jingnan left behind pay him any attention? But Prince Pingxi holding the Heir is different. Suddenly, everything becomes perfectly legitimate.”

“You have a point.”

Miao Lin could not help nodding.

“Heh-heh. Today is his princely investiture ceremony, but far as I can see, this Prince Pingxi’s ambition does not stop at some princely title. What he’s doing today is plainly a demonstration against the Yan court, using military power to force the court into greater concessions. Yan will soon fall into internal conflict.”

“People were saying the same thing back when Prince Zhenbei and Prince Jingnan were still alive. I don’t dare believe it anymore.”

“Those two Princes were different from Prince Pingxi. Prince Pingxi was born among the common people. Those two were both born into great houses. From birth, they were men of the proprietor’s household. Just like you and me. We may work as shopkeepers, but in the end we still have to watch the proprietor’s face. Prince Pingxi is different. He is his own proprietor. His business began smaller, yes, but once it grew large enough, that makes him fundamentally different from men like us.”

“That makes sense. That makes sense.”

“Spear and shield are already in the open now. Next comes the fight between dragon and tiger. That should give the Yan quite a headache. Heh-heh.”

“Why are you so happy about it?”

“If Yan truly unifies all beneath Heaven, our business won’t run nearly as smoothly.”

At the root of it... the work they did was still closer to smuggling than ordinary trade.

If all beneath Heaven were unified, why would anyone need men like them?

Would not the connections and routes they had cultivated across so many years, sometimes across generations, become worthless overnight?

Lu Xiong lightly patted Miao Lin on the shoulder.

“I’ll stop there. When you go home and collect your reward money, don’t forget your brother here did you a favor.”

“Who was the one back at the inn saying we Qian people were this and that?”

“Who paid the bill?”

“You did.”

“Then there you have it. You eat my food, drink my wine, and still won’t let me make a few sarcastic remarks? What, Shopkeeper Miao’s face is made of gold now?”

“Fair enough.”

...

Among the crowd, plenty of people had all kinds of thoughts after witnessing this scene.

But the overwhelming majority of Fengxin City’s people, especially the Standard households, were delighted by this sort of “excitement.”

They desperately wanted their own Prince to grow stronger and stronger.

To command more and more soldiers.

Driven by that feverish mood, if one day their Prince declared himself Emperor... they might genuinely go mad with joy.

Commoners were not stupid.

Who did not want the place where he lived to become the imperial capital?

Who did not want to walk outside, spit proudly before some foreign visitor, hook one thumb upward, and say:

“See that? This is right beneath the Son of Heaven’s feet.”

The officials of the imperial mission standing on and around the high platform... had a very different reaction.

Many were already drenched in cold sweat.

The lawful Princess Consort personally enfeoffed by the late Emperor stood behind another woman.

The Crown Prince stood there unattended while Prince Pingxi held the Heir of Prince Jingnan.

Every former Jingnan Army Garrison Commander had arrived without imperial orders, saluting Prince Jingnan’s Heir.

To these officials... this no longer looked like a ceremony.

It looked like military remonstrance.

A demonstration of force.

Since the late Emperor’s reign, Great Yan had possessed a distorted military-political structure.

In the early years, the late Emperor and the two great Princes had jointly suppressed its dangerous tendencies and directed its violence outward against foreign enemies.

But once the age of the Great Yan Iron Triangle ended... the contradictions within that system had finally begun revealing themselves.

Today... was the court enfeoffing Prince Pingxi?

Or was Prince Pingxi using military power to enfeoff himself?

For the sake of making the ceremony grand, the imperial mission contained many officials.

Anyone qualified to hold office in Yanjing and possess enough seniority to join such a mission was no fool.

Everyone understood that once the signs of internal chaos appeared... a state had begun its slide downhill.

How many years had Great Yan been ascendant?

Was it already going to turn from prosperity toward decline?

The ministers were not entirely ignorant of the political bargain between His Majesty and Prince Pingxi.

That kind of political understanding would never be stated openly.

But the men below at least needed to understand it tacitly.

Otherwise, how could they do their jobs?

How could the court dare strip regional military commanders of their local administrative authority with such firmness?

But looking at the scene before them now... was the previous understanding being torn apart?

Ji Chengwen drew in a deep breath.

He was not the chief imperial commissioner.

That reduced the pressure somewhat.

He was not the Emperor.

That reduced it again.

Years of supervising river works had tanned his skin dark.

At this moment... even that dark face had become faintly flushed.

He had never planned to rebel.

Long ago, he had accepted that he was no match for Sixth Brother.

Once Sixth Brother became Emperor...

Ji Chengwen understood even more clearly that he had no real chance left.

But just as during that meeting beside Wangjiang years earlier... the Fifth Prince might not want to rebel.

That did not mean he objected to being placed on the board as a “legitimate” puppet if Prince Pingxi ever needed one.

Even a puppet... still carried the temptation of the supreme throne, did it not?

The former Fifth Prince, obsessed with carpentry, knew perfectly well this was about the full extent of his ambition.

It was like someone asking you to rob a hundred taels of silver.

You would refuse.

But if a hundred taels simply appeared on the ground in front of you... would you pick it up?

With those thoughts in mind, Ji Chengwen deliberately raised his head.

He tried to meet Prince Pingxi’s gaze.

Look at me.

Come on.

Look at me!

But Prince Pingxi simply set Tian Tian down and sat together with him on the steps of the high platform, receiving the salutes of the former Jingnan Army commanders below.

Not far away... the Blind Man could not see.

But he deeply enjoyed the atmosphere.

Master himself was too close to events.

Most of the time, Master’s political instincts were actually excellent.

They had long since been tempered sharp.

But right now... what Master was probably enjoying was simply nostalgia for his old elder brother and the satisfaction of openly presenting Tian Tian to the world.

It did not matter.

The Blind Man himself already felt wonderful.

What happened here today would certainly spread outward.

And once the mountains, rivers, and distance were added to the story, even if ten Eunuch Huangs galloped themselves to death traveling back and forth between eastern Jin and Yanjing... the sense of separation created by geography would keep tearing at the ties between Prince Pingxi Residence and the imperial court.

From alliance to suspicion... often required only an instant.

Qian and Chu had formed an alliance.

That meant they could only act like old turtles for a while.

The snowfields had been gelded.

The Barbarian Royal Court had been destroyed.

Most importantly... there was now a strong possibility that the seven Demon Kings of the prophecy were all still little brats like Tian Tian.

External threats had not vanished.

Long-term peace was even less guaranteed.

Five years from now... ten years from now... the picture might look completely different.

But who cared?

This was a rare window.

Why not make a little trouble?

For example... stage a tiny rebellion for fun?

The Blind Man had never bothered hiding his preferences.

Even more admirable... he had remained perfectly consistent in them from beginning to end.

In a good mood... he reached into his pocket again.

Still no orange.

A tiny regret.

Xue San smiled and whispered:

“Why does it feel like Master and Little Sixth are a romantic couple, and you’re standing at the side desperately trying to steal one of them away?”

“Wrong. I’m not digging at their wall. This is a problem inherited from the previous generation. The court wants to absorb the Jingnan Army. These Jingnan Army commanders instinctively resist the court. That is the knot. I’m merely using that knot to pry certain things open.”

“You’re the third party wrecking the relationship. No different from one of those fake best friends. The Emperor has actually done pretty well. He even sent the Crown Prince here.”

“Never talk about feelings with an Emperor. Throughout history, people who tried to talk feelings with Emperors rarely ended well.”

“Fine, fine. Laugh if you want. Stop holding it in.”

...

Below the high platform... the former Jingnan Army commanders remained kneeling and saluting Tian Tian.

Zheng Fan did not exchange pleasantries with them.

Swollen though he might be... he had not completely forgotten what day it was.

He turned.

Looked toward Mao Mingcai.

Huh.

He genuinely had not noticed the man earlier.

“Lord Mao.”

“Your Highness.”

“Read the decree.”

“Yes, Your Highness.”

Mao Mingcai’s heart felt heavy.

As a senior minister of the state, standing here today gave him the lost, drifting feeling of duckweed beneath rain.

The man he had once regarded as a pillar of the state... was now visibly transforming into a potential source of internal chaos for Great Yan.

Mao Mingcai’s emotions were complicated.

If only he could die in battle...

How good that would be.

Suddenly...

Mao Mingcai was startled by his own thought.

But once such a thought had surfaced, it could not be dismissed as accident or coincidence.

Deep in his heart... he had already begun leaning toward it.

Perhaps... for Great Yan’s future... the best possible ending for the man before him would be to die in foreign lands.

His thoughts were numerous.

But the task still had to be done.

Mao Mingcai had been holding the imperial decree for some time.

It was not a scroll in his hand.

It was a long rectangular wooden box sealed with the clay impressions of the Grand Secretariat and Directorate of Ceremonial.

Different types of imperial decree were delivered in different ways.

For decrees sent to frontier commanders, the recipient was supposed to inspect the seals first and confirm they were intact.

Mao Mingcai offered the box toward Zheng Fan.

Zheng Fan waved one hand.

No need.

Mao Mingcai nodded.

He drew in a breath.

Two Ministry of Rites officials beside him broke the clay seals and opened the box.

Then Mao Mingcai froze.

Inside... were three imperial decrees.

Everyone already knew the court intended to enfeoff Marquis Pingxi as Prince.

Back in Yingdu, officials had already knelt and addressed him as such.

In practical terms, the imperial mission was merely carrying out the formal procedure and holding a grand ceremony.

But why were there three decrees?

If there were additional instructions meant to placate him or address some unrelated affair, they could have been delivered separately.

There was no need to seal them inside the same box as the investiture decree.

Putting them together meant something very simple.

They were all meant to be read aloud here.

...

“Master is about to become Prince. I’m so excited.”

Xue San puffed out his chest.

The Blind Man closed eyes that could not see anyway.

...

Zheng Fan rose and stood facing Mao Mingcai.

He did not need to kneel.

So he did not.

Mao Mingcai took out the first decree, unfolded it, and began reading:

“By Mandate of Heaven, the Emperor decrees: Zheng Fan, Imperial Son-in-Law, Grand General Who Completes the State, Grand Tutor to the Crown Prince, Marquis Pingxi, has served the realm with public loyalty... Now, in accordance with Heaven’s will, We hereby enfeoff Marquis Pingxi Zheng Fan as Prince Pingxi of Great Yan!”

The reading ended.

Below the platform... the soldiers and civilians roared together:

“Prince Pingxi is mighty!”

“Prince Pingxi is mighty!”

Zheng Fan nodded.

He clasped his hands toward the west.

“This subject thanks His Majesty for boundless grace.”

Then...

Zheng Fan prepared to pick up Tian Tian and go down to introduce those uncles to the child.

“Your Highness...”

“Oh, right. Lord Mao, Fifth Highness, please wait a little. This Prince will hold a banquet tonight to entertain you both.”

“No, Your Highness. There are still decrees.”

“Oh?”

...

“Huh. Looks like it isn’t over yet?” Xue San said.

The Blind Man opened those sightless eyes.

...

“By Mandate of Heaven, the Emperor decrees: Lady Feng, a daughter of Yan, supported Prince Pingxi from his humble beginnings and followed him through repeated battles. She has rendered merit to the state, proves that women are no less than men, and stands as a model for the women of Great Yan! We are pleased to fulfill a worthy union. We hereby enfeoff Lady Feng as Princess Consort of Prince Pingxi, equal in marital rank to Lady Xiong. We further bestow a complete set of phoenix-coronet ceremonial attire personally prepared by the Empress, together with matching head ornaments...”

...

“Oh-ho!”

A sound escaped Xue San’s mouth.

The Blind Man frowned.

“Dig away. Go on, keep digging. The lawful spouse knows a few tricks too, heh-heh.”

“Petty favors.”

Little Sixth knew Siniang.

Every time Zheng Fan went to Yanjing, Siniang accompanied him.

And Siniang had interacted with He Sisi and the others from very early on.

As a “brother,” Little Sixth naturally understood exactly which woman that bastard surnamed Zheng truly favored.

In earlier years, Zheng Fan had needed the identity of a Chu Princess to bolster his standing.

Now Zheng Fan was already a Prince.

He could afford to be more willful.

Adding a Princess Consort from Yan fit Zheng Fan’s own wishes while also better satisfying what Yan people wanted to see.

Before, they could brag:

So what if you Chu slaves look down on us?

Didn’t your Princess still get stolen by one of our Yan generals and taken home as his woman?

But now that this general had become a pillar of the state... having a Yan woman as principal wife naturally made everyone feel more at ease.

The rich water had not flowed into an outsider’s field after all.

Making two women equal wives meant both principal wives possessed equal standing.

That arrangement violated ordinary ritual.

Only an Emperor or Empress Dowager, acting in the name of Heaven, possessed the authority to grant such a special exception.

After Mao Mingcai finished reading the decree... he looked dazed.

Then he raised his head toward Feng Siniang standing behind Prince Pingxi.

After that... he looked behind himself.

The clothes?

Where were the clothes?

Where were the clothes!

The officials behind him were confused at first too.

Then everyone began searching.

Very quickly... they found them.

The Princess Consort’s ceremonial robes had been here the entire time.

They had even been carried onto the platform.

Everyone had simply assumed they were meant for the Princess of Chu.

No one had expected them to belong to the other woman.

And by coincidence... that woman had stood in front of the Princess today, while the Princess herself willingly stood behind her.

It was unmistakably the posture of the senior wife.

The set everyone had assumed was for the Princess was hurriedly carried forward.

Mao Mingcai passed the imperial decree toward Feng Siniang.

Siniang smiled beautifully.

She saluted.

And accepted it.

Zheng Fan chuckled several times.

At that moment...

Mao Mingcai hurriedly took out the third decree.

“Your Highness, there is one more.”

“Another?”

“Yes. This is the last one.”

“Fine.”

Mao Mingcai unfolded it.

“By Mandate of Heaven, the Emperor decrees: Prince Jingnan repeatedly rendered military merit to the state. His achievements tower over the age, with none able to surpass him. The late Emperor once said: ‘Wujing is Our right arm.’ We received the late Emperor’s teaching that great merit must never be buried or forgotten, and We have often instructed Crown Prince Chuanye likewise: Ministers who serve as the sovereign’s arms uphold the altars of state and restore Great Yan. The imperial house, in turn, must regard such men as its own hands and feet. Today, We take the Heir of Prince Jingnan as Our adopted son. We command Crown Prince Chuanye to honor him as his elder brother. By this We proclaim to all quarters: Great Yan is not the Great Yan of the imperial house alone, but the Great Yan of the people of Yan. The altars of state are not the altars of the Ji clan alone, but the altars of all beneath Heaven! Within the order of Heaven and Earth, the Ji clan and all beneath Heaven shall stand together, hand and foot as one!”

Mao Mingcai finished reading.

Then... he was stunned.

Ji Chengwen beside him... was stunned too.

The officials behind them... were stunned.

The men atop the platform... and the former Jingnan Army commanders below who had abandoned their posts without permission... were all stunned.

Perhaps the late Emperor had simply been too brilliant, his talent and strategy too towering.

So although everyone understood that the new sovereign who inherited his throne was no ordinary man... they had never felt it quite so directly.

Today... everyone truly experienced the new Emperor’s methods and breadth of vision.

The decrees had been sealed in clay.

That meant when His Majesty sent them out... he had already anticipated the scene that would unfold here today.

He had anticipated exactly how Prince Pingxi Zheng Fan would react.

The Emperor... understood Prince Pingxi far too well.

Crown Prince Ji Chuanye walked to Mao Mingcai.

He reached out and tugged at Lord Mao’s clothes.

“Cro... Crown Prince...”

“Lord Mao. The decree.”

“Oh. Yes. The decree.”

Mao Mingcai handed it over.

The Crown Prince carried the imperial decree to Tian Tian.

He stepped back half a pace.

Then, with great solemnity... he knelt.

“Chuanye pays respects to Elder Brother!”

Tian Tian smiled and walked forward.

He helped the Crown Prince rise.

“Little Brother. Get up.”

...

Not far away...

Xue San twisted his hips and bumped the Blind Man’s knee.

Grinning, he said:

“Blind Man, I want an orange. I really want an orange. Orange, orange, orange. Don’t you want one?”

The Blind Man shook his head.

“No. Too much internal heat.”

[End of Chapter 812]