Chapter 943: The Imperial Ancestors

The Emperor of Great Yan had just finished a full set of Taiji. After sitting cross-legged for a while to practice breathing exercises, he felt refreshed enough to go soak in the bath.

Ever since that “treatment” five years earlier, the Emperor had treasured his health to an extraordinary degree.

Of course, the final purge of officialdom five years ago, combined with the stable operation of the Grand Secretariat, had allowed Ji Old Sixth to achieve a remarkably harmonious balance between “gathering power” and “delegating power.”

The affairs of state were handed over to the Grand Secretariat as much as possible, freeing him from mountains of memorials and routine paperwork. Yet the authority that belonged to the Emperor remained firmly in his own hands.

At dusk, the Emperor entered the Grand Secretariat. The plaque outside bore the words: Hall of Clear Governance.

The Grand Secretaries all rose to salute him. The Emperor inclined his head and gestured for everyone to sit, then had Wei Zhonghe order the young eunuchs to bring bowls of silver-ear fungus soup to the assembled Grand Secretaries.

The foremost seat inside the Hall of Clear Governance was a dragon throne. Only the Emperor could sit there when he came. At present, the Crown Prince sat at a desk below it.

The Emperor’s obvious combination of “health preservation plus delegation” looked extraordinarily lax compared with the late Emperor’s painstaking diligence, or even with Ji Chengjue’s own conscientious first two or three years after ascending the throne.

By all logic, the Grand Secretaries should have had plenty to complain about. At the very least, they ought to have remonstrated: Your Majesty, you cannot possibly be this idle.

Yes, the Emperor still personally controlled the broad direction of state policy and the New Policies themselves. The Ministry of Revenue’s annual accounts also continued to meet the expected rates of growth, exceeding targets every year without once falling short.

But could he not at least put on a little show of diligence?

Did he no longer care whether the histories praised him as an industrious sovereign?

Most importantly, when it came to governing the country—especially matters of livelihood and the economy—the Emperor possessed ability far beyond that of ordinary ministers. Before him, the Minister of Revenue looked like a new shop assistant standing before an old master merchant.

So whenever the Emperor decided to act as a “mascot,” everyone else’s work became vastly heavier and more complicated.

Still, Ji Chengjue knew perfectly well how to handle these Grand Secretaries.

He understood what such ministers truly wanted.

Rebellion?

They genuinely had no such ambition.

Once an official climbed this high, what remained was a name in the histories.

And if fortune truly smiled, perhaps he might even share sacrifices in the Imperial Ancestral Temple.

So the Emperor placed his eldest son—the present Crown Prince—inside the Hall of Clear Governance.

At first, the Crown Prince did work almost like that of a “little eunuch,” pouring tea and carrying water.

But he could listen, ask questions, and observe.

In effect, everyone there had become an imperial tutor, and the child they were helping shape was the future Emperor of Great Yan.

Just as the Sword Saint had handed Longyuan to the eldest princess of Prince Pingxi Residence without hesitation, men of the jianghu valued inheritance enormously.

Grand Secretaries were no different.

They hoped their own political philosophy could be poured into the Crown Prince, so that their ideas might continue to illuminate Great Yan in the future.

And so, because the Emperor had thrown the Crown Prince into their hands... the Grand Secretaries endured His Majesty’s “laziness.”

When he saw his Imperial Father enter, the Crown Prince—who had been burdened with responsibilities from childhood precisely because he had matured too early and been too sensible—could not help releasing a long breath.

He sorted the memorials before him and voluntarily walked over to his father.

The Emperor sat down and began reviewing them.

The Hall of Clear Governance returned to solemn silence.

Roughly half an hour later, the Emperor had “cleared” the memorials before him and gestured for the Crown Prince to take them away for distribution.

He rubbed his wrist.

A yawn almost escaped him by reflex.

Then he glanced toward the Grand Secretaries sitting below and raised one hand to cover it somewhat.

Often, people forced themselves to remain tense and busy not because they enjoyed the feeling, but because they understood perfectly well that once they relaxed, they would keep finding excuses to relax more and more until everything collapsed.

After only this little bit of work, the Emperor already felt tired.

The Grand Secretariat had begun with five members.

Later it expanded again and again.

Now nearly fifteen Grand Secretaries sat inside the Hall of Clear Governance.

But only five belonged to the true core and sat in rosewood grand armchairs, making the actual decisions.

The other ten were closer to assistant Grand Secretaries.

Still, no matter how one described it, they had entered the Grand Secretariat.

Endure slowly.

Work slowly.

Someday there was still hope of earning one of those chairs.

One important reason the Grand Secretariat kept expanding was simple: the work was exhausting.

Grand Secretaries often worked beyond any reasonable limit.

Some fell ill, rested for a while, recovered, and crawled back to continue laboring for Great Yan.

Others... once they fell, never rose again.

So the Grand Secretariat needed numbers.

There had to be men available to fill the gaps.

Power was poison.

It could make an Emperor labor until his heart bled.

It could also leave ministers with bloodshot eyes, enduring exhaustion while still savoring every moment of it.

“My lords, you may rest now. In a while, accompany Us to the banquet.”

A grand banquet had been arranged inside the palace today, on the same scale as the banquet five years earlier when Zheng Fan had been invested as Regent Prince.

The Grand Secretaries understood priorities.

No one objected.

They rose one after another and sought out the eunuchs assigned to them so they could wash their faces and change into formal robes.

Sleeping quarters had been built on both sides of the Hall of Clear Governance so that the Grand Secretaries could nap before returning to work without constantly traveling in and out of the palace.

Many of them returned home only once every half month.

There was a joke outside the palace about these Grand Secretaries.

Look at the men who entered the Grand Secretariat. Most were already old, yes, but Qian’s Yao Zizhan could still father little sons and daughters at his age.

Yet once Great Yan’s Grand Secretaries entered the cabinet, their households seemed to stop producing children entirely.

The old pear blossoms truly had no time left to press the crabapple.

The eunuchs brought formal robes from the sleeping chambers.

Once everyone had changed, the Emperor walked in front.

The Crown Prince followed him.

Behind them came three rows of Grand Secretaries, fifteen men in all.

If one set aside Prince Pingxi Residence in eastern Jin... this procession already represented the true core of power in Great Yan.

The banquet was extraordinarily grand.

Not only were Yan’s princes, nobles, and imperial clansmen present, there were also hostages from the Thirteen Desert Tribes... or perhaps one should call them little princes.

If the desert were divided in half, the part that truly interacted closely with Yan was the eastern desert.

The western desert, by contrast, maintained stronger ties with the West.

The eastern desert held the larger population, the greater number of tribes, and the stronger forces.

The Barbarian Royal Court had once stood in this region as well.

Ever since Prince Zhenbei and Prince Jingnan crushed the Royal Court together, the desert Barbarians had fallen into fragmentation.

Over the past several years, they had fought one another hard enough to scatter brains across the sand.

The Emperor of Great Yan had gone so far as to enfeoff thirteen tribes as “kings” in one breath.

Titles cost him nothing.

It almost rivaled the First Prince’s old stunt in the snowfields, roaming around with a turnip-carved seal and “whoring out official titles.”

The decline of the Barbarians and the rise of Yan had already become irreversible.

The Emperor had also borrowed from Prince Pingxi Residence’s old methods on the snowfields, adapting them to local conditions.

While intensifying the fragmentation among the desert tribes, Yan steadily deepened its penetration there as well.

The thirteen Barbarian “little princes” came forward together to offer congratulations and blessings to the Emperor of Great Yan.

Today’s banquet centered on an old festival of Yan’s imperial house.

During the late Emperor’s reign, the Emperor would ordinarily have led the imperial clansmen in “remembering hardship and cherishing sweetness.”

The most classic example was forcing the imperial princes to sit there eating coarse corn buns almost impossible to swallow.

Yet this time... the Emperor had turned the occasion into a massive celebration.

He rose and stood at the highest point of the banquet, lifting a cup together with the thirteen young princes.

After sitting back down, he adjusted his cuffs and remembered a letter from eastern Jin that had arrived some time earlier.

The letter expressed concern about Yan’s present loose-rein policy toward the desert.

Once the barrier between Yan and the Barbarians gradually disappeared because the Barbarians had completely become obedient dogs, future generations might eventually see the Barbarians rise again inside Yan through an entirely different route... perhaps even under the identity of Yan people themselves.

An atavistic resurgence.

Watching the Barbarian princes dance for him now, the Emperor smiled faintly.

It was not as though he had never considered the danger.

But the answer remained the same one he and that bastard surnamed Zheng had discussed before.

If later generations proved incompetent, then even if trouble did not come from the Barbarians, it would come from somewhere else.

Could he really exterminate every present-day stray cat and dog in advance?

Even if he killed them all cleanly, what then?

Wait sixty years, and spring winds would make fresh grass grow again.

Once the Barbarian princes finished dancing, representatives from every part of Yan came forward to offer blessings.

Truthfully, Yan people themselves did not understand why an imperial-clan festival that should have belonged to the royal house had suddenly become everyone’s celebration.

Nor did they really understand what exactly they were supposed to be celebrating.

But praising His Majesty’s greatness and praising Great Yan’s flourishing rise could never be wrong.

After that came envoys from Qian, Chu, Prince Cheng Residence, Prince Jin Residence, and the various small states of All Xia.

One after another, they offered their congratulations.

The Emperor gave them face.

He did not leave his seat and mingle with the crowd, but he raised his cup in response to each delegation.

Among the Qian envoys sat a young man named Shi Kai.

He shook the wine jug on his table.

An official beside him laughed.

“How could Yan wine possibly compare with our Great Qian’s Peach Blossom Brew for smoothness and fragrance?”

Shi Kai shook his head.

“Did you not notice? There is less than half a jug of wine in here.”

A palace banquet like this naturally emphasized politics more than food and drink.

Everything edible was mostly ceremonial.

But for even the envoys’ wine jugs to contain barely half their proper volume... was difficult not to find strange.

“Tch. Yan people. Always stingy. Barbarian habits.”

Shi Kai pursed his lips.

“Before we return home, investigate the price of wine in Yan’s markets.”

“Hm? Why?”

Shi Kai poured the remaining wine from the jug into his cup.

Then he slowly set the empty jug down.

“At a state banquet on this scale, they are willing to give every guest only half a jug. They no longer even care about preserving the dignity of the state...”

He drained the cup in one swallow.

Then said:

“My guess is that Yan has begun restricting alcohol.”

...

During the latter half of the banquet, the Emperor left early.

Wei Zhonghe supported him as they headed toward the inner palace.

To this day, the Emperor’s rear palace still contained only one Empress and one Noble Consort.

During these five years, the Empress had given the Emperor another son.

The Noble Consort had given him another daughter.

The harmony of the rear palace left even the court ministers with little to say.

What a dutiful Empress!

Every day, her favorite activities were growing vegetables, spinning thread, and weaving cloth inside the palace, while incidentally giving Great Yan three imperial princes.

What a proper Noble Consort!

Whenever she gave birth, she produced daughters.

Not a single imperial prince.

Three princes.

Two princesses.

For an Emperor, the number of children was actually somewhat small.

But... it was enough.

Especially with the succession established so early, the Grand Secretaries had no desire to remonstrate with the Emperor over this matter.

By instinct, they supported the Crown Prince.

It had been the same during the late Emperor’s reign.

No matter how powerful the Sixth Prince faction became, the Crown Prince had never lacked supporters.

Because many ministers were not thinking about betting on a future sovereign or rising through lucky favor.

Some barely even knew the Crown Prince.

What they protected... was the stability of the system itself.

If they truly pressured the Emperor to hold selections and fill the rear palace with women, what if some dazzling beauty entered and triggered a grand palace drama?

Why invite trouble?

Wei Zhonghe knew His Majesty had drunk too much.

He was genuinely somewhat intoxicated.

So he intended to escort the Emperor to the Empress’s residence.

Ordinarily, under circumstances like this, the Empress would summon the Noble Consort as well, and the two women would attend the hungover Emperor together.

But the Emperor suddenly spoke.

“To the Imperial Ancestral Temple.”

“Yes.”

Wei Zhonghe immediately waved one hand.

The eunuchs behind them brought forward the imperial litter and helped the Emperor onto it.

Then the procession headed through the deep night toward the heavily guarded Imperial Ancestral Temple.

The Imperial Ancestral Temple was a sacred ceremonial place.

Even the Emperor, if he intended to conduct a formal rite there, had to bathe, change clothes, and fast in advance.

But if the Emperor suddenly felt like coming here for a look... naturally, no one dared stop him.

Wei Zhonghe supported him up the temple steps.

Then the Emperor raised one hand and pushed Wei Zhonghe aside.

Swaying slightly, he spread both arms and pushed open the great doors himself.

Still unsteady, he walked inside.

The eternal lamps of the Imperial Ancestral Temple never went dark.

An offering table stood in the center.

Candles burned brightly along both sides.

Wei Zhonghe remained at the entrance.

After hesitating for a moment, he closed the great doors behind the Emperor and turned to face outward.

Inside... the Emperor began moving slowly along one side.

Before him hung portrait after portrait of the Ji family’s ancestors.

The portrait of the First Marquis of Yan was the plainest.

He wore no dragon robe.

He wore the official robes of Great Xia.

He rode a Pixiu, carried bow and arrows across his back, and held a long saber in one hand.

Heroic beyond measure.

He had founded the lands of Yan.

He had led the people of Yan.

On certain matters, old Yan people truly did possess a brutally straightforward temperament.

In the next several portraits, the Ji family “Emperors” still wore no dragon robes.

At that time, they had not yet proclaimed themselves Emperors or founded the state.

It was said that inside the Zhao family’s Imperial Ancestral Temple in Qian, however, generations of ancestors above Qian’s Founding Emperor had all been retroactively granted imperial titles.

Every portrait showed dragon robes without exception.

In Qian’s own narrative, the ancestors of the Zhao imperial house had been one of the Four Marquises who opened the frontiers.

Perhaps because their state had been founded through improper means, they felt insecure enough to need such decoration.

The Ji family was different.

Their ancestors had carved out this realm one blade and one spear at a time.

There was nothing to conceal.

The actual appearance of those ancestors was the finest proof of how hard the founding had been.

It was also the glory of the Ji Clan.

After the founding of the state, the imperial portraits finally began showing dragon robes.

There followed a long series of Emperors who looked unusually young.

That meant most of them had died early.

They had not lived to old age and left behind portraits of aged faces.

An ancestral portrait naturally depicted the last healthy appearance of the deceased.

No one lived to sixty or seventy only to have the temple hang some imaginary portrait of his handsome twenty-year-old self.

Those years had also been the bloodiest era of warfare between Yan and the Barbarians.

Several Emperors had personally led armies and died on the battlefield.

Ji Chengjue continued inward.

Then... he saw his grandfather.

In truth, he remembered very little of his grandfather.

Almost nothing.

Still, he stopped before the portrait for a long while.

Not because he wanted to look at Grandfather longer.

Purely because he wanted to delay looking at the next man.

But... he had already looked at so many ancestors.

He could hardly skip that one.

Ji Chengjue finally moved again and stopped before the last portrait.

The painting was new.

The man inside it seemed almost alive.

Most importantly...

Ji Chengjue knew him too well.

When you knew a person that deeply, merely seeing the painted image was enough for your own mind to fill in everything missing.

The man sat upon the dragon throne.

He wore a black dragon robe.

Even his painted eyes seemed to carry that same contemptuous, dominating gaze.

Many times...

Ji Chengjue had felt his Imperial Father was not truly human.

He was a Pixiu.

A real Pixiu.

Covered in the skin of a sacred beast while, in essence, remaining a savage predator.

Ji Chengjue leaned backward and found a place to brace himself against the edge of the altar.

He simply stared at his Imperial Father.

“Burp...”

The Emperor released a drunken belch.

So many years had passed.

Ask whether he still hated the man deeply?

Not really.

But some image of a loving father?

That was equally impossible.

Ji Chengjue tilted his head.

Raised one hand.

Pointed toward the late Emperor in the portrait.

Then smiled.

“You spent your whole life chasing one thing—a reputation as an Emperor unmatched through the ages. Pity. You don’t have the chance anymore. No chance at all. Quande Restaurant’s roast duck has always been famous. But diners praise the skill of the man roasting the duck. Who has time to praise the fellow who went out and bought the ducks? You prepared the ingredients for this dish. I’ll put them into the wok. You failed to unite the realm. I will. A thousand years from now, when the histories speak of an Emperor unrivaled through the ages, there will be only me. Me... Ji Chengjue. You lived too close to me. So close that my light will cover yours. You spent your whole life barely acting like a proper father at all. Then I’ll make sure that when later generations read about you in the histories, only one thought comes to mind. Ji Runhao? Emperor Wu of Yan? Who was he? Oh. He was... my father. Hahahahahaha...”

The Emperor burst into loud laughter.

He pointed in every direction and shouted:

“When I move into this place, I will make every last one of you... fade into darkness!”

Drunkenness, combined with the exhaustion of walking through the entire ancestral temple, gradually dragged the Emperor lower and lower.

At last... he leaned against the edge of the altar and fell asleep.

Soon he began snoring.

No one knew where the wind came from.

The candle flames... flickered faintly.

The portrait of the late Emperor hanging directly before him came loose.

Slowly... gently... it drifted downward.

And covered the sleeping Emperor.

Dreams born of drunkenness were always dizzying and nauseating.

They were also confused.

Illogical.

Sometimes... absurd.

For example... inside Ji Chengjue’s dream, people seemed to crowd around him in every direction.

Then a familiar voice sounded beside him.

“Heh-heh. Well? Did all of you see? This... is the Emperor I chose for Great Yan! This... is my son. My son... Ji Runhao’s son!”

[End of Chapter 943]