Chapter 984: A Strategy to Pacify the State

Morning sunlight spilled into the courtyard of the Residence.

Big Girl crawled out of her little tent and rubbed her eyes.

Then, yawning all the while, she formed seals with both hands.

*Little Brother, I’m awake...*

Behind the huge iron door, Zheng Lin opened his eyes.

His skin still carried patches of bluish bruising that had not completely faded.

He looked down at the ground and formed seals in reply.

*Mm.*

A maid stepped forward with washing supplies.

Big Girl began washing while another maid combed her hair.

Then breakfast arrived.

The Residence had always maintained the tradition that breakfast should be delicious and refined without being extravagant. Sometimes it followed the traditional morning-tea style.

Today, it was a bowl of noodles with minced-meat sauce.

Big Girl added a large amount of chili paste.

In that regard, she had inherited her father’s tastes.

She finished the entire large bowl, even drinking the broth.

Then Big Girl lightly patted her stomach, sat down on the ground, and formed seals again.

*Little Brother, I finished breakfast...*

Behind the iron door, Zheng Lin blinked.

His gaze instinctively drifted toward the coffin.

In the end, he still chose not to walk over.

He could only form a seal and answer:

*I ate too...*

Time... slowly passed.

At noon, another line appeared.

*Little Brother, I finished lunch...*

Zheng Lin sighed.

He looked toward the coffin again.

Still, he did not move.

He formed a seal and replied:

*Me too...*

...

*Little Brother, I finished dinner...*

Zheng Lin genuinely did not want to answer anymore.

He even believed that if she were not afraid of exhausting too much strength, his foolish elder sister would probably give him a detailed report of exactly what she had eaten, how everything tasted, and whether the new cook hired by the Residence was any good.

Unfortunately, he could not simply ignore her.

If he stopped replying, the people outside might think he had starved to death.

Then they would definitely gather huge numbers of men and begin excavating this place.

Suppressing his helplessness, Zheng Lin could only form another seal.

*Me too...*

Another four hours passed.

A new line appeared.

*Little Brother, I finished my late-night snack...*

Zheng Lin formed a seal.

*Me too.*

Then he pushed himself upright and voluntarily walked to the coffin.

A dense mass of baleful qi... representing Grandpa’s love... appeared in front of Zheng Lin.

Zheng Lin opened his mouth and swallowed it.

Then he immediately flipped himself facedown in preparation.

His ten fingers wedged into the cracks between the floor tiles.

His toes dug into the ground.

A tearing agony ripped through his body.

The baleful qi seemed to be assaulting his blood vessels and muscles, even his nerves.

He clenched his teeth.

Cold sweat streamed endlessly from his body.

His skin turned dark blue once again.

Yet he still did not make a sound.

The agony lasted for roughly an hour.

Zheng Lin practically crawled back behind the enormous iron door.

There... he found another fresh line of writing.

*Little Brother, don’t be afraid of the dark. Elder Sister is sleeping right beside you. Good night.*

A smile appeared at the corner of Zheng Lin’s mouth.

He formed a seal.

*Good night.*

...

Deep in the night.

Another four hours had passed.

A new line of writing appeared.

Because the messages were written with sword qi, the person on the other side could sense the qi appearing and had no possibility of overlooking them.

Zheng Lin looked over.

It read:

*Little Brother, you should get up and pee now...*

“...” Zheng Lin.

He sighed.

Then answered:

*Okay.*

...

Two groups of messengers returned to the Residence.

One group had been sent earlier to catch up with the Senior Princess Consort.

The other had returned from the command tent at the front.

The first brought Siniang’s reply.

More precisely... a verbal decree.

The messenger repeated it with a perfectly serious expression, word for word:

“Oh. Serves him right if he starves to death. Ignore him.”

No seal was required.

No wax was needed.

The moment Xiong Liqing heard that sentence, she knew beyond doubt that it had come directly from her elder sister’s mouth.

With those words, Xiong Liqing finally felt somewhat reassured.

Her own daughter had remained beside the iron door the whole time, responding to the Heir Prince inside every four hours as instructed.

And the Heir Prince had stopped saying he was hungry.

He kept insisting he had eaten.

At the very least... that seemed to mean there was some way to keep from starving inside.

Besides, Xiong Liqing knew that her elder sister had never seemed particularly concerned about her own son.

But she still did not believe Siniang would literally stand by and watch him starve to death.

Mm.

Even if Siniang could stomach it... the Prince would never agree.

Since her elder sister spoke with such certainty and had not returned personally, that meant the Heir Prince should not be in mortal danger.

The second letter... came from the command tent.

But it was not from Xiong Liqing’s husband.

When he was at war, her husband did occasionally find time to write family letters to the women and children at home.

This letter, however, came from the command tent... and carried Mr. Bei’s signature.

Its content was very simple.

Summed up, it said only:

*Madam may return home for a visit now.*

Xiong Liqing held the letter and fell into deep thought.

After a long while... she murmured:

“I can... go home now?”

Then she threw the letter into the charcoal brazier and watched it burn to ash.

...

“Hyah!”

“Hyah!”

“Whoa!”

One group of mounted riders was stopped by another.

“Long time no see.”

Among those blocking the road stood a man dressed in a green Chu-style robe.

His hair at both temples hung long.

With both groups around him otherwise wearing black armor, he looked particularly out of place.

A masked man rode forward.

His voice was somewhat sharp.

“We are not old friends meeting again. Back then, the only person qualified to stand beside me was your father.”

“In front of my father, you could only call yourself this servant.”

The masked man deliberately brushed dust from his sleeve.

“What a pity. Yan people do not have the habit of calling themselves slaves.”

The man in green sighed.

“Talking about such things here and now is rather ridiculous.”

“Yes.”

“I prepared a pot of wine and two small dishes to welcome you. The military stockade is just ahead. Under eastern Jin military regulations, no alcohol is allowed in camp without special permission from the command tent, and that applies from top to bottom. Give me some face, Grand General.”

“Very well. I’ll give Young Master Qu some face.”

...

It was deep winter.

The wind felt edged with knives.

Fortunately, the sun was good today.

Warm winter sunlight was perhaps the cheapest pleasure in the world... and one of the warmest.

Nian Yao raised his cup and drank.

Then—

“PFFFT!”

A sour, spicy stink flooded his mouth and nose.

For a moment, he nearly ascended on the spot.

“Oh?” Qu Peiluo said. “Looks like you’ve been living well these past few years. You can’t even stomach fermented bean juice anymore.”

Qu Peiluo raised his own cup and took a small sip.

His expression became rather spectacular too.

But he quickly forced it back under control.

“Didn’t you say this was wine?” Nian Yao asked.

“I mixed wine into it.”

“Heh.”

“I got it from the military physicians. Excellent strong liquor.”

“You’re wasting good things.”

“Not really. That stuff is for cleaning wounds. Drink it straight and you might die.”

Nian Yao irritably set the cup down and reached for the food.

There really were only two dishes.

One plate of fried beans.

One plate of dried tofu.

Together with fermented bean juice...

“In the capital, I heard a poem supposedly written by the Regent Prince. It went:

Boiling beans, they burn the stalks;
the beans weep within the pot...

And at the end:

Born from the selfsame root,
why rush so fiercely to cook one another?”

Qu Peiluo looked surprised.

Clearly, he had never heard the poem before.

And supposedly it had been written by his own Prince.

He laughed.

“When would our Prince ever have the leisure to run off to Yanjing and compose poetry?”

“It came out of the imperial study. It is extremely popular in the capital.”

“If the Prince’s name is attached to it, of course it is.” Qu Peiluo smiled.

Neither man was ordinary.

Both had once stood at extraordinary heights.

For the man who controlled Great Yan’s largest and strongest military domain to compose a poem like that was, in effect, a political declaration.

Whether or not it had truly been what their Prince wanted to express did not prevent the imperial court from elevating the poem to an almost absurd height.

After all... the party most afraid of eastern Jin rebelling was the imperial court.

And the party least willing to see eastern Jin rebel... was also the imperial court.

From the court’s perspective, naturally everyone under Great Yan’s banner ought to be brothers born from the same root.

Yet this also revealed how the court’s understanding of its own position had changed.

It was no longer simply a matter of *the ruler as ruler, the minister as minister.*

Now the orthodox court itself... the Emperor representing the Son of Heaven... was willing to bend down.

No.

More accurately, he was willing to carry over a small stool himself and sit level with you.

That alone explained a great deal.

And this situation would not weaken.

It certainly would not disappear.

Once the Yan-Chu national war formally ended, the Regent Prince—who had practically crippled Great Chu through his own power—would see his personal prestige rise even higher.

In almost any other dynasty, such a situation would become an insoluble knot.

A great military bloc at the frontier won victory after victory abroad.

Its leader’s personal prestige accumulated.

The military faction beneath him grew stronger, more consolidated, and more expansive.

Every part swelled together.

And that growth inevitably pressed against the authority of the center, ultimately creating the familiar cycle of backlash and struggle over the cake.

The Blind Man had once said that when people talked about “slaughtering the donkey once it had finished turning the mill,” or about acts that grieved one’s own people while delighting the enemy, they liked to blame the Emperor personally for fearing threats to his Dragon Throne.

But in truth, the Emperor was often only one representative.

Sometimes he was even forced into being that representative.

“Slaughtering the donkey after the work was done” was more often an act of self-preservation by the central court itself—a reflexive attempt to save itself and avoid danger.

The Blind Man had once used the affair of Du Juan as an example.

The late Emperor most likely had genuinely known nothing about it.

And given the late Emperor’s personality, there was no possibility he would have chosen that moment to discard a man after using him.

The structure holding together Great Yan in the previous era had not been some political or military balance.

It had been the relationship among an iron triangle.

Prince Jingnan’s hair turned white overnight.

Yet in the end, he did not choose to raise troops in a campaign to “pacify the crisis.”

Clearly... he had made his own decision long before.

Zhao Jiulang had repeatedly insisted that he pulled those nails early in order to prepare for Great Yan’s future peace and stability.

That was also true.

To a certain extent... he succeeded.

But the interests Zhao Jiulang represented were the interests of Great Yan’s central court.

Not the will of the Emperor.

Not even the interests of the imperial clan.

Every matter was a double-edged sword.

The threat military domains posed to the central court was obvious.

But one could not ignore how Great Yan’s last three Emperors had repeatedly used those same military domains to whip the court in return.

The old Emperor relied on Prince Zhenbei Residence to reclaim his throne.

The late Emperor relied on the two great military domains to ride down the aristocratic clans.

Ji Chengjue could simply threaten that, at worst, he would call Prince Pingxi to lead troops into the capital.

Using that threat, he had carried out several rounds of near-unrestrained purges throughout the court.

If you lacked the ability to flip the entire table... then even as Emperor, you could not make every piece obey you.

“Still, when all is said and done, this is dancing on a knife edge,” Qu Peiluo said ruefully. “Our Great Chu... failed to make it across.”

Nian Yao smiled dismissively.

“No. It danced too slowly.”

Two former Chu men sat before the three bean brothers and reflected upon the changing winds of Great Chu.

The amusing part was... what they were doing now, and what they were about to do... was also another case of brothers from the same root cooking one another too fiercely.

“His Majesty will never accept lowering Chu’s state status,” Qu Peiluo said. “He will never agree, even nominally, to submit to Yan.”

Nian Yao shook his head.

“You may think it impossible. Even the Regent Prince himself may think it impossible. Yet I happen to believe there is a possibility.”

“Oh?”

“The Emperor of Great Yan sent me back. Officially, it was to recruit my former subordinates. But in truth, there is no real difference between you, Qu Peiluo, doing that and me, Nian Yao, doing it. When Great Chu was strong, neither of us would have been useful. When Great Chu is weak, either of us can be useful. After what happened to me years ago, most of my former subordinates were probably purged anyway. Besides, when a man leaves, the tea goes cold. I’ve been gone for this many years. How many people could possibly still be utterly loyal to me? The Emperor of Great Yan is young. But to tell the truth... I’m afraid of him.”

Qu Peiluo teased:

“An eunuch fearing his master. Isn’t that perfectly natural?”

Nian Yao did not become angry.

Instead, he answered:

“The two round things below my waist are gone. The pair inside your heart disappeared years ago too. We’re both eunuchs, yet one eunuch is mocking the other for smelling like piss below the belt. Is that interesting?”

Qu Peiluo chuckled.

“I need to see the Regent Prince,” Nian Yao said.

“You should understand that if I’m able to stop you here, it means His Highness himself has no desire whatsoever to see you.”

“This concerns military and state affairs.”

Qu Peiluo tugged lightly at the long hair at his left temple.

“Not more important than whether the Prince is in a good mood.”

Nian Yao drew a deep breath.

Then slowly exhaled.

“There is a chance this can succeed. I, this servant, actually understand my old master better than any of you do. It is only a matter of lowering Chu’s state status outwardly and acknowledging Yan as overlord. In return, the Yan would stop chasing Ying Capital so relentlessly and turn their attention elsewhere. At the same time, we could borrow the deterrence of Yan power in reverse and stabilize the internal fragmentation created by our disastrous defeat in the Battle of the Shaman Gods. The one laughing at the end... is the one who truly laughs last.”

“But do you think His Majesty still has any chance of reaching the end?”

Hearing the question, Nian Yao shrugged.

“At the very least... His Majesty can laugh a little longer.”

“Hahahahaha...”

“Hahahahaha...”

The two Chu men burst into laughter together.

“I need to see the Prince,” Nian Yao said. “Help me get an audience.”

“I can introduce you to Mr. Bei.”

“That works too.”

Qu Peiluo raised the bowl of fermented bean juice and took a large mouthful.

“How can you swallow that?”

Qu Peiluo glanced at Nian Yao.

“Only after taking a huge mouthful of this can I squeeze a little sweetness out of life.”

...

“Grand General, you’ve had a difficult journey.”

“This general would not dare accept such praise.”

“Sit.”

“Thank you, Mr. Bei.”

Nian Yao sat cross-legged before the Blind Man.

The Blind Man held a red date in one hand and popped it into his mouth.

With the other, he kept flipping through memorials.

The battle was over.

The business after the battle was every bit as tedious.

Still... no matter how busy he was, there was enough time to properly meet one person.

There was no real need for this degree of “neglect.”

The fundamental reason was simply that the Blind Man did not consider Nian Yao worthy of much attention anymore.

Had Nian Yao arrived before the war began, his standing would probably have been much higher.

And he would have been far more useful.

But now... the Battle of the Shaman Gods had broken Great Chu’s vitality.

Even on the western battlefield, those two brats Chen Xianba and Tian Tian had each led a cavalry force and mauled Xie Zhuyang until he was wounded from head to toe.

They failed to kill Xie Zhuyang outright.

But the main strength of the Xie Clan Army had essentially been buried there.

Look across the entire State of Chu today.

It was not that Chu could no longer gather troops.

It could even still whip up another great army.

But an army of that quality would be scarcely different from Savage auxiliaries.

On the snowfields, three thousand soldiers of Prince Pingxi Residence could chase twenty thousand Savage troops into flight.

For the near future...

Chu had lost the ability to create a meaningful threat on a frontal battlefield.

So once the main contradiction had already been solved by force of arms... the small branches and side issues could naturally be treated with less concern.

“This general intends to meet the Emperor of Chu and persuade him to lower the state’s status.”

The Blind Man froze.

Genuinely froze.

His first thought was that Nian Yao believed the war had ended and that he had missed his chance to earn merit he could trade for rewards upon returning to the capital.

So he had no choice but to take an extreme gamble and attempt something almost impossible.

But the Blind Man was best at reading people.

Nian Yao was not the sort who became extreme the moment something went wrong.

A man like that could never have risen to Grand General in the first place.

“The Chu Emperor has almost nothing left to lose now beyond his throne and the nominal existence of his state,” the Blind Man said. “What makes you believe he would put down the last scrap of dignity remaining to him?”

A smile appeared at the corner of Nian Yao’s mouth.

“Sir means that once the jar is already broken, one no longer cares if it gets smashed completely. Correct?”

The Blind Man nodded.

“Correct.”

“To tell the truth, when I set out from Yanjing, I did not expect the Regent Prince to win this cleanly, nor did I expect Chu to lose this completely. But what I did understand was that continuing to entangle ourselves with Chu afterward would not serve Great Yan’s present interests. Great Yan still needs to consolidate and develop the newly occupied lands and absorb their populations. It needs to rebuild reserves for the next war, not exhaust itself fighting guerrillas and attrition deep in the southern marshes against Chu remnants. To put it another way, from the perspective of ultimately unifying All Xia, what Great Yan needs now is a stable and quiet Chu so it can free one hand to deal with other matters. For example... Qian. A single peace treaty is no longer enough. The best result would be for the Emperor of Chu, and through him the entire State of Chu, to lower its head and submit in name. If that happened... then in the historical record, in righteous legitimacy, one could already say the whole of Chu had been placed under Yan’s lawful authority.”

“Get to the point,” the Blind Man reminded him.

“Since the jar is already broken and he no longer cares, then we can repair that jar for him. Patch it up. Mend it. We can even pour a little wine back inside so that when he shakes it, it still makes some noise. In the same way... if we change the terms... I believe my old master might actually agree.”

“For example?”

“For example... have Chu lower its state status and submit to the Regent Prince Residence in eastern Jin... rather than to Great Yan.”

[End of Chapter 984]