Chapter 995: Civil Strife in Yan

A Chu army was advancing through a rugged mountain road.

They built bridges.

They laid roads.

They erected stockades.

From the orders issued at the very top down through every level beneath, progress and workmanship were controlled with such precision that the result was almost astonishing.

Even Chen Xianba, who had come to inspect the work, found himself somewhat surprised.

Even if you wanted to pick faults, there was nowhere to start.

Far ahead, Xie Zhuyang sat in a wheelchair while a personal guard pushed him along the worksites.

He had also noticed the Yan cavalry appearing in the distance.

Xie Zhuyang did not go over to greet them.

He merely ordered the guards beside him to pass the word down: speed up the work.

...

“Your Highness, the work is progressing very quickly.”

After returning to the command tent, Chen Xianba reported honestly.

“This Prince saw it.”

The road was obviously difficult.

Yet the army’s pace had barely slowed.

The worst sections had already been paved in advance.

Where cliffs forced detours, long bridges had been built.

The locations chosen for military stockades were equally well judged, providing proper places for rest without sacrificing the army’s speed of advance.

Zheng Fan was no longer some fledgling on the battlefield.

He understood perfectly well that the real work in a war did not lie in waving a hand before the charge and shouting, “Attack!”

It lay in all the details, all the groundwork, and all the preparation before that moment ever arrived.

Xie Zhuyang truly had displayed the ability expected of one of Great Chu’s Four Pillars of State.

His defeat at Guyue City had occurred under very particular circumstances, with two young commanders in the reckless confidence of youth chasing and hammering him without pause.

It had been miserable.

But that did not mean Xie Zhuyang was actually an idiot.

“Xianba. Tian Tian.”

“This general is here!”

Tian Tian stepped forward and stood beside Chen Xianba.

“That old dog Xie Zhuyang still has real ability. The two of you will take turns leading troops to the front and supervising the works. Study this kind of meticulous grinding effort properly. Learn it.”

“Yes!”

“Yes!”

Inside the command tent, Xie Yu’an quietly lifted his cup and drank some tea.

Only after Chen Xianba and Tian Tian had left did Zheng Fan turn his gaze toward him.

“This Prince has heard that although your Xie Clan is one of the Four Pillars of State, among Chu’s original four great aristocratic clans, the Xie Clan was not included.”

“That is correct,” Xie Yu’an replied.

“This Prince now understands why.”

Xie Yu’an paused, then smiled.

“Because they thought the Xie Clan associated too closely with the Shanyue, and therefore could not truly be considered respectable.”

“No. In this Prince’s view, the other Chu aristocrats preferred the abstract. Your Xie Clan preferred the practical.”

Xie Yu’an said:

“That is probably because our fief lies in southern Chu. It is much like Yan having faced the threat of the Barbarian tribes from the western desert for several centuries. Because of that, Yan naturally came to prefer things that were lighter and... more efficient. In my view, Yan’s strength certainly owes much to the late Emperor, to Prince Jingnan, to Prince Zhenbei, and to Your Highness. But in truth, Yan had accumulated abuses without ever accumulating weakness. The late Emperor and the two Princes did not exactly carry out some simple program of enriching the state and strengthening the army. Rather, they smashed apart the shackles that had already bound Yan. Even when those shackles were part of themselves, tied to them by bone and tendon, they still cut without hesitation. Great Yan’s iron cavalry was not built in a single morning or evening. Precisely because those shackles were broken, Great Yan’s cavalry could campaign across the realm with far greater freedom.”

Zheng Fan nodded.

Xie Yu’an continued:

“By comparison, I believe Your Highness’s governance of eastern Jin is another version of Yan from those years, except carried even farther.”

“Oh?”

“Because Yan’s greatest concern was still the threat from the desert. In eastern Jin, Your Highness had to guard against threats from the snowfields on one side and Chu on the other, while also watching for instability among the Jin lands themselves. More importantly, Your Highness has always remained wary of a threat from... the Yan court. Precisely because eastern Jin is a land exposed to war on every side, soldiers and civilians alike keep their weapons honed and sleep with their heads upon their arms. Your Highness’s eastern Jin iron cavalry was forged from that environment.”

“You see things very clearly.”

“Your Highness flatters me. Seeing clearly is easy. Doing it... is difficult.”

“Do it slowly. There is always a chance. Just like your father.”

“Yes. This junior has received instruction.”

Xie Zhuyang was working this hard, even drawing heavily upon the Xie Clan’s influence among the Shanyue tribes of southern Chu and requisitioning large numbers of Shanyue laborers to open roads for the army, not merely for the sake of this campaign.

In truth, if his only goal had been to get through the present war, what Xie Zhuyang was doing was obviously excessive.

These roads and works only needed to function once.

Yet Xie Zhuyang was building them to a standard that could still be used ten or twenty years from now.

Why?

Because this was the Xie Clan’s foundation.

If the campaign against Qian succeeded, then after Qian’s Jiangnan was trampled beneath Yan hooves, it would also be opened directly toward southwestern Chu.

Building the roads properly was somewhat like saying:

*If you want to become rich, build the road first.*

Once the connection between southwestern Chu and Qian’s Jiangnan was opened, it would benefit the future development of the whole southwestern region enormously.

And as the only great aristocratic clan deeply rooted there, the Xie Clan would naturally benefit the most.

That was why Zheng Fan, Regent Prince of Great Yan, rated Xie Zhuyang so highly.

When Great Chu still had hope, Xie Zhuyang had been willing to use himself as bait and gamble his life for one chance to overturn the board.

Now that Great Chu no longer had hope, he knew when to bend and when to stand.

At a single princely order from Zheng Fan, he dragged his wounded body back to the front and opened roads for the Yan.

And when he did the work, he did not drag his feet.

He even looked ahead to the future of the Xie Clan.

The man was frighteningly practical.

Zheng Fan lifted his teacup.

From the corner of his eye, he glanced again at Xie Yu’an.

Without a father like Xie Zhuyang, the Xie Yu’an from the original trajectory probably would never have found it so easy to replace the Xiong Clan and take Chu for himself.

“Your Highness, is our army advancing a little too quickly?” Xie Yu’an asked.

Zheng Fan shook his head.

“It’s fine. This Prince thinks we’re too slow.”

The Prince stretched.

He had dreamed of Qian’s Jiangnan for far too long.

Ever since his earliest days eating sand in Hutou City, he had imagined that glittering Jiangnan of Qian.

To a certain extent, you could call it rotten.

You could condemn it as decadent.

You could curse its luxury.

You could throw lines like *The singing girls know not the sorrow of a fallen kingdom* straight at it and hardly wrong it at all.

But one thing could not be denied.

From Zheng Fan’s perspective... that Jiangnan was what most closely matched his own image of the ancient world as “rivers and mountains like a painting.”

Famous courtesans in pleasure houses.

Poetry and song.

Talented scholars and romantic affairs.

Damn it.

*That* was life.

By comparison, Great Yan’s iron and cavalry were still fine.

But put the northern Red Tents beside Jiangnan’s “slender horses,” and the difference was painfully rustic.

If Siniang had not opened a few high-end establishments in eastern Jin and salvaged some face for the north, then all of Yan and Jin would truly have looked like a pack of country bumpkins.

In the earliest years, Zheng Fan and the Demon Kings had even discussed what they would do if everything collapsed one day.

At worst, they would run to Jiangnan and live pleasantly for a while.

Unfortunately, reality went the opposite direction.

As Zheng Fan climbed higher and higher within Yan and his status became greater and greater, the possibility of quietly slipping into Jiangnan to enjoy the scenery vanished early.

For one simple reason: he was afraid of the Silver-Armored Guard.

Drawing his wandering thoughts back, Zheng Fan waved one hand.

“I know what you’re worried about. It doesn’t matter. The people on the other side will cooperate with this Prince properly.”

Xie Yu’an opened his mouth.

In the end, all he could say was:

“I truly am... envious.”

Even if the First Prince and Li Liangshen were removed from the calculation, with Liang Cheng and Gou Moli holding the northern battlefield, Zheng Fan had no need to worry about coordination or mutual support.

Communication would inevitably lag because of the limitations of the age.

It did not matter.

Who told Great Yan... who told eastern Jin... to possess so many commander-grade talents?

At that moment, Liu Dahu entered.

“Your Highness, it is time for the midday meal.”

“Good.”

Liu Dahu had the food brought in.

A group of younger personal guards carried the dishes.

Zheng Lin was among them.

His son’s temper might be terrible, but when it came to handling actual work, Zheng Fan truly did not need to worry.

Zheng Lin had concealed himself perfectly.

He had shown nothing unusual.

That disguise would have to continue at least until the army entered Jiangnan.

The Sword Saint and the Swordsmith also entered to eat.

Four men sat at one table, each with his own portion.

The meal could not exactly be called merry and harmonious.

But there was still a certain softness inside the ordinary routine.

After eating, Zheng Fan went outside the command tent to loosen his muscles and practice his saber.

The Sword Saint and Swordsmith began playing Go.

At dusk, the command tent moved and everyone continued onward.

Setting aside Xie Zhuyang’s people and Nian Yao’s forces, the fifty thousand central troops under Zheng Fan were marching in two sections.

So moving the command tent was very simple.

Shift from the rear section to the front.

Then wait until the front gradually became the rear again.

This arrangement had nothing to do with command.

It existed purely so the Prince could rest for a day.

After spending time around the command tent, Xie Yu’an gradually came to understand the Regent Prince’s calmness.

Thinking back to their earlier contests, when his own side had been tense and braced for battle while the Regent Prince opposite him remained this relaxed... perhaps his defeat truly had not been unjust.

...

Yanjing.

A storm had already erupted across the capital.

Great Chu had lowered its state status and declared itself a vassal of the Regent Prince Residence in eastern Jin.

Yet when Chu sent an envoy to the Yan court, it still used the protocol of a sovereign state.

The Chu envoy even declared with absolute certainty:

“Great Chu was defeated by the Regent Prince, not by the State of Yan!”

That single statement sent the court into uproar.

The scholar-official world and the common people were soon split into two camps, arguing endlessly.

One side insisted this was the most obvious possible Chu stratagem of sowing discord, designed purely to divide the court from the Residence.

They absolutely could not fall for it.

The other side argued that precisely because the stratagem was so obvious, the Regent Prince’s willingness to go along with it showed that his ambitions were already naked for everyone to see.

In truth, the argument that the Residence of eastern Jin posed a threat to the central government had never disappeared in recent years.

But just as Zheng Fan had always held the reins tightly in eastern Jin and kept his soldiers from looking westward and dreaming of rebellion...

Ji Old Sixth had been doing the same in the court.

He had never allowed the “eastern Jin threat” theory to become the mainstream.

...

“Haa...”

The Emperor of Great Yan was resting with his head in the Empress’s lap while she cleaned his ears.

Ji Chengjue liked He Sisi’s legs.

Lingxiang, by comparison, was somewhat too thin.

Her lap was not as comfortable.

Especially once the weather grew warmer.

A hand placed there found flesh that was not only soft but cool to the touch.

Extremely comfortable.

“Imperial Father.”

The Crown Prince entered.

There was no screen in place, so the intimate posture of his father and mother was plainly visible.

Ji Chuanye... had long since grown used to it.

The Emperor deliberately made no attempt to hide such things.

It was true that affection inside an imperial household was usually thin.

But much of that was simply imitation from above.

Ji Chengjue had suffered enough from his own father’s handling of family relationships.

So he paid particular attention to cultivating some warmth inside his own generation of the imperial clan.

There was nothing wrong with letting his son see that his parents had a close relationship.

Of course, Ji Chengjue also understood that the true key to keeping the next generation harmonious was not some moral essay.

Nor was his own “leading by example” enough.

The real solution was simple: make sure the Crown Prince was always, unquestionably, the Crown Prince.

Give the other boys not even the slightest opening.

Without a real struggle over interests, no Emperor would willingly take on the infamy of slaughtering his own brothers.

“Is it noisy outside?” the Emperor asked.

“Yes.”

“What do you think?”

“Replying to Imperial Father, this son believes it has nothing to do with Imperial Father or with this son.”

“Oh?”

“Whether at court or among the people, what they are arguing over is merely how to regard the Regent Prince. The imperial house can remain entirely outside it.”

Those who supported the Regent Prince and insisted he remained a loyal pillar of Great Yan were naturally loyal to the Emperor as well.

Those who believed the Regent Prince clearly harbored treasonous intentions were likewise thinking on behalf of the court and the Son of Heaven.

On that foundation, however violently the outside world argued... what did it have to do with the imperial family?

“What about the Grand Secretariat?”

“Replying to Imperial Father, the Grand Secretaries remain very quiet because Imperial Father warned them long ago.”

“Mm. Remember this. As long as the Grand Secretariat does not become disorderly, you can ignore however loudly the people below shout.”

“This son will remember.”

The Emperor sat up from the Empress’s lap.

The Empress brushed at the shoulders of his dragon robe.

“We will speak with the Crown Prince.”

“Then this concubine will go prepare some refreshments for father and son?”

“No. We will go out and walk a little.”

The Emperor walked outside.

The Crown Prince followed.

Wei Zhonghe and Companion Zhang came behind them, one on each side.

At the same time, they dismissed everyone else nearby and left complete privacy to father and son.

“Chuanye.”

“Imperial Father.”

“What you said earlier was not wrong. But it was also wrong.”

“Please instruct this son.”

“They can argue as fiercely as they like, and yes, it has nothing to do with Us or with you. But those words should not come from the mouth of the Crown Prince.”

“This son merely felt that before Imperial Father, there should be no concealment.”

“Ai...”

The Emperor sighed.

He reached out and placed a hand on the Crown Prince’s shoulder.

Then lowered his head and looked into his son’s face.

The Crown Prince was already nearly as tall as the Emperor.

But because he was bowing slightly now, he still appeared shorter.

“Were you wrong?”

“This son...”

The Crown Prince drew a deep breath.

“Was wrong.”

“Mm.”

The Emperor did not ask where he had been wrong.

Instead, he patted his shoulder and withdrew his hand.

“You are very clever. You were clever from childhood, and you learned state affairs quickly. You were the excellent imperial grandson personally chosen by your imperial grandfather. But sometimes cleverness traps the clever. The Grand Secretariat is a fine place to train a man. It is also a place that can easily trap one. Most of the gentlemen in the Grand Secretariat possess genuine public spirit. But their public spirit is directed toward Great Yan. You and I, father and son, bear the surname Ji. Our so-called public spirit inevitably leans a little more toward our own family’s realm. And yet your imperial grandfather relied upon his brotherly affection with the Princes of the north and south to hold up half the sky of Great Yan. Your father relies upon brotherly affection with that bastard surnamed Zheng to keep opening new territory for Great Yan. When it becomes your turn...”

“Imperial Father, this son understands.”

“You will suffer for it. An Emperor is a solitary man. From the day you became Crown Prince—no, from the day your imperial grandfather first lifted you into his arms—you had to begin learning how to become less and less like an ordinary person. Then, just when you are about to succeed completely, you will have to learn again how to be a person. Think more about your Uncle Zheng. Think more about your Brother Tian Tian. Remember affection. Do not calculate against them. Do not guard against them. In truth, the best method is simply not to think that much. Never mind that All Xia has not yet been completely conquered. Even if your father and your Uncle Zheng together manage to bring the entire realm into our hands during this generation, in the next generation, when you become the sovereign preserving what we built, will you not still need someone to suppress rebellions for you? Be more generous. Be more open.”

The Crown Prince nodded.

“Go.”

“This son takes his leave.”

The Crown Prince departed.

At that moment, Wei Zhonghe stepped forward and whispered several matters into the Emperor’s ear.

“Oh?”

The Emperor looked genuinely surprised.

Part of the recent wave of public opinion in the capital... had actually been stirred up in secret by people from the Crown Prince’s residence.

Then the public-facing group belonging to the Crown Prince’s faction had stepped openly onto the side defending the Regent Prince as a loyal pillar of Great Yan and charged forward on his behalf.

It had all been done very discreetly.

“So it was We who thought too much.”

Wei Zhonghe and Eunuch Zhang remained beside him.

Neither spoke.

The gratifying part was that his son had always remembered, and clearly understood, which side he ought to stand on.

The part that left the Emperor faintly depressed... was that his son had not told him the truth.

The reason lay in the difference between the Crown Prince’s present faction and the old Min Clan foundation Ji Chengjue himself had possessed as an imperial prince.

The late Emperor’s control over Ji Chengjue had never been as complete as Ji Chengjue’s current control over the Crown Prince.

The Emperor drew a deep breath.

He raised one hand and rubbed at the wrinkles on his forehead that had not yet fully smoothed away.

As an Emperor, when you realized your son had already begun preparing in earnest to become the heir of the state... you instinctively felt a kind of threat.

“Be generous. Be open. Remember affection...”

The Emperor repeated to himself the words he had just used to educate his son.

Then he said:

“Oh, right. Wei Zhonghe.”

“This servant is here.”

“The time is about right, isn’t it?”

“Replying to Your Majesty, it is indeed about right.”

“Everything prepared?”

“According to Your Majesty’s instructions, this servant has prepared everything.”

The Emperor nodded.

The faint gloom from earlier vanished instantly.

“Tell the Grand Secretariat to draft the decree.”

“This servant obeys.”

The Emperor brushed his sleeves.

“Come then. We would like to see whether, after We stop following the script, you, Ji Chuanye, can still keep pace with Us!”

...

The next day... an imperial decree shook the whole of Yanjing.

The Emperor of Great Yan proclaimed to the realm that the Regent Prince was without ruler or father, reckless and presumptuous beyond measure!

The Emperor’s personal entry into the affair caused the entire fire to erupt.

That afternoon... the Crown Prince led a group of Eastern Palace officials, together with ministers who had publicly supported the Regent Prince, to kneel outside the palace gates and plead on the Regent Prince’s behalf.

The Emperor flew into a rage.

He ordered Wei Zhonghe to lead agents of the Secret Intelligence Department in beating the petitioning ministers with staffs.

More than half were thrown into the Imperial Prison.

The Crown Prince himself was ordered to remain inside the Eastern Palace and reflect upon his errors for three months.

That very night, the Emperor summoned the Second and Third Princes to the imperial study to examine their lessons.

Rumors that a new Crown Prince might be established immediately swelled into a roar.

Three days later... the Emperor announced that the imperial carriage would travel south on an inspection tour to Yinlang Commandery.

Everyone knew that Yinlang Commandery held the forces of Marquis of Andong and Li Liangshen.

They were one of the few elite armies directly controlled by the court that could confront eastern Jin iron cavalry in a field battle.

...

News followed news.

Through the Silver-Armored Guard system, the reports reached Shangjing at the greatest possible speed.

For a time, the people and ministers of Shangjing erupted in celebration.

It had come.

It had finally come.

They had finally lived to see it!

Inside the imperial study... the newly enthroned Emperor Zhao Mugou sat upon the Dragon Throne.

Li Xundao and the other Ministers of State sat below him.

This was the true center of power in Qian now.

After the coup, this group had seized the actual authority of the state.

Yet at this moment... the room was deathly silent.

The atmosphere was crushing.

Finally—

Bang!

The Emperor slapped the imperial desk.

And cursed:

“Again? Again?! Do the Yan never get tired of using this damned trick?”

Li Xundao said:

“The price of meat and wine rose in Shangjing today.”

The common people were celebrating.

Celebrating the fact that the Yan dogs were finally going to descend into civil war.

Li Xundao sighed.

“The Yan do not care whether anyone is tired of seeing this trick. Because every single time... there will always be a pack of fools who believe it.”

[End of Chapter 995]