Chapter 100

Chapter 100

[Li Erfeng Becomes Wanyan Gou – 20]

Zong Zheng?

Li Shimin paused in surprise. The name seemed vaguely familiar, but he could not recall where he had heard it.

Emperor Gaozu reminded him, “The white silk mentioned him. Wasn’t your precious daughter’s Jin sweetheart named Zongzhen?”

Li Shimin immediately remembered. Hugging his adorable, fair-skinned little princess, he frowned. “Don’t talk nonsense. What sweetheart? Our Yongning is still a child!”

All the emperors turned to look at him.

Li Shimin swallowed whatever he had meant to say next. “Forget it. It’s nothing.”

The emperors: “…”

“Are you messing with us?” Liu Che demanded angrily. “We’ve already taken off our pants, and that’s all you give us?”

Li Shimin glanced at him and said impatiently, “Zhi’er, stop acting shameless and put your pants back on.”

Liu Che: “…”

Liu Che complained indignantly to Zhu Yuanzhang beside him, “Look at him! He was the one who asked us first, and now he refuses to say anything.”

Zhu Yuanzhang had lost miserably at Fight the Landlord yesterday and found Liu Che intensely annoying right now. “Go away.”

Liu Che was wounded. “Why are all of you like this?!”

Ying Zheng’s thick brows drew together. He looked at Liu Che and asked pleasantly, “Zhi’er, have you finished reading your military texts? Have your wings grown strong? Do you once again believe yourself the equal of Wei Qing and Huo Qubing, capable of standing alone?”

Liu Che: “…”

Tears began to flow without his noticing.

Emperor Gaozu and Zhu Yuanzhang tucked their hands into their sleeves and watched the daily humiliation of Zhi’er, clicking their tongues. “How cruel of you, Shi Huang. Stop talking. Look, you’ve made him cry. Hehehe!”

Liu Che: “…”

Why am I always the one who gets hurt?!

An idea turned over in Li Shimin’s mind. For a moment, he considered arranging a romance with the roles reversed for his precious daughter. Then he remembered that this was his own flesh and blood, the daughter he feared might melt in his mouth or fall from his palm. How could he possibly let her associate with those contemptible Jin?

Her father could handle avenging their humiliation. As for the little princess, she only needed to grow up happily and live a peaceful, fortunate life.

Having made up his mind, Li Shimin looked again at the little boy Zong Zheng before him, his affection undiminished. He summoned the child closer to test him on his studies and, at the end, asked whether he had trained in martial arts.

Zong Zheng answered each question with remarkable poise.

Li Shimin nodded in delight, removed the jade pendant he carried, and bestowed it upon him. He then told Zong Ze, “For the Zong Family to have a son like this is a blessing to both family and country. The Crown Prince is gradually growing older, and he ought to have more children of this sort around him as companions.”

His implied meaning was that Zong Zheng would enter the palace as the Crown Prince’s study companion.

Unlike Emperors Qinzong and Huizong, the Reigning Emperor was not amorous. His harem contained only Empress Wei, and he had long ago appointed his eldest legitimate son, Zhao Ze, as Crown Prince. For Zong Zheng to be selected now as the Crown Prince’s study companion was a blessing both for himself and for the Zong Family.

Zong Ze rose with his grandson to thank the emperor for his grace, and the entire family was overjoyed. Li Shimin also appointed Yue Fei to teach the Crown Prince martial arts. After returning to the palace, he smilingly shared the news with his wife.

Empress Wei was pregnant again, and the swell of her five-month belly had already become visible. After coaxing her daughter to sleep and instructing the nurse to carry the little princess away, she smiled. “Your Majesty appears to admire Yue Pengju greatly?”

Li Shimin replied, “What ruler would not appreciate a loyal minister and gifted general?”

With that, he crouched halfway down and pressed his cheek to Empress Wei’s belly, his eyes filled with anticipation. “It has been five months. The baby should be able to move by now, shouldn’t it?”

Empress Wei’s eyes were gentle. Her fingers lightly caressed her husband’s cheek as she said in amusement, “How could the timing be so perfect?”

Then she murmured, “I wonder whether this child is a boy or a girl. Mother visited me in the palace a few days ago and said boys and girls feel different in the womb. Since I have already borne both a son and a daughter, she says I should be able to tell. I wonder whether that is true.”

Li Shimin said, “Either is wonderful. I will love a son or daughter just the same.”

Warmth filled Empress Wei’s heart. After a brief pause, she added, “I heard that someone recently submitted a memorial asking Your Majesty to select beauties and take more consorts to fill the harem…”

Li Shimin laughed. Sitting beside her, he snorted. “However prettily they dress it up, aren’t they only seeking wealth and honor for their own families? Our family is living perfectly well. Why should they interfere?”

In his previous life, he had possessed many women and no shortage of children.

He had been too young then, filled with ambition and high spirits. At seventeen, he had rescued the emperor at Yanmen Pass. At eighteen, he had saved his father from an enemy camp. At nineteen, he had raised an army at Jinyang. At twenty-three, he had become the Heavenly Strategist General. Even when he ascended the throne after the Xuanwu Gate Incident, he had been only twenty-eight.

He had certainly faced hardships and setbacks along the way, but they had been no more than insignificant embellishments upon his road forward. He had therefore never imagined that even an emperor of the mortal world might yearn for something beyond his reach or suffer separation in life and death.

In the tenth year of Zhenguan, Guanyinbi, the wife who had accompanied him for so many years, passed away. Grief-stricken, Li Shimin discovered that some things in this world ultimately lay beyond human power to prevent.

His beloved wife’s death left him like withered wood, his heart reduced to ashes. It also extinguished his interest in the palace consorts, and no more children were born to him thereafter.

Li Shimin brought the young son and daughter his beloved wife had left behind to his side and personally cared for them. Throughout the thirteen years that separated husband and wife between life and death, he continually ordered prayers and blessings offered for her. He also had a multistory pavilion built in the palace, from which he gazed each day toward the site of her tomb.
At this point, he beat his chest and stamped his feet in bitter hatred. “Heaven-damned Wei Zheng! When Guanyinbi was alive, she pleaded for him time and again. After she died, I built a multistory pavilion so I could gaze toward her resting place, and that country bumpkin still tried to polish his political reputation by forcing me to tear it down. Wuwuwuwu… If I’d known how things would turn out, I never should have listened to Guanyinbi in the first place. I should have killed that bastard and been done with it!”

Thinking of Empress Xu, who had weathered so many storms by his side, Emperor Gaozu could not help sharing his grief. Zhu Yuanzhang thought of Empress Ma, and tears filled his eyes as well.

Ying Zheng did not feel particularly moved, but he would never mock another person’s sincere feelings at a time like this.

Only Liu Che remained utterly heartless and said sarcastically, “Oh, look how sentimental you are. What happened to all of you ridiculing Boss Ma and Lady Tan for being a devoted couple for life?”

Li Shimin: “!!!!”

Never had Guanyinbi been so grievously insulted!

Shocked and enraged, he cried, “What right does that foolish woman Lady Tan have to be mentioned in the same breath as my wife? Comparing them at all is an insult to my beloved!”

Zhu Yuanzhang added, “Empress Zhangsun protected loyal ministers in public and admonished her sovereign in private. She restrained her maternal relatives for the country’s sake, stood with her husband through life and death, and bore three sons and four daughters. How could she not deserve to be called a virtuous empress? How can Lady Tan possibly compare to her!”

Li Shimin rolled up his sleeves, ready to hit someone, then suddenly remembered that Liu Wild Boar was inside the shared space and beyond his reach for the moment. Unwilling to give up, he immediately shouted, “Can I call a Didi proxy beating service? From now on, whenever one of you gets out of the space and wants to hit the Wild Boar, I’ll beat him twice for free on your behalf!”

“…” Liu Che: “???”

Emperor Gaozu and Zhu Yuanzhang cheerfully rolled up their sleeves and charged. “I’ll do it!”

“…” Liu Che: “????”

Liu Che was beaten half to death. Bruised and swollen, he lay sprawled on the floor and groaned.

Li Shimin, however, remembered his previous life and sank deeper into sorrow. “The Wild Boar does not understand, and neither does Shi Huang. Only a man who has shared years of hardship and weathered every storm with his wife can understand. A young man’s heart begins with its gates wide open, but after enduring enough wind and rain, they gradually close until the heart becomes a solid wall of iron. She was the only one who entered before my heart hardened completely and became part of it. I was within her, and she within me. When she left, half my heart was carved away with her.”

Zhu Yuanzhang was deeply moved. A lifelong wife, a grown son, and a warm family home-had Empress Ma and his eldest son, Zhu Biao, not formed the most important parts of his inner world as well?

Emperor Gaozu sighed with feeling too.

Having already lived one lifetime and received another, Li Shimin no longer had any desire to take consorts or concubines. Growing old beside his beloved wife alone would be more than enough.

Besides, they already had children.

Thinking of his children brought up yet another source of sorrow.

Li Shimin and his beloved wife had three sons and four daughters, but their fate with their children had been painfully shallow.

Their eldest son, Chengqian, died before his father. Their second son, Qingque, lived only three years longer than Li Shimin. Their youngest, Zhinu, fared somewhat better, but he remained frail and sickly and died in his fifties.

The sons met tragic ends, and so did the daughters.

Their eldest daughter, Princess Changle, died at twenty-three. Princess Chengyang did somewhat better and enjoyed the longest life of all their many children. His beloved third daughter, Sizi, lived only to twelve, while his youngest daughter, Princess Xincheng, survived for just thirty years.

It was like a curse. After his beloved wife died, Li Shimin experienced one separation and loss after another.

“There is little good in having too many children. It drains a woman’s vitality too severely.”

He sighed, gently took his wife’s hand, and said, “After this child is born, the five of us can live happily together. That will be enough.”

In his previous life, his beloved wife had borne seven children in all. Even with a life of luxury and imperial physicians tending her, the pregnancies had inevitably damaged her health. She had given birth to her youngest daughter, Princess Xincheng, only two years before her death, and it was after that birth that she began to fall ill…

Empress Wei had never expected her husband to say such a thing. How could she not be moved? She smiled softly, then said, “That may be enough for an ordinary family, but how can it be so for the Imperial House? Many children bring many blessings. Does Your Majesty not wish to have a few more sons and daughters?”

Li Shimin smiled and shook his head. “Having you beside me is enough.”

Empress Wei stared at him, stunned. “Your Majesty.”

Li Shimin lifted her hand and pressed a gentle kiss to it, gazing at her with tenderness and devotion. Even the air seemed suffused with the sweetness of love.

Liu Che snorted. “Boss Ma and Lady Tan had three children too!”

Li Shimin did not spare him even a sidelong glance. “Didi proxy beaters, are you there? Hit him!”

…

With the war temporarily suspended and the enormous payment of Jin gold and silver received in full, Li Shimin began setting government affairs in order. He eliminated superfluous offices, reformed official administration, and appointed Li Gang as envoy to inspect the recently recovered Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun in the north, restore production, and improve the people’s livelihood.

At the same time, news from Jin in the north arrived in a steady stream.

Succession from elder brother to younger brother was the Jurchen principle of imperial inheritance, and Zongbi truly had been confirmed as the successor by Emperor Taizong of Jin before his death. Yet during the chaotic battle in the Supreme Capital that day, Zongbi had been unable to hold out and fled the city in disarray with a band of confidants.

Before long, with the support of the Tangkuo clan and Emperor Taizong of Jin’s former subordinates, Empress Tangkuo had her son Wanyan Zongpan ascend the throne before Emperor Taizong of Jin’s memorial tablet, proclaiming that Wanyan Zongpan was the rightful next emperor of Jin.

Naturally, Zongbi refused to let the matter rest when he heard the news. He possessed a foundation of his own and immediately hurried to Longzhou, west of the Supreme Capital, where he rallied his former troops and prepared to raise an army against the rebels in the capital. Within days, Zongfu led his men to join him. The two brothers combined their forces, creating an imposing momentum.
On one side stood Taizu’s son, the next Jurchen ruler personally confirmed by Emperor Taizong of Jin. On the other stood Emperor Taizong’s son, a legitimate imperial prince of impeccable birth.

The two sides were evenly matched. Neither gained the upper hand through several clashes. After several months, they drew a boundary midway between the Supreme Capital and Longzhou. The territory held by Zongbi and Zongfu became known as the Western Jin court, while Wanyan Zongpan’s faction in the Supreme Capital became known as the Eastern Jin court. Both sides remained hostile, but circumstances made neither willing to launch a major war, so they maintained a temporary peace.

After Li Shimin finished reading the front-line report on Jin’s military situation, he could not help sneering. They had already been nothing but clay chickens and pottery dogs. Now they had split themselves in two, as though afraid the Jurchens might somehow avoid national extinction.

He ordered several senior ministers to circulate the document, then asked solemnly, “I ordered you to find traces of Yelü Dashi and the other Liao remnants. Have you located them?”

Zong Ze replied, “After Liao fell, Yelü Dashi led a group of confidants westward. This minister sent men to search for them, and a recent message reports that their whereabouts have been found. Only…”

Li Shimin asked, “Only what?”

Hesitation showed on Zong Ze’s face. After wavering, he said, “Only, when Liao was destroyed, our Great Song took part. I fear Yelü Dashi will not willingly submit to us.”

“There are no eternal enemies under heaven, only eternal interests.” Li Shimin’s tone was airy and unconcerned. “As a member of the Liao imperial clan, Yelü Dashi is bound to dislike our Great Song. But compared with Jin, we will soon look like immortals descended from heaven!”

The Jingkang Incident occurred in 1127, bringing Northern Song to an end and formally beginning Southern Song.

Before that, however, Northern Song’s old enemy Liao-the indirect creator of the legendary Chariot God of the Gaoliang River-had fallen first.

In 1112, Tianzuo, the final emperor of Liao, arrived in Chunzhou and summoned the chieftains of the nearby Jurchen tribes to dance for his amusement. Only Wanyan Aguda refused, and the two sides parted on bad terms.

Two years later, Wanyan Aguda united the Jurchen forces and rose in rebellion against Liao.

In 1122, the Jin army captured Liao’s Central Capital, forcing Tianzuo himself into exile. After fleeing from place to place for three years, he was captured by the Jin and taken to the Supreme Capital, and Liao perished. Remnant Liao forces such as Yelü Dashi’s continued resisting the Jin afterward, but they never became powerful enough to pose any serious threat.

To the Song, Jin was a mortal enemy and the architect of the Humiliation of Jingkang. But to the people of Liao, Jin was even more hateful!

Northern Song had fallen, but at least Southern Song remained. Liao had been left with nothing at all!

Worse, the Jurchens had begun as dogs kept by Liao, livestock raised to be slaughtered for meat at regular intervals. Now the master’s own dog had bitten him to death and become the new master. To the people of Liao, that was more hateful even than being crushed by the Song to the south!

Li Shimin had ordered the search for Liao’s remnants because he intended to make them the vanguard against Jin.

For one thing, the Jin heartland around the Supreme Capital was unlike the Central Plains. The weather was bitterly cold, cold enough to freeze dripping water into ice, and Great Song soldiers would inevitably struggle to adapt. The people of Liao, by contrast, were long accustomed to living and fighting in such conditions.

For another, Li Shimin considered many necessary acts too filthy for his own hands and was even less willing to stain the soldiers of the Great Song with them. He might as well have the people of Liao do the work. They were nomads with untamed natures, after all, and knew better than anyone how to inflict the greatest suffering upon one another.

The Jin had ravaged Dongjing (Kaifeng) during the Jingkang Incident, slaughtering Song soldiers and civilians and violating the people. Did the Jin truly imagine that once the imperial armies marched north, they could hand over a letter of surrender and watch the Song slap the dust from their clothes and go home?

What a joke!

But it would sound terrible if Song people committed those acts. Better to leave all of them to the Liao and dispose of the Liao afterward as well!

Ho! Li Shimin, what an ordinary little genius you are at shifting the blame!

As a veteran general, Zong Ze could naturally guess what his emperor intended and agreed wholeheartedly. He immediately urged his subordinates to negotiate with Yelü Dashi and the others, take in these homeless curs, and have them lead the way when the imperial armies marched north.

Over the next several months, the Great Song took up arms no more, and neither did Jin. Although the Western Jin and Eastern Jin courts had several minor clashes, both pulled back after testing the other, unwilling to waste military strength. They continued their earlier standoff.

On the fifteenth day of the eighth lunar month that year, Empress Wei’s child came to term. Li Shimin and the two empress dowagers waited anxiously outside the hall for a full double-hour before finally hearing an infant’s wail from within.

All three brightened with joy and hurried forward, just as the midwife emerged to deliver the good news. Her eyes narrowed into crescents with her smile as she bowed. “Congratulations, Your Majesty and Your Majesties the Empress Dowagers. Her Majesty the Empress has just given birth to a little imperial prince!”

“A prince?” Empress Dowager Meng beamed. “Good! How wonderful!”

“The imperial clan has always had too few heirs,” Empress Dowager Zheng said with a smile. “For the Empress to give His Majesty another son is truly a joyous event beyond measure!”

Li Shimin had no attention to spare for such considerations. Pushing past the palace maids and attendants, he entered the inner hall to see the wife who had just finished giving birth.

Empress Wei’s face remained somewhat pale, but the gaze she fixed upon the tiny child on the bed was filled with maternal love. Seeing her husband hurry inside, she gave him a wan smile. “It is a boy. He looks rather like me.”

Li Shimin lowered his head for a look and saw a red, wrinkled little monkey. He had no idea how his wife could tell the child resembled her.
Helpless, he asked tenderly, “Are you tired? Does it still hurt?”

Empress Wei instinctively began to shake her head, but Li Shimin spoke more firmly. “Tell me the truth!”

Only then did she whisper, “It hurts so much!”

Seeing the pain in her husband’s eyes, she tried to console him. “Fortunately, this is the third child. It was not like my first, when the pain lasted all night before the baby was born.”

Li Shimin was not comforted in the slightest.

Looking at his wife’s gentle, beautiful face upon the bed and remembering how successive pregnancies had depleted her body in his previous life, his heart ached terribly. He lowered his head, gently kissed her forehead, and promised, “This is the last one. We will never have another!”

Empress Wei merely thought her husband was showing a rare touch of childishness and laughed. “How could such a matter be ours to decide?”

Li Shimin smiled faintly but said nothing more. Seeing the weariness on her face, he stopped talking and gently tucked the quilt around her. “Sleep and recover your strength. I will stay here with you.”

Empress Wei murmured her assent and peacefully closed her eyes.

That evening, Crown Prince Zhao Ze and Princess Jinyang Zhao Yongning returned. They gathered around their mother’s bed, marveling at their newborn little brother.

Li Shimin summoned an imperial physician to the study and came directly to the point. “You must have some means of preventing a husband and wife from having children, yes?”

The imperial physician: “…”

The physician’s expression changed on the spot. He thought, What I feared has finally come!

When Emperors Qinzong and Huizong reigned, the rear palace had been packed with consorts, and schemes among women competing for favor were inevitable. The imperial physicians had seen far too many such sordid affairs. They had assumed that since this young emperor kept only one Empress in his harem, they would certainly never encounter such filth again. Yet the day had finally come!

Sure enough, every emperor possessed a filthy heart. Even with his throne perfectly secure and two sons already born to him, he still could not trust his own brothers!

After imagining a great deal on his own, the physician came back to himself, lowered his voice, and asked, “Does Your Majesty wish to eliminate the danger permanently, or proceed gradually?”

Li Shimin replied, “Permanently.”

The imperial physician’s heart tightened, and his voice dropped even lower. “If so, the medicine must be more potent. Your Majesty had best confine the person inside the palace in advance and arrange for imperial physicians to attend him, lest anyone notice and ruin your great undertaking!”

Li Shimin: “…”

Speechless, Li Shimin asked, “What are you imagining? I am asking for myself!”

The imperial physician: “????”

The imperial physician: “!!!!”

“Your Majesty, you must not!”

The physician froze in shock. When he recovered, he immediately dropped to his knees and repeatedly knocked his head against the floor. “You are the Son of Heaven of the Great Song and must continue your line and preserve the realm forever. How can you…”

Li Shimin said, “My mind is made up. Do not try to persuade me. Simply prescribe the medicine. What was spoken today leaves my mouth and enters your ears; no third person may learn of it. If I ever hear of this from someone else, or if either of my two sons comes to harm, I will immediately order the extermination of your nine clans. Do you understand?!”

“Go and do it.” Li Shimin spoke mildly. “I do not wish to repeat myself a third time.”

Summoning his courage, the imperial physician raised his head and met the young emperor’s gaze. In that instant, he even forgot proper etiquette and stared anxiously at the sovereign’s face.

Li Shimin looked back pleasantly and even had the leisure to smile.

The imperial physician had no other choice. He stammered, “This minister… this minister will see to it at once…”

The emperors in the shared space had never imagined that he could make such a decision, and each wore a different expression.

Ying Zheng’s thick brows drew together, his expression revealing some disapproval. Yet he had never liked interfering in another person’s private affairs, so he said nothing.

Emperor Gaozu was startled at first. When he placed himself in Li Shimin’s position, however, he found that he could understand the man’s feelings. He smiled faintly without speaking.

Then he considered what he would do in the same position. In their previous life, bearing children had left Old Ma deficient in both qi and blood. She had died early, and their children’s health had been poor as well, several passing away before him. Would he still be so determined to have children?

What would be the point?

This world was not even the one where they truly belonged. Why exhaust the living person before him for the sake of illusory generations of descendants?

She was not an unloved concubine selected for the palace solely to continue the imperial line. She was the wife who had accompanied him for many years, each becoming part of the other until they could no longer be separated!

Zhu Yuanzhang said nothing.

Only Liu Che sat stubbornly in the corner, his face black and blue. He sneered. “Boss Ma and Lady Tan had three children too.”

Li Shimin: “Didi proxy beating…”

Before he finished speaking, Emperor Gaozu and Zhu Yuanzhang had already rolled up their sleeves and were walking toward Liu Che beneath his terrified gaze. “Say no more, brother. We’re already beating him!”