Lou Jing was silent for a moment. He then sighed. “About this… I’ll discuss it with Lord Yang. Miss Yang, you should rest,” he said.
“I thank the Shizi for his understanding,” Miss Yang said bowing respectfully. She didn’t pursue the issue of whether Lou Jing was going to let Lin Dahu go and simply turned to leave the tent.
“This Miss Yang is someone you can use,” Xiao Chengjun said, rising to his feet and going over to Lou Jing to rub his temples. She was someone who repaid kindnesses and knew how far to push her case. She would be very useful to Lou Jing in the Lou family – she would certainly be stabilising influence there. “She doesn’t have anyone she can trust in the Lou family, and will naturally be loyal to you.”
“I don’t need to rely on her to deal with my family,” Lou Jing said, pulling at the hands massaging his temples and biting down on them gently. He knew in his heart, however, that his husband was absolutely right.
Whilst internal family strife might be a small matter compared to matters of state, they did have an impact nonetheless; if the home was not peaceful, one would worry incessantly about it all day. Also, if he were to marry Xiao Chengjun in future, his father and Madam Wei would be the ones in charge of the Lou family, and the two of them would probably run it into the ground.
He sighed again. The two didn’t speak further about this, and instead instructed subordinates to bring Lin Dahu in.
The arrow on Lin Dahu’s shoulder had been pulled out, and someone had applied medicine to the wound and bound it up. He was still tied up with sturdy rope when he was brought before Lou Jing, and he glared at the latter with bloodshot eyes.
“Lin Dahu, you’ve crossed me time and again. Tell me, what do you think I should do with you?” Lou Jing asked, sitting on the main seat and smiling coldly at him.
“It’s up to you whether you want to kill me or flay me,” Lin Dahu said. He had a broad, beefy physique, and his voice was deep and sonorous like a large bell.
Lou Jing pressed on his ear with a finger, then took out a drawing of the Jiuqi Mountain hideout. “I’ve seen the defences set up in your hideout. If we didn’t burn your food stores, we probably would have been in a stalemate for at least half a month. Were you previously an army official?” he asked languidly.
“None of your business,” Lin Dahu said, stiffening his neck.
“Ah, so it was you who set up the defences,” Lou Jing said, smiling faintly. He sounded as if he had just discovered this fact.
Lin Dahu’s eyes widened. He suddenly realised that he had been tricked into disclosing this.
Xiao Chengjun couldn’t help laughing a little as he watched the two trade verbal blows. “A military talent like you should be in the Imperial Army. It’s a waste of your talents to be a mountain bandit,” he said.
“Hmph. There’s not much difference between the Imperial Army and mountain bandits,” Lin Dahu said, sniffing coldly. “I will never surrender or accept amnesty. Just tell me now whether I’m to rot in jail or to lose my head at the executioner’s!”
Obe Alcu fztjifv jevlyis, atfc lucbgfv tlw. Lf aegcfv ab Wljb Jtfcupec. “P mifjgis atbeuta abb tlutis bo tlw. P atbeuta tf kjr j nlgaeber wjc bo qglcmlqifr, yea la rffwr atja tf’r cbatlcu yea j mbkjgvis abgablrf atja rtglcxr lar yjmx yjmx lcab atf rtfii ja atf rilutafra ktloo bo vjcufg,” tf rjlv.
“He’s got talent but no principles, and he refuses to be trained. Keeping him will be harmful to the people of the Empire,” Xiao Chengjun said in a serious tone.
The two were talking as if the person in question wasn’t right in front of them, and this made Lin Dahu lose his temper. “I am not a cowardly tortoise! These past few years, I have only ever robbed from the rich – how does this harm the Empire’s people?” he growled.
“Then what about Miss Yang?” Lou Jing asked, raising an eyebrow. He stood up and walked over to Lin Dahu. “And what about the young ladies that your Second Boss ruined?”
Lin Dahu lost his composure when Lou Jing brought this up. These were things that he also greatly objected to, but there were limits to what he could do in a hideout full of old bandits. They had needs, and these needs had to be satisfied somehow; the best he could do was tell them or threaten them not to touch young ladies who had yet to be married off.
“Truth be told, you’re even worse than a dog in the Imperial Army. A dog knows how to sacrifice its life for his master, but you? You and your bandits have killed, looted, burned and kidnapped innocent young ladies. What are you loyal to this group of people for? Was that Big Boss of yours who used you as a human shield worth your loyalty? And that sworn brother who died in the temple – would he have been killed if he hadn’t tried to kill others first to get their money?” Lou Jing asked relentlessly. He pulled out his sword and pointed its sharp point at Lin Dahu’s chest. “Think about the things you’ve done these past few years and the people you’ve helped. Touch your heart and answer me this – does everything you’ve done sit well with your conscience? Are they all in line with your own moral values?”
Lin Dahu was silent. The gleaming blade of the sword was right in front of his eyes. He would live if he just surrendered right now. The alternative was to not surrender and die. He knew this, but he didn’t want to surrender to the Imperial Court this way.
“Forget it…” Lou Jing sighed, then suddenly struck with his sword.
The blade flashed before Lin Dahu’s eyes, then whistled past his ears. He reflexively closed his eyes tight.
“Shing!” The sword sliced through the ropes that bound Lin Dahu. He opened his eyes in surprise, then looked up at Lou Jing, stunned, watching him put his sword back in its sheath.
“I, Lou Jing, do not take advantage of people in a weaker position. I respect that you are a good man, and I will not make things difficult for you today,” Lou Jing said, turning his back to Lin Dahu. “You may leave.”
Lin Dahu stared blankly at Lou Jing for a moment, then turned to leave. He pushed open the tent flap with one hand, and in that moment, he saw the calm, peaceful army camp beneath a clear blue sky, with vast green mountains in the distance. This was a place that truly suited a broad-shouldered, eight-foot-tall man like him, but… he suddenly halted in his tracks.
Lou Jing turned to look at him, his lips lifting slightly in a faint smile. His words, however, still sounded severe and carried a note of pity. “No one will stop you after you walk out of this tent,” he said.
Lin Dahu spun around to look at Lou Jing. “When you deployed your troops, when you showed bravery on the battefield – when you did all that, what was the impetus?” he asked.
Lou Jing had put on a mysterious look the moment Lin Dahu turned around, and when he heard Lin Dahu’s question, he thought deeply for a moment before answering. “My impetus? Naturally, everything I do is for the person I have sworn my loyalties to,” he said.
“The Yu Empire is in a mess,” Lin Dahu said, training an intense stare on Lou Jing. “You talk about the commoners, the people of the Yu Empire – will the person you’re loyal to enable the commoners eat three square meals a day?”
Lin Dahu’s words bordered on treason. However, appreciation flashed in Xiao Chengjun’s eyes. This man didn’t care about the power or wealth that the Imperial Court could give; what he wanted was to see a world in which no man was left behind. He thought that this breed of men had gone extinct after the Taizu Emperor’s time, when the Empire was founded. He had never expected he would meet someone like that here. It had to be said, though, that this sort of person would not appeal to the incumbent Emperor at all.
“The person I’m loyal to will definitely bring a Golden Age to the Yu Empire,” Lou Jing said, his lips curving upwards. “And what I want to do is to protect the mountains and rivers of this Empire for him!”
Xiao Chengjun felt as if an earthquake had been set off in his heart on hearing these words. He gazed at Lou Jing’s smiling face and carved every word of what Lou Jing had just said into his heart. He would remember this his whole life!
Lin Dahu was thus appointed as a minor army official. At sunset, the two husbands took this newly minted minor army official with them when they escorted Miss Yang back to her family in Jiuchang.
Mrs Yang hugged her daughter and cried for a good amount of time. When she finally stopped crying, she asked what had happened over the past few days.
“Mother, please be open-minded about this. I can’t marry into a good family even if I remain in Jiangzhou, so I might as well marry into the Anguo Gong family,” Miss Yang said, after comforting her mother for some time.
Tears slid down Mrs Yang’s face again when she heard her daughter say this. It was true that everyone in Jiuchang knew that Miss Yang had been kidnapped by mountain bandits, and any good family whose son was matched to her would certainly come here to ask around about her reputation. Who would believe that their daughter was still chaste after they heard that she had been kidnapped by mountain bandits? It would really be nigh impossible to arrange a good marriage for her after this…
“We aren’t rich, and Dad has met with many difficulties in his career. I don’t see being married to the Anguo Gong as being a bad thing,” Miss Yang said. She had originally not been willing to do so, but she’d thought this through and changed her mind during her time in the mountain bandit hideout.
Her father was an honest, upright official, and it was difficult for men like him to succeed in an Imperial Court that was corrupt and wasteful. Her father had met with obstacle after obstacle, and this year, he even had to borrow money in order to pay a bribe to Shen Lian. What would happen in three years’ time? She had younger siblings, and they needed money to be able to study and to get married. It was best for her to marry someone with a high social status so that she could help out with her family’s expenses back home.
After this discussion, Yang Xin sighed heavily, then wiped away his tears. He thanked Lou Jing for his good intentions, but said that he would still be marrying his daughter into the Lou family.
Lou Jing did not try to stop the wedding any more. He ordered twenty elite soldiers to escort Miss Yang to the Capital, and he himself wrote a letter to his father to explain that the mountain bandits were really running amok in Jiangzhou as previously reported, and that Miss Yang had been unable to make her way to the Capital because of the terrible state the Imperial roads were in. He made sure to emphasise that this was not Yang Xin’s fault, and completely omitted to mention that Miss Yang had been kidnapped by mountain bandits.
The Jiuqi Mountain incident was thus settled without fuss. Lou Jing’s unconventional military strategies awed the whole army, and all the military officials under him started to do as he said without question, even when his orders seemed strange or out of the norm.
General Zhennan, who had just made a name for himself among his troops, suddenly transferred the reins of power over to the two Captains and went off with his Military Strategist.
Xiao Chengjun had less than five days to reach his fief before tongues would start wagging. Thankfully, the journey from Jiuchang to Minzhou would only require three days on horseback, and their little company galloped speedily towards Rong City, the capital of Minzhou.
Two days after Lou Jing left for Minzhou, the Jiangzhou Prefectural Governor received General Zhennan’s letter, which had been written by him personally, and his heart thudded ominously in his chest despite himself.
The Prefectural Governor had originally planned to make a big show of his doing battle in Jiangzhou, but all these plans were thrown into disarray when the Emperor’s appointed General Zhennan to the task of catching bandits. It was tantamount to putting a leash around his neck and handing it to General Zhennan, and the Prefectural Governor was naturally very unhappy about this. There weren’t enough troops in Jiangnan, and the Nansi Prefectural Troops were very important to his plans. That was why he had hung on to those ten thousand men and refused to return them. He thought that the Lou family Shizi was young and easily bullied, and as such, wanted to use this opportunity to show him who was the boss from the get go so that Lou Jing would submit to his authority.
“My Lord, this subordinate was incompetent in handling this matter,” one of the persons next to the Prefectural Governor said, kneeling immediately when he saw the contents of Lou Jing’s letter.
The Jiangzhou Prefectural Governor ignored him. He opened Lou Jing’s letter and read it. The contents were very simple. Return my troops within three days. If I do not see the soldiers back in the Nansi Prefectural Troops after seven days, I will ask for more men from the Emperor.
This was written on plain white paper and sealed in brilliant red ink with the General’s army seal. The arrogance underlying this demand was simply beyond words.
“This little stripling from the Lou family is too much!” the Jiangzhou Prefectural Governor raged, his beard quivering in anger as he slammed the letter down onto the table.
The soil in Minzhou was not fertile, and many of the commoners were fishermen, not farmers. As such, most of the more prosperous cities were located on the coast. Rong City was no exception; it was located less than a hundred li from the seaside.
Lou Jing naturally couldn’t accompany Min Wang as his Consort or as General Zhennan, so he posed as one of Xiao Chengjun’s guards. However, because his arm had not fully recovered, this “guard” rode on the same horse as his master in a most suspicious manner, and only started riding his own horse when they got close to Rong City.
What had originally been the Jingnan Hou mansion was located in Rong City. Since the Jingnan Hou and his family had been recalled to the Capital, he agreed to allow Xiao Chengjun to use his mansion temporarily as his Min Wang mansion until his own mansion was ready.
The fief’s officials had arrived in Rong City much earlier and were ready to receive Xiao Chengjun’s orders when he arrived. These officials used to be local officials in Minzhou. After Minzhou became Min Wang’s fief, most of those who had connections got themselves transferred out, but those without connections had no choice but to stay and serve as Min Wang’s vassal lords.
“Chen greets Min Wang Dianxia,” the officials greeted him respectfully. The six officials who had originally been Minzhou state officials now became Xiao Chengjun’s six shangshu, or Heads of the Six Departments. They kowtowed to him as one.
Xiao Chengjun sat down on the host’s seat. His eyes swept over the kneeling officials. The Minzhou Prefectural Governor had managed to get himself posted elsewhere, and as such, the position of Head Minister of Minzhou was empty. “This King will be taking over the reins of government in Minzhou today. You are all hereby promoted by one rank to third-ranked Heads of Department of Minzhou,” he said.
“Thank you, Dianxia,” the six of them bent at the waist and gave their thanks without any real feeling. The promotion had been expected.
“I have only just arrived in Minzhou, and I am not too familiar with matters here. Let me have all the files from the past three years from the six ministries that each of you head. We will also hold the succession ceremony for my taking over the government in seven days, and you are to invite all the Prefectural Magistrates of the nine counties of Minzhou. We will discuss matters of state in the main hall of my mansion after that. Anyone who is absent will be fired immediately, and will not be appointed to any post within Minzhou,” Xiao Chengjun said evenly, his face solemn and serious as he gave his instructions one by one.
These freshly baked third-ranked Heads of Department all broke out in cold sweat on hearing this. They had to get the arrangements for the ceremony and send the necessary invitations within seven days, which was no simple task. They had originally thought that this Min Wang would be easy to bully because he wasn’t favoured and had been deposed because he was dull-witted. They had never expected that he was this sharp and capable!
Lou Jing was silent for a moment. He then sighed. “About this… I’ll discuss it with Lord Yang. Miss Yang, you should rest,” he said.
“I thank the Shizi for his understanding,” Miss Yang said bowing respectfully. She didn’t pursue the issue of whether Lou Jing was going to let Lin Dahu go and simply turned to leave the tent.
“This Miss Yang is someone you can use,” Xiao Chengjun said, rising to his feet and going over to Lou Jing to rub his temples. She was someone who repaid kindnesses and knew how far to push her case. She would be very useful to Lou Jing in the Lou family – she would certainly be stabilising influence there. “She doesn’t have anyone she can trust in the Lou family, and will naturally be loyal to you.”
“I don’t need to rely on her to deal with my family,” Lou Jing said, pulling at the hands massaging his temples and biting down on them gently. He knew in his heart, however, that his husband was absolutely right.
Whilst internal family strife might be a small matter compared to matters of state, they did have an impact nonetheless; if the home was not peaceful, one would worry incessantly about it all day. Also, if he were to marry Xiao Chengjun in future, his father and Madam Wei would be the ones in charge of the Lou family, and the two of them would probably run it into the ground.
He sighed again. The two didn’t speak further about this, and instead instructed subordinates to bring Lin Dahu in.
The arrow on Lin Dahu’s shoulder had been pulled out, and someone had applied medicine to the wound and bound it up. He was still tied up with sturdy rope when he was brought before Lou Jing, and he glared at the latter with bloodshot eyes.
“Lin Dahu, you’ve crossed me time and again. Tell me, what do you think I should do with you?” Lou Jing asked, sitting on the main seat and smiling coldly at him.
“It’s up to you whether you want to kill me or flay me,” Lin Dahu said. He had a broad, beefy physique, and his voice was deep and sonorous like a large bell.
Lou Jing pressed on his ear with a finger, then took out a drawing of the Jiuqi Mountain hideout. “I’ve seen the defences set up in your hideout. If we didn’t burn your food stores, we probably would have been in a stalemate for at least half a month. Were you previously an army official?” he asked languidly.
“None of your business,” Lin Dahu said, stiffening his neck.
“Ah, so it was you who set up the defences,” Lou Jing said, smiling faintly. He sounded as if he had just discovered this fact.
Lin Dahu’s eyes widened. He suddenly realised that he had been tricked into disclosing this.
Xiao Chengjun couldn’t help laughing a little as he watched the two trade verbal blows. “A military talent like you should be in the Imperial Army. It’s a waste of your talents to be a mountain bandit,” he said.
“Hmph. There’s not much difference between the Imperial Army and mountain bandits,” Lin Dahu said, sniffing coldly. “I will never surrender or accept amnesty. Just tell me now whether I’m to rot in jail or to lose my head at the executioner’s!”
Obe Alcu fztjifv jevlyis, atfc lucbgfv tlw. Lf aegcfv ab Wljb Jtfcupec. “P mifjgis atbeuta abb tlutis bo tlw. P atbeuta tf kjr j nlgaeber wjc bo qglcmlqifr, yea la rffwr atja tf’r cbatlcu yea j mbkjgvis abgablrf atja rtglcxr lar yjmx yjmx lcab atf rtfii ja atf rilutafra ktloo bo vjcufg,” tf rjlv.
“He’s got talent but no principles, and he refuses to be trained. Keeping him will be harmful to the people of the Empire,” Xiao Chengjun said in a serious tone.
The two were talking as if the person in question wasn’t right in front of them, and this made Lin Dahu lose his temper. “I am not a cowardly tortoise! These past few years, I have only ever robbed from the rich – how does this harm the Empire’s people?” he growled.
“Then what about Miss Yang?” Lou Jing asked, raising an eyebrow. He stood up and walked over to Lin Dahu. “And what about the young ladies that your Second Boss ruined?”
Lin Dahu lost his composure when Lou Jing brought this up. These were things that he also greatly objected to, but there were limits to what he could do in a hideout full of old bandits. They had needs, and these needs had to be satisfied somehow; the best he could do was tell them or threaten them not to touch young ladies who had yet to be married off.
“Truth be told, you’re even worse than a dog in the Imperial Army. A dog knows how to sacrifice its life for his master, but you? You and your bandits have killed, looted, burned and kidnapped innocent young ladies. What are you loyal to this group of people for? Was that Big Boss of yours who used you as a human shield worth your loyalty? And that sworn brother who died in the temple – would he have been killed if he hadn’t tried to kill others first to get their money?” Lou Jing asked relentlessly. He pulled out his sword and pointed its sharp point at Lin Dahu’s chest. “Think about the things you’ve done these past few years and the people you’ve helped. Touch your heart and answer me this – does everything you’ve done sit well with your conscience? Are they all in line with your own moral values?”
Lin Dahu was silent. The gleaming blade of the sword was right in front of his eyes. He would live if he just surrendered right now. The alternative was to not surrender and die. He knew this, but he didn’t want to surrender to the Imperial Court this way.
“Forget it…” Lou Jing sighed, then suddenly struck with his sword.
The blade flashed before Lin Dahu’s eyes, then whistled past his ears. He reflexively closed his eyes tight.
“Shing!” The sword sliced through the ropes that bound Lin Dahu. He opened his eyes in surprise, then looked up at Lou Jing, stunned, watching him put his sword back in its sheath.
“I, Lou Jing, do not take advantage of people in a weaker position. I respect that you are a good man, and I will not make things difficult for you today,” Lou Jing said, turning his back to Lin Dahu. “You may leave.”
Lin Dahu stared blankly at Lou Jing for a moment, then turned to leave. He pushed open the tent flap with one hand, and in that moment, he saw the calm, peaceful army camp beneath a clear blue sky, with vast green mountains in the distance. This was a place that truly suited a broad-shouldered, eight-foot-tall man like him, but… he suddenly halted in his tracks.
Lou Jing turned to look at him, his lips lifting slightly in a faint smile. His words, however, still sounded severe and carried a note of pity. “No one will stop you after you walk out of this tent,” he said.
Lin Dahu spun around to look at Lou Jing. “When you deployed your troops, when you showed bravery on the battefield – when you did all that, what was the impetus?” he asked.
Lou Jing had put on a mysterious look the moment Lin Dahu turned around, and when he heard Lin Dahu’s question, he thought deeply for a moment before answering. “My impetus? Naturally, everything I do is for the person I have sworn my loyalties to,” he said.
“The Yu Empire is in a mess,” Lin Dahu said, training an intense stare on Lou Jing. “You talk about the commoners, the people of the Yu Empire – will the person you’re loyal to enable the commoners eat three square meals a day?”
Lin Dahu’s words bordered on treason. However, appreciation flashed in Xiao Chengjun’s eyes. This man didn’t care about the power or wealth that the Imperial Court could give; what he wanted was to see a world in which no man was left behind. He thought that this breed of men had gone extinct after the Taizu Emperor’s time, when the Empire was founded. He had never expected he would meet someone like that here. It had to be said, though, that this sort of person would not appeal to the incumbent Emperor at all.
“The person I’m loyal to will definitely bring a Golden Age to the Yu Empire,” Lou Jing said, his lips curving upwards. “And what I want to do is to protect the mountains and rivers of this Empire for him!”
Xiao Chengjun felt as if an earthquake had been set off in his heart on hearing these words. He gazed at Lou Jing’s smiling face and carved every word of what Lou Jing had just said into his heart. He would remember this his whole life!
Lin Dahu was thus appointed as a minor army official. At sunset, the two husbands took this newly minted minor army official with them when they escorted Miss Yang back to her family in Jiuchang.
Mrs Yang hugged her daughter and cried for a good amount of time. When she finally stopped crying, she asked what had happened over the past few days.
“Mother, please be open-minded about this. I can’t marry into a good family even if I remain in Jiangzhou, so I might as well marry into the Anguo Gong family,” Miss Yang said, after comforting her mother for some time.
Tears slid down Mrs Yang’s face again when she heard her daughter say this. It was true that everyone in Jiuchang knew that Miss Yang had been kidnapped by mountain bandits, and any good family whose son was matched to her would certainly come here to ask around about her reputation. Who would believe that their daughter was still chaste after they heard that she had been kidnapped by mountain bandits? It would really be nigh impossible to arrange a good marriage for her after this…
“We aren’t rich, and Dad has met with many difficulties in his career. I don’t see being married to the Anguo Gong as being a bad thing,” Miss Yang said. She had originally not been willing to do so, but she’d thought this through and changed her mind during her time in the mountain bandit hideout.
Her father was an honest, upright official, and it was difficult for men like him to succeed in an Imperial Court that was corrupt and wasteful. Her father had met with obstacle after obstacle, and this year, he even had to borrow money in order to pay a bribe to Shen Lian. What would happen in three years’ time? She had younger siblings, and they needed money to be able to study and to get married. It was best for her to marry someone with a high social status so that she could help out with her family’s expenses back home.
After this discussion, Yang Xin sighed heavily, then wiped away his tears. He thanked Lou Jing for his good intentions, but said that he would still be marrying his daughter into the Lou family.
Lou Jing did not try to stop the wedding any more. He ordered twenty elite soldiers to escort Miss Yang to the Capital, and he himself wrote a letter to his father to explain that the mountain bandits were really running amok in Jiangzhou as previously reported, and that Miss Yang had been unable to make her way to the Capital because of the terrible state the Imperial roads were in. He made sure to emphasise that this was not Yang Xin’s fault, and completely omitted to mention that Miss Yang had been kidnapped by mountain bandits.
The Jiuqi Mountain incident was thus settled without fuss. Lou Jing’s unconventional military strategies awed the whole army, and all the military officials under him started to do as he said without question, even when his orders seemed strange or out of the norm.
General Zhennan, who had just made a name for himself among his troops, suddenly transferred the reins of power over to the two Captains and went off with his Military Strategist.
Xiao Chengjun had less than five days to reach his fief before tongues would start wagging. Thankfully, the journey from Jiuchang to Minzhou would only require three days on horseback, and their little company galloped speedily towards Rong City, the capital of Minzhou.
Two days after Lou Jing left for Minzhou, the Jiangzhou Prefectural Governor received General Zhennan’s letter, which had been written by him personally, and his heart thudded ominously in his chest despite himself.
The Prefectural Governor had originally planned to make a big show of his doing battle in Jiangzhou, but all these plans were thrown into disarray when the Emperor’s appointed General Zhennan to the task of catching bandits. It was tantamount to putting a leash around his neck and handing it to General Zhennan, and the Prefectural Governor was naturally very unhappy about this. There weren’t enough troops in Jiangnan, and the Nansi Prefectural Troops were very important to his plans. That was why he had hung on to those ten thousand men and refused to return them. He thought that the Lou family Shizi was young and easily bullied, and as such, wanted to use this opportunity to show him who was the boss from the get go so that Lou Jing would submit to his authority.
“My Lord, this subordinate was incompetent in handling this matter,” one of the persons next to the Prefectural Governor said, kneeling immediately when he saw the contents of Lou Jing’s letter.
The Jiangzhou Prefectural Governor ignored him. He opened Lou Jing’s letter and read it. The contents were very simple. Return my troops within three days. If I do not see the soldiers back in the Nansi Prefectural Troops after seven days, I will ask for more men from the Emperor.
This was written on plain white paper and sealed in brilliant red ink with the General’s army seal. The arrogance underlying this demand was simply beyond words.
“This little stripling from the Lou family is too much!” the Jiangzhou Prefectural Governor raged, his beard quivering in anger as he slammed the letter down onto the table.
The soil in Minzhou was not fertile, and many of the commoners were fishermen, not farmers. As such, most of the more prosperous cities were located on the coast. Rong City was no exception; it was located less than a hundred li from the seaside.
Lou Jing naturally couldn’t accompany Min Wang as his Consort or as General Zhennan, so he posed as one of Xiao Chengjun’s guards. However, because his arm had not fully recovered, this “guard” rode on the same horse as his master in a most suspicious manner, and only started riding his own horse when they got close to Rong City.
What had originally been the Jingnan Hou mansion was located in Rong City. Since the Jingnan Hou and his family had been recalled to the Capital, he agreed to allow Xiao Chengjun to use his mansion temporarily as his Min Wang mansion until his own mansion was ready.
The fief’s officials had arrived in Rong City much earlier and were ready to receive Xiao Chengjun’s orders when he arrived. These officials used to be local officials in Minzhou. After Minzhou became Min Wang’s fief, most of those who had connections got themselves transferred out, but those without connections had no choice but to stay and serve as Min Wang’s vassal lords.
“Chen greets Min Wang Dianxia,” the officials greeted him respectfully. The six officials who had originally been Minzhou state officials now became Xiao Chengjun’s six shangshu, or Heads of the Six Departments. They kowtowed to him as one.
Xiao Chengjun sat down on the host’s seat. His eyes swept over the kneeling officials. The Minzhou Prefectural Governor had managed to get himself posted elsewhere, and as such, the position of Head Minister of Minzhou was empty. “This King will be taking over the reins of government in Minzhou today. You are all hereby promoted by one rank to third-ranked Heads of Department of Minzhou,” he said.
“Thank you, Dianxia,” the six of them bent at the waist and gave their thanks without any real feeling. The promotion had been expected.
“I have only just arrived in Minzhou, and I am not too familiar with matters here. Let me have all the files from the past three years from the six ministries that each of you head. We will also hold the succession ceremony for my taking over the government in seven days, and you are to invite all the Prefectural Magistrates of the nine counties of Minzhou. We will discuss matters of state in the main hall of my mansion after that. Anyone who is absent will be fired immediately, and will not be appointed to any post within Minzhou,” Xiao Chengjun said evenly, his face solemn and serious as he gave his instructions one by one.
These freshly baked third-ranked Heads of Department all broke out in cold sweat on hearing this. They had to get the arrangements for the ceremony and send the necessary invitations within seven days, which was no simple task. They had originally thought that this Min Wang would be easy to bully because he wasn’t favoured and had been deposed because he was dull-witted. They had never expected that he was this sharp and capable!
