Chapter 1062: The Whole City Rejoices Together

As night fell, the capital was gradually shrouded in darkness. Yet even the black of night could not dim the fervor of the Eastern Capital's citizens—nearly every street and archway was hung with lanterns, lit one by one by dedicated attendants. Along the Imperial Way, the display was even more colorful, with a profusion of festive lanterns releasing brilliant, interweaving light.

And so the entire city of the Eastern Capital blazed with the lights of ten thousand households, a sea of radiance. The dense glow adorned the capital, transforming it into a city that never slept. The common folk beneath the Imperial City walls had gradually dispersed—though many still lingered, either kowtowing, offering blessings, or cheering. On ordinary days, commoners would never dare—nor would they have the chance—to approach the Imperial City walls and gaze boldly upon the imperial palace, feeling the majesty of the royal house.

Those who left did not all go home. A great many of them chose instead to wander the streets and alleys, roaming the markets, calling on friends and companions to revel together—drinking at taverns, listening to storytellers at teahouses, watching dancers at the performance halls, hearing music at the conservatories...

This was destined to be a day of citywide celebration. Regardless of rank, wealth, or whether one was Han or foreign, anyone within the walls of Kaifeng joined in the nationwide festivity, each celebrating in their own way. Even the poorest donned new clothes; at the very least, they made sure to present themselves clean and tidy. Even beggars—well, Kaifeng did not permit beggars to exist...

And upon learning of Kaifeng's celebration, more than a hundred thousand people rushed to the city that very day to join the festivities and witness the ceremony. Kaifeng's registered population had already surpassed seven hundred thousand, but counting the resident officials, merchants, scholars, laborers, and foreigners, a population of one million was no longer merely a figure of speech.

The Eastern Capital was an open city. Besides Han residents, there were more than fifty thousand foreign merchants and civilians, encompassing nearly every people that had ties with the Great Han—especially the Uyghurs, Tangut, and Tibetans of the northwest, who over the past decade or more had been drawn to the Eastern Capital one after another, gradually settling down. Quite a few had even obtained Kaifeng household registration.

Thus, amid Kaifeng's grand celebration, one could see festive customs of every ethnicity—foreign music and foreign dances, accents from every region—none of it seeming out of place, for all of it had long since merged into the fabric of this city...

The deeper the night grew, the brighter the lights, and the livelier the capital became. A million voices, a million wishes, a million blessings. The freshness of green grass, the fragrance of spring blossoms, and the rich aroma of wine intermingled, permeating the air, and the entire city seemed intoxicated.

Tonight, Kaifeng was truly drunk. By estimate, the night's wine consumption alone would amount to several hundred thousand catties.

In Kaifeng, the curfew system had long been abolished. Yet holding a citywide celebration of this scale posed a tremendous challenge to the city's administration. With over a million people reveling, maintaining order was especially critical—and none felt the pressure more than the Kaifeng Prefecture.

In fact, because past celebrations had never been without mishaps—including one great fire in the Eastern Capital—and considering that this occasion was unprecedented in scale, Governor of Kaifeng Gao Fang had made thorough preparations in advance. All the clerks and staff of the Kaifeng Prefecture, whether on duty or on the payroll, were dispatched; several principal subordinates each took responsibility for their own district. Before the celebration, a comprehensive crackdown on urban crime had been carried out, striking hard at lawless elements.

The Kaifeng Prefecture alone could not control order across the entire city. The three imperial army units of the Patrol Inspectorate were also nearly fully deployed, standing guard and patrolling to maintain public order. Of course, in consideration of these men's hard work, the court specially approved generous leave and monetary rewards—very generous rewards indeed.

Against the backdrop of citywide jubilation, within the Han Palace, a true grand banquet was just beginning.

As the main hall of the Han Palace—the venue for grand ceremonies, court assemblies, and other great affairs—the current Chongyuan Hall had come to seem small. Not grand enough, not magnificent enough, and even lacking in space, insufficient to bear the majesty of the present-day Great Han Empire.

Dining tables stretched from inside Chongyuan Hall all the way out its doors, extending from the terraced steps down to the palace square before the hall. Round tables alone numbered one thousand and eighty, and the assembled civil and military officials, nobles, envoys, and the family members who accompanied them easily surpassed ten thousand people.

Yang Bin and Su Fengji were naturally among the guests. That day they had personally experienced and witnessed the entire sequence of ceremonies, and at their age, with their old bones, it had been quite taxing—yet it could not conceal the inexplicable surge of emotion within them.

Especially for Yang Bin: though he had clashed with Emperor Liu over power, held political disagreements, and differed in philosophy, he was after all a founding meritorious minister of the Great Han. In those first year or two of the dynasty, it had truly been he and Wang Zhang and their cohort who had painstakingly maintained the Great Han's precarious rule.

It could not be said that Yang Bin had no loyalty to the Great Han—that feeling was still there. How could he not wish for its prosperity and glory? It was only that in the past, having lived through three generations of unceasing chaos, he could scarcely imagine what a peaceful, prosperous age would look like, and could only try his best according to his own beliefs and methods. But now, he finally saw it—though it had not been achieved through his own hands, his spirits could hardly help but rise, and his heart could not help but surge.

The two men were fortunate enough to have seats inside Chongyuan Hall, though in a remote corner—not where the spotlight fell, and seemingly separated from the imperial throne by a thousand mountains. Yet looking at all this from another angle, one could not help but feel a different kind of emotion.

Within the great hall, voices buzzed with clamor. Surrounded by gold and splendor, whether it was an illusion or not, the sounds of celebration from the citizens of the Eastern Capital beyond the palace walls could still be heard. Before the Imperial City, those hundreds of thousands of people clustered together, erupting in cheers for the Emperor—that overwhelming, mountain-toppling momentum still left Su Fengji shaken.

"Born into troubled times, raised amid strife, having lived in vain for over sixty years—how could I ever have imagined I would live to see such a sight in this lifetime?" Su Fengji could not help but sigh, his tone remarkably moved: "A world of mortal smoke and fire, an age of great peace and prosperity—surely nothing surpasses this!"

Su Fengji's lament came from the depths of his heart. His generation had grown up amid the upheaval of the realm, the frequency of war, and the constant succession of dynasties. Back then, when he had aided Liu Zhiyuan, what he sought was wealth and honor—he had little aspiration to pacify the state and save the people, to take the world as his own responsibility.

Liu Zhiyuan had risen from Hedong and seized the realm—it was the tide of the times that made it so, and men like Su Fengji rode that wave to soar. When one went from being a talent of a single prefecture to presiding over state affairs and wielding the great power of the realm, what Su Fengji thought was: power unused is power wasted—use it before it expires. He thought of using his authority for personal gain, engaging in corruption, and lining his own pockets.

In those days, the Eastern Capital also represented the mood of the entire realm—oppressive, bleak, desolate. Clothes were not warm enough, food did not fill the belly, the people wore hungry faces, and hearts were divided. The whole city seemed shrouded in twilight. Yet that scene was not at all out of place—almost everyone was accustomed to it, for that was simply how the world was...

But now, after returning to court, everything he had heard and seen had thoroughly shattered the fixed impressions in Su Fengji's mind. Kaifeng's prosperity, the people's stability, the attachment of the populace's hearts—it was now exactly as described in the books.

It was rather amusing, really. Su Fengji was a man of letters—not exactly erudite, but reasonably well-informed. In the past, before Liu Zhiyuan, he had spoken at length about history, about the realm, about governance. Yet when it came to actually doing things, he seemed never to have believed that the state could recover its peace.

"Brother Su, for this great age of the Han, you and I should soon share a cup together and get drunk in unison—that would not be unworthy of the bold spirit of our youth!" Looking at Su Fengji, Yang Bin declared with feeling, a flash of excitement crossing his aged face.