Chapter 2130: End of the Kangzong Chronicles: Eight Years on the Throne, Indolent and Without Achievement

Coming by the northern route and leaving by the western route, it was naturally difficult to make Emperor Liu Wenpeng retrace his steps on this rare imperial tour. Therefore, after entering the Yangtze from the north, he chose to continue traveling by boat upstream.

The Jiangnan navy dispatched nearly half of its ships and sailors to escort the imperial progress, and Liu Wenpeng's two thousand silver-armored guards became "cavalry on the water."

It is worth mentioning that when Shizu made his southern tour twenty years ago, he had carried out a thorough rectification of the entire southern navy due to its abuses (nurturing bandits to maintain importance, setting up checkpoints to collect taxes, extortion and plunder). During the Taizong era, the Great Han's inland river navy, under the authority of a powerful sovereign and the gravity of national law, had maintained good conduct and respectable combat effectiveness.

However, by the seventh year of Pingkang, one could only describe it as a return to old habits. Of course, what Liu Wenpeng could see and hear was still a scene of calm seas and blessings descending upon all directions.

Passing Wuchang and entering Jiangling, the prosperity of the middle Yangtze presented itself to Liu Wenpeng in a different form and bearing. Riding the dragon boat, commanding a thousand troops, making a grand display as he passed through, Liu Wenpeng squandered his time freely, "chanting" the glories of a golden age, while further consuming the local officials' and people's nearly instinctive reverence and veneration for the empire's supreme ruler.

As for the common folk, let us set them aside for now—they are the most simple-minded of the ruled, and being exploited is their fate. An emperor's passage merely temporarily intensifies and aggravates this, and besides, there is in their subconscious a domesticated awe of authority. Most people simply look forward to the days after the imperial carriage departs being easier, returning to how things were before. Whether such a modest hope can be fulfilled is clearly doubtful.

In contrast, those powerful figures who hold local authority—when they set aside their reverence, muster their courage, raise their heads, open their eyes wide, and use this rare close-up opportunity to observe the emperor above them—the originally mysterious, lofty image, if not collapsing entirely, has at least been shaken.

Once the emperor's radiance fades away, what remains is merely a willful youth who loves pleasure. And the reason this youth can stand above everyone else, squandering and amusing himself at will, is simply that he has a good father.

Of course, the overturning of impressions does not cause local magnates to lose their reverence entirely. In the current Great Han, no matter what the emperor is like, imperial power is not so easily shaken.

It is just that—if the emperor behaves this way, one cannot blame his subjects for following suit, especially those magnates whose integrity and bottom lines are quite limited.

And this, compared to the expenditures of Liu Wenpeng's tour, is clearly far more serious—this is a fundamental and far-reaching influence.

Of course, Liu Wenpeng would not understand these things, nor would he care much about them. What he could see was still the scene of "the imperial carriage arrives, officials and people submit." At least for now, the sanctity of imperial power and the emperor's authority allowed him not to worry about the emotions, thoughts, psychology, and other inexplicable things of his subjects.

Regardless, as long as the empire's foundation remained strong and firm, he was the empire's most legitimate emperor. Whether willingly or not, the magnates of the realm had no choice but to support him. Liu Wenpeng himself might not be so worthy of enthronement, but primogeniture was a system that the empire's nobles, bureaucrats, and even ordinary scholar-official families all believed in and revered—it had even become a social consensus.

In Jiangling, Liu Wenpeng accepted the "wholehearted" contributions of the Jinghu North Circuit and Jiangling Prefecture. Here, mention must be made of Feng Duan, the Prefect of Jiangling—the great-grandson of Chancellor Feng Dao of the Qianyou era, and of the main line of the family's senior branch.

In the first year of Kaibao, when Shizu enfeoffed his meritorious ministers, Feng Dao, for being "perceptive and adaptable," and for having indeed rendered considerable service in consolidating and maintaining state governance during the founding years, was granted the title Duke of Ying, taking his place among the Twenty-Four Meritorious Ministers of Qianyou.

The title of Duke of Ying, passed down to this day, was now in its fourth generation, and the grace of "hereditary for three generations without reduction" granted by Shizu had also been broken according to the regulations.

As the legitimate heir of the Feng clan, after the former Duke of Ying, Feng Jie (grandson of Feng Dao, son of Feng Ji), died of illness, Emperor Taizong re-enfeoffed his eldest legitimate son, Feng Jing, as Commandery Duke of Hejian. The empire's noble title system truly matured and became complete during the Taizong era, because Taizong was a man who acted entirely according to regulations, unlike Shizu, who in deciding certain matters could not help but mix in personal likes and dislikes, and enjoyed playing tricks of turning clouds into rain and back again.

And the "Twenty-Four Ministers of Qianyou," once the focus of universal attention, presented an entirely new situation in the Pingkang era half a century later.

To put it simply, even among the Twenty-Four Ministers of Qianyou, there were disparities. Some had long since lost their heirs, their names before and after death recorded only in the history books—such as the two Wangs (Wang Zhang, Duke of Yu, and Wang Jun, Duke of Shang);

Some retained their power and held prominent positions, still rooted in the empire's center of power. Though they experienced ups and downs, they continued to exert important influence on the empire from all aspects—such as the Lis (Li Shaoyou, Duke of Shou), the Murongs, the Guos, the Gaos, the Zhes, the Xiangs, and the Zhaos (Zhao Kuangyin);

Of course, there were also those who developed normally and passed down according to the regulations, such as the Fengs. But compared to those military merit aristocrats, and even compared to the several civil official families like Wei, Wang (Wang Pu), and Fan, they were more than a notch weaker.

Among the still-continuing families of the Twenty-Four Meritorious Ministers, the Fengs were now roughly on par only with the family of Wu Xingde, Duke of Geng—and the enfeoffment of Wu Xingde back then could be called Shizu's most casual stroke.

The Fengs' development over these years was also the most direct challenge to this lack of confidence. The Fengs' influence in the central government had become negligible. In the eyes of ordinary people, they still appeared prominent, but in the view of those who truly held power, they were not worth mentioning. And apart from Feng Jing, the Commandery Duke of Hejian, Feng Duan, the Prefect of Jiangling, was actually the highest-ranking Feng family member currently serving in office.

The various welcomes and receptions meticulously prepared by Feng Duan and his associates did not win Liu Wenpeng much favor, unlike that group of Chen Yaozuo in Hangzhou. Wine, women, and romantic scenery—Liu Wenpeng had already grown tired of such things in Jiangsu and Zhejiang.

Therefore, Liu Wenpeng was more interested in his imperial elder brother Liu Wenji. Beyond visiting him, he also specially sent people to investigate and inquire about the Jing Prince's performance in his post in Huguang.

The results made Liu Wenpeng very satisfied, because after Liu Wenji arrived in Jiangling, he had stayed at home nursing his illness the whole time—inspecting no territory, governing no affairs, managing no business, presenting an entirely helpless appearance.

Liu Wenji also specially apologized to Liu Wenpeng, hoping to be punished for his negligence and remissness, saying otherwise his conscience would not be at ease. To this, Liu Wenpeng naturally pardoned him with great magnanimity.

After meeting Liu Wenji, Liu Wenpeng set off northward with a good mood, taking a roundabout route eastward along the way to the Taikang Traveling Palace, for summer was approaching and it would be a fine place to escape the heat.

It was truly a waste of heaven's gifts—the Taikang Palace, situated on Mount Jigong, had consumed enormous amounts of manpower, wealth, and resources back then. Not only the Imperial Household Department, the Ministry of Works, and the Palace Construction Bureau, but the blood and sweat of the people of several surrounding prefectures had nearly been drained dry.

And since the Taikang Palace was completed, it had only been used during Shizu's final southern tour. For the past twenty-odd years, it had simply lain abandoned. Of course, it was not completely abandoned—every year the Imperial Household Department and local governments still invested certain resources for maintenance and repair, after all, it was the Son of Heaven's largest summer traveling palace. At the same time, those years of "abandonment" had also given the surrounding commoners a relatively long period of peace and tranquility.

Emperor Taizong, who had practiced frugality throughout the entire Yongxi era, resolutely refused to enjoy himself at Taikang Palace. This was also Liu Wenpeng's first time. And with the arrival of the imperial carriage, a great commotion of chickens flying and dogs jumping, of panic and flurry, was inevitable.

At the same time, after more than twenty years, a "re-commissioning" ceremony was held once again. Before this, an edict had already been sent to the capital, transferring two thousand palace attendants and court officials from both the inner and outer courts to take up residence in the Taikang Palace first, to prepare to serve the emperor.

Although comparing Liu Wenpeng with Emperor Shizu was truly disrespectful to Emperor Shizu, to be fair, even if Liu Wenpeng racked his brains to play at luxury, devise novelties, and hunt for the exotic, he still could not match a single grand move by Emperor Shizu.

At the same time, the gap in managing reputation was even more vast. In his later years, Shizu could not avoid extravagance, but among officials and the people alike, few dared to criticize or censure him—indeed, many even whitewashed and beautified his image.

At Taikang Palace, Liu Wenpeng spent an entire summer. It was not until autumn arrived that he set out back to the capital in mid-July of the seventh year of Pingkang—he still had to return to Luoyang in time for the Mid-Autumn grand celebration.

During the months of summer retreat at Taikang Palace, Liu Wenpeng had not been too comfortable. In the fifth month of summer, because he played too wildly, a great fire broke out, burning down the Yankang Hall within the traveling palace. Had firefighting measures not been taken promptly, the losses would have been even greater.

At the end of the sixth month, Liu Wenpeng's beloved Pure Consort Chen passed away (she came from an ordinary background, with outstanding looks and figure—Liu Wenpeng had snatched her from among the common folk into the palace).

However, the death of a favored consort did have an effect on Liu Wenpeng, but not a very great one. What truly connected to the empire's fate and the course of history was that Liu Wenpeng had picked up an extremely bad habit: taking drugs.

Because after more than a year of effort, he still had no offspring, Liu Wenpeng was anxious about it himself. For this reason, he specially sought out doctors and medicines, but the imperial physicians and national experts could only provide some nourishing and health-preserving prescriptions.

So Liu Wenpeng ordered people to find the famous Master Ziyang. As the legendary true disciple of Patriarch Chen Tuan, he ought to have some real skills—Liu Wenpeng had him refine elixirs.

And the Perfected Ziyang did not disappoint. The result was that while imperial princes and princesses were still nowhere in sight, Liu Wenpeng had opened the door to another world.

After a year-long imperial tour, Liu Wenpeng had played to his heart's content and also grown tired from traveling. After returning to Luoyang, he naturally needed to rest and recuperate, enjoying a rare period of quiet. He even began to inquire into state affairs—having been away so long, he actually did not have much confidence in his heart, fearing that those powerful figures at the center might overstep their authority.

During the year-plus of Liu Wenpeng's tour, the overall situation at court had remained relatively stable, but the underlying struggles and tugs-of-war had grown increasingly complex and intense.

Wang Dan, the Director of State Affairs whom Liu Wenpeng had forcibly elevated to his position, clearly could not command universal respect. In terms of control, he was far inferior to Zhang Qixian. This was only natural—after all, Zhang Qixian had come all the way through the Kaibao era, waded through water, charged through fire, and served as chancellor for many years; he possessed a certain degree of leadership ability.

Of course, Wang Dan neither compared himself with Zhang Qixian nor thought of controlling the overall situation—the second point was simply impossible. Compared with those nobles of pure pedigree, Wang Dan, a second-generation aristocrat, was more than a notch weaker in both seniority and merit. Small matters he could cover up, medium fires he could stabilize, but a great conflagration he simply could not suppress.

The reason the court situation could be maintained at a basic level of stability was more due to the mutual checks and balances among the various forces. At the same time, Wang Dan had self-awareness—he merely sat in the middle, coordinating as best he could, doing his utmost to ensure the normal functioning of government.

But clearly, such a situation, stumbling along as it was, could hardly be said to be sustainable for long—it conflicted with the empire's consistent tradition of "strongman politics." The "era of co-governance" that appeared in the fifth and sixth years of Pingkang was more like an experiment in a political model. If given enough time to be tested, perhaps it might truly explore more new things.

But this was clearly unrealistic. First, Emperor Liu Wenpeng would not remain so "well-behaved" forever, and second, the conflicts and contradictions among the powerful figures at the center kept accumulating with the passage of time—there would always come a moment of eruption.

Indeed, in the spring of the seventh year of Pingkang, one had already erupted: the conflict between Finance Commissioner Li Hang and Deputy Commissioner of Military Affairs Guo Liangping—also a contest between commoner bureaucrats and military merit aristocrats.

The course of events was very simple. Li Hang resolutely opposed the navy's enormous shipbuilding demands and frequent training plans. Guo Liangping intended to replace all of the Great Han's main naval warships within the next ten years, upgrading them entirely to gunboats.

Such a massive plan involved a sum that was simply astronomical. As the chief financial minister of the Great Han Empire, Li Hang firmly refused and strongly opposed it.

For Guo Liangping, however, this plan concerned the century-long strategy of the Great Han navy—it was the way to continue elevating the navy's status. How could he allow Li Hang, that pedantic scholar, to sabotage it?

What happened was that the two power-holders at the center sparked the most intense civil-military dispute in decades. Two old men nearing seventy, with heads full of white hair, argued until their faces were red and their noses were thick with anger. In his excitement, Guo Liangping nearly resorted to violence. Though he was dissuaded, he subjected Li Hang to many verbal insults, severely humiliating him.

But the result was that Li Hang lost face but gained substance. Guo Liangping's military talents were outstanding and his style was tough, but when it came to political struggle, he was far inferior to Li Hang. Combined with the disparity in their official powers, he quickly fell into a disadvantageous position.

Behind this, of course, there was also obstruction from a group of army aristocrats. To be honest, they were the most sensitive to Guo Liangping's "Twenty-Year Navy Plan." If Guo Liangping truly succeeded, wouldn't the navy turn the world upside down?

With another group of meritorious nobles exerting force, Li Hang naturally became the victor of this political struggle. However, had Guo Liangping truly lost? His plan for naval renewal and replacement was still carried out and achieved actual progress—only on a smaller scale, and with the timeline doubled. It is hard to say whether this was Guo Liangping's true goal all along.

After learning some of the little-known details of the "Li-Guo Dispute," Liu Wenpeng was overjoyed, his mood considerably lightened. If the ministers did not fight among themselves, how could he, the emperor, be at ease?

Emperor Liu Wenpeng's quiet period did not last long either. In the late autumn of the seventh year of Pingkang, another conflict erupted at court, this time with a different protagonist: between Emperor Liu Wenpeng and Finance Commissioner Li Hang.

The reason was that Liu Wenpeng wanted to build a summer traveling palace in the Western Garden of Luoyang, saying that Taikang Palace was too far away and running back and forth was too tiring. He had even already drawn up the construction plan—conscripting labor, manually digging out a pond and marsh, and following the example of Meng Chang of the Later Shu, who had built the "Crystal Palace" in Chengdu, to construct a waterborne traveling palace on the newly created artificial lake.

Setting aside other matters, the very fact that he was learning from Meng Chang showed what kind of nature this matter had. (Of course, the words of Meng Chang's "Edict of Admonition"—"Your salaries and emoluments are the people's flesh and blood; the common people are easy to oppress, but Heaven above is not easy to deceive"—are still carved on the walls and plaques of government offices in many circuits, prefectures, and counties of the Great Han Empire to this day.)

But unlike before, this time when building the traveling palace, Liu Wenpeng planned to use state finances—in simple terms, he intended to waste money and manpower on a grand scale. He had completely stopped pretending. The truth was that Liu Gui, the Director of the Imperial Household, had been complaining to him about having to keep spending his own "private funds"—after so long and so much, it truly pained him.

In response, Li Hang naturally offered frank remonstrance and resolutely opposed it. The court was thrown into an uproar, and no small number of upright and honest ministers stood on Li Hang's side.

Including Chancellors Kou Zhun and Xiang Minzhong, a large number of people submitted memorials one after another advising Liu Wenpeng, hoping he would abandon the idea.

Under such circumstances, matters often develop in the opposite direction. As it turned out, when Liu Wenpeng saw that Li Hang had stirred up such a great wave of opposition against him, he was both shocked and furious. Old grievances and new resentments surged up together, and at his command, the emperor's faction lunged at Li Hang one after another. And so Li Hang—a veteran minister of three reigns, the Yongxi chancellor—was dismissed from his post.

Li Hang's dismissal had a tremendous impact on the Great Han Empire. Looking from this point onward, it could be said to be even more serious than Liu Ai and Zhang Qixian being driven out of the court.

Because once this happened, it meant that the balance between the commoner-official faction and the aristocratic-official bloc in the empire's central court was thoroughly broken—at least within the Hall of State Affairs, the balance of power was lost.

The successor to the Finance Commissioner was Minister of War Xiang Deming. On this matter, Liu Wenpeng, who had just brought Li Hang down, did not dare defy the will of the assembled ministers. The remaining leaders of the commoner-official faction in the Hall of State Affairs turned out to be just four men: Xiang Minzhong, Kou Zhun, Xu Shilian, and Wang Qinruo. To be fair, even if these four were tied together, they still couldn't match the prestige and influence Li Hang had held among commoner officials in the seventh year of Pingkang.

But for Emperor Liu Wenpeng, he simply couldn't afford to care about that anymore. At least he had won his struggle against Li Hang—though this victory was not worth rejoicing over in the slightest. From the empire's perspective, there was even a trace of sorrow in it.

At the same time, Liu Wenpeng's "floating palace project" was able to proceed smoothly. In the winter of the seventh year of Pingkang, tens of thousands of laborers had already entered the Western Park and, under strict management, begun excavation work.

In the summer of the eighth year of Pingkang (1014), Emperor Liu Wenpeng, restless from inactivity, stirred up trouble again. This time he chose to make a northern tour—he wanted to go hunting on the grasslands of Monan. Of course, the stated purpose couldn't be so blunt. The public announcement was that he was making a northern inspection tour of Hedong, offering sacrifices to heaven at Taiyuan, the place where the dynasty had risen, and taking the opportunity to go to the grasslands to mediate the conflict between the Khitan of Mobei and the Naiman regime, bringing peace to the lands beyond the northern frontier.

Over the past years, the situation in Mobei had never been entirely peaceful. The Naiman tribe, under the rule of Sun Khan Liu Jin (said to be the illegitimate son of Prince Wei Liu Min), had grown ever stronger, and after absorbing Han and Khitan culture, had formed a basic governmental structure.

In the fourth year of Pingkang, Liu Jin formally proclaimed himself king, naming his state "Jin." After assuming the title of king, the Naiman began dealing with the Great Han as a vassal state, and immediately sent envoys south to submit to the court, hoping to receive imperial recognition and rewards. Liu Wenpeng, who had only recently taken personal rule, was delighted by this submission and gladly approved the request, bestowing a golden charter and enfeoffing Liu Jin as King of Jin.

There were some in the court who opposed it at the time, but not many people took this miscellaneous barbarian regime of fewer than five hundred thousand people seriously.

After being proclaimed king, Liu Jin began leading his "Jin state" to continue expanding eastward, attacking Khitan settlements, seizing pasture and water, and plundering tribal people.

With the rise of the "Jin state," the Khitan's reputation as the overlord of Mobei began to waver. In the face of such provocations, they naturally mustered troops to resist. The Jin state's strength lay in the savage vigor of a new power, while the Khitan's lay in the advancement of their civilization. On paper alone, the Khitan still held an absolute advantage.

However, even in the era of Yelu Xian the Khitan had been unable to completely eradicate the Naiman threat (of course, the Great Han had been playing the role of troublemaker behind the scenes back then), let alone now.

The two sides fought and stopped, stopping and fighting, with scarcely a year passing without war. The turmoil in Mobei had already begun to affect the peace of Shanyang in the Great Han.

The former chancellor Wang Xuanzhen had been pushed out to serve as pacification commissioner in Monan, nominally to soothe the northern frontier. Judging from later developments, it was hard to say whether this was foresight or pure coincidence.

In recent years, Mobei was like a great poison cauldron, with two poison insects named "Jin" and "Khitan"—and perhaps also the Mengwu Shiwei people who kept drifting southward.

They fought, they evolved, they eliminated each other—just like the story that had repeated itself on the grasslands for the past thousand years.

By the seventh year of Pingkang, the Khitan and the Jin state had fought another great battle, deploying a combined force of over one hundred thousand mounted archers. A war of such scale was enough to draw the Great Han's attention, and the empire was indeed shaken.

The Great Han Empire had enjoyed decades of peace, but in the bitter cold beyond the northern frontier, the barbarian tribes were once again gathering, developing, and growing strong.

Emperor Liu Wenpeng's journey north was a grand spectacle. The imperial army, along with the northern border garrisons and militia, assembled one hundred thousand men as escort. There was no choice—they dared not be careless. The Bureau of Military Affairs had to hold its nose and deploy troops to guarantee the emperor's safety, with Guo Yi serving as Commander-in-Chief of the field headquarters, commanding the entire force.

Suffice it to say, Liu Wenpeng really did just go hunting. Had he harbored the slightest thought of a northern campaign, no one could say what might have happened—the history of the Great Han Empire might have turned a new page entirely. Throughout the task of escorting Liu Wenpeng, Guo Yi, this battle-hardened old general, kept his heart suspended in anxiety, and several strands of white hair appeared on his head.

Judging from the results, Liu Wenpeng's northern tour did achieve some effect—at the very least, it served to "halt the spears."

Liu Wenpeng set up his field headquarters at Baishuiluo in Monan and sent envoys inviting the two kings to come pay homage. With one hundred thousand Han army troops marching north, and perhaps even more behind them, both the Khitan and the Jin state could hardly avoid being "startled." As nominal vassals, after much deliberation, the two kings both came south one after another and sat down at the negotiating table set by the Great Han emperor.

Under Liu Wenpeng's supervision, the two sides ultimately reached a reconciliation, agreeing to cease hostilities, stop fighting, and no longer attack each other. At the same time, both sides cited their heavy war losses and requested aid from the court. Liu Wenpeng generously bestowed money, silk, grain, salt, and tea, and also approved the two states' request to expand border trade.

Liu Wenpeng believed the two states had been forced to lay down arms and reconcile under the awe of imperial might. In reality, however, both states had suffered grievous losses in their years of conflict and, following the natural pattern, were about to enter a period of dormancy and recovery.

After completing this "Baishui Conference," Liu Wenpeng triumphantly "returned in victory." And after having close contact with Liu Wenpeng, the emperor of the Great Han, King of Jin Liu Jin uttered this lament on his journey back north: "I once personally paid homage to Emperor Taizong. His majesty was like a heavenly being, inspiring awe and submission—no one dared harbor disloyal thoughts. Yet even as wise and brilliant an emperor as Taizong entrusted his legacy to the wrong person. If the Great Han emperor is like this, then I could be one too."

Unaware that he was being looked down upon—to speak frankly, Liu Wenpeng had thrown his face away in the barbarian lands beyond the northern frontier this time.

And the northern tour of the eighth year of Pingkang was also Liu Wenpeng's last bout of troublemaking, because he could no longer stir up trouble. On the journey back south, weak and short of breath, he caught a chill.

After a long and arduous journey, he finally returned to Luoyang in early winter of that year, managing to make it back to the palace—not dying in a foreign land.

However, the reason accidents are called accidents is that they always come suddenly. On the nineteenth day of the eleventh month of winter in the eighth year of Pingkang, Liu Wenpeng, whose health had been improving, inspected the construction site of the "Western Park Crystal Palace Project." That very night, in the Guansheng Hall of the Shangyang Palace, he died without warning, bringing his imperial career to a complete end. He had reigned for eight years, at the age of twenty-eight.