Chapter 5: Great Ming, Your Emperor Has Arrived!

The seventh year of Tianqi, twenty-third day of the eighth month, the hour of the tiger.

Dawn had not yet broken, but the Duke of Ying's residence was already ablaze with lamps and candles.

Zhang Weixian sat upright before the mirror, allowing four or five maidservants to wash, groom, and dress him.

Green salt to brush the teeth, fragrant broth to cleanse the face — not even a single strand of hair was left out of place.

To one side, his son Zhang Zhiji stood waiting in silence, hands hanging respectfully.

Zhang Zhiji was in his twenties, a heroic spirit shining through his brow.

At last, everything was properly arranged.

Zhang Weixian waved his hand, and the maidservants withdrew without a sound.

He did not rise at once, but slowly leaned back into the reclining chair spread with a white tiger pelt, letting out a satisfied groan.

Nothing to be done — a man grows old, his bones brittle; even sitting leaves him aching all over.

"The loose ends — all cleaned up?" He kept his eyes shut, his voice flat, betraying neither pleasure nor anger.

"To answer Father, all clean," Zhang Zhiji replied respectfully.

"The men from the Capital Camps and the Troops and Horses Office have all been pulled back. They were all old hands of the household — tight-lipped and reliable."

Zhang Weixian gave an "Mm" and said nothing more.

Only after a long pause did he speak again. "What do you make of Prince Xin?"

At the mention of Prince Xin, Zhang Zhiji's spirits visibly lifted, and a barely suppressed excitement crept into his voice.

"Father, when His Highness Prince Xin was still in his princely residence, he was already known for his rectitude and has always detested the eunuch faction."

"Now that he has ascended the throne, he will surely sweep out the treacherous sycophants at court, clear the jade firmament, and stitch this tattered and threadbare realm back together!"

Zhang Weixian slowly opened his eyes, casting his son a faint glance from those murky pupils.

"Recite the family precepts."

The excitement on Zhang Zhiji's face froze in an instant. He opened his mouth, but in the end, he could only lower his head in unwilling resignation and recite in a mosquito-whisper voice:

"Only loyalty to the sovereign; no faction, no strife. Guard the land, give peace to the people; pass down the house, extend its blessings."

He had recited this passage since childhood, long since committed to heart.

Yet today, every word seemed to weigh a thousand catties, crushing the breath from his lungs.

Watching the unwilling look on his son's face, Zhang Weixian sighed inwardly.

He patted the embroidered stool beside him, gesturing for his son to sit.

"Zhiji, your father knows your blood has not yet cooled, that you carry the realm in your heart."

Gazing at this sole sprout of the Zhang family, the son of his old age, Zhang Weixian could not help softening his tone a little.

"But look at the twenty-five ducal houses founded when our Great Ming was established — how many of them, tell me, still remain today?"

"The emperors of the Zhu family have always been cold-hearted and stingy with grace. The Son of Heaven's mind is unfathomable, the sacred will an abyss. A subject must know when to advance and when to retreat, protect himself with prudence — only then can he finish well as he began."

"But Father!" Zhang Zhiji stood stubbornly in place, and the words he had held back for days came pouring out in a torrent.

"The realm has rotted to this point — even the Sage's temples now house those filthy living shrines! We ennobled houses have received the state's grace for generations — how can we simply sit by and do nothing!"

"Besides, your son has heard that when His Highness Prince Xin learned of the Great Deceased Emperor's passing, his grief was so extreme he nearly fainted dead away. How could a man of such deep feeling and loyalty be cold-hearted and stingy with grace?"

"What's more, he was so hard-pressed by Wei Zhongxian that he did not even have a proper princely residence. It was our family who promptly sent over a mansion — otherwise he would have had nowhere to live. That kindness alone, surely he must remember it?"

Zhang Zhiji's long speech came rushing at him — clearly these thoughts had been churning in his mind for quite some time.

"Foolish boy." At these words, Zhang Weixian slowly sat up from the reclining chair.

"Even if Prince Xin does value loyalty, what of Prince Xin's descendants?"

"Shize is only three this year. When he is grown, do you mean to make him gamble on the temperament of the next emperor?"

Zhang Shize was Zhang Zhiji's eldest son — these words struck him like a mortal blow.

Zhang Zhiji was instantly speechless, his face turning ashen white.

Zhang Weixian looked at him and continued.

"The realm's ills — let those civil officials who have read the books of the sages rack their brains over them."

"As for us ennobled houses, ever since Tumu, apart from performing rites and offering sacrifices on behalf of the throne, or drudging through the rotations in the Five Armies, what else can we even do?"

"There is nothing to be done..."

With that, he rose, patted his son on the shoulder, said no more, and turned to walk out.

The hot blood still churning in his chest, Zhang Zhiji suddenly cried out in unwilling protest:

"If everything is as you say, Father, then why did we help His Highness Prince Xin spread those rumors?"

Zhang Weixian's receding figure paused ever so slightly. A moment later, without turning back or answering, he walked straight away — only now the old sexagenarian seemed somewhat stooped.

At the same time, in a side hall of Wenhua Hall.

Zhu Youjian was expressionlessly gnawing on his second wheat cake.

So hard. So awful.

He swore that as soon as Zhou Yu entered the palace,

the very first thing he would do was send her to the imperial kitchens to properly learn how to leaven dough.

After chewing down the last bite, he brushed the crumbs from his hands and called out loudly: "Someone — dress me."

The hour of the rabbit had arrived. The final procedure before the enthronement ceremony — the Three Declinations and Three Yieldings — was about to begin.

Before long, he had changed into a plain white mourning robe and, guided by the palace attendants, arrived at the main hall of Wenhua Hall.

Outside the hall, a sea of people had long since gathered.

Civil and military officials, ennobled lords and imperial kinsmen, venerable elders and local gentry, even representatives elected by the capital's commoners — all knelt in a dense black mass, stretching from the vermilion steps all the way out to the plaza beyond the hall.

At the sight of Prince Xin emerging, the officials of the Court of State Ceremonial raised their voices in a ringing chant. At once, every person there pressed their foreheads to the ground, and a mountain-roar of acclamation surged straight into the clouds.

"Your subjects humbly beseech His Highness Prince Xin to follow Heaven and answer the people's will — to assume the imperial throne!"

Zhu Youjian stood atop the crimson steps, gazing down at the vast sea of heads below, his heart surging with boundless ambition.

He drew a deep breath, steadied the excitement within, and kept his face a mask of solemn grief.

Zhang Weixian, Duke of Ying, stepped forward at the head of the assembly and raised high the first petition urging enthronement.

Zhu Youjian listened to the lengthy parallel prose without the slightest stir of emotion. Only when the recitation ended did he speak, in the mournful tone he had rehearsed, deliberately spacing each word:

"I have perused your words and see fully your heartfelt concern for the realm. Yet my Imperial Brother is newly departed, and my grief is still raw. How could I bear to hear talk of succeeding to the great inheritance so soon? The request is denied."

With that, he turned and re-entered the hall.

The hundred officials made obeisance again, and petitioned a second time.

The second petition urging enthronement was presented by Huang Liji, the Chief Grand Secretary.

Zhu Youjian emerged once more, his face still a picture of sorrow, but his voice now hoarser:

"Your words, out of concern for the ancestral temples and the altars of the state, are earnest and heartfelt. Yet reading them only deepens my grief. How could I bear to ascend the great throne so hastily? The request is denied."

The hundred officials kowtowed a third time, and petitioned a third time.

This time, all the representatives cried out in unison, their voices shaking the very heavens.

Zhu Youjian walked out of the great hall for the third time. He looked around at the crowd, tears glinting in his eyes, and remained silent for a long while. At last, as if steeling himself to an immense resolution, he gave a long sigh:

"You have joined your voices in petition, again and yet again, and your loyal sincerity is known to me. The celestial throne is of the utmost gravity and truly cannot long stand vacant. With the late Emperor's testamentary charge upon my person, I dare not obstinately refuse and decline. I reluctantly accede to your request."

"Long live His Majesty! Long live! Long live for ten thousand years!"

Amid the mountain-roaring, sea-roaring acclamations, Zhu Youjian slowly turned and walked back into the hall.

Next, he had to settle the accession edict and the reign title with the Grand Secretariat ministers.

A delicate-featured Junior Compiler from the Hanlin Academy stood in the hall and sonorously read out the already-drafted edict.

"By the Mandate of Heaven, the Emperor decrees: …"

Long-winded and tedious.

Zhu Youjian listened attentively to a few items, then grew drowsy — preferential treatment for the imperial clansmen, reduction and remission of taxes, a general amnesty…

All trivial details.

Take the tax remission, for example: the targeted group was "those from before the first year of Tianqi," "still uncollected," and "genuinely without the means to pay" — those could be forgiven.

Truly excellent. Whatever. He could hardly start arbitrarily altering these edicts anyway.

He had not yet conducted a thorough investigation of this dynasty.

He might not be able to make the right decisions.

And even if he made the right decisions, they might not be correctly implemented…

It was not until near the very end that his interest was finally piqued.

"… The mandate renews itself in splendor; felicity attends the new beginning."

Zhu Youjian's eyebrows lifted slightly; he felt a flicker of surprise.

What did the eunuch faction mean by writing that line? Were they not afraid he would purge them all?

He shook his head inwardly. It was probably just boilerplate Ming rhetoric copied out of the accession edicts of the Taichang or Tianqi eras.

The Junior Compiler finished reading the edict word by word. Zhu Youjian did not alter a single character.

He passed this edict — containing as many as fifty "new policy measures" — cleanly and decisively.

In any case, once he had ascended the throne, taken power, and consolidated his foundations, he would naturally issue a great edict that would truly shake the realm!

With the edict settled, only the reign title remained.

Huang Liji presented a tray bearing four sheets of yellow paper, each inscribed with a proposed reign title: Yongchang, Shaoqing, Xianning, Chongzhen.

Zhu Youjian's gaze swept over them and finally came to rest on the two characters "Yongchang."

His heart, for no reason at all, gave a violent leap.

He recognized this reign title, of course.

Just seventeen years from now, that man called Li Zicheng would use this very reign title to proclaim himself Emperor in Xi'an, with the dynastic name of Dashun.

The first year of Yongchang would be the seventeenth year of Chongzhen!

And now, it lay quietly before him, as if a fork in the road, leading to two utterly different rivers of history.

A thought, like a flash of lightning, streaked through his mind and grew wildly.

Chongzhen… Chongzhen…

Zhu Youjian silently repeated the name, his mind in violent flux.

Why not let history change right here? — Yes, why not?!

Heaven's mandate shines bright. Since I am here, am I meant to write someone else's story?

What Heaven bestows and you refuse, you will suffer the consequences; when the time comes and you do not act, you will bring disaster upon yourself!

Is this Heaven-mandated charge not precisely mine to shoulder?

He raised his hand; his fingertips trembled slightly from excitement.

But the moment it descended, it was utterly resolute, pointing steadily at the yellow paper bearing the characters "Yongchang."

"This one, then."

His voice quavered slightly, yet carried an unquestionable finality.

The Grand Secretariat ministers in the hall paused briefly, as if surprised the new sovereign had decided so quickly, but they thought little of it, taking it as an ordinary auspicious selection, and bowed in assent one after another.

"Your subjects obey the decree."

They did not know that this young heir-apparent, his face now as placid as a still lake, had thunder crashing within his chest.

They knew nothing at all.

History, at this moment, had already been utterly changed!

The master of ceremonies stepped forward and solemnly put away the yellow paper inscribed with "Yongchang."

From this day forward, the Great Ming would have no Chongzhen.

Even if, seventeen years hence, the Divine Land were to sink once more, what the histories would record would only be the Great Ming ending in — the seventeenth year of Yongchang!

The assembled Grand Secretaries bowed and took their leave.

In the vast, empty hall, the silence was so profound he could hear his own heartbeat — each beat heavy and forceful, like a war drum.

The surging emotion in his chest had yet to subside. That heroic spirit of shaping the realm and reversing the course of fate had now transformed into a scorching current, rushing through every limb and bone in his body.

He strode to the window, pushed it open, and gazed toward the horizon.

The setting sun was slowly descending, staining the entire sky a magnificent blood-red.

Zhu Youjian reached out his hand toward that sinking sun and made a grasping motion in the empty air.

As if he were taking the entire realm into his palm.

In his eyes, reflecting the blazing sunset clouds that filled the sky, there flickered a light unlike anything seen before.

A voice roared from the deepest depths of his heart.

Great Ming — your Emperor has arrived!