Chapter 1434: Imperial Father, Another Dozen Little Brothers, Please (Begging for Monthly Tickets, Begging for

Pukou, the West River Harbor docks.

Once again it was time for fathers and sons, brothers and kin, to part in grief. The weather was still quite cold, and goose-feather snow drifted down in swirling flurries. Amid the wind and snow, the Son of Heaven of the Great Ming, Zhu Cilang; the Chongzhen Retired Emperor, Zhu Youjian; the Fortune Crown Prince, Zhu Hexing; the Retired Emperor's consort, Lady Hu; the Crown Princess, Ding Yuying; and sixty or seventy of the Retired Emperor's older sons were at the docks seeing off the Commandery Prince of Luoshan, Zhu Cixuan, who was about to travel far.

The Commandery Prince of Luoshan was not wearing his commandery-prince robes, but rather a plain white gown, with a three-foot blade hung at his sash. His handsome face bore an added touch of world-weariness and tragic resolve, so that he looked less like a Great Ming commandery prince who idled about in pleasure, and more like... like what?

Zhu Cilang looked at his brother, who seemed on the verge of sacrificing himself for righteousness, and before he could recall whom the boy resembled, the farewell song began to ring out.

"The wind sighs and sighs, the Yi River runs cold; the brave man goes forth, never to return! He probes the tiger's den, he enters the dragon's palace; he lifts his face to heaven and breathes out, forming a white rainbow..."

Wasn't this the "Song of the Yi River"? The moment Zhu Cilang heard it, he knew something was wrong. Wasn't this cursing his own brother? How could he "never return"? Three hundred fifty thousand taels, and after only two uses he was never to return? Dream on!

At that thought, the Zhu Emperor whipped his head around and saw Kou Baimen of the Bureau of Music, leading several singing girls in strumming the zither and singing aloud.

"Baimen," Zhu Cilang roared, "who told you to sing the 'Song of the Yi River'?"

Kou Baimen shuddered at Zhu Cilang's roar and dared not sing on. Then, with a look of utter bafflement, she turned her eyes to the Chongzhen Retired Emperor.

"We told her to sing it!" said the Chongzhen Retired Emperor, looking thoroughly displeased. "Eldest, is the place your ninth brother goes to this time not a tiger's den and dragon's palace?"

"Li Dingguo is a loyal subject of our Great Ming!" Zhu Cilang said with great certainty. "Ninth Brother will be in no danger going to him."

"Hmph!" Chongzhen snorted. "If Li Dingguo is a loyal subject of the Great Ming, then is there any disloyal subject left under heaven?"

Put that way, if Li Dingguo were not a loyal subject of the Great Ming, then did the Great Ming have any loyal subjects left?

Zhu Cilang answered with a cold laugh of his own, then turned to the "Jing Ke" version of Zhu Cixuan and said, "Ninth Brother, our father is joking with you. Don't take it to heart. When it comes to distinguishing the loyal from the treacherous, you must trust your elder brother, We. We have the keen eye to recognize loyal subjects! And even if they are not loyal subjects, We can still whip them into loyal subjects! So rest assured, on this journey to Duogan, you will not fail to return!"

Zhu Cixuan sighed and said with a bitter smile, "How could your younger brother not trust the words of the Imperial Elder Brother? It is only that once I depart, the road stretches ten thousand li, and I know not when I may return. Imperial Father is growing old, and everything will rest upon Imperial Elder Brother and all our brothers..."

At that point, Zhu Cixuan raised his eyes and looked at that great crowd of brothers — what was there even to say? The Retired Emperor had more than a hundred sons! What did it matter if one of them was missing?

Zhu Cilang understood what Zhu Cixuan meant. He nodded and said with a smile, "Go with an easy heart. Our father simply has so many sons that they line up and take turns performing filial duty — one a day, and it takes four months to complete a full round! Hurry along on your journey, and in four months you may well be back already."

At these words, Chongzhen gave another cold snort — what sort of thing was this, one son a day taking turns at filial duty? Not one of these sons had ever come to his bedside to perform filial duty... In all these years, those who had attended him at his bedside had only ever been beautiful women, never filial sons!

Zhu Cixuan looked at his unreliable father, then at his utterly outrageous elder brother, then at his mother, who was already weeping until her face was streaked with tears, and then at the great crowd of brothers who were an irritation just to look at. In the end, he could only sigh, kneel, and kowtow to Chongzhen, to Consort Hu, and to the "brother-swindling demon" Zhu Emperor. Then he turned and boarded a large river vessel driven by both oars and sail, and began yet another long journey.

Watching the river vessel slowly pull away from the dock, Zhu Cilang turned back to Chongzhen and said, "Imperial Father, ride back in your son's carriage. Your son has some things he wishes to discuss with you."

After Zhu Cilang said this, he cast a solicitous glance over the crowd of brothers gathered at the dock to see off Zhu Cixuan. Chongzhen understood at once — a deal was about to come knocking!

Climbing into the carriage together with the father-and-son pair of Zhu Youjian and Zhu Cilang were also the Crown Prince Zhu Hexing and the Crown Princess Ding Yuying. The Zhu Emperor's carriage had been specially custom-built by Shen Carriages of Shanghai. Its interior was extremely spacious; besides two rows of seats facing each other, a row of seats had also been installed sideways along the left side of the carriage interior.

So now the Zhu Emperor and Chongzhen sat facing each other, while Zhu Hexing and Ding Yuying sat side by side on that sideways row of seats.

At the sight of his grandson and granddaughter-in-law, the Chongzhen Retired Emperor could not help frowning — why had these two come along? Could it be that they were the "buyers"?

As the carriage rumbled into motion, Zhu Cilang pointed out the carriage window at the little brothers lined up on the dock, bowing with clasped hands toward the carriage, and said to the Chongzhen Retired Emperor, "Imperial Father, you truly have a great many sons!"

Chongzhen smiled. "Many sons, many blessings. In the first half of my life I toiled for the state and the people; in the latter half, I have worried myself over you younger generations."

"Imperial Grandfather," Ding Yuying put in at this point, "most of my young uncles are still not betrothed. How do you intend to settle their lifelong affairs?"

How do I intend to settle them? Chongzhen grew angry the moment he heard this. This was your father-in-law's business — how could it be shoved onto me, a Retired Emperor?

Zhu Hexing then added another line: "Indeed. There are only so many students in the Jinling Girls' School — not enough to go around among all my uncles."

How could there not be enough? Chongzhen thought to himself: We have only a hundred-odd sons, while the first class of Jinling Girls' University alone had over two hundred students. How could there possibly not be enough? The plain truth is that your father doesn't want to find good wives for his younger brothers!

The first class of Jinling Girls' University would graduate the next year, and of the more than two hundred girls in it, virtually all already had betrothals — more than half had already become mothers! Yet among the Chongzhen Emperor's sons, only the Rent-Collecting Prince had managed to marry a university girl, Luo Xiaohe. All the others could only look on with envy. On the other hand, a dozen or so of the Chongzhen Emperor's grandsons — all sons of Zhu Cilang, Zhu Cijiong, and Zhu Cizhao — had won lovely brides from Jinling Girls' University.

Now the second-round enrollment of Jinling Girls' University was proceeding at full speed. The preliminary examinations were already over, and they were only waiting to hold the second-round examinations.

Chongzhen had already inquired with the Rent-Collecting Prince, who was in charge of the matter, and learned that beginning in the twenty-fifth year of Hongxing, Jinling Girls' University would enroll students every year, though the number would not be as high as two hundred, but only one hundred. And for this year's enrollment, the twenty-fifth year of Hongxing, the Zhu Emperor would personally take part — he wanted to select a secondary consort for Zhu Hexing!

Ding Yuying's "protection period" would soon expire, and she was about to face a true challenge!

And the Chongzhen Emperor naturally had no intention of letting this opportunity slip by either. He hoped his sons could gain something from the second class of the Girls' University. As sons of the Retired Emperor and commandery princes, they would of course never lack for wives. But finding a satisfactory wife was no easy matter. Because Zhu Cilang, as the elder brother, was simply too much of a swindler — unwilling to properly arrange things for his brothers, giving them only three thousand mu of land plus a shabby princely mansion. It was a bit of a case of aiming neither high enough nor low enough!

Some of them who were willing to work hard — the Rent-Collecting Prince Zhu Cixuan, for instance — naturally had nothing to worry about. The man had made something of himself: a top student of the Imperial Academy and an elite in the rent-collecting profession, so of course he would never lack for good matches.

But most of Chongzhen's sons were still good-for-nothings — princes who merely ate, waited to die, and idled about. Would the families of those Jinling Girls' University students think much of them?

At that thought, he shot a glance at Zhu Cilang and probed, "Eldest, are you thinking of helping your brothers find wives?"

Zhu Cilang smiled. "Imperial Father, marriage is a matter of the parents' command. You are their father; I am only their elder brother!"

The parents' command? Chongzhen thought to himself: Was your taking of Wu Sanmei also by the parents' command?

"Eldest," Chongzhen said — he had by now learned to mask his own thoughts — with a chuckle, "We are their birth father, and you are their sovereign father. Some of them have already been enfeoffed as commandery princes, and some have not, but in the end they all will be! You, as their sovereign father, must grant them imperial marriages!"

Zhu Cilang nodded with a smile. "Imperial Father, how about twelve to start?"

"Twelve?" Chongzhen's face lit up at once. "You'll grant imperial marriages to all of them?"

"Exactly!" Zhu Cilang nodded. "Imperial marriages for all of them!"

"Then the expenses for twelve commandery princes' weddings..."

Zhu Cilang smiled and patted his chest. "All on your son!"

(End of Chapter)