Chapter 1458: The Eight-Faced Vajra Soft-Rice Prince

"Husband, what you're saying isn't right at all!" Li Yue'e blinked her eyes, but her long, dark eyebrows slowly knitted together. "You're the Ming Emperor's own younger brother, a true scion of the imperial house, born to endless wealth and glory — what need do you have for me to bring you prosperity?"

Hearing his wife's words, Zhu Cihuan felt a surge of guilt. What endless wealth and glory did he have? If he truly had it, would he have come to this godforsaken place, Songpan Guard, to get mixed up with a female roving bandit like you?

Li Yue'e looked at her silent husband, then gently leaned against him and said softly, "Actually, it's not that I bring you prosperity — it's you, husband, who bring prosperity to your wife! Without you, my father has three sons of his own; there's no way he'd ever have given me twelve thousand households!"

Zhu Cihuan's face creased slightly. How is it that they were given to you? Wasn't it my elder brother who forced your father to give me twelve thousand households?

"Wife," Zhu Cihuan probed, "you're a woman — can those twelve thousand households really obey you?"

"Why couldn't they?" Li Yue'e smiled. "Your brother's imperial edict said he'd give me one million taels of reward silver. You don't know how hard these past two years have been for our Li family army. Two hundred thousand men, bottled up in the mountains by your brother — truly bitter beyond words. When they see silver, won't their eyes go red?"

What? That one million taels is for you? Zhu Cihuan thought to himself: That's for me! How did you snatch it away with a single sentence?

Seeing her husband silent, Li Yue'e took it as consent and went on: "With this one million taels, never mind the twelve thousand households given to me — even Li Yuan's five thousand households could be won over. My father holds forty thousand households in all. With seventeen thousand supporting me, I'll naturally be the leader of the Li family army!"

"Even my three elder brothers can be bought. When the time comes, as long as your brother gives me another million, everyone high and low can be squared away. And my father can go to Nanjing to live out his old age in peace!"

So there's nothing for me in all this? Zhu Cihuan was a bit displeased, his brow furrowing tighter and tighter.

Li Yue'e seemed to know her husband's thoughts and said gently, "Husband, it's not that I want to step forward as leader of the Li family army — it's that the whole army, high and low, will never accept a Zhu-family prince as their lord!"

"They won't accept this prince?" Zhu Cihuan asked. "Why not?"

"Isn't it obvious?" Li Yue'e laughed. "We grew up training in martial arts to fight the Zhu family. Now that the Zhu family has beaten us, and we're supposed to set up a Zhu-family Commandery Prince as our lord — who could accept that willingly?"

Zhu Cihuan looked at the wife in his arms. "Then — then aren't you also a daughter-in-law of the Zhu family?"

Li Yue'e said with a smile, "I married you to find a way for everyone to survive! Everyone below owes me an enormous debt — a life-saving debt. If they still won't submit to me, they'd have no face to call themselves heroes."

She made it sound easy, but truly securing the position of Li family army leader would take considerable effort and no small amount of maneuvering. And this Li Yue'e happened to have exactly such skill and cunning! Moreover, after spending some time with Zhu Cihuan, she had already discovered that this "Eight-Faced Vajra Prince" was something of a straw man, and on top of that he bore the surname Zhu — he probably couldn't handle all the demons and monsters throughout the Li family army!

At this point, Li Yue'e lifted her face and glanced at Zhu Cihuan, taking in the expression of the "Eight-Faced Vajra Prince" — this "Eight-Faced Vajra Prince" wore all his thoughts on his face; one look and you knew everything.

So Li Yue'e switched to a coquettish voice: "My prince, I am, after all, your woman. If I lead the Li family army, isn't that the same as you leading it? Once we reach the Western Regions and conquer a realm, the throne of a nation will surely be yours. I'll be content to serve as your queen and assist you. Then you'll hold the realm in your grasp and a beauty in your arms!"

A beauty in his arms — Zhu Cihuan broke into a grin and nodded. "You're right. You leading the Li family army and me leading it are one and the same!"

Seeing that her husband had been sweet-talked again, Li Yue'e continued in her wheedling tone: "My prince, His Imperial Majesty has granted me one million taels of silver and personally allotted me twelve thousand households. Shouldn't I write a memorial of gratitude to send to Nanjing?"

"Right, right, you should write a memorial of gratitude." As he spoke, Zhu Cihuan felt something was off. "Wife, did you just say 'me' or 'us'?"

"Me!" Li Yue'e said. "His Imperial Majesty allotted twelve thousand households to me — that's twelve thousand military households, enough to field an entire division of troops! I am the commander of a division. Shouldn't I have the right to submit memorials directly to the throne?"

Direct memorial privilege meant that a Ming military commander could send memorials straight to the Ming Emperor, bypassing the Marshal's Office and the Grand Secretariat. Governors-General and Commanders-in-Chief of armies under the Marshal's Office and the Ministry of War did not have this privilege; only certain frontier commanders whom Zhu Cilang trusted could memorialize directly.

And the three Snow Region feudatories — Li Dingguo, Liu Wenxiu, and Ai Nengqi — had no right to memorialize directly. Li Yue'e's desire for direct memorial privilege was not only to become the Li family army's commander recognized by the Ming Emperor, but also to bypass her own husband and establish a direct channel of communication with Zhu Cilang. With this power, the Eight-Faced Vajra Prince would fall completely into Li Yue'e's palm!

The "Eight-Faced Vajra Prince" was fine in every way, except he was a bit lecherous! If he wasn't kept firmly under control, he'd turn into another Chongzhen Retired Emperor.

"That works!" Zhu Cihuan, nowhere near as scheming as his wife, nodded on the spot. "The two of us will memorialize separately!"

It seemed this Eight-Faced Vajra Prince had no idea of the value of direct memorial privilege, and besides, he didn't like writing memorials to his brother Zhu Cilang, because he often got scolded, and often a memorial would sink like a stone into the sea, never to be heard from again.

Anxi, Kashgar.

On the great grasslands at the foot of the Tianshan Mountains, the most comfortable climate of the year and the richest bounty of the land were welcoming honored guests from Yingtian Prefecture. Across the green steppe were scattered at least two thousand Mongol yurts, and flocks of sheep like white clouds drifted over the great grassland. The whole world between heaven and earth looked like a painting of perfect beauty.

Along the grasslands by the Yarkand River moved a rather enormous caravan. One after another, horse-drawn wagons were packed to the brim with goods. Around the caravan rode black-clad horsemen, flintlock rifles slung on their backs, looking fierce and guarding the train. Leading the way was a procession in red ceremonial robes, bearing phoenix banners symbolizing a Ming Princess or Commandery Princess, riding tall horses, sweeping grandly forward along the road.

In the middle of the great caravan were a dozen or so horse-drawn carriages and palanquins. Among them was one especially tall four-wheeled carriage, like a little house, drawn by eight enormous foreign horses — very eye-catching. The Ming Snow Mountain Commandery Princess Zhu A'nu, formerly Fan A'nu, was sitting in this enormous carriage at that moment, wiping tears with one hand while bent over a swaying table writing a letter — writing to Zhu Cilang, ten thousand li away!

Between her and Zhu Cilang there was indeed something of "deep affection between master and slave." After leaving the borders of Yingtian Prefecture, at every post station she wrote a letter to the Zhu Emperor, and she also received handwritten replies from him. This treatment was truly unique in the entire Ming dynasty — even the lucky Crown Prince and Crown Princess Ding Yuying could not correspond with the Zhu Emperor so frequently. After all, Zhu Cilang was an emperor, lofty and solitary; his own children could not always stay by his side, yet A'nu, a mere servant girl, could be inseparable from him.

It was no exaggeration to say that Zhu Cilang had watched A'nu grow up!

But A'nu, now become Zhu A'nu, wrote no such sentimental "deep affection between master and slave" words in her letters to the Zhu Emperor. People wrote such things when the affection was not deep. When it reached the level of Zhu Cilang and A'nu, everything went without saying.

So in A'nu's letters to Zhu Cilang, the main content was introducing the local customs and scenery along the route, and the attitudes of local officials toward her — these were truly deadly little reports! Too humble an attitude made one look like a sycophant; too haughty, and one was suspected of looking down on the Zhu Emperor's servant. And in the Zhu Emperor's letters to A'nu, the main content was teaching the art of governance.

He still did not feel at ease about this girl who had followed him for so many years! Galdan was no easy customer, Sengge's Khatun A'nu was even less easy, and Zhu Cilang's good younger brother, the Zhu Third Prince, was even more troublesome!

(End of Chapter)