Chapter 1621: Chapter 1621

No Nonsense, Never Coming Back! Yingtian Prefecture, the north bank of the Yangtze.

The capital of this Celestial Empire was now wrapped entirely in silver. The weather this year was extraordinarily cold, and thin sheets of floating ice had even appeared on the surface of the Yangtze. But because of the introduction and imitation of Newcomen atmospheric steam engines, the output of the Xuzhou and Fengyang coal mines had greatly increased. As a result, the supply of coal for heating in Yingtian Prefecture over these past few years was not only abundant but also cheap, and ordinary households could all afford honeycomb briquettes. That made winter far easier to endure. It was just that the smoke produced by thousands upon thousands of households burning coal at once was too much; every winter, Pukou on the banks of the Yangtze and the city of Nanjing were both shrouded in haze, looking just like a "city of fog."

Zhu Cijiong's carriage stopped before the main gate of the Chengtian Tower in the Old Mountain Palace. This old prince, now past eighty, was in astonishingly good health. In such bitter cold, he wore no thick clothing, and his frame was still ramrod straight, with not the slightest hint of a stoop. Even more remarkable, his build still looked very solid; take off his shirt and you could even see muscle!

After his guards opened the carriage door, the old prince climbed out. Then a tall, gorgeous young woman with a refined, sharply defined mixed-blood face also emerged from the carriage. Her surname was Borjigin, her given name Yulan. She was a princess of the Chahar Khanate; her father was the khan of the Chahar Khanate, and her mother was a Russian woman captured by the Chahar Khanate's army — the messy wars among the Chahar Khanate, the Tumed Khanate, Russia, and the Siberian Khanate had never ended, only these had been fought on a somewhat larger scale.

In the years before the big fighting, the small skirmishes had never stopped either; both sides had victories and defeats, and of course both sides captured people from each other.

This Princess Yulan's mother had been captured by the Mongols... and this Yulan herself had been given by her father to Zhu Cijiong as a gift for his seventieth birthday.

Who would have thought that after following Zhu Cijiong for over ten years, she still had not managed to get her share of the inheritance, and instead had borne four children for him... But her efforts had not been wasted, because not long ago, Zhu Cijiong had granted her the title of princess consort, making her the principal wife. Though she was only twenty-seven or twenty-eight, in terms of seniority she was even higher than the Ming Emperor Zhu Hexing!

This Princess Yulan stepped out of the carriage and looked around, discovering that quite a few ornately decorated four-wheeled carriages were already parked outside the Chengtian Gate. With so many carriages gathered together at a time when court was not in session, and every officer and soldier of the guard on duty wearing a long face, something bad was certainly afoot!

Zhu Cijiong sighed: "Seventy-three, eighty-four, the King of Hell comes for you without an invitation!"

Zhu Cilang was eighty-four by nominal age this year! And Zhu Cijiong was one year younger than him, soon to be eighty-four as well... But this Third Prince Zhu's health was not just ordinarily good! He was stronger than his father Chongzhen had been, and might well make it to a hundred!

After this moment of reflection, Zhu Cijiong strode toward the Chengtian Gate, with Princess Yulan hurrying after him, and the two of them entered one after the other through the side gate of the Chengtian Gate.

The guard officers at the gate all recognized this old prince who seemed on the verge of "living forever," so of course they did not stop him, nor did they ask him for his token, and they even solicitously summoned a sedan chair for him — it had been snowing constantly these past few days, and many places in the Old Mountain Palace were still covered in ice, so one had to be careful of slipping. Young officials were not afraid of falling, but elderly officials had to take care of themselves.

Therefore the regent Empress Ding Yuying had ordered the guard to prepare a number of sedan chairs to carry ministers who could not walk to the Hall of Imperial Supremacy or elsewhere, regardless of rank or title, considering only age.

But Zhu Cijiong was hardly willing to admit old age. With a wave of his hand he dismissed the bearers, and then, together with his "little princess consort," followed a guard and strode off in the direction of the Longevity Hall.

Inside the Old Mountain Palace, it had already become as quiet as a mourning hall. Whether guards or palace servants, everyone came and went in utter silence, adding to the heavy atmosphere. Led by the guard, Zhu Cijiong walked with lowered head toward the Longevity Hall. He had just entered the Longevity Gate when he saw his sixth brother Zhu Cixuan standing inside the gate, speaking with the head of the Imperial Academy of Medicine.

Seeing Zhu Cijiong arrive, Zhu Cixuan quickly waved the imperial physician away, then came over to pay his respects to Zhu Cijiong.

"How is the eldest?" Zhu Cijiong asked with a frown.

Zhu Cixuan sighed: "He's nearly gone, and he's talking nonsense!"

"What nonsense is he talking?" Zhu Cijiong asked.

Zhu Cixuan smiled bitterly: "He said that if it had not been for him, our father would have hanged himself on Coal Hill in Beijing in the seventeenth year of Chongzhen... and the Great Ming would have fallen, and then there would have been no me! Also, yesterday when Jin Xuanye came to pay his respects, he told Jin Xuanye that he had originally been destined for sixty years as emperor, and that this year should have been the fiftieth year of Kangxi! It scared Jin Xuanye half to death; the moment he left the palace he tried to jump into the Golden Water River, and luckily the river surface had frozen over... though he still twisted his ankle and was carried back to recuperate."

"Such things..." Zhu Cihuan shook his head. "That Jin Xuanye has been trembling his whole life; surely he won't be scared to death by the eldest's ravings at the very end?"

"Who knows?" Zhu Cixuan smiled bitterly. "His Majesty has already sent someone to console him... but half his life has been scared out of him. Second Brother, when the eldest talks nonsense to you in a while, don't take it seriously, and don't let him anger or frighten you."

"How could I!" Zhu Cihuan snorted. "Back in the day, when things were so hard for me in Datong Prefecture and up in the Lüliang Mountains, I was not afraid. What is there to be afraid of now?"

Hearing these words from Zhu Cijiong, Zhu Cixuan led the Third Prince Zhu, Zhu Cijiong, toward Zhu Cilang's bedchamber.

The path to the bedchamber of the Longevity Palace was not short, but Zhu Cixuan and Zhu Cijiong both walked quickly, their steps flying, and in the blink of an eye they were already outside the bedchamber door.

The moment they entered the bedchamber, the two of them saw a crowd of weeping women, all keeping vigil outside Zhu Cilang's bedroom. The bedroom door was open, and in the dim light, Zhu Cilang's bloated body was not lying down; he still retained the bearing of an emperor without equal through the ages, half-reclining against the bed. Zhu Hexing and Zhu Heke, brothers of very different ages, were both keeping watch at the old man's bedside, listening to his rambling while wiping away tears.

When Zhu Cilang saw Zhu Cijiong come in behind Zhu Cixuan, he greeted him: "Third Prince Zhu, you've come... come here, come here... let your brother have a look at you. You old deathless one, you're still quite spry. In our family, you're the one who can live! By the look of it, you'll live to a hundred and several dozen..."

Zhu Cijiong sighed, thinking: When a man gets old, he truly becomes useless! How formidable my eldest brother was in his youth, and now he's like this too, talking nothing but nonsense! A hundred and several dozen — does he really take me for an old turtle?

"We are about to depart, and from now on the world will be left for you few to play with... You have all grown and learned under me, and you have ability. Entrusting the world to you, there is not much to fear. But since ancient times there has never been a dynasty that did not fall, and our family's Great Ming is the same!" Zhu Cilang spoke at length; perhaps because death was near, his words grew more breathless and more sorrowful as he went on. "Our family's world should have been lost in the seventeenth year of Chongzhen, and it was I who forcibly extended it for a stretch. But no matter how it is extended, it can only be two or three hundred years, no more. Those of us who serve as ancestors to others must make more plans for our descendants... First, the wily rabbit has three burrows; we cannot all hang ourselves from the single tree of the Great Ming! Second, we must do education well, and make sure our descendants all become capable people. We must never again, as in the past, raise princes like pigs. Raising them like pigs is just waiting for the slaughter! They must be made to study and advance, to serve in the military and in commerce. As long as the descendants of our family can all make something of themselves, then even if one day there is no Great Ming, there will be nothing to fear."

These words truly were the kind words of a man near death. Though he was now muddled, there were some things he had remembered for decades and still recalled vividly — he knew that the Great Ming could not last for ten thousand generations, and could not get past the hurdle of the twentieth century!

Finally he let out a long sigh, smiled bitterly, and rolled his eyes: "Enough... the hour has come... no more dragging it out. We must go now, and never come back!"