Chapter 92: The Hearts of Men (Continued)

"That's not all. There's another matter." Zhang Jun stopped by the roadside of the empty government office, glanced at the office not far behind him, then looked ahead at the intersection where a crowd had gathered a few hundred paces away, shaking his head with a serious expression. "Do you know that Han Shizhong's attendant came to see me this morning?"

Liu Ziyu immediately nodded: "When the Censor just found me, he said it was fortunate that Han Shizhong had the sense not to let that attendant mention last night's summons, or else the Censor would have had to resign today."

"Then do you know what that attendant actually said to me?"

"Please enlighten me, Censor." Under the bright morning sun, Liu Ziyu had somewhat shed his earlier resentment.

"The attendant told me that Han the Grand Commandant had heard that His Majesty lives frugally, that whenever subordinates present tribute, he always gives it away as rewards, to the point where he has nothing useful by his side, and sometimes at night he only lights one candle... And then he said that Han had some spoils from the front and wanted to present them as tribute, but feared His Majesty wouldn't accept them, so he asked me what to do."

"He must have seen it with his own eyes last night." Liu Ziyu, recalling Zhang Jun's earlier account, suddenly understood, then sighed again. "I've been accompanying the entourage for many days now, and I've heard some talk, but I didn't expect His Majesty to truly live so frugally..."

"It's not just frugality." Zhang Jun grew even more helpless. "Yanxiu, you really need to broaden your perspective... In times of national crisis, who isn't frugal? Here at the temporary court, salaries haven't been paid for half a year, and many have brought their families along. Before reaching Huainan, a bowl of ginger and fermented beans was treated as a treasure—isn't that frugality? Even you, Liu Ziyu, just settled your family and then rushed from the southeast to the temporary court, riding a single horse for thousands of li—isn't that frugality? I only ask you, why don't you feel it's frugal?"

"My father hanged himself to die for the nation. My second younger brother's family traveled slowly; his wife and three nephews all died in the chaos. With national enmity and family vengeance, how could I care about frugality or not?" Liu Ziyu blurted out almost without thinking.

"Doesn't His Majesty also have national enmity and family vengeance?" Zhang Jun sighed again.

Liu Ziyu looked around, and only after seeing a squad of Imperial Guard in armor with swords pass by in the distance did he frown slightly: "Does the Imperial House also have such feelings? Especially after that strange business of falling into the well—I heard that since then, His Majesty has rarely been moved by matters concerning the north, nor has he made any effort to rescue the Two Sages, as if he were at odds with his father and elder brother."

"Is that how it's being spread in the southeast?" Zhang Deyuan paused noticeably.

"Before the great victory at Shouzhou, such talk was already circulating. Afterward, it only increased, but it turned more favorable—after all, for the southeast, what good reputation could the Two Sages have?"

"That's fine, then." Zhang Deyuan couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief. "Actually, everyone here at the temporary court knows that His Majesty speaks quite disrespectfully of the Two Sages. Earlier, he forbade peace talks with the Jin, and also forbade mentioning the return of the Two Sages before restoring the Two Rivers. In recent days on the road, he even said that the disaster of the Jingkang Incident was because the Two Sages surrendered before the realm... With such an attitude, it's only natural that the southeast has such talk. But Yanxiu, think about it—if there were no resentment, would it come to this? And since there is resentment, it means he still cares somewhat. It's just that what His Majesty cares about may not be limited to any one person."

"That does make some sense." Liu Ziyu also took a deep breath. "The Jingkang Incident was a humiliation unheard of since ancient times. It's only natural for His Majesty to feel resentment and hatred because of it... But isn't it a good thing that His Majesty has the resolve of Goujian?"

"It's a good thing, but also not a good thing." Zhang Jun shook his head repeatedly. "This is the key point I want to make. In my view, it's right for His Majesty to focus on restoration and vengeance, but if he only has that one thought and doesn't consider anything else, how can that work? You, Liu Ziyu, have national enmity and family vengeance, and are irreconcilable with the Jin—does that mean you don't care about your family, relatives, hometown, or old friends? A few days ago, when Jianzhou rebelled, didn't you still ask me about it? Among the ministers at the temporary court, who doesn't want a higher official rank? Even the always humble and restrained Lu Xiang, when he heard that Li Xiang wasn't coming, didn't he go along with the flow and accept Nanyang? But what about His Majesty?"

"His Majesty..."

"Lu Xiang told me that before and after His Majesty fell into the well, his actions were extremely selfish... But in my view, before falling into the well, His Majesty was undoubtedly selfish, but afterward, his various actions showed no personal motives at all. It's just that the public good seems private, or public and private are one, making it hard to distinguish." Zhang Jun said solemnly. "One piece of evidence is that since falling into the well, His Majesty has focused solely on resisting the Jin and restoring the realm, casting aside wealth, treasures, women, and even his own life."

"That's true." Liu Ziyu was also lost in thought. "Take Li Boji, Li Xiang, who is now left in the southeast. Everyone there says he has unspeakable difficulties, because His Majesty entrusted the imperial heir and the Empress Dowager to him. As a subject, what can he do but exhaust himself? But on the other hand, which Son of Heaven would entrust the implicit authority of deposition and succession to a subject, if not for the sake of resisting the Jin? But..."

"But to act like this—how can a twenty-year-old bear it?" Zhang Jun finally said what he truly meant. "His Majesty is too tired... When Li Xiang was in power, he was like a puppet; during the Shouzhou campaign, he was wound too tight; and once he headed west, he became anxious and uneasy, afraid he wouldn't do well. You must understand—when you and I were twenty, could we ever have shouldered the weight of the realm?"

"But His Majesty is, after all, the Son of Heaven."

"The Son of Heaven is also a human being, and this current Son of Heaven, before he turned twenty, was just carefree and at ease." Zhang Jun grew even more helpless. "You people only think of him as the Son of Heaven, expecting him to be a sage, but you don't treat him as a human... One moment a strong-willed person comes and wants him to be a wooden carving; the next, an old hand criticizes him for being too reckless in resisting the Jin and tells him to consider the bigger picture; then a reckless one comes and wants him to be brilliant and martial. Little do you know that if you keep on like this, one day the Son of Heaven might snap and revert to his old ways in Nanjing (Shangqiu)—selecting laundry maids and doing everything to avoid battle. What would you do then? Would you push that so-called Prince Xin from Mount Wuma in the north or the imperial heir, only a few months old in Yangzhou, forward? Would Han Liangchen and Zhang Boying agree?!"

Liu Ziyu frowned slightly, clearly unwilling to get involved in this topic, but had to ask: "So, you want me to stay and strengthen the central government?"

"Otherwise?" Zhang Jun smiled bitterly, helpless. "Under the current circumstances, as a subject, I can't very well select consorts for His Majesty or advise him to ignore state affairs and sunbathe more, can I? The only thing I can do is to recommend talented people as much as possible, to have men like you, Yanxiu, stay by His Majesty's side, help him plan, and make his tasks go more smoothly..."

Liu Ziyu let out a loud sigh, apparently convinced, but still couldn't help feeling a bit stifled.

"Regardless, the safety of the realm now rests on this one man. Only when His Majesty is stable can the realm be stable!" Zhang Jun spoke earnestly. "Don't I myself want to go out and govern a region, to do great things? But at the very least, I have to wait until His Majesty is completely settled here and has established proper procedures, right?"

Hearing this, Liu Ziyu could only nod reluctantly and say no more.

Now, much of Zhang Jun's speech was his own speculation, and as a personal confidant of His Majesty—the foremost among civil officials in terms of trust—his bias toward His Majesty was obvious. Even Liu Ziyu, who had become quite close with him in recent days, didn't fully believe him.

However, Zhang Deyuan did hit the key point with one sentence: that His Majesty, after the great victory at Shouzhou and his journey west to this place, was clearly anxious and uneasy, clearly unsure of what to do... This was only natural, because Zhao Jiu had never seriously been a proper emperor and didn't know how to be one.

When he first arrived, he was immediately isolated by several people. After finally breaking free, he just sat there waiting for Li Gang. When Li Gang came, he was a puppet. When Li Gang fell ill, he had been pent up to the extreme, so he threw caution to the wind and went to the Huai River, relying on Han Shizhong and Zhang Jun to fight a battle... He won the battle, and this Zhao Emperor settled down. Logically, he should have started being a proper emperor. But on one hand, the roads were unsafe, Nanyang couldn't be settled, and no one had the mind to teach His Majesty how to govern; on the other hand, the great battle at Shouzhou had added some luster to this Zhao Emperor, and not everyone had the courage to teach him how to be an emperor. Thus, the current restless state came about.

And this was precisely a major reason why this Zhao Emperor had earlier made the muddled decision to keep Wanyan Yinshu—he seemed to believe that the only "proper business" of resisting the Jin was fighting, so he rejoiced at the sight of the enemy.

Returning to the present, this Zhao Emperor himself, perhaps due to dullness or being caught up in the situation, hadn't thought that much. On the contrary, that day, after sleeping soundly until the afternoon, he first received good news, which lifted his spirits—nothing else but another memorial from the Eastern Capital's Acting Magistrate, Deputy Commander-in-Chief of the Realm's Armies, and Privy Councilor, Zong Ze, and its content was encouraging.

Grandpa Zong's memorial made it very clear: Huazhou had been completely recovered; Qingzhou and Weizhou in the Jingdong East Circuit had been confirmed abandoned by the Jin, now occupied by a man named Li Cheng... In short, the large-scale Jin withdrawal was a done deal. As long as this Zhao Emperor properly occupied the cities and defended them securely, there was no need to worry about Wanyan Yinshu—he might continue to attack, but once he couldn't succeed, he would inevitably head north.

Of course, at the end of the letter, he once again asked this Zhao Emperor: would he come to the Eastern Capital or not?

Leaving aside the important intelligence in the first half, the politeness of the latter part almost made Zhao Jiu weep with joy... One must understand that it had been a full half year since he had crossed over. Apart from the period when Li Gang was in power, Grandpa Zong had sent this Zhao Emperor twelve invitations to return to the old capital and settle down, averaging one every half month.

And the previous eleven had all been about national righteousness and filial piety—"the unified momentum of the ancestors can no longer be preserved," "a small palace has already been built for the Two Sages; Your Majesty may come and stay in the old palace"—every sentence precisely jabbed at someone's spine, using moral blackmail so skillfully that this Zhao Emperor found it hard to explain himself. Besides that, they said the Eastern Capital already had so many troops and so much grain, just waiting for His Majesty to arrive, reorganize the six armies, and cross the river to campaign north!

But this time, such a polite invitation was truly a first for this Zhao Emperor.

What did this mean? It meant that after the battle at Shouzhou, after this Zhao Emperor's swift and decisive actions afterward, and after traveling all the way to Ruyang, the foremost military commander of the age, currently stationed at the Eastern Capital to the due north, had finally begun to trust this Zhao Emperor a little!

The only thing was, out of face, he was still stubbornly continuing his invitations. Of course, for a seventy-year-old man, a little tsundere was perfectly understandable.

In short, in this spring of the second year of Jianyan, for the realm as a whole, the Jin was still flourishing and expanding, while the Great Song continued to wither and lose control—after all, the Jingdong Two Circuits, Jingxi, and Guanxi had been swept clean, with massive losses of troops and generals; people from all over were fleeing south; city stores had been plundered to exhaustion; and at the same time, several cities in Hebei that had persisted in resistance were being steadily eliminated.

However, if one only considered this Zhao Emperor and the temporary court, although there were still some ripples, the general situation was improving.

This was mainly because the troops had been gathered, people's hearts had been somewhat united, and according to the opinions of Zong Ze, Han Shizhong, and Liu Ziyu, as long as things were handled properly, Wanyan Yinshu was not an insurmountable problem. Then, establishing a foothold in Nanyang would be within sight.

The significance of a stable secondary capital for everyone at the temporary court was self-evident.

The developments over the next few days were largely the same. Setting aside the external turmoil, here at the temporary court, as the Zhao Emperor sent out envoys to pacify and recruit, the many scattered troops, bandits, and righteous armies within Caizhou's borders surrendered one after another and uniformly accepted the temporary court's amnesty.

Among them, although Han Shizhong hadn't rushed to unify and reorganize them because Yinshu's movements were unclear, seeing the map change from enemy territory to one's own borders significantly boosted everyone's sense of security.

After another day or two, even Tangzhou and Yingchang Prefecture brought good news—the various independent armed forces there, though they hadn't agreed immediately, indeed had no reason to refuse, as Liu Ziyu had said; they were mostly hesitant and watching. It seemed that with Han Shizhong and Wang De rapidly advancing their troops to pressure them, they might finally make up their minds.

However, on that very day, the morning of the eighth day of the third month, while this Zhao Emperor was playing chess with his newly promoted close minister Liu Ziyu and discussing the "land registration" policy, an unexpected minister appeared before him.

"Your subject, Hanlin Academician Lin Jingmo, pays respects to Your Majesty!" Little Academician Lin, panting and pale-faced, was led in by Lan Gui, the Chief Eunuch of the Inner Palace Service. As soon as he saw His Majesty, he bowed his head and spoke words that were quite shocking. "When your subject reached Biyang in Tangzhou, he received news that Fan Zhixu, terrified and restless in Nanyang, had recently taken the initiative to order the monk Zongyin, stationed at Wuguan, to come out of the pass and rescue him. As a result, that Zhao Zongyin led several thousand troops out of the pass and was soundly defeated by a Jin flank force northwest of Nanyang. Knowing his crime was great, Zhao Zongyin did not return to Wuguan or go to Nanyang, but fled to Xiangyang to seek refuge with Fan Qiong! Wuguan is very likely already lost!"

Under the eaves, Zhao Jiu held a chess piece and was silent for a moment, but surprisingly did not get angry.

"So that means... Nanyang is lost?" Liu Ziyu, who had already stepped aside to avoid Little Academician Lin, blurted out. "Because now the Jin can safely take Nanyang and then leisurely return to Guanxi via Wuguan."

Zhao Jiu still said nothing, only feeling somewhat powerless... What could he say?

Han Shizhong, Zong Ze, Liu Ziyu, even he himself and everyone else at the temporary court had done their utmost. Little Academician Lin, still panting before him, had previously braved extreme danger. Yet, it still couldn't withstand a single monk causing trouble.

"Your Majesty!" Little Academician Lin hesitated, then forced himself to speak again. "Liu Yan has gone north to Ruzhou to find Han the Grand Commandant... He told me to be sure to tell Your Majesty: beware that the Jin might not go to Nanyang, but instead take the opportunity to attack Ruyang! Because now that the Jin have an escape route to the west, the earlier arrangement to cut off their retreat in the north at Ruzhou and Yingchang Prefecture has instead become a burden."

This Zhao Emperor suddenly looked up, but surprisingly showed no sign of panic: "I understand."