Chapter 949: Hongjing Year One

Emperor Jing issued an edict to quell the rebellion, and all the feudal lords across the land stirred in response; by the twelfth month of Emperor Jing’s first year, provincial governors, military governors, pacification commissioners, comfort commissioners, royal princes of the nine states, and military governors within the nine states all submitted memorials, their petitions falling like snowflakes upon the capital of Great Tang, creating for a moment a scene reminiscent of the founding days of Great Tang!

In the imperial study, Prince Jin sat behind the desk, reviewing piles of memorials. Beside him sat the young emperor, still bearing traces of youth; after Prince Jin reviewed each memorial, he passed it to the emperor, who then examined its contents and the annotations, asking questions whenever he did not understand.

But the young emperor read carelessly, his gaze constantly drifting toward the two maids standing by the study door.

After finishing all the memorials, Prince Jin wrote a number on the paper and compared it with the previous tally; his face darkened with anger as he slammed his fist on the desk and roared, “This is outrageous!”

The young emperor jumped, bewildered by what had happened.

Prince Jin glanced at him, suppressing his rage, and explained patiently: “So far, over a hundred memorials have arrived pledging to march against the rebels, and more than fifty claim victories and demand rewards! Hmph, these hundred-odd loyalist armies combined total barely ninety thousand troops, scattered from south to north! Each force averages less than a thousand men—what kind of rebel-suppressing army is this, a band of thieves?”

Even more absurd is that they’re already demanding rewards before even fighting. Look at this one—he’s stationed in Northern Qi, yet claims he won a battle against the Ji Kingdom in the southwest!

And this one—a minor military governor on the frontier—dares to claim he’ll mobilize two hundred thousand troops to attack the rebels! Ha, that’s double the total of all the others combined! He’s at least three hundred thousand li from the rebels—how will his army get there? The leading unit is a flying vessel capable of carrying a thousand men. I’d wager that’s all he has.”

The young emperor took the two memorials tossed his way and opened them. The one requesting rewards was nothing unusual—just brazenly audacious. Since the Tang house declined, a number of frontier ministers had taken to routinely petitioning for titles and rewards, since it cost them nothing.

The other memorial was signed by Wei Yuan, Military Governor of Qingyang in Qingzhou of Great Tang—he claimed he would mobilize three hundred thousand troops to suppress the rebellion.

Upon seeing the words “Qingyang Military Governor,” the young emperor felt an inexplicable emotion. He then wondered—did Great Tang even have a Qingzhou? The young emperor was only sixteen and had never imagined he’d become emperor, so his basic education was lacking.

After racking his brain, he concluded this man must have seized a remote territory and declared himself Military Governor of Qingzhou, then bribed some court official to obtain a blank official commission.

This was common enough—Great Tang now had at least seventy or eighty military governors.

After a long silence following his outburst, Prince Jin finally made his decision: “To treat a grave illness, you need strong medicine. Issue the edict: anyone who quells the rebellion shall be granted the authority to establish a regional seat; whoever controls one commandery shall be appointed Provincial Governor!”

The young emperor was startled: “Isn’t that carving flesh from Ji Kingdom?”

Prince Jin, his plan now settled, remained calm: “The flesh of Ji Kingdom has long rotted—if we carve it away, Ji Wang can do nothing. After this war, at least two or three commanderies of Ji Kingdom will return to Great Tang’s territory, and we’ll gain a frontier enclave bordering the barbarians. Once this succeeds, you’ll have the chance to campaign against them yourself.”

But the young emperor showed little interest—he only wanted to brawl with palace maids, not fight barbarians on the frontier. Commanding armies was a burdensome duty left to his ministers.

…

At the border between Yongzhou and Jiaozhou, endless rows of tents stretched across mountains and plains, as far as the eye could see.

At this moment, all rebel factions had gathered here to form an alliance and elect a new leader.

In the central command tent sat a dozen rebel leaders, each with differing expressions and demeanors, mostly burly, dark, and broad-shouldered with fierce eyes. Yet seated at the central, elevated position was a scholarly man.

Before the scholar lay over a hundred memorials. He pointed to them and said: “Whatever memorials lie in the emperor’s study, we have the same here. These are the feudal lords responding to the imperial call, coming to crush us.”

A burly man said: “So many lords? Together they must number several million.”

Another sneered: “We crushed the entire Ji army—what’s there to fear? These lords may be numerous, but they can’t fly here.”

The scholar smiled: “General Liu Heihu speaks wisely. These lords care only for titles and rewards—so their combined forces total less than one hundred thousand. And even those hundred thousand, more than half will never reach us.”