Chapter 89: The Catastrophe of Zhenguan That Blots Out the Sun and Sky

Read Chapter 89 immediately: The Catastrophe of Zhenguan That Blots Out the Sun and Sky, and begin today's excitement.

Li Shimin stood on a dirt mound, his hands clasped behind his back.

"Change the timber. Try again."

Hearing this, the Vice Minister of the Ministry of Works scrambled down to supervise the work.

Li Shimin tilted his head back to look at the azure sky.

There were no clouds.

After months of severe drought, not a single drop of rain had fallen on the Guanzhong Plain for three months.

The riverbed of the Weishui exposed vast stretches of pale, muddy silt.

The craftsmen of the Great Tang were doing their utmost to unravel the mysteries of flight from future ages.

Yet this land that nurtured the people of the Great Tang was demonstrating the ruthlessness of natural law in an extremely cruel manner.

A faint breeze brushed his cheek, carrying the musty, earthy scent of soil.

Li Shimin narrowed his eyes.

At the far end of the horizon.

On the edge of the originally azure sky, a dark yellow line had appeared.

That line was rapidly widening and spreading upward.

At first, the surroundings were extremely quiet.

A few breaths later, an extremely low hum transmitted across the dry, hard ground.

The sound quickly grew louder.

It was like thousands of soldiers and tens of thousands of horses trampling a battlefield, mixed with the faint rustling of countless dry leaves rubbing against each other.

Li Jing, standing beside Li Shimin, suddenly pressed his hand on the horizontal sword at his waist.

He stepped forward, positioning himself in front of the Emperor.

"Your Majesty, the wind is rising; please return to the palace!"

Li Jing's voice was tense.

His intuition, honed by years of constant warfare, had detected an extremely dangerous aura.

Li Shimin did not move immediately, staring fixedly at the rapidly approaching dark yellow mass.

At first glance, it seemed to be wind-blown sand, but upon getting closer, he realized it was insects.

Hundreds of millions of locusts with barbed jointed legs.

They had gathered into an endless sea of insects.

They blotted out the sun, dragging the daylight forcibly into dusk.

The swarm crossed the dirt mound and swept over the Test Flight Field.

A dozen or so finger-sized flying locusts crashed against Li Shimin's bright armor, making a teeth-grating "crack" sound.

They then bounced off and landed, immediately beginning to gnaw at a withered blade of grass at the edge of his boot.

Wherever the eye could see, it was covered from sky to earth.

In the distant wheat fields, which had originally retained only a few traces of withered vitality.

As the insect sea descended, dense flying insects covered the wheat stalks, their mouthparts opening and closing.

In the time it takes to drink half a cup of tea.

The entire wheat field vanished, leaving only a ground of bare, naked soil.

They gnawed on the wheat ears, gnawed on vegetable leaves, and gnawed on tree bark.

They did not even spare the thatch used to build huts.

Several farmers knelt on the field ridges.

In their hands, they clutched stalks that had been completely eaten away.

Looking at the pitch-black sky, they let out desperate roars.

Back in Taiji Hall.

Li Shimin sat upright on the dragon throne.

The collar of his black common robe was open, and his forehead was covered in fine beads of sweat.

Outside the hall.

Sunlight streamed in through the lattice windows, and in the beams of light, a few intruding locusts fluttered about.

In the ranks of the martial generals, Cheng Yaojin and Yuchi Jingde kept their heads bowed low.

They could lead thousands of soldiers and tens of thousands of horses in a charge, and the horizontal swords in their hands could cleave through the heavy armor of the Turks, yet they could not cleave through this sky full of flying insects.

Against such a calamity, military force was utterly useless.

In front of the formation of civil officials.

Wei Zheng stepped out of the ranks first, holding his jade tablet high with both hands.

"Your Majesty, the Guanzhong region suffers a great drought, locusts blot out the sun, and a thousand li of land lie barren."

"Outside the walls of Chang'an, people are already selling their sons and daughters."

"The foundation of the Great Tang is on the verge of collapse."

Having spoken, Wei Zheng bowed his head to the ground, his forehead touching the floor.

"Rumors are spreading throughout the realm, speaking of the current Sage Emperor and the ninth year of Wude... the bloodshed at Xuanwumen."

Wei Zheng paused for half a second, then gritted his teeth and spat out the most fatal words: "Killing one's brother and forcing one's father, violating human ethics."

"Therefore, Heaven has sent a great drought and summoned locusts to bring ruin; this is a heavenly punishment!"

The temperature inside the great hall plummeted.

The ministers held their breath.

The Xuanwumen Incident is the deepest scar on Li Shimin's heart.

Whoever touches it will surely draw blood.

"Impudence!"

Li Shimin suddenly stood up.

"What the Sky Screen displayed, the entire court saw clearly!"

"There are no gods in the heavens; the moon is merely a pitted stone."

"Mortals of later generations can even write and paint in the sky! Where is the Lord of Heaven? Where is the Heavenly Punishment!"

The dragon robe fluttered as Li Shimin walked before Wei Zheng.

"You, Wei Xuancheng, have read the sages' books all your life. You also watched the astronomy and physics of later generations with me."

"Now that locusts are born from the drought-stricken earth, you still use such a pedantic scholar's theories of the Mandate of Heaven to determine my guilt!"

Wei Zheng continued, "I know there are no gods in the heavens; I know the moon is a stone."

"But the common people of the world do not know!"

Li Shimin's body shuddered.

"The people's bellies are hungry, the farmlands yield nothing; they need a reason."

Wei Zheng straightened up, meeting Li Shimin's furious gaze. "The people do not understand the science of later generations; they only recognize the cycle of Heaven's principles."

"When calamity descends, it must be because the ruler has lost virtue."

Wei Zheng bowed heavily once more.

"If the people's resentment is not appeased, when the fields are filled with corpses, it will be the time to raise the banner of rebellion!"

"I earnestly beg Your Majesty to issue the Edict of Self-Blame!"

"Apologize to all the people of the world! Accept all the world's faults as the punishment of Heaven! Appease the anger of the Great Tang's people!"

Fang Xuanling from the rear ranks also stepped forward, kneeling and bowing to the ground.

"I second the motion; I beg Your Majesty to issue the Edict of Self-Blame."

Zhangsun Wuji closed his eyes.

He shook his sleeve, then knelt down.

"I beg Your Majesty to issue the Edict of Self-Blame!"

The entire court, whether civil officials or military generals.

All prostrated themselves on the bluestone slabs.

Their voices merged into a sea, pressing down on the emperor standing in the center.

Li Shimin's chest heaved violently.

He had seen through the vacuum of the universe; he had seen through the falsehood of the Mandate of Heaven.

With a heart full of hope, he believed he could lead the Great Tang out of the quagmire of theocracy and toward the grand blueprint of technology.

In an agricultural society without fertilizer, without modern pesticides.

Facing tens of millions of flying insects, the foundation of imperial rule.

Remained that extremely fragile Confucian theory of the interaction between Heaven and humanity.

When encountering an unsolvable dead end, the ruler must stand up and bear Heaven's wrath.

This is the only political means to quell social turmoil.

Extreme clarity brought extreme pain.

Li Shimin closed his eyes; the muscles at the corners of his eyes twitched violently.

He burst into laughter, the sound shrill and mournful.

He turned and walked step by step back to the imperial dais, sitting once more on that cold dragon throne.

"Wang De."

The personal attendant Wang De lowered his head and quickly walked to the side of the Danbi.

He held a redwood tray in his hands.

A bright yellow silk cloth covered the tray.

"Lift it." Li Shimin ordered.

Wang De's wrist trembled as he pulled off the silk.

In the center of the tray sat a jade bowl, entirely emerald green.

The rim of the bowl was covered by a layer of fine mesh.

Inside the mesh, more than a dozen live locusts were jumping and fluttering wildly.

They struck the inner walls of the jade bowl, making a "rustle-rustle" sound.

Seeing that jade bowl, Wei Zheng's eyes trembled.

"What is Your Majesty doing?"

Li Shimin ignored the ministers and tore off the mesh himself.

Two fingers reached into the jade bowl and pinched the largest locust.

The locust's jointed legs kicked wildly in mid-air.

Its serrated mouthparts opened and closed constantly, trying to bite through the fingers restraining it.

Li Shimin raised the locust above his head, his eyes ruthless and resolute.

"The people say I have lost virtue, thus attracting the locust plague."

"This insect eats the Great Tang's wheat ears and drinks the blood of the Great Tang's people."

He knew that swallowing flying insects raw would not stop the drought, and he knew that no heavenly punishment was descending from the sky.

But he had to finish this grand performance.

With this act of political theater, bordering on self-harm, he would silence the endless murmurs of the world.

He would steady the hearts of the Great Tang people on the verge of collapse.

Li Shimin opened his mouth, his arm holding the locust slowly closing in.

The struggling flying insect was gradually brought to his lips.

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