Chapter 314: Why Struggle to Be This Emperor?

"Dong!" The burly man who had burst in dropped straight to his knees on the floor. No armed soldiers with swords and spears could be seen behind him — only that mournful, wailing cry, which grew more chilling the longer one listened.

Shi Jingtang had at least been a fierce fighter on the battlefield in his youth, and his nerve was far greater than Sang Weihan's. Steeling himself, he looked closely and saw that the burly man kneeling in the great hall, weeping so hard he could barely catch his breath, was none other than his adopted son, Shi Chonggui, General of the Left Jinwu Guard.

Only then did Shi Jingtang's heart settle. Shi Chonggui was not only his adopted son, but also the son of his elder brother Shi Jingru.

Moreover, he had always been honest, sincere, and straightforward by nature, and was deeply filial to his adoptive father and uncle. He would never rise in armed rebellion.

"Why such alarm, Erlang? What sort of behavior is this? As a general of the Jinwu Guard, do you not know what crime it is to force your way into the forbidden palace?" Feeling that he had lost face in front of Pei Yuan, Shi Jingtang scolded him in shame and anger.

But Shi Chonggui paid no attention to Shi Jingtang's rebuke. He let out a long wail, then with a thud dropped to his knees and kowtowed without stopping, until blood streamed down his forehead. From his mouth came sobbing, whimpering moans, like a pup that had lost its mother.

At this point, not only Shi Jingtang, but also Sang Weihan, who had come back out from behind the screen, and Pei Yuan, seated behind his desk, knew that something was very wrong.

Shi Jingtang felt his heart pounding violently. For the always steady and composed Shi Chonggui to weep like this, some catastrophe of heaven-shaking proportions must have occurred.

Sang Weihan suddenly shuddered, and a terrible thought flashed into his mind. Fan Yanguang of Yecheng had led the Tianxiong Army south in rebellion. By his reckoning of the timing, their vanguard had probably already reached the area around Huazhou and Weizhou on the northern bank of the Yellow River.

But the Campaign Commander Yang Guangyuan had already led a great army to press on Huazhou, and only a few days ago a report of glad tidings had arrived saying Fan Yanguang had been dealt a heavy blow. Surely there could be no major problem!

Could it be? That Yang Guangyuan had suffered a great defeat at Huazhou? Impossible! Absolutely impossible!

Sang Weihan knew Fan Yanguang's true strength well. Whether in troop numbers or logistics, even if Yang Guangyuan could not immediately crush Fan Yanguang's forces, he would not have suffered a disastrous defeat.

"Could it be that Yang Guangyuan has gone over to the rebels?" Sang Weihan felt his voice trembling as he spoke. After thinking for a long while, he felt this was the only possibility.

Hearing Sang Weihan say this, Shi Chonggui finally stopped his whimpering and raised his head. Pei Yuan looked over and saw that Shi Chonggui's forehead was already a bloody, mangled mess. Blood mixed with tears covered his whole face, and he looked utterly horrifying.

"It is not that Yang Guangyuan has gone over to the enemy, but that the Western Capital has fallen into revolt!"

Sang Weihan had just begun to relax, but upon hearing that the Western Capital had fallen into revolt, he immediately felt his mind explode with a roar.

The Western Capital was Luoyang, the Eastern Capital of the Later Tang. After Shi Jingtang entered Kaifeng, he had left his second son Shi Chongxin as General of the Left Xiao Guard and Military Governor of the Three Cities of Heyang to protect the Western Capital, and his third son Shi Chongyi as General of the Left Xiao Guard to hold the Western Capital.

If the Western Capital had fallen into revolt, could something have happened to them?

The muscles of Shi Jingtang's sallow face twitched. He strode toward Shi Chonggui, but after only a few steps, an unnatural-looking flush of red surged up into his face.

Then he swayed as if about to faint, a terrifying sight. Pei Yuan hurriedly stood, and together with Sang Weihan, one on each side, caught hold of Shi Jingtang.

"My lord, the Heyang troops have mutinied, and Zhang Congbin, the Eastern Capital Patrol Commissioner, has rebelled! Fan Yanguang promised him the post of Deputy Deployment Commissioner and fifty cartloads of goods and treasure. That cur then raised all the Heyang troops and launched a fierce assault on the Western Capital.

There were also many Heyang soldiers inside the Western Capital. They coordinated from within and without, and the Western Capital fell. Brother Xin and Brother Yi were both killed by Zhang Congbin!"

Boom!

The news exploded in Shi Jingtang's mind like a thunderclap. This nearly fifty-year-old, utterly shameless child-emperor let out a miserable cry. His body convulsed violently, jerking several times as if in rigor, and his face swiftly turned from red to the color of gold paper.

With a "Wah!" a mouthful of blood sprayed from Shi Jingtang's mouth. Even Pei Yuan and Sang Weihan could not hold him up. His bulky body tumbled straight to the floor, and the three of them collapsed in a heap.

Shi Jingtang had six sons. The fourth, fifth, and sixth had all died in infancy.

His eldest son, Shi Chongying, had originally been held as a hostage in Luoyang, the Eastern Capital. When Shi Jingtang raised troops at Jinyang, Shi Chongying and Shi Jingtang's adopted son Shi Chongyin were both killed by the Last Emperor Li Congke.

Only the second son Shi Chongxin and the third son Shi Chongyi had grown to adulthood and remained by his side. After Shi Jingtang entered Kaifeng, one of them served as Military Governor of the Three Cities of Heyang to guard the Western Capital and control the Yellow River, while the other held the Western Capital against any contingency.

And now, with Zhang Congbin's rebellion, Shi Jingtang's very measures to secure the Yellow River line and Luoyang had sent his two sons to their deaths.

Of six sons, three had died young, one had been killed by Li Congke, the Last Emperor of the Later Tang. The second son Shi Chongxin and third son Shi Chongyi were already Shi Jingtang's only remaining descendants.

So after Zhang Congbin killed these two sons of Shi Jingtang, considering that he was already forty-seven years old, one could say with near certainty that Shi Jingtang's line was now extinct.

Of course, historically Shi Jingtang would still have one son, Shi Chongrui, but he would not be born until the following year. Right now, he had probably not even been conceived.

"Heavens above! Must you have me die? Guoqiao! I never wanted to be this accursed Son of Heaven. You know it was that slave Wang Ershisan who kept pressing me relentlessly.

I played the fool, I kowtowed and knelt to him, and still he would not let me be. At banquets, if I left one step early, he would ask whether I was going back to raise troops in revolt. Guoqiao, I had no choice! My sons! It is I who have brought this upon you!"

After a brief silence, Shi Jingtang, blood still on his lips, began rolling on the ground. He pounded his own chest without stopping, wailing and weeping as he rolled, snot and tears mingling with blood and streaming all over his body — even Pei Yuan got a fair amount on him.

Was Shi Jingtang pitiful? Truly pitiful! Perhaps he had never wanted to become emperor in the first place.

But who told him to hold a powerful army while serving as Military Governor of Hedong? In this era, the Military Governor of Hedong essentially meant the ringleader of the rebellion faction!

He played the fool, pleaded desperately, and even sought intercession through Li Congke's mother, Empress Dowager Cao, but Li Congke never once relaxed his surveillance of him, and several times even wanted to kill him outright.

Although Li Congke had once indicated that as long as Shi Jingtang was willing to be transferred to another post, he would be allowed to die a natural death, Shi Jingtang did not dare believe it. The day he no longer had troops in hand would surely be the day he died without a burial place.

Li Congke was emperor for three years, and for three years, Shi Jingtang lived every single day in terror.

The only life-saving path he and Sang Weihan could find was to acknowledge the Khitan Yelu Deguang as his father, cede the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan-Yun, and in a manner so utterly desperate — selling the country to a degree that later generations could never surpass — obtain the Khitan's aid, all to preserve his life.

Yet while serving as Military Governor of Hedong, he feared Li Congke would kill his whole family. After entering Kaifeng and becoming emperor, he feared being killed by the arrogant soldiers and fierce generals within and without.

Before his seat was even warm, all his sons were dead, his line already extinct, and of his adopted sons, only Shi Chonggui before him remained.

Amid the wailing, Shi Jingtang's empress — the third daughter of Zhuangzong Li Siyuan, mother of the murdered Shi Chongxin, the Yongning Princess of the Later Tang — also arrived at the great hall.

By now Shi Jingtang had wept himself into collapse on the ground, vomiting up even the braised pork he had just eaten. Blood, food residue, snot, and tears covered his whole body, with not the slightest trace of an emperor's bearing.

The Yongning Princess had also received the terrible news. The couple's eldest son Shi Chongying had been killed by Li Congke, and now their second son Shi Chongxin was gone as well.

"Yongning! Why did I ever struggle to be emperor? Why did I fight for this at all! That slave Wang Ershisan — how could he not believe me?

If he had not meant to kill me, how would Ying'er, Xin'er, and Yi'er have come to lose their lives!"

By now the setting sun was about to sink below the hills, and dim yellow light shone into Daning Hall as Shi Jingtang and Empress Li embraced and wept bitterly.

Shi Chonggui, Sang Weihan, and the attending eunuchs and palace servants nearby all wept together in a huddle.

Pei Yuan suddenly felt a sense of desolation and sorrow. In his heart, he utterly loathed and despised Shi Jingtang.

The Sixteen Prefectures of Yan-Yun were China's protective screen. With that territory in hand, if the Khitan and other barbarians wanted to enter the Central Plains, merely crossing the mountains would cost them half their lives.

After crossing the mountains, if things went well they might gain some advantage; if not, they would not even have the means to flee.

That was why, through all these years of the Great Tang's decline, the Khitan had repeatedly marched south and each time been soundly defeated. For over a hundred years of chaos and war in the Central Plains, the Khitan had only been able to watch from afar.

But now that the Sixteen Prefectures of Yan-Yun belonged to the Khitan, they could farm and garrison troops in the Yan-Yun lands, and march south whenever they pleased.

The lands of Youzhou, Jizhou, and the other prefectures were fertile. The Khitan could plunder them on a grand scale, giving themselves ample wealth and a considerable capacity to absorb losses. They would surely become a great scourge to China in the future.

But at this moment, the Shi Jingtang before Pei Yuan's eyes was merely a pitiful man who had only wanted to save his own life, yet had been pushed step by step to this point by fate.

Though he had ascended the throne, inside and outside the court were domineering, overbearing power-holders. Living in the imperial palace, he had to constantly fear that in a single unguarded moment, mutinous soldiers would cut off his head.

He had rebelled until he was nearly fifty, borne an eternal infamy, acknowledged a man more than ten years his junior as his father, and now his line was extinct. Truly, why had he ever struggled to be this emperor?

He suddenly remembered what Zhang Zhao had once told him — that in this age of chaos, the reason military provinces had splintered and yabing guards ran rampant without fear of law or heaven.

Was that both high and low had lost their sense of honor, and all around had abandoned faith and righteousness, taking the law of the jungle — leading beasts to devour men — as a matter of course.

Looking at Shi Jingtang before him, Pei Yuan suddenly understood what Zhang Zhao had meant by the tragedy of the age.

"I, Zhang Erlang, seek neither the imperial throne nor fine wine and beautiful women. I have come for one purpose alone — to end this age of chaos and forge anew the glory of Han and Tang!"

In that instant, Pei Yuan felt Zhang Zhao's words strike his heart like the evening drum and morning bell, and he resolved that he too would throw himself into madness.

"If the Sage weeps from night to dawn and dawn to night, can his tears kill the traitor Zhang? Can they avenge his two sons? If the Sage will grant Minister Zhang's request, your servant has a plan by which the Sage's great vengeance may be achieved!"

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