Chapter 1447: Not an End, but a Beginning

This day had finally arrived.

In the howling, biting wind, countless banners fluttered in midair. Company after company of soldiers in brand-new uniforms lined up along the narrow gravel path outside the parade-ground fence, arrayed in a single row parallel to the reviewing stand. The vast field was filled with officers and soldiers of every corps awaiting inspection; facing the reviewing stand, they formed dozens of solemn crimson lines.

And on the flat ground beyond the distant fence, several more infantry regiments and cavalry regiments stood in parallel ranks, ready to march in column past the reviewing stand.

Those in red uniforms were the permanent legions of Great Han. They were soldiers carefully selected from the territories previously controlled by the Zhao family army to fill the ranks. Not long ago, they had followed the soon-to-be-enthroned emperor into Beijing and successfully brought about the change of dynasty.

Some among them might now think this marks the end of the campaign, but the emperor and the high officials beside him know that for them, their campaign is only just beginning.

One day, east to the sea, west to the desert wastes, north to the ice fields, south to the great forests — their footprints will cover them all. They will crush every enemy of the empire, and for themselves and for the descendants of this people, they will carve out a legacy of incomparable splendor.

The soldiers in black uniforms were men of the Imperial Guard. These men would henceforth protect the Son of Heaven of Great Han and serve as the garrison troops stationed in the Great Han capital. They were not very numerous, but all were elite troops selected from the various legions. Every one of them bore himself with extraordinary presence, ramrod-straight, seeking in this way to display the pride of the emperor's own personal troops.

Under the gaze of this great army, the new emperor of Great Han, Zhao Jin, walked step by step up onto the empty reviewing stand.

Yes, empty — because in this empire he had built with his own hands, there was no longer anyone who could stand shoulder to shoulder with him.

And he, through more than twenty years of effort, had reached the most glorious of pinnacles.

Yet even as the sole focus of ten thousand gazes, his face remained solemn; not a trace of tension or joy could be seen.

In the gusting, snapping wind, his gaze shifted slightly downward.

Closest to the stand were his old brothers, the men he was closest to and relied on most. Now they were arrayed in two groups, civil and military, standing below the reviewing stand. Nearest of all was Wang Zhaojing, the old friend he trusted and depended on most, who would become the prime minister of the new dynasty, first among all officials. Yet even he kept his head respectfully lowered, unwilling to meet the emperor's eyes.

According to their rank in the new court, the others stretched farther and farther away. Toward the back, some he could no longer make out clearly, only sensing them as a dense mist of black and red swirling around his feet.

But from this day forward, there would no longer be any distinction among them, for they would all become his subjects.

The Chongzhen Emperor had earlier wished to die a martyr for his country, but was quickly restrained by the eunuchs and civil officials around him who wanted to surrender. After the Zhao family army entered the capital, although he resisted fiercely and made it clear he would not cooperate, declaring they could kill him or slice him up as they pleased, he was, after all, merely a prince who had lived in pampered seclusion and knew little of the world. It did not take much effort for an abdication edict issued in his name to be promulgated across the land. After today, this ill-fated emperor, together with other surviving close-lineage members of the Zhu imperial clan, would be relocated to some place and kept under supervised residence, living out their days in conditions that, while not free, were at least stable, until old age.

As for the far more numerous distant-lineage Zhu clan members, they would simply be disbanded and live as commoners, supporting themselves. The emperor and his close ministers had no fear that they would rise in revolt.

His ministers had originally wanted him to ascend the throne in the magnificent halls of the Forbidden City, but he refused. He disliked that palace and would rather hold his coronation while reviewing the troops outside the capital.

He hoped in this way to tell his subjects, and to tell all under heaven, that even as emperor, he absolutely did not wish for himself or his ministers to cast aside their plain, unadorned nature.

He looked down at the soldiers in their neat uniforms below the stand, at their young faces brimming with smiles from excitement, some even glistening with tears. He had a hundred thousand such soldiers, and if he wished, he could have even more. And he firmly believed that on the earth of today, no armed force, no nation, could stand against this army he had equipped with the finest weapons and armed with ideas far beyond this age. The only things that could stop them were the boundless desert wastes and the vast oceans.

What were they fighting for?

They were fighting for him — fighting to expand the foundation he had built across the whole country, to become yet another new dynasty on the land of Huaxia.

Yet for him, this was not enough. He wanted them even more to fight to reclaim the glory of the ancestors of Huaxia from so many years ago.

Countless years ago, the ancient forebears gathered around their leaders, resisting the incursions of surrounding barbarians, resisting the ravages of natural calamities. Over the span of several thousand years, with breathtaking courage and resolve, they expanded their territory step by step, pushing ever outward, until they reached nearly every place the ancient people could look upon, and bequeathed to their descendants the glory of "Zhonghua."

"All under heaven is the king's land; to the shores of the land, all are the king's servants." This was the simple dream of the ancients, and the ultimate goal they tirelessly pursued.

Countless years later, their descendants grew decadent. They wearied of war and expansion, stopped to rest, and sank into the comforts and conveniences civilization brought. They forgot their ancestors' pioneering and enterprising spirit, and forgot the glory they had once borne on their shoulders. And that glory was picked up by people from other worlds, who then rode that light across continents and oceans, became the masters of this world, and trained their guns and cannons upon this once-great people.

And he, slipping through a rift in time and space, had crossed over to this place. After a journey like a dream, he had reached this point and become the master of an empire.

Was this his limit? Was this all he needed to do?

No. At this moment, he was more willing to believe that the reason he had been sent back to this era through time and space was that his destiny was to lead this great people to pick up the swords they had dropped in their confusion and suffering, and to seize back the glory they were about to lose.

And he was still young; he had decades yet to use. He could send his soldiers across the deserts, across the oceans, to complete one new conquest after another, spreading the concept of "Zhonghua" to every piece of land, making them either subjects of the empire or tremble before its might.

He knew that since ancient times there had never been an imperishable dynasty. The new dynasty he had founded would one day, in the torrent of time, come crashing down and become a remnant trace in the history books.

Yet he knew even more that in this world he had already refreshed and remade, he had left a mark surpassing the vast majority of people who had ever lived, and had become the undisputed, absolute master of the most populous empire in the world today.

He also knew that he would continue to lead his empire, driving his loyal and valiant soldiers to create even grander achievements, until... every conqueror in history paled in comparison to him.

And his descendants would continue walking the path he had opened, forever expanding land and influence for this great people, until they could expand no further.

"The Mandate of Heaven rests with the nation; the Mandate of Heaven rests with me!" he murmured softly, as if speaking to himself, and as if speaking to some presence in the unseen.

Then, he slightly raised his hand.

At that very moment, the prime minister abruptly dropped to his knees, and then the people behind him knelt row by row, like a wave propagating outward.

This was their salute to the supreme master of the empire; this was the proclamation of a nation's rebirth.

"Long live our Emperor! Long live! Long, long live!"

Two chapters today; the second around 3 p. m. Going forward, there will be two chapters a day for a while.