Chapter 1573: Welcoming and the Banquet

"What crime has the King committed? It is I who have imposed upon the King." The Crown Prince spoke with courteous humility while suppressing the discomfort in his nose and heart, releasing Li Hun's hand. "The King, after all, is advanced in years. There was no need to personally come out to welcome me. I would have visited the King at Gyeongbok Palace after entering the city myself. Why exhaust yourself to this extent?"

"I am but the ruler of a vassal state, while Your Highness is the Crown Prince of ****. How could there be any reason for the Crown Prince to visit me?" Li Hun smiled bitterly. "Please, Crown Prince, do not overwhelm me with such undue courtesy."

The kingdom of Goryeo ordinarily ruled itself as a self-contained entity within its three thousand li of rivers and mountains. Although it honored the Son of Heaven of the Central Plains, during the Ming dynasty, the Great Ming had essentially never interfered in Goryeo's internal affairs, only occasionally sending envoys during the succession of a Goryeo king or for important ceremonies. Thus, the Goryeo kings had always been able to shut their doors and regard themselves as Sons of Heaven. But now, with the Crown Prince of Great Han arriving in person, that convenience no longer existed, and they could only honestly refer to themselves as subjects.

Watching the blind old man tremble slightly in the cold wind, the Crown Prince felt even more sympathy. "Though I am the Crown Prince of Great Han, I am at present merely a youth. The King is advanced in years and should be considered an elder, while I am a junior. As a junior, how could I put an elder to such trouble? The wind is cold here. Please, King, lead me back into the city."

Then, he turned his head to look at the civil and military officials of both nations kneeling in the distance and waved his hand. "Stop kneeling. All of you, rise."

His voice was not loud, but the officials of both nations who had been kneeling and watching him naturally understood his meaning. However, only the Great Han envoys and military officers present rose one after another; the Goryeo ministers did not follow suit.

According to the prearranged procedure, the palace attendants who had followed the Goryeo king to the Welcoming Grace Gate walked into the open ground and then shouted toward all those who had come to receive him.

"Welcome the Crown Prince of Great Han into the city!"

"Welcome the Crown Prince into the city!" The other palace attendants echoed the cry, and the rising and falling shouts suddenly turned this slightly bleak suburban place noisy and bustling. Many birds, startled, fluttered up from the trees, as if cheering on behalf of the Goryeo people for the Crown Prince's arrival.

With these shouts, the Goryeo ministers still kneeling on the ground kowtowed once more to the earth, their movements fluid and as meticulous as those of Chief State Councillor Kim Sin-guk when he first met the Crown Prince. Only after completing the grand kowtow ceremony did they slowly rise to their feet.

Such reverent conduct not only surprised the Crown Prince but also made the Great Han ministers present somewhat embarrassed—after all, their own kneeling had not been nearly so eager or proactive.

Yet, such a grand spectacle did not move the Crown Prince. Amid his surprise, he also felt rather impatient. In his view, these hollow and vulgar formalities people performed were truly tedious and meaningless. From his father, he had learned one principle: governing the realm relies on knowing men and entrusting them with responsibilities, on cultivating civil and martial order, so that the realm's heroes have a place to establish themselves. What meaning is there in making heroes kneel and kowtow, other than wearing down their enterprising spirit? A monarch who fritters away his time and ambition day after day in ceremonies and amusements may enjoy the pleasure of being worshipped by all, but how could he possibly govern the realm well?

The Great Ming and Goryeo both declined midway, and perhaps this is partly the reason. I must be careful to avoid such things in the future, the Crown Prince thought.

Afterward, he boarded the carriage prepared for him in advance together with the Goryeo king, Li Hun, and then, surrounded by a large crowd, slowly proceeded toward Hanseong.

It must be said that both the Goryeo court and the Great Han mission placed great importance on the ceremony and security of welcoming the Crown Prince. They mobilized large numbers of soldiers from both nations to stand guard around the perimeter, almost lining the road from the Welcoming Grace Gate all the way to the walls of Hanseong. Precisely because of this military cordon, the journey was somewhat desolate, with few Goryeo villagers daring to gather and watch. Only upon reaching the gates of Hanseong did some residents assemble.

Although Goryeo revered Confucianism, after adopting it they added their own ethnic characteristics. After many years of practice, the kingdom began to stratify, classifying its people by rank. At the apex stood the yangban class, a hereditary aristocracy that monopolized court offices and the civil examinations for generations. These people possessed vast wealth, annexing land through every manner of cunning and extortion, and owned great numbers of slaves.

As time passed, the yangban aristocratic population grew accordingly, yet Goryeo's limited official positions and wealth could not be supplied indefinitely to these scholar-official aristocratic families. Thus, to compete for resources, internal strife arose among the yangban. To control the excessively rapid growth of the yangban population, a rule of "bastard confinement" had been established since the era of King Taejong. The so-called "bastards" referred to the descendants born of concubines within yangban families. To slow the growth rate of the yangban population, these yangban bastards were relegated to another class outside the yangban circle, called the "middle people," and were denied yangban privileges. They could only serve as low-level functionaries such as interpreters, medical officers, astronomers, and constables. Through this artificial method of distinguishing legitimate from illegitimate lines, the number of top-ranking nobles was controlled.

Below these two classes were the commoners and the base people. Commoners were ordinary folk, regarded as good subjects, while the base people were those engaged in despised trades, as well as the descendants of scholar-officials and middle people who had been demoted to base status for crimes. This class was the most discriminated against; base people were born into that status and could not be entered into the household registry. No matter how great their learning, they could not participate in the civil examinations, and their opportunities for education were extremely few.

Originally, these four great classes under the Yi dynasty were clearly demarcated, with deep-rooted distinctions and discrimination between them. However, during the Japanese invasions decades ago, because the government lost vast amounts of land and wealth, the number of good subjects it could conscript during the chaos of war dwindled, and it could not bear the burden of resisting across the entire battlefield, forcing it to rely on mobilizing righteous armies. Consequently, during and after the war, rewards for merit had to be granted to the righteous armies. A considerable number of public and private slaves, as well as non-yangban commoners, received government commendations for joining the righteous armies; some were freed from their base registries, and some even entered the yangban class due to their achievements.

Furthermore, to restore the postwar social economy, which was already in ruins, the Goryeo government also adopted the measure of selling offices. With the official posts offered by the court, a number of wealthy farmers or merchants willing to pay grain or goods thereby obtained Goryeo official positions and ascended into the yangban ranks.

Later, as Goryeo's national power declined day by day and the government's finances deteriorated further, this system of selling offices became customary. Whenever the government faced an economic crisis, it sold offices and titles in large quantities, issuing blank letters of appointment, and wealthy households used this to advance into the yangban. The current king, Li Hun, after being restored to the throne with Great Han's support, had himself initiated several rounds of office sales and purchased appointments to remedy the government's dire financial straits. Under the guidance of these policies over several decades, the number of the yangban class swelled to an unprecedented degree.

Because it was the capital, Hanseong's commerce was the most developed in all of Goryeo, and naturally the proportion of wealthy households among the commoners was the highest. Many of these commoners had obtained yangban class titles for their families through the purchase of offices. Although the yangban nobles from traditional scholar-official aristocratic families deeply despised these clodhoppers who had crawled in by exploiting the times and refused to associate with them, this did not prevent the newcomers from feeling smug, believing themselves to have become members of the gentry.

Thus, unlike the timid villagers, they were instead full of curiosity about the arrival of the Central Dynasty's Crown Prince. Many brought their entire families to the city gates, curiously watching this vast procession of men and horses surging toward Hanseong, treating it as a rare spectacle that came once in a century. So many people gathered to watch the excitement naturally caused crowding. The crowd jostled back and forth, and even the soldiers maintaining order nearby had their ranks thrown somewhat into disarray.

Inside the carriage, the Crown Prince had been observing the surrounding scenery, occasionally exchanging a few polite words with Li Hun beside him. He had been rather bored, but upon reaching the city gate with its swarming heads, he instead found it somewhat interesting.

Although it was the capital of Goryeo, its financial and material resources were, after all, very limited, so the walls of Hanseong were not high, nor were the city gates wide. Thus, the soldiers and attendants at the head of this great procession became bottlenecked at the gate and could only pass through slowly. They also mingled with the scholars and commoners who had gathered to watch, and for a moment, order at the city gate became somewhat chaotic.

"Your Highness, shall we go and restore order? There seems to be some chaos up ahead." The guards who had been riding alongside the carriage were originally planning to go and disperse the jostling crowd to prevent any danger to the Crown Prince's safety.

But the Crown Prince immediately stopped them. "The people of Goryeo have come with such enthusiasm to welcome me. Do not hinder them. Goryeo is our nation's loyal vassal state; its people are naturally also very loyal. How could they wish me harm?"

As he spoke, he stood up from within the carriage and looked around at the Goryeo scholars and commoners who were watching him from both sides, surrounded by soldiers.

When he arrived beneath the city gate of Goryeo, on a whim, he waved his hand emphatically, his robe sleeves stirring with the motion. He looked full of spirit and vigor, as if greeting these Goryeo scholars and commoners who had come to gaze upon him.

If an adult had done this, it might have seemed somewhat unsteady and improper, unbecoming of the Crown Prince's status. But for a youth like him to do so appeared vibrant and full of enthusiasm, which at least suited the tastes of these onlooking scholars and commoners.

On one side was a spirited youth, like the rising morning sun; on the other, a decrepit, listless old man with a disability. Among these Goryeo scholars and commoners, this created an extremely stark contrast—especially since Li Hun was also a "tyrant" who did not command their hearts.

"Long live the Crown Prince!" No one knew who started it, but soon such shouts rose and fell one after another, finally converging into a collective cheer.

The Crown Prince only showed a faint smile on the surface, but inwardly he was very pleased. He greatly enjoyed this cheering. The people of Goryeo, like those of Great Han, sought nothing more than peace under heaven...

Li Hun, sitting beside him, could not share in his joy. The Crown Prince of the Central Dynasty had come to Goryeo and received the cheers of the people lining the streets, enjoying an honor that should have been his. It truly made it difficult for him to remain calm. Moreover, he understood that these commoners were cheering for the Central Dynasty's Crown Prince partly out of dissatisfaction with him. He also knew that the deeds he had committed during his first reign had still not been forgiven by the scholars and commoners. Were it not for the military support of Great Han, he could not have maintained his rule.

If I am so utterly unpopular, and if Great Han truly drives me from the throne, how should I conduct myself? The thought surfaced in his mind but was forcibly suppressed, yet a chill ran down his back.

As if infected by the cheers at the city gate, the cheering did not cease even after the carriage entered Hanseong. However, the further inside they went, the more indistinct it became, because the closer they drew to the royal palace, the sparser the population naturally was.

At last, when the surrounding cheers could no longer be heard at all, the carriage arrived at Gyeongbok Palace.

They entered through the main Gwanghwa Gate on the southern side. Gwanghwa Gate consisted of three rainbow-arch gateways; the central arch was for the king's passage, while the left and right arches were for ministers to enter and exit. As the Crown Prince of the Central Dynasty, he naturally entered the palace through the central gate. The royal palace grounds were not large, partly due to Goryeo's financial constraints, and also because Goryeo was a vassal state of the Great Ming, so the palace's scale strictly adhered to the suzerain-vassal relationship. Just like the treatment regarding attire, Gyeongbok Palace was built as a princely mansion according to the regulations for a prince of the first rank, so all buildings were colored in shades of red and blue-green to distinguish them from the golden-yellow of the Chinese imperial palace.

Upon entering Gyeongbok Palace, the Crown Prince looked around out of curiosity, only to find the surrounding walls old and somewhat dilapidated. Some halls even bore traces of fire damage, and he could not help but secretly marvel.

Decades ago, Japan had invaded Joseon, and the Imjin War broke out. Because the Goryeo court, weakened and plagued by endless internal strife, truly could not withstand the Japanese army's onslaught, the royal family fled Hanseong very early on. The Capital Defense Commander Kim Myeong-won and Vice Marshal Shin Gak, with only a little over a thousand troops, encamped at Jecheon Pavilion. Seeing the overwhelming might of the Japanese forces, they dared not fight to the death, so they sank all their weapons into the river and fled on horseback. With the commanders fleeing, the various units naturally scattered entirely.

The Japanese general Kato Kiyomasa led the Japanese army across the Han River and captured Hanseong. Before and after the Japanese army entered the city, Hanseong had already suffered great destruction. On the eve of the then-king's flight, the palaces, altars, government offices, city gates, as well as the palace treasures, historical texts, and ritual vessels had all been burned to ashes, leaving only the ancestral shrine of the Yi royal family standing alone. After entering the city, the Japanese generals had used this place as their residence. Later, the Japanese generals even burned down the ancestral shrine and then moved their quarters to the Southern Palace, directing the various Japanese armies to pursue northward.

After the Goryeo court borrowed reinforcements from the Great Ming, the Japanese army began to withdraw southward under the pressure of the Ming army's advance and left Hanseong. However, before departing, to vent their spite, they actually slaughtered the city's populace nearly to the last. When King Seonjo returned to Hanseong that year, Gyeongbok Palace was already a scene of burned halls and thorns filling the city. The hundred officials could only sit against the remnants of walls, and he too was forced to use the former residence of a royal kinsman as his temporary palace. After Seonjo's death, the current king, Li Hun, succeeded to the throne. Under his urging, the restoration of the original ancestral shrine and palaces began selectively.

Because Gyeongbok Palace covered too large an area and had numerous halls, the wealth required for its restoration was truly more than the current Goryeo court could bear. Therefore, he only perfunctorily maintained Gyeongbok Palace and instead focused on Changdeok Palace, originally a detached palace, even using it as the main palace for a time.

However, later, due to Li Hun's tyrannical misrule, the Goryeo ministers launched a coup. They stormed into Changdeok Palace, where he resided, with soldiers and deposed him from the throne. Changdeok Palace was also burned down during this coup.

His nephew, Yi Jong, who usurped his throne, took up residence in another palace, and Changdeok Palace fell into ruin. Later, when Li Hun was finally restored to the throne under the threat of Great Han's military intervention, after executing Yi Jong along with his children and kin, Li Hun had once planned to rebuild Changdeok Palace again and make it his residential palace.

However, under the Great Han mission's suggestion that "Gyeongbok Palace is the main palace; only by residing there can the king's position be legitimate and proper. Moreover, Gyeongbok Palace is situated within the walls of Hanseong, which is advantageous for defense and will prevent similar incidents from recurring," he abandoned the idea of rebuilding Changdeok Palace and moved his residence back to Gyeongbok Palace.

Although Gyeongbok Palace had been undergoing repairs over the years, its scale was, after all, quite large, so the financially limited Goryeo court had only focused on restoring a small portion of its halls. The palace still retained many traces of the destruction wrought during the Imjin War, which the Crown Prince, with his keen powers of observation, noticed at a glance.

The main hall of Gyeongbok Palace was Geunjeong Hall, the site of the throne and where the king held various grand ceremonies and morning audiences. Going there now was naturally not appropriate, so the carriage proceeded toward Gyeonghoeru Pavilion deeper within the palace.

Gyeonghoeru was a pavilion built on a massive artificial lake. It served as the guesthouse where the king hosted banquets for his ministers and foreign envoys, making it naturally most suitable now as the lodging for the Central Dynasty's Crown Prince. Beside the vast pond, the Crown Prince and the Goryeo king alighted from the carriage together, while the others also lined up on both sides.

Then, guided by palace attendants, they walked along the narrow stone causeway, crossed the artificial lake, and entered Gyeonghoeru Pavilion at the lake's center. Along the way, the spring breeze, laden with the fragrance of flowers, blew ceaselessly against the Crown Prince's face, making him feel considerably more at ease.

Gyeonghoeru had originally been a place for the king and his ministers to feast, so it was fairly spacious. However, because Li Hun had rarely entertained his ministers after his restoration, the place had not been properly used or maintained for several years. It had only been hastily tidied up once more just before the Crown Prince's arrival. Though clean, it inevitably seemed somewhat neglected. Weeds grew thick among the rockeries, the stone steps were uneven, and those distant halls still not fully restored added a further touch of bleakness to the scene.

Thank you all for your subscriptions, monthly tickets, and tips. Thank you all.