After Being Mistakenly Taken for a Fellow Traveler by Emperor Long Aotian - Chapter 144

Chapter 144: Could it be that the German BOY has traveled into the body of the Emperor of Northern Wei?

Dark clouds pressed down on the city, threatening to overwhelm it.

Battle reports arrived one after another, delivered by fast horses to the capital, and were handed directly to the emperor and the military cabinet. Zhou Xun and the other military cabinet ministers read through the intelligence in their hands as summer rain poured steadily outside the window.

The Northern Wei forces were coming in full force this time.

The fertile grasslands in the north had fed their warhorses, as well as the ambitions of the Northern Wei people. Since their defeat under the reign of Emperor Gaozong, the Northern Wei had remained quietly dormant for decades, occasionally testing the limits of the Jing Kingdom through minor incursions. In his final years, Emperor Gaozong had even become inexplicably mild, seeking “good relations” with them and tolerating their provocations. When the late emperor ascended the throne, he had intended to bring order, but his rise to power had been less than glorious. Much of his reign was spent dealing with internal affairs, and he passed away within a decade. Thus, the Northern Wei, after decades of preparation, believed themselves ready to make a dramatic return.

“They think the Dragon King has returned,” the emperor commented.

At the beginning of the year, a plague in the western provinces was finally contained, followed by the collapse of levees during the Qingzhou floods. Now, in the middle of the year, the armies of Northern Wei suddenly descended southward, capturing several cities in rapid succession…

And it all happened when Prince Duan and General Wan, who had long been stationed on the border, had not yet returned to Liangzhou.

“Your Majesty, do not worry; Heaven protects the Jing Kingdom!” Grand Academician Gu hurriedly flattered and reassured the emperor. “Originally, at the start of the year, the plague in the western provinces was expected to flare up again, and if the Qingzhou floodwaters had flowed down to the plains, Liangzhou would have been affected. Without Your Majesty’s effective governance, Liangzhou would now be suffering from floods. As for Yunzhou… cough, Yunzhou has indeed been taken. But of the three strongholds bordering the Northern Wei, only Yunzhou has fallen. The western provinces and Liangzhou are still…”

“Where is this ‘Heaven’? It’s all me!” The emperor slammed his hand on the armrest, roaring in anger. “It was I who sent people to handle the plague, I who sent people to manage and repair Qingzhou! Yet despite all that, three of our border cities nearly fell, and the Northern Wei nearly marched straight in! And let’s not even talk about those—what about Yunzhou?! I gave orders to Ma Yi to repair the city walls and stockpile grain and soldiers long ago. Where has all that money gone?!”

The room fell silent.

As the saying goes, “The emperor is high, and the mountains are far.” Officials in border cities were akin to local kings. The emperor had only been in power for a year, and trying to control such a remote fortress city was no easy task.

Ma Yi was not a traitor who had defected to the Northern Wei, but he had been blinded by the lure of silver while pursuing the emperor’s directive to promote trade caravans. Obsessed with turning this into a political achievement to secure a promotion, he had taken it upon himself to lower the vetting standards for western merchants, fully opening Yunzhou to all nations for business. In pursuit of higher tax revenues, he even turned a blind eye to foreign merchants building residences and bringing in private armies within Yunzhou.

Thus, when the Northern Wei cavalry descended upon Yunzhou, the city was caught completely unprepared. Within just over ten days, the entire city fell. The once bustling streets, filled with merchants and treasures, burned with flames as the Northern Wei cavalry trampled over the bodies of Yunzhou’s defenders, mocking and abusing their families. Ma Yi, to his credit, maintained his dignity by taking his own life on the final day.

After capturing Yunzhou, the blood, screams of women, and looted riches only fueled the primal instincts of the Northern Wei forces. They quickly turned their sights westward, marching towards the western provinces. However, there, they faced fierce resistance.

The western provinces were primarily inhabited by ethnic tribes, whose relationships with the imperial government had been strained for years due to linguistic and religious differences, occasionally bordering on rebellion under the leadership of their Grand Shaman. Yet after the plague, the local populace had come to appreciate the efforts of the imperial court and local officials. Compared to the Grand Shaman’s charms, the dedication of the imperial doctors and officials had not gone unnoticed. Moreover, the emperor had appointed capable and reliable ethnic officials to the provincial government, treating them equally with Han officials.

Thus, when the Northern Wei cavalry approached, the locals spontaneously formed militias to resist. The stubbornness and ferocity that had once frustrated officials were now turned against the Northern Wei invaders. Without weapons, they hurled stones. Without swords, they threw dung. They set up traps along the roads to trip up Northern Wei warhorses. Taking advantage of the dense forests in the western provinces, they would retreat into the woods like agile monkeys after ambushing the enemy, leaving the Northern Wei soldiers enraged but unable to retaliate.

Even though the new Grand Shaman repeatedly attempted to stay neutral and wield his influence to stop them, the people persisted in their resistance, especially the “lower-ranked, lesser-blooded” tribesmen, who were even more determined to fight back.

As a result, the western provinces narrowly held their ground.梁州, however, faced a more precarious situation. Rumor had it that during his youth, the Emperor of Northern Wei had been stranded in Liangzhou and taken in by a bandit group—the same Wan Family stronghold tied to General Wan. The emperor of Northern Wei bore a long-standing grudge against General Wan, as he had once tried to drag him back to Northern Wei during Prince Duan and General Wan’s wedding in Liangzhou. Now, driven by both old and new grievances, he sent his fearsome General Li to Liangzhou, seemingly intent on bloodshed to avenge his past humiliation and make General Wan regret it.

Yet General Wan’s reaction upon boarding the ship a few days ago had been:

“This cannon looks incredible!” General Wan exclaimed enthusiastically as he inspected the cannon being transported to Liangzhou via the canal. “Light the fuse, fire it off, and it explodes?”

“Exactly,” the emperor explained, “but make sure to fire it immediately after lighting the fuse.”

“This is amazing! Truly amazing! Your Majesty, if you have more of these, what did you call them—Italian cannons?—send more of them to Liangzhou!” General Wan gave a hearty thumbs-up.

“Of course. After all, you’re up against General Li, one of their elites!”

“I love fighting elites!” General Wan roared with laughter.

The emperor and General Wan appeared to get along famously, chatting animatedly, while Zhou Xun and Prince Duan stood to the side, watching helplessly. Suddenly, Prince Duan turned to Zhou Xun and said, “Minister Zhou.”

Zhou Xun looked at him.

“I will be returning to Liangzhou with Chongming. Who knows when we will meet again? The situation is critical, and I ask you to assist the emperor as much as you can while in the capital,” Prince Duan said. “There are some in the capital who are dissatisfied with the emperor, believing his actions to be too flamboyant and radical.”

Zhou Xun smiled. “I heard that the Prime Minister Wang recently hosted a banquet for you and many other clean-stream scholars.”

Prime Minister Wang, known for his conservative approach, had previously proposed gifting silk to Northern Wei in exchange for peace.

“In addition to Prime Minister Wang, there are other members of the imperial family, such as Prince Su, who is quite influential among the clean-stream scholars. Prince Su is the posthumous son of my second brother, who died resisting a Northern Wei invasion in Yunzhou. My eldest brother—the late emperor—granted him the title of prince after ascending the throne. Some even speculated that my eldest brother’s early death, less than ten years into his reign, was connected to the lingering influence of my heroic second brother and doubts about the legitimacy of his throne,” Prince Duan said with a faint smile. “But Prince Su has always been ‘sensible.’ While the previous emperor was known as a tyrant obsessed with painting, Prince Su is known for associating with clean-stream scholars, being frail and sickly, and generously distributing porridge to the poor. His wife is from the empress dowager’s family, and they are said to be deeply in love. It’s no wonder you’re not familiar with him.”

Zhou Xun sensed a shadow of trouble in these words and looked at Prince Duan intently. Prince Duan continued, “The emperor’s measures, such as reducing tenant farmers’ rents and promoting new fertilizers to encourage land reclamation, are well-intentioned. Unfortunately, some people are displeased with them…”

“Otherwise, where did the rumor about the emperor digging canals solely to deliver lychees to me come from?” Zhou Xun asked.

The two shared a knowing smile. Zhou Xun glanced at the emperor in the distance and murmured, “Given time, the people will naturally see what is right and wrong.”

“They won’t discern right from wrong. They’ll only remember who made their lives better,” Prince Duan replied quietly. “Now that the Northern Wei have attacked, all sorts of monsters and demons have emerged to criticize the emperor…”

“I’m old now. Back when I was young, I always thought about being a virtuous prince for my brother. It was only after suppressing the bandits that I realized who I was really living for.” He looked into the distance at Wan Zhongming, who was wielding a new saber before the emperor. Though neither of them was young anymore, his eyes softened with boundless affection, as if they were still the boys they had been over a decade ago. “Now I don’t want to be a ‘righteous and virtuous prince.’ I just want to live well with one person.”

“Hmm,” Zhou Xun nodded lightly.

In the distance, the two continued talking and joking. General Wan’s loud voice rang out, “This saber is much harder and sharper now!”

“This saber has been fine-tuned with advanced crystalline reinforcement. I specifically ordered strict control over the annealing temperature. The metal microstructure inside should all be… bainite!”

“Metal? Reinforcement? Does this saber contain gold?”

A weight suddenly pressed on Zhou Xun’s shoulder—it was Prince Duan giving him a pat. Prince Duan said, “The ship is departing. I’ll be returning to Liangzhou with General Wan. Be careful, all of you.”

The ship finally sailed away. The emperor and Zhou Xun stood on the shore to see them off. Zhou Xun remarked, “You seem to get along well with General Wan.”

“He has this way of talking that makes me feel especially close to him. I bet he’s really good at fighting,” the emperor replied with a grin. “By the way, if I had met him when I first woke up…”

Zhou Xun: ?

“I might have mistaken him for Li Yunlong. Oh, what did you and Prince Duan talk about earlier?”

Zhou Xun mentioned the matter of Prince Su, but the emperor seemed entirely unconcerned. “A bunch of scholars. Who cares what they say?”

…

When the meeting finally concluded, the ministers filed out of the council chamber one by one. In the now empty chamber, only the emperor and Zhou Xun remained.

The emperor placed a hand on his forehead, exhaling deeply. “Thank goodness they’re gone…”

Zhou Xun stepped forward to massage his temples.

“Otherwise, I might’ve had to reenact Downfall—‘I came to Hebei Province…’” the emperor muttered. “Damn it, North Wei is ridiculously strong. Couldn’t they have waited two more years to invade? And that pincer movement against Yunzhou—wasn’t that a blitzkrieg? Could it be that the German BOY has transmigrated into the North Wei emperor?”

Zhou Xun paused his fingers and said, “Does Your Majesty truly believe this is a coincidence?”

“What coincidence?”

“If Your Majesty had not arrived here, this summer would have seen an epidemic in Xizhou, flooding in Liangzhou stranding countless refugees from Qingzhou, and Yunzhou… already vulnerable. All three major border cities falling simultaneously—does Your Majesty really think this is a coincidence?”

“Sh*t!” The emperor sat upright at once. “You mean someone is messing with me?”

Zhou Xun nodded.

“Yunzhou may be weak, but it wasn’t so fragile that it would fall this easily. Someone must have leaked the city’s defense plans—Zhou Cai wouldn’t, he doesn’t even have the clearance for that,” Zhou Xun explained.

The emperor furrowed his brow deeply, pondering his words. After a long while, he said, “You’re saying there’s a traitor in the court? Or maybe multiple?”

Zhou Xun nodded again.

“We need to figure out where exactly the intelligence leak came from,” the emperor muttered, opening his notebook. “I thought I came here to play Emperor Development Simulator, but now it’s turning into The Spy Who Came from the Red Dust?”

The two of them spent the entire day investigating and gradually narrowed down the possibilities. By nightfall, as Zhou Xun left the palace, he suddenly thought of Old Shen.

“I wonder if Old Shen has returned to the capital? He should have. I should go check on him,” he mused.