Chapter One: Depose the Grand Chancellor and Cripple His Cultivation!
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Great Kang.
Pingtian City.
The imperial palace stretched across tens of thousands of acres, its golden chambers and jade-green tiles radiating magnificent splendor.
Within the Golden Hall, the civil and military officials, dressed in court robes bearing embroidered insignia of birds and beasts, had at last found a common enemy.
“This man shows no respect for law or discipline!”
“I, Feng Zhang, Grand Censor, beseech Your Majesty, for the sake of the realm and its people, to have Grand Chancellor Yang Chuan executed!”
“Guo Huairen, Left Vice Minister of Justice, petitions for the execution of Yang Chuan!”
“Peng Zhen, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, petitions for the execution of Yang Chuan!”
…
More than a dozen high-ranking officials clad in purple and crimson stepped out from the ranks and prostrated themselves upon the floor.
Their hands trembled around their tablets of office, tears and mucus streaming down their faces.
The chief minister of an entire empire was being denounced by them as though he were not the pillar of Great Kang, but a lump of mud so rotten that he had to be removed without delay.
Upon the Phoenix Terrace sat the empress of Great Kang, Yan Wugou. Born with the bearing of a dragon and phoenix eyes narrowed slightly, she wore a face in which delicate beauty and solemn authority coexisted. Not the slightest ripple could be discerned upon it.
Whether grand chancellor or court official, all seemed to lie within the grasp of her hand.
At the head of the assembled ministers, beneath the Phoenix Terrace, a young man in a magnificent purple brocade robe embroidered with a python slowly raised his eyelids. He gazed at the officials kneeling before him and impeaching him, his eyes filled with boundless mockery.
Unlike everyone else, only two people in the Golden Hall were seated: the young man and the empress.
He was Yang Chuan, the Grand Chancellor, Pillar of the State, whose might shook Great Kang and whose authority held all beneath Heaven in thrall.
The cries of “Execute Yang Chuan!” rang without end. More and more officials knelt upon the floor, yet Yang Chuan, clad in his python robe, sat calmly in his grand chair, his expression as tranquil as drifting clouds and flowing water.
It was as though those men were impeaching someone else entirely.
For three years he had wielded the power of the court. Through sweeping reforms, he had eradicated abuses and purged redundant officials, offending an incalculable number of people.
There were countless men who had impeached him and wished to see him dead. He had long since made his peace with it.
Besides, the favored had nothing to fear.
Yang Chuan and the empress of Great Kang, Yan Wugou, had met in obscurity. They had supported each other through hardship and carved out this age of peace and prosperity with their own hands.
The bond between them had long since surpassed that of ordinary sovereign and minister.
Yang Chuan remained unmarried, while Yan Wugou’s inner palace stood empty. That alone spoke volumes.
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Yet as time passed, more than half the officials were kneeling and begging for his death.
The empress, who should have spoken long ago to halt the proceedings, remained silent.
Yang Chuan’s brows drew tightly together. With a vague foreboding in his heart, he lifted his head toward the shadowy figure of the empress concealed within the darkness of the Phoenix Terrace.
After a long while, a clear yet dignified voice rang out.
“Grand Chancellor Yang, you have heard what all the officials have said. I know that you have rendered many services to Great Kang over the years, but with the entire court urging this course, I am truly placed in a difficult position.”
“Very well. As for the officials’ demand that you be executed, that is naturally impossible. From this day forth, however, I relieve you of the office of Grand Chancellor and appoint you an Academician of the Hanlin Academy.”
There was a trace of struggle and distress in the empress’s melodious voice.
It was as though the officials had forced her hand, and she herself was utterly unwilling.
Yet considering the affection that had existed between the empress and Yang Chuan, even had blades been pressed to her throat, she should never have dismissed him so easily from the office of Grand Chancellor merely because the officials demanded it.
Clearly, she had made her decision long ago.
Indeed, it was entirely possible that the officials’ united petition this time bore the empress’s own shadow.
Yang Chuan slowly rose. He swept his gaze over the officials kneeling on the floor, then looked toward the empress seated high upon the Phoenix Terrace.
The empress, who had always been forceful, let her eyes dart away several times. Only after realizing that she had revealed too much did she turn back with a smile and meet his gaze.
Yang Chuan sighed.
When the cunning hare is dead, the hounds are cooked; when the birds are gone, the fine bow is put away. It was nothing more than that.
He had never imagined that one day the empress would use such a stratagem against him.
Seven years after crossing into this world, when he first met Yan Wugou, she had merely been a hostage trapped in an enemy nation, starving and living from one day to the next.
Yang Chuan had spent four full years killing countless men and exhausting himself in every possible way before finally placing Yan Wugou upon the imperial throne.
He then spent another three years eliminating the empress’s rivals at court and helping her secure her position.
Now, at the crucial juncture of Great Kang’s reforms, he had never expected the empress to abandon the very man who had helped her cross the river.
Looking at the empress’s exquisite face, Yang Chuan’s eyes dimmed.
With the butcher holding the knife and the fish upon the chopping board, what could he do?
Though he was Grand Chancellor, he had always left the final authority to the empress. He had believed that he needed to cultivate no faction of his own, for the empress was his greatest support.
Who could have imagined that the empress would one day stab him in the back?
“My loyal Yang, you have held the office of Grand Chancellor for three years and won my deepest approval. You ought to be more considerate of my feelings. In the present circumstances, you must not make things difficult for me.”
Seeing Yang Chuan remain silent for so long, the empress could not help speaking.
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When she looked at Yang Chuan, even the last trace of guilt in her heart had long since vanished.
It was true that she could not have ascended the throne, stabilized the court, and taken hold of the empire without Yang Chuan’s assistance.
But in the three years since she had ruled the court, the people of the realm had gradually come to know only the Grand Chancellor and not the empress.
Everyone sang Yang Chuan’s praises, while she, the empress, seemed to have become nothing more than an auspicious ornament seated upon the imperial throne.
If she herself had not made the final decisions, how could Yang Chuan’s policies and decrees have been carried out so smoothly? The greatest merit clearly belonged to her. Yet now everyone seemed to believe that without Yang Chuan, she would only bring ruin upon the realm.
Yan Wugou had discovered that she was gradually losing the ability to control Yang Chuan.
Affection alone, she feared, would no longer be enough to restrain his ever-growing “ambition.”
He did not covet wealth or cling to power. He had no faction within the court and devoted himself wholly to affairs of state. Yan Wugou could not find the slightest stain upon him, as though he had long since placed all his heart and strength into serving the empire.
More than once, Yan Wugou had hoped that Yang Chuan would voluntarily relinquish his authority and submit his resignation. When that day came, she would certainly have brought him into her inner palace. There would be only Yang Chuan within it.
But fate had chosen otherwise.
Yan Wugou came back to herself and looked at Yang Chuan’s somewhat forlorn figure. Instead of pity, a trace of satisfaction arose within her heart.
She wanted Yang Chuan to understand.
She was no longer the starving girl who had once lived precariously in an enemy nation. She was now the sovereign whose power held all beneath Heaven in thrall.
Even if affection existed between them, theirs was no longer the bond of lovers who had endured hardship together as equals. It was the favor bestowed by an emperor.
Yang Chuan withdrew his gaze from the empress, once again restoring his former composure.
He naturally knew what Yan Wugou was thinking.
Over these seven years, they had been together from dawn to dusk. How could Yang Chuan fail to understand her heart?
But Great Kang was still far from as prosperous and peaceful as it appeared on the surface. It still needed his painstaking stewardship.
Besides, he had no desire to become a canary locked away in the empress’s inner palace.
“Your Majesty, demoting Yang Chuan to an Academician of the Hanlin Academy is not unacceptable. However, an Academician of the Hanlin Academy must remain constantly at Your Majesty’s side. Yang Chuan possesses the martial strength of a Grandmaster; in the end, that remains a danger.”
“I, therefore, petition Your Majesty to abolish Yang Chuan’s martial cultivation!”
Just as Yang Chuan fell into thought, the Grand Censor spoke once more.
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