Chapter 107 – Waves from the Cliffs

The sound of birds on the seashore, the gentle lapping of the water under the pier, and the loud, rumbling sound of large waves lapping at the rocks under the cliffs in the distance, rumbled on and off. Fan Xian stood on the plank, not confused by His Majesty’s hot-blooded remarks, and said earnestly, “The dignity of the Ten Thousand Horses does not visit an unpredictable place, so I will ask His Majesty to return to the capital again.”

“Kyoto has the empress dowager sitting at the helm, with Chen Pingping and the two university professors, who can trespass!” The emperor looked at the sea, waved his hand impatiently, and said, “If you want to take over the world, you have to take over that chair, and the first thing you have to do is to kill me sitting in the chair……. Can’t kill me, let them make a scene, the waste rebellion, ten years won’t work.”

Fan Xian silent and speechless, thinking that His Majesty the emperor is really a freak, incomparably strong self-confidence mixed with incomparably strong suspicion, creating this person narcissistic to the extreme character …… emperor wants to play lure the snake out of the hole, it is not allowed to say that someday it will die in narcissism, the problem is that he does not want to be a funeral pyre.

“Anzhi, you have to know that it is very difficult to see a person’s heart clearly.”

The emperor suddenly lamented, not knowing whether he was talking about his own son, or his own sister, right after this rare sentiment was exported, a layer of fatigue suddenly covered his complexion, and his brows and eyes were wrinkled with indescribable tiredness.

This fatigue is not the fatigue that he deliberately showed to his ministers in the imperial court on top of the dragon chair, but real fatigue, a kind of boredom from the depths of his heart.

Fan Xian calmly scrutinized the face of the emperor’s son from the sidelines, and he did not know how many thoughts swept through his mind. This was the first time he had seen such a real and close expression on the emperor’s face.

However, this kind of real emotional outpouring was just like the clouds above the Tanyuu seaport, which only occasionally bloomed, covering those harsh sunlight, and immediately drifted away, disillusioned above the porcelain blue sky. After an instant, there was no longer the slightest trace of it to be found on the Emperor’s face.

What remains is only the confidence and perseverance of ten thousand suns. Occasionally revealing his mortal heart, the man immediately reverted back to his role as a monarch.

Watching this scene, Fan Xian couldn’t help but feel some emotion, sighing: “The so-called painting a dragon and painting a tiger is hard to paint a bone, knowing the face of a person does not know the heart of a person, usually gentle accordingly, who knows that one day will not take two straight knives, poking into each other’s chest.”

The emperor obviously does not care who exactly is the object of Fan Xian’s emotion, just in this kind of emotion around, thinking back to the past. He looked out at the sea in a slight daze, and said quietly, “The world may have thought that I was a heartless, unfeeling man, but in fact, they were all wrong.”

Fan Xian quietly looked at His Majesty from the side and did not answer.

The Emperor slowly said, “I have given them too many chances, hoping that they would repent, and even up to this point, I am still giving them chances, if I were not sentient, why would I have to run around so much?”

Fan Xian secretly thought, seducing as well as forcing others to make mistakes to test each other’s heart, looking closely at the suffering of the Crown Prince and the Second Prince in these years, the Emperor acted in such a way, is he sentient or is he sick?

“Just as your mother ……” The emperor’s eyes narrowed slightly, as if he felt that the sun drifting out of the clouds was too harsh.

Fan Xian’s heart tightened slightly, listening intently to every word His Majesty said.

The emperor glanced at him and turned his face away again, saying faintly, ”She was of unparalleled merit in the Kingdom of Qing, and in me, even more so …… to talk about kindness more than the heavens, and yet, in a single moment of strangeness, she, as well as her Ye family, became a thing of the past, and suffered a horrible death in the body… …And I, but has been hidden, although after a little to make amends, but compared to her righteousness, I do really very little.”

Fan Xian understood what he meant by that, after his mother’s death, the emperor endured for four years before the princes and nobles involved in this matter in Kyoto were wiped out, but …… left a few very important characters unkilled. If it is that this is revenge, this revenge is too incomplete.

The emperor said quietly: “I have not said, the two of them have not asked, but I know that their hearts are a little unwilling, to me are resentful heart ……” His lips suddenly floated a hint of self-mockery, “but this matter What can I do? In this regard, do not say a word, the Ye family will be collected into the treasury, the Ye family will be branded as treason, is for ruthlessness. But to overturn the case for the Ye family, that the Empress Dowager will be how to live with herself? Or …… do I have to abolish and kill the Empress to be considered truly compassionate?”

It was marvelous that even as the emperor spoke of this section, his words remained as calm as ever, without a trace of excitement, so that Fan Xian, who was listening on the sidelines, was so impressed. Of course, he knew very well that the so-called “they” who had grievances were of course his father, Fan Jian, and the dean, Chen Pingping.

“As an emperor, it is not possible to travel around the world without tripping over ……,” the emperor said calmly, “If I really did that, I would be just as heartless, and what would become of the entire court? I think that if she were alive, she would also be in favor of what I did.”

“She wanted a strong and affluent Qing Kingdom, and I did.” A look of determination appeared on the Emperor’s face, “Looking around the world, the Kingdom of Qing is the number one strongest country in the world, and the people of the Kingdom of Qing live happier lives than in any other year in history, and I think that this is enough to comfort her heart.”

Fan Xian was silent. In the years since his rebirth, he had asked himself from time to time what kind of country Qing was, and what kind of person the emperor was. Although after entering the capital, he had a deeper understanding of all this, and also finally touched the emperor’s confident, narcissistic, arrogant, and self-mutilating heart …… However, he had to admit one thing, even with the great floods of the year before last, and this year’s snowstorms, the efficiency of Qing’s bureaucratic institutions, the wealth of the people, and the clarity of its politics were many times better than the history books that he had once read in his previous life. I don’t know how many times better.

In other words, at this point in time, there was no doubt that Qing Guo was a world of governance, or even a world of prosperity, and at this point in time, His Majesty, the Emperor beside him, was without a doubt a bright ruler, or even a saintly ruler – if the Emperor’s standard was only to let the people have enough to eat.

“She said that court officials need to be supervised, well, when I was still the crown prince, I advised my father to set up the Supervisory Academy.”

“She said that the eunuchs were pitiful and hateful, so I honored the rules that have been in place since the founding of the country and strictly prohibited eunuchs from interfering in politics, while at the same time causing the inner court’s Taishang Temple to approve the number of eunuchs, so as to try to make the palace as small as possible with fewer monstrous remnants of the population.”

Fan Xian nodded his head repeatedly, the number of eunuchs in the Qing State’s palace was much less than that of Northern Qi, and this was undoubtedly a virtuous policy.

“She said that a wise ruler should be able to listen to advice, well, I will allow the Imperial Historian of the Metropolitan Inspectorate the power to wind up deliberating.”

The faster the emperor spoke, the more out of breath he became. Fan Xian, on the other hand, could not help but bite the tender meat in his lips, reminding himself not to laugh out loud because of the thought of the imperial historians in the courtroom being caned into the asses …… of the pentagrams.

“She said she wants to reform and root out the ills, well, I’ll follow her on all counts, I’ll change the yuan, change the system, and implement a new government ……”

Fan Xian finally could not help but laugh bitterly.

The year of Qingli Yuan was changed to Yuan, and the reorganization at that time had actually been the third New Deal. The Ministry of War was changed into the Ministry of Military Affairs, and then changed into the present day Privy Council, the Imperial College was divided into the Tongwen Pavilion, which was later changed into the Academy of Education and then changed back again, and even the six ministries that had existed from ancient times to the present day were nearly changed by this Majesty.

Emperor Qing’s life achievements are brilliant, but that is before and after the three new policy, but his life is extremely difficult to avoid the absurdity of things. To this day, the people of Kyoto are still confused when it comes to these government offices, and whenever they want to go somewhere, they often have to report several names.

Such a chaotic and unpleasant new policy, if it is not the strong deterrent power of the imperial power, as well as the strong executive power of the officials of the State of Qing, the courtroom will be twisted back to the initial appearance, only those discordant names …… are left, I am afraid that the State of Qing would have long ago been in chaos.

The emperor looked at his look and smiled mockingly, “You also do not want to cover up, I know, this is a rare few times in my life to be confused …… just that your mother was already gone at that time, and I only know a rough, make some mistakes is also unavoidable.”

Fan Xian’s heart moved slightly, secretly thinking that after his mother’s death, the emperor still acted according to his words, and from this heart, he had to say that the emperor was still a sentient person in this matter.

“Before your mother went, I listened to her a lot, yet later could not do anything for her …… ” the emperor closed his eyes, said quietly: “So after she went, I put the year she once mentioned things with me one by one remembered in my heart, wanting to realize it for her, also considered …… some kind of promise or guilt for her.”

Fan Xian sighed. Saying, “If mother is still alive, she must be overwhelmed with admiration for your majesty’s kindness.”

“No, not kindness.” The emperor opened his eyes and said calmly, “Just affection. As for admiration, that is even more impossible. I just want to do something to honor her spirit in heaven, and do not wish for the rest.”

The emperor suddenly laughed and said, “She once used to talk about the newspaper thing in a very unfortunate tone back then, saying that there was no gossip to read, no lace news to read …… I then let the inner court run a newspaper, tracing some lace on it, and at this time I think that I am also fooling around a lot. ”

Fan Xian’s jaw dropped, the inner court newspaper is known as the most useless thing in Qing, it is inscribed by the old Mr. Pan Ling, a university scholar and a great calligrapher, and is sent out to all the roads, all the states, all the counties, and it is only kept by the official government offices and the powerful and wealthy people, and if it’s on the market, it is often that a single inner court newspaper has to be sold for quite a lot of silver.

When he was in Tanyu State, he had stolen the newspaper in the old mansion to exchange silver flowers, the newspaper is naturally very familiar with the so-called “newspaper” on the gossip content is very disdainful, for the newspaper painted on the edge of the lace is very puzzled, and the answer to all of this is actually… …

The answer to all of this is ……. Mom wanted to read the gossip newspaper and listen to the lace news!

Fan Xian looked at the emperor with a somewhat odd expression on his face, forcibly suppressing the words that were about to come out of his mouth, he had wanted to remind his majesty that the so-called lace news did not refer to a few laces traced on the edges of the newspaper.

The emperor didn’t notice his look, and spoke more and more happily, “Your mother is most curious about the story of Pingping’s year, so in the fourth year of Qingli, I took advantage of that old dog’s return to his hometown to save his family, and let the inner court newspaper write about it nicely, so if your mother can see it, she must be happy as well.”

Fan Xian laughed out loud, and he remembered the story as well. In the spring of the fourth year of the Qingli calendar, he himself had traveled from Tanyu to Kyoto, and the two biggest events in Kyoto at that time were the exposure of Chancellor Lin Ruofu’s illegitimate daughter, as well as his marriage to the Fan family, and the second was the story of the inner court editorialist, who was unafraid of the authority of the Supervisory Yuan, exposing the youthful story of Supervisory Yuan President Chen Pingping as a teenager.

Seaside sun gradually rises, from the front to move behind, the emperor and Fan Xian’s shadow hit from time to time above the undulating sea, bias seawater also come to make fun of, so that the waves clear reduced Xu, gradually as calm as a general contrast, reflecting the two fuzzy shadow more and more clear.

Fan Xian smiled and bowed his head, thinking that after all, His Majesty is also a mortal, just as he can’t forget the Temple of Qing, he also can’t forget Tanyu, probably in this life, only on the pier in Tanyu, His Majesty will say so many words.

And it was this conversation between a non-monarch and a minister that made Fan Xian feel a little more favorably about this emperor, a little more profoundly aware, and at the same time a little more troubled.

He sighed and cast his gaze out to sea, thinking that the troubles in his mind were ultimately future matters, and the troubles in front of him were frightening enough.

“What are you worried about?” The emperor was in a more relaxed mood and asked casually.

Fan Xian said after a long time of deliberation, “The governor of the Jiaozhou naval division …… is a son of the Qin family.”

The emperor officially went on a tour, I don’t know how much ceremony is needed, even if the Emperor of Qing has always been known for his simplicity, but in terms of defense forces, the court also put a lot of effort. Land on the state army outside, the forbidden army inside, plus a cadre of experts and Eunuch Hong that old monster, can be called a fortress of steel.

And on the waterways, a few warships of the Jiaozhou navy had also received the order to watch over the dangers coming from the sea. When Fan Xian said this, his eyes were slightly narrowed as he stared at the sea, at the ships sent by the Jiaozhou Maritime Division to escort him.

The emperor’s face was calm, seemingly not taking Fan Xian’s reminder to heart, and said: ”I will one day do you justice for what happened in the valley, but old General Qin is the cornerstone of the country, so don’t be suspicious. Since you have already transferred the black riders over, you don’t need to worry about raids within a hundred miles, so why do you have to be so restless as a lost dog all day long.”

Fan Xian then thought of his majesty’s other long unused identity is a famous general leading the army, a smile to lead the order, no more words.