Prince Yu had been beset by one vexing matter after another until he was at his wits’ end. In the days when he had commanded armies, his instinct would have been to order Luo Jing hauled out and beheaded on the spot — or at the very least, fifty strokes of the military rod: live or die, your own fate to bear.
But commanding armies and scheming for power were truly worlds apart. In his campaigning days, Grand General Xu Qulu had been unparalleled in battle strategy, unmatched under heaven; yet Xu Qulu’s political instincts had been nearly nonexistent — his ability to read men and circumstances almost nil. Had that not been the case, he would not have met the end he did.
Prince Yu considered himself far superior to Xu Qulu in these matters, yet even he was frequently helpless when it came to the business of winning hearts and minds — particularly when the men at his disposal were so wildly polarized: either supremely shrewd or utterly witless.
Part of this had to do with the environment he now occupied. When he had been in the capital, he had ridden high — his influence entirely eclipsing that of the idiot Crown Prince, with ministers and officials throughout the court singing his praises.
That was because in those days, when he sought the company of powerful officials at court, he had been willing to set aside his pride. A prince of the realm had made himself the junior, flattered those old men, sent gifts, affected scholarly tastes — and naturally cultivated an enviable network of connections.
Now things were different. He was the greatest figure in the room. And when a man occupies the highest position in any given world, he is easily set on a pedestal — take the current Emperor: his own idiocy was certainly the primary cause of his troubles, but it had not been unrelated to the deliberate obscuring practiced by those below him.
Prince Yu, at this moment, had already become something like the emperor of Jizhou. His every word was edict; those beneath him appeared to bow and scrape in compliance, yet each and every one of them was nursing private calculations of their own.
So it was that just as he was on the verge of furious action against Luo Jing, he abruptly cooled.
This Luo Jing was nothing but a brute. The man lived for his reputation. Young and hot-blooded, he wanted everyone to know of his unrivaled martial arts, wanted everyone to know he was the finest fighter under heaven — hence the idea of setting up a fighting stage.
To punish him now would turn Luo Geng of Youzhou against him for certain. Prince Yu had been working to draw Luo Geng to his side, to have Luo Geng personally lead his troops as vanguard. Luo Geng himself had not come — only his son. If the son were punished the moment he arrived in Jizhou, what would Luo Geng make of it?
“Wait.”
Prince Yu called his subordinates back. He had just ordered someone to summon Military Commissioner Zeng Ling — and in the moment he received the news, he had been on the verge of a thunderous tirade against Zeng Ling. But in the span of a breath, he reconsidered: better to let Luo Jing carry on.
First: to reprimand Zeng Ling and punish Luo Jing over something as trivial as Luo Jing’s poor behavior would, in a single stroke, alienate all three of the men he relied upon most… Second: for the campaigns to come, he genuinely needed Luo Jing at the head of his forces. The man was a brute, yes, but a brute of the highest order; to have such a man as vanguard was to hold a winning hand in any future engagement.
Third… a path had to be left clear for the future. Luo Jing would inevitably accumulate great military merit. The more accomplished he became, the more arrogant he would grow. Once the capital had been taken, Luo Jing would stand as the foremost man in martial achievement — richly rewarded, holding military power, difficult to check. Better to let this transgression accumulate now as leverage, to be brought out when the time came to cut him down.
The Princess Consort had barely been buried, and here he was staging a fight in Jizhou City. No matter how much time passed before the matter was raised, it would always constitute a wrong on Luo Jing’s part.
Having reached this conclusion, Prince Yu waved a hand. “There is no need to summon the Commissioner. Let us pretend I know nothing of this. The manor remains closed; we receive no visitors. If Zeng Ling comes on his own, however, let him in directly.”
With instructions given, Prince Yu returned to his rocking chair and sat back, swaying gently. His mind turned to the most pressing matter at hand: how to explain things to the Yuwen family. The Princess Consort’s death could not be concealed for long.
He had barely begun to think on it when a manor attendant entered, bowing his head low. “Your Highness, the Military Commissioner requests an audience.”
Prince Yu smiled to himself. *The man was bound to come.* Luo Jing’s staging of a fight must have set off Zeng Ling’s alarm — Zeng Ling was no fool, unlike Luo Jing. The moment he heard about the fighting stage, he would know he might be implicated. It was Zeng Ling who had brought Luo Jing back from Youzhou; if Luo Jing had committed an offense, the connection could come back on Zeng Ling.
Prince Yu had him shown in, and settled back with eyes closed. A moment later, Zeng Ling entered on careful feet, his expression visibly strained. Seeing that the Prince had not opened his eyes, Zeng Ling felt another jolt of anxiety.
“Your Highness, this minister has committed an offense.”
Zeng Ling dropped to his knees without a moment’s hesitation.
Zeng Ling was a true political operator — perhaps the most keenly attuned reader of human nature that one could find. Before Prince Yu had declared his intent to raise troops, Zeng Ling had referred to himself as *subordinate* in nearly every exchange, rarely using the more formal *official* form of self-address. Strictly speaking, he was not a Prince’s Manor retainer, so calling himself *subordinate* was not even technically proper — yet he had maintained that posture deliberately. Once Prince Yu declared his intent to rebel, Zeng Ling had immediately shifted from calling himself *subordinate* to calling himself *minister*. Prince Yu had been pleased about that shift for a good long while.
“Oh?” Prince Yu opened his eyes, wearing an expression of complete surprise. “Zeng Ling, what on earth is this? Rise, please — quickly.”
Zeng Ling knelt where he was. “This minister failed to properly instruct Luo Jing, leading him to…”
“What has Luo Jing done?” Prince Yu asked.
Zeng Ling promptly recounted the matter of Luo Jing’s fighting stage, punctuating it with a thorough dressing-down of Luo Jing — denouncing him as worthless, as having no family discipline, no sense of propriety — in short, Luo Jing was excoriated from every possible angle.
When he had finished, Prince Yu shook his head and sighed. “This is hardly your fault. Get up, quickly. However undisciplined Luo Jing may be, it has nothing to do with you. It is his father Luo Geng who failed to raise him properly. What offense have *you* committed?”
Prince Yu rose from his seat and helped Zeng Ling to his feet. “In truth, we cannot lay all the blame on Luo Jing either. He has just arrived in Jizhou and wants to make a name for himself — youth and high spirits, entirely understandable. He simply did not think things through…”
“This minister will return immediately and order Luo Jing to tear down every last one of those notices,” Zeng Ling said quickly. “He truly has gone too far!”
“The matter of the fighting stage…”
Prince Yu pretended to mull it over. “…is not entirely without merit. First, it will bring Luo Jing’s name before the people of Jizhou and draw men to his banner — something beneficial to the military morale of Jizhou, and a way of letting the world know that Youzhou’s Luo Geng has already come over to my side.”
He glanced at Zeng Ling and continued: “Second, once word of this reaches Youzhou, Luo Jing has behaved improperly, but would Luo Geng not know better? When Luo Geng hears of it and I do not punish Luo Jing, Luo Geng will understand my intentions — and serve me loyally hereafter.”
Prince Yu smiled at Zeng Ling. “Third, you are the person I trust most. If you were made to suffer on account of Luo Jing’s behavior, I could not bear it… So — young men will make their noise. Let him get it out of his system. I’ll pretend to know nothing of it. Who knows — if he manages to turn up some talented men for the Jizhou army in all this ruckus, then even the ruckus will have yielded something worthwhile.”
By the time he heard all of this, Zeng Ling’s mind had already been racing through the calculation. The Prince’s reasoning was plainly at odds with his true character; no one knew Prince Yu better than Zeng Ling did. He quickly arrived at what Prince Yu actually had in mind — four words: *settling accounts after the harvest.*
With the campaign imminent, to discipline the vanguard general at this moment would first shatter the army’s morale and second alienate the Youzhou forces — clearly not the rational course. The Prince was enduring this humiliation now with a purpose in mind. At this realization, Zeng Ling prostrated himself once more.
“Your Highness, this minister knows that Your Highness is magnanimous. This minister has failed to spare Your Highness any of his burdens or troubles, and feels in his heart a deep shame — utterly unworthy of Your Highness’s boundless regard…”
Prince Yu smiled and lifted Zeng Ling to his feet, speaking in a tone of absolute sincerity and absolute trust: “Zeng Ling, in the battles to come — I could do without any man at my side, even my own sons. But I cannot do without you. Do you know what place you hold in my heart? You are my anchor in the storm. Without you, nothing I do feels right.”
In that brief moment, Zeng Ling felt something that was almost — almost — genuine feeling stir within him. Something of the kind was… perhaps fitting.
—
The transport firm.
As the intelligence chief of the Yongning Tongyuan Transport Firm, Yu Jiuling was dutiful and thorough. Whenever the city stirred, he was the first to know — a demonstration of his abilities. His particular gift lay in building close, easy relationships with people he had just met: the Ruan brothers, Ruan Chen and Ruan Mu, whom Li Chi had introduced him to on a single occasion, were a case in point.
He could leverage that gift to cultivate goodwill and gather information. His weakness, however, was that he was not skilled at drawing outsiders to their side. The tasks Li Chi had assigned Yu Jiuling included dealings with the Military Defense Army — and with Jiang Ran’s guidance on who could be won over and who could not, those matters were clear enough — but also the Jizhou Prefecture officials, whom Jiang Ran also knew well. Even so, Yu Jiuling had not managed to win over a single one of them.
Yu Jiuling came running in from outside, and the moment he spotted Li Chi he broke into a grin. “Just picked up a piece of news — that man they call the Northern Reaches’ finest warrior, Luo Jing, is setting up a fighting stage in Jizhou City.”
Li Chi was startled. “A fighting stage?”
He thought for a moment, then said, “Is he not afraid of the consequences? The Princess Consort has barely passed, and he’s stirring up this kind of trouble…”
He stopped himself mid-sentence, then slowly shook his head. “Prince Yu won’t punish him — not when he needs men so badly. Besides, Prince Yu still wants to draw in Luo Jing’s father. The Youzhou army is peerless in battle; by comparison, the Jizhou forces are somewhat lacking.”
“The man is breathtakingly arrogant,” Yu Jiuling said. “He’s declared that anyone who can withstand five of his moves will be rewarded a hundred taels of silver, and anyone who lasts ten moves gets two hundred — and anyone who lasts ten can serve under his command.”
Li Chi chuckled. “When I traveled the jianghu with my master, I heard plenty about him. Luo Jing — undefeated in his youth. He has the standing to be arrogant.”
“Hah!” Yu Jiuling said. “You don’t feel even the tiniest bit of indignation?”
“What does indignation have to do with anything?” Li Chi smiled. “Besides, it’s no business of mine.”
“He’s this arrogant, and you don’t want to teach him a lesson?”
Li Chi shook his head. “No interest. No need to stir up trouble either. Why not just keep our heads down and quietly make our fortune? Why go looking for him — even if you beat him, there’s no benefit in it, and you’d only be exposing ourselves.”
Yu Jiuling gave a reluctant grunt. Still, there was a small knot of pride in him that wouldn’t quite loosen — a man from Youzhou, bold enough to imply that Jizhou had no worthy contenders. Even he felt a flicker of annoyance.
“Fine, forget it then,” Yu Jiuling said. “We’ll go watch the spectacle.”
“Watching is fine,” Li Chi said. “Just don’t start anything.”
“Right, I’m off to enjoy myself.”
“Go on,” Li Chi said with a smile. “Oh — one thing. Whatever you do, don’t let Elder Brother Zhuang hear about this.”
Yu Jiuling thought about it. Zhuang Wudi’s temperament — if he caught wind of Luo Jing boasting that no one in the world could withstand ten of his moves, there was a genuine chance he would march up to that stage and give Luo Jing a lesson. He turned back to Li Chi and said, “Don’t worry. I won’t say a word to Elder Brother Zhuang.”
“Isn’t Elder Brother Zhuang out with a party buying grain?” he asked.
Li Chi suddenly realized. He grabbed Yu Jiuling by the arm. “We need to go intercept him — before Elder Brother Zhuang stumbles onto that fighting stage.”
Yu Jiuling knew that once Zhuang Wudi got up on that stage, things would go badly. He fell in beside Li Chi as they left the transport firm — but they had no idea where Zhuang Wudi had gone. Jizhou City was enormous; finding one person was no easy task.
Li Chi looked at Yu Jiuling. “Split up. You check the markets around the city where we buy grain. I’ll go to where the stage is — if he’s there, I’ll pull him back before he does anything.”
Yu Jiuling agreed, and the two parted ways.
—