Han Qian had no ability to predict the future. At the same time, the historical trajectory had already undergone great changes, but what he had painstakingly pondered these two years was still what Emperor Tianyou wanted to do and what Emperor Tianyou could do given the circumstances he faced.
Unlike later dynasties with stable ruling systems, Great Chu had been established only a short time ago. Civil officials were weak, and the tradition of military generals wielding power hadn’t been reversed. Even with the Prince’s Manor reaching this point today, if Emperor Tianyou wanted to depose the heir apparent and establish another, there were still too many things to do.
Even if Emperor Tianyou had no intention of changing the Crown Prince, and at this time was more likely placing his hopes on the Crown Prince’s son, with Prince Xin and the Third Prince ultimately grasping only illusions, he still had to first resolve the possibility that after his death, Great Chu would be replaced by the Xu clan.
However, resolving this problem was too complex and too thorny.
Emperor Tianyou had confidence in his own body, but Xu Mingzhen was currently even more vigorous in his prime years.
Xu Mingzhen had originally been heir to the Military Commissioner of Guangling. After pacifying internal rebellion in Guangling, instead of succeeding to the Military Commissioner position, he had pledged allegiance to his brother-in-law who was then Military Commissioner of Huainan. Over these years, he had expanded territory and resisted powerful enemies for Great Chu, establishing tremendous merit.
More critically, besides having Minister Niu Gengru and other officials mutually supporting him at court, Shouzhou controlled Great Chu’s most elite one hundred thousand troops.
Even though the strategic positions of Jingxiang and Chuzhou were increasingly prominent, Shouzhou remained the mainstay resisting Liang’s southern invasion.
The Shouzhou army was still mainly based on the former Guangling generals and their sons. Given current circumstances, Emperor Tianyou absolutely didn’t dare risk attempting to remove Xu Mingzhen’s military authority.
Without removing Xu Mingzhen’s military authority, directly deposing the Crown Prince was even harder.
Empress Xu of Anning Palace and Emperor Tianyou had supported each other for so many years, counting on the Crown Prince to smoothly ascend in the future. Would Emperor Tianyou conveniently throw Empress Xu into the cold palace before deposing the Crown Prince?
At this time, besides the Liang state to the north and Shu state to the west, Great Chu also faced external threats from Wang Gongyan’s forces, who had been enfeoffed as Prince of Min by the previous dynasty and now occupied Min territory in the southeast, and Liu Yin’s Jinghai Army Military Commissioner forces occupying Lingnan to the south.
With internal worries and external troubles intricately intertwined in numerous contradictions, regardless of how favorably Emperor Tianyou viewed things or how determined his will was, at this time Third Prince Yang Yuanpu actually wasn’t qualified to replace the Crown Prince.
Forcing it would only cause Great Chu’s fragile internal and external balance to collapse.
Rice must be eaten one mouthful at a time; contradictions also had priorities of severity and urgency.
At present, Emperor Tianyou couldn’t rashly rush to eliminate the dutiful, conscientious Xu clan working diligently for Great Chu.
After the Feng family, to pick a target weighing more than the Feng family but not so dangerous as to cause Great Chu’s situation to slip from his control—truly there was no better target than Tanzhou. Only by resolving Tanzhou’s problems would Emperor Tianyou have a foundation to resolve the Xu clan issue.
Returning to Jinling from Jingxiang, when Han Qian passed Guishan Mountain and saw Wen Ruilin turn and leave, he knew that as long as Emperor Tianyou had surplus capacity, he would prioritize resolving Tanzhou’s lingering problems.
In the Jingxiang campaign, Great Chu seemed to suffer great losses, but by purging some local Jingxiang forces and incorporating others, this actually ensured Jinling wouldn’t worry about chaos erupting in Jingxiang to the north when deploying troops against Tanzhou.
In the Jingxiang battle, Tanzhou Military Commissioner heir Ma Xun led five thousand Tanzhou troops and was slaughtered miserably, also puncturing the illusion of Tanzhou’s military strength.
Using the Feng family as the sacrificial knife served one purpose of easing the treasury’s shortage of money and grain and inability to deploy troops. Another purpose, Han Qian believed, was that Emperor Tianyou using the Feng family as the knife was also Emperor Tianyou testing various court factions.
The silence of Anning Palace and Prince Xin’s faction in the Imperial Mausoleum case, even their perfunctory participation in impeaching Feng Wenlan, should have made Emperor Tianyou more confident in his control of the situation.
Therefore, Han Qian deduced that the next problem Emperor Tianyou would resolve was Tanzhou—this was certain without doubt.
However, Han Qian’s guess that Emperor Tianyou would assign this task to the Third Prince and Longque Army was completely following the intentions Emperor Tianyou had displayed.
Appointing White Stone Scholar Zheng Chang to preside over the Imperial Mausoleum collapse case, letting the Prince’s Manor gain such great advantage from the mausoleum case, frequently bringing the Third Prince into the palace, and at this time deliberately letting Niu Gengru and Wen Muqiao see his summons—to whichever side, the signal Emperor Tianyou was releasing was that he would next change to the Third Prince as successor.
Of course, Han Qian didn’t think things were truly this simple. At least he felt that in Emperor Tianyou’s heart at this time, he hadn’t truly finally determined who the successor was. But since the signals Emperor Tianyou was releasing, openly or covertly, were all about changing to the Third Prince as successor, then as a subject, if he didn’t speak according to Emperor Tianyou’s intentions, should he necessarily appear smarter than Emperor Tianyou?
If he really did that, wouldn’t that make him stupid?
Since the signal Emperor Tianyou was releasing was to replace with the Third Prince, as the Third Prince’s number one strategist at his side, he naturally should even more joyfully follow this line of thought to fathom Emperor Tianyou’s intentions. This way he would be a good chess piece. Even if he guessed wrong, Emperor Tianyou would only like him, not detest him.
Returning to the thought of deposing the heir apparent—to replace with the Third Prince, the prestige the Third Prince established in the bloody battle at Xichuan and the direct subordinate forces the Prince’s Manor had currently gathered were far from sufficient.
If the Third Prince could lead the Longque Army to pacify the Tanzhou situation, this would undoubtedly establish a better foundation for resolving subsequent problems, making things appear natural and reasonable.
Hearing Shen He so shocked that the whisk in his hand dropped to the ground, Han Qian still knelt silently before the imperial desk, his eyes fixed on the floor tiles polished smooth and bright. He was very clear in his heart that this couldn’t prove he had guessed Emperor Tianyou’s hidden inner thoughts—it could only prove the signal Emperor Tianyou was releasing to those closest to him was indeed so.
“Raise your head,” Yang Mi said in a deep voice, his sharp, profound old eyes fixed on Han Qian. After a long while, he spoke again: “Even supposing Tanzhou is a great affliction in my heart, how would you scheme against it?”
Han Qian sneered inwardly, thinking: What this old fox is truly thinking in his heart, what he’s testing—no one can really guess, and who can give you a truly satisfactory answer to this question?
Han Qian pondered for a moment, then finally steeled himself and said, “Your Majesty already has a set plan. This subject dares not speak recklessly.”
“Speak,” Yang Mi said, not wanting to play cat and mouse with Han Qian anymore, emphasizing his tone.
Han Qian said, “Please forgive this subject’s offense. Han Qian believes that suddenly acting against Tanzhou, victory or defeat is hard to predict. His Highness’s qualifications are still shallow, insufficient to command Jingxiang’s military and political affairs, difficult to complete military deployment against Tanzhou in a short time. Should Tanzhou undergo changes, it would be difficult to control, only causing the situation to deteriorate. This is this subject’s humble view. At the same time, being dull-witted, I cannot guess Your Majesty’s strategy, and my heart is truly quite confused.”
This confiscation of the Feng family yielded five to six million strings of cash. Even after making up this year’s shortage in military and financial resources, two to three million strings could still remain, sufficient for a fairly large-scale war. However, war could never be simply mustering thirty to fifty thousand men to immediately fight a satisfying battle and then determine victory or defeat.
True, Han Qian had followed the signals Emperor Tianyou released to guess this heavy responsibility would be entrusted to the Third Prince and Longque Army, but realistic difficulties determined this heavy responsibility wasn’t what the Third Prince and Longque Army at this time could bear.
Ma Xun had been slaughtered extremely miserably by Liang troops at Zaoyang. Of five thousand Tanzhou reinforcements, fewer than two thousand survived to the end, but this didn’t mean Tanzhou’s army was vulnerable.
Ma Xun’s defeat lay in his complete lack of will to defend Zaoyang, his heart harboring hopes that Liang troops would spare Tanzhou forces a way home at that time. He suffered one-sided slaughter by Liang’s heavy armored cavalry when caught unprepared.
Rather than saying Tanzhou troops had weak combat capability, it was better to say that Ma Xun, who served as Tanzhou army commander at the time, was too stupid.
At this time, Great Chu still wasn’t where people’s hearts turned. Whether Emperor Tianyou’s previous bloody purge of Jingxiang fugitive clans or this attack on the Ma family would necessarily make Tanzhou’s aristocratic families headed by the Ma family deeply vigilant. Making Ma Yin and his son Ma Xun meekly hand over Tanzhou wasn’t very possible. But if troops truly attacked into Tanzhou, whether Tanzhou’s army would still be so vulnerable—that was hard to say.
On the other hand, Tanzhou currently openly possessed fewer than twenty thousand troops, but if truly mobilized, they could expand forces to over fifty thousand in a short time.
Tanzhou controlled the core region of the eight-hundred-li Dongting Lake with a population of approximately two million. The Ma family had operated in Tanzhou for generations with deep roots.
How Jinling would truly resolve Tanzhou’s problems, in this process what position Emperor Tianyou was willing to let the Third Prince occupy, how much he was willing to let Longque Army’s strength expand, and how much effect he was willing to let them exert in resolving Tanzhou’s problems—in a short time, Han Qian still couldn’t truly fathom the overall plan in Emperor Tianyou’s mind.
Since it was difficult to fathom, in Han Qian’s view, he might as well continue following Emperor Tianyou’s intentions and flatly say Emperor Tianyou’s plan wouldn’t work.
“So you believe what I’m thinking in my heart won’t work?” Yang Mi asked, staring at Han Qian like a tiger eyeing prey.
“This subject’s learning is shallow. I cannot figure out how it could work,” Han Qian said.
Seeing this scene, Shen He felt somewhat speechless and disappointed, unable to understand why His Majesty was today getting worked up over a green youth. He secretly felt that however capable Han Qian was, he was only in his early twenties. Perhaps his earlier guess of His Majesty’s intentions was merely because his father Han Daoxun had mentioned it in letters. But to truly take down Tanzhou involved such complex matters on all sides—how could Han Qian at this time grasp them?
Before the bloody battle at Xichuan erupted, Shen He and Yang En had entered Xichuan City representing Emperor Tianyou to supervise the battle. He had also seen the enormous role Han Qian played in defending Xichuan. But assisting in defending a single city from the side was obviously completely different from scheming to strip the Ma family of military authority and preventing and suppressing Ma family rebellion—these were clearly two entirely different levels of planning.
Seeing Father Emperor’s eyes staring at Han Qian as if ready to devour him, Yang Yuanpu was also very surprised in his heart, not knowing which point of Han Qian’s had gone against Father Emperor’s wishes, causing Father Emperor, whose mood had been quite good just now, to turn gloomy at this moment.
The candles in the great hall were crackling and burning. These specially made tribute candles released a somewhat sickeningly sweet fragrance when burning.
Han Qian lay prostrate on the ground with nothing to do, smelling this somewhat strange fragrance and couldn’t help thinking: if Anning Palace wanted Emperor Tianyou to kick the bucket earlier, would they find a way to mix slow-acting poison into the candles used in Chongwen Hall, then release it bit by bit when lit?
Thinking of this, Han Qian wanted to escape the palace one moment earlier, escape Jinling City.