All around fell quiet for a moment.
After a brief pause, the crowd erupted in commotion.
The first two points were matters everyone knew and privately criticized, but the third involved military secrets that ordinary people had no way of knowing. Suddenly hearing of great armies pressing at the borders, they immediately showed expressions of alarm and anger.
That scholar struck while the iron was hot, declaring loudly: “Thus we have three requests. First, we request His Highness to pity the people, withdraw previous orders, and exempt Yannan from all taxes and levies to compensate for the previous exploitation.”
“Second, we request His Highness to abandon the traveling palace, comfort the people and laborers who built it, commute their corvée service, petition the court to acknowledge your own mistakes, and vow never again to arbitrarily increase levies in our Yannan.”
“Third, we request His Highness to withdraw your troops and not enter Kun Zhou. Lest the Crown Princess’s imperial carriage and three thousand guards entering the city, with all their provisions and requirements, disturb and harm our people’s livelihood… Kun Zhou’s surrounding counties suffered floods last year and drought the year before. Natural disasters have been endless, people’s livelihoods difficult to sustain. We beseech His Highness’s mercy.”
Having finished, he led the other scholars in a deep bow to the ground.
Behind him, the thousands of commoners blocking the road saw someone take the lead in kneeling, shouting in unison: “We beseech His Highness to pity the people—withdraw troops, abandon the palace, withdraw from Kun Zhou!”
More commoners followed suit, kneeling and shouting in waves: “We beseech His Highness’s mercy—withdraw from Kun Zhou!”
This had been plotted by Kun Zhou’s people under instigation since the tax increases began. The principle being that the law cannot punish the masses—the Crown Princess hadn’t even reached Kun Zhou yet but had already caused trouble in Qian Zhou. Now she was displaying her procession coming to Yannan—who knew what would happen after she entered the capital? Who knew what changes might occur if Yannan was brought under direct court control? Then Yannan would be like a stepchild—what favors could they hope for?
For the common people, they sought nothing more than three meals a day and one night’s rest, shelter from wind and rain, and leisure time to drink and discuss farming. Whoever came to disturb and violate this peace was the enemy.
So when someone simply and crudely said that the great trends of the world actually lay in where popular sentiment flowed, if the people unanimously said no, even the Crown Prince couldn’t trample over the masses. Never mind that if the Crown Princess’s carriage retreated even one step today, she could never enter Kun Zhou again—now with Yannan’s people erupting in popular uprising, blocking the Crown Princess’s path, denouncing the Crown Prince’s lack of compassion, demanding the Crown Princess go back where she came from, this reputation spreading to court and country, throughout the realm, would destroy the Crown Princess’s lifelong reputation.
Naturally she could no longer lord it over Yannan.
The people thought of the old Prince of Yannan’s benevolent love for his subjects, of the You father and son’s tolerance and care for their subordinates, of the relatively free customs they’d always enjoyed, and of the many rules of the central plains and the treacherous cunning of central officials. For a moment they even forgot the vivid fresh blood before their eyes, their shouting growing more intense.
“We beseech His Highness to pity the people—withdraw from Kun Zhou!”
“We beseech His Highness to pity the people—withdraw from Kun Zhou!”
The front row of commoners would shout once, kowtow, rise, advance three steps, then shout again.
Commoners always followed blindly, so those behind also shouted once, rose, moved forward, then shouted again.
“We beseech His Highness to pity the people—withdraw from Kun Zhou!”
Kneel again, advance three steps, shout again—the crowd grew denser and denser, the voices louder and louder.
“We beseech His Highness to pity the people—withdraw from Kun Zhou!”
Viewed from above, one could see the black mass of people like a great tide engulfing the entire official road. This tide, under seemingly chaotic but actually orderly leadership, slowly moved forward with irresistible momentum, step by step pressing closer to the carriage.
Yet the carriage remained unmoved throughout, iron armor gleaming coldly, standing firm as rock. It seemed neither angry nor impatient, only coldly watching this long-planned, instigated storm to see just how much dust it could stir up.
Three thousand guards and banners all seemed frozen in the sword-sharp scorching sunlight of afternoon, the long procession like a hibernating black python coiled before the road.
“We beseech His Highness to pity the people—withdraw from Kun Zhou!”
The popular tide slowly pressed closer, about to crash thunderously into that cold, cruel python.
In another direction outside Kun Zhou City, roughly a hundred li from Tie Ci’s procession, lay a range of rolling green mountains. Not particularly high, they connected to vast plains with two other mountain ranges forming distant horns—what feng shui called “front mirror, rear support, phoenix beak,” a treasured location.
Therefore it had become the eternal resting place of the old Prince of Yannan. The princely tomb lay within this range of green mountains, surrounded by a thousand guard troops and protected by specialized tomb-keeping families. Ordinary people could not enter within ten li of this mountain called Ling Mountain.
Ling Mountain’s north peak was the most precipitous, rarely visited even by hunters. As dusk began to fall, long grass on the mountaintop rustled, and several black heads emerged.
The leader had a pale face and tall frame, refined and scholarly in a blue scholar’s robe, looking like a traveling student. Yet between his brows was more of the noble bearing that could only be cultivated in great households, clearly indicating high status.
Li Yuncheng, son of Grand Academician Li of the Eastern Pavilion.
Beside him was a man with a clean, rounded face and lively eyes—Feng Huan.
Nearby were also close associates like Chang Qianmo and others—the most renowned group of young wastrels from the capital. No one would have imagined this group had secretly left the procession under elite guard protection roughly a hundred li from Kun Zhou City, riding hard directly to Ling Mountain.
Li Yuncheng strangely held a compass in his hands, like a feng shui master. He walked a circle around the mountaintop, finally pointing to a slightly depressed peak between the north and south summits: “It should be roughly here.”
Upon finishing, he revealed a bitter smile.
Li Yuncheng had loved learning since childhood, studying tirelessly, yet had no interest in competing with poor scholars for those scarce official positions. Given his family background, he would inherit privileges anyway. Thus his studies appeared leisurely and carefree—reading everything, learning everything. His mansion housed not only great Confucian scholars but also specialists in esoteric fields. In astronomy, geography, astrology, and even feng shui techniques, the Li residence could produce talents.
Li Yuncheng was particularly interested in these unconventional studies and had achieved modest success, though he didn’t know how the Crown Princess had learned of this.
Thinking of this journey, Li Yuncheng reflected how he’d first been pressed by the Crown Princess to oversee the great ships’ progress in Qian Zhou, dealing with officials coming and going, scheming and maneuvering, forcibly labeled as a Crown Princess faction member. Now he even had to help her dig graves!
Not only dig graves but also search for corpses, and not only search for corpses but drag the body away.
Thinking again of this corpse’s identity made Li Yuncheng’s scalp tingle.
On Yannan’s territory, digging up the corpse of the old prince beloved by all Yannan—how had the Crown Princess conceived such a thing?
She claimed to have received some secret intelligence saying the old Prince of Yannan’s death was suspicious, so the Crown Princess made a grand public journey to attract the You father and son’s attention while secretly dispatching this team to investigate the matter.
Li Yuncheng glanced at the people behind him. Part were elite guards from the Crown Princess’s protection detail, but part were led by that Mu Si—these people had strange appearances, tall and short, looking more like jianghu wanderers.
As the son of Grand Academician Li, Li Yuncheng knew some secrets, such as that the mysterious man beside the Crown Princess was actually the heir of Liaodong, and this heir had a terrible reputation, acting with sinister ruthlessness—definitely not a good person. But clearly the Crown Princess didn’t think so. The relationship between her and the Liaodong heir—even pigs could see it was extraordinary.
This Mu Si was a trusted aide of the Liaodong heir. To think the Crown Princess would conspire with the Liaodong heir on such secret matters—wasn’t she afraid that if he betrayed her, she’d face eternal damnation?
Li Yuncheng had once wondered why Vice Minister Xiao didn’t make an issue of this. The Crown Princess falling for the Liaodong heir could be seen minimally as losing her dignity as heir apparent, maximally as nearly treasonous rebellion. There was so much that could be made of it.
Grand Academician Li had said nothing at the time, only noting that Vice Minister Xiao probably felt the timing wasn’t right.
What timing, Li Yuncheng dared not imagine. But he and the others were inevitably being drawn deeper into the Crown Princess’s circle, and once that so-called timing arrived, heaven knew what troubles it would bring their families.
But at this moment, he couldn’t refuse. Even before departure, his father had summoned him to the study, specifically saying that since he was already bound to the Crown Princess’s side, he shouldn’t think of divided loyalties, nor worry about the family’s inclinations—just fulfill his duties as a minister and do what he could. He cited Rong Pu as a clever example—the Crown Princess trusted him, so he never betrayed that trust, wholeheartedly seeking reputation, people, and benefits for the Crown Princess, ignoring whatever the Rong family’s true feelings were. The Crown Princess appeared tough but was actually kindhearted. With this relationship, if the Rong family ever had problems in the future, she surely wouldn’t blame Rong Pu, and the Rong family might thus preserve more of their lineage.
So Li Yuncheng today used all his skills to dig graves. Entering Prince Ling’s tomb openly was impossible—the vast mausoleum covered a thousand acres, built like a fortress with gates on all four walls. Its scale wasn’t much smaller than imperial tombs, with a thousand tomb guards. The northeast direction also held accompanying burials for Yannan royal family and high officials, each family with dedicated tomb keepers. Since the dead were paramount, even bearing the Crown Princess’s orders couldn’t gain entry to the mausoleum grounds.
So Li Yuncheng had to act like a tomb robber, leading this elite group to tunnel into the Yannan Prince’s tomb.
But Li Yuncheng had actually only learned geomantic arts from elderly tomb-robber-turned-secretaries in his mansion. Regarding actual tomb descending—such dark affairs—the dignified son of a Grand Academician could never have practical experience. Carried on the back of a guard with superb lightness skills, he descended all the way between the two peaks. Waiting for moonlight to shift southwest, when a line of bright light cut between the mountain hollows like a blade, he pointed to that area: “It should be roughly here.”
Only he said “a line of bright light,” but it was actually quite a large area. Li Yuncheng couldn’t pinpoint a more suitable location, adding: “I can only roughly estimate this might be closest to the main burial chamber, but I don’t know how to get down there.”
Before he finished speaking, he saw two people emerge. One extended his hand, grasping the slightly cool, slightly rough midnight mountain breeze in his palm and sniffing it. He walked a few steps, grasped again, walked a few more steps and grasped again. After three such attempts, he finally designated a spot under his feet: “Here.”
Then another person came forward with a slender iron rod, sharp at the tip. He inserted it obliquely several times in that area, pulling it out to examine it carefully by moonlight. Once Li Yuncheng caught a faint rusty iron smell, another time it was rank and foul. After several such attempts, this person marked out an even smaller area: “Right here.”