Chapter 341: Busyness

Ling Zhang inclined his head. “I’ll bring them with me.”

With the imperial edict of abdication in hand, their first priority was to hold an enthronement ceremony. However, holding an enthronement ceremony was no easy job. There was a lot of preparatory work involved, including sending invitations to neighboring countries. Though they had decided to omit all the unnecessary formalities, there were still a lot of matters left to be dealt with. These things were keeping them so occupied that they frequently lost track of time.

Ling Zhang, along with his bodyguards, moved into the imperial palace with Yuwen Tong, planning to stay there for some days. A thousand crack troops that Yuwen Tong had brought back from the north-west, who were under the command of Yao Yi and some other personal bodyguards of Yuwen Tong’s, were overtly guarding the palace. Qi San, one of Yuwen Tong’s trusted subordinates, and the Shadow Battalion at his command, were guarding it covertly. The palace where Yuwen Tong and Ling Zhang were staying was under heavy security.

The palace they were temporarily staying in was called the Infinite Fortune Palace, which was the closest to the great consultation hall. Yuwen Tong had picked this palace because it’d be more convenient for him to deal with the many affairs that he was supposed to handle during the next few days.

After entering the palace with Ling Zhang, Wang Dashan and the other bodyguards deployed a formation around the Infinite Fortune Palace, which was riddled with smaller concealment formations and traps. Anybody who dared to approach the Infinite Fortune Palace without someone leading the way would fall victim.

…

Invitations had been sent to the Wan Kingdom, the Luohai Kingdom and the Fangcun Kingdom as a matter of urgency. Governors of the many prefectures, after receiving the messages, had all started making preparations for their journeys to the capital city. Garrisons of all prefectures had orders to stay where they were. In the capital city, staff members of various departments were mainly engaged in the preparatory work for Yuwen Tong’s enthronement. All other matters had been shelved.

There were quite some pressing issues that they needed to find solutions to before the enthronement: firstly, what to do with the Eighth Prince and the Ninth Prince, the two surviving members of the Zhou family, the former imperial household; secondly, how to reward the North-western Army for their meritorious service; thirdly, how to reward the garrison of Shengzhou; fourthly, how to punish the garrison of Jiangzhou; fifthly, the follow-up settlement of the issue of the rebel forces in Cangzhou; sixthly, the security of the capital city on the day of the enthronement ceremony; seventhly, the amnesties for prisoners at the enthronement; eighthly…

How to resolve these problems had to be decided before the enthronement, so that decrees could be issued one by one in an orderly fashion after the ceremony.

“The rebel forces in Cangzhou have been thoroughly overpowered. After the rebellion was suppressed, the General Zhongwu (AKA the General of Loyalty and Valor) adopted a conciliatory approach as you ordered him to. Keeping the situation in Cangzhou stable for a certain period of time won’t be a problem, but it usually takes a long time for a policy of conciliation to produce the desired effect, so we may have to show some patience. The best solution, I believe, is for Sire to grant amnesties to some criminals at your enthronement, treat the rebels leniently except for the leaders, and those who were originally common folk may be spared. And those miscellaneous taxes that could be abolished should be killed off. Also, we need to make sure those common folk get their paddy fields back after returning home, so that they could sustain their families.”

“The Right Prime Minister’s got a point. When the Zhou family were in charge, there were too many exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous levies imposed on people in this country. You should abolish as many of them as possible when you grant amnesties to prisoners. Our people have been under heavy burdens during the many years of war. We have to give them a respite so that they could restore their lives as soon as possible.”

“Sire, here is the list of taxes that we made previously. We consulted with each other and took the liberty of marking the taxes that we believe could be scrapped. Please go over it and make a decision, Sire.”

“This is a draft plan concerning the amnesties and conciliation aimed at the rebel forces and common folk in Cangzhou. Please look it over, Sire.”

“Here is a list of the vacant positions of responsibility in the imperial court, along with the several selection mechanisms that we came up with after some consultations. We don’t know whether you would find any of them feasible. Please go over it and make a decision, Sire.”

“Here are some proposals about the rewards for the service of the North-western Army and the garrison of Shengzhou. We don’t know which one is the most appropriate, so we list them all. Please go over them and make a decision.”

“Here are some suggestions about the punishment of the garrison of Jiangzhou…”

“This is a proposal about what to do with the Eighth Prince and the Ninth Prince…”

In the consultation hall, courtiers fell into heated discussion with each other. Staff members of the Ministry of Rites were burdened with all the preparatory work for the enthronement, and the courtiers were mainly consulting each other about the series of issues the solutions to which needed to be declared in the form of decrees at or immediately after the enthronement.

Ling Zhang’s original intention was to accompany Yuwen Tong to the hall to take a look, but the very sight of the tall stack of pamphlets on the desk gave him headaches, and those were just drafts. Yuwen Tong had to first read them all and then finalize them. Ling Zhang had a sneaking suspicion that instead of a day or two, Yuwen Tong might not be able to extricate himself from this consultation hall for ten days or even half a month.

Yuwen Tong had just come back from the north-west where he risked life and limb fighting enemies, and now things had taken a turn for the worse – even a breather seemed to be a luxury for him.

Was the throne really worth all this?

He was rather inexperienced in this regard, so there was very little he could do to help… Ling Zhang looked at those pamphlets, appearing daunted. When he had just entered the hall, he had quite positively thought that he needed to find someone to teach him how to deal with these things so that he could share Yuwen Tong’s burden, but now, he silently twisted his head aside, pretending not to have seen the pamphlets, stealthily edging his butt sideways, intending to slink away.

Suddenly, a hand was pressed onto his thigh. Yuwen Tong, without the slightest change of his countenance, was still talking with some courtiers, but his hand beneath the desk had tightly gripped Ling Zhang, keeping him from slipping away.

Ling Zhang, “…”

They were sitting at the front of the hall, and if he made any particular movements, everybody present would easily notice, so he didn’t dare struggle and could only secretly use his hand to try to free his thigh from Yuwen Tong’s grip.

Yuwen Tong’s grip was very firm and wouldn’t slacken no matter how hard Ling Zhang tried. After he made another couple of unsuccessful attempts, Yuwen Tong flipped his hand and grabbed Ling Zhang’s, holding it tight, rendering him unable to make any small movements with it.

The courtiers in front of the desk were still in discussion and their voices were pretty loud. Feeling that those people couldn’t hear him, Ling Zhang said in a hushed voice, “Let me get out of here.”

“No. You have to stay here with me. It’s an ordeal listening to these people’s constant babble, and I wouldn’t be able to keep myself sitting here if you’re not by my side. Besides, you should feel lucky that I’m not asking you to make decisions. How could you try to slip away and leave me in the lurch?” breathed Yuwen Tong, his lips moving unnoticeably, pretending to be attentively listening to the courtiers.

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“This is an ordeal for me, too. There are literally stars dancing before my eyes,” implored Ling Zhang in a quiet voice. In the beginning he had been able to force himself to patiently hear these people out and analyze those state affairs, pondering what he would do if he was the one to make decisions, but afterward, issues had come up one after another and his mind had been overloaded. Right now, not only was he having headaches, he could barely breathe.

“Even if you’re seeing stars, you’re still not going anywhere. If you dare flee, your dinner will be utterly vegetarian.” Yuwen Tong had no sympathy for him whatsoever.

Ling Zhang, “…”

He vexedly wavered over whether to have a vegetarian dinner or to stay and endure the dizzy spells. The misery caused by a vegetarian dinner would only last one night and he believed he could tough it out, but sitting here for a whole day…

“I’ll go with the vegetarian dinner.”

Yuwen Tong, “…”

Finally, he couldn’t help but turn his head aside to look at Ling Zhang. “There will be roasted meat tonight.”

Ling Zhang secretly swallowed hard. “I–I can resist the temptation.”

At this time, one of the courtiers in heated discussion observed that Yuwen Tong wasn’t listening, looked in this direction and called, “Sire?”

Ling Zhang sprang to his feet and smiled at the crowd, “Excuse me, but I need to answer the call of nature. Please continue, Your Lordships.”

The corners of Yuwen Tong’s mouth twitched. Ling Zhang had already said in the presence of all these courtiers that he needed to answer the call of nature, so he had no choice but to let Ling Zhang go. Before loosening his grip, he heavily scratched Ling Zhang’s palm.

Ling Zhang withdrew his hand, rubbed his palm against the small of his back to ease the pain and then, with an apologetic smile on his face, strode away and quickly disappeared from view.

After Ling Zhang left, Yuwen Tong’s face hardened somewhat. The mild and calm expression that had been there just now disappeared, which made him appear much more serious. “Go on,” he said.

Seeing this, all the others were rather perturbed, wondering whether they had just said something wrong or something had happened. Anyway, they became more cautious than they had been a moment ago, and their voices were lower.

Meanwhile, Ling Zhang, after walking out of the consultation hall, heaved a long relieved sigh. The bracing air outside refreshed him considerably.

“Being an emperor is so…” he mumbled, holding back the latter half of his sentence.

Never mind. Given how far they had already gone, there was no way he would chicken out at this point in time. Besides… it was not him who had to deal with all those memorials to the throne.

Though feeling faintly sorry for Yuwen Tong, Ling Zhang still decisively made up his mind that he was not going back to the consultation hall.

…

Since the Ministry of Rites had been put in charge of all the preparatory work for the enthronement, Yuwen Feng, as the Assistant Minister of Rites, naturally had been working off his feet. Previously he had been placed under house arrest by Yuwen Zhi and Yuwen Qi. Afterward, Yuwen Zhi and Fang Quan had been imprisoned, and right now Yuwen Qi was also under house arrest. Yuwen Feng, after being set free, had taken a few days off. And then Yuwen Tong had returned to the capital city and had Yuwen Feng returned to the Ministry of Rites to work.

Yuwen Feng looked a lot thinner than before and rarely smiled. What with the overtime he’d worked during the past couple of days, he had got dark shadows under his eyes.

When Ling Zhang met Yuwen Feng, the latter was walking inside in a hurry, seeming to be heading for the consultation hall to report something. Seeing how Yuwen Feng looked, Ling Zhang slightly frowned.

Yuwen Feng, who also spotted Ling Zhang, briefly paused in surprise and then walked up to him and greeted him. Ling Zhang folded his hands in front in response, but Yuwen Feng hurriedly twisted aside and said, “I don’t deserve this.”

“Is there anything in the Ministry of Rites that I could help with? I could tell that you haven’t slept for days,” said Ling Zhang.

Yuwen Feng was fleetingly surprised and then caught on to it. “We don’t have much time before the enthronement and there’s a lot of preparatory work to do. We have drafted in some men to help as a matter of urgency, but currently the political situation is still fairly unstable, and all other departments are working flat out as well and could hardly spare any men for us, so I have to personally deal with some of the matters, which is why I’ve been busy, but overall, I’m handling it.”

Ling Zhang said, “Well, that’s exactly why I should come to your help.”

Young Feng said, “The wedding ceremony is right after the enthronement, and you’ll soon get busy as well, Childe Ling. The Ministry of Rites will probably send someone to contact you in just a couple of days, so I appreciate your kind offer, but I really can’t put you to the trouble.”

Seeing Yuwen Feng was putting it so politely, Ling Zhang came to know that even if the Ministry of Rites did need his help, Yuwen Feng still wouldn’t ask him, so he didn’t insist. “You seem in a hurry. I guess you probably have something to report. I’ll let you get on with it. After you, Childe Feng.”

Yuwen Feng gave a smile, inclined his head and then made towards the consultation hall.

Ling Zhang stood there for a while and then pivoted around and left. Right now he didn’t have the time to deal with the matter of the Yuwen family, but sooner or later he’d have to settle it.