Ever since I traveled back to the Tianqi era of the Ming Dynasty, I’ve always felt that time passed incredibly fast, as if a day only lasted a few minutes.
When I told Wen Rourou, Old Lin, and Old Zhang about this feeling, they said they felt the same way.
See, it seems like just a blink of an eye, and it’s already May of the second year of Tianqi.
During this time, Wen Rourou, Old Lin, and Old Zhang have become fond of carpentry, spending their days with Emperor Zhu Youxiao making wooden crafts in the Imperial Garden.
One day, Zhu Youxiao was in the Imperial Garden doing carpentry when a high-ranking official came to see him.
The official said that recently, Xu Hongru, the leader of the White Lotus sect, had organized followers of the White Lotus sect to rebel in the areas of Jing Zhou and Qi Zhou in Hebei, and Yun Cheng in Shan Dong. They used red scarves as their symbol and had already captured Yun Cheng, Zou Xian, and Teng Xian.
In a short period, the rebel forces had rapidly grown to tens of thousands of people.
The rebels had proclaimed Xu Hongru as the “Emperor of Rejuvenation and Bliss,” established a regime, and changed the second year of Tianqi to the “First Year of the Great Vehicle’s Flourishing Victory.”
The next day, after Zhu Youxiao attended court, he gathered civil and military officials to discuss the matter of suppressing the White Lotus rebellion.
“This rebel Xu Hongru actually calls himself the Emperor of Rejuvenation and Bliss and has changed the second year of Tianqi to the First Year of the Great Vehicle’s Flourishing Victory. I can no longer tolerate this! I am determined to send someone to quell this Xu rebel. I wonder if any of you, my esteemed ministers, have a suitable candidate?” Zhu Youxiao said, burning with anger.
The civil and military officials discussed among themselves, but not a single minister actively stood forward to recommend a candidate.
Seeing the ministers whispering to each other but no one recommending a candidate, Zhu Youxiao said, “I believe the Duke Who Pacifies the Nation is both capable in civil and military affairs. Last time, he single-handedly successfully repelled tens of thousands of Later Jin soldiers. If we send him again this time to quell the rebels, he will surely achieve a resounding victory. I wonder if any of you, my esteemed ministers, have any objections?”
Li Jinzhong (Wei Zhongxian), the Supervising Eunuch of the Directorate of Ceremonial, said, “Your Majesty, it is absolutely not advisable to send the Duke Who Pacifies the Nation to quell the rebellion. The Duke Who Pacifies the Nation is useful for repelling enemies, but he may not be able to wipe out this group of rebels. I hope Your Majesty will think twice and choose another capable person, lest you ruin your glorious reputation!”
As soon as Wei Zhongxian finished speaking, Minister Yang Lian interjected, “Your Majesty, the Duke Who Pacifies the Nation is indeed not a suitable candidate. Distant water cannot quench an immediate fire. In my humble opinion, these White Lotus rebels should be handed over to Zhao Yan, the Shandong Governor nearby, and Yang Zhaoji, the former General of Datong, who has retired back home, to suppress them.”
Zhu Youxiao immediately issued an edict appointing Zhao Yan, the Shandong Governor, as the commander-in-chief, and at the same time reactivating Yang Zhaoji, the former General of Datong, who had retired home, as the Shandong General Officer, to fully suppress the White Lotus rebels.
Ever since Zhu Youxiao conferred the title of “Duke Who Pacifies the Nation” on me, I had become a thorn in the side of Wei Zhongxian, the head of the eunuch faction, and a thorn in the flesh of Yang Lian, the head of the Donglin Party.
I had long known that Wei Zhongxian and the members of the Donglin Party were irreconcilable, but I believed that they were both loyal to the Emperor and loyal to the Great Ming, only that they had different political views.
I had no intention of getting involved in politics, so I didn’t want to attach myself to either of these two major factions. As a result, they misunderstood that I had wild ambitions and wanted to rely on the Emperor’s favor to start my own faction.
I could see in the court just now that neither of these two wanted me to continue gaining power and overshadow them, so they intentionally advised against letting me participate in the suppression of the White Lotus sect.
Little did they know that their actions were exactly what I wanted, as I sincerely did not want to quell Xu Hongru.
Anyone who has read the history of the Ming Dynasty knows that since the Wanli era, land annexation had become increasingly serious, taxes and corvée labor had continued to increase, social conflicts had become increasingly acute, and people were struggling to survive. Even without Xu Hongru, there would be Zhang Hongru and Wang Hongru who would rise up in rebellion.
In the evening, after I returned to the Hall of Assembly, I discovered a half-foot-long stone figure in my room.
A line of “writing” was engraved on the back of the stone figure. I tried to identify them one by one, but found that not a single character was familiar to me.
I knocked on the doors of Wen Rourou, Old Zhang, and Old Lin one after another, asking them to come sit in my room.
Although Zhu Youxiao treated the four of us as honored guests, we were not allowed to stay in the Royal Palace at night. The four of us were arranged to stay in the Hall of Assembly outside the Royal Palace, which was an institution specially set up by the Imperial Court to receive guests.
The knowledgeable Old Lin and Old Zhang each picked up the stone figure and examined it, shaking their heads and saying that they did not recognize these “characters.”
Wen Rourou picked up the stone figure and scrutinized it for a while, saying, “If this is not a kind of writing, could it be a kind of pattern?”
Prompted by Wen Rourou, Old Lin, Old Zhang, and I each picked up the stone figure again and examined it carefully. Sure enough, it looked somewhat like a pattern.
“Who put this stone figure in your room? What is the purpose of putting the stone figure in your room?” Old Zhang asked, looking at me.
“That’s the mystery. The door was locked, and no one else has the key. How could anyone enter my room without breaking the door?” I carefully examined the room.
The rooms of the four of us were right next to each other.
The westernmost room was Wen Rourou’s, and from west to east, they were my room, Old Lin’s room, and Old Zhang’s room.
There were three buildings in the Hall of Assembly, built with brick walls and arranged in a character shape.
The building we were staying in was located on the lower left side of the character shape. The rooms were on the second floor, the windows faced south, and the doors and corridors faced north.
I carefully examined the floor and the roof. The floor showed nothing unusual, but a piece of skylight on the roof caught my attention.
This piece of skylight was directly above my bed, so I tentatively concluded that someone might have removed the skylight and thrown the stone figure down from the roof.
Old Lin, Old Zhang, and Wen Rourou all thought my analysis made sense after listening to it.
“Then how did this person climb onto the roof?” I wondered to myself.
After going downstairs, I observed the surroundings of the building we were staying in and found a large tree on the west side of the house. Following its trunk and branches, one could climb to the roof.
I climbed the tree, and after climbing along the trunk and branches to the roof, I carefully walked on the roof.
Walking to the western end of the roof, the faint light cast by a bright moon in the night sky shone on a piece of skylight, gleaming coldly.
I squatted down and tried to lift the skylight with my hand. The skylight was already loose, and I picked it up easily.
“Shifu, Old Zhang, Wen Rourou,” I leaned my head down and shouted into the room.
The three of them stood in the room, looked up at the roof, and laughed.
Skylights were semi-transparent thin sheets made of ground oyster shells, clam shells, and the like, mainly embedded in windows for lighting.
This was the first time I had ever seen skylights used as roof tiles.
Before going to bed, I moved the position of the bed so that it was no longer directly under the skylight on the roof.
In the middle of the night, I was suddenly awakened by a “bang.”
The moonlight shining in from the window just illuminated the room. I saw a gleaming sabre stuck in the floor, with a red scarf tied to the hilt.
I jumped up from **, pushed open the window, leaped down from the second-floor room, and quickly ran to the east side of the building. I happened to see a masked man in black sliding down from the tree.
I chased after him, but this person reacted faster than I did and ran more than ten zhang away in an instant.
I pursued relentlessly, running faster and faster, and the whooshing sound of the wind in my ears grew louder and louder.
He also ran faster and faster, and the sound of his forefoot landing became louder and louder.
As we ran, we reached the vicinity of the Donghua Gate.
Seeing that the man in black was about to run into the Eastern Depot, I quickly lunged at him in a flying fish dive, but my hands only scratched his waist. The man in black slipped away like a slippery loach.