You Promised I’d Be Empress!
The sky was bleak and overcast. Heavy, dark clouds pressed down upon the towering city gates in the distance.
The bitter wind cut like knives across exposed skin. The coarse, tattered prison clothes offered no protection against the cold, which seeped straight into the bones through skin already rubbed raw by the rough hemp fabric.
Not far away came the crack of a whip and the furious curses of a prison escort.
“What are you standing around for? Got a death wish?! I haven’t got time to waste on your dawdling! Can’t you see it’s about to snow? There’s not even a straw shed out here in the wilderness! You want to get stranded and freeze to death? Hold us up again, and I’ll lock that cangue tight around your neck! Your bones can freeze and rot for all anyone cares! Now get moving!”
But Shen Shuo did not move.
He turned to look behind him.
The towering city walls blocked his view, concealing all the prosperity within. Yet the sounds of celebration still drifted over the walls. Amid the distant clamor, he could faintly make out the beating of drums and gongs, accompanied by the ceremonial calls of a master of ceremonies.
Then a whip cracked through the air, cutting the sounds short.
“What are you standing there for?!”
A sharp, searing pain struck his back.
The force of the blow pitched Shen Shuo forward, and the shackles around his ankles rattled. Yet he caught himself and stood firm.
Turning his head, he asked the escort, “Is someone getting married in the city today?”
That had been a solid blow, no question about it.
This brat had remarkably steady footing.
Surprise briefly flashed across the escort’s face before he roughly shoved Shen Shuo forward by the wooden cangue around his neck.
But Shen Shuo saw the man’s mouth open.
He said—
…What had he said?
Shen Shuo jolted awake.
His hand instinctively closed around the saber at his side.
From beyond the tent came the footsteps of armored soldiers patrolling the camp, the crackle of bonfires, and the distant neighing of warhorses.
Those familiar sounds gradually pulled him free of the nightmare of his past.
Shen Shuo gathered his thoughts and looked toward the desk before him.
A bronze command tally and military identification plaques lay on one side of the heavy lacquered wooden desk. Reports and military documents were stacked on the other. Spread across the center was a map of the mountains and rivers surrounding Tianxing.
Shen Shuo had studied this map for several days and knew every detail by heart. After giving it a cursory glance, he turned his attention elsewhere.
“What time is it?”
He was addressing the scholar in blue-green robes seated slightly below him, who was busy processing documents.
The man was currently serving as chief secretary in Shen Shuo’s army.
Before the scholar could answer, however, a scout hurried into the command tent.
He wore a black cloth headwrap, with his trouser legs tightly bound for travel. As soon as he entered, he placed a hand on the saber at his waist, dropped to one knee, and bowed his head.
“Reporting to the General! Our army is now less than a hundred li from Tianxing City. The road ahead is growing increasingly narrow, and pressing forward at speed may expose us to danger. We await your orders on whether to continue the march.”
Shen Shuo said nothing.
His finger traced a path across the map before stopping at their present position. A thoughtful look entered his eyes.
Several breaths passed before he spoke in a deep voice.
“Pass down my orders. Make camp where we are and prepare the evening meal. We’re approaching Tianxing, where the forests are dense and the terrain provides ample cover for ambushes. Our soldiers and horses are exhausted after days of marching. We will halt here to rest and reorganize. Post sentries and send scouts ahead to investigate.”
“Yes, General!”
The scout acknowledged the order and hurried away.
The scholar seated to one side, however, raised an eyebrow.
He lifted his brush from the bamboo slips he had been writing on, used his other hand to straighten his wide sleeve, and glanced toward the seat of honor.
By the time the scout had gone to relay the orders, the scholar had already washed his brush and put away his inkstone.
Gone was the man who had been bent over his desk, writing furiously just moments earlier.
He even had the leisure to pick up the wine warming on the nearby brazier and pour himself a cup.
Taking a small sip, he sighed in contentment.
“And here I thought our general was truly determined to pledge his life to the Great Jing court, racing a thousand li to rescue His Majesty~”
He delivered the latter half in a theatrical singsong, the sort one might hear in a teahouse or tavern. The mockery in his voice was unmistakable.
Shen Shuo had long since grown accustomed to the man’s teasing.
He merely replied, “You jest, Boqian,” before picking up a folded report and beginning to read.
Zhao Chengzhuo’s attempt to provoke him had fallen flat, but he did not seem particularly bothered.
He stroked his beard thoughtfully for a while before speaking again.
“My lord should have done this from the beginning. The emperor has been taken hostage in Tianxing, but we’re hardly the ones who should be in a hurry.”
Shen Shuo lowered the report and looked up at him.
“Do you have some advice, Boqian?”
“Li Yi issued an imperial edict summoning the armies to rescue the throne. His intention is nothing more than to use someone else’s forces to recover the emperor. But while An Wence has abducted His Majesty and brought him to Tianxing, Zhang Fengqi, the military governor of Tianxing, is no fool either. He’s hardly going to keep an imperial ancestor around as an honored guest without expecting anything in return.
“We should hold our position and remain in camp. That way, we can watch them fight among themselves inside the city and let them wear down each other’s strength.”
The court had been torn apart by a struggle for power between the ministers and the eunuchs.
When the eunuchs lost, their leader, An Wence, decided he might as well go all the way. He abducted the emperor and retreated to Tianxing City.
With the emperor absent from the capital, the chancellor had nevertheless issued an “imperial edict” summoning troops to rescue the throne.
Naturally, the edict was a forgery.
But in the world as it stood, nobody cared about such things anymore.
Ever since the rebellions of the Heguang era had been suppressed, the Jing dynasty had never regained its former glory.
Regional armies had sprung up everywhere. Military governors routinely ignored orders from the central government, while powerful eunuchs at court deposed and installed emperors as they pleased.
Nobody cared about the emperor himself.
Commanding soldiers and holding power—those were the only things that mattered in this day and age.
Zhao Chengzhuo paused, drained his cup, and continued in a relaxed tone, teasing the man seated above him.
“Besides, the longer His Majesty remains away from the capital, the more anxious the court will become. Titles like Grand Commandant and Director of the Secretariat are nothing but empty honors. If Li Yi truly wishes to demonstrate his sincerity, he ought to appoint my lord Supreme Commander of All Circuit Armies and entrust the military forces of the realm to your command.”
The court had little left to offer besides such hollow titles.
Yet even among empty titles, there were distinctions.
In the right hands, a nominal position could become real power.
Although Zhao Chengzhuo spoke in jest, if this campaign to “rescue the emperor” succeeded, the title of Supreme Commander of All Circuit Armies was unlikely to fall into anyone else’s hands.
Shen Shuo understood that perfectly well.
After considering the matter for a moment, he gave a slight nod.
“While we’re encamped here over the next few days, I’ll find a way to send people into Tianxing to investigate the situation.”
Seeing that Shen Shuo was willing to listen, Zhao Chengzhuo quietly breathed a sigh of relief.
There was an art to offering counsel—knowing what to say and, more importantly, when to say it.
For the past several days, Shen Shuo had been driving his army forward at breakneck speed, looking for all the world as though he intended to storm Tianxing by force.
Under those circumstances, Zhao Chengzhuo had been able to do little more than keep his mouth shut and turn himself into an emotionless tool for handling military paperwork.
But now things were different.
They would make camp and hold their position rather than launch an assault.
That alone would cut his administrative workload in half.
At the very least, he would no longer have to write military dispatches while bouncing along on horseback.
Thoroughly reassured, he poured himself several more cups.
As the wine warmed his stomach and a pleasant heat spread through his body, he looked toward the commander sitting cross-legged in contemplation.
Then, in a leisurely voice, he began the indispensable daily duty of every competent strategist:
Showering his lord with extravagant praise.
After all, if you kept your lord sufficiently pleased on ordinary days, he would be far more inclined to listen when something important came up.
It was a crucial part of the job.
“Li Yi has summoned the armies of the realm to rescue the throne. Today, countless military governors command their own forces. Some are content to defend their territories, while others undoubtedly hope to seize this opportunity to gain greater authority.
“Yet regardless of their intentions, every last one of them has chosen to wait and see. My lord alone acted decisively, immediately raising his army in response!
“In public affairs, you have secured the moral high ground. In private advantage, you have moved first to seize favorable terrain with your army. Such decisiveness is truly beyond the capabilities of ordinary men!”
Shen Shuo did not so much as twitch an eyebrow.
He simply treated the entire speech as a load of hot air.
Admittedly, political infighting at court had grown increasingly vicious over the years. The imperial examinations, once intended to select talented scholars for government service, had long since become little more than a convenient route to office for men with the right connections.
But in Zhao Chengzhuo’s particular case, there were perfectly good reasons why he had repeatedly failed the examinations.
Oblivious to Shen Shuo’s indifference, Zhao Chengzhuo continued his effusive praise for several hundred more words.
When inspiration struck, he even composed a poem on the spot.
Its literary merit was roughly equivalent to:
The bitter wind chills clothes in winter’s cold, Yet here I sit and drink with spirits bold. My lord, my lord, how mighty you must be! To serve such a lord brings boundless joy to me!
Even Shen Shuo, whose father had once dragged him around by the ear and scolded him for spending all day practicing with swords and spears instead of studying, had been incapable of producing anything quite so dreadful after the age of six.
If the chief examiner had actually passed this man back then, the gold Zhao Chengzhuo would have needed to pay in bribes could have bought an entire street in the capital.
Shen Shuo was just about to reach the end of his patience and throw him out of the command tent when Zhao Chengzhuo, who had already drunk several cups and was beginning to look intoxicated, abruptly changed the subject.
“My lord marched with such urgency that I almost thought someone important to you had been abducted to Tianxing along with the emperor by those eunuch scoundrels.”
The man in the seat of honor showed no reaction.
He merely said, “Given the cold weather, I’ve permitted the soldiers a small ration of wine to ward off the chill. You’ve already consumed your entire allowance for today here in my tent. I’ll have the quartermaster record it later.”
Zhao Chengzhuo froze.
He had been using his apparent drunkenness as cover to study Shen Shuo’s expression, but the remark caught him completely off guard.
He reluctantly set down the wine jug.
Even so, he could not resist protesting.
“When a commander entertains his subordinates, how can the wine count toward their personal rations? There’s no such rule in any household I’ve ever heard of!”
Shen Shuo’s tone remained perfectly even.
“There is in mine. Do you have an objection, Boqian?”
Once again, Zhao Chengzhuo had gotten nowhere.
He muttered that he would not dare object, then discussed a few more matters concerning the day’s military affairs before finally leaving the command tent in a rather disgruntled mood.
As he lifted the tent flap, the guards standing outside with their long spears crossed their left hands over their chests and dipped their heads in salute.
“Chief Secretary.”
Zhao Chengzhuo acknowledged them with a slight nod.
The faint drunkenness he had displayed inside the tent had vanished without a trace.
Yet after stepping outside, he still could not resist glancing back.
Could he really have guessed wrong?
Had Shen Shuo been marching so urgently simply because he feared someone else would beat him to the honor of “rescuing the emperor”?
Inside the tent, Shen Shuo waited until he was certain Zhao Chengzhuo had left.
Only then did he put down the folded report he had barely managed to read.
He closed his eyes for a moment.
Then he slipped a hand inside his robes and reached into a hidden inner pocket.
Beneath his fingertips, he felt the smooth, gently uneven surface of something familiar.
A piece of jade.
A piece of jade that had once been broken.
Tianxing City.
The military governor’s residence, private compound.
Well, it could no longer properly be called a “private compound.”
It was now the “Imperial Residence.”
That was because the emperor and empress, whom An Wence had abducted, were being housed in the rear courtyard of the military governor’s estate.
To be fair, the place was quite nice.
It had originally been built as the private pleasure garden of a regional warlord, so naturally, no expense had been spared.
Of course, the walls were also extremely high.
And extremely thick.
Zheng Xun sat on the steps in the courtyard.
She spent a while looking at the towering walls, then stared for some time at the tightly shut vermilion gates.
Eventually, she silently looked away.
No matter how long she stared, the people outside weren’t going to let them out.
She might as well find something else to look at.
The garden, for instance.
It was beautifully designed. In spring, it would surely be a breathtaking sight, overflowing with blossoms in every color.
Unfortunately, it was winter now.
There was almost nothing left on the branches. Only a few scattered, withered leaves clung stubbornly to the treetops, lending the garden a certain desolate beauty.
A line of poetry involuntarily surfaced in Zheng Xun’s mind.
So bleak, so dreary, so full of sorrow.
Beautiful.
Artistic.
A perfect reflection of her current state of mind.
Zheng Xun quickly adjusted her attitude.
She already had something pretty to look at. What more could she possibly want?
If this garden existed in the modern world, she’d probably have to pay eighty or a hundred yuan just for an admission ticket.
And here she was, actually getting to live in it!
After comforting herself for quite some time, Zheng Xun finally managed to work up enough enthusiasm to eat while admiring the scenery.
She lowered her head and took a bite of the wheat cake in her hand.
The thing had been made with a generous amount of solid ingredients, and after being dried for storage, it had become hard as a rock.
Her first bite failed to make the slightest dent.
Zheng Xun lowered her head to inspect it.
A small crescent of tooth marks decorated the edge of the yellowish-brown wheat cake.
And even those marks were shallow.
She was still a very long way from actually biting through it.
At last, Zheng Xun’s composure shattered.
[SYSTEM! GET OUT HERE!!]
[YOU PROMISED I’D BE EMPRESS! WHAT KIND OF EMPRESS SITS ON THE GROUND GNAWING ON A STALE CAKE?!]