Chapter 55: We Still Have Business to Conduct with the Jurchens

Late at night.

The senior civil officials, who had originally been in their homes embracing delicate maidservants in sleep, were once again all bleary-eyed as they gathered together in the courtyard.

However, the moment they heard that the Emperor's imperial procession was not lingering long in Hebei, everyone instantly snapped to full alertness.

Yet, despite discussing back and forth among themselves inside the room until dawn, they still could not figure out any clue as to what the Emperor's intention behind this move might be.

There was simply no help for it.

No matter how fast the intelligence they received was, it was already two or three days old.

Now that the Emperor had left Zhending Prefecture, no one knew where His Majesty would go next.

He might take the opportunity to head south, he might make a sudden turnaround and re-enter Hebei, or he might transition from Hebei and Shanxi into the Chu region or the Central Plains...

Separated by hundreds of miles, no one could make an accurate judgment.

In the end, after consultation, they reached a decision.

Since it was impossible to deduce the Emperor's ultimate destination, they would simply have their households maintain preparations to cope with any eventuality at all times.

In any case, the Emperor could not possibly go nowhere during his imperial tour; eventually, he would have to stop somewhere.

As for whether he ultimately chose not to go to the Hebei and Jiangnan regions, but instead headed to Hubei, Henan, Anhui, or other places, that would no longer be any of their concern.

Their faction did not encompass all the aristocratic families and powerful clans currently within the Great Ming Dynasty; the affairs of other places could be left for those people to worry about themselves.

Their hands could not reach that far.

However, they firmly believed in one thing.

The Emperor's action of undertaking an imperial tour violated the collective interests of all aristocratic families and powerful clans.

Therefore, no matter where he went, people would find a way to get rid of him.

Everyone thereupon wrote another secret letter to their respective households, instructing them never to lower their guard and to remain on constant alert.

Although some counter-measures had been devised, Huang Liji, who had received the news first, still felt a lingering sense of unease.

He looked at the people in the room and slowly spoke:

"I always feel there is something peculiar about this matter. Taking advantage of this period, let us first clip the wings of that person in the palace."

"That way, even if some unexpected change occurs, we will have more backup plans to deal with it."

Hearing this proposal, the crowd paused for a moment before slowly nodding in assent.

Originally, the consensus reached by the civil official clique after the Emperor left the capital was to wait until it was determined precisely where the Emperor was stationed before making a move against the pro-emperor faction within the court.

That way would constitute a double insurance.

However, the Emperor's erratic wandering caught them off guard, forcing them to initiate their actions ahead of schedule.

Hearing Huang Liji's words, an official with a cunning visage stepped forward and said: "When the Emperor was in the capital, our attempts to bribe or drive wedges among those officials up and down might have yielded nothing."

"But now that His Majesty has left the capital for several days and the backbone of leadership is absent, those pro-emperor factions, who were acquainted not long ago and lack true unity, will inevitably grow estranged as a result."

"Over the next few days, I shall order men to target those of lesser experience within the pro-emperor faction, and within a few days, they can be broken down step by step."

Huang Liji nodded, tacitly approving the proposal.

Before the sky grew completely bright, the crowd was finally able to hurry back to their respective mansions to continue sleeping.

...

Soon.

Another five days passed.

The entire Great Ming was busy with its own affairs.

The aristocratic families and powerful clans were occupied with monitoring the whereabouts of the new Emperor.

Mao Wenlong was finally about to return to Dongjiang Town with court military provisions that he had not seen for many years.

The landlords were pondering how to swallow up even more land property.

The disaster victims in Shaanxi leaned against the walls, looking on with eager anticipation as they wondered how to fill their stomachs...

Meanwhile, the procession of Zhu Youjian's imperial carriage, after a long and arduous journey, finally arrived at Pingding State in Shanxi.

Here, Zhu Youjian ordered everyone to rest and recuperate for an extra day.

Having restored their vigor, the troop continued onward to their next stop, the Yellow River Ferry.

Once there, crossing the Yellow River meant reaching Tongguan, which would formally mark their entry into the territory of Shaanxi.

With an imperial procession of such massive scale, it was naturally impossible not to attract the attention of interested parties.

From the very first day they entered the territory of Shanxi, the Eight Great Merchant Guilds of Shanxi had already quietly set their eyes upon this massive entourage.

They knew very little about this new Emperor.

The only deed they had heard of was that upon ascending the throne, he immediately lopped off hundreds of heads of Embroidered Uniform Guard officials.

Moreover, being able to organize such an entourage for an imperial tour merely a month or so after ascending the throne showed that he was indeed a ruler with an iron fist.

However, no matter how wise an emperor might be, it was best not to harbor any designs on Shanxi.

If things blew up, it would not look pretty.

They, the Shanxi merchants, still needed to do business with the Jin people.

The eyes of the Eight Great Merchant Guilds remained fixed firmly on the imperial procession.

It was not until the entourage rested for just a single day and then rapidly departed that they finally relaxed slightly.

While some people kept a deathly stare fixed on the imperial procession, others naturally craned their necks in eager expectation.

During these days, the imperial procession traveled through Hebei and Shanxi.

Scholars from both regions and low-ranking officials who had long felt frustrated and unappreciated in the court found their hearts stirring passionately upon witnessing the Emperor's imperial carriage with their own eyes.

Everyone knew what this scene, unseen for many long years, truly signified.

Although the imperial tour did not directly cause large-scale turmoil in these two places, the minds and hearts of the people had already begun to shift away from the past.

Among all these people, the most excited and driven with the strongest agency was none other than Sun Tingting.

A few days earlier, when he returned from Yan'an Prefecture in Shaanxi to his ancestral home in Daizhou, Shanxi, he had buried himself in writing memorials concerning Shaanxi and sought connections everywhere to send those memorials to the capital.

Yet Sun Tingting had not expected that before he even finished writing his memorial, he would hear the news that the Emperor had personally arrived at Pingding State in Shanxi.

Upon first hearing this news, Sun Tingting thought it was false.

After all, he had genuinely passed the imperial examinations and served as an official in the capital.

He knew that while an emperor undertaking an imperial tour sounded simple, executing it in reality was utterly absurd.

However, after verifying through various channels that the Emperor had truly come to Shanxi, Sun Tingting could no longer suppress the agitation in his heart.

He took a few retainers from his home overnight, drove a carriage, and headed toward Pingding State.

Regrettably, by the time he reached Pingding State, the Emperor's carriage and entourage had already departed.

Yet Sun Tingting did not give up on that account.

He sent his retainers back home to relay the message.

Then, taking only a horizontal saber and riding a fast horse, he followed the tracks left behind by the Emperor while making inquiries along the way.

Unlike the common folk who merely praised how majestic the imperial carriage looked in folk tales, Sun Tingting perceived a great deal from this imperial tour event.

He even vaguely guessed, through various pieces of information he had recently gathered, that the ultimate destination of the Emperor's imperial tour might well be Shaanxi.

The Emperor's perspective was perhaps the same as his own.

The crisis in Shaanxi was the most paramount crisis of the present Great Ming.

If the Emperor could seize this opportunity to pacify Shaanxi in one fell swoop, the entire Great Ming might perhaps reverse its decline and transform from decay into prosperity.

Yet, unfortunately, in the eyes of the current Sun Tingting, Shaanxi was already a dead end—a situation that could only be delayed but not saved.

When he first arrived in Shaanxi earlier, Sun Tingting had still felt there was a glimmer of hope for the region.

However, when he returned home to carefully ponder countermeasures, the more he thought about it, the more he realized there was simply no way to begin tackling the problem.