Chapter 64 - 58: The Fall of the Xuanlong Emperor
Chapter 64: Chapter 58: The Fall of the Xuanlong Emperor
"Everyone on the tower ship has been dealt with. Since it involved Master Su, that person was quite cooperative. They even agreed to set aside the grudge between the East and West Depots..."
"And I must inform Master Su about Cyan Sparrow as soon as possible. To think there was someone else backing the Marquis of Jiangling."
After a busy day and night, Yum Zhong stepped out of his carriage and returned to the Jinjiang Supervisory Mansion. His expression grew wary.
’Something’s not right.’
’It’s too quiet.’
’Could it be? Now that the matter is settled, did that person remember the grudge between the two Depots? Are they going to make a move on me, Lord Xu’s godson?’
As he walked into the inner hall, Yum Zhong’s expression changed.
"Master Su,"
he exclaimed, overjoyed.
In the room, a handsome, elegant young man was holding a bowl of medicinal soup, carefully feeding it to a young girl on a sickbed.
"As expected of a life-saving Treasure Medicine like the Thousand-year-old Ginseng King. Her life is no longer in danger, but her Internal Organs are damaged. They’ll need to be slowly nurtured with True Qi..."
Cyan Sparrow hadn’t woken up, but her complexion was much rosier.
Su Chen breathed a sigh of relief.
"Master Su, Black Armor Wun Sandao told me... this girl, Cyan Sparrow, is of Great Liang’s Imperial Blood. The last of her line..."
"I know."
"Beneath the Great Liang Imperial City lies an Imperial Mausoleum. Legend has it that it contains countless treasures, and only someone of Imperial Blood can open it. Did you know about that, Master Su?"
"Oh? Is that so?"
Su Chen looked over at him.
At this, Yum Zhong recounted everything in detail.
Wun Sandao, the Double Second Grade expert in black armor, had been utterly terrified by Su Chen’s horrifying level of cultivation—the power to sever a river with a single sword strike. He was still reeling from the shock.
He had told Yum Zhong everything—Cyan Sparrow’s identity, who had ordered the Marquis of Jiangling to act—and as soon as the tower ship docked, he clutched his stomach and fled, vowing never to set foot in Jinjiang City again.
’So, the new Saint of the Black Abyss is searching for Great Liang’s lost Treasure, and he ordered the Marquis of Jiangling to capture Cyan Sparrow for her essence blood, all to open the Imperial Mausoleum and find some Secret Treasure?’
Su Chen said nothing.
He had a feeling that the Secret Treasure the Black Abyss was so relentlessly pursuing—even to the point of unsealing an Imperial Mausoleum—was likely the fiery red bead that had fallen into his hands back in the Tianwu Year.
’What exactly is this thing?’
’It’s been eighteen years.’
’And they’re still looking for it.’
"By the way,"
"who is he?"
Su Chen’s gaze fell upon a scroll hanging in the main hall.
On the scroll,
a refined man in armor was depicted. He stood with one foot on a massive Demon Fiend, wielding a Heaven-piercing Halberd. A great red battle cloak billowed behind him, and his deep gaze was fixed on the heavens, as if letting out a roar powerful enough to swallow mountains and rivers.
To call him merely "heroic" would be an understatement.
"That is Long Xuanjun."
"Master Su, all the other problems are manageable. Even the feat of severing the Nujiang River with a single, snow-laced slash can be explained away as an anomaly related to the legendary hidden treasures of the Jinjiang River..."
"The only real problem is the death of the Marquis of Jiangling! He was the adopted son of the Supreme First Grade, Long Xuanjun. Even if a First-Grade Expert from the Military Supervision Bureau were to intervene, it wouldn’t be easily resolved..."
"This Long Xuanjun is rumored to have orchestrated the Zhou’s Destruction of Liang. They say he’s the world’s foremost expert, a Supreme First Grade who can even contend with Grandmasters..."
Yum Zhong was being diplomatic.
His meaning was clear.
’Master Su, even you might not be his match.’
Then,
this Supreme First Grade might come to Jinjiang City looking for you.
"So it really is him."
"He’s wearing a different outfit; I almost didn’t recognize him..."
Su Chen fell silent.
He found it hard to connect the man in the portrait, who looked as if he could swallow mountains and rivers, with the Peak First-Grade Expert in the Imperial City who was always so quick to kowtow to him.
’Supreme First Grade? That’s a better description for me.’
’And another thing.’
’How dare that guy claim that I, Su Chen, died by the sword of the Great Zhou’s Long Xuan Lord.’
"Yum Zhong."
"You’re wrong about something."
"Of all our problems, he is the easiest one to solve."
"You just need to spread the word that the one who killed the Marquis of Jiangling was Su Chen of the old Great Liang. Forget coming to Jinjiang City; he probably wouldn’t even dare step outside the Imperial City..."
Shaking his head,
Su Chen sat down to drink his tea. He gestured for Yum Zhong to explain the current situation, now at the end of the first year of the Xuanlong Dynasty, following the Great Zhou’s annexation of Great Liang.
In the late Jianwu era,
the Liang Dynasty fell.
Its Imperial Bloodline was extinguished.
The Nine Great Families switched their allegiance, submitting to the Great Zhou and quickly helping His Majesty Xuanlong annex the Six Commanderies of Great Liang. Only the Three Commanderies, which had declared independence early in the chaos, were still stirring up trouble.
Great Liang had fallen.
But its foundation—the nobles in its court and countryside, the vast Jianghu—remained. Massive numbers of Second-Grade Experts, and even some First-Grade Experts, began to emerge, intimidating the Great Zhou Celestial Soldiers.
Even though the Great Zhou had more than ten National Guardian First Grade masters, not to mention the legendary Supreme First Grade Long Xuanjun who was credited with the Fall of Liang, they still dared not make any drastic moves, fearing they would end up just like the Great Liang Dynasty.
The Xuanlong Emperor, a brilliant strategist, personally went to appease the Three Major Sects: the Celestial Master’s Mansion, the Xuanyang Sect, and the Sword Cleansing Pool. He officially recognized their status as the Three Great Sects of the realm.
The Sect Leaders of the Three Sects traveled to the Capital City to accept their new titles, a gesture of their submission.
The event sent shockwaves through the realm.
Afterward,
he reduced taxes, funded irrigation projects, distributed grain seeds, and treated the Liang People with kindness. He even executed over a thousand Zhou Dynasty officials for bullying the Liang People, seizing their farmlands, and abusing their wives and daughters—exterminating their entire clans to make an example of them.
In any given region, if the head official was a Zhou People, their deputy had to be one of the Liang People, creating a system of checks and balances.
He even reinstated the "Civil Servant," a man who enjoyed immense popularity among the common folk for once kneeling at the Palace Gate to plead on their behalf. This man was brought back to the Great Zhou Court Hall to serve as the Chief Minister of the Great Zhou.
This move, once again, stunned the realm.
The hearts of thirty million Liang People were won. They prostrated themselves in the direction of the Imperial City, shouting their thanks to the Emperor in a truly magnificent spectacle.
In just one year, he had won the hearts of the people. Even the nobles of Old Liang, who might have wanted to cause trouble, found no opportunity to do so and could only feign submission.
"What’s more, Xuanlong Emperor encouraged intermarriage between the Zhou People and the Liang People. He even betrothed Great Liang’s Princess Yunyang to the Crown Prince of Zhou..."
"If all goes as planned, the Eldest Imperial Grandson will have the blood of both Zhou and Liang. When that day comes, the realm will surely know lasting peace and stability..."
When speaking of the Xuanlong Emperor, even Yum Zhong was filled with the deepest admiration.
"It’s not that simple."
Su Chen had a different opinion.
"In terms of raw power and heritage, Great Liang had a Grandmaster-level Demon Emperor. At the height of the Tianwu Tower’s power, there were at least two Peak First-Grade Experts, and the number of other First-Grade Experts, both strong and weak, was more than ten..."
"If not for the internal strife—the court infighting, the rebellions, the assassinations—that prevented Great Liang from marching north, the Great Zhou Dynasty wouldn’t even exist..."
"And another thing."
"The Great Zhou took Great Liang’s lands far too easily."
"What they don’t realize is this:"
"The Liang People are fierce, and their Cultivators are defiant. They resisted the Violent Liang dynasty for over thirty years, never flinching from death. The Three Great Sects of Great Liang had their First-Grade Experts cut down time and time again, yet the sects themselves never fell. Every three to five years, a new batch of experts would emerge, wouldn’t they?"
"And that’s not even mentioning the Hidden Sects and Secret Teachings, lurking in the shadows, plotting world-shaking events. They’ve never paid any mind to any Dynasty."
"As I see it, in the entire Great Zhou Dynasty, only this Xuanlong Emperor truly understands the situation. Everyone else is still lost in the fantasy that they’ve conquered Great Liang and become a supreme Celestial Dynasty..."
"And besides, there’s the most important point."
"On that tower ship, you—the Jinjiang Supervisor, a man of equal rank to the Marquis of Jiangling—were publicly berated and called a Great Liang Remnant..."
"It’s obvious."
"Within the Great Zhou’s system, there are countless officials who didn’t get a share of the spoils from annexing Great Liang, and they’ve grown resentful of the people from the former dynasty."
"It may look like an era of peace and prosperity, of a realm well-governed, but in reality, it’s already a powder keg of suppressed contradictions and conflicts..."
As Su Chen spoke, Yum Zhong fell silent.
It was true.
In the autumn of the first year of the Xuanlong Dynasty,
when the Xuanlong Emperor had decreed that the Three Major Sects would continue as the Three Great Sects of Great Liang, the Seven Sect Leaders of Great Zhou had been furious. They had been eyeing Great Liang’s territory like hungry tigers, ready to rush in. In a fit of rage, they had metaphorically flipped the table right in the Emperor’s face and stormed out.
There had been too many incidents like that over the past year.
Even within the Imperial Palace,
the powerful Eunuchs from the Great Zhou were using every trick in the book to bully the Eunuchs from the Old Liang, forcing them to establish the Military Supervision Bureau just to band together and protect themselves.
"But, Master Su,"
"His Majesty Xuanlong can keep them in check, can’t he?"
Yum Zhong couldn’t help but argue back.
"Yes,"
"the Xuanlong Emperor is a man of great vision. He understands clearly that the Zhou were no match for the Liang. They just got incredibly lucky, and that’s how they came to nearly unify the realm..."
"He can indeed keep the Great Zhou Court Hall, the Jianghu, and all the nobles and officials in check. He can maintain the Balance between the Zhou and Liang people, bringing peace and harmony to the realm."
"But what happens when he dies?"
"The Xuanlong Emperor is seventy-nine. Even with his cultivation and his grip on absolute power, let’s say he lives to the full century that is his lifespan’s limit. The Crown Prince is already fifty."
"If the Xuanlong Emperor lives for another twenty-one years, has this world ever seen a seventy-one-year-old, white-haired Crown Prince ascend the throne?"
At that moment, the color drained from Yum Zhong’s face.
The Great Zhou Palace...
The Xuanlong Emperor had caught a chill, and had appointed the Crown Prince as Regent for the past ten days!
"The Xuanlong Emperor is dead."
Su Chen gazed fifty li into the distance, toward the Great Zhou Imperial City. The soaring Longevity Fire, representing the life of the realm’s great ruler, had been extinguished.
Night.
Thousands of cavalry stormed out of the Capital City.
The realm erupted into chaos!
In the winter of the first year of the Great Zhou Xuanlong Dynasty, the Emperor died. Crown Prince Flame ascended the throne.
"The realm is about to descend into chaos!"
Su Chen stood with his hands behind his back, his Profound Robe stark beneath the moon. Gazing at the Imperial City fifty li away, he could almost hear the countless cries of battle.
The Princes were fighting for the throne!
Turmoil swept the realm once more!