Chapter 52
IN RECENT YEARS, the emperor had tended to prefer civil officials, remaining wary of military officials, which made those hot-blooded warriors feel wronged. Most were straightforward and prone to speaking their minds; they bottled up their discontent only because Great General Gu, whom they greatly respected, warned them to put the nation and its people over their own honor or disgrace.
Now that the crown prince had gone a step further, monitoring and hampering their respected great general to an extreme extent, the military officials had all run out of patience. Drunk off the wine they’d consumed, those present began to discuss taking the matter to court the next morning.
Lin Qingyu’s brow furrowed tightly as he listened. These military officials had seemingly applied the entirety of their intelligence and strategic skill to commanding the army and fighting wars; they obviously weren’t well-versed in imperial affairs, and they were terrible at reading the room. Lin Qingyu feared that, if they reported this matter to the emperor without a plan, they would lose a verbal battle against the civil officials colluding with the crown prince.
Just then, Xiao Jie interrupted them with a truthful statement: “You’ve never won an argument against those civil officials, though.”
That rendered the military officials speechless.
“You all end up scarlet in rage every time, trying so hard to come up with a retort yet unable to utter a single word,” the fourth prince added.
Lin Qingyu looked at Gu Fuzhou, who remained silent. The general looked calm and unruffled, but despite that, Lin Qingyu had a feeling that Gu Fuzhou desperately wanted to speak and was barely holding his tongue.
Everyone discussed the matter for a while, and they ultimately decided to go with the flow and seize the chance if it arose. They were determined to save the great general from his extreme misery and to return to him the respect and glory he deserved.
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Early the next morning, General Wu Zhan dismounted from his horse in front of the palace, ready to attend the morning meeting, when he heard someone call, “General Wu.”
He looked back and saw the beautiful imperial physician he’d met the day before in the fourth prince’s residence. Now clad in the indigo-blue robes of a civil official, the imperial physician stood quietly to one side, single-handedly improving General Wu Zhan’s opinion of civil officials without saying a word.
General Wu Zhan grinned and greeted his acquaintance good-naturedly. “Looking for me, Imperial Physician Lin?”
Lin Qingyu nodded. “Are you still going to report Great General Gu’s situation to the emperor as discussed yesterday, General?”
“Of course,” General Wu Zhan said immediately. “My brothers and I came to a mutual agreement.”
“In that case, General, please commit this to memory. No matter what the civil officials say, you merely need to respond like this: ‘What else?’ ‘So?’ ‘Really?’ ‘I don’t believe you.’ ‘What you’re saying is reasonable, but I refuse to listen.’ That will suffice,” Lin Qingyu said. “Never try to reason with them, and don’t pay any mind to what they say either.”
“‘What else?’ ‘So?’ ‘Really?’” As General Wu Zhan picked up on the ingenuity of these responses, a big grin broke out on his tanned face. “Genius! Absolutely genius! That will infuriate those old men!”
Lin Qingyu smiled placidly. “I learned that from my late husband. I hope it helps you, General.”
Great Yu’s most respected military official—aside from Gu Fuzhou—was Duke Wu, who was fast approaching his eighties. After saving the former emperor’s life on the battlefield, he had been awarded a hereditary first-rank dukedom and was permitted to bring his saber to court. Upon hearing about what Gu Fuzhou was being put through in the capital, Duke Wu had come out of his longtime retirement to attend court again, bringing with him the prized saber the previous emperor had bestowed upon him.
Under Duke Wu and General Wu Zhan’s leadership, the imperial court was rowdier than a market. The Tianji Guard had told the civil officials in advance that the military officials planned to make a scene in court and thus, the civil officials had prepared themselves. The moment General Wu Zhan brought the matter up, they started listing in detail how and why Gu Fuzhou’s actions were suspicious.
They explained that the war had reached a stalemate in the northwest when Gu Fuzhou, in a juvenile display of irresponsibility, had out of nowhere sent dozens of memorials requesting permission to return to his hometown and retire. Would he leave his army of three hundred thousand soldiers behind in the northwest just like that?
There was also the secret code in the secret missive from Western Xia. Was it possible that the general had carelessly spread around highly confidential military information? The crown prince believed that General Gu was innocent, of course, but he needed to investigate—if only to appease everyone. His Highness had also ordered men from the Tianji Guard to follow the general in the capital to ensure his safety.
The military officials were less glib than the civil officials, but they were loud, and they merely offered simple responses regardless of what the civil officials said. A few of the crown prince’s confidants gave speeches so long that their mouths got dry, only for General Wu Zhan to reply nonchalantly, “Really? I don’t believe you.”
When they asked him why not, he replied, “I can’t say for sure, but what you said seemed odd.”
The prideful old prime minister’s breath caught in his throat when he heard those words, and he almost passed out in the main hall.
Xiao Cheng’s fingertips rapped the arm of his wooden armchair positioned below the throne. His face was dark; he was evidently on the cusp of an outburst. After the swooning prime minister was carried away, the crown prince finally ground out, “That’s enough.”
Everyone stopped, their heads turning toward him.
Xiao Cheng took a deep breath. “Let me think about this.”
These military officials were straightforward in their behavior but not foolish. They all knew that the crown prince had merely said this to keep stalling, preferably until Gu Fuzhou left the capital.
Thus, they made an even bigger ruckus and refused to comply, even after the meeting was adjourned. One after another, they requested an audience with the crown prince. One or two military officials didn’t amount to much. An alliance of a dozen colleagues, on the other hand, was a different matter entirely.
Xiao Cheng was in no position to reprimand them, so he could only avoid continuing to meet with them. Thus, the officials split themselves into two groups. Half wrote memorials addressed to the crown prince, while the other half used a trick often employed by civil officials—they kneeled in front of Qinzheng Hall and proclaimed they would stay there until the crown prince agreed to audiences with them.