Chapter 88: My Son Bears the Bearing of a Great Emperor, Part Fourteen

Even when his colleagues feared and resented them; even when some, disregarding their lord’s wishes, schemed in secret to destroy the two brothers; even when the officials in charge of supplies obeyed in public and sabotaged in private, and even when allied forces were eager to see them all die on the battlefield—

Qin Man had never truly let Qin Teng’s provisions be cut off, nor had he ever left him genuinely stranded and helpless.

Because of that, Qin Teng trusted Qin Man utterly.

And Qin Teng, who trusted him so utterly, was like a husky let loose from the house—gone in the blink of an eye. The next word of him came not from any messenger of his own, but from the mouth of the Emperor of Great Shun.

For Qin Teng had pursued the roving rebels all the way, hunting them so relentlessly that those same rebels, triumphant elsewhere, were driven into unending terror.

The great aristocratic clans, seeing how formidable he was, were instantly tempted. They hurriedly sent people over and haughtily ordered him to proceed to their family domains, clear out the nearby rebels for them, and safeguard their estates.

But these great clans were among Qin Teng’s enemies as well. In years to come, they would write him into the histories handed down for generations and curse him for millennia as a mortal foe.

And they expected him to run over and protect them of his own accord?

In their dreams.

Especially since the servant sent by the noble house to summon Qin Teng with his troops—those who knew would know he was merely a household servant; those who did not might have thought the family patriarch himself had arrived.

He did not so much as spare Qin Teng a proper glance, but looked at him all the while down the bridge of his nose.

So Qin Teng ordered that he be beaten soundly. Before leaving, the man flung down a threat, declaring that Qin Teng would regret this.

After that, they went straight to the Emperor of Great Shun to lodge a complaint.

It could only be said that if even a family like the Zhengs, whose fortunes had been in decline for nearly a century, remained so arrogant, then what of the others?

Their arrogance was so excessive, their opinion of their own lofty standing so inflated, that they did not even bother to gather intelligence before rushing to make accusations.

Had they investigated even a little beforehand, they would have known what a disastrous mistake it was to go to the capital and denounce Qin Teng.

After all, the young man’s uncle was one of the emperor’s favorites. In former days, imperial favor had belonged exclusively to a trio; now it had become a quartet, and Cui Ge had even risen above the rest.

Did they understand what it meant to be a favorite at the emperor’s side?

The one accusing Qin Teng was a member of the Wang clan—the finest talent of this generation of the Langhuan Wangs, currently serving as a Drafter in the Secretariat.

The trouble was that he was not particularly liked by the emperor. Had he not been a legitimate son of the Wang clan, a disciple of a great Confucian master, astonishingly learned, and crowned with a whole string of similar distinctions, the Emperor of Great Shun would never have appointed him at all.

There was no mystery to it: the young man did not know how to flatter the throne. The emperor, too, fancied himself refined and literary; he even wrote poetry.

Everyone else praised it. He alone kept a stiff face and pointed out, one by one, every defect in the emperor’s verses.

This time, too, members of the Wang family had come weeping and wailing, saying how Qin Teng had insulted the Wang clan, and had even threatened to lead troops to trample their ancestral homeland, embellishing the tale and pouring oil on the flames.

So this Secretariat Drafter, a man quick to anger, had simply rolled up his sleeves and come to accuse Qin Teng.

Unluckily for him, Cui Ge was there as well, and he had brought Qin Ye with him.

The Emperor of Great Shun extended his affection from Cui Ge to those connected to him. He had even once considered taking Cui Ge’s sisters into the palace; unfortunately, upon inquiry he learned that the women of the Cui family had mostly perished years ago. Only one elder sister remained, and she was long since married.

On a sudden whim, the emperor decided he wanted to see Cui Ge’s brother-in-law, and so Qin Ye appeared before him.

At first glance, the emperor was deeply disappointed.

Qin Ye stood there all slack and loose. Before the emperor, his face was full of fawning obsequiousness. Set beside Cui Ge, who stood straight as a pine, he only served to elevate Cui Ge still further.

The emperor had already lost interest and was about to dismiss Qin Ye when Secretary Wang arrived in a blaze of righteous indignation.

Secretary Wang was undeniably gifted with words. Citing classics and precedents, he launched into a fierce denunciation of Qin Teng. When he finished, his whole manner conveyed that if His Majesty did not uphold justice for him, then His Majesty could hardly be called an enlightened ruler.

The Emperor of Great Shun frowned, intensely displeased.

Cui Ge, unhurried as ever, then presented an entirely different account. He finished describing how a Wang family servant had swaggered in and demanded that Qin Teng lead troops to protect the Wang clan, then bowed.

“Your Majesty, my own children are still very young. Among the younger generation in my family, I have only two nephews—the sons of my full elder sister.

“From childhood, both showed astonishing talent. Had it not been so, I would never have recommended them to Your Majesty.

“My heart has always been wholly sincere toward Your Majesty. It was precisely because of that sincerity that I ignored the taboo against recommending my own kin and presented my two nephews for Your Majesty’s service.

“Previously, the court ministers kept saying that the rebels were advancing with fearsome force and that Your Majesty must treat the matter seriously. Yet the moment my nephews took the field, those so-called fearsome rebels were slaughtered until they cast aside arms and armor.

“Those shameless men who have lived more years than these two youths, not yet twenty, are bad enough in their own incompetence; worse still, they cannot bear to see gifted young men surpass them.

“My two nephews had only just achieved something, only just begun to prove that Your Majesty’s grace and trust in them had not been misplaced, when obstacles immediately appeared.

“Your Majesty, my nephew is a young general personally invested by the throne. The task Your Majesty assigned him was to suppress the rebels, not to serve as a beast of burden for some single surname and be ordered about at will.

“The Wang family sent only a servant, and yet they dared command a young general appointed by Your Majesty himself to lead troops and act as their escort. Perhaps, in the eyes of the Wang clan, they are the true sovereigns under Heaven.

“My nephew could not possibly condone such defiance. After he flatly refused, the Wang servant uttered threats. My nephew is still young, and in his fright he actually fell ill.

“He is now in the capital, come bearing a rod of thorn to beg forgiveness. He says he has failed Your Majesty’s trust and asks that Your Majesty strip him of his post.”

The Emperor of Great Shun had never much liked Secretary Wang to begin with—after all, the man was more learned than he was and did not give him face.

More importantly, Secretary Wang, like Cui Ge just now, had spoken at great length, yet the core of his meaning and his final words both carried the same implication: if the Emperor of Great Shun did not punish Qin Teng, then he was a foolish tyrant.

The emperor had already been suppressing his anger. Hearing Cui Ge’s words now, he found Secretary Wang’s face more hateful than ever.

“So it seems the Wang family truly believes that they are the sovereigns of this realm. Otherwise how would they dare behave so arrogantly toward a young general appointed by me in person?”

Secretary Wang was not so book-addled that he lacked all sense. In haste, he begged forgiveness. “Your Majesty, the Wang family has absolutely no disloyal heart toward Your Majesty or toward Great Shun—”

“To my eyes, your disloyal heart is all but leaping into my face.

“In what Secretary Wang said just now, if I do not deal with Qin Teng as he demands, then I am a foolish ruler, a tyrant.

“The Wang family sends out a mere servant and dares try to redeploy a young general I appointed. Failing to move him, they seek to frame him, and would have me personally dispose of a young talent serving the country and the people for their sake.

“And this still does not count as disloyalty?”

Secretary Wang was stunned numb. He admitted that his words had indeed been somewhat heated just now, and that they had carried a hint of moral coercion—but they absolutely did not rise to the heights the emperor was now assigning them.

Yet once the emperor had decided a thing was fact, nothing he said could be of any use.

In the end, Secretary Wang lost his office in the Secretariat, and the last member of the Wang clan still serving in court was reduced to a commoner.

Old Wang actually felt that was not so bad. In any case, he had never been happy as an official. He had always felt the emperor was an idiot—but an idiot who demanded that others praise him against their conscience.

If they did not flatter him, he would make life difficult for them.

And on top of that, Old Wang had more than once seen the emperor take offense at an official’s words and vent his anger upon the speaker. The more he saw, the less interest he had in serving as an official of Great Shun.

Now that his office was gone, all the better. At least he had won some peace.

What Old Wang had not expected, however, was that just when everyone else was avoiding him, someone would come to seek him out.

That man was none other than the younger brother of Qin Teng, the very man whose actions had brought censure and punishment upon the Wang clan and reduced him to a private citizen.

Qin Man’s reputation was nowhere near as great as his brother’s. After all, his brother’s achievements had been carved out in battle at the head of troops.

Qin Man, on the other hand, handled logistics and, behind the scenes, quietly served as the strategist who advised Qin Teng. As a result, he seemed to have little fame at all.

What Cui Ge had said before the emperor was true enough—only the one who had returned to the capital was not Qin Teng, but Qin Man.

Qin Teng had long since vanished without a trace. After beating the Wang family’s people, he had not cared in the slightest when they threatened him. In any case, his younger brother would clear away every future trouble for him.

Qin Man had come to Old Wang’s door to persuade him.

Among the great noble clans, not everyone was a grand talent fit to order the age, nor was every one of them a parasite who produced nothing, trampled human life underfoot, and preyed upon the common people.

A man like Old Wang was one who appeared only once in decades, and not necessarily even from the direct line of the Wang clan.

Indeed, Old Wang was not of the direct line. Only after he revealed his learning and brilliance did the Wang family begin to value him and favor him with resources.

Before that, his life had been little better than that of an ordinary commoner.

At the bottom, all were much the same.

Qin Man knew Old Wang well, because a few years later the two of them would serve different masters and cross swords more than once.

Old Wang’s ending had not been a good one either. As an official he had met a fool of an emperor; in rebellion he had met a fool of a lord.

All his allies were swine, and all his enemies were monsters.

His fool of a lord would not listen to Old Wang’s advice. After suffering defeat, that fool laid all the blame on Old Wang’s head and deemed him useless, fit for nothing.

The rhetoric went something like this: look at the enemy’s so-and-so, then look at ours... ah.

Then, after hearing a few words of others sowing discord, the fool began to think Old Wang’s heart was not truly with him and started to neglect him.

Old Wang died in melancholy, and even on his deathbed he still worried over that fool of a lord.

Fools both, yes—but not the same kind. The Emperor of Great Shun was a fool pure and simple, while that future lord had once been a wise ruler who recognized talent and had shown Old Wang real favor—only later did he gradually turn into a fool.

In his earlier days, that man had truly known how to humble himself before the worthy. For the sake of great talent, he had no use for pride at all. Sharing a bed in token of intimacy, saying things like, “With Lord Wang, I am as a fish in water; without Lord Wang, I am as a fish cast from the stream”—he poured out such cloying phrases as though they cost him nothing.

And amid that constant stream of praise and admiration, Old Wang slowly lost himself, until he bound himself entirely to that lord’s ship and chose to advance or retreat with him.

But things were different now. Old Wang had not yet met that fool of a lord who would spare no effort to win over the gifted.

What the two men discussed that night, no one knew. All anyone knew was that the candle burned until dawn.

The next day, Old Wang packed up and left.

But he did not return to the Wang family.

Instead, he went straight to Qin Teng.