Chapter 49: His Highness the Prince of Chu Matches Wits with the Assembly
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Faced with the laughter all around him, Li Kuan remained utterly calm.
He first raised his chin proudly and swept his gaze across the hall, using a contemptuous look to make his disdain for the assembled ministers perfectly clear. Then he called loudly to Yu Shinan, who stood before him, eager to argue yet unable to get a word in beneath the laughter, “Lord Yu, wait here for me!”
Yu Shinan did not reply. Yet the faintly apologetic look in his eyes inevitably gave way to a trace of curiosity.
He very much wanted to know how His Highness the Prince of Chu intended to silence these ministers, who had already grown hostile toward him after he had beaten Lord Linghu Defen so severely.
It did not take long for Yu Shinan to witness Li Kuan’s methods.
Li Kuan strode three steps in two and swiftly reached the two palace guards stationed in the hall. Without so much as a word, he snatched the golden melon hammers from their belts.
Then, carrying the several-dozen-pound weapons as though they weighed nothing, His Highness the Prince of Chu turned toward the still-laughing ministers with a cold smile.
Bang!
Bang!
Bang!
Holding one golden melon hammer in each hand, Li Kuan brought them together with tremendous force. The resulting thunderous noise was enough to make everyone present feel a tightness in the chest.
Naturally, the civil officials thought only that this insolent boy was being outrageously mischievous. But in the eyes of the military commanders—especially Emperor Li Er—the scene brought one man immediately to mind.
The God of War of the late Sui: Li Xuanba.
With two metallic clanks, Li Kuan saw that the civil and military officials had been cowed by his display. Satisfied, he dropped the golden melon hammers, dusted off his hands, and looked around with triumphant arrogance.
“What are you laughing at? Go on, keep laughing! I would very much like to know how you can still laugh. Did you really think that what I said earlier was merely a joke?”
“Your Highness, you have behaved improperly before the throne…” Pei Ji had always hoped to win Li Kuan over for his own use. Seeing that the prince was about to provoke the wrath of everyone present, his instincts as a politician told him that he ought to step forward and smooth things over.
“You old bastard, shut your mouth!”
Pei Ji had only just prepared to offer him a way down when the furious Prince of Chu kicked him to the ground.
“What? Are you dissatisfied?” Li Kuan looked at Pei Ji, whose face had flushed crimson after being silenced by a single rebuke, and unleashed his full fury.
“Pei Ji, Chancellor Pei! Let me ask you this: What, exactly, was so funny about Lord Yu’s proposal to bring home the remains of the soldiers of the Sui?
“Yes, the Sui fell. Yes, they were soldiers of a former dynasty, while our Great Tang is a new dynasty. But even so! Does that mean that those soldiers who gave their lives on the battlefields of a foreign country were no longer our countrymen? Does that mean their willingness to sacrifice themselves can simply be ignored?
“White bones piled into a monument of victory! What an insult is that! What, exactly, is funny about it?”
Li Kuan’s roar reverberated throughout the entire hall. Every person present was momentarily shaken by the astonishing force of his presence.
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But Li Kuan felt that this was still not enough.
“Pei Ji, you are the Chancellor! And what is a chancellor? The leader of all officials, and therefore a model for all officials! Yet what do you do every day? What were you doing just now?”
Li Kuan glared at Pei Ji, whose expression shifted between gloom and alarm. The old bastard occupied the position of chancellor yet spent every day shirking his duties, and as a result, even now, in the second year of the Zhenguan era, the strength of Great Tang had scarcely improved. The thought filled Li Kuan with overwhelming fury.
If Great Tang had recovered its national strength, the officials would have responded very differently to Yu Shinan’s request.
The more aggressive faction would have considered the proposal insufficiently aggressive: Goguryeo should respectfully return the remains of the former dynasty’s soldiers, allowing their spirits to return to their homeland and their bones to rest in their native soil.
Conservatives like Li Kuan, meanwhile, would naturally have deemed the aggressive faction’s proposal too conservative: Why go to all that trouble? Conquer Goguryeo and make it part of Great Tang’s territory. Then a foreign country would become a foreign land, and surely those soldiers, learning of it in the afterlife, would be able to depart in peace.
But what was the reality now?
Within the imperial court, surrounded by all those eminent officials, not a single person dared support Yu Shinan’s entirely reasonable request. Not a single person dared speak of war!
In Li Kuan’s eyes, this was nothing less than a disgrace to the entire nation.
“Do not think that spending your days eating your fill and drifting in a stupor, so long as you make no mistakes, counts as rendering meritorious service!” Li Kuan stared coldly at Pei Ji. “And do not think that standing by coldly while others make mistakes makes you appear clever!
“Nor should you think that the middle way of simply following the current is some brilliant method befitting a chancellor! It is truly foolish—so foolish that even a reckless man like me cannot stand to watch it! And besides…”
Li Kuan suddenly stopped.
He had not run out of words. Rather, Pei Ji’s face had gone deathly pale, and his entire body had begun to topple backward. Had Gao Shilian not reacted quickly, the old man might well have collapsed and died right there in the hall.
“Heh. His Highness the Prince of Chu certainly has a sharp tongue.”
Perhaps it was because he felt sympathy for a fallen companion, or perhaps it was because, as a former subordinate of the Hidden Crown Prince Li Jiancheng, Wei Zheng had always harbored a certain resentment. Whatever the reason, seeing Pei Ji pointedly berated by a mere youth, Wei Zheng felt compelled to step forward and say something fair.
“Why is it that you’re everywhere?” Having drawn first blood, Li Kuan decided that he would indulge no one today. “Wei Zheng, are you not usually known as the ‘human mirror’? How is it that today you failed to remain the only sober man among the drunk?
“Of course, I have no time to concern myself with whether you were laughing just now. I only know that the person who should have stood before Lord Yu and told him exactly what I said earlier was you.
“But you did not.”
Li Kuan delivered his conclusion in a perfectly calm tone. At the end, he looked at the speechless Wei Zheng with undisguised disdain.
“I am not my father. He is the emperor, and he needs a good reputation, so he must observe the rules. I am different. I prepared long ago to ruin my own name for the sake of Great Tang. So you had better not provoke me, old man. Otherwise, I will smash your head in!”
The young Prince of Chu stood before Wei Zheng, a man renowned for his proud and unyielding character, his face twisted with fury.
Wei Zheng silently studied the young prince for a long while. Then, under the astonished gazes of everyone present, he bowed to Li Kuan.
“I have been instructed.”
Afterward, Wei Zheng calmly returned to his place in the ranks, as though he had stepped forward so eagerly for the sole purpose of receiving that scolding from Li Kuan.
Even Li Er was stunned by Wei Zheng’s submission.
“Your Highness, magnificent!” Yuchi Gong, who had never gotten along with Wei Zheng, gave Li Kuan a thumbs-up after seeing Wei Zheng soundly defeated.
“Bah!”
Having scored a double kill, Li Kuan spat toward Yuchi Gong without a moment’s hesitation.
“To think that I once believed Uncle Yuchi was one of the greatest heroes in the army. I never imagined that even you would lose your fighting spirit after spending a few days as a wealthy idler! You were once an unparalleled fierce general who followed my imperial father through countless campaigns. What have you become now?”
“You!”
Humiliated and furious, Yuchi Gong nearly twisted off the thumb he had just raised. What was wrong with this brat? Did he really make no distinction between friend and foe?
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After secretly glancing at Li Er’s calm expression, Yuchi Gong understood that the emperor was suppressing his anger. He did not dare continue making trouble. If he became the exposed beam that took the first blow, it would hardly be worth it.
Thus, Yuchi Gong chose to do as Wei Zheng had done: he would simply treat it as having been bitten by something and admit defeat. In any case, he had no intention of biting back.
Having successfully achieved a triple kill, the Prince of Chu turned his artillery toward Fang Xuanling and Du Ruhui, who had been silently watching the spectacle.
There would be no fourth victory. His Highness intended to go directly for a flawless five-kill streak.
“Lord Fang, Lord Du, I studied the Analects with my tutor. It says, ‘When faced with benevolence, do not yield even to your teacher.’
“I have often heard my elder brother say that the two of you possess the talents of Guan Zhong and Bao Shuya.
“But I do not understand. If that is true, why are you content to remain beneath a useless chancellor? Why do you not recommend yourselves to my imperial father and ask him to entrust you with great responsibilities?
“If my imperial father is ignorant, then as his ministers, you ought to admonish him and offer counsel. How can you grow accustomed to silence and allow lax governance to throw the court into chaos?
“What is this? Do scholars also suffer from the habit of guarding their own reputations?”
This time, Li Kuan scarcely had to exert any effort at all. Fang Xuanling and Du Ruhui could only shake their heads with bitter smiles before being forced to bow to him and declare that they had been instructed.
From beginning to end, they had not even been given a chance to speak.
Seeing this, Li Kuan lifted his chin proudly.
A flawless five-kill streak!
No—Li Kuan suddenly sensed a furious gaze fixed upon him. When he turned to look, he discovered that it was not his father, but his elder brother, Li Chengqian, who wore a deeply troubled expression.
Oh…
Li Kuan gazed thoughtfully at the crown prince, who had already been glared at several times by Li Er, and understood what had happened. His offhand invention had accidentally implicated his elder brother as well.
Ah, well…
Li Kuan had originally planned that, if he ended up imprisoned in the Imperial Clan Court, his elder brother might come and rescue him. But now, he could only pray for his own good fortune.
Yet at that very moment, just as it seemed the Prince of Chu had unlocked the achievement of laying waste to all before him and was about to face Emperor Li Er’s righteous judgment, Yu Shinan, who had until then said nothing about the reason behind his request, suddenly stepped forward.