Chapter 77 — TVF Chapter 77

The Table-Flipping Old Father End

The spies steadfastly stationed in the Capital sent news one after another. After these reports were tallied, Jin Zhengming sat before Qin Jingzhou, utterly dazed for a full quarter hour.

He was openly doubting his life choices: I worked so hard to rebuild my strength and was finally prepared to take my revenge, but before I could even throw a punch, you... already fell?

Seeing Jin Zhengming’s slightly vacant look, Qin Jingzhou only smiled in silence, patiently waiting for Jin Zhengming to collect himself.

There was no need to ask. The Former Emperor had ensured early on that Jin Zhengming could “confusedly” have no more children, and now this lively melodrama of “father and son turned enemies” had also been written in advance by the Former Emperor.

The system interjected, “Just look at how, even in his last moments in the Qianqing Palace, the Former Emperor tried his best to break up the powerful men around Prince Haicheng, and you’ll see that he never truly gave up—he left plenty of contingency plans in place. It’s just that, pressed for time, he couldn’t execute most of them himself.”

“True enough. But no matter how smart his revenge plan was, he was still a useless Emperor. If he was such a medical genius, he could have built herb farms and medicine factories like me, then used some sales strategies. He could’ve easily earned more than the farm taxes. With money, what couldn’t he accomplish?”

The system replied, “With money, you can buy grain, raise soldiers… But he couldn’t let go and couldn’t do it, so I guess that old saying is right: character determines fate.”

Qin Jingzhou smiled faintly. “This also applies to the current Emperor. The present ruler is a bit stronger than the Former Emperor, but these two share the same flaw: neither excels at military affairs, so they just want to suppress the military and elevate the civil officials. In my hometown, the Northern Song dynasty did this to a paranoid degree, and their dynasty lasted barely over a hundred years.”

The system chuckled too. “Thinking that military commanders threaten their rule, but are all civilian officials really so great? If I remember right, the Song dynasty had more than its share of famous corrupt court officials.”

Qin Jingzhou gave an “mm” in response. “Back in my homeland, only Huizong and Qinzong ever truly brought the nation to utter ruin. ‘Utter ruin’ as a phrase was originally used to denounce Emperor Yang of Sui, but Emperor Yang isn’t even in the same league as Huizong and Qinzong!”

Host and system chatted merrily until, suddenly, Jin Zhengming slapped the tea table. “Heaven helps us!” He paused, then continued, “The Emperor’s summoning us to save him!”

Qin Jingzhou’s smile did not fade. “We’ll have to answer the summons and save him, Jin. The messages from our spies always beat the Royal Edict anyway.”

Jin Zhengming suddenly threw back his head and laughed heartily. “The Noble Consort… has made her move too!”

He sensed his own kindred spirit in her: both were seeking revenge upon the Emperor of Great Qi!

While there weren’t many years left for the Emperor either, he wasn’t likely to sit around in the Qianqing Palace awaiting doom like the Former Emperor.

Word soon spread that the Crown Prince, supported by the Dugu Clan and the noble families, had revolted. The panicked Emperor sent Inner Attendants everywhere to gather intelligence. News returned: the Crown Prince’s guards and the Five Cities Patrol had switched sides, most of the Imperial Guards and the Imperial Household Guards had betrayed him as well…

The Emperor realized that this was the backlash for slashing the Western Army’s funding. These generals and soldiers weren’t particularly loyal to the Crown Prince, but there was nothing he could do now. Without further words, he decisively gathered the Noble Consort, the youngest prince, and his confidants, and, escorted by such Imperial Guards as remained loyal, fled the Imperial Palace through the north gate, heading straight for the military camp on the outskirts of the Capital.

At this moment, the Crown Prince was putting on his armor, surrounded by his bodyguards, making his way to the Qianqing Palace.

When the bodyguard reported that his imperial father had fled, he was utterly dumbfounded.

The Crown Prince, having heard that he had been poisoned and that his father might be the true culprit, was furious. Old Master Dugu insisted that the Emperor wouldn’t even leave him a path to survive and urged him to revolt. In a moment of hot blood, he agreed.

Several days later, with his head cooled, the Crown Prince found the whole affair increasingly suspicious. The Princess Consort had secretly bypassed the Imperial Clinic to consult a famous healer, who, after a clandestine palace visit, declared the poisoning not severe and easily treatable—his lifespan wasn’t in danger at all… and, in fact, his father wasn’t known for using poison. The one skilled in such things was the Former Emperor!

If he truly committed patricide and seized the throne, carrying the taint of such heinous treason, he’d only end up relying totally on the Dugu Clan. After several years, who could say whose country it really was—his or the Dugu Clan’s?

So the Crown Prince only wished to talk things out with his father and persuade him to abdicate. That way, he could inherit the throne as a matter of course.

What he failed to expect was that, before he could even get a meeting, his father… ran away! No matter how you looked at it, he’d been firmly branded a usurper.

The more the Crown Prince thought about it, the angrier he became. His vision dimmed and he swayed, only to be caught by his confidants on either side.

Taking a deep breath, he scanned the faces of the assembled men, then steeled his heart. “Follow me!” In less than half an hour, he easily stormed into the Qianqing Palace, now empty aside from a scattering of minor eunuchs and maids.

After that, the Crown Prince entrenched himself in the Imperial Palace and Capital, stonewalled against his father, who was now stationed at the army camp outside the city—father and son, clearly with no way forward or back. Most of the Court Officials and noble families wanted nothing to do with the mess. They shut their doors and pretended the world outside didn’t concern them; even most of the imperial family did much the same.

The Emperor had divided the Former Emperor’s Imperial Guards. Half had been sent to the Western Army; the other half, together with most of the former Prince Haicheng’s guards, had stayed at his side.

With almost a hundred thousand elite troops as escort, he had little worry for his safety. The Western Army might claim two hundred thousand troops in name but only sixty thousand of those were real soldiers, the rest being new conscripts or auxiliary troops. Even so, the Western Army managed to fight the Prince Fan Coalition’s two hundred thousand true soldiers to a standstill.

He understood perfectly—those bastards were quietly profiting, and by true strength, they were every bit his equal when he’d first risen up against the Former Emperor.

Thinking back to those days, a bitter taste filled the Emperor’s heart. He calculated which division the Western Army would send to save him, and how best to pit them against the Crown Prince’s guards, draining both sides. Lifting a lukewarm bowl of sweet soup, he recalled how Yang Shi still insisted on personally preparing him fresh meals, unfailingly true to her heart. As he drank the last of the soup, he mused: If he let a few members of the Yang Clan go free, Yang Shi would worry less...

That night, the Emperor, for once, slept deeply—only to be assassinated in his sleep.

That night, in the room next door to the sleeping Emperor, the little prince was quietly spirited away by unknown hands...

The Noble Consort fainted outright upon hearing the news.

The Crown Prince, too, collapsed when the message reached him.

The two generals on duty the previous night were both disciples of Qin Jingzhou—not graduates of the Accelerated Training Class, but real, true Disciples.

One of the young generals had had both mother and self gravely ill, their lives saved by their Master; the other was from a noble family, but thanks to bitter infighting, had been exiled, an unlucky scapegoat...

Last night, the two personally patrolled. With their skills, they easily noticed several figures slip into the Emperor’s and the Noble Consort’s quarters, while the accompanying soldiers remained utterly clueless.

Even without direct instruction from their Master, they understood the tacit arrangement between him and the Noble Consort, so they chose to simply turn a blind eye.

Had these two not been on duty, the Noble Consort would never have risked sending her few Death Soldiers into play.

She gave the Death Soldiers her final order: kill the Emperor, then take her son away. Her wishes done, she wrote a final letter and had a confidant deliver it to Qin Jingzhou, then, in front of the Imperial Court Officials and Imperial Family who had rushed to the field palace, fiercely denounced the Crown Prince for heartless revolt. Next, she flung herself at the pillar in the main hall and died.

A beauty like no other, now lying in a pool of blood, drawing her last breaths... The entire scene was brutal and tragic.

Even among the several hundred present—most hard as iron—there was not one who didn’t feel a pang.

Facing hundreds of sharp, accusing eyes, the Crown Prince was at a loss for words, his hands shaking with rage—whatever the truth, he was now the one who most benefitted from the Emperor’s murder and the missing prince, and would have to bear that sin and its infamy.

The Crown Prince fled back to the Capital in panic.

Word of what happened spread like wildfire across the land, and righteous armies rose up everywhere to topple the Crown Prince.

Jin Zhengming and Qin Jingzhou finally no longer needed to humor the Emperor. Instead, they threw themselves fully into attacking the Prince Fan Coalition.

Battered into submission by the two men, the princes of the coalition were stunned: Shouldn’t you be heading back to punish the Crown Prince? Why take it out on us? What sort of ability is that?

Complain as they might, they had to fight.

Qin Jingzhou had made up his mind for a swift, decisive victory, leading the charge himself, behind him the two thousand elite regiment he had painstakingly trained with “the old guiding the new.”

In a single clash, the vanguard and main army of the coalition were smashed. Driving his warhorse at full speed, Qin Jingzhou appeared like lightning before the besieged and clearly panicking main general of the four princes. With a single powerful slash, he cleaved the commander clean in half.

The coalition troops in the middle and rear armies hadn’t even grasped what happened before their standard... toppled...

With the commander cut in two, what point was there in fighting?

In a flash, there were only three princes left. Instead of mourning a fallen comrade, they were chilled to the bone. Without even consulting each other, they scattered in retreat.

Qin Jingzhou had no intention of letting them go. After allowing his troops a brief rest, he led the pursuit.

When he cut down the next prince, infamous for his bad reputation, with another blow, the last two, upon running into the road-blocking Qin Jingzhou, surrendered without hesitation... There was nothing else to do. With their main general dead and morale shattered, their soldiers fled in all directions. These two princes managed to gather only two or three thousand men. When they saw Qin Jingzhou’s forces, their confidants and remaining trusted officers all urged them to give up with sweat beading on their foreheads.

The pair reflected: with so few soldiers left, could they possibly return to their Feudal Lord’s Domains unscathed?

Any Mountain Bandits they encountered could wipe them out, not to mention the ambitious sons and treacherous ministers lurking at home!

So... surrender it was.

And then they witnessed Qin Jingzhou, leading three thousand battle-hardened troops and five thousand auxiliaries—a force of eighty thousand in all—pacify the entire north, leaving only the Capital, in just three months.

During that time, he even fought three battles against the opportunistic North Di People’s cavalry, forced the North Di People to sign a treaty, and opened formal trade between their lands.

The two princes, who thought Qin Jingzhou only aspired to be Imperial Court Official and Military Commander King, finally realized something.

They were slow on the uptake. In recent years, the Western Army had gradually come to follow Qin Jingzhou, especially after seeing him pacify the north in just three months. Any private ambitions they’d nursed eventually dissipated: serving in the Western Army still meant taking a stand with a prospective new ruler.

Qin Jingzhou made sure everyone had time to reflect quietly, but even then, he never openly claimed the throne. He only issued a proclamation, declaring he was launching a campaign against the self-crowned former Crown Prince.

The former Crown Prince had long known this day would come… Ever since his father issued a Royal Edict glorifying the Western Army’s rescue but never once sent a single man, he was sure every soul in the Western Army had grown disloyal.

Fortunately, he’d made his own preparations. As soon as the news reached him, he sent confidants to bring Qin Jingzhou’s eldest daughter-in-law, grandson, daughter and son-in-law, and their two children to the palace.

His men rushed out, only to find that the daughter and son-in-law’s house had long been emptied. The eldest daughter-in-law and grandson were easily captured, only for palace experts to discover… they were cleverly chosen doubles with similar build and face!

Frustrated and helpless, the former Crown Prince could only drag Si Chenghui into the palace.

When Qin Jingzhou marched his army to the gates, he saw his unlucky nephew Si Chenghui tied up atop the city gate, even managing to plead with him for mercy.

Shaking his head, Qin Jingzhou took the custom-made bow from his eldest son, aimed at the patch of yellow atop the gatehouse, drew back and let fly. The arrow he’d crafted himself soared with a flash of silver. The golden-armored figure encircled by guards atop the wall crashed onto his back.