Fairy, please let me explain.

Chapter 793: After Death
Taking off the dark black dragon robe that belonged to the Prime Minister of Dayan, Xu Yinhe walked alone out of the city along the road he took to enter the capital that year. The man who had devoted his whole life to this world had no farewell along the ten-mile-long street on his last journey. Instead, there was only his back as he slowly blended into the crowd.

All the past events came to his mind. When he entered Beijing, he rode his horse along the street, and the gazes of the rich and powerful on both sides of the Tianjie looked down upon him as if it were yesterday. Ten years had passed, and the streets were still bustling with people. The children who once ran along the streets were now old, and most of the buildings back then had been renovated and disappeared. The owners of those gazes had turned into dry bones under his feet.

He came to the center of power under the spotlight of the world, and left quietly in a corner where no one cared, but this land will eventually remember that there was a cluster of sparks that drew the brightest trajectory on the curtain of the times.

Going all the way outward, after a lifetime in the government, at the moment of death, all the once resounding arguments and clap of the table turned into quicksand disappearing at the fingertips.

The victory or failure does not depend on him. He has a lifelong confidant, a lover who will never leave him, children who are happy with him, and a successor who will take over the torch and move forward.
Xu Yinhe felt that his life was enough.

He left Di'an with a smile and went to the nameless hill where they first met.

The lawn on the hillside is leisurely and pulsates with the wind. Under the tassel trees that bloom all year round, two earthen mounds stand quietly.

Xu Yinhe stood under the tassel tree, looking at his two deceased relatives.

Vaguely,
Xu Yinhe saw Chang'an, who was as taciturn as he was, nodding to him respectfully.

He also saw the wonderful woman who had proposed the deal to him under the tree that year, and she extended her hand to him again with a beautiful smile.
He walked towards them, smiling.

The mountain wind blows, and the tassels fall like snow.
His figure gradually disappeared among the petals flying all over the sky.

The world lost a prime minister named Xu Yinhe, and on the nameless hill there was one more grave to accompany his family.

An era has ended.

There was no Gregorian calendar in Dayan, and the New Year came after December. However, the 48th year of Jiajing was a year without the Spring Festival. This was partly due to the tense atmosphere of the civil war, but more so because of an obituary sent to the world from the red-walled palace.

The news of Li Yaoxuan's death was finally announced.

The lantern ribbons that were originally hung for the Spring Festival were taken down, and instead, white silk was hung all over Di'an.

When the emperor passed away, the whole nation was in mourning.

Soldiers from the City Defense Department patrolled the quiet streets back and forth. All entertainment activities were temporarily banned. The lights in the usually bustling brothels and gambling houses were dimmed, but in fact there was no need for patrolling at all. When the soldiers walked through the quiet streets and alleys of the residential areas, they could even vaguely hear crying coming from them.

In the feudal dynasty, loyalty to the emperor was more important than patriotism, and the people's personal worship of the emperor was deep-rooted, especially in the city of Di'an, where the emperor's grace was so great.

According to the etiquette of Dayan, children need to observe mourning for three years when their parents die, but three years is too long for both the new emperor and the empire, so in the middle, the prince and the empire only need to observe mourning for the late emperor for thirty-six days instead of thirty-six months.

When the old emperor passed away, the whole country was in mourning, and the new emperor ascended the throne only after the mourning period was over. Everything in Di'an City was proceeding in an orderly manner according to the ritual system of succession, but looking at the actual control area of ​​the court, it seemed much more chaotic.

Although Li Zhaoyuan had deliberately spread some rumors over the past month, the death of the leader has an unparalleled impact on a country in wartime. At the very least, it will make some people with ulterior motives become disloyal, and at the most, all those who have surrendered will become panic-stricken.

The achievements of the old emperor Li Yaoxuan were too brilliant, so people could not help but be suspicious of the unfamiliar new emperor Li Zhaoyuan.

Not to mention that the civil war has now broken out.

In this situation, the prime minister's attitude became the focus of most people, including many pillars of the imperial party. To them, Xu Yinhe was a thief who stole the country and a disloyal minister, but in times of crisis, people always pretend to be upright.

Having served in the same court for decades, they knew each other's abilities clearly. The clan alliance was coming in full force, and the old emperor was dead. Rather than the unknown new emperor, they were more willing to believe that Xu Yinhe, the prime minister who had held power over the world for decades, could lead them through this dark period.

Li Zhaoyuan foresaw this trend. The prestige of the previous generation in people's hearts was too great, and this prestige would be infinitely magnified during wartime, so he had to take advantage of the general trend to force Xu Yinhe to die.

If we expand our vision to the entire world, the news of Li Yaoxuan's death will have an even greater impact. The civil war between the imperial court and the clan alliance is not limited to the battlefield. The economy, public opinion, and ideology are all areas of competition between the two sides.

The Zongmeng started their rebellion with the righteous cause of clearing out the emperor's entourage, so naturally they would not miss this great opportunity. They pinned the blame of regicide on the prime minister's office, and spread the word that the new emperor was a puppet of the prime minister's office. Of course the top level of the court knew that this was nonsense, but the situation was different at the grassroots level.

The idea of ​​loyalty to the emperor is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, but at this moment it is being used by the clan alliance. The infamy that Prime Minister Xu has carried for decades has made it inevitable that most of the grassroots soldiers of the royal family will believe these conspiracy theories, which are then passed on step by step from the bottom up, thus producing a series of negative effects.

However, the new emperor Li Zhaoyuan, who was about to ascend the throne, did not stop this, and even deliberately allowed these rumors to spread.

Compared to his elder brother Li Yucheng who had been regent for decades, Li Zhaoyuan's foundation in the court was still too shallow. Due to Li Yaoxuan's indecision in his old age, most of the senior officials of the imperial party had never thought that he would be the one to seize the throne. Therefore, he needed time to appease and integrate the imperial party and completely digest the legacy left by his father and become his right-hand man.

This window of power transition was the most vulnerable time for Li Zhaoyuan. He had to ensure that the Prime Minister's Mansion behaved itself during this period. The words of regicide advocated by the clan alliance just happened to be the second major trend that he could use to secure his position as the emperor.

Compared with the external noise, the power center of the Prime Minister's Mansion maintained an eerie silence during this period, as if following the tacit understanding between the emperor and the prime minister as always, quietly watching the new emperor gather power during the period of mourning.

The only thing worth noting is that the entire prime minister's residence had already been draped in white silk long before the announcement of the emperor's death. From the third young master to the mortal servants, everyone had already put on mourning clothes.

Some people speculated that the obituary of the late emperor was issued by the person in the prime minister's residence who forced the new emperor to do so, and some people speculated that the uncrowned emperor of Dayan in the prime minister's residence also followed the late emperor. After all, the other party had not appeared for a long time. But these were just speculations after all, and were soon forgotten in the face of other more practical events.

The northern part of Hongnong, which was controlled by the imperial court, fell.
The Zongmeng army marched straight toward the river defense line that the imperial court had arranged along the Tianhe River.

(End of this chapter)