Dream of the Red Chamber: I can upgrade my entries!

Chapter 77 The Evil Dragon Coiled Above the Empire!

At the fourth quarter of the hour of Xu (7:45 PM), night fell, and the Qianqing Palace was brightly lit, the imperial banquet drawing to a close.

"Tap tap!"

A sudden figure burst into the hall, wearing a sunflower-patterned collared shirt, a black gauze hat, and a rhinoceros horn belt. He was slightly hunched over, with graying temples and a face full of the marks of time.

"See Your Majesty!"

The appearance of Dai Quan, the chief eunuch of the Daming Palace, made the atmosphere of the soon-to-end imperial banquet somewhat eerie.

"Why do you have time to come see me when you're not serving Father Emperor at the Daming Palace?"

With a slight twitch of his eyelids, Emperor Yongping spoke expressionlessly.

"The Emperor Emeritus has decreed that Marquis Wu be summoned to the Daming Palace for an audience."

Dai Quan replied neither humbly nor arrogantly.

'Thump!'

All the nobles and generals in the hall were surprised, not expecting that the Emperor Emeritus valued Jia Yan so much that he specially sent someone to wait for him just as the imperial banquet was about to end.

"Humph!!!"

Emperor Yongping's face darkened as he looked at Jia Yan: "Your father has summoned you. Don't delay."

"The minister obeys the order."

With a calm expression, Jia Yan swaggered out of the Qianqing Palace and followed Dai Quan all the way to the Daming Palace.

Watching his departing figure, Emperor Yongping's eyes were filled with gloom. He had originally planned to summon Jia Yan after the imperial banquet, but the retired emperor had intercepted the meeting. Naturally, he was displeased and had nowhere to vent his anger.

"I am feeling a bit tired. My beloved ministers, you may all leave now."

With a wave of his hand, Emperor Yongping issued an order to expel the guests.

"Yes, Your Majesty."

Upon seeing this, the nobles and generals in the hall tactfully left the Qianqing Palace.

In the northeast corner of the Forbidden City, the Daming Palace lies like a giant beast crouching in the night, overlooking the entire capital city.

The guards protecting the palace were not the Embroidered Uniform Guard, but the Imperial Guards, carefully selected from the Twelve Battalions. They were all tall and upright, wearing fish-scale armor, small phoenix-winged helmets, and scarlet flying fish robes underneath. Their faces were stern and they never smiled.

"My lord!"

"The Emperor Emeritus is waiting for you in the palace."

Upon reaching the entrance of Hanyuan Hall, Dai Quan stopped and gestured.

"Ah."

Nodding slightly, Jia Yan stepped into Hanyuan Hall without looking back. The eunuch behind him had already closed the hall door, and the heavy curtains blocked all prying eyes. The dim candlelight could not illuminate the entire hall.

"You came."

Inside the hall, a figure sat leaning on the imperial couch, looking down at Jia Yan. He wore a bright yellow dragon robe, his white hair was simply tied up with a jade hairpin, and his wrinkled old face was devoid of color. This was the state of someone in their twilight years.

Nevertheless, the emperor's majesty did not diminish; on the contrary, it became more terrifying with the passage of time. His eyes were filled with contempt for life, regarding all living beings as ants. The aura of a superior that he unconsciously exuded made the atmosphere in the palace extremely oppressive.

"Greetings, Your Majesty!"

Jia Yan raised his head and gazed at Emperor Shunkang on the imperial bed, his expression and demeanor remaining calm and composed.

The man before me is the eldest son of Qin Yu, the founding emperor of the Great Qian Dynasty, and the second emperor of the dynasty. He is now 75 years old and has reigned for 50 years, which is rare in the history of the Han people. He is like an old dragon coiled in the sky above the empire, always in control of this vast empire.

"Forty years."

"Your father was about the same age as you when he first came to see me."

"I remember he said that a family with military merit could produce a prime minister, and he actually passed the exam." "The first person from all the noble families in the capital to enter officialdom through the imperial examination, I personally appointed him as a Jinshi of the Yimao year."

"That year, the whole world was shocked by the name Jia Jing. No one expected that the eldest son and heir of a duke's mansion would appear in the court as a scholar. I didn't expect it, Dai Shan didn't expect it, and neither did my elder brother Dai Hua."

"Do you know what Jia Jing wrote in his imperial examination essay? It was titled 'The Strategy for Pacifying the Four Seas and Eight Deserts'!"

"I still remember a sentence in it: 'If we can suppress the Han and Tang dynasties, then we must use thunder and lightning to quell the border troubles. As for the barbarians, kill their people, exterminate their race, and seize their land to make it the territory of the Han dynasty.'"

'Whoa!!!'

Raising an eyebrow, Jia Yan had never imagined that her venerable old man had been so unconventional in his youth.

Using a later term, Jia Jing might be called a 'hawk.' Such remarks would have caused a great uproar among scholars. Since ancient times, Confucian scholars of the Central Plains dynasties have pursued education and disliked killing and conquest, let alone such a strategy of genocide.

"I thought you would refuse to come!"

Emperor Shunkang glanced at Jia Yan and said indifferently, "It seems that you still have some opinions about the fourth prince."

"Did the Emperor Emeritus think that I would not enter the Daming Palace because I feared His Majesty's apprehension?"

Meeting Emperor Shunkang's scrutinizing gaze, Jia Yan confidently said, "You underestimate me too much."

"Hahaha!"

Emperor Shunkang looked at the young and spirited Jia Yan with undisguised admiration in his eyes and laughed loudly: "Your unruly nature is unlike that of someone from the Ningguo Mansion. You are more like the eldest son of the Rongguo Mansion. Brother Daihua has always been steady and knows how to handle things with a sense of proportion. Only Daishan has always been unrestrained and reckless."

"My father once told me that Uncle Yan and Uncle Yuan have very different personalities, and the two brothers are even more different in their military strategies. Uncle Yan prefers to advance step by step, while Uncle Yuan is unconventional and only cares about the result, not the process."

"Judging from your impressive feat of marching over 5,000 li in the northern desert, you have truly inherited the skills of Uncle Yuan."

'.'

Jia Yan never expected that her meeting with the Emperor Emeritus would be like this. It was not hard to see from Emperor Shunkang's words how deep the connection between the royal family and the Jia family was.

"What? Is my attitude toward you strange?"

Emperor Shunkang showed a kind expression, as if looking at his own grandson, and said, "I grew up with my elder brother Daihua and Daishan since childhood."

"Even my younger brother and sister-in-law wouldn't dare say they know more about the Ning and Rong mansions than I do."

“In recent years, Jia Jing and Jia She have faded into obscurity, and no other members of the Jia family have stood out. I am very disappointed.”

"After waiting and waiting, I have finally found you. Even in the afterlife, I can face my elder brother Daihua and Daishan with a clear conscience."

"The Great Emperor!"

At this moment, Jia Yan had no idea what Emperor Shunkang's attitude was. Serving a ruler is like serving a tiger, and he didn't really believe that the emperor's words were truly from the bottom of his heart.

If that's the case, how can we talk about the decline of the Jia family? And what should Jia Jing say about being forced by the current regime to become a monk at Xuanzhen Temple?
"You are an ambitious and aspiring child."

"I can see that your heart is not in the court. In this world, the small court will only limit your talents."

"I have specially bestowed upon you this fertile land a thousand miles outside Gubeikou, not only to reward your outstanding military achievements this time, but also to give you room to demonstrate your abilities."

"The Mongol Tartars are nothing, just a minor ailment. The Later Jin are the real threat to our dynasty."

"After five generations of hard work and governance, the Jurchen Tartars were always thinking about breaking through Shanhaiguan and taking control of the Central Plains."

"At the end of the Ming Dynasty, Dorgon led his army into the pass and established the Qing Dynasty in the capital. He led 200,000 Qing troops to ravage the north. If it weren't for my father ordering Yuan Shu to lead the army to the north and kill Ajige and Dodo, the world might have repeated the tragic situation of the Yuan Dynasty, with the Han people being enslaved by the barbarians."

Emperor Shunkang rose from his bed and walked step by step to Jia Yan.

"Ah."

Jia Yan listened intently without interrupting.

PS: The Khans of the Later Jin Dynasty: Nurhaci, Huang Taiji, Fulin, Xuan Ye, and Yinzhen (reigning).

(End of this chapter)