Chapter 96
The Qilin Hall had been transformed into the Commercial Tax Promotion Bureau overnight, and the Emperor promoted Chief Aide Song to serve as its first chief. His rank was raised from the sixth lower grade all the way to the fifth primary grade.
The fifth official grade was a clear watershed. Countless officials had been stuck at the sixth grade for their entire careers, never managing to climb to the fifth grade even by the time they retired, let alone for someone like Chief Aide Song who had only earned a juren provincial examination title.
When he received the official promotion document, Chief Aide Song held it in his arms and wailed loudly. Weeping, he rushed straight to the Palace of Peace and Good Fortune, knelt down in the middle of the courtyard, and kowtowed toward the main hall door of the palace.
Though he did not say a single word, everyone who had served in the Emperor's former princely residence knew full well that he was offering thanks to the future empress.
There was another person whose reaction was even more over the top than Chief Aide Song's. After sobbing so hard that his face was streaked with snot and tears, he nearly choked and could not catch his breath, scaring the people around him so much that they almost called for a physician.
This person was Liu Heipi. From the moment he received the official document appointing him as the deputy head of the Commercial Tax Promotion Bureau, he never let it out of his grasp. Even when Madam Liu wanted to look at it, she had to read it while he held it, and that night when he went to bed, he still carried it clutched in his hands.
It was not until the next morning that Madam Liu coaxed him again and again, before he reluctantly handed the document over to her. He watched closely as she properly stored it away, and only then did he feel at ease.
Madam Liu was no less beside herself with joy than Liu Heipi. The thought that her husband Liu Heipi now held an official position of the seventh primary rank, that their family had risen in status to become a household of officials, and that she would be an official's wife from then on, made all kinds of excited thoughts swirl nonstop in her mind.
All of this was thanks to Second Miss Cui. Now that Second Miss Cui was going to be empress, wouldn't their family also be counted as part of the empress's inner circle of trusted people?
The couple did not get a good wink of sleep all night, yet they were as full of energy and vigor as if they had chewed on a whole old ginseng root.
When the Emperor first established the Commercial Tax Promotion Bureau, the court officials initially assumed that this was a concession the Emperor had made to win their approval for making Second Miss Cui empress.
But after the Emperor bypassed the Ministry of Personnel and directly issued all official appointments for the Commercial Tax Promotion Bureau, and then designated the buildings of his old princely residence as the bureau's official offices, the court officials realized that they had been far too presumptuous in their assumptions.
The Minister of Revenue once asked the Emperor whether the commercial taxes collected by the new bureau would be turned over to the Ministry of Revenue on a monthly basis or a ten-day basis.
The Emperor simply replied, "You are thinking too far ahead."
Even with a new name, it was obvious that the commercial taxes collected would still not be handed over to the Ministry of Revenue.
Meanwhile, Minister Gu had already led the Ministry of Rites to start arranging all matters related to the Emperor's wedding ceremony, and had invited Grand Secretary Shen and Grand Secretary Yao to act as official matchmakers. The two grand secretaries were set to go to the main branch of the Cui family to formally propose marriage on the ninth day of the month at the hour of the snake.
After inquiring at the Ministry of Rites, people learned that the Emperor had rejected all the auspicious dates in the first month of the lunar new year that the Ministry had asked the Imperial Astronomer to calculate, and had demanded that the wedding ceremony be held before the Lunar New Year.
It was already the ninth day of the twelfth lunar month, with only twenty-one days left before the new year. New Year's Eve was packed full of various imperial rituals, so the wedding could not possibly be scheduled on that day. The Imperial Astronomer selected and deliberated time and again, finally coming up with an auspicious date that satisfied the Emperor. The Emperor made the final decision to welcome his empress on the twenty-eighth day of the twelfth lunar month.
The Emperor also decreed that not a single required ritual of the post-enthronement empress welcoming ceremony could be omitted, and all the procedures had to be completed within eighteen days. From top to bottom, everyone at the Ministry of Rites was so busy that they seemed to be walking on air.
All the court officials arrived at the same conclusion: Second Miss Cui must already be pregnant, and they could not afford to wait any longer.
One morning after leaving their official offices, the officials heard that Chief Minister Li had claimed illness to rest at home, and Wan Shan had been stripped of all his official titles and positions. The Emperor gave Wan Shan a strict order to leave the capital and return to his hometown by noon that very day. Wan Shan's fate was far more severe than anyone had expected.
The court officials who had followed Wan Shan to kneel at the Duanmen Gate could not help but feel anxious. Though the Emperor did not seem to have any plans to punish them, they all knew well that their names had been marked in the Emperor's mind, and their prospects for future promotions were now all but gone.
Some regretted their actions, while others stubbornly insisted that they had done nothing wrong. They believed that their kneeling protest at the Duanmen Gate had made all the people of Yingcheng aware of the so-called "blemish on Second Miss Cui's moral character", and that the people would never accept her as empress. Faced with such widespread public discontent, even if the Emperor did not waver now, sooner or later, after new favored concubines entered the palace, the empress would have this old scandal dragged up again and again to be criticized. Sooner or later, the Emperor would grow tired of her.
The position of empress would never be stable for Second Miss Cui. In their view, this was a long game, not something to be judged by temporary developments.
But the facts turned out to be nothing like what they had imagined.
On the ninth day of the month, at the hour of the dragon, Master Kongji, who had not appeared in public for years, made a special appearance at Tianfu Temple to bestow blessings on pilgrims. Such a rare, once-in-a-lifetime event drew every person in Yingcheng who could get away from their duties to head for Tianfu Temple.
By midday, the area inside and outside the Jubao Gate was completely jammed with people.
Monks from Tianfu Temple were sent to the Jubao Gate to inform the crowds that the temple had stopped admitting visitors, and that even if they hurried over now, they would not be able to enter. But even this announcement could not stop the crowds from moving toward the temple.
The people's reasoning was simple: even if they could not get inside the temple, just standing outside the grounds for a while might let them bask in the blessings Master Kongji had bestowed.
After Master Kongji finished bestowing blessings at the hour of the monkey, he specially made a public statement regarding the Emperor's decision to establish Second Miss Cui as empress.
"Over the 300 years since Tianfu Temple was founded, countless imperial consorts and concubines from both the previous dynasty and our current dynasty have come here to draw fortune sticks. Up to this day, only three people have ever drawn the legendary phoenix fate stick. The first was Empress Gao of the previous dynasty, the second was Empress Cao of our Great Ying, and the third is Second Miss Cui of the Cui family."
Fearing that the pilgrims might not fully grasp the significance of this, the abbot of Tianfu Temple added from the side, "This stick is so extraordinarily rare that Tianfu Temple had long kept the matter hidden to avoid unnecessary unrest. But every ruler of our Great Ying since Emperor Taizu has known about this stick, and before any empress was to be chosen, all the eligible young ladies from noble families would be brought to Tianfu Temple to draw fortune sticks."
Master Kongji pressed his palms together in a Buddhist gesture, and continued, "I have heard that Second Miss Cui drew this phoenix fate stick, and His Majesty once came to me with Second Miss Cui's eight characters of birth to consult me. Second Miss Cui's eight characters are extremely unique: only if she gives birth to a son first, and then becomes empress, can she bring in a prosperous golden age for our realm."
After saying these words, Master Kongji refused to utter another word, and returned to the inner quarters of the temple escorted by a crowd of Tianfu Temple's monks.
Empress Gao of the previous dynasty and Empress Cao of this dynasty were both empresses who presided over glorious golden ages. Now that Second Miss Cui was the third person to draw this rare stick, and Master Kongji had personally declared that if she had a son first before becoming empress, she would bring unprecedented prosperity to the realm.
The people suddenly realized that the Emperor was insisting on making Second Miss Cui empress for the sake of creating a great golden age for the Great Ying. Even the fact that she was carrying a child before marriage was all for this grand goal; the Emperor was truly acting out of deep, thoughtful dedication to his people.
The elderly people of Yingcheng still remembered the good days during the reign of Emperor Gaozong, and compared that to the continuous decline under Emperor Xuanning's rule. Especially after the imperial court moved south, their lives had never been easy. If life was this hard in the south, the northern territories were surely in an even worse state.
Master Kongji's words implied that the golden age Second Miss Cui would bring would be even more prosperous than the era of Emperor Gaozong. Everyone immediately began to look forward to that future with eager anticipation.
Compared to the good days of a coming golden age, what did the matter of the Emperor and Second Miss Cui being technically related in a wrong generation even count for? Everyone agreed that the position of empress must belong to Second Miss Cui, and no one else.
Starting from the next day, all the people of Yingcheng spoke of the upcoming imperial wedding with nothing but blessings and well wishes.
With public opinion completely reversed like this, all the court officials had nothing more to say. Their previous protests were now made to look like a ridiculous joke.
Even though Cui Lanyin had known in advance that the Emperor had some sort of plan in mind, she was still completely stunned by how smoothly his operation had turned out.
Other things might be understandable, but that was Master Kongji! He was the undisputed most eminent of all the few great monks in the Great Ying. He had long secluded himself away to cultivate in seclusion. Even Emperor Xuanning had summoned him several times over the years, but he had never responded to the summons. No one had heard of anyone getting an audience with him in the past two years.
So when rumors had spread earlier that Second Miss Cui's phoenix fate stick had been noticed by Master Kongji, and that the then Prince Wei had once sent people to seek an audience with Master Kongji, Cui Lanyin had not believed a word of it. She had assumed those claims were made up by Tianfu Temple after receiving orders from the Emperor.
When the Emperor returned to her, Cui Lanyin grabbed him and asked, "How on earth did you manage to persuade Master Kongji to do all of this?"
"There was no need to persuade him," the Emperor smiled. "He owes me a favor."
"What? How could a great master like him ever owe you a favor?"
"During a casual chat, I mentioned an old, tattered scripture I had once read, and it turned out to be a long-lost text he had spent years searching for in vain. I had tossed it aside carelessly after finishing it and could no longer find it anywhere. Seeing how distressed he was over the loss, I spent an entire day writing out a full copy of it from memory for him, and to this day he still keeps it somewhere he can reach easily."
Second Miss Cui looked even more astonished. "You have been acquainted with Master Kongji for a long time?"
"Yes, for ten years now. Back then, I had just started roaming the martial arts world, and he was traveling around on a pilgrimage. We met once in an old temple deep in the barren hills, and after that, he would often come to visit me."
"Master Kongji took the initiative to seek you out?" Second Miss Cui thought for a moment. "Was it because of your photographic memory?"
The emperor was displeased by her underestimation of him and shot her a sideways glance. "It was also because I have read widely, have extraordinary insights, and often share views he could never hear anywhere else."
"I know, you are a living library after all." Second Miss Cui was not just flattering him. She cupped his face in her hands and studied him carefully. "I was wondering where all those your detached, worldly-wise thoughts came from. No wonder you picked them up after spending so much time with Master Kongji."
The emperor was very pleased, a clear smile spreading across his face. "But after being with you for so long, I was pulled back from all that, and grew fond of the mortal world and its joys again."
Now that she understood the whole story, Second Miss Cui frowned. "Even if you wanted to make up a story, why did it have to be so over-the-top? Calling me a 'prosperity-era empress' is not just embarrassing, I am simply not worthy of that title."
The emperor did not take it seriously at all. "There is nothing to it. If I build a prosperous era, you will naturally be the empress of that golden age."
The emperor cupped her face in his hands in return. "Do you trust me?"
Thinking of how capable the emperor was, and how he had never once failed to keep a promise he had made, Cui Lanyin nodded earnestly. "I trust you."
"I promised I would create an unprecedentedly prosperous age, that was why Kongji agreed to help me spread the story," the emperor finally told her the truth.
That made sense. How could a highly enlightened monk like Master Kongji cooperate in making up a story just to repay a small favor?
Cui Lanyin thought back to the days right after he first ascended the throne, when the emperor had been wavering between taking an active role in governing and letting things take their own course. She made a face as if she was still frightened by the thought. "Now I don't have to worry that one day you'll get fed up with everything, throw up your hands, and leave all this behind."
The emperor smiled with a hint of mischief. "That depends on how you plan to keep me here."
Cui Lanyin was not going to fall for his trick. "A man who is going to build a prosperous era will have no time to run away."
"Five to eight years will be more than enough," the emperor said as he gently stroked her stomach. "We can teach this child from a young age, and they will be ready to supervise the state affairs when they turn nine."
"I have a feeling this is going to be a daughter."
"Even a daughter will have to share her father's burdens," the emperor replied.
Cui Lanyin did not take his words seriously at all, and hurried him to change into new clothes and socks.
After the Ministry of Rites announced the wedding date to the whole realm, the emperor brought up a proposal during his audience with the Cabinet: he wanted to grant a marquis title to Cui Sheng, the father of the empress. The emperor stated outright that he did not want a title with the characters "Cheng'en" (meaning "receiving imperial grace") in it, and ordered them to come up with several other titles with good meanings for discussion.
Even Grand Secretary Yao fell silent at this, while Grand Secretary Shen and Grand Secretary Zheng spoke up directly in opposition.
Their reasoning was solid. When Empress Xu was made empress back then, the Xu family had made countless great military achievements, and they would have more than deserved a duke title, but Emperor Xuanning only granted them a marquis title. Because of that precedent, civil officials rarely received noble titles of any high rank. When it came to the Li family, even they could not be granted a high title after careful consideration to avoid public criticism, and they still only held an earldom to this day.
The Xu family had military exploits, and even though Grand Secretary Shen and the others had their disagreements with Chief Minister Li, no one could deny that the Li family had served two successive emperors, Emperor Gaozong and Emperor Xuanning, with great dedication. What great achievements could the main branch of the Cui family possibly have to compare to that?
The emperor did not fly into a rage as he had done before, but he refused to budge either. The emperor and his ministers remained deadlocked for an entire day.
It was only when Second Miss Cui heard of the matter and repeatedly and firmly declined the honor in front of the emperor, and Cui Sheng, getting the news, went to the Yanhua Palace to request an audience, stating that he had not made a single meritorious contribution to the realm and did not even deserve an earldom, and asking the emperor to wait until he had made some real achievements before granting him any title, that the emperor relented a little. In the end, he only ennobled Cui Sheng as the Earl of Xuanping.
The emperor also did not grant the main branch of the Cui family a new mansion. Everyone knew that the main Cui household was cramped, even more modest than the residences of many fifth-rank officials. It was unheard of for an imperial relative to live in such frugality. Seeing that Second Miss Cui and the main Cui family were so modest and knew their place, the court officials felt much more at ease, and their resistance to Second Miss Cui becoming empress softened considerably.
The emperor was becoming more and more the image of a proper emperor, Cui Lanyin thought to herself. Would the cousin she had known from before disappear one day, never to return?
This emperor, who was a living library, could have easily thought up not just a few noble titles, but hundreds of them on the spot. The reason he had asked the Grand Secretaries to discuss them was clearly to wait for her and her family to step forward and decline. The emperor never only aimed for one thing. Apart from showing the whole world her virtuous, gentle, and modest character, he must have had other plans in mind, but her skills and insight were still far too lacking for her to see what they were for now.
The next day, Grand Empress Dowager Chen sighed to Cui Lanyin. "The year before I was named crown prince's wife, Emperor Taizong arranged for me to go to Tianfu Temple to pray for blessings. After the prayer service, I heard the palace attendants say that the fortune sticks at Tianfu Temple were extremely efficacious. Back then I was very lively and outgoing, so of course I would not miss a chance like that. I went to draw a stick full of excitement, and it turned out to be a great lucky one. I was so proud of it for quite a while.
Looking back now, Emperor Taizong must have wanted to see if I could draw that very same phoenix fortune stick that you drew. The one I drew must have been a disappointment to him."
She recalled another memory. "That's right, before Empress Dowager Xu was named crown prince's wife, Emperor Gaozong also arranged for her to come to Tianfu Temple. It must have been for the exact same reason, to get that stick."
Cui Lanyin did not show anything on her face, but her mind was in turmoil. The fortune sticks at Tianfu Temple really had a hidden, deeper meaning!
So the little understanding of the emperor she thought she had, might not even have scratched the surface of who he really was.
With a complicated, unnameable feeling in her heart, Cui Lanyin left the palace on the 12th day of the month to return to her family home. She wanted to spend as much time as she could with her family before her wedding.
On the 22nd day of the month, Lady Jiang's elder brother and his whole family arrived in Yingcheng. Even though the house was a bit crowded, in this joyful time of family reunion, no one felt inconvenienced at all.
Half a month passed in the blink of an eye. On the 28th day of the 12th month, an auspicious day, the Great Ying Dynasty was about to welcome its fourth empress.
This was the first time in history that an emperor, while already on the throne, would personally escort his empress into the palace. It could truly be called an unprecedented grand event.
When the people of Yingcheng heard that the emperor would leave the palace to personally greet his empress, they all began waiting eagerly. On the 28th, before dawn even broke, the entire city was emptied, and crowds of people gathered along the streets the wedding procession would take, all waiting to catch a glimpse of this once-in-a-lifetime grand imperial wedding ceremony.
Here they come [kiss emoji]
Ever heard of someone getting a toothache from eating too much ice cream? [eye-rolling emoji]
