Chapter 102: Corpses by the Roadside Left Untouched, Next Spring the Grass Grows Greener

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Why am I so useless? I am far too old to still be shedding tears. I have made a complete fool of myself this time. It will probably take years before people forget about it.

“I know nothing at all. Chengqian, could I stay at your place for a few years? If I go out now, people will recognize me.”

“Don’t even think about it. You would ruin your image, and drag down the reputation of the Eastern Palace with you. I think you had better sneak home at night.”

“Actually, it is worth considering. Why not stay at my princely residence for a few years? However, the rent cannot be low—eighty or a hundred thousand taels a year, at the very least.”

Hearing the two of them, Cai Cong gave a faint snort. One had no shame, while the other cared only about money. Just wait until you come begging me for help—then you will see what happens.

“Cai Cong, ignore them. They never act properly for even a single day. Did you encounter anything interesting when you went all the way to Shandong?” Li Lizhi chattered like a little lark.

“No.”

Cai Cong answered without even looking up. His chopsticks moved back and forth across the table as if powered by an engine. He had gone to relieve disaster victims, not to sightsee. How could he possibly have encountered anything entertaining?

“Hey, what kind of attitude is that? Are we still friends or not?” Li Lizhi pouted. His dismissive manner was infuriating. Even if he meant to brush her off, could he not at least look at her?

“Then I will tell you. You are an imperial princess, and you ought to learn something about the hardships of ordinary people. Otherwise, one day you may end up providing material for the old joke, ‘If the people have no grain, why do they not eat meat?’”

“I am not that sort of person!” Li Lizhi protested, her face reddening. As the eldest princess, she accompanied Changsun every year to raise silkworms and weave cloth. She was not some sheltered bird in a cage, ignorant of the world.

Changsun patted her hand, signaling the princess not to argue. She wanted to hear what Cai Cong had to say as well. The boy’s disgust toward the imperial family was practically spilling out of him.

“The day I received the imperial edict and left the capital, I set up six ambushes along the road and killed seventy-six men. Every one of them was carrying letters to Shandong to warn the local gentry. Even so, we were unable to stop all those messengers from reaching the road to the underworld.

“Before we had even entered Shandong, we encountered bandits time and again. Do you know what? Those bandits had no intention of fighting to the death. They only wanted to slow the army down. More frightening still, they possessed weapons as formidable as eight-ox crossbows.”

“Did you drive them off?” Li Tai asked eagerly, clutching a chicken leg as he listened.

Cai Cong cast him a disdainful glance and said coldly, “I ordered that no one be spared. Seven hundred bandits were killed, and their bodies were hung from the banners. I then ordered the army to advance, slaughtering every bandit we encountered along the way. By the time I entered Zhengzhou, the army had already killed more than two thousand men.”

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The eyes of Li Chengqian and the others lit up. This was what a great general looked like! How awe-inspiring—under a military order, heads rolled everywhere.

Changsun did not see it that way. His killing intent was too heavy. Such bloodshed offended Heaven and would shorten one’s allotted years. Yet she said nothing, merely watching Cai Cong in silence.

“What happened afterward? What happened next?”

“On the upper floor of a Zhengzhou tavern, a local notable made a threat. I killed him on the spot. From top to bottom, all of Zhengzhou was terrified, and no one dared to obey publicly while defying orders in secret. That night, I sent geomancers to locate sources of water. Within a single day and night, a thousand wells were dug, greatly easing Zhengzhou’s water shortage.”

“Cai Cong, you were magnificent! If I had been there, I would have killed until Heaven and Earth themselves grew dim.” Li Chengqian became so excited that he leaped to his feet and began making sword-fighting gestures.

“Foolishness! How can the Crown Prince speak so lightly of slaughter?” Changsun scolded, rapping him on the head.

“Why can’t the Crown Prince speak of slaughter? How many people of Zhengzhou did those beasts ruin? How many women lost their husbands? How many children were left without fathers or mothers? Since they left the people no way to live, I gave them no way to live either.

“Once I had confirmed their identities, I killed several hundred people in Zhengzhou. Some of the most corrupt families were wiped out to the last member. A ruler should practice benevolent governance, but benevolent governance requires the law to support it. Speaking endlessly of mercy without principle only encourages crooked ways.”

“But you cannot kill so many people! They may not all have deserved death. What will happen to their families now that you have killed them?” Li Lizhi said naively. The officials often praised her for having inherited her mother’s nature—but they meant her compassion, not her understanding of the world.

“No, no. If the imperial edict had not arrived, I would have killed even more. Those men possessed vast lands and wealth, yet were still unsatisfied. They drove the common people to the brink of starvation. There is a child in my household named Tang Yi. His grandfather was a scholar. Simply because he stood up for the villagers and asked the local gentry for water, his entire family was burned to death that very night. The child happened to be out playing in a dog hole and was not at home, which was why he survived.

“And that is only one example of what the suffering people endured. Some things are too cruel even to speak of. When natural disaster struck, the gentry colluded with officials to force people to buy and sell land against their will. Anyone who resisted saw his family destroyed. Do you mean to say such men did not deserve to die?”

“But…”

“My princess, there are no buts. When the heads of the Seven Great Families came to my residence, I had three hundred axemen lying in ambush inside. I doubt even His Majesty would have acted so boldly, would he? But I did. If they had spoken out of line, I would have chopped them to pieces.”

When Cai Cong finished speaking, Changsun, who had maintained an indifferent expression until then, finally changed color. Her face turned pale, and she pointed at him with a trembling finger, unable to utter a word.

What sort of men were those seven elders? Together, they possessed enough power to shake the foundations of the Great Tang regime. Yet Cai Cong had actually considered killing them.

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“Your Highness, you need not look at me like that. In the end, did I not fail to find an opportunity to butcher those old foxes? Every one of them was as crafty as a thousand-year-old spirit fox. That day, they even tried to tempt me with the beauty of their own daughters!”

Cai Cong spoke carelessly as he used his chopsticks to pick at the fish belly. Changsun struck him across the forehead and scolded him as she hit him.

“You make it sound so simple! You nearly frightened me to death, and you still have the nerve to eat? All you know is eating!”

“Is that any way to reason? Your Highness, stop hitting me! Do you know how many people in Shandong died because of them? Killing them would not have been excessive.”

Dodging her blows, Cai Cong cried out. When Changsun still refused to stop, he leaped aside and shouted mournfully, “More than seventy thousand people!”

Changsun stood frozen in place. The others could no longer bring themselves to smile. Who could have imagined that so many people had died?

“When we tried to save more than thirty thousand people, do you know how much danger His Majesty and I faced? Yet today, for the sake of their own selfish interests, those beasts casually threw away the lives of more than seventy thousand people!”

As Cai Cong spoke, his resentment toward Li Shimin grew even deeper. You tested one another again and again, and in the end, it was the common people who paid the price.

“Corpses lie uncollected beside the roads, and the grass will grow greener next spring. Your Highness, I can say with certainty that next year the grass in Shandong will be extraordinarily green.”

As he spoke, tears silently streamed down Cai Cong’s face. Changsun’s hand fell limply to her side.

How much suffering there must be behind that green grass.

“You scoundrel! Did I summon you to the inner palace so you could talk about this?” Li Shimin strode in and immediately began cursing. Cai Cong did not even look at him.

“Then what does His Great Majesty the Emperor think I ought to say? That the seas are calm, the rivers are clear, and the people of Shandong are living in bliss?”

“Silence! If word of what happened today gets out, every person present will be beaten to death.”

Li Shimin roared with a livid face. He did not even spare a glance for the palace servants who had dropped to their knees in terror. Still glaring angrily at Cai Cong, he said, “Come with me.”

“I have not finished eating!”

“Eat what? Move!”

Li Shimin was only human, with his own joys and sorrows, anger and delight. Cai Cong had humiliated him so thoroughly today that the fact he had endured this long was already remarkable.

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