Ning Chen came out of the Heavenly Blessing Tower. He had come in the Ninth Princess’s carriage and Diaochan was still back at the Inspectorate, so he went the whole way to the Hall of the Four Barbarians on his own two legs.

Kang Luo and the Nanyue State Preceptor were out in the courtyard talking with Li Hanru and Shen Min.

They were enemies, but both sides were men with faces to keep, and as long as Ning Chen was not there they got on well enough — outwardly, at least.

“Ning the Silver Coat?”

Kang Luo had manners, whatever else. The bruises were still on his face, and he greeted Ning Chen with a smile all the same.

The Nanyue State Preceptor was a long way from doing likewise. His eyes were dark and vicious.

He was the State Preceptor of Nanyue. He had come to the Great Xuan expecting that after several years of Nanyue winning battle after battle, the officials of the Great Xuan would meet him with smiling faces at the very least, if not with bowing and scraping.

What he had not expected was to have a worse time in the Great Xuan than a dog.

And the whole cause of it was this hateful boy in front of him.

He had been forced onto his knees at swordpoint in the great hall, and then there was that line about his mouth hitting Ning Chen’s knee… He could not think about it. Thinking about it made his liver ache.

He would have liked to chop Ning Chen up and feed him to the dogs.

Ning Chen edged carefully along, looked at Kang Luo and opened his mouth. “Bleuurgh…”

Ning Chen really was sick.

He had eaten far too much, and then walked all that way with a bellyful of wind, and he had meant to greet Kang Luo and instead opened his mouth and could not hold it.

Kang Luo’s expression froze on the spot, and he was not a well man. Am I as disgusting as all that?

The Nanyue State Preceptor’s face went as ugly as a man’s who has just buried both his parents. He was sure Ning Chen had been sick because he found him disgusting.

Li Hanru and Shen Min looked at each other, and both of them were struck dumb.

They thought Ning Chen had done it on purpose too… This Ning the Silver Coat certainly knows how to turn a man’s stomach.

Once he had been sick, Ning Chen felt a great deal better.

He rubbed his belly and said, embarrassed, “Sorry. I ate too much earlier and I truly couldn’t hold it.”

Kang Luo and the Nanyue State Preceptor kept their faces cold and did not believe a word of it. They thought Ning Chen was not only disgusted by them but taking them for fools.

Ate too much?

Are you a child of three? Don’t you know when you are full? Who eats until he is sick?

“My lords, could I beg a cup of tea?”

Shen Min turned and went straight in and brought Ning Chen out a cup.

Ning Chen did not want it to drink. He wanted it to rinse his mouth… There was no room in his stomach for one more thing.

The Nanyue State Preceptor made a cold sound in his nose and turned and went back to his room.

Kang Luo glanced at Ning Chen and bowed over his clasped hands. “I’ll leave you to talk. I have something to see to. Forgive me.”

Kang Luo was in fact very sore about it. His standing in Nanyue was no less than Ning Chen’s in the Great Xuan.

They were both of them heaven’s favored sons, and since coming to the Great Xuan he had taken one blow after another.

Beaten in letters, and beaten by Ning Chen in arms as well.

Kang Luo’s proud heart had gone cold, stone cold.

Now all he had left was the hope of meeting Ning Chen on a battlefield and taking one back.

Ning Chen looked at Li Hanru and Shen Min and said, smiling, “My lords, I’ll go to court with you tomorrow.”

The two of them looked at each other and nodded slightly.

They knew what Ning Chen was going to court to do.

Tomorrow the court would be lively.

Ning Chen did not go to the courtesans’ quarter either. He stayed the night at the Hall of the Four Barbarians.

When the hour came in the morning, Ning Chen got straight up.

The beds at the Hall of the Four Barbarians were too hard. If it had been Yudie’s bed he could never have gotten out of it.

Li Hanru and Shen Min were up early as well.

The three of them went together.

What annoyed Ning Chen was that both of them had sedan chairs and he could only ride… and the horse was borrowed at that.

At the palace gate the three of them separated.

Li Hanru and Shen Min went in first.

Ning Chen went in behind them.

In the great hall the officials, civil and military, stood in their two ranks.

They kept glancing sideways at Ning Chen when they saw him… What is this man doing here again?

Ning Chen was one small silver coat, and he had been coming to court pretty often lately.

The Inspectorate was forbidden to take part in the business of the court. That was the Xuan Emperor’s own order… but Ning Chen was an exception to all of it.

And this time Ning Chen stood in the Left Chancellor’s place without the least hesitation.

The Right Chancellor turned his head and looked.

Ning Chen gave him back a brilliant smile.

The Right Chancellor was thoroughly uncomfortable about it. Standing at the head of the court’s officials alongside a boy of fifteen did not sit well with him.

“His Majesty the Emperor!”

The thin, high voice went up, and the officials went silent at once.

The Xuan Emperor came in walking like a dragon and stepping like a tiger, with the crown prince and Eunuch Quan behind him.

“Your subjects greet Your Majesty!”

The officials went down on their knees.

The Xuan Emperor raised a hand slightly. “Beloved ministers, rise!”

When they were on their feet the Xuan Emperor saw Ning Chen and blinked, but he was himself again very quickly.

Ning Chen at court meant the game of putting one over on them was about to begin.

Eunuch Quan took a step forward. “Whoever has business, speak now. If there is none, court is dismissed!”

“Your subject has a memorial to present!”

Eunuch Quan had barely finished when Li Hanru stepped out.

The Xuan Emperor asked flatly, “What does Beloved Minister Li wish to present?”

“Your subject impeaches Ning Chen, Ning the Silver Coat, for beating the Fourth Prince of Nanyue and the State Preceptor, and so making the peace talks difficult.”

Shen Min stepped out immediately after him. “Reporting to Your Majesty, your subject also impeaches Ning Chen. He is overbearing and unreasonable, and by beating the Fourth Prince of Nanyue and the State Preceptor he has brought the negotiation to a standstill, and the position is very much against our Great Xuan.”

“Lord Li and your subject tried in good faith to stop him and told him to think of the larger matter… Not only would he not listen, he swore at Lord Li and at your subject, and swore very foully indeed.”

Every eye in the hall settled on Ning Chen, and then the whispering started.

They had all had a taste of Ning Chen’s swearing.

Sometimes he did it in verse, and sometimes, when he was in a bad way, he swore so foully it did not bear repeating… taking your mother as the center, your relatives as the radius and your ancestors as the object, and if he wins both your parents are still alive, and if he loses your whole family tree goes up to heaven.

“Reporting to Your Majesty, Ning Chen holds the law in contempt and dares anything. He beat an embassy, and the crime cannot be pardoned. We beg Your Majesty to punish him!”

One censor jumped out to be noticed while the chance was there.

In truth these censors had no deep grudge against Ning Chen. They were the court’s own mouths, and they would go at heaven, at earth and at thin air.

Anything they did not like they mouthed off about, and not only at Ning Chen. Sometimes they mouthed off at the Xuan Emperor.

A few years ago the Xuan Emperor favored one of his consorts and then overslept… A small thing, and somehow it reached the ears of the censors.

The whole pack of them jumped up and down in the great hall accusing the Xuan Emperor of being lost in women and neglecting the business of the state.

One of them went further and said that if the Xuan Emperor did not mend his ways he would dash his own brains out in the hall to prove his sincerity.

The Xuan Emperor was so angry he could not eat or sleep for several days.

The Xuan Emperor admitted his fault at the time.

But afterward it was heard that all those censors had run into trouble, and nearly every one of them had his house seized and was sent into exile.

“Reporting to Your Majesty, your subject also impeaches Ning the Silver Coat. When two states are at war, envoys are not put to the sword. Ning the Silver Coat was overbearing and unreasonable and beat the envoys sent to us. He has spoiled the bearing of a great state, and it is truly detestable. We beg Your Majesty to punish him severely.”

“Reporting to Your Majesty, Ning the Silver Coat beat the Nanyue prince and the State Preceptor and wrecked the negotiation. We beg Your Majesty to punish him.”

“Your subject seconds it!”

“Your subject seconds it too!”

Every censor there fell over himself to impeach Ning Chen.

The peace party came out as well and laid the fault at Ning Chen’s door.

The war party came out to speak for Ning Chen, and the two sides fell into a quarrel there was no stopping.

The Xuan Emperor glanced at Eunuch Quan.

Eunuch Quan took a step forward, and his thin voice went up and carried right through the hall. “Silence!”

The officials went quiet at once.

The Xuan Emperor looked at Ning Chen, made a cold sound in his nose, and said angrily, “Ning Chen, do you know your fault?”

Ning Chen knelt. “Your subject knows his fault, but your subject does not accept it!”

“What is there for you not to accept? Are Beloved Minister Li and Beloved Minister Shen wrong?”

Ning Chen said, “The two lords have not lied… But your subject holds that when two states are going to fight, there is no need for a great deal of courtesy between them!”

The Xuan Emperor frowned. “Who told you the two states are going to fight?”

“Reporting to Your Majesty. Talking terms is no plan for the long run… Your subject asks to lead an army out, and will stake his life on a pledge—”

黃沙百戰穿金甲， 不破南越終不還。

A hundred battles in the yellow sand have worn my golden armor through; until Nanyue is broken I will not come home.

The whole court was startled by the force of it.

But Li Hanru laughed coldly. “There is only you left of the house of Ning. You are a man alone in the world, and of course you can talk large.”

“Nanyue has strong soldiers and good horses now, and the Fourth Prince of Nanyue is skilled in war and stratagem. Do not imagine that because you beat the North Royal Court you can stand against the armies of Nanyue.”

The Xuan Emperor inclined his head slightly. “There is reason in what Beloved Minister Li says. And besides, the treasury is empty now and the state has no money. This emperor has no silver to support you in a war either.”

The newly appointed Minister of Revenue stared in astonishment. The Great Xuan’s treasury is empty? How does the minister who holds the money and grain of the empire not know that?

Ning Chen said loudly, “Your Majesty, it does not matter that the state has no money… Your subject is willing to give up everything he has toward the cost of the army.”

The Xuan Emperor made a cold sound in his nose. “Do you suppose your handful of small change is enough?”

Ning Chen turned his head to the whole court and said loudly, “Ning Chen begs my lords to open their purses… For the Great Xuan’s work of a thousand years, this war has to be fought.”

The officials made faces at that.

They did not want to fight in the first place, and now they were to put up silver as well. They could dream on.

The Xuan Emperor looked at Li Hanru. “Beloved Minister Li, what is the Nanyue embassy’s position now?”

“Reporting to Your Majesty, there is in fact still room to ease it… Last night Lord Shen and your subject talked with the Fourth Prince of Nanyue and the State Preceptor, and they have added one more condition.”

“Besides cutting the Thirty-Mile Corridor off for Nanyue, we must also pay them a million taels of silver… If we do not agree, they will bring their armies down on the border and attack the Great Xuan.”

An uproar went through the officials. A million taels was no small figure.

The Xuan Emperor flew into a rage and pointed at Ning Chen. “Look at what you have done!”

Ning Chen said loudly, “Nanyue is bullying us past what any man can stand. Your subject begs Your Majesty to let him lead an army out.”

The Xuan Emperor sighed. “As it looks now, there is nothing else to be done.”

Li Hanru dropped to his knees with a thump.

“Your Majesty, on no account raise arms. Nanyue has strong soldiers and good horses, and our men on the frontier have lost engagement after engagement… Your subject begs Your Majesty to withdraw the order!”

Shen Min knelt as well. “Reporting to Your Majesty, your subject also holds that we cannot fight… At present it is only the Thirty-Mile Corridor. If we fight and lose, we will have to cut off a larger territory still for Nanyue and pay them more silver.”

The Xuan Emperor said coldly, “But Nanyue is bullying us past what any man can stand. Even with the treasury empty and the state without money, this emperor holds that this war should be fought.”

Li Hanru said loudly, “Your Majesty, for the sake of peace on the frontier, for the sake of the Great Xuan’s foundation… your subject is willing to put up fifty thousand taels of silver toward the payment.”

Shen Min said immediately after him, “I beg Your Majesty to withdraw the order. Your subject will smash the pots and sell the iron if he has to, and find fifty thousand taels of silver to pay Nanyue.”

The Xuan Emperor made a cold sound in his nose. “Nanyue wants a million taels. The two of you together come to a bare hundred thousand. That is a long way short.”

Shen Min turned to the whole court and bowed low. “I beg my lords to put out a hand… This war cannot be fought. Once it begins, the state will not be a state, and the Great Xuan will be shaken by wind and rain.”

Just then the Right Chancellor stepped out.

“Your Majesty, this old subject is willing to put up a hundred thousand taels of silver.”

The Right Chancellor glanced at Ning Chen, and it did not sit well with him.

Because he knew that the whole of it was a scene His Majesty and Ning Chen were acting.

Nor was that hundred thousand taels of silver given willingly. His Majesty had summoned him in secret… He was the Right Chancellor, and once he had given, the rest of the court would be ashamed not to.

“Your Majesty, your subject is willing to put up fifty thousand taels of silver.”

“Your Majesty, your subject’s household is poor, but for the Great Xuan’s foundation of a hundred years, your subject will put up twenty thousand.”

“Your subject will put up thirty thousand.”

Sure enough, with the Right Chancellor leading the way, the peace party fell over themselves to hand over silver.

But the Xuan Emperor could take no pleasure in it at all. The anger in him had gone as far as it could go.

These worthless creatures. For a war they will not put out a copper.

And now, to cede land and pay indemnity and buy their peace with it, they are open-handed.

What happened that day sounded a warning bell for the Xuan Emperor as well.

Idleness was the fashion in the Great Xuan now. Every man was after his own comfort and fond of poems and lyrics… If it went on this way, would there be any blood left in the men of the Great Xuan at all?

The Great Xuan’s worst trouble was not in an enemy state. It was here in this hall.

(End of Chapter 193)