Holding the Emperor Hostage : Chapter 84: A Prosperous Age

Time passed in the blink of an eye, and suddenly it was the twelfth lunar month again. The cold wind and north snow never ceased all day long. Even with the floor heating burning vigorously, it was difficult to dispel the bone-chilling cold.

After the court closed for the New Year, Yin Shuhuai led the entire palace to the hot spring palace. The Prince of Yan, who considered himself the person by His Majesty’s pillow, naturally followed along with his bags packed, claiming that he did not want His Majesty to sleep alone on a cold pillow.

Yin Shuhuai could not be bothered with him. Yet while packing his luggage, he inexplicably brought along that chest of broken chains inlaid with gold and gems.

In the warm spring water that smelled faintly of sulfur, Yin Shuhuai personally fastened a chain made of gold and gems around Shengtu Yang’s ankle, smiling but not quite smiling: “How does the Prince of Yan find this?”

The metal gleamed with a cold luster, but after a short while it was warmed by body heat and the steam of the hot spring.

Shentu Yang spread his arms wide and leaned against the rock wall in a carefree manner, crossing one leg over the other. The gold tassels swayed with his movement, slowly gliding across the clear spring water, then across the fair chest of the Emperor of Yin: “How does Your Majesty find it?”

Yin Shuhuai’s handsome face was flushed red from the steam, and he could only step back in self-defeat. The Prince of Yan, brave and skilled in battle, would not let him go. His robust body slowly sank into the water, then with a fish-like leap he pounced before His Majesty. Warm spring water splashed everywhere. The Prince of Yan used the tassel on his foot to tease the Emperor of Yin’s thigh, whispering intimately: “Why only an ankle chain? I remember I crafted many treasures in the Western Regions. Does Your Majesty not want to see me wear a waist chain or a chest chain?”

“Your Majesty’s golden mouth and jade words, did you not say you wanted me to try them on one by one, so that Your Majesty could broaden your horizons?” Shengtu Yang lifted Yin Shuhuai’s chin and teased with a smile: “Or does Your Majesty want me to try one item per day?”

Yin Shuhuai inwardly cried out that he could not outdo this flirt, and placed his hands somewhat weakly against Shengtu Yang’s chest, feeling the warm and elastic chest muscles beneath his palms. Then as if burned by something hot, he let go, but Shengtu Yang wrapped his arms around Yin Shuhuai’s slender waist and would not let him escape.

“Is Your Majesty shy?” Shengtu Yang smiled softly and whispered, then bit Yin Shuhuai’s earlobe, mumbling: “But has this humble minister offended Your Majesty? Whatever shall we do about that?”

He slowly pressed Yin Shuhuai against the stone wall that had been warmed by the spring water, speaking gently with a light smile: “Will Your Majesty punish me for the crime of deceiving the sovereign?”

Before the words had finished falling, Shengtu Yang had already pressed his body forward, pinning his Son of Heaven firmly beneath him.

Yin Shuhuai could endure it no longer. He flipped over and straddled Shengtu Yang, saying with a stern air: “Now you have not deceived the sovereign. I pardon you of your crime.”

Shentu Yang laughed softly, his pleasant laughter lingering beside Yin Shuhuai’s ear, even his chest shaking violently.

Yin Shuhuai only felt his entire body burning hot, and could not withstand it as he collapsed upon Shengtu Yang’s body.

The spring water surged violently, the sound of flowing water murmured, the stars shifted and the constellations turned, and it was another sleepless night.

When Shengtu Yang returned from the Western Regions, he had also brought back many blond and blue-eyed dancing girls, and musicians skilled in exotic instruments. He said he wanted them to play music and dance, to relieve His Majesty’s boredom.

Yin Shuhuai brought all these people to the hot spring palace. Before he had transmigrated, he had also traveled to the Western Regions alone and seen many warm and hospitable ethnic minority compatriots. He had also danced with everyone around the campfire at night, listening to the huqin and eating roast whole sheep.

The musicians and dancing girls that Shengtu Yang brought back made Yin Shuhuai briefly recall his life before transmigration. The Emperor of Yin could not help but feel a sense of longing when seeing these objects.

For several days in a row, exotic and enchanting music drifted inside and outside the palace. The civil and military officials who came to pay New Year’s calls also had their ears thoroughly pleased. Many scholars, in high spirits, even composed poems and songs for the musicians. After watching for several days, Yin Shuhuai and Shengtu Yang, who had grown somewhat aesthetically fatigued, had the palace music bureau and the dancing girls and musicians from the Western Regions rehearse new song and dance dramas according to these literary compositions. They would not only perform for themselves, but also tour the various major military camps stationed in Youzhou and Bingzhou, to bring comfort to the soldiers guarding the frontier.

On the fifteenth day of the first lunar month, His Majesty even issued an edict to share joy with the people. Phoenix flutes sounded, jade pitchers turned with the light. On the carefully crafted stage, blond and blue-eyed dancing girls from the Western Regions danced in competition with the Yin family’s dancing girls, graceful as startled swans. The audience below shouted their approval wildly. The performances were so splendid that one could not look away.

The Emperor of Yin, dressed in commoner’s clothes, walked shoulder to shoulder with his Prince of Yan through the laughing and cheering common people.

In just a few short years, the originally bleak and desolate Ji County had completely changed its appearance. The muddy roads that once flew with yellow dust had all been paved with cement, becoming flat and straight official roads. The houses lining the streets were neatly arranged, all made of blue brick and black tile. The refugees and common people who once wore no clothes to cover their bodies in winter and waited numbly for death, now wore thick cotton-padded garments and walked upon the clean and smooth cement roads with ruddy faces. Chubby children holding candied haws and various kinds of flower lanterns ran past from nearby, leaving behind strings of clear and crisp laughter like little bells.

Along the streets there were also loudly calling snack stalls and miscellaneous goods stalls. The mixed aromas of various foods assailed the nostrils. The fragrant scent of steaming hot meat buns, the rich milky fragrance of hu cakes, the fresh and rich fragrance of beef soup and lamb offal soup, the fragrance of wontons sprinkled with some chopped cilantro, and even the fragrance of face powder from roadside vendors…

Yin Shuhuai walked and walked, and only felt his appetite stirring. So he and Shengtu Yang sat down at a clean and tidy wonton stall. Yin Shuhuai ordered two bowls of fresh meat wontons with thin skins and generous fillings. Shengtu Yang went to the neighboring stall and bought two meat-stuffed flatbreads.

The fatty and lean elbow meat was chopped into fine pieces and stuffed inside a flatbread with a crispy outer skin and soft inner texture. One bite down, the meat fragrance and bread fragrance merged into an even more satisfying delicacy. Then a sip of steaming hot wonton soup directly dispelled the cold of the winter night.

Yin Shuhuai satisfiedly narrowed his eyes and asked the old woman wrapping the wontons: “…How is business? How many copper coins can you earn in a day?”

“When times are good, I can earn three to five hundred cash.” The old woman smiled contentedly: “When times are not good, I can still earn two to three hundred cash. Enough for the daily expenses of the whole family.”

Yin Shuhuai asked again: “I see that you two are quite advanced in years. Wouldn’t working all day long feel tiring? Why not have your son and daughter-in-law come help?”

“My son and daughter-in-law have gone to work temporary jobs at the weaving workshop and cement factory. Their daily wages combined also amount to several hundred cash.” The old man who was cooking wontons in the iron pot heard this and said with a smile: “Besides, we are only making ordinary food. This work is so light and easy, how could we feel tired? We only come out to set up our stall for a few days during the agricultural off-season, to move our bones and muscles. We do not want to lie idly on the warm kang bed. When spring arrives, the whole family of more than ten people will still go to farm the land. The land of our Youzhou is good, and the grain grown is fragrant.”

The old woman also smiled with a face full of spring breeze: “It is only in these past few years that the times have improved, and our lives have become a bit better. Every household has land to farm, and during the agricultural off-season they can still go to the weaving workshops, coal yards, breeding farms, and cement factories opened by the court to do odd jobs and earn some silver. Do not laugh at us, young sir. We common people only have a bit of strength, and we fear nothing the most except hardship and toil. What we fear most is having nowhere to toil. Like the famine a few years ago, when there was not even grass roots or tree bark to eat. Once winter came, we could only wait for death.”

These words aroused the desire to talk among the other diners at the stall. A burly man with a tiger’s back and bear’s waist let out a long sigh. While holding his bowl and drinking soup, he said with feeling: “The old lady speaks most truly. Our Youzhou has always been bitterly cold, and every winter quite a few people would die. It is only in these few years since the court moved its capital to Ji County that life has improved. The holy Son of Heaven had the court open many coal yards and weaving workshops, allowing us to live with dignity relying on our strength and our skilled crafts. Later, he also brought cotton from Qiongzhou and the Western Regions to teach us how to plant it. This is what allowed everyone to live through winter with cotton-padded clothes and charcoal fires.”

“Yes! Yes! The current Son of Heaven is wise and benevolent, so the common people below can have good days!”

“Not just cotton clothes and coal. The holy Son of Heaven also had the Shangfang Office invent many farming tools. Farming is much easier than in previous years.”

“Also, Prince of Yan led the sons of our Yan lands to campaign east and west, bringing back many cattle, sheep, and horses. Nowadays, we no longer worry about having no oxen or horses for plowing the fields.”

“The breeding farms opened by the imperial estates are also quite impressive. My wife’s family were originally refugees who fled from Guanzhong. When the imperial estates opened the breeding farms, my father-in-law and brother-in-law went to try their luck at the breeding farm. Because they knew how to raise pigs, they were kept on. The farm even paid them what they call five insurances and one housing fund. Every festival they could also receive distributions of pork, beef, lamb, chicken, and duck meat. Every month they would also receive a bar of soap, said to be some kind of employee benefit… Now their family has also built three rooms of blue brick and black tile houses, and their days are getting more and more prosperous.”

“The pork raised by the imperial estates is indeed delicious. In the past, I had only eaten wild boar meat, and I only found it fishy and gamy, tough and hard, not tasty at all. Last Mid-Autumn Festival, my brother-in-law came to visit my home and brought me two catties of pork from the imperial estate. That meat was tender and fragrant, don’t even mention how delicious it was.”

“I heard they castrated the pigs, so the meat is not gamy.”

“Castrated?”

“They turn the pigs into little eunuchs.”

“That is a bit too cruel.”

“Just tell me if it is fragrant or not!”

The crowd chattered on all sides, and the topic gradually veered off course.

Yin Shuhuai quietly listened to the common people chatting, and slowly finished more than half a bowl of small wontons. He really could not eat the rest. Shengtu Yang picked up the bowl and finished it in two bites. He was not even full yet, and pulled Yin Shuhuai to the neighboring snack stalls, eating at one stall after another. Yin Shuhuai had a relatively small appetite but was somewhat greedy, so he could only pick the things that interested him and eat a bite or half a bite. Red willow barbecue and baked naan from the Western Regions, beef soup from Luoyang, rice soup oil撒子 from Liangzhou, sweet rice wine dumplings from Jiangnan… Because water and land transportation were becoming more and more convenient, Ji County had now become a transit hub for large-scale trade from various provinces and commanderies. Merchants from all corners of the land brought local specialties from thousands of li away to trade, and also brought the foods and customs of various places here.

Today’s Ji County was no longer the bleak and cold frontier city of years past, but the most prosperous and wealthy imperial capital under heaven.

Yin Shuhuai walked and walked, and suddenly felt a whim. He dragged Shengtu Yang to the city tower, pointed at the brightly lit and prosperous town below, and asked with a smile: “Look, this is the empire I have built for you. Does the Prince of Yan like it?”

Suddenly, fireworks shot up into the night sky, bursting into brilliant radiance.

Shentu Yang stood beneath the fireworks, his gaze lingering tenderly upon the Emperor of Yin standing tall and graceful like a jade tree in the wind, and asked softly: “Does Your Majesty like it?”

Yin Shuhuai paused slightly, then smiled brilliantly: “Of course I like it.”

The mountains and rivers are unharmed, the seas are calm and the rivers are clear. Who would not like that.