Chapter 48: The Scapegoat Princess Consort Sentenced to Death

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When the local officials in Prince Qi’s fief sent the urgent report about what had happened to him, Ding Shui had not yet had time to act against those gentry families. Later, when she finally did, the number of people involved was too great and their status too elevated for the local officials who had survived unscathed to remain uninformed. Naturally, they hurriedly sent another urgent report.

And so the second urgent dispatch from Qi territory came into being.

Once the two reports arrived, it was already late. The Ministry of Personnel officials, who were on the verge of leaving for the day, nevertheless hurriedly submitted them upward, and heated discussions immediately began within the ministry.

The main subject was the second urgent dispatch from Qi territory.

After all, no matter how many feudal princes died, so long as the Crown Prince had not perished, it had little effect on them. In private, they could even simply watch the royal family’s misfortune as bystanders.

But now a great many local gentry had been dragged into the affair and killed.

That made it truly difficult for them to remain calm.

They understood perfectly well that the feudal princes and the gentry belonged to two separate systems. The foundation of officials like themselves lay with the gentry. To harm the gentry was, without question, to dig up the roots beneath their own feet.

They were not the only ones who recognized this clearly.

The moment Emperor Tianwu finished reading the urgent dispatches, he too realized that this was the ideal reason to make all the civil and military officials join forces and work together to uncover the culprit behind the scenes.

Previously, their own interests had suffered little. It was understandable that they should be unwilling to work and prefer to watch the royal family make a spectacle of itself.

But now their interests had been damaged as well. And judging from the situation, the culprit clearly had no intention of stopping. The affair would only grow more serious. Before long, there would not be many members of the imperial clan left for that person to judge and kill. Who would suffer next was obvious enough.

Still, since eager offers rarely lead to good bargains, Emperor Tianwu did not summon the ministers for a meeting at once. He intended to wait until the next morning’s court session. That would also give the news time to ferment overnight, lest some officials still remain unaware.

The Ministry of Personnel did indeed behave as Emperor Tianwu had expected. After discussing the matter briefly, its officials soon went home. Some returned directly to their residences; others went to the mansions of fellow officials or gathered in discreet places. While passing along the news, they also discussed what ought to be done.

The matter truly affected them now.

And it was a threat!

Unless they understood it clearly, they feared they would not sleep soundly.

As a result, many people spent that night tossing restlessly. Some barely slept at all. Half an hour before the morning court session, they drank several cups of strong tea in the hope of maintaining a vigorous spirit with which to face Emperor Tianwu.

The opening of court proceeded according to the usual formalities, without incident. The only addition was the matter of the numerous gentry families—and even some officials—in Qi territory who had been killed. The emperor ordered the assembled officials to discuss how the affair should be handled.

As for the three princes, Emperor Tianwu did not mention them even once.

In any case, a single person had done it all.

Investigating the deaths of the numerous gentry and certain officials in Qi territory was equivalent to investigating the curse placed upon his three sons, as well as the murder of the late Prince Lu.

There was no need to bring up the matter of his three sons and let the assembled officials pass judgment on it.

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Any official qualified to attend court could hardly have remained ignorant of an incident this serious. Thus the officials were not surprised, and spoke in an orderly fashion.

“Your Majesty, this matter should be entrusted to the appropriate authorities for investigation!”

“Have the commandants of the local prefectures conduct a thorough inquiry!”

Hearing this, Emperor Tianwu’s expression almost turned black. This development was something he had genuinely failed to anticipate.

He had assumed that these officials would at least unite against their common enemy and do everything possible to find the culprit behind the affair—or, at the very least, offer some useful suggestions.

But listen to what they were saying.

When the Minister of Personnel said the matter should be entrusted to the proper authorities, he was clearly implying that such murders had nothing to do with the ministry and should be left to the department responsible for criminal cases. When the Judicial Court’s deputy minister called for the local commandants to investigate thoroughly, he too was passing the responsibility elsewhere. Yet there was nothing technically wrong with what he said. Strictly speaking, the Judicial Court should not be handling the matter. Murders committed in the provinces should naturally be investigated and dealt with by the appropriate local officials.

Once the investigation produced a result, the Judicial Court could review it.

It was clear that the civil and military officials below had probably reached an agreement the night before: they would refuse to involve themselves in the affair. It was also possible that they regarded the gentry and small number of officials who had died in Qi territory as mere exceptions, people who had perished only because they had been caught up in Prince Qi’s misfortune.

They still wanted to wait and see.

Emperor Tianwu had overlooked one extremely important point: compared with the previous dynasty and the one before that, the living conditions of the gentry and officials of this era were far worse.

If no one had dared to harm them so readily, then the deaths of so many people would naturally have enraged them.

But the reality was that Emperor Tianwu executed far more officials and members of the gentry every year than the number who had just died.

The heads chopped off at the public execution ground over the past five or six days alone probably exceeded this number.

Compared with worrying that they might one day be killed by this unknown entity, they would do better to worry about whether Emperor Tianwu might someday have their own heads cut off.

No matter how ruthless this unknown entity might be, it had killed only those who had actually committed wrongdoing and those who had given the orders.

It had not implicated their families or exterminated their entire clans.

Emperor Tianwu was furious to the extreme, but he had no way to refute them. The officials who had spoken were not actually wrong. Local murders were naturally easier for the local authorities to investigate. At most, the central government could dispatch several imperial commissioners to assist them.

In the end, Emperor Tianwu could only swallow his anger.

He issued an edict ordering the appropriate authorities to investigate.

But he certainly remembered this grudge. Sooner or later, he would find an opportunity—or some fault—to vent it.

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The rest of the morning court proceeded as usual. Emperor Tianwu did not mention the matter of his three sons. The affair concerning Prince Lu had only just been brought under control. If trouble now arose over Prince Qi, Prince Jin, and Prince Han as well, it would no longer be possible to cover everything up by having a few people tortured to death at the public execution ground.

Fortunately, the three of them were still alive.

The urgent reports had mentioned only that they had been cursed.

There was still room for maneuver.

After court ended, Emperor Tianwu hurriedly urged the Crown Prince to move as quickly as possible, adding that if he lacked manpower, he could ask for it. All other matters could be set aside for the time being.

The Crown Prince’s brows drew tightly together, but he could only agree.

He then began deploying men and assigning tasks. One group was sent to Prince Lu’s fief to investigate—specifically, to verify how many people Prince Lu had caused to be killed and what had become of their families and friends. They were also to determine whom Emperor Tianwu had killed in order to conceal Prince Lu’s crimes, what condition those families and friends were now in, and whether anything seemed unusual.

They were to handle Prince Lu’s funeral arrangements while they were there.

Another group was divided among the fiefs of Princes Qi, Han, and Jin. Their orders were to gather evidence of the three princes’ past crimes and bring them back to the capital.

As for the trusted retainers who had carried out the killings and other dirty work…

The Crown Prince did not dare issue such an order.

Even his own father—the current emperor—had said that the unknown entity intended to settle all accounts after death. As Crown Prince, he was probably not much better off than the princes. He did not dare invite trouble.

If anyone was to be silenced, his father would have to issue the order personally.

In any event, he certainly would not issue it himself.

…

Another half month passed. Prince Lu was dead beyond all possibility of further death, and Ding Shui, having nothing else to do, returned to her coffin and idled there for several days.

Then the royal family’s actions angered her once again.

The people responsible for arranging Prince Lu’s funeral had actually moved Ding Shui’s coffin into Prince Lu’s burial grounds. Since construction of Prince Lu’s mausoleum had not yet begun, they had simply buried her beneath a mound of earth slightly larger than an ordinary commoner’s grave.

There was not even an underground burial chamber!

Of course, that was not truly important. Dead was dead. It did not matter if she had not been placed in the main chamber, or had failed even to secure a side chamber. That was perfectly acceptable.

What Ding Shui could not accept was—

the information casually let slip by the supervisors overseeing the hurried completion of Prince Lu’s unfinished mausoleum, so that the tomb could be sealed—