Ren Feihong noticed that whenever the emperor went out, she would often show a thoughtful expression, then stand perfectly still in place for a while.
Of course, she had no idea that the reason Wen Yanran remained motionless was because she was using the [Monarch’s Notes] to record everything she saw.
The streets were bustling with flowing streams of pedestrians, and near the market area, it was especially crowded – a dense throng of people.
Ren Feihong, uncharacteristically, urged her twice, “Your Majesty holds a noble and weighty station. It would be best not to go in there personally.”
Wen Yanran replied, “The last time I left the palace, it wasn’t like this.”
She had also visited the markets and wards of Jianping. There were plenty of people there too, but never so many that she had to stop the Emperor from walking in as soon as she looked around.
Ren Feihong said, “If we’re talking about prosperity, the Taikang of today has indeed surpassed the Jianping of the past.”
The “past” she spoke of was not only the capital city she had seen with her own eyes, but also the Jianping that existed only in the stories told by her elders.
The Great Zhou of today had already become more beautiful than the fondest memories many people had of this place.
Although he was dissuaded by those around him from squeezing into the most crowded places to enjoy the excitement, Wen Yanran didn’t return from her outing empty-handed. Unexpectedly, she managed to buy a cat before heading back.
Wen Yanran, rather surprised, asked, “There are people selling cats here in Taikang?”
Ren Feihong replied, “There are many merchants from the south. Not to mention cats – as long as you can afford the price, you can buy tiger skins and bear paws as well.” She then asked, “Does Your Majesty happen to like this creature?” In her memory, this Sovereign was different from previous emperors – she had never shown any particular interest in keeping animals.
Wen Yanran smiled and said, “More or less. In fact, I’ve had the intention of keeping one for quite some time.”
Ren Feihong asked, “Then why didn’t Your Majesty instruct the Imperial Household earlier to find a few outside and raise them in the imperial garden?”
Wen Yanran answered frankly, “It’s not that I didn’t want to. It’s just that back then, there were internal and external troubles, so I hesitated.”
Ren Feihong paused.
Only when the seas are calm and the rivers clear – only when the empire is at peace – could one begin to keep a cat? Were the self-imposed standards of a wise ruler truly so high?
The reserved and indirect speaking style of this era often led to misunderstandings between conversational partners. For example, Wen Yanran’s real concern was that once her true nature as a tyrannical ruler was exposed, every minor detail of her daily life would be magnified as evidence of her tyranny. What if those people, upon waking, still remembered their dreams? Wouldn’t they then regard owning a cat as an act of tyranny on the same level as launching grand construction projects or refining alchemical elixirs?
After buying the cat, Wen Yanran saw many more things. Taikang was a city of immigrants, filled with people from all over the land. Using accented official speech, they gestured and communicated with one another.
Although she couldn’t conveniently go shopping in certain places herself, in the end Wen Yanran still wound up with quite a few things in her hands. These included sugarcane syrup and plain white flatbreads bought by the court attendants at a somewhat famous pastry shop, hot broth to quench his thirst, coconuts transported from the south, and even a kite.
The attendants from the Imperial Household found this quite puzzling – if their memory served them right, didn’t the Emperor dislike kites? Or perhaps such playthings were too childish for a thirteen-year-old Sovereign, yet just right for a twenty-five-year-old emperor?
Wen Yanran continued her outing until the afternoon. As more and more acquaintances appeared on the streets as he wandered – to the point that she had nearly assembled the entire Three Departments and Six Ministries on the spot – the Emperor herself, before the Censor-in-Chief could bring his men over to block her way and intercept her, quietly returned to the palace under the protection of the imperial guards. A few days later, she finally boarded the dragon boat and set off toward Jianping.
This time, Wen Yanran’s condition was not as bad as during her first boat trip – not because she had grown accustomed to the discomfort of being on the water, but because the Imperial Medical Bureau, after years of effort, had finally developed a seasickness remedy that worked for the Emperor.
The Sovereign, leading the civil and military officials back to the capital, was met outside the city by the ministers who had remained behind in Jianping. However, before officially re-entering the capital, Wen Yanran made an impromptu decision: she performed a sacrificial ritual on a high platform outside the city.
Having been transmigrated into this era for some time now, Wen Yanran had come to somewhat understand what was in the hearts of the ancient people when they reverently proclaimed their vows to Heaven and Earth.
She did not expect any special power to bless this land with favorable weather and good harvests, yet she still carried a sense of reverence within her.
For the Emperor to personally perform a sacrifice, the Tianfu Palace should have prepared the three sacrificial animals – ox, sheep, and pig – as the Grand Offering. Even though Wen Yanran’s idea was only an impromptu one, the ministers would not have been unprepared. However, just as the Daoist officials were about to procure the items according to procedure, the sovereign stopped them.
Wen Yanran shook her head and said, “The essence of sacrifice lies in reverence and ritual, not in the lavishness of the offering.” Then she suddenly smiled and added, “After I am gone a hundred years from now, follow the same principle – simply have someone sweep the ground and sprinkle water, nothing more.”
The Great Zhou held a rather open and detached view of life and death. Even though the Emperor had spoken a few words about matters after her death, the ministers around her were not so terrified as to turn pale. Tao Jia, who had come to the outskirts of the capital to welcome the Sovereign, thought for a moment and said, “If Your Majesty has no intention of offering a lavish sacrifice, then what if we use the sword of the ruler of Luojia as the sacrificial offering?”
Wen Yanran asked, “That man’s sword is in Jianping?”
Tao Jia replied, “Not only is his sword in Jianping, but General Zhong, concerned that Luojia might surrender only to rebel again, has bound the ruler of Luojia and sent him to the capital to await Your Majesty’s judgment.”
Wen Yanran smiled slightly, nodded, and said, “Then let it be as you have proposed.”
Attendants swiftly went into the city, retrieved the sword of the ruler of Luojia, and brought it to the Sovereign. The Emperor casually took it in hand, then walked step by step up the high platform.
Though she had not fully adhered to ritual protocols that day by wearing the complete set of imperial regalia, the solemnity and reverence she conveyed were in no way diminished.
On the high platform, Wen Yanran turned around and gazed down at the ministers below. Facing this scene, she suddenly remembered the time when she had first ascended the throne – how she had also walked step by step to the highest place.
That was also the first time Wen Yanran had truly felt the weight of the tasseled crown upon her head.
The hundred officials bowed in full ritual reverence to their sovereign.
The Sovereign stood upon the high platform. The wind from the outskirts of the capital billowed her black robes with a rustling sound. She seemed to be watching the ministers below, yet also seemed to be looking toward somewhere farther away.
Wen Yanran’s actions that day were specially recorded by the court historian: “In June, (the Emperor) returned by imperial carriage to the capital and performed a sacrifice at the northern suburbs.” This was followed by: “The ruler of Luojia arrived at Jianping to present tribute and beg for submission.”
Later generations generally believed that the history of the Great Zhou had entered an incredible turning point starting from the moment Wen Yanran ascended the throne. Some even divided her reign into different periods. One view held that the early period began with the beheading of Wen Jiangong and that the later period began after the defeat of the Luojia Kingdom.
In the twelfth year of the Zhaoming era, the territory of the Great Zhou – which had been continuously contracting for nearly a century – finally expanded once again.
The Sovereign issued an imperial edict abolishing the administrative system of Luojia as a separate kingdom and establishing in its place the Anbei Protectorate, placing it under the control of Zhong Zhiwei.
Many people had an epiphany at this point, feeling that they finally understood why the Emperor had earlier sent Zhong Zhiwei, who had already risen to the position of a Minister in the central government, all the way to Dingyi – it was to have her pacify the northern lands!
The matter of the Luojia Kingdom was only a starting point. Within a few years, the southern borders of the Great Zhou also expanded. Luonan, which could no longer maintain itself as a proper state due to the continuous departure of both its common people and powerful clans, sent emissaries with a memorial to the throne, then transformed itself – changing its status from the Kingdom of Luonan to Luonan Commandery. The situation on the western borders of the Great Zhou was even more dramatic. With the commercial conveniences enjoyed by vassal states like Qiuche as a point of comparison, some small states that were not part of the Great Zhou felt deeply disadvantaged. In a surprising turn, they voluntarily requested internal incorporation, hoping to become territories of the Great Zhou.
Having reached this point, the status of a tributary state was no longer something that those outside could simply obtain as they wished. Therefore, in response to the requests from the small kingdoms west of the eastern lands, the central government’s reply was that the matter was “under consideration.”
The situation in the east was somewhat different. Two steps further east from this region would lead straight to the sea. In the end, Wen Yanran, holding the idea that the four directions – east, south, west, and north – should be kept neat and complete, established another Protectorate there as well.
Not long after Luonan Commandery was newly established, Qingyi also underwent a change. Although this place had already become a commandery of the Great Zhou for some time, it had still retained its independence as a tribal entity. In the twentieth year of the Zhaoming era, the current chieftain of the Qingyi tribe, concurrently serving as the Protector of Annan, Xiao Xichi, submitted a memorial requesting that the imperial court abolish the separate administrative status of Qingyi.
No one found this surprising. Ever since the new secondary capital Taikang had been built, the southern region had experienced tremendous development. The estrangement that had once existed within the Qingyi tribe had gradually diminished due to increased interaction between the two sides. Xiao Xichi’s choice to submit her memorial at this time was a matter of natural course – “when the water flows, a channel is formed.”
Everyone realized that the Great Zhou was ushering in an age of prosperity.
The Emperor was full of energy and devoted great attention to state affairs, which inevitably led the ministers to concern themselves with the question of succession. Then, in the year Wen Yanran turned forty-five, the game system – which had long shown little sign of activity – finally stirred one last time. Through [Data Deployment], it provided the Emperor with an heir.
As for Wen Yanran herself, she actually would have preferred other rewards. For instance, since the system had the capacity to capture screenshots from game forums, it could just as easily have downloaded some modern reference materials for her. That would have saved her, many years after graduation, from having to painfully rack her brain trying to recall what she had learned in school.
The World Will gave no response whatsoever to the former player’s request. Wen Yanran was not too disappointed – she had grown accustomed to the unreliability of external things ever since she had first transmigrated into this world.
She could only rely on the knowledge stored in her own mind to guide the great ship of the Great Zhou forward, groping through the mists of history.
What Wen Yanran brought to the Great Zhou was not only changes in territory but also tremendous technological advancements. However, although she had conceived the idea of using electricity very early on, it was many years before she actually put it into practice. For Wen Yanran, establishing a basic scientific research system in the Great Zhou was far more difficult than waging wars.
She first obtained sufficient electricity by creating a voltaic pile. Then she poured molten iron into a mold, wrapped coils around the outside, and applied an electric current while the iron was still in a molten state, thereby obtaining the strong permanent magnets she needed. After that, she used water power to drive the system and built the most basic rotary generator.
The appearance of the rotary generator laid the foundation for the birth of the wired telegraph. This innovation in long-distance information transmission technology, in turn, brought the central government and the local regions closer together, greatly strengthening the capital’s control over the various commanderies and counties. Later generations believed that this was also a key reason the Great Zhou was able to maintain such a vast territorial expanse.
When she was young, Wen Yanran once casually discussed with Wen Jingmei, who was then the State Preceptor, how many years she could reign as emperor. The latter had told the Sovereign with great certainty that her time on the throne would certainly exceed fifty years. The subsequent developments verified that Wen Jingmei’s words were correct – Wen Yanran ascended the throne at the age of thirteen and passed away at the age of eighty-three, ruling the Great Zhou for a full seventy years, making her the longest-reigning monarch in history.
During Wen Yanran’s reign, she spent more than half of her time in Taikang, the secondary capital in the southern region. Because of this, later generations used the first year of the Zhaoming era as a dividing line, splitting the Great Zhou into the Former Zhou and the Later Zhou. Wen Yanran herself came to be known as the Shizu Xiaoming Emperor of the Later Zhou.
“The Shizu Xiaoming Emperor, taboo name Yanran, was the ninth daughter of Emperor Li. Her mother was Consort Kong. In her youth, she resided at Tongtai. She was diligent and prudent by nature and loved to read. Most of those around her were southerners who served as attendants, and she thus understood their language. In the eleventh year of the Changxing era, a turtle shell was used for divination, and the hexagram was greatly auspicious. By imperial decree, she became emperor at the age of thirteen. A general amnesty was proclaimed throughout the empire, and the reign name was changed to Zhaoming.” – Later Zhou History, Annals of Shizu
(End of Story)
Translator’s Words:
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