Victory Report
Central Kingdom, the Imperial Capital.
The Imperial Palace.
By rights, with the sun at its zenith, this should have been the hour when the high civil and military officials of the court gathered to conduct affairs of state.
Yet now, in that vast space, only one man sat: the Emperor himself.
Nearby, eunuchs and palace maids moved in and out with carefully held breath. Not even the shadow of a single minister could be seen.
“Yes… with a fever epidemic raging and officials collapsing one after another, how could they possibly enter the palace?”
Exactly as the heads of the Sixteen Families had claimed.
Using the lie of a spreading fever as their excuse, not one of the court’s civil or military officials had presented himself at the palace.
And yet, seated alone in that cavernous hall, the young Emperor’s face held not the slightest shadow.
Rather, in the soft spill of sunlight, he seemed unable to conceal a joyful excitement that set his heart hammering.
“Your Majesty.”
The voice of the eunuch at the entrance of the great hall rang through the empty space.
“Gang Sang, who once served as Grand Chancellor, seeks an audience with Your Majesty.”
“Admit him at once!”
The Emperor sprang to his feet before he could stop himself.
At that undignified haste the old eunuch at his side gave a discreet cough of warning, but the Emperor paid it no mind.
“This is a matter of the utmost urgency! Dispense with the formalities!”
“As Your Majesty commands.”
The news Gang Sang now brought concerned the fate of the imperial house of the Central Kingdom—perhaps the fate of the entire realm.
“Your Majesty!”
In moments the old man stood before the throne, his powerfully built frame making a mockery of his years.
“Luoyang…!”
In his urgency the Emperor even stumbled over the words.
“What has become of Luoyang?!”
Gang Sang’s stride was as vigorous as that of a young general returning in triumph. His expression was bright, his shoulders squared as broad and unyielding as a fortress wall. Even before a word was spoken, the gifted young Emperor already knew the news was good—yet he could not rest until he heard it from the loyal old man’s own lips.
“Victory, Your Majesty!”
The word reached his ears; his mind understood its meaning.
“Victory?!”
The Emperor asked again.
“Is that report certain?!”
Smiling so widely that it filled his entire face, Gang Sang drew a small slip of paper from his robes and offered it with both hands.
“What is this…?”
As the Emperor took the note, Gang Sang dropped to one knee and reported:
“That note was delivered to me through the Imperial Capital branch of the Luoyang Sword Family.”
The seal had already been broken—clearly by Gang Sang himself.
“Is this not the seal of the Supreme Operations Committee of the Luoyang Sword Family?”
“It is, Your Majesty.”
Gang Sang bowed his head.
“Outwardly, the seal of the Supreme Operations Committee; within, the First Young Master’s personal mark stands clear. How could there be falsehood or forgery?”
Listening, the Emperor unfolded the note with trembling hands.
What was written upon it was a single word, so spare it almost seemed incomplete.
VICTORY
So concise was it that the First Young Master’s ornate personal seal almost appeared to be the main text. Yet the young Emperor felt an even greater weight in that single brief word.
“…It is done. It is done.”
Strength drained from his entire body; he sank back into his seat where he stood.
“He truly won…!”
In his heart he had longed for Yeon So-hyeon’s victory with every fiber of his being—yet part of him had still found it impossible to believe.
Only a few months after ending his seclusion, the First Young Master had at last broken those who had spent more than a decade building their power, and had claimed victory in his first war.
Because the young Emperor had watched Yeon So-hyeon more closely than anyone else in the imperial house, he understood better than anyone how high the walls of reality had stood against him. Again and again he stared at the note, turning it over in his fingers as though to confirm its reality, murmuring the word “victory” under his breath.
“…I am simply astonished. Astonished beyond words.”
That was what escaped the Emperor’s lips after he had pressed a hand to his surging chest for a long while, trying to make the truth sink in.
“Your Majesty.”
Still on one knee, Gang Sang spoke. The faint tremor of emotion in his voice reached the Emperor with piercing clarity.
“I offer my congratulations upon this victory.”
In this very place, in a past Imperial Palace that had gone mad with fantasies of the Northern War, this old man had stripped off his official robes before the Emperor and returned them. For long years afterward he had been forced to chew over his own “defeat,” again and again. To the former Grand Chancellor whose long career of service had ended in defeat, Yeon So-hyeon’s victory was like the drumbeat announcing the start of a new history—one that would let him forget every past loss.
“Soon the First Young Master’s victory report will resound throughout this Imperial Capital as well.”
The sealed note from the Supreme Operations Committee had reached Gang Sang and the Emperor faster than anything or anyone else. Just as Gang Sang said, news from Luoyang would soon flood the capital and set its political world ablaze.
“When that happens, the civil and military officials who, under the orders and coercion of the current heads of the Sixteen Families, have been hiding in their homes on the false pretext of fever will scramble over one another to enter the palace.”
The spark that would restore the authority of the Emperor and the imperial house—the Yangtze waterway expansion project and Gang Sang’s reappointment as Grand Chancellor—had been frozen in place by the overwhelming power of the Sixteen Families. Now the stopped time of the Imperial Palace would at last begin to move again.
“This great hall will once more seethe with civil and military officials.”
Spreading his hands wide to indicate the empty space, Gang Sang lifted his head and looked straight at the Emperor.
“They are the ones who, through all these years, have looked after only their own households rather than the people.”
Gang Sang’s eyes seemed to blaze.
“They are the ones who, through all these years, have clung to the feet of the strong and fattened themselves on the scraps that fell.”
Those eyes were keener and more merciless than any treasured blade of the palace.
“Are you prepared, in your heart, to face them all?”
Yes. The First Young Master’s first victory was only the first. He had handed the Emperor the spark of reform; it would fall to the handful of them to confront every great and minor minister and fan that spark into a true flame.
“Of course.”
The Emperor met Gang Sang’s steel-sharp gaze without the slightest flinch.
“I am ready.”
The chance he had dreamed of even in his sleep had finally come. The young Emperor’s eyes burned no less fiercely, no less intensely, than Gang Sang’s own.
“The First Young Master challenged the impossible and placed this chance—worth a thousand pieces of gold—into my hands.”
The Emperor spoke each syllable with deliberate clarity, as though making a vow to himself.
“Just as he has done for me, I will not betray his expectations.”
At those words Gang Sang smiled with pure joy.
There were those who, no matter how hard their subjects, the people, or the First Young Master worked, simply accepted it all as the natural privilege of their birth. This Emperor was not one of them.
“Right now.”
The Emperor spoke first.
“What can I do for the First Young Master?”
Had Gang Sang raised the matter first, it might have looked like a request for recompense, and the scene would have grown awkward. For the sake of the old and loyal servant, the Emperor opened his mouth first.
“…Before anything else.”
Expressing his gratitude with a look, Gang Sang continued.
“I have heard that the Guardian Family of Luoyang is currently plagued by problems both large and small.”
And if the request concerned military authority over Luoyang, it was a matter of the utmost sensitivity.
“The Guardian Family of Luoyang… so you mean control over all the imperial troops stationed throughout Luoyang.”
The Emperor spoke lightly, almost casually, yet Gang Sang’s mouth went dry.
“Does the First Young Master desire the right to appoint that Guardian Family?”
It was the same as asking for the military command of Luoyang.
“…Rather than saying he desires it, it is the First Young Master’s view that military control would be better entrusted to those more qualified.”
At Gang Sang’s carefully vague phrasing the Emperor laughed with genuine amusement.
“To see you—who have always been so blunt—resort to diplomatic language is a first even for me.”
“…I am ashamed, Your Majesty.”
Gang Sang reddened and looked thoroughly embarrassed. Watching that expression, the Emperor answered with decisive firmness.
“Very well.”
He left no room for hesitation.
“I shall issue an imperial edict bearing my seal so that matters may proceed according to his will.”
With that, never again would large enemy forces be able to swagger into Luoyang as if it were their own home.
Gang Sang prostrated himself flat upon the floor.
“Your Majesty! Your grace is boundless—!”
“And.”
The Emperor’s words did not end there.
“Is the post of Governor of Luoyang not currently vacant?”
As the Emperor well knew, the Governor of Luoyang who had abandoned his post and fled left the office now being filled only by the deputy governor acting in his place.
“That is so, Your Majesty, but…”
To Gang Sang’s half-expectant, half-disbelieving look, the Emperor gave a clean, decisive nod.
“I shall appoint as Governor whoever the First Young Master recommends.”
Half of an emperor’s power lies in the right of appointment. And the governorship of Luoyang—the greatest city of the Central Kingdom, called the Moon Palace—was a post for which countless men would kill. The Emperor had just declared that he would entrust even a portion of that controlling power to First Young Master Yeon So-hyeon.
“Your Majesty…!”
The old eunuch could not help looking startled, but the Emperor raised a hand first and forestalled his concern.
“I know. Of course the final appointment will be made by me personally.”
Meaning: the Governor would be a man of Yeon So-hyeon’s choosing, yet proper procedure would be observed so that the dignity of the imperial house would not leak away.
Gang Sang swallowed hard.
Even if procedure were followed, no one living in the cutthroat political world of the Imperial Capital would fail to understand that Yeon So-hyeon had, in truth, made the decision. The Emperor was willing to carve away power he himself might have claimed, simply to place strength in Yeon So-hyeon’s hands.
“And from now on, there is no need to convey the First Young Master’s requests to me so carefully.”
The young Emperor lightened the burden from Gang Sang’s shoulders as well.
“You and I are passengers in the same boat, comrades who share the same dream.”
He made his trust in First Young Master Yeon So-hyeon unmistakably plain.
“Among comrades, necessary words should pass back and forth without addition or subtraction.”
What more needed to be said? Gang Sang bowed deeply to the floor.
“I shall keep it in my heart…!”
The Emperor’s face brightened with pleasure.
“But first.”
A hint of mischief touched his expression.
“Gang Sang, I have a gift for you.”
At the Emperor’s nod the old eunuch hurriedly produced a prepared cloth bundle and handed it to Gang Sang.
“Your Majesty, this is…?”
Seeing the golden wrapping cloth marked with the clear pattern of the imperial yellow dragon, Gang Sang looked faintly nonplussed.
“What are you waiting for? Open it and see for yourself.”
Something almost triumphant in the Emperor’s face made Gang Sang unable to hide his puzzlement as he undid the wrapping and spread it open.
“Your Majesty… this is—?!”
It was the official robe of the Grand Chancellor.
“The very robe you took off and left before me that day.”
The robe Gang Sang had cast aside in protest against the Northern War. The Emperor had personally gathered it up, kept it, and tended it—waiting for this day when he could return the Grand Chancellor’s robe to Gang Sang with his own hands.
Even the eyes of the old man once called the Iron Face, which had never known insufficiency, turned red at once over nothing more than a single set of robes.
“Ahem.”
Watching him, the Emperor rubbed the bridge of his nose and continued.
“From now on, I entrust my inadequate self to your care.”
The Emperor charged his loyal old servant.
“Grand Chancellor Gang.”
In the old servant’s reddened eyes, hot tears were already flowing like melting candle wax.
“This subject, Gang Sang, receives the command of His Majesty the Emperor!”
In a ringing voice Gang Sang answered the Emperor’s grace.
“Long live the Emperor! Long live the Emperor! Ten thousand years!”
In that vast space there was only a single subject. Yet the Emperor’s heart felt as secure as if he had gained a thousand armies and ten thousand horses.
At that same hour, the main gate of the Luoyang Sword Family.
“Open the gates! Open every gate!”
From the first gate that reused the ancient earthen ramparts, through the successive gates of the double walls the Luoyang Sword Family had raised over generations—
“The order is to open the gates!”
—every gate, large and small, was thrown open at once.
“Gates open!”
Given the strict security of the Luoyang Sword Family, it was an utterly extraordinary sight. Yet for the one now approaching the Luoyang Sword Family, it had become the most natural thing in the world.
“The First Young Master has returned!”
First Young Master Yeon So-hyeon.
His homecoming.