Chapter Fifty: The Emperor’s Grace Abounds in Every Season

Upon entering the Xingfu Palace and seeing the items laid out inside, everyone present was instantly struck dumb.

Knowing that such events had transpired today, they had expected the food at Xingfu Palace to be far from stellar. Many among them had already braced themselves for a meal of cold leftovers.

The banquet prepared by the Duke of Korea to welcome the Emperor was, naturally, lavish. Although it had grown cold by now and the texture would be subpar, they were ravenously hungry; forcing down a few bites was not entirely out of the question.

Yet, never could they have imagined that upon arriving, they would find the Duke of Korea’s untouched banquet entirely gone.

It had been replaced by black coarse grain buns.

The black buns were small, roughly half the size of an adult's fist. And even these were not in unlimited supply—only two per person, accompanied by a single bowl of soup.

This soup was soup in name only; had it not been for a few stray, fragmented vegetable leaves floating within, one could not help but suspect that a bowl of plain water had been scooped up and placed there simply to fool people.

This... was this food fit for human consumption?

The dogs kept in their own households would not touch such fare!

"Are you all hungry? Come, come, sit down, eat something. Let's not have you truly starving! On the night of the Lantern Festival, We could hardly let you go with empty stomachs!"

Zhu Yuanzhang sat at the head of the table, looking out at the crowd as he greeted them.

As he spoke, he picked up a black bun and brought it to his mouth to eat.

Truth be told, the bun was exceptionally hard. Zhu Yuanzhang had to muster all his strength just to bite off a piece. He chewed it vigorously in his mouth, bite after bite, very earnestly and very carefully. While biting, his other hand cupped underneath the bun to catch any falling crumbs, conveying them back into his mouth as well.

He could not bear to waste even a fraction, acting as if he were partaking of some exquisite delicacy.

While Zhu Yuanzhang, the Emperor, could stomach it, these high-born individuals could not bring themselves to do so. Many furrowed their brows deeply as they gazed at the black buns.

Let alone bringing them to their mouths, even touching them with their hands filled them with revulsion, as if it would defile their own fingers.

"Eat! Why aren't you eating? Are you dissatisfied with the banquet We have invited you to?"

Zhu Yuanzhang chewed on his bun and addressed the group.

Hearing the Emperor speak thus, no matter how reluctant, these people had to suppress their disgust, pick up the buns, and take a bite.

The moment they sank their teeth into it, more than a few began to question their very existence. Was this food? This must be stone!

Since the buns could not be bitten through, they turned to sip the soup. The weather was rather cold, so drinking a bowl of hot soup would not be a bad idea.

As a result, a single sip revealed that the soup was ice cold!

The more they drank, the colder they felt. Still, at least there were no strange odors.

Tonight truly was a banquet without goodwill!

Zhu Yuanzhang alternated between bites of the bun and sips of the soup, relishing the humble fare with genuine satisfaction. By the time he finished his two buns and bowl of soup, the vast majority of the guests had not even managed to finish a single bun.

It was simply too unpalatable.

"What? Can't stomach it? You've only lived a few days of good life, and already you can't swallow this?"

Zhu Yuanzhang wiped his mouth casually with his sleeve and looked out at the assembly.

"How wonderful these buns are! In My youth, I dreamed of nothing else than eating a black bun!

In the fourth year of the Zhizheng era, our region suffered a massive disaster. Not only did the Tartar court fail to provide relief or exempt us from taxes, ignoring the life and death of the common people, but they also levied additional taxes simply to fund the birthday celebrations of some empress or other. The tax collectors came to our village, led by that Landlord Liu, and our house was the very first they targeted.

That tax official held an abacus, clicking away incessantly, and ruthlessly calculated several hundred strings of cash in taxes for our household. Our family had already run out of grain at the time; far from hundreds of strings, we couldn't produce a single copper coin.

The tax official ordered the tax thugs to search the house, and they ferreted out our half-empty small bag of rice seeds. My father fell to his knees, clutching those rice seeds and kowtowing ceaselessly, weeping bitterly as he begged the official to show mercy.

Those few rice seeds were our hope for the future, the life of our family—we would rather have starved to death than consume a single grain of them!

But it was useless!

My father was beaten savagely, and the rice seeds were taken away by the corrupt official to feed his horses!

My father lay prone on the ground, weeping tears as he picked up, grain by grain, the rice seeds that had fallen during the struggle. Exactly thirteen grains in total!

Overcome by anger, hunger, despair, and injury, my father passed away not long after returning to the room! My mother fared no better, departing shortly thereafter.

When I returned from herding cattle and heard this news, it felt as though the heavens had collapsed!

My second brother and I buried our parents. My second brother boiled those thirteen grains of rice into porridge, served all thirteen grains to me, and drank only the starchy rice water himself. Then he led me away from home..."

Zhu Yuanzhang's voice, calm at first, gradually took on a heavy nasal tone as he spoke. He wept in public.

His four sons—Zhu Biao, Zhu Shuang, Zhu Gang, and Zhu Di—also wept along with him. Though they had heard their father recount these tales before, hearing them now still stirred emotions they could not control.

Zhu Yuanzhang wiped his face roughly with his sleeve and drew a deep breath.

"Back then, I dreamed of nothing else than eating a black bun! If we had had black buns, my father, my mother, my eldest brother, my second brother... none of them would have starved to death!"

"I hated it! I hated this era, I hated corrupt officials, I hated the extortionate Yuan Tartar court!

I told myself that once I became Emperor, I would certainly be different from the Yuan Tartars! In my realm, wherever disaster struck, I would surely provide relief. Even if relief truly could not be managed, I would exempt that region from taxes!

I would never resort to extortion! I would certainly never impose extra taxes simply to fund my own birthday or the birthdays of my relatives!

To save money, my wife planted a vast vegetable garden right in our imperial garden! My wife, the Empress of the Great Ming, farmed vegetables with her own hands!

The quilts we slept under were pieced together stitch by stitch from the leftover scraps of fabric used to make clothes for the women and children!

Even as Emperor, why did I choose to live this way? It wasn't because I was so used to hardship that I didn't know how to enjoy myself or didn't understand what a good life was like!

It was because I knew that the lives of the common people were far from easy! Every bit of this was the fat and blood of the people!

If I spent a little less, the people would have to shed a little less fat and blood! I believed that once I became Emperor, the common folk would surely live better than they had at the end of the Yuan dynasty!"

Zhu Yuanzhang's voice grew increasingly passionate, his aura becoming more and more formidable.

"Yet now, motherfucker, I find out that I was wrong! Right here in the city of Zhongdu, countless people have starved to work on building Zhongdu! They have been worked to death!

This is the eighth year of Hongwu, and for the sake of building Zhongdu, cases of people eating each other have actually appeared!!!

Is this my Great Ming? How is this any different from the Yuan Tartars?

You people, how are you any different from those corrupt officials of the Yuan dynasty?

You've only lived a few days of good life, and you've already forgotten your roots? Do you truly believe you've become noble?!"

At this point, Zhu Yuanzhang's eyes turned red once more. With a resounding *bang*, he slammed his palm heavily down upon the table.

The sound appeared exceptionally piercing in the silence, startling many present into a involuntary shiver.

Once again, the assembly fell to their knees one after another.

"Guo Laosan, come! Recite the flower-drum song you sang in the Fengtian Temple plaza for Us once more!"

The Guo Laosan named by Zhu Yuanzhang trembled violently, kneeling on the ground and kowtowing incessantly without being able to utter a single word.

"Liu Erba, come tell Us, when We asked you how the construction of Zhongdu was going that day, what did you say to Us?"

Liu Erba likewise kept kowtowing without stop.

"'No corvée labor, no grain taxes, the imperial grace is vast through all four seasons, and both banks of the Huai River rejoice!'

You didn't say it, but we are telling you now! What a wonderful 'both banks of the Huai River rejoice,' bah! You've all been treating Us like fools to be toyed with!"

Zhu Yuanzhang was practically spraying spittle in his fury.

"You lot—I have spoiled you all far too much! When I became Emperor, I wanted you to share in the prosperity, but one by one, you've all played me for a fool and grown callous in your wealth!

Since that is the case, starting from today, all preferential treatments here in Fengyag are revoked!

You need not travel to Yingtian to offer birthday congratulations to Us; you shall perform corvée labor like everyone else, pay grain taxes like everyone else, and henceforth live the lives of ordinary common people!"

Zhu Yuanzhang issued the exact same decree as in his past life.

Following this command from Zhu Yuanzhang, the old fellow villagers, who had previously known only how to kowtow, instantly burst into a chorus of weeping.

Many repeatedly protested that they were wrong, begging the Emperor to grant them another chance. Clearly, Zhu Yuanzhang's decision had struck at their most vital weakness.

Unfortunately, Zhu Yuanzhang was no indiscriminate saint; his heart could be exceedingly soft, but it could also be ruthlessly hard.

When he had treated them well before, these people had broken his heart so deeply; now that this decree was issued, alteration was utterly impossible.

Their cries and pleas not only failed to evoke any pity from Zhu Yuanzhang, but merely deepened his disgust.

"Drive them out! Whoever dares to cry and plead again shall be put to death without mercy!"

At Zhu Yuanzhang's words, the Xingfu Palace instantly fell dead silent.

As these old fellow villagers were led out of Xingfu Palace by the imperial guards, the biting cold wind struck them, and only then did they suddenly realize how utterly foolish their previous notion that the Emperor was easily fooled and manipulated had been!

They were devastated, mourning as if they had lost their parents, but they could never return to the way things were...

"Zheng Shiyuan!"

"This subject is here!"

The named Zheng Shiyuan immediately stepped forward and bowed deeply.

"I appoint you as the Prefect of Fengyang. Tomorrow, open the official tribunal to receive complaints from the common people, and thoroughly investigate all unlawful deeds in Zhongdu, Fengyang, and Linhuai counties!"

"This subject obeys the decree!"

This was a perilously dangerous task, yet Zheng Shiyuan accepted it without the slightest hesitation.

He had waited for this moment for far too long!

Having received the command, he stood straight and tall, resembling a sharp blade poised to pierce through a sky full of dark clouds and restore a clear and righteous heaven and earth to Zhongdu!

He formed a stark contrast with Li Shanchang, Li Cuiyi, and the others who remained kneeling on the ground.

"Get out of here, the lot of you! Say no more; let the common people judge whether it is right or wrong!"

Zhu Yuanzhang gazed at Li Shanchang and the others, issuing the order to dismiss them...

...

"Your Majesty, the Marquis of Zhongshan requests an audience."

After Li Shanchang and the others had departed, Eunuch Wang approached Zhu Yuanzhang and reported with cautious reverence.

"Let him enter!"

A moment later, Tang He, filled with anxiety and apprehension, appeared before Zhu Yuanzhang...