Farming to Defy My Fate 54

Chapter 54: The Ending

The reason for the chaos in the capital was, in Hu Sheng’s opinion, simply absurd.

It was because during the Qiqiao Festival, when the empress was holding a palace banquet as usual, the daughter of the Vice Minister of Justice made a small mistake in her etiquette. Zhao Qingcheng, as always, was very tolerant and did not blame the girl. But after Li Xiuye learned of this, he actually sent someone to secretly kill the girl.

Because Li Xiuye felt that the girl’s disrespect towards Zhao Qingcheng stemmed from some kind of jealousy. More accurately, it was because Li Xiuye felt that the girl had deliberately acted out to get his attention. He would not allow anyone who could disrupt his and Zhao Qingcheng’s relationship to live in this world.

At any time, the impression of an emperor was that of a tyrant, the sole ruler of heaven and earth. But to be narcissistic to Li Xiuye’s extent, to think that all the girls in the world should be in love with him, still shocked Hu Sheng.

And his act of sending assassins to deal with this girl without hesitation was his usual method, an order given almost without a second thought.

If the matter had ended there, it would not have caused a major upheaval in the entire capital. But the girl’s father was a good father who loved his daughter very much. He could not let his daughter die in vain, so he went to great lengths to track down the murderer.

This Vice Minister of Justice also had some skill in investigating cases. He actually managed to find a secret guard through various clues, and through severe torture, he obtained evidence that the emperor had ordered the murder of his own daughter. So he planned to take this evidence to the palace and beat the drum to voice his grievance.

He knew that this kind of drama of “who dares to sue this official” would ultimately end in tragedy. He had even prepared a coffin for himself, just to get justice for his daughter. For this, he was not afraid to risk his life, and he had already sent the rest of his family out of the capital.

But his actions were not secretive enough, so Li Xiuye learned of the news in advance. Then he met the same fate as his daughter, being directly assassinated on his way to beat the drum.

And this incident had long been under the close observation of the various forces in the court. When he was also assassinated, many high-ranking officials in the capital felt a chill in their hearts, while the various vassal kings were ecstatic, as if they had grasped a huge handle.

To murder a little girl for no reason was shameful enough. To secretly assassinate a court official was even worse. Even the emperor could not do such a foolish thing.

On the night that the Vice Minister of Justice was killed, eight vassal kings, along with the most powerful prime minister and various ministers of the court, and several dukes, forced their way into the palace and rebelled.

Because they all felt that if they let this emperor continue to hold power, everyone’s lives would be as dangerous as being placed under a guillotine at any time. Since it was already so dangerous, they might as well just rebel.

When Hu Sheng received this news, on one hand, he felt it was incredible; on the other, he could understand the reasons for these people’s rebellion.

Because Li Xiuye’s path to the throne had always been filled with assassination plots. He had become accustomed to this method of intimidation to rule. However, although such high-pressure rule had the effect of suppressing the masses for a time, the final result would still be to arouse everyone’s resistance.

Perhaps some people would think that a palace coup would be meticulously planned and filled with all kinds of open and secret schemes, but many times, it would appear very hasty and absurd.

Regardless of success, there had been people in history who had gotten lost in the palace during a coup, palace maids who had risen up in anger to kill the emperor together, and eunuchs who had locked the emperor in a palace and starved him to death. All of it seemed very absurd, but those were real events described in the history books.

And the coup that happened in the Xu Kingdom this time was equally absurd. The various lords and officials who had rushed into the palace had seized the imperial seal. And they had taken the empress and the crown prince hostage, but the emperor, with his formidable martial arts, had escaped. In the end, the various vassal kings and court officials who had temporarily united had another internal struggle.

The result was that the court officials held the three-year-old crown prince and put him on the throne, announcing a change of course. Half of the vassal kings were killed, and the rest fled the capital, intending to return to their fiefs and declare themselves emperor.

When Hu Sheng got this news, he read it over and over three times. The veins on his forehead throbbed, and he felt speechless.

Even though he and Zhao An had suffered such unfair treatment, their choice was to flee to a foreign country. But those court officials and vassal kings, and the emperor, all of them seemed extremely irresponsible, treating the entire country as a tool and a chessboard for their own struggle, and treating the fate of all the common people as pawns that could be sacrificed at any time.

Zhao An also saw the news from the Xu Kingdom at the same time and finally realized that the story of Tears of a City-Toppling Beauty had ended. In fact, from the moment Zhao Qingcheng became the empress and her son was made the crown prince, the story had already reached its grand finale. So Li Xiuye and Zhao Qingcheng were no longer favored by fate, and their lives began to fall apart.

This matter was perhaps an inevitability under the will of the world. When Li Xiuye was still the emperor, he could be unscrupulous in his pursuit of love. To get Zhao Qingcheng, he could kill all the competitors around him and those he felt were a danger. His success had always relied on a kind of violent barbarism. But when his luck ran out, this barbarism would bring him a price he could not bear.

This ridiculous love story had finally ended, but the era of war and tragedy had just begun.

Zhao An paced around the room a few times, then finally raised his eyes and looked at Hu Sheng. “Are you interested in competing for the Central Plains?”

Hu Sheng touched his own face, then raised his blue eyes and looked at Zhao An. “Will the people of the Central Plains accept a Hu person like me as their emperor?” Then he smiled, a domineering. “But I can make you their emperor.”

But Zhao An had another, bolder plan in his heart. But he was not in a hurry to tell Hu Sheng now, because his plan required a lot of effort, so he was not going to say it out loud yet.

From this day on, while the Central Plains were in a state of war, Hu Sheng and his group hid on the border of the Nanyue Kingdom and the Xu Kingdom, constantly taking in refugees.

They reclaimed land and, in the southern country with three harvests a year, planted rice with a yield of over a thousand jin per mu. In this way, they could take in more people the next year. These originally sallow and emaciated famine victims gradually became strong again after coming here.

In the second year of frequent wars in the Xu Kingdom, the king of the Nanyue Kingdom finally couldn’t stand the existence of Hu Sheng and his group and secretly launched an attack on them. However, with the cooperation of telescopes and sentry posts, the army of the Nanyue Kingdom had just left the royal city when they were intercepted in a canyon.

After a few cannon shots, boulders fell, and the army was split in two. The army under Hu Sheng’s command did not press the advantage but stood on high ground and shouted through a loudspeaker, “Surrender and you won’t be killed!”

After this battle, Hu Sheng and his men had, in a practical sense, controlled the entire Nanyue Kingdom.

Then they farmed on this rich land while watching the various armies of the Central Plains fight back and forth.

Li Xiuye returned to his original fief and organized his most elite troops. His first goal was to fight his way back to the capital to get back his son and wife.

But fate always played an awkward joke on him. Even though his martial arts were formidable and he could sneak into the imperial palace every time, the army under his command could not defeat the army of the capital.

After his army was defeated, he couldn’t escape with his wife and son alone, so he had to flee alone again.

Three more years passed. He had reorganized a large army and wanted to attack the capital, but he didn’t expect to run into the army of another vassal king halfway. The two sides fought to the death. This time, Li Xiuye finally won. He led his remaining troops back to the capital and broke in. But his son, although he had only been a puppet emperor for three years and was so young, Li Xiuye had not been on guard against him. He didn’t expect that at the celebration banquet that night, the child would actually poison his wine cup.

Li Xiuye’s martial arts were formidable, and he was not poisoned to death at once. When he looked around, he saw his son giving him a malicious smile. “Father Emperor, why did you come back? After you came back, I can’t be the emperor anymore, and there won’t be so many people to play with me. This is not fun.”

Li Xiuye died. However, before he died, he swung his saber and killed his wife and son, then set fire to the Fengzao Palace, which had been built for Zhao Qingcheng with the best wood in the world.

It was ten years later that Zhao An and Hu Sheng fought their way from the south to the capital, step by step. In the process, Zhao An promoted simplified characters and pinyin among his subordinates, and printed very cheap books with lead type printing. All the soldiers learned to read, and girls also had the opportunity to work in factories, where they were also taught to read. Then they were promoted to supervisors, and step by step, they gained some management skills. Later, there were schools that taught various subjects. In a dozen or so years, the entire world had undergone a world-shaking change.

And Zhao An stood in front of the former palace, pointed at the dilapidated dragon throne, and said, “Now, this world is ruled by us, the poor. There will be no more emperors. Let’s establish a republic.”

Hu Sheng took his hand and said with a smile, “Everything will be arranged by you.”

-End of the story-