The Human Emperor
chapter-1272

Translated by: Hypersheep325

Edited by: Michyrr

The members of the Confucian Sect were far from the only ones to receive the news. In the Wang Family Residence, Wang Chong was dressed in casual attire, his black hair allowed to hang down, held in place by a single wooden hairpin. Standing at his desk, he exuded both a scholar’s elegance and a warrior’s solemnity. And in front of him was news from the various prefectures and commanderies.

“Not bad! In this little time, it’s already exceeded fifty thousand!”

Wang Chong looked at the letter on the table and smiled. This number was far greater than he had imagined. The daily expenditure was simply astonishing. Even those great clans who had been operating in the capital for two to three hundred years and possessed astonishing wealth couldn’t possibly bear this burden. In normal circumstances, no single person or faction would have ever been able to support such vast expense.

But after the Battle of Khorasan, Wang Chong had obtained 1.9 billion taels of gold from Mutasim III. One billion taels of gold had been handed to the Imperial Court, one hundred million had been used to buy the Hyderabad ore mine, and two hundred million had been used for payments, both to the families of soldiers who had died in battle and for the services of the various tribes of the Western Regions and the kingdoms of Greater and Lesser Balur.

This left Wang Chong and Gao Xianzhi with six hundred million taels of gold. It was precisely this vast sum of wealth that allowed Wang Chong to support such an enormous number of body-strengthening schools throughout the empire.

This step was not necessarily to counter Li Junxian and the Confucian Sect. In truth, long before, when he had first obtained this gold, Wang Chong and Gao Xianzhi had discussed in Khorasan how they could use this money to enrich the country and strengthen the people. One of their ideas was to build body-strengthening schools throughout the empire that would teach martial arts and increase the strength of the common people of the Great Tang.

The idea had even received Gao Xianzhi’s vigorous approval. Thus, he had used this opportunity to fully promote his body-strengthening schools.

In his last life, when fighting against the otherworldly invaders, Wang Chong had always been hampered by a lack of soldiers. Although the Central Plains was home to ten million people, few of them were suitable for fighting on the battlefield. This was the essential reason the idea of body-strengthening schools had appeared in Wang Chong’s mind in the first place.

Wang Chong put down the letter and said to himself, Six hundred million taels of gold won’t be able to last for too long, but it should be able to hold for at least ten years, right up until the descent of the calamity. As long as the body-strengthening school plan lasts until then, the Great Tang will be able to train many suitable soldiers.

This was a plan to arm the entire empire, though no one except for Wang Chong knew this.

Flapflap! As he was thinking, an extremely fierce-looking golden eagle flew in through the window and landed in front of Wang Chong’s desk. Upon seeing this eagle, Wang Chong’s eyes widened.

This was a signal that he had prearranged with Old Eagle, meaning that there was finally news from Lu Ting. Two days later, a letter accompanied by a carriage full of books arrived at the capital from the Jing Prefecture and entered the Wang Family Residence.

Wen Choushu’s identity had been confirmed, and Lu Ting had obtained much more than they had imagined. He had not only been able to fulfill his long-cherished desire from so many years ago and obtained a meeting with Wen Choushu himself, but had also obtained piles of information on Bird Seal Script from this number one book collector of the Central Plains. Lu Ting excluded the purely academic information and only sent the information that he thought useful back to the capital. In addition, he had made marks on what he thought relevant.

“Milord, Academic Lu said that the most important book is on top. Once you read the first book, you’ll roughly understand the meaning of the ink symbol,” Su Shixuan sternly said.

Wang Chong said nothing as he took up the black book at the top of the book chest. Upon opening it, Wang Chong immediately saw a bookmark with a red seal stamped atop it.

“Wen Choushu!”

Wang Chong recognized the name at a glance. Flipping to the first page, he immediately saw various Bird Seal Script characters and knew that Lu Ting had been correct. The symbol at the center of the ink symbol truly had been a word, and it was exactly in the style of Bird Seal Script.

Wang Chong continued to read. This was an ancient text that sought to systematically describe Bird Seal Script. The text originated from some learned Confucian from around five or six hundred years ago, during the Wei-Jin era1. He had apparently been particularly interested in the Bird Seal Script, so he had gathered up all the information he could and summarized it in this book. Besides the various Bird Seal Script words, he had also described the origin and stories behind them.

After browsing through twenty to thirty pages, Wang Chong saw a bookmark that Lu Ting had left in the book. A unique character immediately appeared before his eyes, and upon seeing it, his pupils suddenly constricted as if he had been stabbed by a needle.

This character in the ancient book was practically identical to the character in the center of the Confucian Sect’s ink symbol.

“同 (Harmony)!”

As Wang Chong read the explanation left by that erudite Confucian from long ago, he suddenly raised an eyebrow. Even though he had seen this symbol twice, in this life and the last, Wang Chong had never imagined that it contained a word. The book also recorded the origin of this character.

In the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods, all the states warred with each other and the Central Plains was beset by calamity and suffering. A sage rushed around between all the states, meeting with their various sovereigns in the hopes that he could persuade them to set aside their selfishness. From thirty to seventy, this Sage spent forty years on this endeavor, but his efforts were fruitless. In his retiring years, the wars of the Central Plains had not died down, but intensified.

When a disciple who had been at his side as he tried to persuade the various sovereigns was killed in the strife, this final sage of the era was overcome by grief and rage. He vomited blood, and then he dipped his finger in this blood and created this new Bird Seal Script character in front of his young followers, the character ‘同’.

This ‘同’ bore all of this sage’s aspirations and reluctance. After writing this character, this last sage divulged all his regrets and unwillingness to his young followers and then suddenly died.

It was said that after this sage died, a young follower of his took the last character written by this sage and secluded himself deep in the mountains. He used this character as the foundation of a new sect called the Confucian Sect.

The majority of people believed this legend to be a highly distorted depiction of reality, and even in the Wei-Jin era, many people treated it as a popular legend. But for that learned Confucian, while it was impossible to investigate the first half, the part about the Confucian Sect was not necessarily hearsay.

This learned Confucian of the Wei-Jin era mentioned that in the later Qin-Han era and in the eras after that, there were always various legends or rumors about the Confucian Sect.

Buzz!

These were only casual comments, and not even the author of this book had paid this too much attention when gathering material on Bird Seal Script. However, after reading this account, Wang Chong was utterly stunned.

“How could this be?!”

Wang Chong felt like a boulder had been dropped into his mind. He had heard Li Junxian mention the matter of the death of the one hundred sages, but he had never actually believed that this Confucian Sect would actually be connected to the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods. If what this book said was true, the Confucian Sect behind Li Junxian was more than one thousand years old!

This completely surpassed Wang Chong’s imagination.

A single sect was actually able to survive for more than one thousand years, persisting despite the wars, famines, and changing of dynasties, all the way until the Great Tang… If he had not seen for himself Li Junxian and the members of the Confucian Sect and the ink symbols on their wrists, Wang Chong would have never believed that all this was real.

Wang Chong continued to read, but this book did not have much more information on the Confucian Sect. Wang Chong turned to another book and read through it, but the vast majority of this book contained explanations of Bird Seal Script. But in the third book, Wang Chong once more saw the familiar symbol and a legend of the Confucian Sect.

This was the work of an erudite Confucian who lived in the early years of the Northern Zhou. According to his account, a Confucian Sect had appeared in this period of the Northern Zhou2, and a learned Confucian of this sect had loudly called for the Northern Zhou and all the other countries of the time to put aside their grudges and differences, end all wars, and cast aside their selfish desires so that all the people of the world could be at peace. This person appeared for only a very short period of time before vanishing once more.

And there had been only bits and snatches of information about the Confucian Sect. The people’s understanding of it was limited to that learned Confucian and the ideals he espoused, nothing more.

They had not left a very deep impression on that era.

Even this Confucian of the Northern Zhou who had written this book only mentioned it in passing and did not delve any further.

Wang Chong put aside the third book and continued to read. After the Northern Zhou, this black symbol next appeared in the era of Emperor Wen of the Great Sui Dynasty.

The more he read, the more stunned he became. The Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods, the Wei-Jin era, the Northern Zhou, the Sui, the Sage Emperor’s reign… if all the accounts were true, this faction called the Confucian Sect had appeared in almost every era of history.

“How could such a faction exist in the Central Plains!?”

Wang Chong put down the book and muttered to himself. If they didn’t have access to a learned scholar like Lu Ting, very few people would have been able to notice the clues in these books. In a flash, Wang Chong understood why Lu Ting had sent these books over rather than personally explaining things to him.

There were some things that words could not explain clearly, and to see for oneself was better than to listen to others. Only with one’s own eyes could one determine the veracity of those legends.

Moreover, this fact was simply too shocking!

Wang Chong had never imagined that those experts he had encountered in that apocalyptic era had a background like this.

“Su Shixuan, are King Song’s men here yet?” Wang Chong said.

It had been more than half a month since their meeting. Based on the information he had received, King Song had finally started to make some progress.

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1. The Wei-Jin era, referring to the Cao Wei Dynasty of Three Kingdoms fame and the Jin Dynasty that followed it, spanned from 220-420.↩

2. The Northern Zhou Dynasty was the last of the Northern Dynasties in the Northern and Southern Dynasties Period of Chinese history. It reigned from 557-581 and was overthrown by the Sui Dynasty.↩