Volume 6 Chapter 11 (1/2)

“Some stories are legends that cannot be replicated, like Ba Mountain Sword Field, like the old powers of Changling.”

The old woman smiled emotionally. She looked at Ding Ning and said, “The businessmen of Changling have always been the best at doing business. I hear the businesses of the old powers are all over the dynasties. When the Lu Family was destroyed, Yuanwu’s armies worked for five days before moving everything of value from their compound. Is that true?”

Ding Ning nodded and slowly said, “The wealth in the Lu Family compound was just a tenth of the Lu Family’s true wealth. Most of it should have ended up in Yuanwu’s hands, and a part in Zheng Xiu’s hands.”

The old woman stilled and could not help shake her head. “That is indeed unimaginable.”

Ding Ning looked at the old woman and said, “A country, a dynasty, they are just a few centuries old, or just a few decades. Some sects, some families, they are thousands of years old.”

The old woman thought for a moment and smiled. “When an emperor dies, the dynasty changes. But a family will live if one person lives. So a country easily dies, but a family does not. But governing a country is as difficult as governing a family.”

Ding Ning slowly turned his head to look at the snow and wind outside. He said slowly, “Govern with law, govern with kindness, think with you in the other’s place in order to last for long.”

The old woman became more serious and asked, “What did Ba Mountain Sword Field, or rather, your master, think back then?”

“Be quick, govern after uniting the world.” Ding Ning said, “The faster, the less things will change. Yet when some things happen to oneself, you then learn that there are many limitations.”

The old woman thought of everything that Ba Mountain Sword Field had given and said sincerely, “It was not easy.”

**

There was a forest in Changling’s imperial palace. It was a forest and not a garden because due to Emperor Yuanwu’s orders, no one took care of the forest, and the trees grew freely.

Emperor Yuanwu’s cultivation place was behind this forest. Opposite his cultivation place, on the other side of the forest, was the courtyard where the two ministers took care of the matters of court.

The forest was desolate, and extremely cold right now. Emperor Yuanwu was still dressed in cloth robes. He sat on the ground, facing two old men. One was dressed in black robes, thin, cold and dark. The other felt old, but had young features. He even felt handsome, and he had a warm presence, like he was easy to talk to and make friends with.

These were the two ministers above the bureau.

The straightforward people of Guanzhong would say, other than some matters controlled by the empress in secret, most of the public matters of court were managed by these people working together. Most of the matters of the emperor were given to these people to manage, and they were truly his men.

“Why?”

But now, these two people were asking Emperor Yuanwu at the same time.