My hotel is full of emperors throughout history.

The news reached Taiyuan and Jinyang at dusk on the third day.

The Wang family's old residence.

Inside the main hall, no candles were lit.

Dozens of Wang clan elders, members of each branch of the clan, and family members of officials who stayed behind in other places gathered from all over the city upon hearing the news.

No one summoned him, no one presided over the ceremony; all that was heard was that the messenger, who had rushed back from Chang'an under the cover of night, was wailing as he knocked on the gate of the mansion.

Everyone, like puppets pulled by the same string, walked towards the main hall that had been silent for many years.

No one speaks.

No one dared to speak first.

Only the three-hundred-year-old locust tree outside the hall rustled its branches and leaves in the twilight, as if calling back the souls of wanderers far away.

The messenger knelt in the center of the hall, his clothes still covered in the dust of the post road, his face streaked with tears.

He has reported the matter of Linde Hall three times.

During the first repetition, an elderly woman in the audience fainted on the spot.

On the second occasion, several young women of the clan covered their faces and sobbed.

The third time, everyone fell silent.

"Those Japanese..."

Finally, the eldest branch elder, seated at the head of the eastern section, slowly spoke.

"Was it in front of His Majesty?"

"Yes."

The messenger kowtowed.

"All the officials in the hall witnessed it with their own eyes."

"That knife..."

Elder Zong paused for a moment.

"Did you stab him in and pull him out in front of everyone?"

"Yes."

"Wang Gui... Uncle Jie, he..."

Elder Zong's voice began to tremble.

Did he leave any last words?

The messenger collapsed to the ground, weeping bitterly: "My lord was stabbed and fell instantly, blood gushing like a fountain... He didn't even get to say a word..."

The hall fell silent once again.

A moment later, a sob suddenly came from the west corner.

She was a woman in her fifties, Wang Gui's cousin-in-law.

She covered her mouth with her sleeve, tears streaming down her face, but she bit her lip tightly to keep herself from crying out loud.

"them……"

She finally managed to squeeze out a sentence.

"What gives them the right?"

"We, the sons of the Wang family, have served in office for thirty years. How many times have we remonstrated with His Majesty, how many times have we smashed our official tablets? Those are matters between us and His Majesty!"

"That's a matter for the imperial court! What is Japan anyway?!"

Her voice suddenly rose in pitch.

"What right do those Japanese have to kill members of my royal family?!"

No one could answer.

No one needs to answer.

The elder in the east slowly stood up.

He is eighty-three years old this year and has long since stopped concerning himself with clan affairs. Today, he was helped from his sickbed to the hospital.

His back was hunched, and his beard and eyebrows were all white, like an old plum tree that had been bent over by wind and snow for hundreds of years.

But the moment he stood up straight, everyone held their breath in unison.

"write a letter."

He gazed at the blood-red sunset outside the hall, his voice low, yet each word seemed etched on a monument.

"Write to Chang'an. Write to Luoyang. Write to Yangzhou, Yuezhou, Youzhou, Yizhou... wherever any member of my Wang family holds office or has relatives by marriage stationed there."

"Write what?"

Elder Zong did not turn around.

"Write—The Japanese have gone too far in insulting our Wang family."

"Write it down—this hatred is irreconcilable."

"Write this: Any disciple or former friend of the Wang family who dares to obstruct the imperial court's eastern expedition or criticize His Majesty's revenge, from this day forward, will no longer be a friend of the Wang family of Taiyuan."

He paused for a moment, his aged back trembling slightly in the twilight.

"It doesn't have to be a living member of my Taiyuan Wang family."

On the same night, in the southwest of Chang'an, in Chongxianfang.

This is not the Wang family residence, but the Cui family's villa.

The Cui and Wang families had been linked by marriage for generations; Cui Cheng's aunt married Wang Gui's cousin.

Tonight, the Cui family's house is brightly lit.

Cui Cheng sat at the head of the study, holding in his hand the clan letter that had been sent from Taiyuan to Chang'an by express courier.

The letter was crumpled from his grip, and the ink had slightly seeped through his fingers.

He didn't speak.

Seven or eight people sat at the lower end of the table; they were all Cui family members’ disciples, students, and advisors in Chang’an.

At this moment, no one dared to speak first.

a long time.

Cui Cheng slowly folded the letter and tucked it into his sleeve.

"Prepare the car."

"My lord, it's late, you must be going..."

"Go to the Wang family's villa."

He stood up, the hem of his robe sweeping across the corner of the table, the candlelight flickering slightly.

Go tell them—

He paused, his voice eerily calm.

"The knife that Japan used to strike Shujie also pierced the heart of my Cui family."

A younger member couldn't help but speak up.

"Uncle... could this be part of His Majesty's scheme?"

Cui Cheng glanced at him.

"Japan, that tiny island nation, a small and insignificant country, is a barbarian tribe from overseas, ignorant of etiquette and the ways of the king, and even their Chinese characters are crooked and distorted—"

He enunciated each word with great emphasis.

"How dare you!"

"In front of the entire court of civil and military officials."

"In front of the envoys from all over the world."

"In front of the whole world."

"The one who killed our family."

"That's enough!!! If we do nothing, others will only think our aristocratic family is easy to bully!"

He walked toward the door, then suddenly stopped.

"besides,"

He didn't turn around.

"Tomorrow, the Ministry of Revenue will hold a meeting to discuss the procurement of provisions for the eastern expedition. My Cui family owns three granaries in Hedong—"

He paused:

"Open them all. Leave not a single grain."

"Regardless of our relationship with Li Shimin, we absolutely cannot allow a tiny Japanese nation to ride roughshod over us!"

-

Meanwhile, in another corner of Chang'an City.

The Zheng family of Xingyang.

Lu family of Fanyang.

The Li family of Zhao County.

Branches, relatives by marriage, old friends, and students of the Wang family of Taiyuan.

From Zhuque Avenue to the East and West Markets, from the Imperial City to the streets and alleys, countless lights lit up one after another on this night.

The following morning, the Ministry of Revenue.

The finance official in charge of the eastern expedition's grain and fodder allocation sat blankly at his desk, holding the ledger, unable to speak for a long time.

On the table in front of him was a thick stack of letters.

Each letter arrived last night from various wards in Chang'an, each bore the private seal of a prominent family, and each contained only a few words:

— Donated 5,000 shi of grain.

— Donated three thousand bolts of silk.

— Donated 200,000 strings of cash.

—Armaments, medicines, tung oil for ship repair, hemp rope, iron nails…

The categories are numerous and the amounts are staggering.

At the very bottom was another letter, delivered urgently last night from the Wang family's old residence in Taiyuan, containing only one line of text.

"The Wang family will bear half of the costs of the Eastern Expedition. The remainder will be borne by the public."

The finance official read the letter three times.

Li Shimin had long ago instructed him to prepare for the conquest of Japan.

However, no matter how hard they tried, they couldn't raise enough food.

He recalled how he had been so worried about raising funds for food and pay that he couldn't sleep all night, wondering how he could persuade these powerful families to give him some extra grain.

Suddenly, he smiled.

There was no joy in that smile, only a complex and indescribable sadness.

—It turns out that even aristocratic families aren't without food.

—It just depends on who this grain is distributed to.

but……

Japan!

They actually dared to lay a hand on them!

That's incredibly audacious!

He composed himself and sat down at his desk again.

Those nearby, seeing this, couldn't help but express their concern.

"My lord, you haven't rested for eighteen hours straight..."

"It's alright!!! We can't let my actions delay the campaign against the Japanese!!!"