ATPnovel Chapter 1120: Reclaiming Dingjing
Chapter 1120: Reclaiming Dingjing
Yun Jiao led the steward, the maids, and the old women servants out of the city to receive her father.Father and daughter had not seen each other for several years; Yun Jiao’s first feeling was that her father had grown old.
Gu Yuheng was almost sixty. Because he was a Doctor himself and paid attention to health maintenance, he was better preserved than his peers, yet even so, nearly half his hair was white, and there were many more wrinkles on his face.
Father and daughter could not help but throw their arms around each other and weep bitterly.
After a good cry, everyone hurried to get in the carriage and go home.
The first courtyard behind Renxin Hall had long since been made ready by Yun Jiao.
They could move in with their bags directly; as soon as they entered, a Maid brought hot tea to their hands.
In the days that followed, Yun Jiao ate lunch with her father every day and played with her nephews and nieces, feeling particularly happy.
The weather grew colder and colder, and as the twelfth lunar month approached, just then, a piece of news from the front line made the subjects of Great Chu wild with joy: the Duke had led a hundred thousand soldiers and taken Dingjing City!
For these past ten-plus years, Xiang City had at every moment been fulfilling the role of a nation’s capital, but from high-ranking officials to lowly runners, not a single person ever called Xiang City the Capital City.
In the hearts of the people of Great Chu, only Dingjing was their Capital City.
Taking back Dingjing held enormous significance for the whole of Great Chu.
His Majesty had originally been in morning court when the urgent war report, rushed over eight hundred li, arrived; the moment His Majesty saw the report in the Golden Throne Hall, he broke down in tears.
Then the entire great hall was filled with the sound of weeping.
The ministers, usually so properly dressed and dignified, were now streaming with tears and mucus, not caring about their image in the least.
His Majesty quickly recovered from his loss of composure and immediately ordered all levels of government offices to issue public notices.
The news of recovering Dingjing had to spread to every corner of Great Chu as quickly as possible.
On the official roads throughout Great Chu, courier clerks galloped day and night, delivering the news to all regions.
The government offices at all levels that received the news immediately posted notices outside their gates.
Taking Xiang City as the center, the news began to spread across the country at an unprecedented speed.
The people of Xiang City, who were the first to receive the news, almost all set off firecrackers in their homes.
Very soon, firecrackers were sold out.
But this did not dampen the enthusiasm of the people of Xiang City; they took pots, bowls, and ladles from home and began banging on them.
In any case, as long as it was lively, it was right.
Renxin Hall managed to get hold of a few strings of firecrackers and set them off at the door.
The red scraps of paper scattered on the ground, carrying the smell of saltpeter, overflowed with a festive air.
Meanwhile, in the imperial court, a new debate soon had everyone arguing till the roof almost lifted.
And that was—returning to the Capital!
Everyone understood that returning to the Capital was inevitable; the question was only when to return.
Almost more than half of the ministers believed the situation was still unstable and that this was not the best time to return to the Capital; what if the Jin Country army launched a counterattack?
Others felt that the Imperial Palace in Dingjing, as well as many other places, would certainly need repairs, and that they must be completed before they could move the court back.
As for repairs, at the least it would take a year or two, at most three to five years.
His Majesty wanted to return to the Capital immediately; however, he suppressed his urgent feelings. There was still much information unknown, and he could not yet make a decision.
Soon he received a memorial personally written by the Duke.
In the memorial, the situation in Dingjing City was described in detail: the Imperial City was not much different from before, and because the Imperial Palace had long been occupied by Prince Liang of Jin Country, it had been kept up and repaired quite well.
Most of the mansions of high officials and noble families within the Imperial City were also being lived in by Jin Country officials and were basically in good condition; some residences had even been newly renovated.
However, the situation in the outer city was not so optimistic.
Dingjing had originally been divided into an Inner City and an outer city; the Inner City was the Imperial City, where high officials and nobles basically lived, while the outer city was where ordinary commoners lived.