The Tyrant's Beloved Empress

63

Edited and Proofread by KitKat

After the Third Prince's report had reached Yejing, a heated debate erupted in court on how to deal with the rebels.

Most courtiers felt that joining an uprising was a serious crime and had to be severely dealt with to discourage future attempts.

Emperor An Qing was in concurrence but how to deal with them was the problem. They were too large a number to kill and their crimes were not serious enough to warrant a death sentence. On the other hand, to lock them up would require expending resources and they lacked a prison large enough to do so.

The court seemed like a wet market as the officers presented their bids regarding how to deal with the situation.

As Emperor An Qing was getting impatient, Minister Li An Min came forward with his solution:

Firstly, the leaders of the Common Man's Army couldn't be spared. Although they had escaped, the court should still issue an arrest warrant. Secondly, the people who had joined the rebellion were simply misled by cajolery. And, as far as the law went, punishing the majority was out of the question. Even if the court wanted to make an example out of this rebellion to ward off future riots, they would not have to enforce severe punishments on the commoners.

Emperor An Qing was getting a headache, "Then what does Minster Li suggest we do?"

"Why don't we exile these rebels to guard the border?"

Minister Li went on to elaborate and justify his plan, "Yanzhou is the closest to Suzhou. It has a huge territory heavily armed with troops. If we send the rebels there, they will not dare to make trouble. And to serve as a warning, the rebels will be punished to reclaim land at the border."

To be exiled for committing the serious crime of rebelling was considered a light punishment. However, to appease the public and demonstrate his benevolence, Emperor An Qing agreed that this method was reasonable. He ordered for the decree to be drafted and sent to Suzhou and Yanzhou.

The Third prince currently residing in Suzhou was bummed out upon receiving this news. He and Master Liao had collaborated to create this opportunity to earn merits but everything had been resolved by the time he got to Suzhou. No matter how biased Emperor An Qing was, he still couldn't give him all the credit.

He cast a cold glance at Shen Tu Xu and said, "Since this matter is over, General Tu Xu can arrange for these rebels to be escorted to Yanzhou. I'll be heading back to Yejing first."

By now, Shen Tu Xu had been somewhat perturbed by him. He bowed respectfully and heaved a sigh of relief as he watched him leave.

The decree only reached Yanzhou after the Third Prince had departed for Yejing.

Hearing that almost ten thousand people would be joining Yanzhou, the lieutenants were simply overjoyed. They couldn't believe that Yejing would actually send these rebels to them.

Yanzhou covered a large area but over the years, families were dying out due to the Beidi war. This had left many houses vacant and uninhabited, perfectly suitable for the thousands of rebels to live in.

The Lieutenants had delegated for the arrangements to be made, with An Chang Qing supervising.

Xiao Zhige had always wanted to expand Yanzhou since the time he was appointed its General. However, there was never enough manpower, which at that time, was mainly focused on the war. Now that there were more people and the war was won, there were many ideas he planned to put forward.

In addition to building the outer city walls, he had plans to cultivate a large area of land within the city for growing crops. But how to cultivate the land, distribute the work, irrigate the field, tax implementations, etc, all these would require careful planning and development step by step.