"Don't hold me back! I, old Cheng, am going to go kill that demonic monk today."
"Don't act on impulse, don't act on impulse! How is this any different from openly defying an imperial decree?"
"Indeed!"
"Your Majesty might just be on a momentary whim. Once he calms down, he'll revoke the order."
Qin Shubao and Yuchi Jingde were holding Cheng Yaojin back.
All three of them were renowned generals of the early Tang Dynasty. At that moment, Cheng Yaojin was wielding a large broadaxe, wanting to go hack Xuanzang—the reincarnation of Jin Chanzi—to pieces.
Cheng Yaojin looked like a crude fellow who seemed to lack a brain, but in reality, he possessed extreme wisdom. Beneath his boorish and unpolished exterior hid the heart of a cunning fox.
Such recklessness was merely a performance put on for Li Shimin.
However,
today he truly wanted to go hack Xuanzang.
The reason was simple, too.
Not long ago,
an imperial edict had suddenly issued from the palace.
To put it simply, the content of the edict was that the Emperor immensely admired the Buddhist Dharma, and thus decided to journey together with Xuanzang to the Western Paradise, Spirit Mountain.
How could this development fail to shock all the civil and military officials?
In their view, to abandon the proper duties of an emperor to go worship Buddha—
wasn't that the quintessential omen of the collapse of a state!
The most crucial point was that the realm had just been pacified, and the dynasty's foundations were not yet stable.
Yet the Emperor was running off! How could the ministers not be anxious?
For a dynasty to pass down successfully, it must have two consecutive generations of ruthless emperors.
Qin Emperor Ying Zheng could suppress an entire era, but the Second Emperor of Qin