Emperor Deyuan

Biodata

Feature	Value
Name	Emperor Deyuan (德元帝)
Alias(es)	Son of Heaven; “true dragon emperor”; “Brother Wu Qi,” Consort Xian’s childhood address for him 61 207 214
Gender	Male
Age	48 at the time of Jian Ruonan’s Hanlin appointment 81
Affiliation	Great Xia imperial family and court
Occupation/Role	Emperor of Great Xia; later Retired Emperor 442
Status	Alive; abdicates in favor of Dantai Mo in the ten-years-later side story 442

Background / History

Deyuan was the late emperor’s second legitimate son. His accession followed a brutal struggle among ten imperial brothers; only he and the eighth prince survived. The eighth preserved his life by surrendering his fief and remaining in the capital as an idle prince serving in the Imperial Clan Court 200.

During his time as crown prince, his younger sister, the Eldest Princess, took a blade for him during an attack. Their childhood closeness endured into his reign, although her devotion to her husband, Xue Yuanyu, repeatedly left Deyuan unable to reason with her 92.

His reign is burdened by recurring disasters, an empty State Treasury, and threats from neighboring peoples. The Northern Kingdom harasses the northern frontier, Ü-Tsang threatens the northwest, and the Jurchen threaten the east. In the comparatively peaceful south, the Princes of Zhennan, the Southwest, and the Southeast pose a more serious internal danger 60 168.

Deyuan wanted to abolish these princes’ fiefs from the beginning of his reign but delayed because the conditions were unfavorable. The Fourth Prince’s fief in Shu and the First Imperial Prince’s fief in Lingnan were positioned to help contain them 168.

Appearance

• Beard: He frequently strokes it while questioning others or considering policy 80 193 200.
• Hawklike gaze: His scrutiny of suspected corruption immediately chills the atmosphere in the Imperial Study 61.
• Dragon robes: He wears them while presiding over formal court audiences 364.
• Self-image: He considers himself handsome, majestic, and extraordinary; this is his own assessment during the scandal involving Consort Xian and Mechuan Kuchazi 249.

Personality

Deyuan is calculating and adept at using court procedure against his officials. He stations guards beside pillars to prevent censors from killing themselves through dramatic remonstration, brings troublesome speakers within range of Jian Ruonan’s thoughts, and uses the threat of personal exposure to weaken demands for an immediate succession decision 113 115 116.

His appetite for gossip repeatedly undermines his imperial dignity. He enjoys other people’s scandals but becomes furious or mortified when Jian reveals his own. Eventually, he establishes an Intelligence Department specifically to report gossip gathered around her 62 196 329.

He is deeply fond of Jian, whom he privately calls his “little darling,” but also enjoys provoking her. He initially turns her appointment into an obligation to attend court daily, then later considers revising court hours around her sleep schedule. He recognizes her as a “double-edged sword”: invaluable for uncovering deception, yet liable to expose imperial secrets just as freely 81 201 428.

Deyuan’s concern for public welfare coexists with caution over money and personal safety. He opens his private treasury for disaster relief but treats the expenditure as a loan, resists Jian’s expensive military proposals, and hesitates over a blood-drop kinship test because it requires pricking his imperial body 152 242 245.

Abilities & Skills

Access to Jian Ruonan’s Thoughts

• Initial discovery: He identifies Jian as the source of an outrageous voice after noticing that her mouth remains closed 61.
• Political intelligence: Her thoughts provide leads concerning corruption, hidden relationships, examination fraud, princely schemes, and foreign affairs 63 218 248 364.
• Limited audience: He observes that not everyone can hear her. Officials standing farther away may remain unaware until he calls them forward 63 116.
• Disclosure restriction: Attempts to explain the phenomenon aloud are replaced by beeping, preventing him from openly discussing it 61.
• External control: This access is not an unrestricted ability of his own. Jian’s system settings can prevent others from hearing her thoughts, and Dantai Mo later intervenes in access to his wife’s inner voice 68 438.
• Unreliable access to desired information: When Jian denies finding the Previous Dynasty Treasure, Deyuan waits for her thoughts to betray her but hears nothing useful 290.

Political Maneuvering

• Managing remonstrance: He prevents pillar-ramming protests and uses Jian’s proximity to expose officials who pressure him over the crown prince 113 115 116.
• Recruiting for dangerous assignments: He permits officials to recommend one another for the gambling crackdown and offers Embroidered Uniform Guard protection for their families 193.
• Evaluating reform: Drawing on his own experience of succession struggles, he recognizes that shared inheritance will create conflict within princely fiefs 200.
• Testing critics: He requires ministers who disparage Jian’s military leadership to produce workable alternatives, then challenges proposals that would expose an army’s provisions and baggage 288.

Recognizing and Rewarding Talent

• Practical innovation: He takes an interest in high-yield crops, inexpensive printing, literacy projects, and briquette coal 80 114 249.
• Personnel decisions: He approves Hou Yuchen’s transfer with Jian and appoints her to increasingly influential civil and military positions 81 152 200 287 289.
• Initiative beyond rank: He notices the diligence of Wu Nao, a young eunuch secretly practicing cooking skills, and decides to send him to the Jinyang Marquis’s residence 215.

Equipment / Weapons / Items

• Dragonkini — An imperial-yellow crocheted face covering made by Jian Ruonan, with dragon horns and two red circles supposedly representing good fortune. Deyuan initially dislikes its appearance but later wears it in the Imperial Study 207 316 317.
• Dragon throne — His seat in the Imperial Study and audience hall. He permits Jian to sit beside him while waiting to catch the First Imperial Prince stealing examination questions 194 217.
• Imperial private treasury — A financial resource he opens for disaster relief, with the money to be repaid by the Ministry of Revenue 152.
• “Elixir Pills” — Pills he consumes while pursuing supposed immortality. He also practices meditation and breathing exercises; no verified cultivation advancement is shown 439.

Relationships

• Jian Ruonan — Favored official and eventual daughter-in-law. He relies on her discoveries, protects her, grants her an Imperial Sword, and repeatedly promotes her, while fearing what she may reveal about him 81 93 200 289 428.
• Dantai Mo — Fourth son and eventual successor. Deyuan initially considers him for crown prince but shelves the succession after his paralysis. Mo later holds the crown prince’s position and succeeds him following his abdication 114 378 442.
• Dantai Jing — Second son, born to the Empress. Deyuan doubts whether his timid temperament suits the crown prince’s position 23 68.
• Dantai Ji — First Imperial Prince and eldest son, born to Lady Wu. His ordinary abilities and appearance leave him out of favor; Deyuan later imprisons him for examination-paper theft and strips his princely title 203 218 252.
• Dantai Huai / Mechuan Yaokuzi / Zheng — Former Third Prince, initially treated as Deyuan’s son. His schemes destroy Deyuan’s confidence in him, and the revelation of his Wa parentage leads to arrest and the loss of his title and surname 151 249 259.
• Tantai Feng — Son born to Consort Yi during the briquette-coal demonstration. Deyuan names him Feng and gives him the nickname “Briquette Coal” 249.
• Eldest Princess — Beloved younger sister who once shielded him from an attack. He turns to Jian to help overcome her fixation on Xue Yuanyu 92 93.
• Empress Dowager — Mother. She conceals Consort Xian’s scandal and arranges her death to protect the imperial family’s reputation and the Third Prince’s position 214 248.
• Consort Xian — Childhood companion and secondary consort. He initially mourns her as a woman who loved him sincerely, then learns of her connection with Mechuan Kuchazi and questions the Third Prince’s parentage 214 249.
• Consort Yi — Pregnant consort whose relationship with him becomes court gossip; later gives birth to Tantai Feng 81 249.
• Consort Yan — Dantai Mo’s mother. She and Deyuan are quickly won over by Xuan Xiaowu’s affectionate claims of kinship 354.
• Xuan Xiaowu / Tantai Xiaowu — Boy who claims to be Mo and Jian’s time-traveling son. Deyuan enthusiastically accepts him as a grandson, although a later passage notes that he is not actually their child 354 439.
• Cao Degui / Eunuch Cao — Senior palace attendant who serves him in the Imperial Study, carries out his instructions, and tries to help him avoid Jian’s embarrassing schemes 60 207 317.
• Wei Liren — Embroidered Uniform Guard officer who reports on investigations, military developments, and gossip, and pursues evidence concerning the Third Prince 168 242 248 329.

Story Role / Major Arcs

Recruiting Jian Ruonan

• First audience: Deyuan summons Jian in connection with the Eldest Princess’s child-switching scandal and discovers that he can hear her thoughts 60 61 62.
• Court appointment: He makes the ten-year-old Jian a subordinate ninth-rank Hanlin Attendant serving in the Imperial Study, then grants her the unwelcome “privilege” of daily morning-court attendance 81.
• Imperial Sword: After Jian helps end his sister’s hunger strike, he grants the sword partly to protect her from the enemies she has accumulated 93.
• Court accommodations: He moves a session to the afternoon and provides seating and refreshments for Jian near the officials pressing him over succession 113 114.

Reform and the Gambling Crackdown

• Official appointment: He selects Minister Shi Fan as Anti-Gambling Imperial Commissioner, rejects replacing him with the inexperienced Jian, and promises that she will assist 198 200.
• Order of Favorable Succession: He adopts Jian’s proposal, presented by Dantai Mo, to divide princely lands among every son rather than preserve each fief intact. The intended result is gradual fragmentation and internal rivalry without immediate warfare 199 200.
• Reward: He appoints Jian Grand Council Secretary and Attendant at the Imperial Court after learning that she devised the reform 200.
• Military funding dispute: When Jian requests about two million taels annually for her modernized army, he cites the empty treasury and proposes using confiscated gambling funds 245.

Imperial Family Scandals

• Third Prince’s failed scheme: Deyuan witnesses the staged bedroom incident involving an accusation against Fifth Miss Jian. He orders the prince to copy the Classic of Filial Piety one hundred times and undergo a month’s confinement, privately dismissing him as a potential heir 151.
• First Prince’s examination fraud: He joins Jian and the ministers in a concealed sting, catches his eldest son copying examination questions, and orders imprisonment after learning that the papers were intended for sale and faction-building 217 218.
• Consort Xian’s death: Jian’s thoughts overturn his belief that she died naturally and reveal the Empress Dowager’s involvement. He considers a blood-drop kinship test but later prefers asking Jian to injuring his finger 214 242.
• Paternity investigation: He has the Third Prince bound and removed, then orders a search of the prince’s residence for evidence following revelations concerning Mechuan Kuchazi and Wa contacts 248 249.

Rebellion and the Maiden Army

• Escaped princes: The First and Third Princes escape custody, leaving Deyuan afraid that the Previous Dynasty Treasure could finance a successful rebellion 258.
• Expedition: He authorizes Jian and Dantai Mo to pursue the former Third Prince, giving them three days to prepare 259.
• Triumphant return: After reports of a casualty-free victory over the Fire Ox Formation, he promotes Jian to principal second-rank Dragon-Tiger General and personally leads the court to welcome her 287.
• Further promotion: Once her strategy is explained, he raises her to first-rank General Zhaowu 289.
• Treasure dispute: His attempt to establish whether she seized the Previous Dynasty Treasure fails when Jian and her companions unanimously deny it 289 290.

Foreign Envoys and Diplomacy

• Northern Kingdom contest: He relies on Jian to answer Yuwen Shu’s humiliating behavior because directly punishing a foreign envoy could cause diplomatic trouble. Her victory secures ten thousand fine steeds 332 333.
• Gao Shou: After learning that Gao is a spy with a special ability, Deyuan becomes fascinated and tries the archery setup himself, requesting continued custody so he can return for more rounds 333 334.
• Wa negotiations: With the Northern Kingdom threatening war and the Three Feudatories plotting rebellion, he postpones the Wa envoys’ demand for prisoner releases. He summons Jian to expose the reality behind their claims of wealth, military strength, and a peerless prospective consort 364.

Succession and Retirement

• Marriage restraint: After accepting Xiaowu’s claim to be his grandson, Deyuan asks about arranging Mo and Jian’s marriage but immediately withdraws when Mo requests further consideration 354.
• Crown prince: Dantai Mo is subsequently shown holding the crown prince’s position 378.
• Abdication: Ten years later, Deyuan relinquishes the throne. Mo becomes emperor, adopts the era name Ruinan, and appoints Jian empress 442.
• Grandchildren: The Retired Emperor and Empress Dowager, formerly eager for heirs, later urge the couple not to have more children because of childbirth’s risks and strain 442.

Notable Quotes

“I intend to appoint female officials and female imperial physicians. Women are attentive to detail and can handle documents, while female imperial physicians can move about the harem more conveniently.” 81

“My dear Official Jian, come sit beside me!” 217

“Old gossip? Old gossip has a rich, mellow flavor! Hurry, give me the details!” 329

Trivia

• Deyuan commissions an Embroidered Uniform Guard Intelligence Department dedicated to following Jian and reporting her gossip. Competition for places in the department becomes fierce 329.
• He initially wants his ministers to wear Facekinis so he can laugh at them while avoiding one himself. Jian traps him through his insistence on being the “true dragon emperor” 206 207.
• The Facekinis’ apparent invisibility comes from Jian’s Hide function, not from the garments. Deyuan nevertheless accepts them as divine artifacts after the demonstration 209.
• He interprets elixir-taking as a path to immortality and chooses an elaborate Daoist title, but the supplied chapters document no genuine cultivation realm or breakthrough 439.
• During the childbirth bonus story, Deyuan is carried to the Eastern Palace and experiences prolonged labor pains while the pregnant Jian remains well enough to play mahjong 441.