At the stroke of Xu Hour, the Sage finished reviewing the last memorial and signaled to the palace attendants around him that he wished to retire.
There was little Li Yuanying could do. He had already entrusted the exhausting court audiences and banquet engagements to Baozhu. All he could do was live as long as possible, buying her time to accumulate political capital and hone her governing skills, and allowing the conservative ministers to grow accustomed to a woman's rule.
When he entered the Bedchamber, the eunuchs brought water to help the Sage wash. It was already late autumn, and another brazier had been added to the hall. He vaguely recalled hearing that every winter, Prince Shen ordered his concubines to crowd closely around his seat to keep out the cold, calling them his "fragrant enclosure."
Faced with an ascetic emperor who had mourned his parents for six full years, kept an empty harem, took no pleasure in food, and wore the same ordinary clothes through all four seasons, changing only to wash the dirty ones, those royal kinsmen and aristocrats who indulged their every desire naturally felt fear and awe, and did their utmost to keep a respectful distance.
The ministers were no different. With his mourning period nearly over, someone had submitted another memorial that day, earnestly urging him to consider taking consorts and acknowledge "heavenly principles and human desires." The implication could not have been clearer: whether he could perform in bed or not, he should at least put on the appearance of a normal emperor, lest every one of his subjects look like a creature of extravagant excess.
Li Yuanying merely sneered. He had made his younger sister Li Baozhu his heir, and the security of her position in the Eastern Palace rested on the emperor