bayedsolid Chapter 200 The Empress's Path to Breaking the Impasse
Chapter 200 The Empress's Path to Breaking the Impasse
Yesterday's discussion of rise and fall ultimately amounts to a dried-up prophecy in the *Tui Bei Tu* (a Chinese prophecy book).
"Water can carry a boat and shape destiny, while weapons can break trees and bury the glory of youth."
Longji, the reigning empress of the Dachong Kingdom, first allied with her aunt, Princess Linglong, and then killed her to seize the supreme position of Goddess.
She was actually a woman, born on September 8, 685, which was the fifth day of the eighth month of the first year of the Chuigong era...
Cicadas chirped on the ancient locust tree, and the copper bells on the eaves trembled, producing a sound like shattered gold.
As Xiao Si, the head lady of the Imperial Household Department, unfolded the yellowed Book of Fate, a barely perceptible tremor ran through her fingertips.
All three tortoise shell hexagrams are in the pattern of metal (酉). As the candlelight flickers, it is as if a sharp blade is piercing the air, startling a wooden hairpin from her temple.
"When Yi Wood meets the third You, this is a situation where the golden wind cuts through the tender reeds." Old Gong Zian's hoarse voice, tinged with sandalwood shavings, echoed under the palace dome.
The compass needle on the table spun wildly, and in the smoke billowing from the bronze beast head, a scene of an infant crying was vaguely outlined—on the bluestone path of the west corner gate of the Yeting Palace, where locust blossoms drifted, a baby girl wrapped in a crimson swaddling cloth was left behind in the white dew of August.
Twenty years later, on the Cold Food Festival, the newly appointed Shanggong Zhen Xiaosi knelt before the abandoned well in the Cold Palace.
The three silver bracelets on her wrist clinked together with a clear, melodious sound, just like the sound of copper coins being tossed when the Imperial Household Department determined one's destiny.
The well water reflected the waning moon, and the wood shavings from the gold-plated tools fluttered in her memory:
At seven, a broken celadon brush washer cut her palm; at fourteen, an iron pestle from the laundry department shattered her skin; and last night, a copper lock in the Imperial Archives broke off half of her fingernail.
"Your master is lacking in water and fire in his destiny!" The wandering Taoist's divination stick container seemed like a chattering old man, spitting out a blood-stained peach wood stick. The Taoist was struck as if by lightning, suddenly kowtowing and unable to get up, his face full of fear, as if he had seen some terrible scene.
At this moment, Xiao Si dipped the blood-stained handkerchief into the well. The blood instantly congealed into cinnabar upon contact with the water, and then turned into winding ink marks—just like the Buddhist scriptures she had copied over the years. The words that should have been words of redemption became the shadows of a prison on the paper...
When the midnight gong startled the roosting crows, the gilded incense burner in the Shanggong Bureau collapsed with a crash.
The moment the flames licked the sandalwood desk, Xiao Si suddenly saw the truth of the current empress's destiny:
The Three Metal Formations (三酉金局) trap more than just the Wood element (乙木)!
The tiny bit of Wu Earth hidden within the Xin Metal had already tempered the blood and bones of the Empress's dragon spine into the sharpest blade through twenty years of wind and snow.
The Heavenly Stem Yi of the Dragon's Backbone belongs to Yin Wood (that is, the wood of flowers and grasses), symbolizing flexibility, strategy and dependence.
Next, let's look at the Earthly Branch You (酉) of the Dragon's Backbone: it belongs to Yin Metal (Xin Metal), symbolizing the power of killing, decisiveness, and change.
Next is the most down-to-earth year pillar, Yi-You: it indicates that wood (Yi) is restrained by metal (You), foreshadowing that she will have to grow up under great pressure in her early years.
Looking at her month and day pillars, they are Yi-You month and Yi-You day.
The month of Yi-You (the eighth month of the lunar calendar, from the solar terms White Dew to Cold Dew):
The month branch, You (酉), is in power, and its metal energy is extremely strong, further suppressing Yi (乙) wood.
The day master Yi-You indicates that the day master Yi wood sits on You metal (which is a death position), the wood is weak and the metal is strong, the life chart is unbalanced, and water is needed to balance it or fire to control it.
However, the most terrifying thing is that her birth chart actually contains three Yi-You (meaning that the year, month, and day are all Yi-You), which is an extreme imbalance of the five elements, with metal and wood clashing!
A woman named Longji, who also possesses the element of metal (specifically, the element of metal in the third month of the lunar calendar), is destined to be a strong, assertive, and overly powerful woman—ruthless, rigid, and with an excessive capacity for change.
However, the decline of Wood (also known as the Three Wood) indicates that her resilience and strategic attributes are restricted, making her prone to being passively attacked in the situation.
Overall, even though the Dragon Girl was blessed with a destiny, she was still far from perfect.
Her destiny lacks water: without water to nourish wood, the wood element has no source.
The power of fire is also insignificant: without fire, nothing can overcome metal. Since there is already an abundance of metal in one's destiny, its power is difficult to suppress!
At the same time, the earth element is weak: earth can generate metal, but the earth element is not prominent in the original chart, and is only hidden in the metal element (mainly metal element, containing a small amount of earth).
Dragon's Backbone in its Early Years: Wood Rises with the Power of Water, and a Young Girl Achieves Success
Water transport aids: Born in the year of Yi You, Longji experienced the Bing Xu (fire and earth) and Ding Hai (fire and water) luck cycles in his early years.
The Hai water (Dinghai luck period) is the birth place of Yi wood. Water nourishes wood, helping him to keep a low profile. After joining forces with Princess Linglong to kill the prince consort's faction, in 710, he wiped them out and seized power to ascend the throne.
Therefore, the Dragon's Backbone chart has a favorable balance of metal and wood elements!
The gold master made the decisions, while the wood master devised the strategies. The combination of the two enabled Longji, a woman, to be courageous and patient during the coup, and ultimately achieve great things!
Xiao Si also saw that the year was in the luck of fire and earth, so the Da Chong Dynasty under the rule of Longji was showing signs of prosperity. This period was so similar to the Tang Dynasty...
Suddenly, the golden dragon pillar in the Ziwei Palace emitted a resounding clang, and Xiao Si's fingers, holding the star chart, trembled slightly.
The dragon's spine, which was coiled beneath the gilded dome, was undergoing a strange change—the dragon scales, which originally shimmered with azure and gold light, were now being eroded inch by inch by a blinding platinum color.
"Your Majesty," she said, kneeling before the dragon-patterned imperial desk, a divination she had performed the previous night concealed in her sleeve, "while Prime Minister Yao's new policies are good, the excessive earth element generating too much metal may lead to a situation where the dragon, having overextended itself, will regret its actions."
Longji leaned back on the dragon throne, playing with a Hetian jade paperweight, while the fragrance of lotus flowers mixed with sandalwood from Taiye Pond wafted in through the window.
"You're overthinking it, Sir."
She smiled and pointed to the pile of reports on her desk, "Last year, the Ministry of Revenue added 300,000 hectares of land to the register, and the warhorses on the Longyou pastures are plump and strong. Isn't this a sign of the prosperity of the land?"
Little Si gazed at the crimson flame patterns dancing on the emperor's purple robe, recalling what she had seen while stargazing last night:
The constellation Fang in the Eastern Azure Dragon's Seven Mansions flickers unpredictably, while the five stars of the constellation Bi, formed from condensed metal energy, shine eerily brightly.
She bit her lower lip and finally swallowed the words, "Too much gold will break."
On a clear morning when spring thunder rumbled, as Song Jing entered the Xuanzheng Hall carrying the "Memorial on Equal Land Distribution," Xiao Si noticed that his temples were adorned with the scent of green wood.
The newly appointed scholars filed in, each with a faint crimson halo above their heads.
When Yao Chong put forward the "Ten Things to Say," a magpie suddenly brought a bright peach blossom from outside the hall.
It's clearly a year of bright and auspicious wood and fire.
The sundial in front of Hanyuan Hall cast a long, thin shadow, and the armor of the Golden Guards gleamed with a reddish-copper light in the sunlight.
Xiao Si watched as the golden aura on the dragon's spine was melted into brilliant golden liquid by the fire of ritual, finally suppressing the restless, murderous golden aura for the time being.
On the Lantern Festival night of the third year of the Tianbao era, Xiao Si stumbled and fell at the Star-Gazing Platform.
The golden stars in the western sky formed a fierce white tiger shape, while Jupiter, which should have protected the east, was so dim that it was almost invisible.
She sought an audience with the emperor overnight, but was stopped by Gao Lishi outside Xingqing Palace.
"Does the official know that Fanyang has sent sixty-four cartloads of pearls?" The old eunuch lightly swept his whisk, and the ethereal music of the "Rainbow Feather Garment Dance" drifted from within the palace walls. "Governor An is inside, recounting interesting tales from beyond the Great Wall..."
The little ox clenched the tortoise shell in its sleeve, the cracks winding like weeping blood.
She saw that the eerie yellowish-brown mist still swirled on the hem of the robe of the Dragon Spine's favorite minister, while the fat An Lujian's purple robe faintly revealed the sharp edge of black and gold demonic energy.
Even more terrifying is the dragon's spine—the once majestic image of the Azure Dragon Empress has now had its scales peeled off, revealing stark white bones...
On the day of the Awakening of Insects in the Jiawu year, the sky in the direction of Fanyang suddenly turned blood red.
As the little rhinoceros rushed up the city wall, it saw thousands of meteors, carrying golden light, crashing down on the Central Plains.
She finally understood the true meaning of the hexagram's "overflowing Three Metal Formations": it wasn't the powerful and influential, but a bloodbath unleashed by iron cavalry!
The glazed tiles of Daming Palace shattered amidst the smoke of war, and the luminous jade cup in Longji's hand suddenly exploded!
Wine mixed with blood dripped onto the tattered pages of the "Tui Bei Tu" (a Chinese prophecy book), soaking the prophecy of "the golden knife."
Little Rhinoceros took one last look at the starry sky; the Purple Star Emperor was falling into the jaws of the Tiger and Wolf constellation.
The dragon's natal trigram is Dui, which belongs to metal and represents a lake. Its symbolism signifies disputes, pleasure and indulgence, and the omen of change.
As a woman, Longji was ambitious and enterprising in her early years, just like the "firm inside and gentle outside" posture contained in the Dui hexagram, full of heroic spirit and capable of maneuvering.
However, as the years passed and she entered her later years, she indulged in a life of pleasure and debauchery, completely losing her former fighting spirit and ambition. This perfectly reflects the "extreme joy turns to sorrow" in the hexagram Dui, and is inextricably linked to the hexagram of "great destruction," leaving people sighing with regret.
Xiao Si originally intended to unite with a group of young men to try to reverse the situation and salvage the defeat that had shifted from the Qian hexagram to the Kun hexagram.
In the Qian hexagram, the ninth and fifth positions symbolize the dragon's spine of the empress. With the "dragon's spine in the sky," the monarch's power was at its peak, the world was at peace, and all things presented a scene of prosperity and flourishing.
During the Kun hexagram period, the power of women gradually returns, and the two clash, ultimately leading to the Empress's "dragons fighting in the wild," and the order of strength and gentleness is thrown into chaos! When yin and yang fight each other, the world will inevitably fall into chaos and turmoil.
In 756 AD, Xiao Si and others could only watch helplessly as the "Water and Fire in Harmony" hexagram suddenly changed into the "Fire and Water in Disharmony" hexagram.
Even with all their efforts to replenish the water and fire, they still could not stop the collapse of order. The emperor and his ministers became estranged, and the once prosperous and glorious era vanished like a dream.
Xiao Si slowly began to speak:
"The Dragon's Backbone's destiny is dominated by the metal element, which weakens the wood element. In his early years, he rose to prominence thanks to the harmonizing effect of water. In his middle age, he achieved great success by using fire to restrain the metal element. However, in his later years, the excess of metal and water led to complete failure. How can we easily change this predetermined fate? Water, though a powerful force in his early years, becomes the root of his downfall in his later years..."
Zi'an shook his head gently and sighed, "There's no solution. This is inherently a contradiction, a balance of yin and yang. The nature of Yi Wood is inherently resilient and adept at planning. In their early years, they seize power through forbearance, which is a plus. However, in their later years, they inevitably fall into the quagmire of indecisiveness..."
Xiao Si seemed to be deep in thought, and murmured, "Yes, the metal element of the dragon spine that governs the Empress originally compensated for the lack of decisiveness and ruthlessness that women often lack. During the prosperous era, she worked diligently to govern the country and bring peace to the world. However, in her later years, she became autocratic and arbitrarily decided to listen to and trust those treacherous and sycophantic people who shared her metal element, which is truly heartbreaking..."
Zi'an further stated: "From the perspective of the dragon's spine, the fortune of the Da Chong Dynasty was bound to collapse when the metal element was strong. However, the specific circumstances of the An Lushan Rebellion, such as the heavy use of barbarian generals and the disaster caused by Consort Yang, were merely accidental events of the times, and all the blame should not be attributed to this."
Xiao Si sighed deeply, his expression solemn, and slowly said, "Extreme prosperity inevitably leads to decline, extreme joy to sorrow, and everything in its extreme will reverse! Therefore, being half poor and half rich is enough to bring peace... Nothing in this world can escape this rule..."
Zi'an suddenly joked, "Half poor, half rich, half Zi'an, huh?!"
After saying this, the two looked at each other and couldn't help but burst into laughter.
Before the laughter had completely subsided, the official's expression turned serious, and he gazed intently into the distance:
"Half wise, half foolish, half sage, the Dragon Spine is currently mired in a quagmire, and the dynasty is in disarray, teetering on the brink of collapse... But, seemingly at its lowest point, it is actually a time of great fortune! Don't forget, the Dragon Spine is destined to be an empress, possessing its own extraordinary qualities. Don't just see the current decline, but also the power lurking in the shadows, quietly gathering..."