According to the founding regulations of the Great Ming, officials were granted three days of rest for the Winter Solstice, five days for New Year's Eve, and ten days for the Lantern Festival.
If one did not count the single monthly day of rest, these holidays practically made up the entire year's leisure.
Yet now even the Winter Solstice had been filled with official business by the emperor, which left many Ming officials with an uneasy feeling.
At this rate, would the holidays for New Year's Eve and the Lantern Festival be cut as well?
After waiting an entire year only to find their rest uncertain, many officials felt increasingly worried.
Thus, when someone impeached the Duke of Cao for misconduct during the court meeting after the Winter Solstice, only a few voices supported the accusation.
Moreover, the supposed breach of decorum did not seem particularly serious to many officials.
Among the tributary states of Ming, only a few, such as the Ryukyu Kingdom, sent tribute two, three, or even four times a year.
Most tributary states came once annually, and the New Year was clearly the most appropriate time for such visits.
Therefore, the period around the New Year was the busiest time for the Honglu Temple, an institution that was otherwise usually quite idle.
During these days the small compound of the Honglu Temple gathered rare treasures, foreign dancers, fragrant spices, and curious goods from distant lands.
Buildings that stood empty most of the year suddenly became crowded. In the same courtyard one could feel different winds, and within the same hall many languages were spoken.
This itself had become a peculiar spectacle of the New Year in Yingtian Prefecture.
So when the Duke of Cao was discovered using a false name to mingle with Japanese envoys and call them brothers, it was hardly surprising.
That he was impeached afterward was even less surprising.
Court debate had always been a place for opinions to collide.
Some believed that such conduct by a duke disgraced the dignity of the state. Others argued that the duke had merely humbled himself in order to gather intelligence about the Japanese pirates, which showed admirable flexibility.
A few more radical voices attempted to guess the emperor's intentions and proposed that the Japanese envoys themselves were guilty of luring and corrupting the duke and should therefore be expelled.
Most of these officials were clearly recalling how the emperor had rejected tribute from Japan the previous year.
Yet to everyone's surprise, or perhaps exactly as expected, the Ming emperor responded to all these arguments with little enthusiasm.
Even the reactions to the two edicts issued before the Winter Solstice received only mild responses from him.
Instead, during the court discussion he slowly returned to an older topic.
The remnants of the Northern Yuan.
He praised Liu Guang for his desperate resistance in battle and commended Wang Lu for his bravery. Then his tone shifted.
He announced that after discussions with the Grand General Xu Da, they had decided to build a line of the Great Wall through the mountains north of Yongping Prefecture.
Using the mountains and the sea as natural barriers, the wall would link the surrounding ridges into a defensive shield. A new military command would be established there, called Shanhai Guard, to block incursions from the Hu Yuan and allow Hebei to recover in peace.
Within the territory of Shanhai Guard there would be thirty-two passes along the border ridges. The most formidable of them would be named Shanhai Pass.
Grand General Xu Da would oversee the entire construction of the Shanhai defensive city.
It was clear that the emperor was not seeking the ministers' opinions.
He was informing them of the strategic direction and policy the Ming court would pursue.
The officials felt both relief and concern.
They were relieved because they did not need to exhaust themselves devising grand strategies for state affairs.
Yet they were also uneasy, because it seemed they had little ability to influence those decisions anyway.
Fortunately, the details still required their work.
Such construction would require large numbers of laborers and soldiers.
Should the project rely on garrison troops or recruit impoverished civilians and relocate them?
Should grain supplies be transported through the Grand Canal or by sea?
These matters required careful discussion.
But in the end, what truly stirred excitement in the court was another announcement by the Ming emperor.
The holiday schedule would be changed.
The original holidays for New Year's Eve and the Lantern Festival would be combined. Two other rest days, those for the Heavenly Birthday Festival and the Beginning of Spring, would be moved to join them.
This arrangement would allow officials to rest continuously from New Year's Eve until the end of the Lantern Festival.
Everyone knew that the total number of rest days in the year would remain the same.
Everyone also knew that this was little different from the trick of "feeding three chestnuts in the morning and four in the evening."
Yet after months of exhausting administrative work, the officials had no energy left to argue over such things.
They truly felt relieved and sincerely happy.
For that reason, the officials of the Ming court declared that they would fully support any requirement the emperor might have regarding the construction of Shanhai Pass.
Not that they had much ability to oppose him anyway.
After the Winter Solstice passed, daily life for everyone, from the emperor down to commoners, increasingly revolved around the coming New Year.
Ordinary people would count the money they had saved over the year and consider the needs of their wives and children.
They might grit their teeth and buy a little extra grain or dried meat that they normally dared not even look at.
Those slightly better off might purchase a few lengths of cloth at the market so their wives could make new clothes.
That was the New Year for common folk.
For the emperor, however, the matters to attend to were far more numerous.
He had to conduct sacrifices to Heaven and to the ancestors, soothe the officials of the court, reward meritorious ministers, receive envoys from tributary states, review the gains and losses of the empire, and formulate plans for the coming year.
Though busy, Zhu Yuanzhang enjoyed it.
His son Zhu Biao was equally occupied and barely had time to rest. Yet since the establishment of the Eastern Palace Scholars, Zhu Biao's energy had visibly improved.
Clearly the added assistance had eased much of his burden, which pleased Zhu Yuanzhang greatly.
As the New Year drew closer, the festive atmosphere in Yingtian Prefecture grew stronger.
At this crucial moment, two ships arrived at the capital almost simultaneously.
Before their owners even stepped ashore, they had already recognized each other.
Before the vessels had fully stopped, Prince Qin, Zhu Shuang, took a running start. Using the protrusions along the ship's railing as leverage, he leapt across the gap between the two boats like a hawk and landed steadily on the neighboring deck.
The young man leading the other ship could barely conceal his joy.
"Second Brother!"
"Third Brother!"
The simple greetings revealed their identities.
Standing beside the waters of the Qinhuai River, the brothers exchanged a few words of greeting.
Their conversation soon turned to memories of their youth together, and as they spoke, Prince Jin, Zhu Gang, nearly began to cry.
Among the sons of Zhu Yuanzhang, Zhu Biao was the eldest and had always been the focus of his father's attention.
During the years of war, Zhu Yuanzhang had kept Zhu Biao close to him, teaching and guiding him personally.
Because their father and elder brother were often away, Zhu Gang, who had been born early as well, naturally grew closer to his second brother Zhu Shuang.
Their personalities even resembled one another somewhat.
"I thought that after we both departed to our fiefs two years ago, guarding the empire in our respective regions, I would never see you again."
"I never expected Father to summon both of us back at the same time."
Zhu Gang spoke at length about how much he had missed his brother.
Zhu Shuang burst out laughing.
"I have been curious about that cook of yours, Xu Xingzu. Is he traveling with you this time?"
Zhu Gang immediately turned a little red.
During the journey to his fief two years earlier, he had once whipped that cook and received a stern letter of reprimand from their father.
All the imperial brothers shared a healthy fear of Zhu Yuanzhang, and the story had quickly spread among them.
After laughing for a moment, Zhu Shuang lowered his voice.
"If that cook is with you, I will ask Father to grant him to me."
"When that dog of a cook arrives with me in Xi'an..."
He chuckled darkly, leaving the rest unsaid.
Zhu Gang felt a little moved and shook his head.
"I did not know Father had summoned you as well."
"But I also heard that Father has reprimanded Xi'an recently..."
Before he could finish, Zhu Shuang waved a dismissive hand and slapped the side of the ship.
"If I cannot build a residence, where am I supposed to live?"
"Father is being overly picky. Our Great Ming rules the world. Are we not even allowed to build a house?"