The Hall of Imperial Supremacy was a cavern of silent, suffocating formality. It was the grandest throne room in the Forbidden City, a vast space designed to awe and intimidate. Massive pillars of red lacquer, wrapped in golden dragons, soared upwards to a coffered ceiling where a golden dragon writhed in a heaven of intricate carvings. The air was thick with the scent of aged wood, cold bronze, and the faint, ever-present smell of sandalwood incense.
This was the center of power, but for Ying Zheng, it was merely a stage for a tedious and elaborate play. He sat on his own throne, a smaller, slightly lower chair placed between the two identical, larger thrones of the Empress Dowagers. His seat was positioned to make him look like a cherished child being presented by his two mothers, a symbol of filial piety and harmonious rule. In reality, it made him feel like a carefully placed piece of ornamentation.
On the Dragon Throne to his left, Cixi was the picture of regal authority, her face a mask of stern, dignified concern. To his right, Ci'an seemed more withdrawn, her gentle face looking slightly overwhelmed by the grandeur and tension of the proceedings.
Below them, on the polished stone floor, the assembled dignitaries of the Great Qing stood in rigid, silent rows according to their rank. On one side were the Manchu princes and nobles of the Imperial Clan, their robes dark and heavy, their faces proud and stoic. On the other were the high-ranking Chinese mandarins, the scholar-officials who administered the vast empire, their robes embroidered with the colourful rank badges of cranes, peacocks, and golden pheasants. They all stood with their heads bowed, a sea of official hats topped with colored knobs and peacock feathers.
The business of the day was grim. Prince Gong, the younger brother of the late Xianfeng Emperor, stood alone in the center of the hall. He was a man of considerable influence and intelligence, one of the few senior figures Ying Zheng had identified as potentially competent. He was presenting a report on the Yellow River flood, and his voice, though formal and measured, carried an undercurrent of grave urgency.
"…the preliminary reports from the governor of Henan, which assured the court that the dikes were holding, have proven to be tragically optimistic," Prince Gong stated, his gaze fixed on a point on the floor just before the dais. "The emergency funds allocated by the Board of Revenue for the purchase of grain and the reinforcement of the southern dikes at the Kaifeng bend appear to have been… misappropriated. The grain stores are empty, and the dike reinforcements were made with sand and straw, not the stone and mortar that were paid for."
A low, unhappy murmur rippled through the assembled officials before being instantly silenced by a sharp glance from Cixi.
Prince Gong continued, his voice growing grimmer. "We have now received direct memorials from local magistrates, bypassing the provincial governor. They tell a different story. They speak of a catastrophic failure being imminent. They predict that with the next surge of water from the upper reaches, the dikes will not hold. The result will be the inundation of three prefectures, the displacement of millions of souls, and the potential for famine and widespread rebellion."
Cixi listened, her face hardening into a mask of imperial displeasure. This was more than a natural disaster; it was a crisis of governance. It was a direct challenge to the court's authority, a stark revelation of the corruption and incompetence that festered within the bureaucracy. This was the kind of crisis that could topple a dynasty.
She began a rapid-fire discussion with Prince Gong, her voice sharp and clear. "The governor of Henan is to be stripped of his post and brought to the capital for interrogation immediately. Who is the most senior official we can trust to take command of the situation?"
"Imperial Censorate Deputy Zuo Zongtang is a man of proven integrity and military experience," Prince Gong suggested. "But he is currently engaged in suppressing the Nian rebels in the north."
"And so the debate began, a familiar dance of names, jurisdictions, and political considerations. The court was focused, the tension palpable. And no one, not a single person in that vast hall, was paying the slightest bit of attention to the small boy sitting on the little throne. He appeared to be lost in his own world, his head tilted down, his small fingers idly fiddling with the brightly colored silk tassels on his sleeve. He looked like what he was supposed to be: a bored, incomprehensible child, a silent placeholder in a game played by adults.
But Ying Zheng was not bored. He was listening with an intensity that would have terrified them all. He was processing Prince Gong's report, comparing it to the dry, technical details of the historical memorials Weng Tonghe had read to him. He remembered the passages about river dynamics, about the endless, cyclical battle against the silt that gave the Yellow River its name. His mind, the mind that had overseen the construction of the Lingqu Canal, one of the greatest feats of ancient hydrological engineering, saw the problem with absolute, brutal clarity. They were all fools. They were fighting the symptoms, not the disease.
Then, the boy spoke.
His voice was not loud. It was the small, high-pitched voice of a four-year-old, yet in the tense, focused silence of the grand hall, it cut through the air like a tiny, perfectly sharpened knife.
"You must dredge, not block."
The debate between Cixi and Prince Gong halted instantly. Every official in the hall froze. It was as if a statue had just spoken.
Ying Zheng lifted his head, his dark eyes sweeping over the stunned faces below him. He did not seem to be addressing anyone in particular, but rather making a proclamation to the room itself.
"The silt from the Loess Plateau rises every year," he continued, his voice eerily calm and steady. "To raise the dikes higher is to raise the riverbed itself. You are not containing the river; you are lifting the dragon onto your rooftops, waiting for it to fall. Guide the water, do not fight it. The main channel at the Kaifeng bend must be deepened. The old relief channels must be cleared. Give the dragon a path, and it will follow. Cage it, and it will break free."
Silence.
Absolute, stunned, deafening silence.
Every eye in the Hall of Imperial Supremacy, from the highest-ranking Manchu prince to the most junior Chinese scribe, was fixed on the small child sitting on the throne. The officials were paralyzed with a mixture of disbelief and confusion. Prince Gong stared, his mouth hanging slightly agape, his report forgotten. Cixi's eyes, which had been wide with surprise, narrowed into dangerous, analytical slits.
The words the boy had spoken were not childish babble about dragons. It was a concise, technically accurate, and strategically sound summary of a specific school of hydrological engineering. More than that, it was a direct, if simplified, quote from a famous memorial written by a successful viceroy during the reign of the Qianlong Emperor, a document that had become a classic case study in river management. A document that Ying Zheng had cajoled his tutor into reading aloud to him just the day before, under the innocent guise of "learning about the great deeds of the glorious ancestors."
Standing amongst the ranks of mandarins, Weng Tonghe felt a wave of icy sweat break out on his back, chilling him to the bone. He recognized the words. He recognized the concepts. He had read them to the boy. But he had read them as a history lesson, a story. He never imagined, not in his wildest dreams, that the child would absorb them, understand their complex technical meaning, and then apply them with such stunning, perfect relevance to the current crisis. It was impossible.
Ci'an, ever the peacemaker, tried to shatter the unnerving tension with a nervous little laugh. "Oh my," she chirped, her voice sounding unnaturally loud in the silent hall. "It seems His Majesty has been listening very, very closely to his lessons with Grand Tutor Weng!"
But no one was laughing with her. The comment only served to draw dozens of sharp, questioning glances towards the trembling tutor.
Cixi, however, stared directly at the boy. The vague unease she had felt on the day of his enthronement, the feeling that something was deeply wrong, returned with the force of a physical blow. Where did a four-year-old child learn such things? How could he possibly comprehend and articulate such a complex strategy? It was impossible. Unless… unless the shell of the child Zaitian was inhabited by something else entirely. She looked past the small frame, past the childish face, and for a fleeting, terrifying moment, she felt the chilling weight of an ancient, primordial authority in his cold, dark eyes.
With a supreme effort of will, she quickly regained her composure. Her mind, honed by decades of political intrigue, saw both the danger and the opportunity. She would defuse this bizarre moment and turn it to her advantage.
"The Emperor is wise beyond his years," she announced, her voice ringing out, smooth as silk and twice as strong. "His divine insight, a gift from Heaven itself, has reminded us all of the proven wisdom of our ancestors." She turned her gaze to Prince Gong. "The Son of Heaven has spoken. Prince Gong, you will dispatch engineers to investigate this approach immediately. The court will support you with all necessary resources."
She had done it. With a few masterful sentences, she had deftly turned an unnerving, inexplicable event into a testament to the boy-emperor's divine mandate, while simultaneously reasserting her own position as the one who translated that divine will into action.
But the seed of profound suspicion, once a tiny, nagging doubt, had now taken root deep in her mind. This child was not what he seemed.
Later that night, long after the court had been dismissed and the Forbidden City had fallen into its guarded slumber, Ying Zheng was not practicing with fire. Fire was rage, a blunt instrument. The problem of the river required a different kind of power.
He stood in his silent bedchamber before a large bronze basin filled with clean water. The surface was as still and reflective as a black mirror. He stared into it, not with the cold fury that fueled the flames, but with a different kind of will: the pure, focused, implacable concentration of a master engineer, a builder, a commander. He wanted to move the water. He wanted to understand the principles of guidance he had spoken of in the throne room.
He stared at the water, his entire consciousness focused on a single point on its surface. He pushed with his mind, not with a violent shove, but with a gentle, insistent pressure. Move.
For what felt like an eternity, nothing happened. The effort was immense, far more difficult and draining than creating fire. A dull ache spread from his temples throughout his skull, and his vision began to blur at the edges. But he did not relent.
A single, tiny ripple appeared on the surface of the water, disturbing the perfect reflection. It radiated outwards and vanished. He pushed again, harder. Another ripple appeared, stronger this time. Then another, and another, until the entire surface of the water was trembling, dancing in the moonlight as if touched by an invisible wind.
He let out a shuddering breath and stepped back, a wave of dizziness washing over him. He had to brace himself against the edge of the bed. But he had done it. He had moved water with his mind.
A slow smile touched his lips. He knew now. His power was not just the dragon's fire. It was the dragon's will. The power to command the elements themselves. He was weak. He was a prisoner. But he, the First Emperor, had all of eternity to learn, to practice, to master his new gifts. And with them, he would not just save this pathetic dynasty. He would reforge it into an empire the likes of which the world had never seen.