Fearing being killed for his overwhelming merits, the empress decided to marry him.

The construction of the Futu Tower proceeded smoothly as scheduled, and the foundation work officially began.

For a time, the northern suburbs of Nanjing were bustling with activity.

It was now late October, and the Empress's due date was fast approaching.

After reviewing the project's progress and giving a few instructions to the Ministry of Works, Shen Lian immediately rushed back to the palace to be with Jiang Mengxuan.

Shen Lian was extremely nervous about becoming a father soon.

How should one raise a daughter?

"By the way, give her the best comfortable life from a young age, teach her martial arts, hire the best teachers to teach her, and give her the best treatment."

"If she gets sick, I stay by her side day and night."

“If he wants to go out and play, at least sixteen trustworthy martial artists will guard him.”

"Yes, she's my little darling after all. If I don't treat her well, who else can I treat well?"

"You want to raise her in luxury, right? She doesn't seem to lack anything materially, but she needs to cultivate her spirit properly so she won't be deceived by some men's sweet talk in the future."

In the past few days, Shen Lian has repeatedly imagined how to educate his daughter.

As for the son...

"Just hang it on the wall."

"If you dare to disobey, we'll beat you. You little brat, do you think you can defy the heavens?"

"Assign him more homework so he won't bother me."

Fortunately, such a strong preference for women over men remained only in his mind; if the palace had found out, who knows what kind of trouble it would have caused.

Upon returning to the palace, Jiang Chaojun reported: "Your Majesty, the Taiji Kingdom has sent intelligence."

"So fast?"

Shen Lang was taken aback, and immediately took the secret letter handed to him by Jiang Chaoyun.

"If we calculate the time, it should have been ten days ago when Ban Dingyuan and Wang Xuance suddenly launched the Taiji Kingdom Palace Coup and completely took control of the palace."

"what?"

Upon hearing this, Shen Lang immediately opened the secret letter to read it.

"I asked them to persuade Taegeuk to end its tributary relationship with Goguryeo, but they pulled this stunt on me. What the hell?"

After reading the contents of the secret letter, Shen Lang and Jiang Chaoyun both fell silent.

The wind howled, and for a full quarter of an hour, the two stood motionless in place.

They looked at the letter over and over again, only to stare at each other blankly.

If it weren't for the guard behind him yawning, one would think they were seeing a still image with the pause button pressed.

"Ugh."

Even Shen Lang, who didn't care much about the process, couldn't help but sigh after reading about the general process of Ban Dingyuan and Wang Xuance launching the palace coup.

The cause was both laughable and absurd; it all stemmed from Ban Dingyuan and Wang Xuance eating an extra piece of fatty meat at a palace banquet.

It turned out that after Ban Dingyuan and Wang Xuance were entrusted by Shen Lang to go to Taiji Kingdom to negotiate with King Li Ren'ai and persuade him to give up his allegiance to Goguryeo, they boarded a ship bound for Goryeo.

Seven days later, the Great Chu fleet successfully anchored at Renzhou Port.

During this time, Ban Dingyuan and Wang Xuance discussed and simulated the diplomatic process countless times. However, after meeting Grand Prince Li Ren'ai at the Pingzhou Palace, they realized that theoretical discussions were useless.

As its name suggests, the Kingdom of Taiji was a country where, after several rounds of negotiations, the two discovered that the rulers and ministers of Taiji only knew how to play the game of Taiji.

Moreover, their boasting was truly earth-shattering.

They claim their territory is the largest in the world and that the Korean people are the most outstanding.

Ban Dingyuan and Wang Xuance, thinking of adapting to local customs, did not pay much attention to such arrogant behavior. They only wanted to reach an agreement with Li Ren'ai in a calm manner, so that he could launch a surprise attack on Goguryeo from behind when the Northern Yan was at war with Goguryeo.

However, to everyone's surprise, when the two men proposed that King Li Ren'ai and his ministers should not be concerned about whether or not to send troops, they firmly denied that they were a vassal state of Goguryeo, and said that the people of the most noble Taegi Kingdom in the world would never be vassals of others, and demanded that Ban Dingyuan and Wang Xuance apologize.

This angered Ban Dingyuan so much that he wanted to return to Jinling, but fortunately Wang Xuance persuaded him to stay.

Thus, the two sides stayed at the Taiwang Palace in Pingjing for about seven days. Ban Dingyuan and Wang Xuance showed their utmost sincerity and earnestly requested that the Taiji Kingdom's high-ranking officials adopt their opinions.

Unfortunately, aside from boasting about the fantastical achievements of the Taegi Kingdom, the rulers and ministers of Taegi, including Li Ren'ai, remained ambiguous about their stance on breaking with Goguryeo.

This caused the two to gradually lose patience.

These past few days, the state banquets have featured pickled cabbage, pickled radishes, pickled scallions, and pickled wild vegetables, which has given the two of them a real stomachache.

A plate of boiled pork slices was unusually served at the banquet that day, which made the two, who hadn't eaten meat in a long time, envious and unable to resist eating an extra piece.

Unexpectedly, just because they ate an extra piece of meat, the two of them were scolded by the entire palace.

These words were incredibly offensive, with everyone shouting "seumida" and "baji baji" incessantly, and the warning was even displayed outside the palace gates in three languages.

Finally, the two left the King's Palace amidst almost unanimous insults and ridicule from the entire court.

Back at the inn, Ban Dingyuan and Wang Xuance grew angrier the more they thought about it.

They came to negotiate peacefully and discuss countermeasures, not to be subservient to your Taiji Kingdom!

How dare someone insult a diplomatic envoy? If this gets back to the State of Chu and his colleagues find out, will he still be able to hold his head high?

So, they made a crazy decision.

I'm not acting anymore, I'm too tired!

If you try to teach me a lesson with words, don't blame me for using guns to kill you.

Since you won't accept the toast, then don't drink the penalty drink either; just flip the table.

Therefore, he immediately summoned his 300 guards and secretly sent people to Inju Port to transfer marines to provide assistance.

That night, in the dead of night, Ban Dingyuan and Wang Xuance immediately led three hundred guards armed with 98k rifles and Thompson submachine guns to launch a coup at the palace.

The coup lasted for a full 35 minutes before quietly coming to an end.

The process went so smoothly that even Ban Dingyuan found it somewhat hard to understand.

When the royal guards saw the Chu army escort appear, they immediately gave up resistance, covered their heads with their hands and trembled, and let the people into the Taiwang Palace.

Upon entering the inner courtyard, a minor conflict ensued.

However, after the Chu army guards fixed their bayonets and prepared to fight to the death, the guards, who were holding swords, all dropped their weapons, knelt down, and begged for mercy.

In this way, without firing a single shot, Ban Dingyuan and Wang Xuance successfully took control of the palace.

When Li Ren'ai, wearing a bathrobe, knelt tremblingly before the two men, Ban Dingyuan and Wang Xuance still couldn't believe that the plan was going even more smoothly than they had anticipated.

To prevent Li Ren'ai from launching a counterattack, the two detained all the palace guards and ordered people to quickly take control of all the gates of Pingzhou.

The night passed without anything happening until 500 Marine Corps soldiers arrived, at which point Wang Xuance and Ban Dingyuan finally breathed a sigh of relief.

At this moment, Li Ren'ai was no longer the arrogant person he had been before. Facing the heavily armed Chu army, he was meek and submissive.

"Long live the Great Chu! May the Great Chu last forever!"

Seeing this lovable fool's submissive and humble appearance, Ban Dingyuan and Wang Xuance were both amused and exasperated.

Finally, he immediately forced Li Ren'ai to write a letter severing diplomatic relations with Goguryeo, which was then posted at the newly opened morning market.

"What a talent! Our Great Chu is truly full of talented people."

After witnessing the palace coup orchestrated by Ban Dingyuan and Wang Xuance, Shen Lang was truly speechless.

He put away the secret letter and said to Jiang Chaoyun, "You should go back first. I will personally explain things to His Majesty."

"Yes."