Everything is ready, and all we need is an east wind.

As a result, the matter proceeded even more smoothly than Wang Hao had anticipated.

When Sun Li reported Wang Hao's proposal to the current Empress Dowager, Lady Sun, she did not object at all. Instead, she was so pleased that she ate an extra bowl of bird's nest porridge.

The Empress Dowager had long despised those vixen-like women!

In his youth, the late emperor could have been considered a capable ruler. But towards the end, as if possessed by some madness, he became deeply obsessed with women. He aggressively drafted women, taking all the beauties presented from various regions into his harem. He spent his days indulging in wine and flesh, even neglecting his true wife, the Empress, for the sake of these women. This led the late emperor to become extremely incompetent, ultimately resulting in his life force being drained dry by an anomaly.

In the Empress Dowager's eyes, those seductive vixens bore half the responsibility for the Great Zhou Dynasty falling into its current state.

"Tell them to get out! Get out immediately!" The Empress Dowager smashed a teacup in the Palace of Compassion and Tranquility, issuing a stern order. "Just looking at them makes me sick! Since the Emperor has issued a decree, I fully support it! Sun Li, coordinate with Nanny Sun by my side. Before dark today, I want to see this harem completely clean!"

As soon as the Empress Dowager's decree was issued, coupled with the full cooperation of Sun Li and the eunuchs of the Directorate of Ceremonial, the entire harem was instantly thrown into a frenzy.

Those young concubines, who originally thought they would spend the rest of their miserable lives in the cold palace, could hardly believe their ears when they heard that the emperor was actually giving them severance pay and allowing them to remarry. After a brief moment of shock, the harem erupted into bursts of weeping tears of joy.

In less than a day, a massive convoy of horse-drawn carriages drove out of the palace's rear gates.

At dusk, inside the Sweet Spring Palace.

Sun Li held the final severance roster and respectfully presented it to Wang Hao.

"Reporting to Your Majesty, the Empress Dowager acted with sweeping resolve. As of now, within the late emperor's harem, excluding the Empress Dowager and three dowager consorts who have borne children, all other childless concubines have been issued their settlement allowances and dismissed from the palace. They are currently being escorted by the Imperial Guards back to their respective hometowns."

Wang Hao took the roster and asked casually, "Oh? That's quite efficient. How many people were dismissed in total?"

Sun Li lowered his head and swallowed hard, his voice trembling slightly. "To reply to Your Majesty... a total of five hundred and seventy-eight concubines, attendants, and consorts were dismissed."

"Pfft—cough, cough, cough!"

Wang Hao, who was holding a teacup and drinking water, spat out a mouthful of premium Cloud Mist tea directly, coughing repeatedly.

"How... how many?!" Wang Hao's eyes widened, looking at Sun Li as if he had seen a ghost, thinking he had misheard.

"Five hundred and seventy-eight," Sun Li repeated once more.

Wang Hao was completely dumbfounded. He held the thick roster, flipping through the densely packed names on it, every page filled with absurdity.

Five hundred and seventy-eight wives! And this was only the ones who hadn't given birth! Counting those who had, just how many women had the late emperor stuffed into this harem?!

"Holy shit..." Wang Hao couldn't help but swear, a bizarre sense of reverence rising in his heart for the cheap father he had never met. "This guy... was an absolute nuclear-powered machine! Three hundred and sixty-five days a year, a different one every day, and he wouldn't even repeat one for a year and a half! No wonder he needed to take pills; even kidneys made of iron couldn't withstand this!"

Five hundred and seventy-eight people—just the settlement allowances alone cost the inner treasury nearly three million taels of silver!

No wonder the national treasury was empty, no wonder Great Zhou was doomed! With this kind of spending, even mountains of gold and seas of silver would be hollowed out!

Wang Hao threw the roster heavily onto the table and let out a long breath of stale air. With the harem cleared out, not only did it save a massive amount of annual expenses for cosmetics and powders, but more importantly, those spies from noble families who might have been hiding among the concubines were also completely swept out the door.

The inner court of the Great Zhou Dynasty was finally, truly, and completely under his sole control.

"Everything is ready; all we need now is the east wind."

Wang Hao stood up and pushed open the window of the Sweet Spring Palace.

The sky outside had turned completely dark. In the distant northern borders, the black mist blocked by the city's protective array looked even more ferocious and terrifying in the night, like a prehistoric beast ready to devour the world at any moment.

And closer, within the capital, countless mansions were brightly lit. Those powerful figures in the imperial court might still be raising their glasses to celebrate their victory in the Hall of Supreme Harmony today, or perhaps they were still plotting how to completely strip this young emperor of his power at the grand assembly in three days.

They had no idea that a massive net woven from blood, money, and absolute violence had already been quietly cast.

"In three days..."

Wang Hao sneered, his gaze piercing through the night, as if he could already see the grand spectacle of heads rolling in the Hall of Supreme Harmony.

"I will be waiting for you to attend court."

...

Following Wang Hao's command from within the Sweet Spring Palace, the dark night of the entire capital completely boiled over.

The Brocade Guards and the Eastern Depot, these two ferocious beasts that had been chained by the successive past emperors of Great Zhou, erupted with terrifying efficiency after Wang Hao unchained them and fed them with flesh and blood.

At midnight, the streets and alleys of the capital were filled with the urgent sound of horse hooves and the clanking of armor. The sharp whistles of the Eastern Depot operatives and the ringing of the Brocade Guards' embroidered spring swords being drawn from their sheaths intertwined, becoming the most deadly symphony of the night.

"Bang!"

The gates of a luxurious mansion in the south of the city were kicked to pieces, and dozens of ferocious Brocade Guards charged in.

"Arresting by imperial decree! The people in this mansion are suspected of colluding with the rebel Ye Chen to assassinate His Majesty. Take them all away! Anyone who dares to resist will be killed on the spot!" A Brocade Guard Centurion coldly waved his hand.

At the same time, the underground black markets, casinos, and brothels in the west of the city also met the bloody purge of the Eastern Depot operatives.

"The Director has ordered! This capital is a vital place; how can we allow scum like you to hide your filth here? These gang thugs gather intelligence on a daily basis; it's hard to guarantee they haven't been secretly communicating with assassins. Arrest them all!" A senior operative of the Eastern Depot pinched his fingers in an orchid mudra, his voice shrill, but his eyes were as cold as a venomous snake's.

Not only humans, but those low-level anomalies and evil spirits that usually hid in the dark corners, sewers, and abandoned morgues of the capital also suffered terrible luck. The evil-warding talismans and black dog blood equipped by the Brocade Guards were splashed around as if they cost nothing. For a time, the agonizing screams of anomalies echoed in the sky above the capital.

In just one night, the public order in the capital saw an immediate improvement. The local thugs and hooligans who usually ran rampant didn't even dare to make a peep, let alone commit petty thefts. When the common people of the capital went out the next morning, they even felt that the air was fresher.

But while the commoners clapped and cheered, the high-ranking officials and nobles in the capital fell into an unprecedented panic.

The secret villa of Zhang Wuji, the Secondary Minister of the Cabinet.

The door to the secret room was tightly shut, and a soundproofing array was set up all around. In the massive secret room, over forty core officials of the Great Zhou imperial court were currently sitting shoulder to shoulder.

The Minister of Works, the Right Censor-in-Chief, the Right Vice Minister of Rites, the Left Vice Minister of Revenue, the Right Vice Minister of Personnel... even a fifth-rank mid-level official with substantial practical power like the Director of the Carriage Bureau was present. Any single one of these figures possessed enough influence to make the entire capital tremble. Yet at this moment, their faces were exceedingly grim, each looking worse than the last.