This Is My Imperial Guard, the Sons of Noble Families

Half a day later.

On the drill grounds of the Northern Army camp, a dense crowd of forty-eight thousand "private soldiers" stood, having just been forcibly conscripted from various noble estates.

They didn't even have proper military uniforms. Dressed in assorted martial outfits, leading their horses and bringing their families along, their faces were etched with confusion, panic, and bewilderment.

They had been sold by their masters.

For a hundred and fifty taels of silver, like livestock, they were sold to the Emperor along with their parents, wives, and children. Faint sobbing from women and children rippled through the crowd. A desolate atmosphere spread over the drill grounds. It was entirely natural to feel terrified when uprooted from a familiar environment to a strange place.

Loyalty? Right now, aside from resentment and fear, these people held not a shred of loyalty toward the Emperor. Their peaceful lives had been shattered.

Wang Hao knew this better than anyone. Bought soldiers were mere mercenaries; they could fight when the winds were favorable, but the moment the tide turned, they would run faster than rabbits.

What he wanted was not a horde of walking corpses who only worked for coin. He wanted to turn this cavalry into his fanatic believers, into "good sons" who would brave boiling water and tread through fire for him, willing to die ten thousand deaths!

Wang Hao slowly walked out of the main tent, the Son of Heaven's sword hanging at his waist. He stood on the high commander's platform, looking down at the sea of panicked faces below.

The soldiers of the sixteen infantry guards and the four Royal Guards formed up on the perimeter, watching these newcomer cavalrymen with vigilant eyes.

"Soldiers!"

Wang Hao spoke. Carried by his robust true qi, his voice rolled like spring thunder, instantly drowning out all the noise and sobbing, exploding in the ears of the over three hundred thousand-strong army.

The forty-eight thousand cavalrymen shuddered, raising their heads to look at the young Emperor on the high platform with awe.

"I know exactly what you are thinking right now!" Wang Hao's gaze was as sharp as a blade. "You feel that you have been sold like livestock by your masters! You feel that from this day onward, your lives, and the lives of your families, are held in My hands, living in constant precariousness!"

A slight commotion stirred through the crowd; this was precisely their deepest fear.

"But I stand here today to tell you clearly and unmistakably—" Wang Hao abruptly drew the Son of Heaven's sword, pointing it straight at the heavens. "From today on, you are no longer anyone's private soldiers! You are no longer domestic slaves to be beaten and scolded at will! You are My soldiers! You are the Royal Imperial Cavalry!"

"I know that when you served as private soldiers for those nobles, you risked your lives every day just to exchange for a few scattered bits of silver. But what about when you grow old? What about when you are crippled or maimed? You wouldn't even have a burial plot to call your own!"

"What you want is not just to survive, but to live like human beings! Today, I give you this chance! I give you a home! But all I ask for is your loyalty!"

"Boom!"

Everyone's breathing grew heavy as they looked at the Emperor in disbelief. Give them a home? What did that mean?

Wang Hao did not pause, directly unleashing the ultimate trump card he had prepared for so long—land reform!

"A few days ago, I raided the estates of those corrupt and lawless wicked vassals! Around the capital region, I seized top-grade irrigated farmland, a full six hundred thousand mu!" Wang Hao's voice seemed to carry a certain magic, striking the heart of every single person word by word. "I now announce! These six hundred thousand mu of land will all be designated as Royal Estate Fields! And you!"

He paused, his gaze sweeping over those faces flushed red with extreme tension, and roared:

"Every person! Every household! Will be allocated fifty mu of land!!!"

"Buzz—"

If handing out the buyout fees earlier was like blowing up a pot among the nobles, then this sentence, "allocated fifty mu of land," was equivalent to directly detonating a nuclear bomb amidst this crowd of lower-class soldiers!

For the lower-class martial artists and commoners of the Great Xia Dynasty, the thirst for land was carved into their souls and dissolved in their blood! That wasn't just dirt; that was their lifeblood for carrying on their family line! It was a protective talisman to ensure generations would never go hungry!

"Not only that!" Before they could react, Wang Hao continued to announce loudly, his voice cracking slightly from excitement. "Your families will be reorganized into villages, two hundred households to a village! These six hundred thousand mu of land will belong entirely to the Royal Estate, under the direct jurisdiction of the Directorate of Ceremonial! You will not need to pay any exorbitant taxes or levies to the local government! You will not have to serve any local corvée labor!"

"Every year, you only need to pay Me a thirty percent rent! The remaining seventy percent is entirely yours!!!"

Madness!

The entire field went utterly mad!

Tenant farmers in the Great Xia Dynasty who worked the fields for those black-hearted landlords usually had to pay fifty or even seventy percent in rent! They would work themselves half to death all year round and couldn't even afford a full meal. Paying thirty percent? How was that any different from giving it away for free?!

Fifty mu of irrigated land! Only thirty percent rent!

What did this mean? It meant that as long as a family had a martial artist serving in the cavalry guard, their whole extended family would not only be fully fed and warmly clothed, but in a few years, they could even build a new house, take a wife, and thoroughly step into the ranks of the well-off!

"Thud!"

A weather-beaten veteran, leading his warhorse, fell heavily to his knees in the dirt. He didn't speak; he just dug his fingers fiercely into the mud, tears surging out like floodwaters bursting a dam, and then frantically kowtowed toward the high platform like a pounding pestle.

"Thud! Thud! Thud!"

Like toppling dominoes, the forty-eight thousand newly incorporated cavalrymen, without anyone hesitating, without anyone giving an order, along with their families, all fell to their knees in a dense, dark mass.

The sound of weeping shook the heavens and the earth. It was the stifled grievances of half a lifetime, transforming at this very moment into fanatical fervor for the Emperor!

"Vast is the Emperor's grace!!! Long live His Majesty!!! Long live!!! Long, long live!!!"

"We are willing to be ground to dust for Your Majesty! For generations to come, we shall fight to the death for Your Majesty!!!"

Loyalty?

Standing on the high platform, Wang Hao felt the fanatical wave of heat rushing toward him. Without even needing to check the system, he knew that the loyalty of these forty-eight thousand cavalrymen was absolutely maxed out at this moment, firmly locked at a perfect 100!

Right now, if anyone dared to say a single bad word about Wang Hao, or if anyone dared to stop them from keeping those fifty mu of irrigated land, these red-eyed cavalrymen would dare to hack the King of Heaven himself to pieces and feed him to the dogs!

Meanwhile, on the perimeter of the drill grounds.

The soldiers of the sixteen infantry guards and the four Royal Guards watched this, their eyes turning green with envy. That was fifty mu of irrigated land! And no local miscellaneous taxes!

Heavy panting rose and fell throughout the infantry formations. If not for the strict military discipline, they would have loved nothing more than to drag those cavalrymen off their horses right now and take their places.

Wang Hao keenly caught the red-eyed jealousy of the infantrymen. This was exactly the effect he wanted!

He suddenly spun around, pointing his longsword at the two hundred and eighty thousand-strong army on the perimeter, and laughed aloud:

"Brothers who didn't get land! There is no need to be jealous! You are My Imperial Guards, My Royal Guards! I will never show favoritism!"

"Today, I set down the rules for you right here! As long as you train hard in the skills of killing the enemy, and establish military merit on the battlefield! I will equally allocate land to you! I will equally exempt you from taxes!"

"The empire of the Great Zhou is vast! The surrounding barbarians and rebels are numerous! As long as the blades in your hands are fast enough, there is plenty of unclaimed land waiting for you to take! We shall never be stingy with Our rewards!!!"

"Kill!!! Kill!!! Kill!!!"

The entire army of three hundred and thirty thousand, both cavalry and infantry, erupted at this moment with a roar that tore through the firmament. The sound pierced the heavens, shattering the very clouds in the sky.

Morale had reached its absolute peak! The army's resolve was like hundred-tempered steel, completely unbreakable!

Behind the high platform, the Duke of Zhenguo and a group of military generals exchanged glances, seeing deep awe in each other's eyes.

This sixteen-year-old little emperor possessed such brilliant methods and unfathomable grace and might that he was practically a monster! The carrot and the stick? No, he would first shatter your knees with a club, and then completely overwhelm you with mountains of gold and silver and fertile lands, making you willingly and wholeheartedly become the sharpest, most fanatical blade in his hands!

Thus, through thunderous purges, irresistible financial buyouts, the enticement of high-ranking and lucrative positions, and this stroke of genius that was the land reform, Wang Hao completely took control of the Sixteen Guards of the Forbidden Army, the Four Guards of the Cavalry, the Four Guards of the Royal Guard, and the Two Guards of the Cleansing Army.

A total of three hundred and thirty thousand elite, ferocious troops had thoroughly become Wang Hao's personal die-hard loyalists!

The hilt of the blade was firmly grasped in his hands!