The Eunuch Faction Blocks the Way

The midnight capital was as profound as a giant beast waiting to devour people. The night wind blew through the empty long streets.

Grand Secretary Zhang Wuji sat upright in his eight-bearer sedan chair, his eyes slightly closed. His fingers gently tapped his knees to a rhythm only he could hear. Before and after his sedan chair were clustered over a dozen official sedan chairs of similarly impressive specifications, and the outer perimeter was followed by hundreds of courtyard martial artists holding lanterns and with sharp blades hanging from their waists.

"The little emperor is still too green after all." Zhang Wuji let out a cold laugh full of superiority in his heart.

Although he admitted that Wang Hao had used thunderous methods to issue full military pay to the 330,000 strong capital garrison, and even used so-called "profit sharing" to win over a group of bottom-level soldiers—a beautiful move that exceeded his expectations. But so what?

In the imperial court of the Great Zhou, it had always been "food and fodder go before troops and horses." No matter how well your army can fight, as long as the Ministry of Revenue cuts off your rations and pay, and the Ministry of War refuses to allocate weapons, your 330,000-strong army will mutiny within three months! Furthermore, the Great Zhou ruled the world with filial piety. No matter how great the imperial power was, it could not surpass the word "filial piety."

"As long as I enter the Palace of Compassion and Tranquility tonight and state before the Empress Dowager that the little emperor is heavily relying on the factory guards, ruining the ancestral laws, and provoking the wrath of heaven and the resentment of the people..." Zhang Wuji looked as if victory was already in his grasp.

In order to balance imperial power, the Empress Dowager would inevitably go with the flow and issue an edict. At that time, the title of righteousness would be on his side. If the little emperor dared to defy the edict, it would be a great unfilial act, and the spit of scholars all over the world could drown him; if he obeyed the edict, he would have to obediently abolish the factory guards and hand over military power...!

"Stop—!"

Just as Zhang Wuji was immersed in the scheming of his impending victory, the sharp shout of the butler suddenly came from outside the sedan chair.

Immediately afterwards, with a muffled "bang," the eight-bearer sedan chair braked suddenly. Caught off guard, Zhang Wuji's body lunged forward, and his forehead hit heavily against the wooden frame of the sedan chair, hurting so much that he gasped.

"Bastards!!" Zhang Wuji lifted the sedan curtain and growled with burning anger, "What is going on?"

However, when he poked his head out and saw the scene outside clearly, this Grand Secretary who had experienced two dynasties and whose expression would not change even if Mount Tai collapsed before him, felt his heart twitch violently and disappointingly.

There was no reply from the butler, who just pointed forward: "Master, this..."

Zhang Wuji looked in the direction of the butler's finger, his pupils suddenly shrinking.

On the wide imperial street leading to the Chengtian Gate of the imperial palace ahead, a human wall made of steel had densely erected at some unknown time.

It was thousands of armored imperial guards. Holding long halberds and wearing iron masks, they blocked every inch of the road leading to the imperial city like a Great Wall of steel. And in front of these armored soldiers were hundreds of Eastern Depot guards wearing brown shirts and pointed hats. They carried blood-dripping Ministry of Works waist sabers in their hands, their eyes as cold as if they were looking at a group of dead people.

A pungent smell of blood permeated the air. This was definitely not the smell left by slaughtering pigs and sheep; this was the smell of having just killed people, and more than one!

"Lord Grand Secretary... this... what should we do?"

The officials in the sedan chairs behind also squeezed out at this moment. Feng Xiang, the Right Censor-in-Chief who usually spoke eloquently and pointed out the state of affairs in the court, was now as pale as paper, tightly grasping the window lattice of Zhang Wuji's sedan chair; Shen Jian, the Director of the Bureau of Equipment and Communications who was in charge of the deployment of carriages and horses in the world, was so frightened that even his official hat was crooked, and his whole body trembled like a sieve.

"What are you panicking for! Dignified court officials, what a scandal!" Zhang Wuji was a man who had seen great storms after all. He suppressed the uneasiness in his heart, flicked his sleeves violently, and stepped straight out of the sedan chair.

He saw through it at a glance; this was definitely the little emperor playing tricks! Where did the assassins come from? It was clearly the little emperor who had realized their intentions and deliberately set up such a formation to stop them from entering the palace!

"Absurd! This is simply the biggest joke in the world!"

Zhang Wuji laughed out of extreme anger. Relying on his status as Grand Secretary, his superb martial arts, and the backing of the Great Zhou's ancestral system, he didn't believe that these lowly ruffian soldiers and eunuch partisans dared to touch a hair on his head. He strode to the forefront of the team, pointed his finger at the group of Eastern Depot guards opposite, and roared with his beard and hair bristling:

"I am Zhang Wuji, the current Grand Secretary! I am entering the palace on an important matter to present to the Empress Dowager! You eunuch slaves, how dare you lead troops to blockade the imperial street and stop a current cabinet minister, what is your intention?! Could it be that you want to rebel?! Hurry up and get out of my way!"

His words were mixed with the vigorous internal energy of the Seventh Stage Astral Qi Realm of Martial Dao, exploding like rolling muffled thunder on the long street, trying to suppress people with his aura and deter these bottom-level guards.

However, facing the thunderous wrath of the Grand Secretary, not a single person among the Eastern Depot guards and armored imperial guards opposite took a half step back. They just silently tightened their grip on the hilts of their sabers, their eyes even colder.

"Hehehehe..."

Just when both sides were at daggers drawn and the atmosphere was suppressed to the extreme, a burst of laughter faintly came from behind the crowd of Eastern Depot guards.

The guards blocking the front respectfully parted to both sides like a wave, making way for a passage.

A middle-aged eunuch wearing a bright red python robe, with a fair and beardless face, slowly played with a string of red sandalwood Buddhist beads in his hands. Surrounded by a group of eunuch directors, he walked out with a faint smile.

It was exactly the Superintendent of the Eastern Depot, Wei Zhongxian!

"Ouch, who did I think it was, yelling and screaming on the street in the middle of the night. So it is Lord Grand Secretary." Wei Zhongxian bowed slightly, making an extremely exaggerated expression of surprise, but an inexplicable light flashed in his narrow eyes.

His feminine voice dragged out the tone: "Instead of hugging your concubine and sleeping in your mansion, why did Your Lordship run to the foot of this imperial city to join in the fun? Could it be... Your Lordship is also an accomplice in the assassination of His Majesty?"

A monstrous hat of being "an accomplice in the assassination of His Majesty" was directly buckled down without even giving any foreshadowing.

"Wei Zhongxian! You eunuch, stop spitting blood here!" Zhang Wuji pointed at Wei Zhongxian's nose, trembling all over with anger. "His Majesty was assassinated? I think it is you group of eunuch thieves deceiving His Majesty and plotting rebellions! I am going to enter the palace right now to see the Empress Dowager and expose your conspiracy! Get out of my way!"

"Oh? Is that so?" Wei Zhongxian was not only unafraid, but instead revealed a playful sneer.

"Lord Grand Secretary, I advise you to lose your temper less." Wei Zhongxian said faintly, his gaze crossing over Zhang Wuji to look at the shivering officials behind him. "I didn't come here tonight to stop you. I have obtained concrete evidence that a rebellious party has colluded with the Tartars with the intention of assassinating the monarch and rebelling! Not only does this group of rebels have a large number of accomplices in the capital, but there are also court officials involved, and they even raise bizarre evil spirits in their homes!"

"Arrest? Arrest whom?" Zhang Wuji's heart skipped a beat. Forcing down the panic welling up inside him, he sternly demanded, "Behind me stand the appointed officials of the imperial court, the pillars of the Six Ministries! Wei Zhongxian, you are nothing but a domestic slave of the inner court. Without the approval of the Three Judicial Offices, and without the drafted edict from the Grand Secretariat, how dare you privately apprehend and interrogate high-ranking imperial officials?! Are you plotting a rebellion!"

Zhang Wuji spoke these words with awe-inspiring righteousness. Every word and sentence was strictly anchored to ancestral rules and state laws, attempting to overwhelm the other party with his imposing aura.