Planning

Wang Hao leaned back in his wide dragon throne, his fingers unconsciously stroking the imperial seal. On the red sandalwood imperial desk before him, two rosters lay quietly.

The one on the left detailed the spoils from last night's confiscations: eighteen million taels of silver, 1.2 million acres of fertile land, and countless antiques, paintings, estates, and shops. To Wang Hao, however, this massive fortune was merely a beginning.

His gaze was fixed on the roster on the right—the list of twenty-four officials arrested overnight by the Brocade Guard and thrown into the imperial prison, along with the positions they had vacated.

Wang Hao picked up his vermilion brush and, without a shred of hesitation, drew heavy red circles around two specific positions.

Commander of the Five Wards Military Command.

Director of the Bureau of Equipment and Communications in the Ministry of War.

Zhang Wuji, oh Zhang Wuji, my powerful Vice Grand Secretary, I am afraid you did not sleep a wink last night, did you? Wang Hao muttered with a cold smirk. You must think that my arrest of these twenty-four men was simply to clear obstacles for a regime change in the imperial guards, to kill the chicken to scare the monkeys. If so, your vision is too narrow. How could the Great Zhou empire be cured by merely killing a few people?

Wang Hao's eyes grew profound. As an emperor with a modern soul, he knew all too well where Great Zhou's terminal illness lay—not in foreign enemies, nor in the anomalies walking in the dark, but in a financial and bureaucratic system that was rotten to the core.

Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun. That much was true. Last night's operation had allowed him to firmly grasp the hilt of the 330,000-strong imperial army. But to feed this army, gradually take control of the border troops and local garrisons, and even forge an invincible force that could sweep across the world, merely raiding the homes of a few corrupt officials was far from enough.

He needed a machine capable of continuously generating fresh blood for the empire. And these twenty-four men were precisely the targets he had carefully selected to build this machine!

Wang Hao's gaze fell on the words Five Wards Military Command, and a grand blueprint for reform rapidly formed in his mind, like a tabletop war game.

The Five Wards Military Command, a mere sixth-rank office, nominally managed the capital's security and fire prevention. But in reality, they held the most core power: the management of capital merchants and the collection of market taxes! It was a highly lucrative domain, yet it had become a lawless backyard for noble families and corrupt officials.

Destroy before you construct. Wang Hao set down his vermilion brush, his fingers tapping rhythmically against the desk, producing a steady thud-thud sound.

I will raise a Great Zhou General Taxation Bureau straight from the corpse of the Five Wards Military Command! A sharp light burst from Wang Hao's eyes.

Rank? A sixth-rank is nothing! He would elevate it directly to a second-rank! Not only at the ministerial level, but directly under the Grand Secretariat! Without absolute rank suppression, how could he pry tax silver from the jaws of those deeply rooted noble families? How could he plug the tax evasion loopholes that leaked like a sieve?

How would the Grand Secretariat view this newborn department? If they gave it up and let it report directly to the emperor, imperial power would surge, and the eunuchs of the inner court would hold the lifeblood of the Grand Secretariat and the Six Ministries. If they did not give it up, the Grand Secretariat would have to take the lead in clashing with the noble families, forcing them to pay taxes. Such a difficult choice, heh heh heh.

But this was not foolproof. If the Grand Secretariat realized the trap and counterattacked, he would lose more than he gained.

Wang Hao was well-versed in the art of political exchange. He had already prepared a poisoned apple to pacify the civil official faction: expanding the authority of the Ministry of Justice and the Court of Judicature and Revision.

Strip the Five Wards Military Command of its policing powers and transfer them entirely to the Ministry of Justice. Not only that, Wang Hao calculated with a cold laugh in his heart, I will also issue an edict to let the power of the Ministry of Justice and the Court of Judicature and Revision sink from the capital directly down to the provinces, prefectures, counties, and townships! The Court of Judicature and Revision will likewise be promoted to the second rank, working with the Censorate to split the judicial and prosecutorial powers of local chief officials! Look how I have broken my heart trying to reduce the burden on those governors, prefects, and magistrates, and arranging posts for expectant officials. You civil officials should be thanking me.

You say you cannot afford them? What is the taxation department under the Grand Secretariat's leadership doing? If you cannot collect taxes, it only proves your incompetence, and the taxation department will be handed over to the inner court, letting the eunuchs of the Directorate of Ceremonial collect the taxes.

This was an open scheme, eating three meals from one fish, and he would eat all three.

From the perspective of the civil official faction, the emperor was delegating power! With the power of the Ministry of Justice and the Court of Judicature and Revision expanding to the counties and townships, the tentacles of the civil officials' power would penetrate the grassroots. This was absolutely a monumental boon that the civil official faction would love to see. To swallow this fat piece of meat, they would actively cooperate with the establishment of the General Taxation Bureau and incorporate it into the Grand Secretariat.

Wang Hao would not be doing a thankless job!

The civil officials of Great Zhou are not all running dogs of the noble clans. Wang Hao's smile grew colder. Scholars from humble backgrounds who passed the imperial examinations make up two-thirds of the bureaucracy. Where you sit determines what you think. When the power of the Ministry of Justice and the Court of Judicature and Revision extends to the townships, those ambitious officials from humble backgrounds, eager to make merits and climb the ranks, will inevitably clash violently with the noble families who monopolize the power of local gentry.

By then, officials representing the interests of the noble families and those representing the humble scholars will inevitably tear each other apart over the struggle for grassroots judicial and tax collection powers! A monolithic civil official faction? Hah, I want to see, when you dogs bite each other over uneven power distribution, who will have the mind to manage me, or even beg me to be the referee! You will even actively cooperate with my local garrison reforms, because I will not strip the Ministry of War of its half-control over the local garrisons; I will also give the local garrisons the responsibility of assisting the tax departments in collecting taxes.

Wang Hao's gaze naturally shifted to the second red circle: Director of the Bureau of Equipment and Communications in the Ministry of War.

This position, responsible for managing the empire's relay stations, mobilizing military horses, and maintaining official roads, seemed like a thankless task that ran a deficit every year. But in the eyes of Wang Hao, a transmigrator, this was simply an undiscovered gold mine!

Relay stations running deficits year after year? That is because these civil officials are as stupid as pigs!

He had already thought of a strategy. Next, he would deliberately leak rumors, letting the Eastern Depot and the eunuch servants of the inner court madly fight for positions in the General Taxation Bureau, putting on the greedy face of an emperor using eunuchs to amass wealth. The civil official faction would inevitably be outraged, fixating on the General Taxation Bureau and fighting to the death to stop the eunuchs from taking power.

And while everyone's attention was on the taxation bureau, Wang Hao would effortlessly strip the control of the relay station system from the Ministry of War entirely, taking it into the inner court to establish the Great Zhou Royal Postal and Logistics General Bureau! Responsible for its own profits and losses, the civil officials would be more than willing to dump this burden.

Those slaves in the Directorate of Palace Eunuchs, relying on just a few words from me, actually managed to invent cement. Wang Hao's breathing grew somewhat heated at the thought of this.

With cement, the official roads of the empire would no longer be muddy, wretched paths. He was going to build Great Zhou Royal Highways and set up toll booths at every major traffic chokepoint! Once the logistics network was rolled out, the relay stations would no longer be a burden to the imperial court, but a super bloodline controlling the flow of goods across the realm, the transmission of intelligence, and the frantic accumulation of wealth!

Once the logistics network was established, the next step would be to open the Great Zhou Royal Bank. After that, he would use the crown's absolute authority to demolish the slums in the northern and southern districts of the capital for real estate development...

It was a chain of interlocking schemes, all for the sole purpose of amassing wealth!

"Your Majesty."

A remarkably soft call interrupted Wang Hao's train of thought.