The Fate of the Nobility

Before Zhang Wuji could open his mouth to refute, Hai Dafu abruptly spun around. With a heavy thud, his knees slammed onto the floor before the imperial steps. Facing Wang Hao, he knelt and roared through his tears.

"Your Majesty! We servants are untalented, and though we haven't read the sages' books for many days, we know how to care for Your Majesty! If only Your Majesty issues an edict to hand over the Courier Bureau and all the relay stations in the world to the Directorate of Ceremonial, establishing the 'Great Zhou Royal Postal Administration'! We servants hereby sign a military pledge of life and death!"

Hai Dafu violently raised his head, the veins on his aged face bulging as he shouted out, word by word, a number that instantly suffocated everyone present:

"From now on, if the Directorate of Ceremonial governs the operation of the world's relay stations, not only will we stop asking the state treasury for a single copper coin! This servant guarantees that the Royal Postal Administration will not only hand over one million taels of silver to the inner treasury every year, but also remit two million taels of silver to the state treasury!!! If we are short by even one tael, we servants volunteer to be executed by a thousand cuts!"

Hai Dafu raised the stakes again; the Directorate of Ceremonial was determined to win the jurisdiction over the relay stations.

Boom!!! If establishing the Taxation Bureau earlier was an earthquake, the number Hai Dafu just threw out was heaven-shattering and earth-shattering!

Shocking! Handing over three million taels of silver, and doing it every year.

Inside the Fengtian Hall, over a hundred of the Great Zhou Dynasty's top elite officials were all acting like toads struck by lightning. Their mouths were wide open, their eyes bulging, having completely lost the ability to think.

Three million taels of silver every year?

Zhang Wuji's pupils violently shrank to the size of pinpricks, his ears buzzing. His first reaction was: These damn eunuchs have completely gone mad! They've gone mad with the desire to seize power!

No one knew the virtue of the world's relay stations better than Zhang Wuji. With an annual deficit of several million taels, there wasn't even enough to feed the men and horses. How could they possibly not only not ask for money, but turn around and earn three million taels? This was simply a fantasy!

But... but...

Zhang Wuji stared fixedly at Hai Dafu's face, which showed absolutely no sign of faking, and then abruptly looked up at the emperor, who was sitting high above, his face still as calm as water.

A terrifying bolt of lightning suddenly struck through Zhang Wuji's aged mind!

No! Eunuchs didn't have the brains for this! Eunuchs also didn't have the guts to make such a military pledge right in the golden throne room!

There was an expert guiding them from behind! And this expert, other than the one on the dragon throne, who else could it be?!

Every hair on Zhang Wuji's body stood on end at this very moment. He finally saw through the deepest purpose of the emperor's chain of toxic schemes!

The emperor wasn't acting out of spite at all; the emperor was robbing them in broad daylight!

The relay stations were running a deficit because bureaucrats all over the world were freeloading off the imperial court's carriages and horses. The emperor now wanted to cut out this deficit hole entirely, and then use the eunuchs as "white gloves" to completely monopolize the lifeblood of the world's logistics and information flow, turning it into the emperor's personal wealth-gathering machine!

"Your Majesty, you must not!!!"

Zhang Wuji, like an old beast driven into a corner, let out a hoarse roar. He scrambled forward on his knees for a few steps, holding his court tablet high above his head with both hands, trembling all over.

"Your Majesty! The relay stations are a public instrument of the state, established for the transmission of vital military and state affairs. How can they be used to pursue profit like merchants? For the imperial court to engage in business and compete for profit with the people is the path to ruining the nation! If the eunuchs use the relay stations to forcibly gather wealth, in order to scrape together those three million taels, they will surely suck the marrow from the bones and exploit the common people! This will leave the people with no means of livelihood and throw the world into chaos! Once this precedent is set, there will be endless troubles in the future, and the thousand-year foundation of Great Zhou will be destroyed in a single day, Your Majesty!"

Every word of Zhang Wuji's speech stood on the side of righteousness, raising the Confucian shield of "valuing agriculture and suppressing commerce" and "not competing for profit with the people" to the highest level.

"Vice Grand Councilor Zhang, your words are sheer nonsense."

An extremely gentle voice sounded above Zhang Wuji's head.

The Director of the Western Depot, Yu Huatian, slowly walked up to Zhang Wuji. He looked down upon this Vice Grand Councilor of Great Zhou from a superior height. A mocking smile hung on that face, which was even more exquisitely alluring than a woman's.

"Since our Directorate of Ceremonial is taking over the relay stations, we naturally have our own methods." Yu Huatian bent down slightly, his narrow phoenix eyes staring fixedly into Zhang Wuji's eyes. "Since we are not taking a single copper coin from the state treasury, how can it be called exploiting the common people?"

Yu Huatian straightened up, his voice instantly turning sharp and echoing throughout the hall: "The common people of Great Zhou don't even have enough to eat, where would they get the money to send letters? Where would they get the money to hire carriages? If we are to collect money, we will collect it from those wealthy merchants with tens of thousands of strings of cash around their waists, who want to use the eight-hundred-li express to transport silk and tea!"

"We earn the money of the rich and use it to pay full wages to those bottom-tier relay station guards who are about to starve to death, so they can have a hot meal. Isn't this ten thousand times better than you lords of the Ministry of War, who just freeload without paying, forcing the relay station guards to become bandits and raise the banner of rebellion?!"

"Utter nonsense! Twisting logic!"

A censoring official from a noble family completely couldn't listen anymore. His eyes bloodshot, he jumped up like an angry bull, pointing at Yu Huatian and cursing loudly:

"Eunuchs interfering in state affairs, engaging in business to gather wealth, this is inherently a hen heralding the dawn, a violation of ancestral laws, and great treason! You are using fallacies to bewitch the monarch! Even if I smash myself to death in this Fengtian Hall today, I will never agree to hand over the relay stations to you treacherous subjects!"

Having said that, the censoring official abruptly turned around. He actually closed his eyes, lowered his head, and like a cannonball fired from its barrel, charged toward that thick, golden-thread nanmu dragon pillar in the great hall with a fearless determination to die!

The civil officials let out a chorus of exclamations, but a glimmer of hope flashed in Zhang Wuji's eyes. As long as blood was spilled, the emperor would have to compromise! This was the rule of the court since ancient times!

However.

Just when the censoring official's head was less than three feet away from the dragon pillar.

"Tch—"

At the very front of the noble faction, a burly man who had been watching coldly from the sidelines, like a clay idol or wooden statue, suddenly let out a disdainful sneer.

Immediately following.

"Bang!"

A large foot kicked out violently from the side, landing accurately on the censoring official's backside.

"Ouch!"

The censoring official, who had been preparing to "leave his name in history," was sent flying sideways like a torn sack by this kick. He skidded seven or eight meters across the smooth golden bricks, falling flat on his face, knocking out two front teeth, and wailing with a mouthful of blood.

"Which bastard..." The censoring official covered his mouth, just about to curse out loud.

But he saw a military general stepping out from the ranks of military officers with large strides. He was nine feet tall, exceptionally robust like an iron tower, and had a face full of a thick beard.

Although he was wearing the official robe representing the first rank, the terrifying murderous aura radiating from him, forged in mountains of corpses and seas of blood, instantly caused the temperature of the entire hall to plummet.

The number one figure in the Great Zhou military, Zhang Jing, Duke of Ying!

Zhang Jing didn't even look at the censoring official who was searching for his teeth on the floor. With a cold face, he slowly swept his intimidating, bell-like tiger eyes over the civil officials kneeling on the ground, dumbfounded.

"You think only you civil officials are noble? You think only you civil officials care about face? Smashing into pillars at the drop of a hat, what kind of loyal martyrs are you pretending to be!"

Zhang Jing spat fiercely. His voice boomed like a massive bell, reverberating so powerfully that dust cascaded from the ceiling of the great hall:

"When war breaks out and the borders are in peril, why don't I see your flippant tongues up on the city walls slaughtering the enemy?!"

The military generals and martial nobles had finally entered the fray. Striking at the civil officials' most vulnerable moment, they unleashed decades of pent-up fury and resentment with an explosive vengeance!