Your Majesty, Your White Moonlight Has Come for You

"Wait!" Wang Hao stopped Sun Li, who was about to rise, the playful look on his face instantly vanishing.

"While you are at it, take a message to Zhuge Huaijin and Qian Shoucai." Wang Hao's voice seemed to carry ice blades. "The imperial court has no money because taxes are not being collected! Tell them to hurry up and implement the Taxation Department in every province and county!"

"The taxes of the Great Zhou cannot always rely on the meager agricultural tax wrung from the poor commoners who scrape a living from the earth. Go collect money from those millennium-old noble families, the local gentry, and the wealthy households! Levy taxes on their mines! Levy taxes on their commerce!"

Sun Li shuddered all over. He knew that His Majesty was truly getting serious this time. After all, if the sky fell, the ancestors in the imperial mausoleum would hold it up.

Wang Hao looked at the darkening sky outside the main hall, his tone chilling. "Tell the Grand Secretariat, if they cannot collect the taxes, or if they dare not tax the noble families, I will not blame them. I will simply transfer the General Taxation Bureau directly under the Directorate of Ceremonial! The operatives of the Eastern and Western Depots will go collect it! When that time comes, the secret police will scatter in all directions, living on the edge of a blade to invite taxes door to door. If someone's home is confiscated and their clan exterminated, they cannot blame me for not giving them a chance to bow out gracefully!"

As soon as these words were spoken, the temperature inside the Sweet Spring Hall seemed to drop to the freezing point.

Sun Li knelt on the ground, cold sweat soaking through his heavy robes. He understood that this was His Majesty's ultimatum to the civil official faction. Either you go bite the noble families, or I will release the mad dogs of the spy agencies to bite you and the noble families to death together!

"This servant strictly obeys the Holy Will!" Sun Li kowtowed heavily. He knew that the sky of the Great Zhou was about to change again, and this time, it would surely be a storm of blood, no less severe than the annihilation of the Azure Cloud Sect.

Having dealt with the civil officials and the issue of the purse strings, Wang Hao's gaze fell upon the massive map of the Great Zhou's territory hanging behind the dragon throne.

On the map, the colors representing the twelve great noble families and the various regional vassal kings were intricately intertwined, entrenched within the Great Zhou's borders like a festering disease on the bone. It made Wang Hao dizzy just looking at it.

"The money problem has been temporarily suppressed with IOUs and official salary loans. Next up is the issue of the sword hilt," Wang Hao muttered to himself.

In any era, political power growing out of the barrel of a gun was an unbreakable truth.

The local garrisons had been infiltrated by the noble families. How many of the regional commanders were disciples or former subordinates of these great clans?

"Sun Li, how are things proceeding with the Capital Camp?" Wang Hao turned around and sat imposingly on the dragon throne.

Sun Li quickly straightened up and pulled a memorial from his sleeve. "To answer Your Majesty, according to the secret memorial submitted just yesterday by Zhang Jing, the Duke of Ying, the reorganization of the Capital Camp has been completely finished!"

"Oh? That old fellow Zhang Jing moved quite fast. It seems the money I took from the inner treasury to re-equip the Capital Camp was not wasted." Wang Hao took the memorial and quickly scanned it.

"Following Your Majesty's decree, the Duke of Ying drastically reformed the Capital Camp. The Capital Camp, which nominally boasted five hundred thousand men, had long become utterly corrupt over the past century, with countless instances of officers embezzling salaries and the ranks filled with the old, weak, sick, and disabled. The Duke of Ying executed a batch of corrupt generals, weeded out all the unfit soldiers, and recruited new troops, bringing the total to four hundred and eighty thousand!"

Sun Li grew more excited as he spoke, his voice trembling. "These four hundred and eighty thousand troops have all been broken up and reorganized! They are formed into forty guards, with twelve thousand men per guard! Moreover, the military funds Your Majesty allocated from the inner treasury were not spent in vain. The soldiers of these forty guards have all been equipped with the latest bright-metal armor, horse-cleaving sabers, divine arm bows, and firearms forged by the Great Zhou's Military Equipment Bureau. Their combat power has more than tripled!"

"Good!" Wang Hao slammed the memorial shut, a terrifying light bursting from his eyes. As long as the border army was stabilized, these four hundred and eighty thousand men of the Capital Camp, plus the two hundred and forty thousand Imperial Guards, were his true confidence to flip the table on the noble families!

Wang Hao thought to himself: Of course, it would be best if the ancestors went and wiped them all out, but that was unrealistic. The result would only force the hidden sects, martial arts factions, and noble families to unite. The royal family's foundation was not yet strong enough to fight so many forces alone, otherwise the Wang family would not have swallowed so many bitter pills at every Kunlun Assembly.

"A nominal figure of five hundred thousand streamlined into an actual force of four hundred and eighty thousand. Zhang Jing drew his knife fast and ruthlessly. The noble military faction did not hold me back this time." A cold sneer curled the corners of Wang Hao's mouth.

He knew very well in his heart that the founding military nobles of the Great Zhou and those millennium-old noble families were not on the same path. The noble families relied on bloodline inheritance, land annexation, and the monopoly of knowledge; the military nobles relied on military merit and imperial power. When the emperor was weak, the military nobles were bullied by the noble families; when the emperor was strong, the military nobles were the sharpest blades in the emperor's hands.

"Sun Li, go immediately to the Chief Military Commission of the Five Armies and relay my oral decree to Zhang Jing, the Duke of Ying." Wang Hao walked to the map and swiped his finger fiercely across it. "The Capital Camp cannot all stay in the capital eating free meals. Since they have new equipment, they need to see some blood!"

"What is Your Majesty's intention?"

"Scatter these forty guards out for me!" Wang Hao said, pausing after every word. "The Great Zhou has thirty-six provinces; send one guard to every single province! Publicly declare that the Capital Camp is deploying to the local regions to conduct marching drills, and along the way, they will clear out local banditry and exterminate eerie evils!"

Sun Li was stunned, and then a flash of lightning crossed his mind, making every hair on his body stand on end.

One guard was twelve thousand men, all central elite troops. Sent to the local regions to suppress bandits? Using a butcher's knife to kill a chicken! No matter how severe the banditry in the Great Zhou's thirty-six provinces was, it did not require the capital's main army to suppress them!

His Majesty was clearly performing a sword dance with ulterior motives!

"Suppressing bandits is fake; monitoring the local garrisons is the truth!" Wang Hao ignored Sun Li's shock and coldly pierced through the window paper. "These forty guards of the Capital Camp are the sharp knives I am stabbing into every region! Tell Zhang Jing to instruct the commanders of each guard that once they arrive at their destinations, they are to look more, remember more, and speak less! If anyone dares to collude with the local noble families, I will peel their skin off!"

"This servant obeys the decree!" Sun Li broke into a cold sweat. He could already imagine the terrified expressions of those noble families in the local regions.

The central army descending upon the localities was a blatant display of military deterrence!

"Also," Wang Hao turned around, his tone unprecedentedly solemn. "Tell all the military officials and nobles in the capital to tighten their skins! Prepare for bloodshed! Tell them that at the next grand court assembly, I will make a major move. I am going to reform the local garrisons and take back every single drop of the local military power that leaked into the hands of the noble families back in the day!"

Seize military power!

As soon as these words were spoken, a storm of blood and rain seemed to whip through the Sweet Spring Hall.

Since ancient times, seizing military power was the most dangerous action, the one most likely to trigger a mutiny. The young emperor was going to completely tear off all pretenses with the twelve great noble families!

"Just in case," Wang Hao's finger tapped heavily on the location of the capital. "Notify Wei Jing, the Duke of Zhenguo, that the Imperial Guards are to enter a state of first-degree combat readiness immediately! If any noble family in the regions dares to jump out and rebel, the Imperial Guards must be ready to support the Capital Camp at any time, to uproot them completely and exterminate their nine generations!"

"Yes! This servant will get it done immediately!" Sun Li knew the matter was of grave importance. Not daring to hesitate for even a moment, he kowtowed and scrambled out of the great hall.

Watching Sun Li's retreating back, Wang Hao took a deep breath.

"Noble families, sects, the Heavenly Dao, Children of Destiny..." Wang Hao sneered. "You want to play me to death? I'll flip your chessboard first! Once I gather all the military power, this Great Zhou Dynasty will truly belong to the Wang family!"

Just as Wang Hao was immersed in his grand imperial ambitions, ready to unleash his grand plans, a flurry of hurried footsteps suddenly echoed from outside the hall.

"Your Majesty! Your Majesty!"

Wei Zhongxian, the Director of the Eastern Depot—a grand eunuch who was usually ruthless, sinister, and aloof in front of the civil and military officials—was currently running in while panting heavily, lifting his robes like a fat cat whose tail had just been stepped on.

"What is with this panic! Have the heavens fallen?" Wang Hao frowned, the domineering aura he had painstakingly built up instantly shattered by this old coot.

Wei Zhongxian fell to his knees with a thud, gasping for air, though his face carried an expression that was three parts anxious and seven parts gossipy. "Reporting to Your Majesty, the heavens haven't fallen, but... but someone is causing a scene outside the palace, insisting on seeing Your Majesty!"

"Causing a scene?" Wang Hao was amused. "Are the Eastern Depot and the Brocade Guards just sitting around eating free meals? If someone dares to cause trouble at the main gates of the imperial palace, just drag them away and beat them to death. Why do you need to report this to me?"

"No, Your Majesty, this person... cannot be beaten!" Wei Zhongxian rubbed his hands together anxiously. "It's someone from the Li family!"

"The Li family? Which Li family?" Wang Hao raised an eyebrow. Among the twelve great noble families of the Great Zhou Dynasty, there was indeed a Li family, and their influence was immense. But since when were the people of the noble families this arrogant, daring to cause a ruckus at the imperial palace? Weren't they afraid the imperial ancestors would flip their roofs?

"That Li family! One of the twelve great families of Great Zhou, the capital's Li family!" Wei Zhongxian lowered his voice and winked. "The one causing a scene is none other than the eldest miss of the Li family, Li Wanru!"

"Li Wanru?" Wang Hao's face was full of confusion. "Who is Li Wanru? Do I know her?"

Hearing this, Wei Zhongxian was so shocked his jaw nearly dropped. He looked at Wang Hao with the gaze one might reserve for a scumbag and stammered, "Your... Your Majesty, how could you forget? She is your white moonlight!"

"Pfft—" Wang Hao had just picked up a fresh cup of tea brought by a palace maid. Hearing this, he spat the tea right into Wei Zhongxian's face.

"What the hell? White moonlight?!" Wang Hao's eyes widened.

Wei Zhongxian didn't even bother to wipe the tea off his face, nodding repeatedly. "Yes, Your Majesty! Li Wanru, known as the number one beauty of the capital! Back when you were still the Crown Prince, you loved her to death and swore you would marry no one but her! You even fought the Holy Son of the hidden Absolute Beginning Sect over her! And you lost. Afterward, you wrote her many love poems, which spread all over the capital!"