The Grand Court Assembly

......

However, at the very center of the peerless storm about to sweep the world.

Inside the Sweet Springs Hall of the Great Zhou Imperial Palace.

The Great Zhou Emperor, Wang Hao, entirely lacked imperial decorum. He sat with his legs crossed, even leaving the collar of his dragon robe wide open. He sat behind a small mountain of secret reports delivered by the Brocade Guards and the Western Depot, detailing the incoming routes of various Heaven's Chosen entering the capital.

In his hands was a massive abacus made of pure gold, its beads inlaid with top-grade jade.

Click, clack, clack...

Wang Hao's fingers flew across the abacus, moving so fast they left afterimages.

Fifteen Holy Maidens from hidden sects have arrived... These women are all neat freaks and definitely won't stay in ordinary inns. Men! Pass my decree to the Royal Construction Company. Renovate all the abandoned princely estates in the eastern part of the capital and hang up signs reading 'Exclusive Luxury Hotel for Heaven's Chosen'. Charge them by the hour! If they don't cough up a hundred thousand taels of silver a night, they can forget about even entering the gate!

Two hundred and seventy-eight Holy Sons and core disciples are here? And there's a guy named Xiao Chen who carries three types of Exotic Flames? Good! Fantastic! Wang Hao slapped his thigh in excitement. These guys love posturing and slapping faces more than anything, and their tempers are fouler than stones in a latrine. When they get here, they'll definitely try to book out the best restaurant in the capital, smash tables, and act deep. Pass my decree to the Royal Restaurants under the Directorate of Imperial Meals: replace all tables and chairs with ordinary ones, but the inventory list must label them as 'Millennium Purple Sandalwood'! Whoever dares to start a fight, smash a chair, and damage royal property gets fined a starting price of a hundred thousand taels! What if they refuse to pay? Treat them to the Thunder Abyss Demon-Suppressing Tower, cripple their True Qi, and send them to the Royal Steel Mill to pump the bellows!

Even the barbarians from beyond our borders have entered the pass? Led by the Barbarian Prince of the Steppes and the Poison Gu Princess of the Southern Frontier? The smile on Wang Hao's face grew increasingly abstract. Barbarians don't understand Great Zhou laws. Spitting, littering, and parking their mounts outside designated royal parking spots—fine them directly at one-tenth of their mount's market value! That guy riding the Two-Headed Demon Wolf? Every time his wolf takes a dump, fine him a thousand taels!

Wei Zhongxian, is the colosseum in the West City finished?

Wei Zhongxian fanned Wang Hao vigorously with a fan, his face full of flattery. Your Majesty, it's completed. It can hold a full hundred thousand people.

What about the protective grand array?

We're just wrapping it up. We hired Grandmaster Mo Yu to build an eighth-tier array—the Void Glazed Array. It's completely transparent and strong enough to block any attack below the Sky-Soaring Realm.

Wang Hao was extremely satisfied with Wei Zhongxian's work capacity.

The arenas for the Dual Rankings will be set up in the colosseum! We are going to sell tickets! VIP seating, inner-field standing tickets, and outer-perimeter hanging tickets—charge them all on a tiered basis! Open the sole legal official betting syndicate of the Great Zhou court outside the venue. The court will take a thirty percent cut from all betting pools!

Wang Hao slammed the abacus heavily onto the table, tilted his head back, and looked at the surging winds and clouds outside the hall, trembling with excitement.

What Children of Destiny who follow the will of heaven? What pure and flawless peerless Holy Maidens? What cruel and tyrannical alien princes?

In their eyes, the Great Zhou was prey.

But in Wang Hao's eyes, how were these martial arts experts and homicidal maniacs here to compete for rankings? They were clearly crop after crop of beautifully growing, fully geared, treasure-laden supreme VIP cash cows actively delivering themselves to his doorstep!

Come... come! Come to me, all of you!

Send invitations to the ancestors in the Imperial Mausoleum. Invite them to attend the beauty pageant seven days from now. Since these prodigies could come, there must be old monsters protecting them. The royal family should flex its muscles to these factions and let them understand who the host is and who the guests are.

Tell the Eastern and Western Depots and the Brocade Guards not to slack off. Deploy all of them to assist the Ministry of Justice in maintaining public order. Everyone gets triple pay during the tournament.

Understood, Wei Zhongxian retreated.

Wang Hao downed a cup of top-grade tribute tea in one gulp, his mouth grinning from ear to ear, letting out the standard, arrogant laughter of a villainous demon king within the grand hall:

I, the greatest dealer in the world, have already set the odds! Venue fees, registration fees, broadcasting fees, underground betting, public order fines... I want it all! Did they really think my million-tael reward was free for the taking?

The wool comes from the sheep! Once you reach my capital, even if you are a dragon, you must coil up into a treasure bowl for me; if you are a tiger, you must lie down as a lucky cat! I will strip you self-important prodigious monsters of your skin, bones, and even your underwear to fill my inner treasury—mwahahaha!!!

Just as Wang Hao was daydreaming about the future, Sun Li walked in. Your Majesty, it is time for the morning court.

Wang Hao immediately felt a bit disgruntled. Being an emperor still meant having to work. How unlucky.

......

Outside the Supreme Harmony Hall of the Great Zhou, hundreds of officials gathered. In the past, before the grand morning assembly, those officials from noble families loved to gather in groups of three or five, talking loudly or composing poetry, occasionally casting disdainful sidelong glances at the officials from humble backgrounds, fully displaying the arrogance of the great aristocratic families.

But today, the entire plaza outside the Supreme Harmony Hall was dead silent. It was so quiet that one could hear a pin drop.

An indescribable sense of oppression, like an invisible giant hand, tightly gripped the neck of every noble official. Even the Second Grand Secretary of the Cabinet, Zhang Wuji, kept his eyes on his nose and his nose on his heart, though his mind was far from calm.

The reason was simple—just the day before yesterday, the number one sect in the Great Zhou martial world, the Azure Cloud Sect, which boasted three Sky-Soaring Realm mighty figures and thousands of disciples, was gone.

It had been leveled to the ground overnight by the terrifying hidden foundations of the royal family with devastating force! The heads of the three mighty figures were currently being pickled in lime and hung outside the nine gates of the capital as a public warning. The overwhelming stench of blood seemed to have drifted into the Supreme Harmony Hall on the cold wind.

The most detestable part was that Wang Hao, this little tyrant, had hung Ye Chen's master on the eastern city gate tower and subjected him to death by a thousand cuts. His miserable screams echoed throughout the entire East City. He did it on purpose, because the noble officials generally lived in the East City. It was a classic case of killing the chicken to warn the monkeys.

All the noble officials living in the East City were scared out of their wits. The thunderous wrath that descended from the heavens yesterday was like a resounding slap in the face, violently waking them up.

Just because the royal family didn't bare its fangs didn't mean they couldn't wield a blade!

The Emperor arrives—

As the resonant voice of Sun Li, the Seal-Holding Eunuch of the Directorate of Ceremonial, pierced the tranquility of dawn, the doors of the Supreme Harmony Hall rumbled open.

The hundreds of officials filed in and chanted Long live the Emperor.

On the dragon throne, Wang Hao leaned casually against the backrest, making no deliberate attempt to put on imperial airs. A faint, lazy smile even hung on the corners of his mouth.

My beloved ministers, you may rise, Wang Hao's voice wasn't loud, but it echoed clearly in the empty hall. Last night, thunder rumbled outside the capital, and it seems a fire broke out in the direction of Azure Cloud Mountain. These martial arts ruffians really don't pay attention to fire safety in their daily lives; it's truly heartbreaking. Did you all sleep well last night?

As soon as these words were spoken, a collective sound of gulping echoed loudly from the ranks of the noble officials.

A fire, my ass! Can a fire at your house level three main peaks? Can a fire at your house hang the heads of mighty figures on the city walls?

Second Grand Secretary Zhang Wuji stepped forward and bowed: To reply to Your Majesty, the world is at peace, and we subjects... slept extremely well. The Azure Cloud Sect vainly attempted to subvert the court and deserved a thousand deaths. Your Majesty is sagacious, long live the Great Zhou!

"Hehe, it is good that you slept well." Wang Hao smiled meaningfully, then abruptly changed the subject. "Since you are all well-rested, let us get down to business today. Previously, the Cabinet and I agreed that the powers of the Six Ministries, the Court of Judicature and Revision, and the Censorate would be fully decentralized to the provinces, prefectures, and counties, establishing the Six Departments, Six Bureaus, and Six Offices. The framework has already been set up, but the candidates for the chief officials at all levels have yet to be determined. At today's Grand Court Assembly, you must give me a concrete plan!"

Here it comes!

The air inside the Hall of Supreme Harmony instantly froze.

Zhang Wuji's heart sank heavily. He knew that the annihilation of the Azure Cloud Sect was a nuclear deterrent thrown out in advance by the Emperor! Taking advantage of the noble faction's lingering shock, the officials from humble backgrounds were going to seize the momentum in this unprecedented reshuffling of power to viciously bite off the largest piece of the pie!

The downward extension of central power meant that across the nine regions, thirty-six provinces, four hundred commanderies, and four thousand counties of the realm, tens of thousands of positions with actual power would be created! Whoever controlled the chief positions of these local departments would control the local financial, personnel, prosecutorial, and judicial powers of the Great Zhou Dynasty! This was a super-sized cake big enough to gorge oneself to death on!

Sure enough, as soon as Wang Hao's words fell, the Senior Grand Secretary of the Cabinet, Zhuge Huaijin, abruptly opened his eyes and strode forward from the ranks.

"Your Majesty is wise!" Zhuge Huaijin's voice was as loud as a bell, buzzing within the grand hall. "This old minister believes that the local Six Departments, Six Bureaus, and Six Offices are the cornerstones of the imperial court's New Deal. In the past, local officials were mostly recommended by the noble clans and powerful families, resulting in government decrees never leaving the capital. The local regions only knew of the noble families and knew nothing of the imperial court! Now, at the onset of the New Deal, we must appoint people solely based on merit! I recommend the newly minted Jinshi scholars and the disciples from humble backgrounds who have been sent to bitter and cold lands to temper themselves in previous imperial examinations, to fill the roles of chief officials in the provincial, prefectural, and county departments! Having lived among the common folk for a long time, they know the suffering of the people. They will certainly eradicate the accumulated abuses and return a bright and clear world to the Great Zhou!"

Zhuge Huaijin's words were truly piercing to the core, directly tearing apart the superficial peace and pressing a bayonet right against the hearts of the noble officials.

"Those words are mistaken!"

The Minister of Personnel, Ma Feng, instantly grew anxious, jumping out like a cat whose tail had been stepped on. What a joke! The appointment of local officials was originally the absolute domain of his Ministry of Personnel, the greatest bargaining chip for him and the great noble families to exchange interests. This old geezer Zhuge was trying to cut off their roots!

"Lord Senior Grand Secretary!" Ma Feng cupped his hands toward Zhuge Huaijin, spit flying from his mouth. "The chief officials of the various local departments oversee the vital livelihood plans of a province, a prefecture, or a county. How can this be treated as child's play? Although those students from humble backgrounds have read a few books of the sages, they have absolutely no experience in governance. If we rashly let them take charge of the finances, provisions, and penal systems of a prefecture or county, and a mess occurs that incites a civilian rebellion, who will bear this responsibility? I believe it is still safest to select experienced, highly respected veteran officials for lateral transfers or promotions!"

"You are spouting utter bullshit!"

Before Ma Feng's voice could fade, a furious roar exploded like a clap of thunder.

The Minister of War, Tie Zhan, directly stepped forward, his palm as large as a palm-leaf fan almost pointing right at Ma Feng's nose: "Highly respected? The highly respected you speak of, Ma Feng, are they those foppish dandies from your noble families who only know how to cockfight, race hounds, and forcibly seize civilian women? When I was risking my life fighting barbarians at the border passes, those so-called highly respected noble officials of yours were drinking with prostitutes in brothels! Let them manage the local regions? Bah! The Great Zhou's empire is being ruined in the hands of people like you!"

Tie Zhan was a rough man, and even more so, a representative of the military generals from humble backgrounds. He did not care for court etiquette at all. Coming up, he unleashed a barrage of vulgar insults, spraying Ma Feng's face with spit and forcing him to retreat three steps in a row, trembling with anger.

"Vulgar! Brute! An insult to refinement!" The Minister of Rites, Zhao De, was so angry his beard bristled, and he immediately stepped out to support his ally. "Lord Tie, this is the Hall of Supreme Harmony, not your central military tent! Local government affairs are complex; how could a brute like you, who only knows slaughter, understand them?"

"Lord Zhao understands, you Lord Zhao understand the best!" The Minister of Revenue, Qian Shoucai, stood out with a beaming smile.

"Since Lord Zhao understands, then please explain to this official why the three provinces of Jiangbei have had abundant harvests year after year, yet the taxes handed over to the national treasury last year did not even reach thirty percent of the original quota?" Qian Shoucai held a thick ledger that had appeared in his hand at some unknown point, slapping it loudly. "Your Jiangbei Zhao family occupies three hundred thousand mu of fertile land in the Suhang area, yet relying on your family's power, you do not pay a single cent! If you noble scions go and manage local finances again, we might as well hand the keys to the Great Zhou's national treasury directly to you!"