"So what?" Fang Zhiyi appeared quite relaxed.
"Grand Tutor Fang, this is no joke. Zhangye Commandery is currently mostly populated by commoners, with barely a thousand capable fighters. How can we withstand Traitor Guo's army of hundreds of thousands?" Lin Shucheng's tone was anxious. In his eyes, no matter how eloquently Fang Zhiyi spoke, he was still just a civil official; fighting a war was an impossible feat for him.
Fang Zhiyi turned to the Young Emperor. "Your Majesty, tell me your reflections on today."
"You..." Lin Shucheng felt a sense of powerlessness. How could this Grand Tutor Fang have absolutely no sense of crisis?
Unexpectedly, the Young Emperor also looked completely unconcerned. "Grand Tutor, I feel that the saying 'he who wins the hearts of the people wins the world' seems simple, but it is not easy to put into practice. Below the imperial court are the noble families, below the noble families are cruel officials, and at the very bottom are the commoners." He paused. "In the past, I thought being imprisoned in the palace was miserable enough, but today, seeing those commoners, I realized that what I experienced was nothing... The commoners only seek a full meal and a bit of stability. Yet, whether it is the Grand Marshal or Chancellor Huang, they do not even want to leave the commoners a way to survive..."
Fang Zhiyi listened with his eyes closed, only slowly opening them after the emperor finished speaking. "The people are like water; water can carry a boat, but it can also overturn it."
When these words were spoken, the few people present all revealed expressions of profound astonishment, especially a scholar like Lin Shucheng.
"Water can carry a boat, but it can also overturn it. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant!"
The Young Emperor looked at the Grand Tutor with burning eyes. "Grand Tutor, I think I understand."
"Merely understanding is not enough; you must put it into practice." As Fang Zhiyi spoke, he reached out and pulled over a rough map spread out on the table. "Your first practical task is... here."
Zhao Wu and the others craned their necks and saw Fang Zhiyi's finger pointing at Jianxi, right next to Zhangye Commandery, feeling somewhat baffled.
"Ten days. We will take Jianxi in ten days." Fang Zhiyi's words shocked everyone present.
"Grand Tutor, as far as I know, marching and fighting wars is not your strong suit..." Zhao Wu said.
Fang Zhiyi frowned. "Brainless brute, all you know is fighting."
Little Hei was highly amused. "If you had the means to fight, you'd be jumping higher than any of them."
Just as Fang Zhiyi had predicted, Jianxi was the first to receive the news of the emperor's appearance. The local noble families were originally remnants of Huang Huaili's faction and were currently raising an army to oppose Guo Siwei. Upon hearing this news, they knew their opportunity had come.
That was a living emperor. Throughout history, raising an army for rebellion always required a righteous cause. With the emperor in their hands, wouldn't they be acting in accordance with the will of Heaven?
However, the noble families were mostly cautious. They only sent out a few descendants leading a private army to welcome the emperor. This so-called welcoming was actually no different from holding him hostage, just put on as a show for others to see.
The army set off in a hurry, but no news ever came back.
This left the noble families of Jianxi somewhat bewildered, unsure of the situation.
Could the noble families over in Zhangye have beaten them to the punch? That shouldn't be. If a fight broke out, they would surely have received word.
But three days later, the private army actually returned. The noble families finally relaxed and specially prepared lavish gifts to welcome the imperial carriage. Of course, this was just for show. Once the emperor entered their estates, how to manipulate him would be entirely up to them.
However, after the private army entered the city, a horn sounded, and the city descended into chaos. The generals guarding the city gates were captured on the spot, and many soldiers had weapons pressed to their necks by their own comrades, forcing them to obediently surrender. Even more outrageously, the forcibly conscripted recruit camp mutinied almost simultaneously. Officers were hacked to death in public, and massive numbers of soldiers who had been forced to lay down their hoes and take up swords surged onto the streets. They merged with the returning private army and charged mightily toward the government offices and the estates of the noble families.
"You, are you rebelling?" the family head asked in terror, watching the estate's captain who had suddenly killed the steward.
The captain laughed. "Rebelling? Yes, we are rebelling, but we are rebelling by imperial decree!"
"Rebelling by imperial decree?" The family head's brain couldn't quite process it. How could those two concepts be combined?
"My parents sent me a message. The emperor loves the people like his own children. Not only did he distribute grain to them, but he also exempted them from taxes. Even my eldest uncle's family received two acres of land. The emperor said that this world belongs to the common people." The sword in the captain's hand gleamed with a cold light as his gaze swept over the few soldiers protecting the family head. "What, do you not have parents, wives, and children? Did you come out to risk your lives just to help evil scum like this oppress your fellow townsfolk?"
The family head's face turned deathly pale. The emperor said these things? What kind of nonsense was this!
But the few soldiers who were originally protecting him clearly showed hesitation.
"What are you standing around for! Kill him! I'll reward each of you with ten, no, a hundred taels of silver!"
"Pah, a hundred taels of silver. Do you not know in your heart where your money comes from?" The captain's face was full of disdain. Listening to the heaven-shaking shouts of killing outside, he smiled. "Are you going to risk your lives for your families, or for protecting this kind of evil scum? Choose for yourselves!"
The few soldiers looked at each other and, without any hesitation, turned around and stabbed.
That head of the noble family fell unwillingly into a pool of blood just like that.
The chaos in Jianxi occurred in the morning, and by the afternoon, the emperor entered Jianxi City. There were no tall steeds, nor were there guards clearing the streets. There was only the Young Emperor, walking step by step from the city gate into the city center. Both sides of the road were filled with commoners, all curiously watching this legendary emperor.
It was unknown who took the lead, but the commoners began to kneel down one after another. However, seeing all this, the Young Emperor stopped his steps.
"Do not kneel, everyone stand up!"
The Black Armor Guards beside him immediately passed the word along.
"The Emperor says, do not kneel, everyone stand up!"
One person after another passed the message along, and the commoners looked up at the emperor in astonishment.
"I have arrived late and let the people suffer. It is my fault. The world is the people's world. You may kneel to heaven and earth, kneel to your parents, and kneel to your revered teachers, but you must absolutely never kneel to me!" The Young Emperor straightened his back. "Long live the people!"
The entirety of Jianxi practically exploded with excitement.
Every commoner was moved to tears. The legends were true; the news sent by their relatives and friends was true! The Son of Heaven truly held the common people in his heart!
Lin Shucheng stared blankly at the lazy-looking Fang Zhiyi. "Grand Tutor Fang's methods... are too fierce."
Hearing this, Zhao Wu turned his head and glanced at him.
"Zhangye and Jianxi are close to each other. Whether they are volunteers or forced conscripts, most of their relatives and friends are nearby. By simply having their families ask people to write letters and bring messages, he was able to directly disintegrate the armed forces of the noble families, and even... make those soldiers willingly come to surrender. With such methods, the Grand Tutor is truly a rare genius of the ages."
Zhao Wu said nothing; he had originally expected a bitter battle.
tions: attribute allocation, analysis, proficiency, and simulation. Specializing in mechanical alchemy, from crafting sorcerous battle armor to handcrafting mechanical maidens, his mechanical legion conquers endless realms... Relying on his wits, he begins with a student-teacher romance, wins over a female director, enslaves a female assassin and a underworld queen, becoming the husband of a Grand Duchess... He enslaves the Goddess of Magic from the divine realm, developing his power simultaneously in both the Wizard World and the Realm of Gods...
ut it can buy an entire year of absolutely perfect training results! Su Yu stared at his empty wallet and decisively opened up various online loan platforms. “Borrow a thousand bucks! Recharge my vitality!” Boom! His vitality broke a hundred points, shattering the limits of the human body! “Borrow ten thousand bucks! Recharge my combat skills!” Boom! A basic punching technique so common it was everywhere instantly maxed out, revealing the ultimate assassination technique of Five Elements Unity—Inner Force! When a rich kid hired assassins for a midnight ambush, aiming to break both of his legs, they instead ran headfirst into a monster—a human-shaped tyrannosaur, brimming with dragon-like vitality. With just two fingers, Su Yu snapped a steel staff reinforced with alloy. Staring at the killer’s stash of stolen cash—a staggering quarter-million dollars—he showed a corporate-sincere smile: “Thanks for the pre-exam gift pack, Mr. Zhao! I’m gonna go re-invest this!” Three days later, at the National Martial Arts College Entrance Exam, while everyone else struggled just to reach the passing line, Su Yu threw a single punch—and more than a thousand vitality points literally detonated the entire arena!
ing gift was a patch of barren land, and disciples were all picked up along the way. He spent fifty years diligently building three "ramshackle little sects," thinking he could finally live a carefree life relying on his disciples. But right at the fifty-year mark, he was suddenly swept away by a spatial rift and exiled to the Chaos Desolation, the Disorderly Ruins. There was no spiritual energy there, only slaughter. Relying on the cultivation feedback from his disciples, Gu Changyuan hacked his way through a sea of blood for eleven hundred years. When the system finally fished him back out, he discovered the ramshackle little sects he'd built back then had developed a rather... unusual style. Hold on... I vanished for a thousand years, so how did my ramshackle little sects become holy lands?!
m back to his original world. In the end, he realized he had overthought things. [Hey, why is Shen Manni, the female lead, acting strange? Shouldn't she be fawning over the male lead at this point?] [Zhou Qiaoqiao, are you sick? Weren't you supposed to break off your engagement today?] [Damn it! An Youyi, please do your job as an undercover agent and sell my information to the protagonist, you idiot!] ... At this moment, Xu Mo himself didn't know that these female leads had already heard his inner thoughts. Then they decided not to play by the rules. Xu Mo: Please respect my profession as the big villain!
