"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.
lity and could only live as an ordinary mortal. He only wished to live a peaceful life. Yet he didn't know— The dog he adopted, because it ate his food, became a legendary demon king. The kitchen knife he casually forged became a peerless divine weapon, causing numerous experts to fight desperately for it. The young disciple he took in became an immortal lord that led an era, due to cultivating the techniques Ye Feng taught him. Even the skeletons he looked down on the most were ominous demon kings that suppressed countless worlds. Many years later, looking at the void shattered with a punch, Ye Feng murmured to himself: It turns out the peerless kings were myself all along...
ive and Ruthless] Before his transmigration, Ye Xuan was playing a game called "Severing Emotions to Attain the Dao." The game's core wasn't about leveling up by fighting monsters, but about conquering various "bad women" with wicked personalities and cold, fickle natures. There was only one method to conquer them: stay unwaveringly by their side, then die at a critical moment, driving them to madness after losing the protagonist. The higher their level of regret, the higher the player's score. To dominate the server, Ye Xuan conquered all the bad women. In the early stages, he showered them with boundless tenderness, only to choose to sacrifice himself for them later, making them weep bitterly and drown in regret. Among them were: Xia Lengyue, the unfaithful immortal wife who chased after powerful men and discarded her husband like trash. Ye Qingcheng, the Demonic Venerable of the Joyous Union Sect, who appeared pure and innocent but was, in reality, promiscuous. Wu Lingxiao, the Empress of the Great Xia Dynasty, who lusted after men and loved maintaining a harem. Bai Qiangu of the Endless Demonic Sect: a bloodthirsty mass murderer. However, when the protagonist transmigrated into the game world, he made a horrifying discovery. Eight hundred years had already passed. The bad women he had conquered had now each become deities and revered ancestors. Faced with the endless stream of toxic women coming for him, Ye Xuan could only rely on his god-tier acting skills to carve a path of survival through this world of treacherous women.
lanned to earn money steadily and take life at a slower pace. But he never expected... his father's remarriage, and the stepmother bringing along a dependent, would completely disrupt his life's plans...
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!
