"Because you have the hearts of the people..." Fang Zhiyi explained. "The realm had already suffered the ravages of war, followed closely by those two traitors, Guo and Huang, taking the Emperor hostage to seize the empire. The noble families exploited the commoners at every turn. Then you appeared. You ate and lived alongside the common folk, punished the corrupt nobles, executed wicked officials, and reduced taxes... The people might be uneducated, but they are not fools. They can tell who truly treats them well."
"But what about those noble families and the armies..."
"They are even less foolish. At this point, who holds the legitimate claim doesn't matter. What matters is that they feel betting on you is far better than betting on Guo Siwei. After all, they have all witnessed Guo Siwei's brutality toward the Huang family."
"These people deserve to die too!" Zhao Wu said in a deep voice.
Fang Zhiyi shook his head. "All you have in your head is killing. If you slaughter all the noble families in the world, will no new ones emerge? Won't the commoners you save today become the new noble families a few generations down the line?"
"Uh... please enlighten us, Grand Tutor Fang."
"Previously, we killed the nobles to win the hearts of the people, and for money. But why didn't I let you wipe them all out?"
The young emperor had not yet answered.
Fang Zhiyi said, "It is because you are a benevolent ruler."
At that moment, everyone present looked at Fang Zhiyi. His name was quite renowned now. The merchants who once relied on the noble families secretly cursed him as a butcher, but only Zhao Wu and the others knew that Fang Zhiyi was shouldering this infamous reputation on behalf of the Emperor.
Fang Zhiyi himself did not care at all. Exterminating noble families? He had done plenty of that.
"Therefore, now facing the noble families who are actively showing goodwill, Your Majesty, you must focus on pacifying and winning them over. If you step forward, this matter can be accomplished; if I step forward, it would be a disaster."
The young emperor was a little confused. Weren't the noble families all bad people?
"The reason we have been so successful is that the world is in turmoil, the noble families are fighting their own battles, and the Guo and Huang families were desperately slaughtering each other. You held the advantage of time, terrain, and popular support. But now that Guo Siwei has wiped out the remnants of the Huang family, he still holds quite a few trump cards in his hand. Moreover, there are still many noble families across the Central Plains watching closely. If, and I say if, you reject their goodwill, then they will have no choice but to defect to Guo Siwei. Again, who is legitimate does not matter."
"Do you remember what I said? To put it bluntly, Guo Qianyue and Huang Huaili were both businessmen, and most of the noble families are the same. All they want is profit. So who becomes the emperor is irrelevant to them; the key is who being emperor benefits them more."
"So, Your Majesty, how do you think you compare to Guo Siwei?"
The young emperor thought for a moment. "I don't know."
"Guo Siwei is cruel and tyrannical. In his clash with the Huang family this time, his ruthless methods have already aroused the disgust and vigilance of the other noble families. Let me ask you, if you were doing business, would you rather deal with a tolerant person or a violent one?"
The young emperor understood instantly.
"And there is one more thing... This war must be fought. Guo Siwei has already proclaimed himself emperor, and there are still many people taking his side. Can you bear to let the fathers, brothers, sons, and nephews of these commoners die in this war?"
Li Yunzhi recalled the scenes of himself chatting with the commoners and shook his head repeatedly.
"So, if someone is willing to provide the funds, why refuse? Using other people's money to accomplish your own goals is the best strategy."
Zhao Wu looked at Fang Zhiyi. Why did he sometimes feel that this guy was incredibly cunning?
"But to accomplish this, Your Majesty, you must first do something else." Fang Zhiyi narrowed his eyes.
Soon, those noble families who maintained a wait-and-see attitude received massive news. The butcher Fang Zhiyi had repeatedly defied the Emperor's will and acted on his own authority, making it truly unbearable for the Emperor. However, considering his great contributions and hard work, he was stripped of his title as Grand General and reverted to the position of Grand Tutor, forbidden from interfering in military affairs any longer.
The noble families were not stupid. For the Emperor to release such a signal at this moment was an indirect expression of goodwill toward them.
The apprehensive noble families became active, flocking to seek an audience with the Emperor. Li Yunzhi had already learned what Fang Zhiyi taught him about tailoring his words to his audience. His attitude left the representatives of the noble families very satisfied. Then, he used the fate of the Huang family to subtly warn them. This tactic worked wonders. The representatives bitterly cursed Guo Siwei's treacherous ambitions of usurping the throne in front of the Emperor, scrambling over one another to express their unwavering loyalty. Li Yunzhi accepted it all without hesitation.
After the meeting, to show their loyalty, the major noble families eagerly contributed money and manpower. Their goal was to earn merit with the young emperor. Once the empire was stabilized in the future, it would be impossible for the Emperor not to remember this past favor. Even if they couldn't reach the heights of the Guo and Huang families, they would at least become regional overlords.
Looking again at Li Yunzhi, he was the legitimate royal heir, tolerant and benevolent, and possessed the hearts of the people. These positive attributes piled onto Li Yunzhi, making him seem as if he naturally radiated light.
It was just that Li Yunzhi always felt that the Grand Tutor was suffering too much injustice by making him do this.
But turning his head and seeing Zhao Wu, who was now leading the army, bowing and scraping as he followed the Grand Tutor, he felt like he was overthinking things. That nonsense about losing the Grand General title and not interfering in military affairs seemed entirely fake when it came to the Grand Tutor.
"Grand Tutor, we are bound to win this time, right?" Li Yunzhi asked cautiously after the people around them had dispersed.
Fang Zhiyi cast a sidelong glance at him. "Bound to win? Which organ did you use to think up that conclusion?"
"Our army is already approaching the capital, and the armies of the noble families are arriving soon, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of border troops who have surrendered..."
"Does fighting a war just depend on having more people?" Fang Zhiyi asked abruptly.
Li Yunzhi shut his mouth. He had grown a head taller now, and his skin was much darker, but in front of Fang Zhiyi, he could never put on the airs of an emperor.
"That Old Thief Yuwen has been clamoring about eliminating the false emperor, and a month has passed by now. Do you see him having conquered it?"
Li Yunzhi shook his head.
"The eighty thousand border troops who defected to us claim to be eighty thousand, but in reality, they are less than fifty thousand. And you still have to subtract the old, the weak, the sick, and the disabled. Do you expect them to lay siege to a city?"
The light on Li Yunzhi's face gradually dimmed.
"I didn't let you fight in the past battles because there was no need; after all, attacking the mind is the superior strategy. But this time is different. This is your decisive battle with Guo Siwei, and it is a tough one. Don't think those noble families are truly loyal to you. They are still watching. If you show the slightest sign of decline, they will immediately turn against you. Of course, that doesn't mean they will surrender to Guo Siwei, but rather, they wouldn't hesitate to change emperors."
"Then... Grand Tutor, what should I do?"
"What should you do?" Fang Zhiyi tapped his finger on the tabletop. "Lead the troops into battle yourself."
Li Yunzhi really went to the battlefield. There was no exchange of trash talk; his allied army tightly surrounded the four gates of the capital. Yet Guo Siwei was unafraid. Facing such a formation, he still dared to order his soldiers to open the city gates and engage in battle outside the city.
Fang Zhiyi's psychological warfare tactics had lost their effectiveness by this point. Both the defending and attacking soldiers were seeing red. The area outside the capital turned into a meat grinder. The two sides slaughtered each other for many consecutive days, yet Guo Siwei's defensive line remained rock solid.
Even Li Yunzhi could sense the crumbling morale within his ranks. He knew all too well that if things continued this way, defeat was only a matter of time. His own downfall was of little consequence, but should those noble families turn on him...
Li Yunzhi was weighed down by anxiety, whereas Fang Zhiyi, by contrast, seemed lost in deep thought.
close your eyes and open them again, only to find yourself transmigrated into the role of a villainous male supporting character. Readers familiar with urban wish-fulfillment novels know that it is only through the relentless antics of the villainous male supporting character that the plot between the male and female leads can progress. As the villainous male supporting character, Long Aotian not only has to bully the female lead, harass the second female lead, and flirt with the third female lead, but he also has to go all out to antagonize the male lead. In the end, when his body is discovered, he is still clutching half a moldy fried dough stick in his hand. Fully aware of the plot, Long Aotian is determined to change his fate, starting with the female lead! In the beginning, the female lead lacks confidence: "Big brother, I hope I didn't scare you?" In the middle, the female lead treads carefully: "Brother Long, please don't hit me, okay?" Later on, the female lead becomes coquettishly clingy: "Aotian, it's time to pay the 'public grain' tonight." Long Aotian's legs go weak, and he feels like crying: "I taught you to be thick-skinned, not shameless!"
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...
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!
e bizarre and supernatural had descended. The previous emperor was a thoroughgoing tyrant; no longer satisfied with human women, he had set his sights on a stunningly beautiful supernatural entity. He met his end in his bedchamber, drained of all his vital essence. As the legitimate eldest son and crown prince, Wang Hao was thus hastily enthroned, becoming the young emperor of the Great Zhou Dynasty. No sooner had he awakened the "Imperial Sign-In Intelligence System" than he was assassinated by a Son of Destiny—a classic villain's opening. The Great Zhou, ravaged by the former emperor's excesses, was in national decline. The great families within its borders harbored their own treacherous schemes, martial sects began to defy the imperial court's decrees, and border armies, their pay and provisions in arrears, grumbled incessantly against the central government. Fortunately, the central capital was still held secure by the half-million Imperial Guards and fifty thousand Imperial Forest Army who obeyed the court's orders, along with the royal family's hidden reserves of power, barely managing to suppress the realm. As the Great Zhou's finances worsened and supernatural activities grew ever more frequent, the court sat atop a volcano. Ambitious plotters everywhere dreamed of overthrowing the dynasty, and even some reclusive ancient powers emerged, attempting to sway the tides of the world. At the first grand court assembly, the civil and military officials nearly came to blows, fighting tooth and nail over the allocation of fifty million taels of silver from the summer tax revenues. The spectacle opened Wang Hao's eyes—the Great Zhou's bureaucracy was not only corrupt but also martially proficient, a cabinet of all-rounders. Some officials even had the audacity to suggest the emperor release funds from the imperial privy purse to address the emergency. Wang Hao suddenly felt weary. Let it all burn.
