Chapter 747: Li Er is furious; the clown was me all along!

Night banquet at Great Ming Palace.

Li Er and Fang Fang Xuanling were speechless.

What Lu Yu had just said had hit Great Tang's Achilles' heel.

The foundation of Great Tang's governance was the family.

The family was like the small holes in a honeycomb. By using the family as a form, everyone was framed within one small hole after another.

The tighter they were framed, the more stable the world was, and the more unchanging it remained.

Great Tang could not open this framework and advocate for personal happiness.

Therefore, they could not learn from Great Qin's experience.

Li Er was still very resentful and asked Qin Mu.

"Great Qin Emperor, you encourage the people to be active; on the surface, the people seem happier. But because individuals are too active, the world is not easy to manage, is it?"

"By doing this, you are no different from releasing a demon to run rampant in the world!"

Li Er's thinking was still that a heavy framework could make the people's lives more stable. And for an Emperor, the greatest achievement was to make the world more stable!

Qin Mu looked up and laughed.

Hahahaha...

Influenced by Qin Mu, the people around them also laughed along.

The laughter made it hard for Li Er to save face. It turned out he was the one who was laughable.

Li Er was so angry that his face turned red, and the veins on his neck were throbbing.

Qin Mu laughed enough, then spoke.

"What do you know? For society to develop, it must have vitality. Following your idea of only seeking stability, you have seen the result."

"In a short period, Great Qin has surpassed Great Tang and become the most powerful country in the world!"

This was irrefutable, as it was a fact.

As for whether it was easy to manage, Qin Mu did not explain at all.

At the moment, Li Er did not see any illegal or undisciplined behavior.

Great Qin's order appeared even better than Great Tang's!

This was what Li Er could not understand.

Being directly rebuked by Qin Mu to his face, Li Er felt he couldn't save face.

So he stood up to take his leave.

"Thank you for the banquet, Your Majesty; I am feeling a bit unwell and would like to go back and rest."

Seeing Li Er take his leave, Fang Fang Xuanling also hurriedly stood up and bowed to take his leave.

Qin Mu's gaze was like a torch, seeing through the embarrassment of the two Great Tang envoys.

But he did not expose it.

He nodded and let them go.

The reason Qin Mu was so unscrupulous in telling them about Great Qin's governance thinking was that he knew Great Tang could not copy Great Qin's methods.

Great Tang's biggest difficulty lay in the noble families.

Higher activity among the people would indeed lead to more social problems. This required local government offices...

And it also required more officials at the grassroots level to handle disputes and guide the people's thoughts.

The number of Great Qin's officials was already dozens of times higher than Great Tang's.

They had powerful enforcement capabilities.

Even so, it still seemed insufficient.

This was a complete subversion that Great Tang could never learn.

Li Er and Fang Fang Xuanling left the banquet.

Li Ke and Lu Yu, seemingly worried that Qin Mu might be angry, chatted and laughed at the banquet to liven up the atmosphere.

The twelve noble young ladies were not affected at all.

They treated this night banquet as the stage for their first public dance performance. One after another, they danced with great enthusiasm.

After dancing, they even asked Qin Mu to give them on-site guidance.

"Your Majesty, what do you think if I change my dance to this effect?"

"Your Majesty, please give us some pointers; otherwise, we have no confidence."

"Your Majesty, please judge for us; who among us danced the best?"

Surrounded by the girls, Qin Mu was very happy.

These noble young ladies, after experiencing a period of training in the laundry bureau, had indeed become different.

The pride they originally had had been beaten out of them. Now they understood who could decide their fate.

Drinking and dancing until late at night.

The next day.

Morning court.

Qin Mu appeared on the throne on time.

Scanning below the golden steps, Minister Fang and Old Li were also standing in the ranks of officials.

They had been in a bad mood yesterday, but it looked like they had fully recovered.

Their psychological resilience was quite strong.

Yue Fei reported.

"Your Majesty, the Naval Legion's Zheng Chenggong and the Sanhan Grand Coordinator Wang Wang Yangming have jointly submitted a report, detailing the achievements they have made over the recent period."

Qin Mu saw that Yue Fei was holding a booklet in his hand.

Presumably, the achievements the two had made were not few. They had actually written them down one by one into such a thick volume.

"Yue Fei, pick out the important parts and tell me."

Yue Fei had already read the booklet beforehand and remembered the contents very clearly.

He spoke with great enthusiasm.

"Your Majesty, Zheng Chenggong selected ten thousand men from his naval forces and formed more than twenty pirate groups of various sizes, scattering them out."

"They cleared all the islands in the sea according to the assigned areas. They forcibly annexed over ninety percent of the pirates on the sea. Those who refused to surrender have all been wiped out!"

"Now, the remaining non-Great Qin pirate forces on the sea all have their lairs on the Japanese islands. They pose no threat to the Great Qin coast!"

The first point made Li Er alarmed.

He still remembered what Empress Zhangsun Zhangsun Wuji had said when he persuaded him to fund those pirates.

These pirates lived on the sea, coming and going without a trace, making them very difficult to wipe out.

Li Er also felt that dealing with pirates was a very headache-inducing matter.

So, in a moment of weakness, he had agreed to Empress Zhangsun Zhangsun Wuji's suggestion to fund the Japanese pirates.

But how long had it been?

The Great Qin Naval Legion had actually managed to annex over ninety percent of the pirate forces!

If Great Qin were to let these pirates harass the Great Tang coast, could Great Tang withstand it?

He dared not imagine!

Great Tang did not even have a naval force of any scale!

Even if they forcibly gathered all their large ships, they could only scrape together a naval force of one hundred thousand. But what combat effectiveness could such a hastily assembled naval force have?

Li Er had seen the power of Great Qin's warships with his own eyes.

In the Battle of Gucheng, with the help of the warships' catapults, they had wiped out hundreds of thousands of Goguryeo people in one battle!

Li Er asked himself, he could not compete with the Great Qin navy.

Yue Fei continued his report.

"General Zheng Chenggong sent an envoy mission that arrived in Ryukyu half a month ago. The King of Ryukyu saw our Great Qin warships, as towering as mountains, and thought they were heavenly soldiers."

"The King of Ryukyu immediately requested to become a vassal state of Great Qin, paying tribute for generations. He also requested to trade with Great Qin."

"However, General Zheng Chenggong felt that Ryukyu was a small country with a small population of only eight hundred thousand, and did not think it was worth the effort to trade with them."

Li Er felt his heart bleeding again.

Previously, Empress Zhangsun Zhangsun Wuji had also traveled to Ryukyu by ship and had even funded them at the time. ===== CHAPTER 749 =====

Previously, Empress Zhangsun Zhangsun Wuji had also traveled to Liuqiu by boat, and at the time, he had even provided them with financial support.