Chapter 740

The Western Jin capital was approaching late autumn, the cold wind was bleak, and most of the pedestrians on the street had worried expressions, walking in a hurry.

Little Wei Yuan walked on the main road leading to the palace gate. The officials he met all stepped forward to salute one after another, and those second- and third-rank high officials sitting in sedan chairs also hurriedly stopped their chairs to come up and salute. Just from the flattery of the officials, one could tell that Little Wei Yuan's status was no longer what it was back then.

When Little Wei Yuan first served as a Military Governor, although he was also second-rank, any second-rank official back then looked at Little Wei Yuan with their nostrils. But now, meeting Little Wei Yuan again, the second-rank officials with real power tried hard to be half a head lower than Little Wei Yuan, and those second-rank officials without real power couldn't even reach Little Wei Yuan's shoulder with their heads lowered. If it weren't for Little Wei Yuan being tall and big, these officials would inevitably have to suffer their necks and old waists.

At this time, it was near dusk. The Great Morning Court had ended before noon, and important matters were generally handled in the Government Affairs Hall in the afternoon. At this moment, the discussion in the Government Affairs Hall should have just ended, and Little Wei Yuan saw several people serving in the Government Affairs Hall. However, he neither saw the Left Chancellor nor the Right Chancellor.

Little Wei Yuan knew in his heart that he was walking on the only main road in and out of the palace gate, and the two chancellors must walk here. This was because they had received news of his arrival in the capital and were intentionally avoiding him.

Little Wei Yuan had long expected this. The Left and Right Chancellors, as the two highest-ranking officials in the imperial court, both belonged to the pure stream and naturally couldn't stand him, who was born of an external relative and was on good terms with the eunuch faction. It just so happened that Little Wei Yuan had grown big, and they couldn't get rid of him even if they couldn't stand him, so they simply avoided him to avoid being annoyed.

After entering the palace, Liu Quangong greeted him: "Lord Wei arrived suddenly, which really made this servant unable to prepare and unable to welcome you properly. The Holy King is in the Imperial Study today; this servant will take you there now."

"I have troubled Eunuch Liu." Little Wei Yuan stuffed a small cloth bag over.

Liu Quangong felt that there seemed to be several heavy objects in the cloth bag, but they were also somewhat hot to the touch, and couldn't help asking: "What treasure is this again?"

Little Wei Yuan smiled: "Earth-Heart Flame Jade, a material used by immortals. If used, it is easier to use than immortal silver."

"So it is an immortal object! This, how can this servant afford to enjoy this?" Liu Quangong hurriedly pushed it back.

Little Wei Yuan said: "This object is not for exchanging things; it is also excellent for self-use. Usually, put a piece in the quilt, and even on a bitter cold night, it can be warm as spring. It's just that if used for a long time, it is easy for heart fire to rise; the room cannot be too small, and it needs to take more cooling medicine to resolve it."

Liu Quangong stomped his feet and said: "This... sigh! Then I will accept it with shame, but now I have nothing I can help you with, and I feel ashamed in my heart!"

Walking along the way, Little Wei Yuan asked as if inadvertently: "The King often went to the Diamond Zen Temple in the past; why has he gone less recently?"

"Recently, the Zhao Kingdom has invaded, and government affairs are busy. The King cannot run outside the city every day."

Little Wei Yuan nodded and didn't ask again, but followed Liu Quangong into the Imperial Study. There was a chair in the study, and the Ying King was also sitting inside.

Little Wei Yuan saluted the Ying King, and the Jin King said: "After receiving your news, the Ying King insisted on returning to the capital to see you. The Lone King felt that this matter had to be discussed with the Ying King anyway, so I summoned him back. You speak first."

Little Wei Yuan then said: "The Zhao Kingdom has the ambition of a wolf and will certainly not stop after occupying a hundred li of land. The fundamental plan is to enrich the country and strengthen the army. As long as our Great Jin can have an invincible iron army, the enemy will have no gaps to exploit."

The Jin King said: "There are no outsiders here, so useless words don't need to be said. The Lone King can't even collect the most basic taxes; how can we talk about enriching the country?"

Little Wei Yuan was confident about this and said: "The Great Jin has vast fields and a large population, and can be ranked in the top three among the Nine Kingdoms. Naturally, it is rich, but it depends on whether the people, the country, or the aristocratic families are rich. Currently, the national treasury is empty and the people's livelihood is withered because eighty or ninety percent of the wealth has flowed into the pockets of the aristocratic families."

"They eat too much and don't pay taxes. The King only collects taxes from the poor people; how many taels of silver can be collected? Moreover, sixty or seventy percent of the poor people are also affiliated with the aristocratic families. The taxes of these people are collected by the aristocratic families, not by the imperial court."

The Ying King said: "Everyone understands the truth, but how to break the situation? Local great clans and officials of various commanderies and counties are eighty or ninety percent related to the aristocratic families. The big shots and cabinet members in the imperial court are all one body. If you want to collect taxes from the aristocratic families, unless you dismiss all the civil and military officials in the court, only then can you push through the new law."

The Jin King said calmly: "Dismissal is useless. If I dismiss one of their important positions today, someone might poison the Lone King's bowl tomorrow. In the early years, the Lone King wanted to prune the pure stream, but just among the Lone King's children, there were six who had various accidents! If the Lone King cuts off their financial path, they also dare to take the Lone King's life."

The Ying King sighed: "The aristocratic families and the pure stream are intertwined, and they have colluded with the Four Sacred Academies and the Great Bao Hua Pure Land, long ago growing into towering trees, with roots already reaching every corner of the country. If all these roots were cut, I am afraid the Great Jin would be finished too."

Little Wei Yuan said: "The Great Jin is the child of the Martial Ancestor's layout; this throne will never fall into the hands of others."

The Ying King coughed lightly, wanting to speak but stopping.

The Jin King didn't mind and said: "Although the throne is still surnamed Lu, it is not said that the person sitting on the throne must be the Lone King. At that time, it is not impossible for those people to change to a three-year-old child."

Discussing to this point, Little Wei Yuan entered the main topic: "The humble minister is willing to share the worries for the King! The humble minister can provide a full set of Azure Void army equipment for the Great Jin; the King only needs to give me the tax collection rights and mining rights of several commanderies. The taxes that the King is embarrassed to collect will be collected by me. For every commandery obtained, the humble minister is willing to donate one hundred thousand sets of armor and military equipment to the Great Jin!"

The Jin King was clearly somewhat surprised, but before he could speak, the Ying King's eyes lit up and he asked: "How many flying sword guns are in the military equipment?"

"This batch of military equipment is configured according to the current army configuration of the Azure Void. Because flying sword guns can only be used by Dao foundation cultivators, for the northern border army, the quantity might be somewhat insufficient. If the Ying King has other needs, I will make up for it."

Little Wei Yuan spoke modestly, but the Ying King knew clearly in his heart that in the Azure Void, the total number of Dao foundations was already afraid to exceed five thousand, and perhaps even more. The number of Dao foundations in the army was definitely far above the border army, and it was much stronger than those second-generation ancestors in the Forbidden Army.

The Ying King asked again: "What about the fire guns? First generation or second generation?"

"The Azure Void has long ceased to produce the first generation; they are all second generation."

The so-called second generation was the second generation of gunpowder formulated using thunder sand, spirit wood charcoal, etc. The Azure Void had experienced many great battles, and the power of the firearms in their hands was much greater than the Jin Kingdom's self-made version. This was not something that could be kept secret. The big officials had long known that the Azure Void had another secret recipe for gunpowder, but it was just difficult to crack for a while.

Asking to this point, the Ying King was already glowing, stood up with a "teng," and said: "King, promise him!"

The Jin King was still hesitating, and the Ying King said again: "King, what is the foundation of the country? It is not immortal silver, not military equipment, but those elite soldiers on the northern border! As long as they are there, the sky of the Great Jin will not collapse. If this batch of military equipment arrives one day earlier, the soldiers can die much less! This is the foundation of the country!"

The Jin King sighed and finally nodded, spreading out the map, picking up the vermilion pen, and preparing to draw a circle.

Little Wei Yuan hurriedly said: "King, wait a moment! The areas around the ancestral lands of the Xu family and the Lu family, as well as the core commanderies, I do not want."

The Jin King's hand paused, and he laughed: "You boy, why do you always think of the Lone King as a villain?"

The recognized rule of the Great Tang was that the commandery where the ancestral land of an aristocratic family was located belonged entirely to the aristocratic family. The surrounding commanderies were core areas, and most of the benefits belonged to the aristocratic family. Other commanderies depended on the situation, such as land blocks snatched from alien races by establishing boundary stones, even if they were far from the ancestral land, they were generally defaulted to be core areas, and after a hundred years, the benefits would be slowly returned.

Among the eight commanderies of Ningxi, three were core areas of the Xu family, and the Lu family of Ganzhou also had three core commanderies. Little Wei Yuan didn't want these core commanderies even if they were given to him; taking them was equivalent to being an enemy of the immortals and an enemy of all aristocratic families.

But apart from the core areas, the aristocratic families didn't take other commanderies so seriously. Even if they had controlled them for a long time, it was not impossible to exchange them when necessary. There was a tacit understanding between aristocratic families; the Nine Kingdoms were the body, and the aristocratic families were the flesh and blood. If a piece of flesh and blood grew too rapidly, it might implicate the death of the body.

Therefore, there were unwritten rules among aristocratic families, limiting the number of core areas. Little Wei Yuan's request still had a lot of room for manipulation.

The Jin King's vermilion pen stopped in mid-air, pondered for a moment, and said: "The Lone King enfeoffs you as the Minister of Military Affairs in charge of the south, in charge of all military affairs in the five commanderies of the southwest, with the right to recruit military supplies on the spot."

Subsequently, the vermilion pen fell, circling out five commanderies. Among the five commanderies, two belonged to the eight commanderies of Ningxi, which were considered the peripheral forces of the Xu family, and the imperial court could collect some silver from here, but not much. In two large commanderies, only thirty or forty thousand taels could be collected each year.

"The minister might have to kill some people." Little Wei Yuan said.

The Jin King glared at him and said: "Must you kill them openly?"

Little Wei Yuan then said: "The minister understands; that is, there might be villains slandering me at that time."

The Jin King laughed: "Are there few memorials scolding you? Look, that side of the shelf is full of them!"

The Ying King patted Little Wei Yuan on the shoulder and said: "You must be careful and must not act on impulse. Those so-called pure streams actually have no bottom line in their actions. If you move their interests, they will surely have sinister means."

"Thank you, Ying King, for your guidance." Little Wei Yuan bowed deeply. He still admired the Ying King very much.

"When will the military equipment be delivered?" The Jin King asked.

"There are five thousand sets immediately, which can be handed over at Hanyang Pass. Then twenty thousand sets next month, and twenty-five thousand sets the month after."

The Jin King looked at Little Wei Yuan deeply and said: "It's really fast."

Little Wei Yuan hurriedly said: "This is the inventory of several years."

The Jin King didn't say much, and the next step was to discuss the details.

At this moment, in an inconspicuous side room inside the palace gate, the Left Chancellor and the Right Chancellor were sitting there, watching the sky outside gradually darken. This was originally a place for officials waiting for the morning court to rest. At this moment, the morning court had long since dispersed, so there was no one there. No one would have thought that the Left and Right Chancellors did not leave the palace, but sat here instead.

At this time, an attendant came in and said: "Two lords, Little Wei Yuan has already entered the Imperial Study, and the Ying King is also in the study. It is said that the King is preparing to enfeoff Little Wei Yuan as the Minister of Military Affairs of the South, in charge of the military affairs of five commanderies, with the right to execute first and report later."

The Right Chancellor's face was somewhat gloomy. The Left Chancellor said slowly: "The King's hand has reached into someone else's pot."

The Right Chancellor said: "The ancestral system is like this, and it has been like this for thousands of years in the past. Changing the ancestral system without authorization is perverse, and I am afraid... there is a sign of national destruction."

The Left Chancellor said calmly: "The country will not perish."

The Right Chancellor understood: "Also."

The Left Chancellor stood up slowly and said: "Let's go; if we leave the palace now, we won't be met by anyone."

The Right Chancellor snorted and said: "It is not a good thing for a young man to become famous suddenly."

In the middle of the night, Little Wei Yuan walked out of the Chunhua Hall. His Dharma body was exhausted, but his thoughts were clear and transparent, thinking entirely about the great affairs of the country.

Taking stock of the power in his hands, in addition to being the Governor of Military Affairs for the five commanderies of the southwest, Little Wei Yuan also had the right to collect taxes, mining rights, could set up checkpoints on the border to collect transit duties, could execute first and report later for officials below the seventh rank, and had the right of appointment. That is to say, within a county, except for the County Magistrate, Little Wei Yuan had the right to replace or even execute all other officials.

At this moment, his train of thought was exceptionally clear. Every few steps Little Wei Yuan walked, he would think of an omission, and he would immediately make up for it. Subsequently, Little Wei Yuan thought of another important matter, but it was too late now, and the Jin King should have already rested. Little Wei Yuan prepared to come to pay a visit tomorrow night, mainly to mobilize the Forbidden Army in the capital to go south.

There were four towns of the Forbidden Army in the capital, with thirty thousand people in each town. Little Wei Yuan felt that it would be best to mobilize three towns, or at least one town would do.

The Forbidden Army was full of second-generation ancestors who came to gild themselves and mix for food and death. By holding these people in his hands, Little Wei Yuan grasped the weaknesses of many people.

Little Wei Yuan thought as he walked, and in the blink of an eye, he arrived at the palace gate. Suddenly, his entire body shook, and his pupils shrank!

Outside the palace gate, a woman with a bald head and green pupils was standing there.

(End of chapter)