Chapter 1065: Getting More Interesting

The entire room fell into a dead silence.

The brothel, which had been incredibly noisy just a moment ago, saw everyone's movements come to a halt, and everyone's eyes turned to look over in unison.

"I know who he is!"

Suddenly, Jiang Xuan whispered resentfully beside Liu Zheng: "The son of the Feudatory King of Wu, Xie Kai!"

The Feudatory King of Wu?

Liu Zheng's eyes narrowed slightly, and he almost laughed out loud.

No wonder.

The Feudatory King of Wu was a rather unique existence in Longyan. Why? Because the Feudatory King of Wu governed Wudi, which was the Jiangdong region, including the Jiangzhe area. What kind of place was this? A land of fish and rice; even in Liu Zheng's past life, in modern society, this was the most prosperous and wealthiest place in all of Zhongguo. Likewise, this was also the place that the Scholar-Official Group had always controlled. Therefore, the Feudatory King of Wu should have been one of the scholar-officials' people.

He was also the source of funding for the entire Scholar-Official Group. In his previous life, during the Ming Dynasty, the primary fiscal revenue came from this Jiangzhe area.

The fiscal revenue even exceeded that of the Ming Dynasty imperial family.

One could imagine how developed this Jiangzhe area was.

At that time, the Feudatory King of Wu and the Scholar-Official Group had always been in a honeymoon period.

However...

All of this began to change quietly starting last year. Why? Because the previous policy of closing the country and the strategy of banning maritime trade allowed them to close their doors and engage in all sorts of operations. Various underground smuggling, and even cooperation with the Wa pirates, allowed them to make a fortune.

But when Xie Tianyao issued a decree to officially open maritime transport,

the Feudatory King of Wu was stunned.

Once maritime transport was opened, what would happen to his smuggling syndicate? Wouldn't these profits disappear and be completely taken over by the imperial court? As the saying goes, it is easy to go from frugality to luxury, but difficult to go from luxury to frugality. The Feudatory King of Wu, who was accustomed to making big money, felt very unhappy. But what could he do? Thus, he began to make trouble for the Scholar-Official Group.

Aren't you all scholar-officials?

Aren't you the ones controlling the imperial government?

How could you let maritime transport be opened?

The scholar-officials were equally helpless. Xie Tianyao had issued the order personally, and they could not afford to ignore his face. Thus, this was a case of pulling one hair and moving the whole body. Once maritime transport was opened, the imperial court established the Maritime Transport Department in Wudi, and suddenly the entire Wudi region was thrown into chaos.

The distribution of benefits had to be re-planned.

The power hierarchy of every faction had to be overturned and rebuilt... The impact of a single maritime transport on Wudi was quite significant. And more importantly, it made the Feudatory King of Wu feel cold toward the Scholar-Official Group. This made him start thinking about breaking away from this faction that had been sucking his blood...

The conflict began to become complex and sharp.

The Feudatory King of Wu even had to follow the decree and begin suppressing the Wa pirates and the fake Wa syndicates that had been cooperating with Wudi for nearly a hundred years...

Heartache!

Such heartache!

So much money, gone in an instant; whose heart wouldn't ache?

All of this, every spearhead, naturally pointed toward Liu Zheng!

What made the Feudatory King of Wu break down even more was:

The tea trade.

Previously, almost all of Longyan's tea trade went out through the Jiangzhe area... The Jiangzhe area was the largest base for planting, producing, and selling tea. But ever since this Vice Minister Liu took the tea trade into his own hands, he had actually abandoned a large share of the tea from the Jiangzhe area!

He promoted tea planting across the entire nation of Longyan!

Places like the North, Liangzhou, and even the Southern Barbarian Lands...

Only for their Jiangzhe area did he have no further thoughts!

How infuriating!

It is outrageous!

The sluggish sales of tea in the Jiangzhe area this year had already caused him losses of profit that ordinary people could not imagine!

Therefore, the Feudatory King of Wu had always harbored hatred toward Liu Zheng!

This time, for the Crown Prince's grand funeral, all the feudatory kings of the country had arrived. Liu Zheng had not deliberately

observed the Feudatory King of Wu in the procession. He had not expected that his son would already be unable to restrain himself.

However.

If it were the Liu Zheng of before, he naturally would not care about these things; a mere Feudatory King of Wu could be crushed whenever he wanted. Whether it was military strength or economic sanctions, he could have played the Feudatory King of Wu until he was dizzy and confused.

But now, his thinking was different...

The death of that old man Xie Tianyao had left him with a problem.

A problem worth deep reflection and study: the way of checks and balances. It was no longer just simple crushing and slaughter.

This was not the art of the emperor, the King's Way.

This was the art of hegemony.

But since ancient times, emperors who insisted on the art of hegemony could not last long. How strong was Xiang Yu back then? Yet he still ended up committing suicide at the Wu River. The Feudatory King of Wu's hatred for him, Liu Zheng, was just a microcosm of many factions and many feudatory kings in Longyan at this time. One could imagine how many people in Longyan hated him now.

How many people loved him,

that was how many people hated him.

He never wanted to be some kind of saint, but at this moment, what he had to consider was the entire country, the entire state, the entire Longyan, and all the people under heaven.

He needed to learn Xie Tianyao's way of checks and balances from these events, rather than just blindly killing. His current status and perspective should be about how to balance the interests between the Old Aristocrats, the New Aristocracy, and the Scholar-Official Group, rather than just blindly replacing them. Longyan could not withstand that kind of turmoil.

In a short time,

Liu Zheng had already thought of so much.

Over here, the liveliness was still continuing.

Did you think that just because this Crown Prince of the Feudatory King of Wu, Xie Kai, brought out two pieces of gold, others would be tempted, and those guests in the private rooms would be dying to give up their rooms?

Not at all.

This was Jinghua.

There were many nobles here, and especially in a place like a brothel, what people played for was face.

Just as expected.

"Hmph! I was wondering who it was; so it's the Prince of Wu. What a grand display of arrogance!"

A cold voice emerged from a private room on the second floor.

Upon hearing this, the crowd began to discuss the matter heatedly once more.

The Prince of Wu?

No wonder he is so arrogant!

One must know that in the former Longyan, before the rise of Liangzhou, this Prince of Wu was the wealthiest Feudatory King in all of Longyan, and Wudi was the wealthiest territory in all of Longyan! Even the Prince of Wei, the premier Feudatory King of those days, had to show some respect when facing the Prince of Wu.

In a word, he was rich!

Making a fortune while keeping a low profile!

The military strength of Wudi was not very strong, which was also a kind of cleverness on the part of the Prince of Wu. He was already rich enough; if he were to also build up his military strength, it would certainly arouse the wariness of Xie Tianyao.

Balance.

Everyone is playing the game of balance.

But this did not mean that the Prince of Wu would fear the Prince of Wei. Each had their own strengths.

Hearing this voice, Xie Kai could not help but laugh out loud: "Which young master is it? Do you dare to come out and speak?"

The others were also very curious.

There were indeed very few people in the world who dared to disregard the son of the Prince of Wu.

"You are not worthy!"

Who would have thought.

The person in the private room said exactly that.

The whole place was in an uproar!

Liu Zheng also looked curious.

It's just... why does this voice sound a bit familiar?

He didn't expect that just by coming to this brothel for a stroll, he would get to see such a good show.

It was getting more and more interesting.

Clatter, clatter!

Clatter, clatter!

A servant walked out of that second-floor private room, carrying a tray.

On that tray were ingots upon ingots of gold!

Then...

He was seen throwing the tray toward

The clattering sound echoed throughout the hall.

The entire hall suddenly fell silent once again. Pop-ups are frequent recently, please click to download to avoid pop-ups.