In the court hall, hundreds of officials knelt down in front of Jiang Beiran and shouted.
"Plain body."
Hearing the emperor's voice, the officials slowly stood up and looked towards the emperor. At this sight, many sharp-eyed officials were stunned.
"Princess (Princess Mingyue)!?"
After blinking hard twice and looking at it several times, these ministers were sure that they had seen it correctly. The person standing behind the emperor was the eldest princess of the previous dynasty!
'Why is the eldest princess here?' 'Why did the eldest princess become a palace maid? 'What is the emperor's purpose in bringing her to court?' Waiting for questions made the ministers think about it, but on the surface they all stood straight.
He didn't squint, and there was no sign of shock at all.
When the court was full of loyal and patriotic ministers, the court meeting became extremely lively. After all, loyal ministers are one of their characteristics. Even in the face of the emperor, they would not dare to remonstrate with anything, and they would die even if they did so.
As for the matters advised by these ministers, as long as he didn't skip the options, Jiang Beiran would basically respond with "Just do what Aiqing said." "Aiqing, thank you for your hard work." "Aiqing did it well."
After all, as the emperor, what he has to do is to leave all kinds of troubles to capable people to handle, instead of having him do all the hard work.
So when he has a group of trustworthy ministers, what Jiang Beiran needs to do is to listen to the progress of things and praise some ministers with outstanding political achievements.
"Your Majesty, the order to stabilize the people in Wuling County has been implemented, and all town government offices have posted announcements. I believe that the people in exile will return soon."
Just as Jiang Beiran was about to open his mouth to praise, he saw two options pop up.
[Option 1: "Thank you, dear, for your hard work" completion reward: Chain Armor Alchemy Code (Xuan level top grade)]
[Option 2: "Oh? Wuling County? Is what Aiqing said true?" Completion reward: Random basic skill point +1]
Looking at the second option, Jiang Beiran remembered that he had been to Wuling County. It could be said that corrupt officials were rampant, obscene worship was rampant, and all kinds of temples were everywhere. There were more than 800 ancestral halls dedicated to Jinyang King Liu Yuelei alone.
In the State of Sheng, there were many kings with different surnames, and many of these kings were not conferred by the emperor, but were nepotisms from many upright sects.
For example, a child from an ordinary family was found to have a talent for cultivation and went to the sect. Later, the child relied on his outstanding talent to advance through the sect and became a middle-level leader within the sect.
Then he must seek benefits for his family at this time.
Practitioners look down on the imperial court, but as ordinary people at the bottom are still willing to be officials, the sect will naturally not refuse the small request of such a rookie.
'Your father wants to be an official? What's the point of being an official? Just make him a king.'
How could a decent sect that didn't pay much attention to the emperor care about a king? If you just follow the process, many times there will be a new king somewhere without the emperor even knowing about it.
And this Jinyang King Liu Yue is such an existence.
As for why Wuling County officials built so many ancestral halls for King Lin Yue of Jinyang? Was it because they respected King Jinyang from the bottom of their hearts? Of course not, the officials just wanted to exploit the people through frequent sacrifices.
After exploiting the money of these people, the officials would also use part of it to pay homage to King Jinyang. Then, with the tacit approval of King Jinyang, they became even more unscrupulous, piling up a few broken stones and calling them ancestral halls, and then let them
If the common people pay or don't pay? That is disrespecting King Jinyang. It is a crime of great disrespect and he will be killed!
After recalling Wuling County, Jiang Beiran chose the second choice and asked: "Oh? Wuling County? Is what Aiqing said true?"
[Optional mission completed, reward: forging +1]
The official was stunned after hearing this. What the emperor had just given were all affirmative sentences, so why did he turn them into questions now?
This made him understand that the emperor was not asking blindly, so he quickly knelt down and said: "I deserve death for my crime."
Jiang Beiran frowned and said, "Your life is enough to die once. Tell me what happened in Wuling County."
The official didn't even dare to raise his head, so he replied: "Officials in Wuling County relied on the protection of King Jinyang to ignore the imperial court. In recent years, they rarely obeyed the instructions issued by the imperial court."
"Then why did you hide this matter just now?" Jiang Beiran asked in a serious tone.
The official kneeling on the ground was silent for a long time, and finally replied as if he had made some decision: "Reporting to Your Majesty, there are too many sect forces involved in Wuling County, and I am worried..."
"Afraid that not only can I not control them, but I will be harmed by them?"
Listening to the emperor's very calm tone, the official couldn't help but tremble.
Seeing that the official didn't reply, Jiang Beiran knew that he had guessed correctly. However, such an official who was afraid of evil forces was not excluded from the system. It was probably to lure Wuling County away.
After tapping the dragon case with five fingers for a while, Jiang Beiran said, "Do you know what crime you committed?"
The official below suddenly started to tremble even more violently, "Your Majesty, I am sincere, just for..."
"I'm asking you what crime you committed!"
Hearing the emperor's strengthened tone, the official felt agitated and replied with a trembling voice: "Wei... what I committed was the crime of deceiving... the emperor."
"Very good." Jiang Beiran nodded, then glanced around the other ministers and said, "Are there any people like Minister Ning who hide things and don't repay them for the sake of the good of the court and me?"
After hearing this, all the ministers hurriedly knelt down together. In addition to fear, they also felt more admiration for the emperor.
They never expected that the emperor would be so precise in catching the only problematic one among the many reports, which showed that the emperor knew far more than they imagined.
In just two months, the new emperor had brought them too many surprises.
He used thunderous means to remove a large number of traitorous officials and corrupt officials, restructured the court structure, strengthened the centralization of power, and even began to manage the national army in the newly issued decree using the method of pavilion officials.
Such a method astonished many old ministers, and it was hard to believe that the emperor had never been involved in court affairs before.
But it is true that the emperor's methods are too tough and he has no fear. No matter who the officials who came to the court were, as long as they were incompetent, they were all driven back, so they did not dare to take this matter seriously.
Puncture.
Because regardless of the "king of the sect", it is already an unspoken rule in the court. After all, there are too many bloody examples before them.
"It is impossible for the imperial court to defeat the sect."
This concept is deeply imprinted in each of their minds.
None of them wanted to fight against the sect for the young and vigorous new emperor. Firstly, they were afraid of being affected, and secondly, they did not want to lose this wise king who was rare in thousands of years.
Looking down, Jiang Beiran smiled and said, "They are all kneeling down? Could it be that they are all hiding something?"
At this time, the Taiwei standing at the front shouted: "I beg your Majesty to think twice!"
As soon as someone took the lead, other ministers also shouted: "I beg your Majesty to think twice!"
Seeing so many loyal ministers and good ministers all "revealing to death", Jiang Beiran also understood that it was impossible to erase the fear of the sect in their hearts for a while. Although they deceived the emperor, in a sense,
Jiang Beiran could also think that they were protecting him in this way.
After all, these ministers still don't know where they came from, so it is reasonable to deal with them in this way.
"Retreat from the court." Jiang Beiran glanced at Wang Shougui next to him and said.
Wang Shougui was stunned for a moment, then quickly raised his voice and shouted: "Retreat!!!"
Under the surprised gazes of all the ministers, Jiang Beiran left the Xuanting Hall directly.
Although the ministers were a little confused, they immediately shouted loudly: "Long live my emperor!"
After standing up again, all the ministers looked at each other with confusion on their faces.
Only Minister Ning breathed a long sigh of relief. Since the emperor did not punish him, but directly announced his resignation, at least his life should be saved.
They left Xuanting Hall all the way and came to the outskirts of the palace, but the ministers still did not dare to share what had just happened because the impression of the emperor suddenly appearing in front of them for the first time was too profound.
After leaving the imperial city, the ministers gathered in groups in their own way to discuss what happened today.
Walking on the way to the Jingxin Hall, Jiang Beiran looked at Deng Xianghan behind him and asked, "Have you ever seen this scene today?"
Deng Xianghan hesitated for a moment, and finally nodded: "I've never seen it, but I've heard about it."
"Has the imperial court ever contended with the sect?"
"Yes." Deng Xianghan nodded, "But the final outcome is not very good."
"Why is it wrong? Tell me in detail."
The story was not long, and the group finished it shortly after they walked back to the study. To put it simply, Deng Bo also wanted to show off his talents when he first ascended the throne.
Because just like Jiang Beiran, before he ascended the throne, the big bosses of good and evil all said they would look after him.
This gave Deng Bo the confidence to do what he did.
Soon, he encountered the first very unpleasant thing, which was that taxes in one area could not be collected, which made Deng Bo very uncomfortable.
After some investigation, he learned that the area was governed by a king named by the sect. At that time, Deng Bo thought that he had Guan Shi'an as his backer. What kind of "king of the sect" could he not control?
So he asked Da Sinong to send people to forcibly collect taxes from that land. As a result, all the people sent by the court were heard from.
Deng Bo was furious and immediately wrote a letter and sent it to Guan Shi'an.
However, this letter seemed to be lost in the sea, and there was no reply for a long time.
It was not until Deng Bo, who did not believe in evil, had another collision with the sect that he finally received Guan Shian's letter.
The meaning of the letter is simple, it means that you should only care about the common people who are not protected by the king, and turn a blind eye to those who are included in the king's circle.
Hearing this, Jiang Beiran didn't feel surprised at all, and even felt that this was something Guan Shi'an would do.
Because through several conversations, Jiang Beiran knew that Guan Shian really thought being the emperor was a joke.
'I hope the current Sect Leader Guan has a little bit of this awareness because of Yin Jianghong's influence, otherwise it will be really difficult to handle.'
Because according to what Deng Xianghan said, Guan Shi'an is very much like the kind of parent who said to the teacher at the beginning of school, "Teacher, if my child disobeys, you can beat him to death, it doesn't matter."
In the end, the teacher just made his son stand for one class as a penalty, and the parent came to school to yell at the teacher.
'Both old men don't make people worry...'
After listening to the "story", Jiang Beiran looked at Mu Yao who wanted to speak many times and said, "What do you have to say?"
"No wonder Big Daddy always says that the sect is too corrupt! Listen to this, you can't even stop the sect from oppressing the people, so why do you have the nerve to claim to be upright? It's really laughable!"
"So what do you have in mind?"
"Look for my eldest father! He will definitely deal with those sects."
"I am smart and let the leader of the Demon Sect take care of the upright sect. So do you think Sect Master Guan will stand up and act as an upright person in charge? Or will he stand up as an upright person in charge?"
Kong Qianqian, who was also listening, couldn't help but ask: "Your Majesty, what is the difference between these two sentences?"
Jiang Beiran glanced at her and said, "You'd better go and peel an orange for me."
"As ordered." After Kong Qianqian said that, he ran away.
Mu Yao, who had understood Jiang Beiran's meaning on the other side, said: "So if that Guan sect master cannot realize the seriousness of this problem, is there no other way?"
But Jiang Beiran fell into silence and did not answer her question.
Jiang Beiran felt that the reason why Guan Shian wrote such a letter to Deng Bo at that time was that, firstly, he really thought it was easy to be the emperor, and secondly, Guan Shian was still Emperor Xuan at that time and was not as intimidated as he is now.
force.
So when he encounters this kind of problem, he will naturally not fall out with other sects for the sake of a small court.
Now that Guan Shi'an has been influenced by Yin Jianghong for so long, his concept of the imperial court should have changed slightly. In addition, he is already Xuanzong, and his courage should be much greater than before. He should not disagree with killing several main sects to scare the monkeys.
'But I always feel that it won't go so smoothly...'
After taking a breath, Jiang Beiran retreated and came to the courtyard to mind his own business, and released the Xie sculpture given to him by Yin Jianghong.
Because he still had one thing to do before going to Guan Shian, and that was that the [Tell Yin Jianghong about this conversation afterwards] option that it triggered yesterday had not yet been completed.
Then at the end of the day, Yin Jianghong appeared at the door of the study in person, but Jiang Beiran was not too surprised.
Although he had written this matter very clearly in the letter, through the two options jumped yesterday, Jiang Beiran felt that Yin Jianghong was eavesdropping outside, so he should be concerned about the news he heard about Liang Guo.
Taken very seriously.
In the courtyard, looking at Jiang Beiran walking out, Yin Jianghong said: "You did a good job. You got the key information out so quickly. You are indeed very good."
Jiang Beiran replied with a smile: "It's not that I'm excellent, but it's that only if I ask about this matter, the princess will be most likely to tell the whole story."