In the royal capital of Western Jin, late autumn was drawing near once again. A bleak, chilly wind whistled through the streets, where most passersby wore worried expressions and hurried along in haste.
As Wei Yuan walked down the grand avenue leading toward the palace gates, officials he encountered stepped forward one after another to pay their respects. Even high-ranking dignitaries of the second and third ranks sitting inside sedan chairs hastily halted their litters and came forward to greet him. From the obsequiousness of these officials alone, it was clear that Wei Yuan's standing was beyond comparison to what it had been years ago.
Back when Wei Yuan had first been appointed jiedushi, he had held the second rank as well, yet any ordinary second-rank official back then would look down their nose at him. Now, when meeting Wei Yuan again, those of the second rank who wielded substantive power made a point of keeping their heads half a head lower than his, while those second-rank officials without real power bowed so low their heads could barely reach his shoulders. Had Wei Yuan not been tall of stature, these officials would surely have suffered strained necks and aching lower backs.
Dusk was approaching. The grand morning court session had ended before noon, and afternoons were usually spent handling important affairs in the Hall of Political Affairs. Deliberations in the Hall of Political Affairs had likely just concluded, for Wei Yuan spotted several officials who served there. Yet he saw neither the Left Prime Minister nor the Right Prime Minister.
Wei Yuan understood well. The road he walked was the sole thoroughfare into and out of the palace gates, and the two prime ministers would inevitably have had to take it. Having received word of his arrival in the capital, they were deliberately avoiding him.
Wei Yuan had anticipated this long ago. As the two most powerful officials in the court, both belonging to the clean-stream faction, the Left and Right Prime Ministers naturally could not stomach someone like him—born of an imperial in-law lineage and closely aligned with the eunuch faction. Yet Wei Yuan had grown too formidable; detest him though they might, they could not get rid of him. Thus, they simply avoided meeting him altogether to spare themselves irritation.
After entering the palace, Liu Quangong came forward to meet him, saying, "Lord Wei's sudden arrival caught this servant unprepared, leaving me unable to give you a proper welcome. The Sagely King is in the imperial study today. This servant shall take you over right away."
"I trouble you, Eunuch Liu." Wei Yuan slipped a small cloth pouch into his hands.
Liu Quangong felt inside the pouch and noticed several heavy objects that were somewhat scalding hot to the touch. He could not help asking, "What manner of treasure is this?"
Wei Yuan smiled. "Earth Core Flame Jade, a material used by immortals. When put to use, it is far handier than immortal silver."
"So it is an item of the immortals! Th-this... how could this servant ever dare accept it?" Liu Quangong hurriedly tried to push it back.
Wei Yuan said, "Even without trading it for goods, it is wonderful for personal use. Keeping a piece tucked into your bedding will keep you warm as spring even through bitter cold nights. It's just that prolonged use tends to stir up internal fire, so the room must not be too small, and you'll need to take cooling herbal remedies to dissipate the heat."
Liu Quangong stamped his foot and sighed, "This... Ah! Then I shall unworthily accept it. It is just that I have nothing I can help you with at the moment, which truly weighs on my conscience!"
As they walked along, Wei Yuan asked seemingly offhandedly, "The King used to visit the Jingang Zen Monastery often in the past. Why has he gone less frequently of late?"
"With Zhao invading of late and state affairs piling up, the King cannot very well run outside the city every single day."
Wei Yuan nodded and asked no more, following Liu Quangong into the imperial study. A chair had been placed inside the study, and Prince Ying was seated there as well.
After Wei Yuan greeted Prince Ying, the King of Jin said, "Upon receiving word of your arrival, Prince Ying insisted on returning to the royal capital to see you. We figured We would need to consult Prince Ying on this matter anyway, so We summoned him back. Speak your mind first."
Wei Yuan said, "Zhao harbors voracious ambitions; they certainly will not stop after taking merely a hundred li of land. The fundamental solution lies in enriching the country and strengthening the military. As long as our Great Jin possesses an invincible iron army, the enemy will find no opening to exploit."
The King of Jin said, "There are no outsiders here, so spare Us the empty platitudes. We cannot even collect the barest minimum of taxes—how can We speak of enriching the country?"
Wei Yuan was entirely prepared for this and said, "Great Jin possesses vast, fertile lands stretching ten thousand li and a massive population, ranking among the top three of the nine kingdoms. Naturally, it is wealthy—the question is merely whether that wealth resides with the people, the state, or the aristocratic clans. The national treasury is empty and the people's livelihoods are desolate precisely because eight or nine tenths of the wealth flows into the pockets of the aristocratic clans.
"They consume far too much yet pay no taxes. If Your Majesty levies taxes only upon the impoverished commoners, how many taels of silver can You possibly gather? Moreover, sixty to seventy percent of the impoverished commoners are registered under the aristocratic clans, so their taxes are collected by the clans, not the court."
Prince Ying said, "Everyone understands the logic, but how do we break the stalemate? Local prominent clans and officials across the commanderies and counties are, eight or nine times out of ten, entangled by countless ties with the aristocratic clans. The ministers and cabinet grandees in the imperial court are all one and the same. To levy taxes on the aristocratic clans, one would have to dismiss the entire civil and military court before any new laws could be enforced."
The King of Jin said placidly, "Dismissal is useless. If We dismiss them from an important post today, someone might poison Our bowl tomorrow. In earlier years, We sought to curb the clean-stream faction, and as a result, six of Our children suffered all manner of 'accidents' alone! If We cut off their financial lifelines, they would dare take Our life as well."
Prince Ying sighed, "The aristocratic clans and the clean stream are deeply entrenched, entwined and colluding with the Four Sages Academy and the Great Baohua Pure Land. They have long since grown into a towering tree whose roots reach into every corner of the nation. If all those roots were chopped away, I fear Great Jin would be finished as well."
Wei Yuan said, "Great Jin is a piece placed by the Martial Ancestor; the throne will never fall into outside hands."
Prince Ying gave a light cough, hesitating as if wanting to say something.
The King of Jin, however, harbored no such scruples and said, "Though the throne may still belong to the Lü clan, nothing says the one seated upon it must be Us. When the time comes, it is by no means impossible for those people to prop up a three-year-old child in Our stead."
With the discussion having reached this point, Wei Yuan moved to the heart of the matter: "Your subject is willing to share Your Majesty's burdens! I can provide Great Jin with complete sets of Qingming military equipment; Your Majesty need only grant me tax-collection and mining rights in several commanderies. The taxes Your Majesty finds awkward to collect, I shall collect. For each commandery received, your subject is willing to donate one hundred thousand sets of armor and armaments to Great Jin!"
The King of Jin was visibly taken aback, but before he could speak, Prince Ying's eyes lit up, and he asked, "How many flying sword guns are among the armaments?"
"The proportions of this batch of armaments are configured according to Qingming's current military allocation. Since flying sword guns can only be used by Dao Foundation cultivators, the quantity might be somewhat insufficient for the northern border army. If Prince Ying has additional requirements, I can make up the difference."
Wei Yuan spoke modestly, but Prince Ying knew crystal clear: in Qingming, the total number of Dao Foundation cultivators had likely exceeded five thousand by now, perhaps even more. The number of Dao Foundation cultivators organized into military ranks certainly far surpassed the border armies, and compared to those useless second-generation scions in the Imperial Guards, they were worlds ahead.
Prince Ying asked again, "And what about fire guns? First generation or second generation?"
"Qingming has long since ceased producing the first generation. All are second generation."
The so-called second generation was formulated using thunder sand, spiritual wood charcoal, and the like to produce second-generation gunpowder. Having fought through numerous grand campaigns, Qingming possessed firearms far more potent than Jin's domestic versions. This was hardly a secret; the high officials had long known that Qingming held an alternative gunpowder secret recipe, which they simply had not managed to decipher for the time being.
By this point, Prince Ying's face was flushed with excitement. He sprang to his feet and said, "Your Majesty, agree to it!"
While the King of Jin was still hesitating, Prince Ying pressed on, "Your Majesty, what is the foundation of the state? It is not immortal silver, nor is it military equipment; it is those elite soldiers in the northern frontiers! As long as they are there, the sky of Great Jin will not collapse. The sooner this batch of armaments is in place, the fewer soldiers will die! That is the true foundation of the state!"
The King of Jin let out a sigh and finally nodded. Spreading out a map, he took up a vermilion brush, preparing to circle the territories.
Wei Yuan hurriedly said, "Wait a moment, Your Majesty! I will not touch the areas around the ancestral grounds of the Xu family or the Lu clan, nor their core commanderies and counties."
The King of Jin's hand paused, and he chuckled wryly. "You brat, why do you always take Us for a villain?"
By the recognized customs of Great Tang, the commandery containing an aristocratic clan's ancestral grounds belonged entirely to that clan. The surrounding commanderies formed a core zone where the vast majority of profits accrued to the clan. Other commanderies depended on circumstances; for instance, lands wrested from alien tribes and staked with boundary stones, even if far from ancestral soil, were generally treated as core zones by default, and only after a century would rights and revenues gradually be relinquished.
Among the eight commanderies of Ningxi, three were core areas of the Xu family, and the Lu clan of Ganzhou also held three core commanderies. Even if such core commanderies were offered to Wei Yuan, he would not take them; taking them would be tantamount to making an enemy of the immortals and declaring war against all aristocratic clans.
However, beyond core areas, the aristocratic clans did not place as much weight on the other commanderies. Even if they had controlled them for a long time, exchanges were not out of the question when necessary. A tacit understanding existed among the clans: the nine kingdoms were the torso, and the aristocratic clans were the flesh and blood. If a piece of flesh grew too aggressively, it might drag the entire body to death.
Hence, an unwritten rule among the clans placed limits on the number of core areas. There was still ample room for maneuver in what Wei Yuan sought.
With his vermilion brush paused mid-air, the King of Jin pondered for a moment before saying, "We appoint you Grand Minister in Overall Charge of Southern Military Affairs, to oversee all military affairs across the five southwestern commanderies, with authority to requisition military supplies on the spot."
The vermilion brush then came down, circling five commanderies. Two of the five belonged to the eight commanderies of Ningxi, considered peripheral territories of the Xu family where the court could collect a bit of silver, though not much. From two such vast commanderies, the court could only take in three to four hundred thousand taels a year.
"Your subject may need to kill some people," Wei Yuan said.
The King of Jin glared at him. "Must you execute them out in the broad light of day?"
Wei Yuan said, "Your subject understands. It is just that slanderers might whisper accusations when the time comes."
The King of Jin laughed. "As if memorials cursing you are ever in short supply? There, look—that entire shelf is packed with them!"
Prince Ying, however, patted Wei Yuan's shoulder and cautioned, "You must be careful; on no account act on impulse. Those so-called clean-stream folks actually have no bottom line in how they operate. If you touch their interests, they will certainly resort to vicious, underhanded methods."
"Thank you for the guidance, Prince Ying." Wei Yuan bowed deeply. He held great admiration for Prince Ying.
"When can the armaments be delivered?" the King of Jin asked.
"Fifty thousand sets are available immediately and can be delivered at Hanyang Pass. Then two hundred thousand sets next month, followed by two hundred and fifty thousand sets the month after that."
The King of Jin gave Wei Yuan a searching look and remarked, "That truly is fast."
Wei Yuan hurriedly said, "These are accumulated reserves from several years."
The King of Jin said no more, and they proceeded to discuss the details.
Meanwhile, in an inconspicuous side chamber inside the palace gates, the Left and Right Prime Ministers sat looking out at the darkening sky outside the window. This was originally a lounge where officials waited before morning court. Now that morning court had dispersed long ago, it was virtually empty; no one would have imagined that the two prime ministers had not left the palace at all, but were sitting right here.
At this moment, an attendant entered and reported, "My lords, Wei Yuan has entered the imperial study, and Prince Ying is inside as well. Word has it the King intends to appoint Wei Yuan as Grand Minister of Southern Military Affairs to take full command of military affairs across five commanderies, granting him the power to execute first and report later."
The Right Prime Minister's face darkened at once. The Left Prime Minister said slowly, "His Majesty's hand has reached into someone else's pot."
The Right Prime Minister said, "Such are the ancestral institutions; things have operated this way for thousands of years. Arbitrarily altering ancestral rules is perverse and reactionary, and I fear... it is an omen of national ruin."
The Left Prime Minister said placidly, "The country will not fall."
The Right Prime Minister caught his drift. "Indeed."
The Left Prime Minister rose slowly. "Let us go. Leaving the palace now ensures we won't run into anyone."
The Right Prime Minister snorted. "For an upstart youngster to gain sudden prominence is rarely a good thing."
Late at night, Wei Yuan finally walked out of Chunhua Hall. His dharma body was weary, but his thoughts were crystal-clear, revolving entirely around major affairs of state and military.
Taking inventory of the powers now in his grasp, besides overseeing military affairs in the five southwestern commanderies, Wei Yuan held tax-collection rights and mining rights, the authority to establish border checkpoints to levy transit duties, and the power to execute officials below the seventh rank before reporting, as well as the power of appointment. In other words, within a county, with the sole exception of the county magistrate, Wei Yuan had the authority to dismiss or even execute any and all officials, high and low.
His thoughts were remarkably sharp at this moment. Every few steps, Wei Yuan would think of an oversight and immediately devise a remedy. Then another crucial matter came to mind, but the hour was late and the King of Jin had likely retired for the night. Wei Yuan planned to seek another audience tomorrow evening, primarily to transfer the Imperial Guards from the capital down south.
The royal capital had four divisions of Imperial Guards in total, each numbering thirty thousand men. Wei Yuan felt it would be best if he could move three divisions, or at the very least one.
The Imperial Guards were packed with second-generation scions who had come to pad their resumes and idle their lives away. By holding these men in his grasp, Wei Yuan would have a firm grip on many people's vulnerabilities.
Wei Yuan walked and pondered, arriving at the palace gates in the blink of an eye. Suddenly, his whole body jolted, and his pupils shrank violently!
Outside the palace gates stood a bald woman with azure pupils.
Chapter 739