Two Realms: Don't call me evil!

Guiling Palace launched a vigorous reform of aristocratic families in the three states, targeting those powerful aristocratic families entrenched in various places.

In the past, each of these aristocratic families had been local tyrants who had been operating in the area for hundreds of years, and their relationships were complicated.

Through the cultivation and training of family members, both financial and military resources are very solid, and they become powerful figures. They even actively send talents to the sects and the court to enhance their own voice.

Even the increasingly declining Dali Dynasty was helpless against them and could only allow these aristocratic families to prevail and control local power.

But all this was brought to an end with a document from Guiling Palace. In Qingzhou, Qingzhou and Chongzhou, these powerful families who were used to a good life suddenly encountered an unprecedented cold winter.

Once the various harsh taxes and levies of Guiling Palace were implemented, they were like a flood and a beast, and were severely criticized and opposed by these wealthy and powerful families.

But words are the weakest weapon. The iron fist and power of Guiling Palace told these powerful families what the style of the evil cultivators was.

Anyone who resists the tax reform of Guiling Palace will be liable to have their property confiscated and all their property will become the wealth of Guiling Palace.

Such things are not isolated cases, but are common.

Too many wealthy and powerful families are so attached to their wealth that they are unwilling to give up the fat meat in their bowls.

Some people did not dare to resist Guiling Palace openly, so they resorted to various small actions.

Either they use the local discourse power they hold to incite public opinion and scholars to oppose Guiling Palace, and spread rumors and slander about Guiling Palace.

Either they deceive their superiors and subordinates, evade taxes, and divide their family's spiritual fields into the names of civilians, and are only willing to pay the lowest tax rate.

They even concealed the head tax collected by Guiling Palace and falsely reported the number of family members.

Some ruthless families simply kicked some unimportant members out of the family, and even did not allow them to be included in the family tree, changing their status to civilians in an attempt to get away with it, thinking that Guiling Palace was not clear about their account books.

Their methods are more than enough to deal with the Dali Dynasty. The imperial power does not extend to the countryside, and the powerful families are the local emperors.

But this trick doesn't work in Guiling Palace.

Guiling Palace didn’t care at all about the scholars who instigated the riots.

In the eyes of scholars all over the world, demonic sects like Guiling Palace do not have a positive image.

The reputation of the demonic sect is already bad enough in the eyes of scholars, so do they care if it gets even worse?

What is the situation with the demonic sects? After thousands of years of being baptized by the right to speak of the righteous sects, most of the demonic sects have become a being that everyone wants to kill. It is difficult to reverse this impression in a short period of time, and the Guiling Palace has never cared about this.

As long as I have no bottom line, no one can threaten me with it.

Once the powerful families who incite public opinion are discovered by Guiling Palace, their property will be confiscated and they will be rich.

Those who engaged in various tricks and falsified accounts for tax evasion by Guiling Palace were treated just as simply and crudely by Guiling Palace.

Seeing that you have such a huge fortune but only pay so little tax? They directly marched the army to the door, forcibly demanded the account book for investigation, and even sent elders who were good at searching souls to search the souls of the powerful people from the aristocratic families.

It would be fine if they didn’t find it, but once they do, it will be another round of Candy Crush Saga.

Even the very few aristocratic families that have a Daotai-level strongman in charge, such as the Xu family in Fengcheng, are the greatest powerful family in Qingzhou. There is an ancestor in the Daotai-level in the family, and the family is very famous in Qingzhou.

But even for a powerful family like the Xu family, Liu Yingying came to visit in person.

She brought the Thousand-Handed Centipede with her and stayed for half an hour. It is said that when she left, the Taoist ancestor of the Xu family was so humble that he personally escorted Liu Yingying for ten miles and gave her millions of spirit stones.

There was no way out. The Thousand-Armed Centipede, which had the combat power of the Purple Mansion Realm, had come to the door. If he did not surrender to the Guiling Palace, then the outcome would be unimaginable.

The Guiling Palace used such means, which were almost tantamount to robbery. Rounds of bloody storms broke out in the three states. Countless powerful families were wiped out by the Guiling Palace, and the wealth of the entire family became the nutrients for the expansion of the Guiling Palace.

With unrivaled military force as their foundation, these powerful families no longer have any effect on the Guiling Palace with all the methods they used in the past.

They either submitted to the Guiling Palace's taxation under torture, raised their hands respectfully and offered money voluntarily, or became tombstones reduced to ashes by the Guiling Palace army.

Through this reform, a huge amount of wealth also flowed into the pockets of Guiling Palace.

Dali City, the Imperial Palace.

The news of Guiling Palace's tax increase spread continuously and finally reached Dali City.

So much so that as soon as today's court meeting began, the entire court was filled with cries and shouts from all the civil and military officials.

"Your Majesty, Your Majesty, you must make the decision for the people of the world!"

"Your Majesty, the Guiling Palace is nothing. They are levying heavy taxes in Qingzhou in the name of the Southern Garrison, ignoring the people's sentiments and opinions, and collecting all kinds of exorbitant taxes. They are already lawless."

"Gui Ling Palace is really crazy. I am from the Zhang family of Heling, Qingzhou. My family has always been kind and generous, helping refugees and putting kindness at the top of the family tradition.

But even so, they were brutally massacred by Guiling Palace, and the entire family was executed. It's a pity for my grandson, who is only fifteen years old this year, but he suffered such a cruel death."

High-ranking civil and military officials continued to come out at the scene, denouncing with tears in their eyes the disaster that Guiling Palace had brought to the three states.

This is because many of them come from powerful families in the Three States, and their families trained them to serve as officials in Beijing. Now that their families are in trouble, they can only help in this way.

Wei Sheng looked at the officials crying below with a headache. He certainly knew why these officials were like that, and he himself was left speechless by Guiling Palace.

It has only been a few days since Su Jie was crowned king, less than ten days in total, and the other party has already started to behave like a human being, causing such a huge disaster. It is simply a slap in his face.

How would the whole world view him as an emperor?

As soon as he conferred the title of King of Qing on Su Jie, Su Jie started to take action against the powerful families and imposed heavy taxes. People would only laugh at him for being an incompetent emperor who could make anyone a king.

“Gui Ling Palace, the imperial court conferred the title of King Qing on him in vain because of his contribution in destroying Tantric Buddhism, hoping that he would be able to protect the country. It seems that I was wrong after all.

Guiling Palace has no intention of sharing the worries of the world. He ignores the trust of the court and privately imposes various heavy taxes on various places. He is not a good son and is really hateful. "

Wei Sheng seemed quite angry, but he just cursed and did not take any actual action to deal with Guiling Palace. If he had known a way, he would not have made Su Jie the king in the first place.

"A bunch of people who are blinded by greed."

At the front of the military officers' team, Wei Yushuang was also there.

She cursed in her heart, unable to bear the ugly behavior of these civil and military officials.

Normally, female officials were not allowed to attend court, let alone women members of the royal family, as they would be branded as interfering in state affairs.

But Wei Yushuang is not an ordinary person. In addition to her identity as the eldest princess, she is also a newly promoted Purple Mansion monk.

At a time when the status of the Dali royal family is becoming increasingly shaky, allowing Wei Yushuang to attend court can greatly consolidate the royal status and make people understand that the royal family still has the power to govern the world.

"Father, since we have conferred the title of King Su Jie on him, the king has the right to impose taxes in his fiefdom, so we cannot accuse him of collecting taxes."

Wei Yushuang stood up, not because she had a good impression of Guiling Palace, but because she had long been fed up with the corruption in the court.

In the past, whenever the royal family of Dali proposed to levy taxes and increase salaries, they would always be desperately obstructed by these civil and military officials. They would say that the order of the ancestors could not be violated, and that they would compete with the people for profits, etc. They were obstructed in every possible way and could not be implemented at all.

Even if it was actually implemented, it would not fall on the wealthy and powerful families at all, but would be assigned to the common people and bear the brunt of the burden.

But how much money can the people squeeze out of them? Aimless levies will only cause complaints and resentment from the people.

Not to mention collecting taxes from the aristocratic and powerful families, even the taxes from the common people and merchants who relied on them for support were difficult to collect.

When other people saw this, they all turned to the wealthy and powerful families in order to avoid the court's taxation. As a result, the taxes collected by the Dali Dynasty became less and less.

Civil and military officials always have something to say. It is precisely because there are too many exorbitant taxes and levies that the people of the country rebel, conceal their taxes and do not pay them, which leads to the national treasury becoming less and less. They demand that the arbitrary taxation should not be stopped.

In this case, the wealthy and powerful families will not be able to live a comfortable life.

Unfortunately, these powerful families encountered Guiling Palace and the ruthless man Su Jie this time.

Wei Yushuang had read the memorials submitted regarding this matter, as well as the information provided by the royal spies and even the Sky Patrol.

Through this information, Wei Yushuang discovered that it was true that Guiling Palace was killing people in large numbers because of taxation, but she found a problem.

In the past, when the Dali Dynasty sent out tax collection teams to collect taxes, Qingzhou and other places concealed the truth. The land was clearly fertile and even spiritual, but it was recorded in the fish and phosphorus books as wasteland.

But when the monks from Guiling Palace arrived and saw the so-called wasteland, they directly demanded the confiscation of the manors and spiritual fields, no matter whether the lands belonged to aristocratic families, powerful people or nobles.

At this time, a large number of lands and owners that did not match the fish and phosphorus books emerged and took the initiative to pay taxes to the Guiling Palace.

Since Guiling Palace is here, I don’t bother to care about your complicated problems and will just cut them all off. If you say it is a wasteland, then it belongs to my Guiling Palace.

After taking a final look at the memorial, Wei Yushuang discovered that in Qingzhou alone, the amount of registered land had increased several times, and the various spiritual fields and spiritual mines had increased more than ten times.

The originally ownerless wasteland seemed to have inexplicably turned into fertile fields overnight, and all kinds of abandoned mines were transformed into treasure mines that produced all kinds of spiritual materials.

There are countless examples like this. Wei Yushuang felt an inexplicable sense of relief and comfort when seeing Guiling Palace's behavior.

Humph, you bunch of powerful families, the royal family cannot collect taxes from you, but if it were Guiling Palace instead, you would be willing to pay taxes.

You concealed so much information and didn't pay taxes. Not to mention that Guiling Palace wanted to kill people, when she read the memorial, she was so angry that she wanted to kill a few powerful families on the spot.

"You are wrong, Princess. This world belongs to the royal family. Guiling Palace is arbitrarily imposing taxes on the people and competing with them for profits. This is an erosion of the royal family's rights and cannot be tolerated."

An official came out. He was Wen Ziheng, the Minister of Rites.

He also has a more prominent identity, he is a member of the Gyeongju Choi clan, one of the Three Clans and Five Surnames.

The Three Sects and Five Surnames are the largest forces outside of the royal family of the Dali Dynasty. The Purple Mansion cultivators of the Three Sects have never been extinct, and the Five Surnames have been passed down for thousands of years. Even if the dynasty changes, they can still stand firm, and their influence in the Dali Dynasty is astonishingly great.

"You know this is the royal world, but when it comes to collecting taxes, you seem to have forgotten this sentence? Why is that?"

Wei Yushuang snorted coldly. As a Purple Mansion cultivator, he could now speak and talk about things that he couldn't say in the past.

Wen Ziheng's face changed slightly. He felt the pressure emanating from the Purple Mansion cultivator Wei Yushuang, which made him feel as if a huge rock was pressing on his heart.

"Princess, everyone pays taxes, but it's not easy for those wealthy and powerful families to support their entire families, so they don't have much spare money."

Wen Ziheng lied with open eyes to find excuses for the powerful families.

The Cui family is also a powerful family, and one of the most powerful families. However, for hundreds of years, the Cui family has not known what paying taxes is.

"No spare money? I saw that when Guiling Palace came to our door, you aristocratic families were very rich. The amount of land that Qingzhou concealed was several times the amount, and all of this land was registered in the name of your aristocratic families.

So I would like to ask Minister Wen to explain to me why the Guiling Palace can collect taxes that my royal family cannot?
Do you think our royal family's swords are not sharp enough, let alone cruel enough?"

Wei Yushuang's eyes were cold, and her pupils were like an eternal cold pond, causing Wen Ziheng's expression to change suddenly.

When all the civil and military officials in the court heard this, they also burst into an uproar.

"Princess, please don't slander others."

"Where are the ethics and rules, Princess? As a Purple Mansion cultivator, you can slander me like this."

"The royal family is the common ruler of the world. If you, Princess, don't watch your words, you will only bring shame to the royal family. Please be careful with your words and actions."

All the civil and military officials at the scene were very emotional, and it seemed that they wanted to bang their heads against the throne to prove their innocence.

Wen Ziheng's eyes were gloomy, and he said sinisterly: "Princess, water can carry a boat but can also overturn it. The aristocratic families are the supporters of the royal family.

The five great families of Qingzhou Cui, Lianzhou Li, Lanzhou Song, Anzhou Gao, and Fengzhou Lu have been serving Emperor Tianwu since the founding of the country and have never been negligent in the slightest. Their loyalty to the Dali royal family is evident to all.

What is the princess's intention in saying this? Are you doubting our loyalty and wanting to destroy our five great families?"

The whole place was silent. The five great families had always been united. Wen Ziheng's questioning was simply a threat, a direct challenge to the royal majesty.

Wei Yushuang's eyes turned cold, she clenched her hands into fists, and was about to speak when suddenly Wei Sheng's voice came.

"That's enough. Let's stop arguing about this. I have never doubted your patriotism.

Yu Shuang, you should also restrain yourself, respect the officials present here, and think before you speak.

Today's court meeting ends here, and we are dismissed."

Wei Sheng couldn't let the two of them quarrel any longer. He was worried that his daughter would lose control and punch Wen Ziheng into pieces, and then it would be too late to save him.

Upon hearing this, Wei Yushuang tried to suppress her anger. She also knew the background of the five great families. After all, she had just been promoted to the Purple Mansion. If she turned against the five great families, the current situation of the royal family would be unbearable.

Wei Yushuang couldn't help but become more eager for strength.

If she also had three purple palaces and the power to suppress everything, why would she be timid in doing things?

"Five great families, I remember that your Cui family's ancestral land is in Qingzhou, Minister Wen, you'd better pray in your heart that Guiling Palace will be as reasonable as I am."

After looking at Wen Ziheng deeply and saying these words, Wei Yushuang turned and left.

Hearing this, Wen Ziheng smiled contemptuously and said, "My Cui family has experienced so many changes. If Guiling Palace dares to touch us, Su Jie must be really crazy."

As one of the five major families, Wen Ziheng is very confident and does not think that Guiling Palace dares to touch their Cui family.

The five great families that have been passed down for thousands of years have been living well and have survived so many dynasty changes. Now they are just experiencing another turbulent dynasty. At worst, they will just need to continue to assist the new dynasty when it comes to power. How could they be afraid of a demon sect?

Even the great Emperor Tianwu, who had achieved the realm of Dongxu and was tyrannical for the whole world, was ultimately unable to make a move on their five great families.

How could Su Jie dare to risk the world's disapproval and attack the Cui family, one of the five great families? This is completely different from attacking other powerful families. (End of this chapter)