Super Cultivation System of the Three Kingdoms

Chapter 912: Capturing the Vital Points
That night, the lights were bright in the mansion of Prime Minister Wang Yun. In the lobby, there were singing and dancing, and people were drinking and chatting. It was a scene of celebration.

Sitting on the first seat in the middle, Wang Yun drank a bottle of fine wine, looking very happy and proud.

A minister raised a wine jar to him with a flattering smile on his face: "Situ's brilliant plan has made our family more powerful in a blink of an eye. We should toast Situ again."

"Yes, although the imperial court's recruitment of talents this time is not as impressive as that of Yuzhou, nearly a hundred people have come to apply so far, and more people will come in the future. If these people are promoted and reused by His Majesty himself, within three to five years, where will my family have a place in the imperial court?"

"What a brilliant plan, Si Tu." Many ministers and family leaders praised Wang Yun at the same time.

Wang Yun enjoyed the feeling of being surrounded by stars. He picked up the wine jar and drank it all again. He didn't know whether it was because of the alcohol or the emotion, but his old face became radiant.

He put down the wine bottle, took a palm-sized piece of silk from the tray held by the servant beside him, and wiped the wine off his beard.

"Don't worry, everyone. As long as we work together, our noble families will surely gain a firm foothold and flourish in the Han Dynasty. By then, everyone in our family will be a student and an official, and they will be spread all over the world. It is not just a pipe dream for our family to prosper for hundreds of years."

When he said this, his tone revealed great confidence and pride, and none of the others had any doubts about it; each of them was delighted.

"With Wang Situ leading the group, even if Your Majesty wants to deal with us nobles, I'm afraid he will be unable to do so."

"Not bad, not bad. Situ Wang is a mature and wise man who is truly the best scholar in the world."

Wang Yun smiled and waved his hands: "Ah, you can't say that. We are all loyal ministers of the Han Dynasty. We should support the emperor and the country. How can we resist the emperor?"

After that, he bowed in the direction of the palace and said, "The emperor today is wise, benevolent, and a wise ruler of all ages. We should do our best to assist him in governing the country and achieve success. This time, we are recruiting talented people from your majesty's recruitment hall to be his disciples, in order to select useful people for your majesty and fulfill the duty of a minister."

"Yes, yes, I made a mistake. Situ Wang is right. I will punish myself with three bottles of wine."

The man who had just spoken picked up the wine jar and drank three times in a row, which drew cheers from the ministers around him.

Another person said, "We have recruited the wise men from all over the country who came to the Talent Recruitment Hall to be our disciples. Your Majesty must have known about this. I am afraid that he will question and challenge us at the court meeting tomorrow. I wonder if the Minister of Education..."

Wang Yun raised his hand to interrupt him: "Don't worry, everyone. I have already made preparations for this. We have recruited quite a few people in recent days. We will compile their hometowns, ages, appearances, talents, etc. into a book and present them to Your Majesty at the court tomorrow."

"Great!" A minister clapped his hands and praised: "The court's recruitment of talents is related to the foundation of the country and is a top priority. As ministers, we should share your majesty's worries. In order to prevent fraudulent people from claiming the court's salary, we, the ministers, will take the initiative to examine them and report to the emperor. It is only natural."

Wang Yun listened to the praises from the crowd, stroked his beard, and smiled so hard that he couldn't close his mouth.

"Snapped……"

In the harem, Liu He threw several memorials to the ground.

Seeing his furious look, several eunuchs and palace maids did not dare to come forward to serve him. Seeing this, Empress Zhang Yu waved her hand to send them away, walked over, picked up the memorial and placed it on the table beside her.

"Your Majesty, please do not be too hasty and be careful to control your temper."

Liu He glared at her unhappily: "Why, I am the emperor, can't I even lose my temper?"

Zhang Yu smiled slightly: "Everyone in the world can lose their temper, except the emperor. Haven't you heard that when the emperor gets angry, millions of people die, which is really not a good thing."

Liu He turned his head aside: "Humph, where does this twisted theory come from?"

Zhang Yu walked behind him and squeezed his shoulders: "When there is nothing in the world that worries the emperor, and the emperor is able to deal with the world's affairs without getting angry at every turn, then the world will be truly peaceful and a prosperous era will have arrived."

Although Zhang Yu's voice was not as moving as Diao Chan's, it was unusually gentle. In addition, her hands kneading his shoulders felt very comfortable, and Liu He's anger was largely relieved.

"Alas..." He slammed his palm on the table. "All these ministers in the court only care about their own little piece of land, and don't care about what I and the court need. I want to recruit talents, but not only do they not contribute, they also compete with me for talents and dig my corners. At the court meeting today, they poached the talents from the Talent Recruitment Hall and made them their own retainers, and then recommended them to the court. It is clear that they want to show me their power. These old men, sooner or later I will kill them, so as to leave a peaceful and trouble-free country for future generations."

Zhang Yu peeled an apple and handed it to Liu He, saying, "This matter cannot be entirely blamed on them. Your Majesty has been so aggressive towards these scholars over the years, so naturally he has lost the hearts of the scholars."

Liu He glanced at her and said, "What? Queen, do you mean that I am to blame for this?"

He became angry again and slammed the half-eaten apple on the table.

"Look at you, your bad temper is coming up again." Zhang Yu didn't buy his trick. As a queen, she was not like Diao Chan, who had to be cautious every time she served Liu He.

She took the half apple, put it in her mouth and took a bite: "Your Majesty doesn't like apples, so I'll eat it myself. Later, give all the fruits in the palace to the palace maids and eunuchs, so that Your Majesty won't be upset when seeing them."

"You..." Liu He loved and was angry with her, but he couldn't do anything about her. He felt very depressed.

Seeing that he didn't say anything else, Zhang Yu smiled slightly, stood up again, and walked in front of him: "Your Majesty treats all the subjects equally, and does not show favoritism based on their family background. This is the behavior of a saint. How dare I say that Your Majesty is wrong? Besides, I don't understand the affairs of the court."

Liu He looked at her with a bit of sarcasm: "Yu'er, you are good in everything except that you always act stupid. In terms of intelligence and talent, there are so many ministers out there, but few can match you."

He was not flattering Zhang Yu. With her current intelligence of 91 and political intelligence of 83, she was already qualified for at least the position of Nine Ministers. Among the many civil and military officials, there were only a handful who were better than her. However, as the queen, she always saw through the affairs of the court but did not speak out. She strictly adhered to the bottom line of not interfering in the harem.

Upon hearing this, Zhang Yu did not answer him, but suddenly looked outside the door.

"The eunuchs and maids in the palace are really hard to manage. These people left their hometowns and came to the palace to serve the royal family. They are all very nervous. If they are strictly managed according to the rules, everyone will inevitably be in danger and alienate themselves from the royal family. But if they are not managed strictly enough, they will act recklessly again."

Liu He seemed to have heard the hidden meaning in her words and continued: "Oh? In recent years, I have seen that everything in the palace is in good order. It seems that the Queen must have some secret recipe?" Zhang Yu pursed her lips and smiled: "What secret recipe can I have? It's just that everyone has their own likes and fears in their hearts, and I act accordingly, using both kindness and power. For example, if some people are greedy for money, I will let them take charge of some procurement and sales in the palace."

"What does this mean? Isn't it obvious that they are willing to take advantage of our money?" Liu He was a little confused.

Zhang Yu explained, "They only have their eyes on those coins, and study them all day long. As long as I control the laws of the palace, they won't be able to cause any big trouble. In a year, they can only embezzle a few million coins. In this way, they can do their best and leave evidence of their crimes. Once they go beyond the limit, they can be dealt with at any time. In this way, everyone will naturally be grateful for your kindness, but at the same time, they will have some fear in their hearts and dare not act too rashly."

After hearing her words, Liu He suddenly looked at his queen with a new respect.

"Oh my, I thought my Yu'er was always a well-behaved and kind person, but I didn't expect that she also had such a skill in controlling people. I underestimated her."

Liu He knew that Zhang Yu had the attribute of being a "helpful wife", which destined her to work harder and study the things that her husband needed. This was the reason for Zhang Yu's transformation over the years.

If he didn't have the system in hand and knew this, even Liu He himself would have been a little wary of the queen's scheming and political tactics.

Zhang Yu didn't care about it: "Your Majesty is making fun of me again."

Liu He suddenly frowned again: "Alas, Wen Ruo has mentioned this to me before. But I can't find the key point of this noble family at the moment, which is really a headache for me."

Zhang Yu didn't say anything, she stood up and walked into the inner room. Not long after, she came over holding an exquisite wooden box.

"What is this?" Liu He asked.

Zhang Yu placed the wooden box in front of Liu He and said, "This was delivered to the palace by our father-in-law not long ago. However, Your Majesty had just returned from Yuzhou and was injured. He also had many affairs to deal with, so he sent it to the harem first and asked me to find an opportunity to present it to Your Majesty, saying that it was an early gift for Your Majesty's 32nd birthday this year."

"Oh? Then I'd like to take a closer look at what rare treasures this Zhen Yi has found that he is so eager to bring them to the palace without even waiting for my birthday."

Liu He was curious and reached out to take the wooden box.

After he opened the wooden box, his eyes immediately stared at the things inside.

"This...this is..."

After he stared at it infatuatedly for a long time, Liu He suddenly became ecstatic: "I'm going to get rich, I'm going to get rich, very rich..."

Zhang Yu was standing nearby, looking at the emperor who looked like he was having a seizure. She felt awkward and didn't know whether she should go up to him and try to persuade him. She even felt a little regretful. Wasn't the timing of her giving this gift a little wrong?
The next day, Liu He issued an imperial edict that surprised and puzzled everyone in the court and the country.

Liu He selected a piece of land in the east city of Luoyang City, and then brought He Chang and other craftsmen who had participated in the construction of Yunhai County to Luoyang and started large-scale construction.

The ministers came to the court one after another to inquire what was going to be built here. After all, Liu He had said not long ago that in order to reorganize the military, the entire palace had to tighten its belt. But now the scale of the project looked huge, and the money and food consumed was enough to build half of the imperial mausoleum. Naturally, the ministers were confused.

However, Liu He dismissed their memorials with the simple excuse of "Heaven's secrets cannot be revealed." But the more he did so, the more curious the ministers became.

As a result, the eunuchs and maids who served closely in the palace gained a lot of advantages, especially Gong Saner. Almost every time after the court session, ministers would stuff a few gold ingots into his hands, trying to find out some information.

However, these eunuchs and palace maids had already received instructions from Liu He in advance. They said some incoherent and incoherent words to the ministers, and while they were still in a daze, they took the horseshoe gold and ran away.

Not only the ministers, but also the people in Luoyang City, merchants and travelers, even Cao Cao, Liu Yan, and princes from all over the country were all paying close attention to the situation in Luoyang. However, after hearing the news, they were all completely stunned. They could not imagine what Liu He meant by building such a building without any warning and at a huge cost. Not to mention others, Cao Cao alone did not sleep well for several days and nights because of this matter.

At the gate of the mansion of Yang Biao, the Grand Marshal and one of the three highest officials in the court, a carriage stopped. Yang Xiu got out of it, looked up at the gate, and several servants hurried over to welcome him into the mansion.

He walked all the way to his father Yang Biao's study. When Yang Biao saw him coming back, he didn't react at all. He just said, "You're back, sit down," and continued to read.

"Father, there was such a big commotion in Luoyang, but you are not in a hurry at all."

Yang Xiu said something, but Yang Biao seemed not to have heard it. He didn't even raise his head again, let alone answer him.

"Father, do you really not care about anything?" Yang Xiu was a little unwilling and stepped forward to ask again.

Yang Biao waved at him and said, "Move away. You're in the sunshine outside the window."

"I..." Yang Xiu was speechless for a moment, but he could only move to the side obediently.

Yang Biao looked at his son who was holding his breath and said, "You have just been exiled for less than half a year, and His Majesty has granted you an imperial decree to bring you back to the court. This is a great joyous event. Why are you so sad?"

"Hey, right now in Luoyang, the situation is turbulent, and His Majesty's heart is unpredictable. My child can sleep more peacefully when he is away from home. You, father, are the same. When His Majesty said he wanted to transfer my child back to the capital, why didn't you persuade him?"

Yang Xiu said with some complaint.

"Persuade? Why should I persuade? And who told you that there is a turmoil in Luoyang? Since your majesty ascended the throne, all parties have been law-abiding and the city is in good order. Today, Luoyang is a huge city with a population of nearly two million. Being able to serve as an official here is something that many people dream of. But you are not happy about it."

"Father..." Yang Xiu sat down in front of him, snatched the book from Yang Biao's hand and put it aside.

"It's already this late, and there are only you and me here, father and son. Why are you playing dumb with me?"

Yang Biao looked at the thrown away book, then looked at his son, and laughed for no reason: "You, you, you are still young after all..."

(End of this chapter)