Am I the old man who's always by my apprentices' side?

Chapter 228 Loyalty! No need for further explanation!

Zhao Shizhong is a very interesting person.

Strictly speaking, he came from a poor family. At his most prosperous time, his ancestors were only village heads, and it was impossible to trace their lineage back any further.

Logically speaking, such a person could not possibly have risen to the position of Attendant-in-Ordinary, especially since the original Zhou state was a country where noble families and officials shared power with the emperor.

It was precisely because the power of the aristocratic families was too great that Li Renshun (the late Emperor Liemin) supported them in an attempt to balance the power of the aristocratic families. This kind of thing often happens in other times as well. For example, after the Zhenguan era, Li Zhi, who inherited the throne, started a tug-of-war with the aristocratic families that lasted for more than ten years, until Wu Zetian made her empress, which brought it to an end.

Later initiatives such as establishing the military examination system and vigorously developing the imperial examination system were all aimed at suppressing powerful families and nobles in order to further centralize power.

Zhao Shizhong played just such a role—standing outside the circle of aristocratic families and nobles, rising to power by relying on the emperor.

When Li Renshun died and Zhang Chengdao took over the entire court, he specifically learned about the backgrounds of these ministers and deliberately kept him on the team.

However, both Zhao Shizhong and Wang Zhongshuling are now essentially Zhang Chengdao's secretariat. Apart from being used to notify court officials of "meetings," they are mainly responsible for paperwork. After all, the Six Ministries are now directly responsible to Zhang Chengdao, so their power has gradually shrunk.

The disgruntled Minister of the Imperial Secretariat had been forced to resign. The Grand Secretary was timid and easily manipulated, but also quite diligent, so Zhang Chengdao kept him on. Meanwhile, Attendant-in-Ordinary Zhao was very good at "pretending to be asleep."

As people get older, attending court is too tiring, so it's normal for them to fall asleep by accident. At this time, the relationship between the emperor and his ministers is not as abnormal as it was in the Ming and Qing dynasties of another time. Even when the emperor holds court, he rarely refers to himself as "朕" (Zhen, the imperial "I"), unless it is a major event such as ancestral worship or going through the proper procedures.

Therefore, he was actually very tolerant towards his subjects.

Moreover, there are advantages to ministers who "pretend to be asleep." The so-called lack of opposition is tantamount to acquiescence. Many times, when Zhang Chengdao issued an order, he would only ask a symbolic question. The Grand Secretary dared not object, and the Attendant-in-Ordinary would always pretend to be asleep. As a result, many decrees were successfully transmitted without any hindrance, saving Zhang Chengdao a lot of trouble.

It was rare for an honest man who liked to pretend to be asleep to stand up like this, especially since he was genuinely thinking about the people. He even made a slip of the tongue and referred to the White Stone Immortal Sect as the country. Zhang Chengdao was actually quite pleased.

At least the central officials of the regime still have the people's interests in mind, which is better than the situation he originally envisioned, where a complete overhaul from top to bottom would be carried out little by little.

"No need to worry, this is another matter I want to talk about. A new Agricultural Affairs Department will be established, and the original Granary Department and the Agricultural Temple will be merged into it. Local agricultural promotion commissioners will also be under its command. In addition, the rental of cattle equipment and the Ever-Normal Granary will all be under the jurisdiction of the Agricultural Affairs Department. An Agricultural College will be set up under it to specialize in the cultivation of agricultural varieties and the promotion of spiritual agricultural varieties."

Zhang Chengdao smiled and reassured them, "As spiritual energy gradually recovers, some crops with spiritual energy can be planted in various places. They have higher yields and fewer diseases, making them extremely precious varieties. If the Agricultural Academy cultivates more varieties, soon the people under the rule of the White Stone Immortal Sect will no longer suffer from hunger."

Zhang Chengdao wasn't exaggerating.

The seeds produced in the Golden Finger Mall, if planted in his custom-made "farmland," can be harvested every three days. Each square plot of "farmland" yields over a hundred catties, and those plots are quite small, probably more than a dozen plots to be counted as one mu (approximately 0.16 acres). In this way, the grain yield per mu can reach an astonishing thousand catties—this is not the yield of an experimental field cultivated with modern machinery and ample fertilizer, but the most ordinary yield!

Even if it's a second-generation grain variety, planted in ordinary fields, like some of the "experimental fields" on Linggeng Peak in Baishi Mountain, a batch of grain can mature and be harvested in as little as two or three months, and the yield can still reach seven or eight hundred catties! With such grain varieties, as long as they can be gradually promoted and the government controls grain prices, why would we worry about the people not having enough to eat?

While the people of other kingdoms like Beixiao and Nanchu were still eating chaff and wild vegetables, the people of Baishi Immortal Sect were probably eating worthless spirit rice and wheat as if they were chaff!

"This...this kind of food with a spirit, can ordinary people really grow it?"

The ministers already knew what "spirit" meant.

These days, if you don't have a copy of "The Book of Immortals by Baishi," you'd be embarrassed to talk to your colleagues!

After all, soldiers get paid and officials get paid. How could people not study the so-called "Tao of Immortality" when they were making a living under the "immortals"?
Putting everything else aside, the sudden doubling of lifespan alone made all the ministers drool. Almost all the court officials, even the aristocratic families and nobles who rebelled in the Guanzhong region, were secretly cultivating immortality based on these "public" teaching materials.

However, the content explained in the "White Stone Immortal Book" is limited, and many things are only partially understood by everyone. Therefore, they were all quite surprised when they heard Zhang Chengdao's explanation.

Zhao Shizhong was the first to ask, "Isn't it said that the cultivation of these spiritual herbs and plants requires cultivators? I have privately read the 'White Stone Immortal Dao Book,' which states that many spiritual herbs and plants are not only useless to ordinary mortals but are actually harmful. It says that only cultivators can prevent them from being corroded by strange miasma and poisonous gases. These spiritual grains... can ordinary people also cultivate them?"

“The spiritual herbs and plants are all different.”

Zhang Chengdao patiently explained: "Some rare spiritual herbs and plants that are difficult to cultivate do require harsh living environments, making them impossible for ordinary people to care for and cultivate. However, there is no such thing as common spiritual flowers, herbs, and crops."

“Plants such as wheat, rice, corn, potatoes, and pumpkins, which are believed to possess spiritual energy, are not only harmless to the people when they are planted in large quantities. On the contrary, they will increase the concentration of spiritual energy in the surrounding area, thereby nourishing their physical bodies and providing many health benefits.”

The ministers present had indeed seen the crops Zhang Chengdao mentioned before—last month, when their salaries were distributed, they were also given "food supplement gift boxes," the full name of which seemed to be something like "Dietary Supplement Gift Box for Celestial Officials with Spirits." It was said that this would become a regular practice, and that the boxes would be distributed every quarter.

This "nutritional supplement gift box" is distributed uniformly, but the contents vary depending on the rank.

Even a low-ranking official of the ninth rank has a small bag of spirit rice. Second- and third-rank ministers, in addition to several kilograms of spirit rice and spirit wheat, also have a variety of fruits and vegetables. They have even tasted corn, potatoes, and pumpkins that they had never seen before.

In short, after the "Celestial Officials' Spiritual Food Subsidy Gift Box" was distributed, many minor officials who were originally uneasy or wavering suddenly became loyalists of the White Stone Immortal Sect. Even many officials of the third rank and above from the Six Ministries completely submitted.

I've heard that this batch of "nutritional supplement gift boxes" has helped more than a dozen officials break through to the martial arts realm in one go!
What else can I say?
Loyalty! No need to say more!

(End of this chapter)