Take control of Wei Zhongxian at the start and confiscate 100 million from him!

Chapter 11: The All-New "Techniques"

The bell tolled as the court adjourned, long and somber, like a death knell tolling for a war that had just ended.

The heavy doors of the Hall of Supreme Harmony slowly opened, and the winter sun shone in once again.

However, this time, it seemed unable to penetrate the gloomy hearts of the officials.

Officials poured out of the hall like a tide, stepping onto the white marble steps.

But unlike the past when people would either engage in loud discussions or hushed deliberations after court sessions, today's tide is silent and even stagnant.

Many people still had lingering shock and bewilderment on their faces.

It was as if they had just experienced a bizarre nightmare, where everything was upside down and distorted, and the knowledge they had built up over a lifetime was violently impacted by an unprecedented force.

They walked slowly, their steps unsteady, as if the solid gold bricks and stone steps beneath their feet had turned into a swamp that could collapse at any moment.

In this eerie silence, different undercurrents began to converge and diverge.

The Donglin Party officials, like a school of startled fish, instinctively gathered around their leader—Qian Qianyi, the Right Vice Minister of the Ministry of Rites.

They surrounded Qian Qianyi, as if they could draw a sliver of remaining courage from his still upright figure.

"Absurd! Utterly absurd!" A young censor finally couldn't hold back any longer and said in a low voice, his tone a mixture of anger and confusion, "What Your Majesty has said today is something I have never heard of or seen before! This... how is this any different from the petty haggling of merchants on the street? How can the Holy Emperor utter such vulgar words!"

"This is more than just vulgar talk!" Another compiler from the Hanlin Academy, his face ashen, chimed in, "This is turning barbarians into Chinese and merchants into political chaos! Our China governs with benevolence and righteousness, and secures the country with propriety and law. When have we ever needed to use such nonsensical gibberish to determine merit and demerit? This is a blatant trampling on the ways of the sages!"

Their voices were filled with righteous indignation, but if you listened carefully, you could hear a barely perceptible lack of confidence hidden beneath their angry tones.

Their condemnation is more like a form of self-comfort, an instinctive reaction to try to explain and resist the unknown fear in a way that is familiar to them.

Because they found that all their criticisms seemed so pale and powerless.

They can vehemently criticize the emperor for being "unlearned and incompetent," but they cannot deny that today, in the imperial court, they, these "learned scholars," were utterly refuted and rendered speechless by that "unlearned and incompetent" young emperor.

Qian Qianyi remained silent throughout.

His face remained deathly pale, as if he had lost his blood. He walked silently, letting his colleagues vent their emotions. His gaze was vacant as he stared ahead, seemingly piercing through the towering palace walls and looking towards a future shrouded in mist.

……

On the other side of the crowd, some relatively pragmatic officials, especially those from the Ministry of Revenue, the Ministry of Works, and other government offices that dealt most with money and grain, quietly gathered together.

Their faces did not show the kind of anger that Donglin Party members felt when their faith collapsed; instead, they showed more deep thought and worry.

"Gentlemen, have you understood His Majesty's meaning today?" A senior official from the Ministry of Revenue asked in a low voice, frowning.

“I don’t understand those new words.” Beside him, a junior official from the Ministry of Works shook his head, then added, “But… I think I understand a little bit of the meaning.”

He paused, then speculated in an uncertain tone, "It sounds a bit like...like Prime Minister Zhang Jiangling's 'performance evaluation system' back then?"

Upon hearing this, the people around him were all taken aback.

Yes, the performance evaluation system!
During his reign, Zhang Juzheng implemented the performance evaluation system with swift and decisive measures, inspected all the land in the country, rectified official corruption, and required that everything be audited and every official be evaluated.

During those ten years, the imperial court's revenue increased significantly, and the atmosphere in officialdom became much cleaner.

However, such harsh methods offended almost all the scholars and officials in the country.

“It doesn’t seem like it…” The first official to speak, a senior official from the Ministry of Revenue, slowly shook his head, his expression grave. “The performance evaluation system assesses ‘matters,’ the inflow and outflow of funds and grain, and the issuance of government orders. But what His Majesty said today seems to be assessing… people, and… efficiency.”

"And then there's that...that 'return on investment'." The official from the Ministry of Works clicked his tongue, seemingly savoring the term. "It's a bit crude, but the logic...seems correct. Your Majesty, you're implying that the corrupt officials in the Ministry of Rites are just taking money without doing anything, spending silver without seeing any results!"

Their discussions were full of pragmatism. Unlike the Donglin Party members who were entangled in the debate between "Tao" and "Shu," they were more concerned with how to play this new set of rules.

Their fear did not stem from the collapse of their faith, but from a real concern about their future jobs.

If you have to talk about and calculate the "return on investment" in everything, then it will be difficult to be an official in the future.

……

In a more distant corner, some remnants of the eunuch faction who once clung to Wei Zhongxian and now eked out a living made no attempt to hide the schadenfreude on their faces.

They looked at the group of dejected Donglin gentlemen and a smug, cold smile curled at the corners of their lips.

"See that? Those arrogant 'pure' types who always look down on everyone, they've finally met their match!"

"Serves them right! Let them shout 'heavenly justice' and 'fairness' every day!"

"Hey, this is going to be good. I want to see how these guys who spout so much benevolence and morality will write that...that 'quarterly work report' for His Majesty!" Their voices weren't loud, but they were like poisoned needles, precisely piercing the already battered pride of the Donglin Party members.

Three distinct reactions, three clear undercurrents, silently surged on the way back from court, foreshadowing the end of an old era and the beginning of a new era of chaos in the Ming Dynasty court.

Qian Qianyi's official sedan chair smoothly passed through the streets and alleys of the capital.

In the past, he would always lift the curtain of his sedan chair and look at the prosperous scene under the emperor's feet, and a sense of pride would well up in his heart.

He was the leader of the Donglin Party and the literary leader; all the scholars in the city followed his lead.

But today, he simply curled up in the sedan chair with his eyes closed.

The hustle and bustle outside the sedan chair, the traffic, the hawking and shouting, all seemed very far away from him.

In his world, only the cold voice of the young emperor echoed repeatedly in the Hall of Supreme Harmony.

Performance completion rate...

Return on investment...

Chief Operating Officer...

Core user growth rate...

These words, like a group of hideous ghosts, swirled and shrieked in his mind.

Upon returning to his residence, he dismissed all the students and old friends who came to pay their respects, and declined the requests from his colleagues to "discuss important matters together." He then locked himself in his study alone.

This is his spiritual kingdom.

The bookshelves on the four walls were piled high with classics, histories, philosophical works, and collections of literature. From the pre-Qin philosophers to the writings of the Han Dynasty and the Neo-Confucianism of the Song and Ming Dynasties, each book had been a source of his strength.

The Huizhou ink, Duan inkstone, Huzhou brush, and Xuan paper on his desk were all weapons he used to pontificate and express his thoughts.

But now, sitting amidst this sea of ​​books, he felt an unprecedented sense of loneliness and fear.

He was not angry.

Anger is an emotion that arises when facing an understandable and equally matched enemy.

What he is facing today is a blow from another dimension that he cannot comprehend at all.

He finally realized that this was not just some random rambling from the young emperor.

This is a completely new and unfamiliar logic of domination.

A cold, harsh, and inhumane logic, yet... a self-contained system.

This logic, like an incredibly sharp scalpel, precisely dissected the magnificent outer robe woven from "morality" and "public opinion" of the scholar-official class, revealing its pale and weak interior.

It disregarded their proud moral high ground and the reputation of integrity they had built up over generations.

It only looks at one thing—cold data and quantifiable results!

Where is the "return" on the Ministry of Rites' annual "investment" of 1.2 million taels?

The emperor's words echoed in his ears like a curse.

He was horrified to discover that he, and the entire class he represented, were unable to answer this question.

They could say that education is invaluable and its benefits will last for generations.

But they couldn't produce anything substantial to prove that the 1.2 million taels were "worth it"!
This is the most terrifying place.

This is more than just a political setback.

This was a fundamental subversion of the value of the entire scholar-official class.

For thousands of years, scholar-officials have taken it upon themselves to "govern the people on behalf of the emperor." They are the embodiment of morality and the creators and interpreters of rules.

Their power stems from their monopoly over the "Tao".

And now,
The emperor used a completely new "technique" to bypass their "principle" and directly began to weigh "profit"!
If the standard for governing a country is no longer whether it is "benevolent and righteous" or not, but whether it is "efficient" or not; if the standard for judging an official is no longer whether he is virtuous or not, but whether he is good or bad at his "performance"...

So what use are those who have spent their whole lives studying the classics and making a living through morality and literature?

A layer of cold sweat seeped out from Qian Qianyi's back!
(End of this chapter)