A family of loyal martyrs, starting with nine wives to continue the family line.

The carriage of Xishan Villa stopped outside the Meridian Gate of the Imperial City.

Liu Suan lifted the curtain and glanced at the towering red wall.

A month ago, he thought this wall couldn't contain the general trend of the world. Now he knows that the people inside this wall have the world in their hands.

He followed the eunuch all the way to the Imperial Study.

The palace gates were open.

Liu Suan stepped over the threshold and stopped ten steps in front of the imperial desk. He did not kneel, but simply raised his hands, closed his wide sleeves, and bowed deeply.

This was his final act of dignity. A strategist from Fangmen, he refused to kneel before his unacknowledged master.

Behind the imperial desk, Wei Zhao, dressed in a plain white robe without embroidery, was annotating a document with his head down. The vermilion brush scratched across the paper, making a soft, scratching sound.

There was no mention of exemption from formalities, nor was anyone invited to take a seat.

Liu Suan remained bent over like this.

He knew very well that for any other emperor, this would be called a show of force.

But Wei Zhao was not.

Wei Zhao simply didn't care whether he knelt or not.

In the eyes of this young emperor, Liu Suan was not even an enemy at the moment, but at most a tool that had not yet been assigned a task.

After about half a cup of tea's time, the vermilion brush stopped.

Wei Zhao casually tossed the folding book aside and raised his eyelids.

Fang Fuyao said, "You want to do something."

He didn't exchange pleasantries or pursue his previous crime of instigating a rebellion in the North.

Liu Suan straightened up and looked into those eyes, which were so calm they were almost like an abyss.

"Yes," Liu replied readily.

Having admitted defeat, it would be ridiculous to continue putting on airs.

His half of "The Policy for All People" had been burned to ashes, and now he wanted to see with his own eyes whether Wei Zhao's "New Military Laws" could take root in the muddy land of Jingzhou.

Wei Zhao leaned back in his chair and tapped his fingers lightly on the table twice.

"I'm giving you a chance."

Liu remained silent, waiting for what was to come.

"Go to Jingzhou to assist Lin Shimao."

Liu Suan's eyelids twitched suddenly.

Lin Shimao?

Of course he knew the name.

Although he was under house arrest at the Xishan Villa these past few days, Fang Fuyao did not hide any information from him from the outside world.

The newly appointed top scholar is from a poor farming family in Yuzhou.

Most importantly, Lin Shimao is only twenty-three years old this year.

Liu Suan narrowed his eyes, a hint of instinctive resistance in his voice: "His Majesty wants me to go to Jingzhou, is it to quell a rebellion, or to teach?"

"Yes, all of them," Wei Zhao replied casually.

Liu Suan couldn't help but sneer, "You want me to be an assistant to a young man who just passed the imperial examination?"

Who is Liu?

Fang Men's top disciple once annihilated a million-strong allied army with a single sentence at Black Wind Ridge, and stirred up seven major tribes with just a few letters on the snowy plains.

Even the head of a century-old family like Liu Ruhui treated him with utmost respect.

Now you want him to be a deputy to some greenhorn?

"You're not convinced?" Wei Zhao looked at him.

"I wouldn't dare."

Liu Suan said he dared not, but his chin was slightly raised:

"I just feel that His Majesty's use of talent is a bit of a waste. Although the Liu family of Jingzhou has fallen, the powerful gentry and clans under them still exist. Lin Shimao, a poor scholar with no connections, is wielding His Majesty's power of acting first and reporting later, like a three-year-old child carrying a gold brick through a bustling market. He can't control it."

That's why I'm sending you.

Wei Zhao stood up, walked around the imperial desk, and went to Liu Suan.

The two were no more than three steps apart.

Wei Zhao was half a head taller than Liu Suan, and the oppressive aura he exuded, seemingly emanating from a mountain of corpses and a sea of ​​blood, instantly enveloped him.

"In terms of scholarship, you've read more books than him. In terms of practical skills, your ability to manipulate people and navigate complex situations is far superior to his. In terms of vision, you're leagues ahead of him." Wei Zhao's voice wasn't loud, but every word was like a knife.

Liu didn't reply. These are facts.

"But in terms of character—" Wei Zhao paused, his gaze fixed on Liu Suan's eyes, "he is cleaner than you."

Clean.

The moment those two words were uttered, the cold smile on Liu Suan's face froze.

He found it absurd and wanted to argue, but his throat felt like it was stuffed with a rag.

"You're too smart, you understand the pros and cons too well."

Wei Zhao's tone turned cold: "For your so-called righteousness, you can burn the herdsmen of the seven northern tribes as firewood, and use the lives of the thirteen families of Jingzhou as stepping stones. In your eyes, people are not people, but numbers, are just a price to pay."

Liu Suan's fingers slowly clenched inside his sleeve.

"But Lin Shimao is different." Wei Zhao turned around, walked back to the imperial desk, picked up a scroll and threw it to Liu Suan.

Liu Suan caught it instinctively.

That was Lin Shimao's answer sheet for the imperial examination.

"He's stupid, he's poor, and he's never seen much of the world."

Wei Zhao pointed to the examination paper: "But he knew that if an acre of land yielded one less bushel of grain, a whole family would starve to death. He knew that if people were pushed to the limit, they could really rebel. He treated the people as living, breathing human beings."

Liu Suan looked down at the slightly awkward but extremely solid handwriting on the exam paper.

Every strategy was designed to help the common people eat more and reduce the government's exploitation.

There is no grand path to conquer the world, only the struggle in the soil.

"He happens to have what you're lacking."

Wei Zhao sat back down in his chair and picked up his teacup: "Jingzhou needs a sword, and he is that sword. But he is too upright and easily broken. You will be his scabbard."

The imperial study fell silent.

Liu Suan gripped the exam paper tightly, his knuckles turning white.

His supposedly brilliant strategies were, in the eyes of this emperor in white, merely worthy of being used as a whetstone for a peasant boy.

But ironically, he couldn't refute a single word.

Xiao Heng cursed him on the snowy plains, saying he was not as good as Zhang Yan; Wei Zhao is here today saying he is not as clean as a poor scholar.

These two men, one martial and one scholar, stripped him bare of all his pride.

Liu Suan closed his eyes.

The image of the "New Military Laws" flashed through my mind, as did the image of Liu Ruhui being escorted to the capital in a prison cart, and finally settled on Lin Shimao's mud-covered examination paper.

He suddenly let go of her hand.

The scroll fell back onto the emperor's desk.

Liu Suan raised his hands again, and this time, he bent down even deeper than before.

"Okay. I'll go to Jingzhou."

His voice was a little hoarse, but it conveyed a sense of clarity that came from having thoroughly understood things.

Wei Zhao took a sip of tea and remained silent.

"But Your Majesty must grant me one request."

Liu Suan straightened up and looked directly at Wei Zhao: "Lin Shimao has the right to execute first and report later. I can't stop him from killing. If he does something wrong, I have the right to point it out to his face, or even scold him."

He paused, then added, "It wasn't behind their backs, it was verbal abuse to their face."

Wei Zhao smiled.

This was the first time Wei Zhao smiled after Liu Suan entered the room.

"Can."

Wei Zhao put down his teacup: "What I need is someone to keep an eye on him. You are the mirror I've placed beside him. If he goes astray, you're responsible for scolding him awake. If he's plotted against, you're responsible for digging out who plotted against him."

"My lord, I obey your order."

Liu changed his self-designation.

The moment the word "臣" (chen, meaning subject/minister) was uttered, it meant that the cunning strategist from the previous dynasty was completely dead, and the new Wu court had gained a treacherous advisor who specialized in dirty work.

Liu Suan turned and left the imperial study.

When he reached the palace gate, he paused for a moment, glanced back at the young emperor sitting high on the dragon throne, said nothing, and strode out.

His back looked much lighter than when he arrived.

The footsteps gradually faded into the distance.

The beaded curtain of the side hall was lifted, and Fang Fuyao, dressed in a plain white robe, walked out silently.

She went to the imperial desk and began to tidy up the scattered folds for Wei Zhao.

"Your senior brother is a prickly fellow."

Wei Zhao didn't look at her, his gaze fixed on a military report beside him: "But as long as you straighten out the thorns, they'll be more effective than anyone else."

Fang Fuyao continued moving, her voice still cold and clear: "His Majesty sees things more clearly than I do."

She put away the last folded book before raising her head to look at Wei Zhao's profile.

"I used to only think about how to beat him, how to force him to his death on the chessboard."

Fang Fuyao's tone rarely carried a hint of self-analysis: "I haven't thought about how to use him."

The techniques that Fang Men learned were all about slaying dragons.

She learned how to help people establish rules, while Liu Suan learned how to smash the rules.

She always felt that Liu was a dangerous madman who had to be eliminated.

But Wei Zhao was able to turn this madman into an awl in his hand, driving it directly into the hardest bone in Jingzhou.

"Killing is easy, employing people is difficult."

Wei Zhao stood up and walked to the palace gate.

Outside the window, dusk was falling. The setting sun, like blood, dyed the glazed tiles of the imperial city a deep crimson.

The wind blew in from the north, carrying a hint of early summer heat.

Fang Fuyao walked to his side and followed his gaze.

That was a huge map of the entire Xinwu territory hanging on the side wall.

Wei Zhao's gaze did not linger on the newly pacified Jingzhou, nor did it look at the northern border where trade had already begun.

His gaze traveled westward, past the Jade Gate Pass, across the vast Gobi Desert, and finally landed on the large blank area at the westernmost end of the map.

Western Regions.

There were no city markers, no mountain ranges, only a blank space symbolizing the unknown.

"With Lin Shimao and your senior brother here, things won't get out of Jingzhou."

Wei Zhao's voice was soft, yet it carried an undeniable penetrating power.

Fang Fuyao looked at the blank space and immediately understood his thoughts.

"Does His Majesty intend to make moves in the west?"

"Not now."

Wei Zhao stared at the blank space: "The new policies have just begun, and the national treasury still needs time to recover. Taxes from Jiangnan need to be collected, and warhorses from the northern border need to be fed."

He turned his head and looked at Fang Fuyao.

"But that blank space will have to be filled sooner or later."