How to Easily Capture a Long Aotian [Quick Transmigration] 73

Chapter 73: The Peerless Minister of a Troubled World (Part 4)

In the fifteenth year of Chang’an, the world had been divided into two since the rebellions in various states and the invasion of the barbarians a few years ago, and it was in a state of turmoil.

The emperor’s temper had become more and more unpredictable in these few years. He would lose his temper in the palace all day long, and he was suspicious that someone was trying to harm him.

He had been assassinated at the Feixing Tower a few years ago, and since then, he had not seen anyone as a good person. He could not sleep at night, and he would cause trouble for people with his unpredictable moods.

After Li Gelin’s death, the object of his key suspicion had become Yu Lin.

No emperor would like a minister who was too prestigious, even if he could not do without this person.

The more he could not do without him, the more he hated and feared him. In his dreams at midnight, he could not even sleep peacefully.

What made him hate him to the bone was the Wei family army that was entrenched in the north. He could not understand how the hundreds of thousands of Wei family troops, who should have been completely annihilated in the Luoxia Valley, could have left a little bit behind out of thin air.

These people had died in one day, and they were like wandering souls in the world, without a name, without a certificate, and like ghosts, they were both fighting the barbarians and eyeing him with hostility.

Originally, this was a motley crew, and they were entrenched in several cities on the border. Those barren lands, if they were given to them, they would be given to them. But for some reason, a leader with the surname Wei had appeared out of nowhere.

This leader was quite hostile to him, and he would never be quiet if he could cause trouble for him. A few years ago, he had always thought that Wei Da had not died, but later, he had found that it was the useless Wei Er. After being exiled for a day, he had actually turned a useless dog into a wolf, and he was causing trouble for him all day long.

Every time the emperor thought of this, he would regret it and hate himself for not cutting the grass and removing the roots, and he was so angry that he almost vomited blood.

But he had no choice. Since the rebellions in various states a few years ago, his world had collapsed, and wars had broken out everywhere. In the end, this little brat Wei Er had taken the opportunity to swallow several of his cities and had become a hegemon.

This little brat had found a fake body and had already escaped from exile. For several years, no one had discovered him. He had only shown his true colors when he had become a king. In just eight years, a mere eight years, he had actually become a force to be reckoned with.

The emperor had woken up in one day, and he still had the smell of blood from his dreams at midnight. Wei Er was holding a spear and was staring at him with hostility at the border.

The sky was still dark, and it was only the fifth watch. The emperor sat on the dragon bed with his eyes open, and his heart was pounding. He was holding his chest and was panting.

“Your Majesty.” The grand eunuch, Li Ying, lit a lamp and came over with his head bowed, and he said to him, “It’s only the fifth watch. Are you not feeling well? Shall I call the imperial physician?”

The emperor frowned, looked at him, and his dark face twitched a little.

He had not been sleeping well these past few years, and he could not eat. His complexion was not good, and the imperial physician’s conditioning was useless, and taking pills was also useless. He had become weaker and weaker.

He looked up, looked at the bright canopy, and suddenly asked, “Is he still waiting outside?”

In the whole world, there was no second person who could make him so disgusted and afraid that he was unwilling to call him by his name.

But who didn’t know that if it weren’t for that person supporting him, Dayong would probably have been in a mess long ago.

But Li Ying had grown up with the emperor, and he was naturally of the same line as the emperor. After thinking for a moment, he said softly, “Yes, he’s still waiting. Tongzhou has also rebelled. The people are insisting on going there, and they have killed many officials who were blocking the road…”

He didn’t know what kind of sorcery they had used over there to turn their people into madmen. At the beginning, when the new prime minister had taken office, he had killed many officials, and the people had even cheered.

But a few years later, a few prefectures and counties in the north had suffered a locust plague after a drought, and the grain sent by the court had not kept up. A few counties had all turned against them and had wanted to go there.

This shameless little brat, Wei Zhiji, had actually taken them all in.

This had made the emperor so angry that he had vomited blood, just like the moment the world had learned of Wei Zhiji’s identity.

Under his dark face, Li Ying asked softly, “Your Majesty, the people of Huaizhou are scared out of their wits and are asking for support. You have summoned him to plead guilty, and he has been standing outside the palace gate for half the night. Shall I let him in?”

Under this person’s mediation, such a rebellion had actually not happened for a long time. However, this year, there was a great drought, and locust plagues had broken out everywhere. The court had opened the granaries, but they were empty…

This could not be investigated, and someone had to come out and take the blame. The others could not bear it, so it could only be this person.

The emperor’s face was flickering in the light of the oil lamp. His chest was heaving, and he suddenly threw the jade ring on his hand. “What’s the point of coming in? Useless! What kind of capable minister is he? Tell him to get lost and go to Huaizhou. If Huaizhou is also lost, he doesn’t have to come back!”

After the emperor had finished, he was so angry that he had kicked Li Ying again. He could not sleep, and he got up and went to the garden to listen to music.

From the fifth watch, the lights in the imperial city had suddenly become bright, and before long, the sound of string and bamboo music had come from inside.

Yu Lin stood under the palace wall, wearing a fox fur cloak, and he coughed lightly from the wind.

He was a civil official, and he would be at his desk all day dealing with official documents, and he would be racking his brains and dealing with people. He had little and light sleep. In these few years, after he had been in the wind a little, he was not very comfortable.

He stood in the night, and his elegant face was quiet. He quietly listened to the high-flown talk from inside.

Tongzhou had defected. According to the people above, it was all because the other party had used sorcery. Since it could not be suppressed, he, the grand secretary, had been sent to ask someone to exorcise the evil spirits.

As for those disobedient demon-people, they should just be killed on the spot. In any case, they could not be given to the other side.

In the eyes of the current emperor, human life was like grass.

However, there were so many people in the world. How could they be killed cleanly? The so-called sorcery was just that the environment under the rule of the King of Wei was fairer, more relaxed, and treated people more like people, and it was a place where people could live a good life.

In just eight years, Yu Lin had actually not expected that Wei Zhiji could learn what he had taught him so well, and he had implemented it throughout the territory.

In this world, he had truly managed to clear the hidden fields, so that every household had grain, and they could plant the rented fields from the government. They could eat some meat and eggs during the New Year, and the military subsidies were extremely high, and the people’s livelihood and water conservancy were uniformly dispatched and supervised by the government.

To treat people as people, this kind of sorcery was something that the emperor could not understand.

The guards under the palace gate stood tall, and they were also listening to the imperial edict, and they were silent. In the midst of the string and bamboo music, they looked at the person standing at the base of the wall, and their throats were dry, and they tried to stand a little straighter.

In these years, the King of Wei’s side had been getting better and better, and the people here had become more and more puzzled. What was wrong with the world? The court was even more puzzled. How could a mere border bandit suddenly become a force to be reckoned with, and all the people had followed him?

They did not know that the gap was so big because someone over there had cut down the big households who were just occupying their positions one by one, and had carefully nurtured the wheat seedlings one by one, and had saved up grain bit by bit.

Even if Yu Lin had formulated more policies that benefited the people, and had replaced the officials with upright ones, and had nurtured the people’s livelihood, he could not overthrow the royal family and the nobles, and he could not fill the empty granaries, and he could not get more money.

The people’s resentment was everywhere.

In the fifteenth year of Chang’an, in the midst of the locust plague in Tongzhou that could not be suppressed, an imperial edict had come down. The official, who was known as the last minister of this dynasty, had sat in a carriage and had slowly passed the muddy stone slabs of Luojing, and had gone north.

Tongzhou and Huaizhou were adjacent, and they were not close to Luojing. Yu Lin had come from a thousand miles away, and he had faced the bodies of the refugees all over the fields outside the city. When he had entered the city, the streets were already empty.

The seemingly peaceful Huaizhou had no trace of life. Few of the doors on the street were open. Occasionally, a commoner would walk through the city with his arms crossed, and his face was lifeless.

The dark clouds in the sky were gloomy, and it was about to rain. Yu Lin’s carriage had passed by in a low-key manner, and it had not attracted any attention, and it had entered the prefectural yamen.

Compared to the severe locust plague in Tongzhou, where there was no harvest, Huaizhou was a little better. However, there were not many seedlings that had been saved, and with the refugees gathered outside the city, the situation was not optimistic.

Most of the people here had had their fortunes scattered by the rebellions in various places a few years ago. Now that they had finally recovered, they had encountered a natural disaster, and the taste in their hearts was beyond despair.

Yu Lin had entered the yamen and had originally planned to open the granaries to distribute grain. However, the granaries in Luojing were not yet full, and the granaries in Huaizhou were even more stretched, and they were as poor as a church mouse.

Where would the grain come from? Yu Lin had thought about it and had to turn his gaze to the rich and prosperous lands that were a thousand miles away and were full of powerful people, and were still relatively stable.

This side was in a mess, and on the other side, Tongzhou had rebelled. Wei Zhiji had not had to put in much effort to take over.

As early as a few years ago, when rebellions had broken out in various places, and the feudal lords had risen up, he had already understood this.

His side had strong troops and horses, and he had also strictly enforced the orders. He had successfully implemented good policies and good seeds early on, and he had also been lying low for many years, and his food supplies were more than enough.

Whenever the people on the border of Dayong could not survive, the first thing they would think of was him. After all, they had been watching the lives of the people under his rule every day, and they knew that if they followed him, they would have food to eat.

He was not in a hurry to become a king.

Hegemony was very good, and the destiny was with him. The foundation of Dayong was corrupt, and if they really fought, they would definitely not be his match. In at most five years, the world would change its surname.

But he had never used troops against Dayong. He had just been building up the people’s livelihood, and he did not want to, and he also did not dare to.

He was always afraid that the ones who would rush out of the city gate would be the common people who were holding hoes, and it would be like the cries that had come from the righteous hall after the Kun River had burst its banks that year, and he was even more afraid that behind the common people would be the person who would smile at him in his dreams of previous years.

His blade would cut into these people, and he would not be happy, nor would he be excited. He would just feel annoyed.

He had many generals and advisors under him, and they were loyal. Some of them were straightforward and felt that their lord was indecisive. But there were also some who had commented that he was a rare and wise ruler who would govern the world.

Wei Zhiji did not care much. He was in a light armor, and when he was free and was not dealing with military affairs, he would lie on the roof, rest his head on his arm, and look at the bright sky.

Then he would have a dream, and the person in the dream would stroke his hair, and with a smile, he would gently tell him the way of being a person, the way of being a ruler, and he would tell him that if the world did not let people live, people would overthrow the world, and only people were the foundation of the world.

That person had told him that no matter when, and no matter how high his position was, he should not despise human life.

Only human life could overthrow the world.

Perhaps the things he had heard when he was young were always deeply remembered and unforgettable.

In short, Wei Zhiji had driven back the barbarians, who in his eyes were burning, killing, and plundering, and were no longer human. When he had heard of the locust plague in Tongzhou, and he had issued a document for disaster relief in Tongzhou, and he had personally come to deal with the aftermath, this was what he had thought.

It was just that he had not expected the surprise to be so great.

The person who had been moving around the imperial city for all these years and had been unable to be in two places at once had been driven to Huaizhou by the emperor, and he was only a hundred miles away, separated by a city.

The messenger under him had come with the news, and after he had seen the military report, he had read it several times, until the dazed Wei Zhiji, “?”

***

Wei Zhiji had not seen Yu Lin for too long.

He was pressed against the base of the wall, and he was looking at the moon above his head. He had been looking for a long time, and his heart ached a little.

The enemy’s lord had sneaked into the opponent’s lair. It sounded like he was not very normal.

But Wei Zhiji felt that in the autumn rain of the seventh year of Chang’an, his brain had long since been broken.

Before the sky was bright, his disguised caravan had already been leaning against the city of Huaizhou. To be realistic, he had even traveled day and night, and had come from the Yixian trading company under the rule of Huaizhou.

As soon as the city gates had opened, he had pretended to be a grain merchant from Jiangnan and had sneaked in.

Wei Zhiji had grown up in Luojing, and his official language was pure. Perhaps it was difficult to change his accent, and he had not picked up a border accent.

After he had entered the city, he had gone straight to the grain collection office in the city, and his speed was so fast that the guards by his side had not even reacted.

There were not many or few people at the grain collection office. Most of them were speaking official language, and they were coming and going, and their expressions were solemn. They were shuttling among the merchants, and they were out of place with the gray and dilapidated Huaizhou.

Someone was in the midst of them, and his skin was extremely fair, and his features were as elegant as in previous years. But his body looked thinner than before, and his brow was slightly furrowed.

A gust of wind blew over, and his brow relaxed a little, followed by a few light coughs. He held his palm, and he lightly pressed it to his lips, and his face was pale, and for some reason, he could not stop coughing.

Wei Zhiji looked at him, and his eyes turned red, as if ten thousand arrows had pierced his heart.