Chapter 44

Investing in the Reborn Empress, She Actually Calls Me ‘Husband’

"Vice Grand Secretary Zhang, I really do not like the sound of that."

A cold, piercing laugh echoed faintly through the tense atmosphere of the Fengtian Hall.

Wei Zhongxian, the Director of the Eastern Depot, flicked the wide sleeves of his crimson robe. A glint of hostility flashed in his inverted-triangle eyes. He took a step forward, extending a finger until it almost poked the nose of the Right Vice Minister of War.

"We eunuchs may be rootless, incomplete beings, but our hearts are wholly and completely tied to His Majesty! Unlike a certain group of hypocrites, whose mouths are full of benevolence and morality, but who secretly do nothing but filthy deeds to undermine the foundations of the Great Zhou Dynasty!"

Wei Zhongxian suddenly turned his head, his gaze sweeping across the faces of the civil and military officials like two sharp blades. "Some people take the salary given by His Majesty, yet treat the Great Zhou's national treasury as their own private vault! The Bureau of Communications had a deficit of 4.6 million taels last year! Where did this money go? Do you really think the spies of the Eastern Depot are blind? Was it not squandered away by a bunch of lords playing host to each other, eating, drinking, whoring, and gambling!"

"You... you castrated cur, you are making baseless accusations! You disgrace our dignity! A disgrace to decency!"

The Right Vice Minister of War was sprayed in the face by Wei Zhongxian's unbridled spittle. He trembled like a leaf in his anger, clutching his chest tightly, barely able to catch his breath. A stormy sea was raging in his heart. Just how many account books did the Eastern Depot possess? Could it be that his use of the eight-hundred-mile urgent express to deliver lychees to his concubine in Jiangnan had also been completely uncovered by these damned eunuchs?!

"What? You dare to do it, but don't dare to admit it?"

A voice exploded like muffled thunder. Cao Shaoqin, the Seal-holding Eunuch of the Purified Army, gave a cold snort and stepped forward like a half-severed black tower. With just a single look, he forced several civil officials in the front row to stumble backward repeatedly.

"Lord Chen, on the third day of last month, Lord Wang, the Left Vice Minister of Personnel, returned to his hometown to visit his relatives. What a magnificent display of official prestige! Along the way, he commandeered the carriages and horses of sixteen relay stations, with over seventy station attendants serving him. Even a single dinner cost dozens of taels of silver. He even complained that the bedboards at the station were too hard and had the station master hung up and beaten half to death! Who ultimately paid this bill? Was it not all counted as the wear and tear of your Bureau of Communications!"

Cao Shaoqin pressed forward step by step, his large, brass-bell-like eyes glaring fixedly at the Right Vice Minister of War, Chen Ping. He roared fiercely, "You take money from the national treasury to fund your own family's extravagance! To keep your mothers-in-law and beautiful concubines! And you still have the face to stand here and talk about the ancestral laws? According to the ancestral laws, shouldn't these people be flayed and stuffed with straw!"

Every word condemned their hearts! Every sentence drew blood!

Cao Shaoqin's words mercilessly tore off the fig leaf of the civil official faction, a layer they called decency.

"Your Majesty!!!"

At this moment, Zhuge Huaijin, who had been at each other's throats with Zhang Wuji over the matter of the General Taxation Administration, suddenly let out a shrill and sorrowful cry.

Zhuge Huaijin's mind was now completely clear. Although he deeply hated the noble clans for annexing land and evading commercial taxes, in his bones, he was still a pure scholar who had grown up reading the works of sages!

"Eunuchs interfering in politics is a bottomless abyss!" Zhuge Huaijin's heart roared madly. "No matter how ruthless the General Taxation Administration is, it is still a transfer of power within our civil official faction, a struggle between the humble scholars and the noble clans! But what is the Bureau of Communications? It controls the relay stations of the world; it is the sole major artery for the flow of intelligence and government decrees! If this eunuch faction is allowed to strangle the relay stations, the consequences would be unimaginable!"

Even if he had to stand on the same battlefront as that old fox Zhang Wuji today, he absolutely could not let these eunuchs lay their fingers on the vital instruments of the state!

"May Your Majesty see clearly!" Zhuge Huaijin's voice was hoarse. "Eunuchs interfering in politics has been an omen of national subjugation since ancient times! The Bureau of Communications involves the circulation of military intelligence across the world and the smooth transmission of government decrees. If it falls into the hands of the Directorate of Ceremonial, the imperial hearing will be blinded, and the inside and outside will be isolated! The imperial court will inevitably fall into turmoil. I beg Your Majesty to reconsider!"

With Zhuge Huaijin's hoarse shout, the civil official faction, which had been torn apart by the emperor, miraculously merged back together when facing their natural enemy, the eunuch faction.

"We subjects would rather die than accept this decree!"

Zhang Wuji also took the opportunity to kneel down. The hundred noble clan officials behind him, as well as the humble scholar officials behind Zhuge Huaijin, knelt down in a massive, rustling wave.

"The law cannot punish the masses!" A trace of satisfaction flashed through Zhang Wuji's lowered eyes. "Little emperor, you have overplayed your hand! You wanted to use eunuchs to bite us, but you underestimated that the civil official faction's wariness against eunuchs is carved into their very bones! Now the entire court of civil and military officials is forcing you with the threat of death. You must either retract your order or become completely alienated from all the officials! Let's see how you clean up this mess!"

Sitting upright on the dragon throne, Wang Hao quietly looked down at this group of righteous and death-defying pillars of the state below.

His face was hidden in the shadow of the twelve-tasseled imperial crown, looking terrifyingly gloomy, like the dark night before a storm, so heavy it could drip water.

However, beneath the crown where no one could see clearly, the corners of Wang Hao's mouth were turning up madly, almost stretching to his ears. An indescribable ecstasy spread throughout his body.

"Beautifully done!" Wang Hao cheered wildly in his heart.

Sun Li, Wei Zhongxian, and Cao Shaoqin, these domestic slaves, were truly born actors! They portrayed the domineering, greedy, bullying, insidious, and malicious image of treacherous eunuchs with profound perfection! This must be them acting in their true colors.

Wang Hao knew the nature of the civil official faction all too well. These people could normally bite each other's heads off for the sake of profit, but once they encountered an external threat, especially when an alien group like the eunuchs wanted to share power, they would immediately band together and use so-called morality and ancestral systems to hijack imperial power.

Therefore, he deliberately threw out the Bureau of Communications just to thoroughly enrage the civil officials and muddy the waters.

Wang Hao remained silent, causing the civil officials kneeling below to gradually feel a chill down their spines. Cold sweat dripped from their foreheads, smashing onto the golden floor bricks.

Just when the oppressive atmosphere was about to drive people mad.

Hai Dafu, the Director and Seal-holding Eunuch of the Directorate of Ceremonial, who had been watching coldly from the sidelines, let out a faint sigh.

"My lords, you speak of omens of national subjugation and the state of the empire in every breath... but I simply cannot understand." Hai Dafu's eyes suddenly shot out two piercing gleams of light, stabbing straight at Zhang Wuji. "You shout about the empire, but which of you has ever gone to look in the silver vaults of the Ministry of Revenue? The national treasury of the Great Zhou is completely empty!"

Hai Dafu stomped his foot fiercely, his voice instantly rising. "The military pay in the north has been in arrears for three months! The soldiers of the Nine Frontiers are drinking the northwest wind in the freezing snow! For the floods in Jiangnan, the disaster relief silver isn't even enough to buy bran! Aside from writing memorials every day to ask His Majesty for money, aside from crying for your fathers and mothers here, have you ever actually earned a single tael of silver for His Majesty and for this Great Zhou?"

This rapid-fire string of questions directly smashed a massive hole in the moral high ground that the civil officials were so proud of.