After Ye Qingzhou saw the morial, he imdiately dispatched over ten thousand soldiers, splitting them into five forces and launching attacks from four sides, respectively led by Wang Junfeng, Nie Shixiong, Xu Biyi, Xu Wenshan, and Zhang Shunchen, commanding them to various regions to quell the rebellion.
In any county where the rebellion occurred, regardless of the reasons, all mbers of the noble families and rich were exterminated, with their lands and properties confiscated completely.
The soldiers were valiant, the tiger generals invincible, and wherever the Divine Martial Army went, the so-called ’Righteous Army’ of the noble families was slaughtered, fleeing in disarray, unable to form an effective defense.
After the Divine Martial Army relentlessly blood-washed the five states of Ji, Liang, Yu, Yan, and You, the remaining noble families and rich finally chose to submit, obediently handing over their lands and properties, no longer ntioning anything about ’ancestral heritage’.
After all, if they continued to resist, they’d soon be eting their ancestors personally.
In just three short years, by the third year of Shenwu, the realm was pacified, and peace reigned across the land.
Ye Qingzhou didn’t need to take action himself; the ’Five Tigers’ under his command had already instilled fear in the noble families and rich. Seeing the triumphant reports brought back by his five disciples, Ye Qingzhou coldly laughed: "A group of wretches, you’re behaving now, aren’t you?"
The new land policy was smoothly promulgated, enabling the Court of Great Qi to gain control of a large amount of production resources, successfully resolving fiscal difficulties.
Politics, in essence, is a ga of dividing the cake.
The Emperor needs to wield the knife to slice the cake held by the noble families and rich, then distribute the sliced cake to the ordinary citizens, allowing them to live, or even to live well, and this is what is called a prosperous era.
If the Emperor is unable to wield the power of cake slicing, or even lets the cake originally intended for the Court be taken away by others, then this nation is not far from collapse.
Now, what Ye Qingzhou needs to do is to redistribute the cake of Great Qi.
The first step is to cut the at from the noble families and rich, aning confiscating their lands and properties.
This step is already completed, so it’s ti to proceed to the second step, to actually distribute the sliced cake to the people of Great Qi.
To achieve this, Ye Qingzhou selects soldiers from the Divine Martial Army through examinations and sends them to local areas to oversee the implentation of policies.
Fortunately, during the training of soldiers, in addition to the Cultivation Technique from the Heart Martial Sect, Ye Qingzhou drafted quite a few textbooks, educating the soldiers in literacy during the evenings.
Not only did he teach them to read and write, he also taught them ways to understand the world, simultaneously imparting various managent knowledge.
Therefore, most soldiers are both literate and skilled in martial arts, and due to the Power of Thought Ability, they must stand with the ordinary citizens; otherwise, they would be repelled by the Power of Thought Ability, at best halting their cultivation progress, at worst regressing into nothingness.
This ans it’s very difficult to bribe the soldiers of the noble families and rich; the nature of Power of Thought Ability dictates that they cannot betray the interests of the citizens, at least not openly.
In the sixth year of Shenwu, Ye Qingzhou established Martial Arts Academies in various counties, selecting scholars through martial talent.
Martial Artists with Eight Gates can beco Pupils by opening one gate, Scholars by opening two gates, and Scholars by opening three gates.
After passing the Scholar examination, they qualify for external official positions, though promotion is slow. To advance further, cultivation must continue.
Opening four gates qualifies them as Imperial Scholars, and opening five gates as Advanced Scholars.
Only by becoming Advanced Scholars can one participate in martial discussions before the Emperor and receive personal guidance from Ye Qingzhou, which alone makes martial examination candidates aspire earnestly.
By the eighth year of Shenwu, the Central Plains entered an unprecedented prosperous era.
’Golden-Winged Tiger’ Wang Junfeng swept the Thirty-Six Kingdoms of the Western Regions; any king who dared to kill the envoy of Qi had their head hung at the Northern Palace.
’Prairie Fire Tiger’ Nie Shixiong flatted the Donghu Celestial Feather Eight Divisions; any division that dared to kill the envoy of Qi was imdiately exterminated.
’Jade-Faced Tiger’ Xu Wenshan suppressed the Southern Yue Thousand Rivers and Hundred Barbarians; any barbarian who dared to kill the envoy of Qi was slaughtered into the Nine Commanderies.
’Sky Tyrant Tiger’ Xu Biyi and ’Flying Star Tiger’ Zhang Shunchen each led over a thousand soldiers, patrolling the realm, investigating law violations, and soothing public sentint.
After eight years of dedicated governance efforts, the Great Qi is prosperous and peaceful, with hos unlocked at night and no one picking up lost items on the road; while not everyone lives in plenty, at least most can barely manage to avoid hunger, with few instances of freezing or starving.
Seeing the morials returned by Xu Biyi and Zhang Shunchen, Ye Qingzhou sighed with feeling: "Indeed, when the noble families fall, the people eat their fill."
During Emperor Liang’s reign, the world was starving and desolate not because there was a lack of food, for while the population was indeed increasing, it wasn’t to the point of famine.
The widespread displacent mainly resulted from land rgers, and the most direct consequence of these rgers was landlords controlling most of the grain output.
To make profits, they hoarded for speculation, relentlessly driving up food prices, while countless citizens who lost their land starved to death, causing scenes of human tragedy.
Ye Qingzhou rely resolved this, and successfully fed all the people under heaven.
In a prosperous era, fortune converges, with the Capital residing at the center, and the people’s aspirations from the Fourteen States converting into nurous mighty rivers of Thought Ability, rushing in like torrents of Returning Flow.
"Nine-nine returns to one, aning ninety-nine percent of the fortune under heaven converges to alone."
Ye Qingzhou inhaled the vast Power of Thought Ability, his spirit ascended infinitely, and his mind also soared to the highest heavens, overlooking the vast territories of Great Qi like a god.
Moreover, Ye Qingzhou felt like he had beco a fish able to leap out of the River of Ti, seeing the reflections of past days, which are the ’Shadow of the Past’ of the Cangyuan Realm.
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