Please call me Your Majesty!

Chapter 104: Chu Shizhao can only follow Li Shimin’s path now, Huan Sheng is a good chess piece!

These arms have the same grade structure as the minister cards.

The armies that Chu Shizhao had led in the simulation were also divided into strong and weak ones. The lowest level was the white soldiers, which were like young men of appropriate age carrying weapons. They could be called soldiers.

The blue troops are the regular and conventional official troops that a unified country should have.

However, due to the serious corruption problem in the Great Zhou Dynasty, the official troops that should appear to be blue-quality are not yet fully equipped with sufficient weapons and equipment, nor are they well-trained. From the perspective of attributes alone, they are just a group of blank soldiers.

In contrast, most of Li Jin's private army and the personal guards of the northern governors are purple-quality troops.

These bodyguards are all veterans who guard the border. They have long-term combat experience and have seen blood. Not to mention that they are all armored sergeants and are well-equipped. They are equivalent to the elite among the border troops, and their ability to fight is their characteristic.

So far, Chu Shizhao has never seen any gold-quality troops in his simulations.

Now it seems that in order to obtain a special army of golden soldiers, it is not only necessary to have basic combat effectiveness and training intensity, but also weapons and equipment. The monthly food and wages, the team's main general, and the army's discipline must all meet extremely strict standards.

However, Chu Shizhao's top priority, in addition to continuing to train the Central Government Army, is to obtain a stable source of income as quickly as possible.

Strictly speaking, the current Zhongfu Army is still the army of Emperor Yongjin rather than Chu Shizhao, because the source of food and salary comes from the imperial court, not Chu Shizhao personally.

If you want to truly stabilize an army, you must become the source of food and wages for this army and be able to have a base of your own, and it would be best if the soldiers' families are still here.

This is the only way to achieve effective governance.

If Chu Shizhao wants to gain an advantage when Emperor Yongjin dies and avoid being killed by his brother, the first thing he should do, apart from anything else, is to infiltrate the army, and the second is to expand his influence in the court.

Only by infiltrating the army could Chu Shizhao control Chang'an most efficiently within a short period of time, gain a substantial base, and have the capital to provide military pay.

If the influence of the court is too small, even if Chu Shizhao temporarily controls Chang'an, if he does not have the support of the ministers, once these ministers are deposed or released by Chu Shizhao, they will return to their local areas and there will still be chaos because Chu Shizhao cannot convince the people.

Therefore, after controlling Chang'an, Chu Shizhao must also control the court. Chu Shizhao needs a group of ministers who truly support him as a foundation. Otherwise, rebellion will naturally occur in other places of the Great Zhou Dynasty.

Whether it was a royal family coup launched by Li Shimin or Zhu Di.

Everyone has his own team, which can ensure that after those disobedient ministers are removed, the entire country can still operate stably and within their control.

Especially Li Shimin, who had a lineup of the kings of the early Tang Dynasty and several contestants from the Temple of Martial Arts and the Temple of Confucianism. It can be said that the palace coup he launched basically did not affect the normal lives of the lower-class people, and the transition was very smooth.

Zhu Di was much more violent, which led to a large number of civil officials scolding him or even assassinating him after he came to power.

Even someone like Zhu Di, who entered Nanjing, had people who disobeyed him.

If Chu Shizhao wants to take over the court in Chang'an smoothly, he has to consider more issues. Therefore, the longer Emperor Yongjin lasts, the more beneficial it will be for Chu Shizhao.

The main thing is that the current Emperor Yongjin has no intention of letting Chu Shizhao become a vassal. If Chu Shizhao cannot become a vassal, the only best way for him to save himself is Li Shimin's Xuanwu Gate Incident.

As for the current route to stay in Chang'an, the loyal minister route, Chu Shizhao has already tried it, and it's all tears and bitter fruits.

In the first two simulations, Chu Shizhao did not deliberately expand his influence, but simply served as a loyal minister to his father. The result was that Chu Shizhao tried his best to defend Chang'an, while all the ministers in the court ran away and sold out Chu Shizhao.

Then these wise men who claimed to be loyal subjects ran to their hometowns and formed their own teams. Few of them said they wanted to support the Great Zhou, and they still rebelled against the court.

After several simulation analyses, Chu Shizhao had no chance of being a purely good person in Chang'an.

So why not try another approach?

Especially after the death of Emperor Yongjin, Chu Shizhao had not tried the path of seizing power through a coup d'état. Perhaps there was a way out here that Chu Shizhao could choose.

Then, he would need the support of a group of ministers for Chu Shizhao in order to realize the Great Zhou version of the Xuanwu Gate Incident.

The support of only one Huan Sheng is not enough.

Chu Shizhao was busy almost the entire day.

He greeted almost all the officials in the six ministries.

[The Emperor's Growth Plan], even in reality, records in real time what Chu Shizhao has done, including the relationships Chu Shizhao has established now.

Huan Sheng was the only one who openly revealed his support for the Jin Wang Party.

The attitude of other ministers towards Chu Shizhao was - cold.

But what matters to me is quality, not quantity.

Even if Chu Shizhao was given hundreds of purple civil officials who could only compose poetry and lyrics and whose talent was as high as 80 points, they would not be as valuable as one Zhang Juzheng.

Not even as high as the arch.

Huan Sheng has many personality problems, but he is very strong! Besides, there is Huan Yi as his wife, so the intimacy between the two can be further improved.

Taking down Huan Sheng is equivalent to pacifying Liang Province.

Do not!
It was to obtain a military region called Liangzhou.

But Huan Sheng is a pragmatist, and his governing ability has been demonstrated in simulation games.

Under the command of Chu Shizhao's elder brother, the crown prince Chu Shixu, he advocated reforms and made the country strong. However, Chu Shixu was not a very kind person. After Huan Sheng's reforms achieved short-term success, in order to appease the old interest groups and unite the forces of the aristocratic families whose interests had been damaged, he directly exterminated the three clans of the Huan family.

On the surface, Huan Sheng was a purple civil official.

However, the nepotism behind him, coupled with Huan Sheng's courage to reform, decisiveness in doing things, and frequent offending of people, made him a perfect scapegoat.

If used properly, it is no weaker than a golden minister card.

What's more, the ability can be further improved, and the purple quality is not a person's ultimate limit. Huan Sheng's initial form is a purple famous minister card. It is not a problem for him to be upgraded to a gold-quality founding minister in the later stage.

He took the initiative to lean towards Chu Shizhao.

No matter how Chu Shizhao thought about it, he was the one who made a lot of money.

Chu Shizhao saw that the next simulation would take another two days to start, so he returned to the Wude Hall first.

To Chu Shizhao's surprise, there were several eunuchs waiting respectfully in the Wude Hall. One of the older eunuchs smiled and said, "Your Highness, I am the eunuch Feng Bao, the commander-in-chief."

"His Majesty has ordered us to take you to the palace to select two palace maids to serve you."

Chu Shizhao had no special requirements in this regard, as long as she looked pleasing to the eye and didn't bother him. He was about to ask Feng Bao to bring two palace maids over, but then he thought that if he answered like this, it would be bad if the other party found two palace maids who had ulterior motives and were close to him to find out about him.

In fact, in the simulation, Chu Shizhao didn't pay much attention to the eunuchs of the Imperial Household Department, nor did he know whether Feng Bao's master was Emperor Yongjin or Queen Wang. It would be better for him to make the decision on such matters himself.

Thinking of this, Chu Shizhao suddenly remembered that Mei Niang was born in the Ye Ting, so why not take this opportunity to bring Mei Niang back.

The experience in the simulation also allowed Chu Shizhao to understand Mei Niang's character very well.

This is someone Chu Shizhao can trust.

"Thank you, sir." Chu Shizhao lowered his head slightly and nodded politely subconsciously.

Although Feng Bao remained calm, he was still a little scared of the prince.

According to outside rumors, this was an upright prince who also persuaded Emperor Yongjin not to trust the words of treacherous villains. With Cao Wei's exaggeration, Feng Bao also came here reluctantly under the orders of Emperor Yongjin.

I thought he would be embarrassed by Chu Shizhao, but I didn't expect that this prince was not as difficult to get along with as the rumors said.

When Chu Shizhao followed Feng Bao to the Ye Ting.

In the Taiji Palace, Guo Qian, the commander of the Wude Division, was standing beside Emperor Yongjin and reporting to him all the affairs that happened in the Ministry of War.

Now Guo Qian could not figure out the thoughts of Emperor Yongjin at all. He had no idea whether Emperor Yongjin cared about Prince Jin or not. Until now, Guo Qian only dared to report what he knew to Emperor Yongjin, and did not dare to put forward his own opinions, for fear of making a mistake.

Upon hearing this, Emperor Yongjin closed his eyes and pretended to take a nap to relax.

"I remember that Wang Huai is the Queen's nephew, right?" Emperor Yongjin said.

"That's right." Guo Qian replied, "He was trying to embarrass the Fourth Prince, saying that the Ministry of War didn't have much military resources to provide for the new army, but the Fourth Prince calmed him down with just a few words."

"He is not right in the first place, so naturally he cannot win the argument with the fourth elder brother." What Emperor Yongjin cared more about was whether Wang Huai's behavior was his own initiative, or whether Queen Wang asked him to do so, or whether it was secretly instructed by his eldest son.

These are three different situations.

Wang Huai's spontaneous behavior was his disloyalty to the court and his open disobedience to the will of Emperor Yongjin. It was a personal decision.

If Queen Wang asked Wang Huai to do that, it was because Queen Wang was being too lenient and didn't want to see Chu Shizhao become powerful and affect her son's succession to the throne.

The most sinister scenario is that Chu Shixu ordered Wang Huai to do this. If this is possible, his eldest son has probably conspired with the Wang family to deal with Chu Shizhao.

This is also the thing that Emperor Yongjin cannot tolerate the most.

"What are Huan Sheng's abilities?" Emperor Yongjin asked deliberately.

"I don't know." Guo Qian shook his head and quickly reminded: "But he is a descendant of Huanqi of Sanming in Liangzhou. The Huan family is a powerful family in Liangzhou, and his brother Huanjie is the governor of Liangzhou."

"Moreover, Huan Sheng seems to be very close to the Fourth Prince. When Wang Huai and the Fourth Prince were confronting each other just now, it was Huan Sheng who stepped forward to challenge them."

"The fourth brother has already defeated Wang Huai. Huan Sheng came out just to take a stand. He wants to take this opportunity to publicly announce his support for the fourth brother." Emperor Yongjin suddenly found things interesting.

With Huan Sheng's political achievements, he should have been promoted long ago. Unfortunately, Huan Sheng sat in this position for a very long time and was not able to move up from the sixth-rank position of the head of the Ministry of War.

This matter had nothing to do with other people. It was simply because Emperor Yongjin had no intention of promoting Huan Sheng.

The imperial court has always been the core area dominated by the Guanlong Group of gentry. The Yongjin Emperor was initially supported and supported with the support of the Guanlong gentry. This led to the Yongjin Emperor having to maintain the basic interests of the Guanlong gentry to a certain extent.

Suppressing the Liangzhou gentry like Huan Sheng is the lowest maintenance cost.

Furthermore, Emperor Yongjin only needs to use a little trick and take advantage of the information difference to make these Liangzhou gentry hate those Guanlong gentry, so as to achieve a balanced effect.

After all, Emperor Yongjin himself did not consider these aristocratic families as his own people.

"Now that Wang Ruizhen has been executed, the position of Minister of Rites cannot remain vacant any longer. Promote Liu An, the former Right Vice Minister of the Ministry of War, to be the new Minister of Rites. Huan Sheng will take over Liu An's vacant position. Wang Huai's position will remain unchanged." Emperor Yongjin said, "Cao Wei, you will draft the edict for me here."

By doing this, Emperor Yongjin determined the nature of the matter.

Whether Wang Huai acted out of his own will or was criticized by the people behind him, his actions were in defiance of the order issued by Emperor Yongjin. This alone was something that made Emperor Yongjin unhappy.

If Emperor Yongjin did not take action in this matter, even if Chu Shizhao won morally, it would not be considered a true victory.

Only if Emperor Yongjin spoke up and said that Wang Huai was wrong, could Chu Shizhao win this move.

Of course, the most important point is that Emperor Yongjin showed favor to Huan Sheng on behalf of Chu Shizhao.

In fact, Emperor Yongjin also had his own considerations. Huan Sheng in Chang'an was too weak. Even if he openly supported Chu Shizhao, he would still suffer a loss if he went head-on with the giant Wang family in the Guanlong area.

So what if Huan Sheng’s younger brother was the governor of Liangzhou?
Can we reach Chang'an?

If you can't hit it, then it's empty.

Therefore, Emperor Yongjin promoted Huan Sheng to be the right vice minister of the Ministry of War. This meant that Huan Sheng was used as an open chess piece to fight against Wang Huai, the chess piece representing the Wang family.

But the fourth brother is currently too weak, so Emperor Yongjin wants to leverage his power for him. With Emperor Yongjin's move and relying on Huan Sheng's own background, this chess piece will have a heavyweight position in the court. Just based on Huan Sheng's background, he is the best chess piece.

Emperor Yongjin sighed.

In fact, he didn't like factional struggles at all, and didn't like weighing the pros and cons or manipulating his ministers to fight each other.

However, people's hearts will change, and these ministers cannot remain loyal forever. The only way to avoid harming the imperial power is to constantly bring them troubles, provoke conflicts, and keep the ministers busy. Only then will they think of relying on the emperor.

Who doesn't want his ministers to work wholeheartedly for the country?

"Oh, and please stop the renovation of the West Garden and the construction of the Taoist temple this year, and allocate some disaster relief money from the national treasury to the people in the south."

As he was about to die, Emperor Yongjin also wanted to retain some dignity for himself and leave some good reputation in the hearts of the people.

After all, it was the 30th year of Yongjin and he was about to die. Even if the West Garden in the imperial palace was repaired and the Taoist temple was built, he would not be able to enjoy them. If he did something, at least the people could still burn incense for him.

Recently, we are mainly promoting the realistic plot, focusing on the transition. This is mainly to keep the simulation and reality moving forward together. This realistic plot will be transitioned soon.

There is another update today.

(End of this chapter)