Fearing being killed for his overwhelming merits, the empress decided to marry him.

After listening to Shen Lang's description, Jiang Mengxuan pondered for a moment and slowly said, "Actually, according to traditional logic, Li Hong's concerns are not without reason."

For an emperor, the greatest fear is the loss of imperial power and being overthrown and deposed.

Throughout history, countless dynasties have gradually declined due to the corruption of their courts in their later years.

In the end, all that was gained was a bloody change of dynasties.

The Mingzhao Kingdom before Wuzhao was also due to the deeply entrenched power of aristocratic families.

This led to a weakening of imperial power and an irreversible expansion of the fiscal deficit.

Therefore, they were unable to organize an elite army to deal with the increasingly serious peasant uprisings within the country.

This gave Wu Zhao the opportunity to seize the cauldron in one fell swoop.

The Wu Zhao Kingdom, having learned from the previous dynasty's overly lenient policies towards aristocratic families, implemented an extremely repressive rule.

Less than thirty years after its founding, the country introduced the imperial examination system, advocating a system of shared governance between the emperor and scholars.

This brought the influence of powerful families to an all-time low.

This ensures the legitimacy of their rule; however,

Governing a country solely through high-pressure tactics is undoubtedly like drinking poison to quench thirst; perhaps I didn't understand this before.

Now I understand that for a dynasty to function well, it depends not only on a clean and honest government, but more importantly, on ensuring that all levels of society can benefit from its policies.

In this way, the essential nature of each industry is in place, and there are fewer conflicts to deal with.

Since the cabinet was established, Jiang Mengxuan's state of mind has changed a lot.

Earlier, she went from initial joy at wielding power to later fear and anxiety, but now she is at peace with it.

A dynasty cannot escape the cycle of rise and fall by relying solely on an excellent emperor; more importantly, it needs the consistent support and efforts of all social strata to develop healthily.

Fortunately, Shen Lang was there, and she had completely understood this principle.

“Xuan’er is right, but there is one thing you may not expect: the rulers of Wu Zhao Kingdom throughout history have also used the same high-pressure methods of governance to govern the people.”

"How can this be!"

Jiang Mengxuan looked completely incredulous.

"If it were the previous rulers of Wu Zhao Kingdom, I would have nothing to say, but the current Wu Zhao Kingdom is experiencing its greatest golden age since its founding, a fact acknowledged by all its neighboring countries."

Wu Zhao received tribute from as many as eighty-three states, and countless scholars traveled great distances to study there. This was personally recorded by the envoys of our Great Chu.”

Shen Lang shook his head: "Then Xuan'er, have you heard of any scholars who went to Wuzhao for advanced studies and then returned to their country to follow Wuzhao's system?"

Furthermore, prosperous eras are categorized; there's a huge difference between a prosperous era for the common people and a prosperous era for the emperor.

"Where do you start talking about this?"

"Let me give a few examples from the intelligence sent by Ban Dingyuan regarding the Kingdom of Wuzhao."

In the first month of the fourth year of the Xuansheng era, Ban Dingyuan was ordered to go on a mission to the Wu Zhao Kingdom. He arrived in the Wu Zhao Kingdom in the third month of the same year.

Just then, a major event occurred: a group of bandits from the Wuzhaozhong South Mountain area attacked several manors.

The bandits committed countless atrocities, including rape, robbery, and plunder. Local officials repeatedly sent troops to suppress them, but each time their efforts were in vain.

The next local leader called on villagers from different villages to unite.

They defeated the bandits in one fell swoop and escorted the bandit leader and his accomplices to the local government.

After verifying the identity, the county magistrate immediately compiled the matter into a memorial and reported it to the prefectural government, which then dispatched it to the imperial court via the utmost express courier service to report the victory.

At this moment, everyone was waiting for Li Hong to lavishly reward the righteous man. Even the local county government had already hung red silk in front of the government office, awaiting the issuance of the imperial decree of commendation.

To everyone's surprise, two months later, the capital issued an imperial edict personally written by Li Hong.

The righteous man who organized the villagers to ambush and kill the bandits was beheaded on the spot and his head displayed to the public.

The reason given was that he colluded with bandits, and the other villagers who participated in resisting the bandits were similarly demoted to slaves and exiled to harsh, cold lands.

The county magistrate who received the imperial edict was completely dumbfounded. After confirming it several times, he had no choice but to carry out the imperial order.

The leader of the righteous men was thus inexplicably accused of colluding with bandits and executed at the execution ground.

Jiang Mengxuan fell silent; she hadn't expected the righteous man to meet such an end.

"Another example is the frequent snow disasters in the northern kingdom of Wuzhao. Due to the local government's ineffective disaster relief efforts, millions of people became disaster victims."

A local scholarly family, led by a wealthy man surnamed Peng, sought justice for the disaster-stricken people.

He spared no expense in providing travel expenses for these disaster victims to travel to the capital to appeal to the emperor, vehemently denouncing the local officials for corruption and disregard for the safety of the people.

As it turned out, after the disaster victims arrived in the capital, Li Hong did indeed personally receive them and properly settle them in. He then swiftly ordered his favored ministers to go to the northern kingdoms to investigate the extent of the disaster.

However, when the favored minister returned, he told him that the snow disaster was completely fabricated. As a result, all the people who had complained to the emperor were executed in the marketplace for deceiving the emperor.

The Peng family was thus subjected to confiscation of their property and execution, with not a single member spared. However, after Ban Dingyuan secretly investigated from various sources,

A major snow disaster did indeed occur in the northern region, resulting in hundreds of thousands of people freezing to death that year.

Given Li Hong's control over the entire Wuzhao Kingdom, he couldn't possibly be unaware of the true situation. What does that mean?

Jiang Mengxuan chimed in, "That only shows that Li Hong values ​​his own reputation more than anyone else, whether it's the aforementioned initiation of war or..."

The wronged heroes, the Peng family, and the disaster-stricken people—their very existence would become a stain on the emperor's reputation.

Li Hong wants to create an unprecedented golden age, an age that can only be filled with praise, so how could it possibly tolerate doubt and darkness?

Even if a snowstorm kills hundreds of thousands and leaves millions homeless, nothing is more important than the dignity of an emperor.

As an emperor, Jiang Mengxuan understood Li Hong's thoughts better than anyone.

However, this so-called golden age was only the emperor's golden age, and had nothing to do with the suffering people.

Shen Lang sighed: "Yes, the difference in status between the emperor and the common people inevitably leads to different understandings and perspectives on things."

He falsely accused the righteous man of colluding with bandits and had him beheaded because he feared the people might have the courage to rebel and one day threaten his throne.

The entire Peng family was executed because these disaster victims, upon arriving in Beijing, were afraid of exposing the lies of the supposedly prosperous era.

The population of Wu Zhao Kingdom is three times that of our Great Chu, and its territory is twice that of our Great Chu, but their people are not even as numerous as during the old system of our Great Chu.

The people I saw along the way were almost all emaciated and pale. Their rice bowls were never filled with oil or fat, and they suffered daily exploitation by the imperial court and government officials.

But these things were irrelevant to Li Hong. The prosperous era he wanted to create would not tolerate any blemishes; only the boundless grace of imperial power would shine upon that land.

Jiang Mengxuan: "I heard that Wu Zhao Kingdom is now engaged in a fierce battle with Dong Yi Kingdom in the southwest, and it seems that the war is still going very badly?"

Shen Lang: "Although the Dongyi Kingdom does not have as powerful and elite troops as the Wuzhao Kingdom, their soldiers have basically reached the point where everyone can wear armor."

By leveraging the terrain and fortified positions to engage Wu Zhao, the Wu Zhao Kingdom was naturally unable to achieve a quick victory. Ultimately, they would have to rely on their national strength to win this war.

Moreover, the Dongyi Kingdom seems to possess firearms as well, but I wonder how they compare to those of our Great Chu.

Jiang Mengxuan: "How much national strength does Wu Zhao Kingdom still have to mobilize? Since Li Hong ascended the throne, it has continuously waged war abroad, spending eight or nine hundred million taels of silver."

They only managed to clear less than two hundred miles of uninhabited wasteland. Regardless of victory or defeat, it was all about saving face. How long can this so-called national strength sustain itself like this?

Shen Lang: "So what you mean is..."

Jiang Mengxuan: "A Lang, if Great Chu were to wage war against Wu Zhao Kingdom now, what are its chances of winning? Could it annihilate them?"