Chapter 57: Prime Minister, Please Give the Order!

"Huh? Something's not right!"

While Prime Minister Zifang, trapped within the simulation's perspective, could naturally not see the interior of the imperial palace, Zhou Liang, situated in the macroscopic perspective, furrowed his brows.

"What on earth is... the Divine Emperor trying to do?"

Clearly, "Zhou Liang's" reforms and transformations were beneficial to the Great Ming. The empire was currently thriving, growing better day by day. It could be said that he had perfectly achieved the goals set for him by the Divine Emperor. The emperor ought to be overjoyed, so why was he getting angry instead?

Especially looking at those few descriptive passages, it gave one the bizarre feeling that "the better the Great Ming became, the more displeased the Divine Emperor felt"... Or rather, the better "Zhou Liang" performed in the seat of the prime minister, the unhappier the Divine Emperor was!

Could it be that he actually didn't want to govern the Great Ming into an era of peace and prosperity?

That would make things even stranger, because "Zhou Liang" was personally promoted by him, and the "thirty-year pact" was his own initiative. He was the one who wanted "Zhou Liang" to secure peace and prosperity for him, so why was he reversing his stance now?

"Did he regret it? Or is it that the other me is doing too well, which makes his former self look entirely useless, thereby deeply annoying him?"

Zhou Liang scratched his head, feeling the logic was utterly absurd:

"And judging by his demeanor, he practically wishes for the other me to launch a rebellion..."

What on earth is he... trying to achieve?

If he genuinely wanted to stop the reforms, he could just slap "Zhou Liang" to death with a single strike! Why bother with this kind of entrapment law enforcement?

The more Zhou Liang thought about it, the more bewildered he became:

"He wants someone to govern the Great Ming into a golden age, yet he also wants to obstruct the reform and modernization, and on top of that, he engages in entrapment... This logic is chaotic beyond belief..."

However, when all is said and done, since the Divine Emperor has a guilty conscience and is hell-bent on exposing his "true colors," it was destined that Old Zhou's fate would not be a pleasant one.

"If you are determined to condemn someone, you can always find a pretext. No matter how upright and loyal one might be, in the end, one can never escape a trumped-up charge..."

Zhou Liang let out a faint sigh:

"My initial guess was spot on indeed. How could any high-ranking official rapidly promoted by Chongzhen possibly avoid a catastrophic crash? Old Yuan has already been sliced up like roast duck; let's just hope you don't repeat his method of dying..."

***

[You knew nothing of the events transpiring within the palace, nor did you know what tragic end ultimately awaited you. You simply remained wholly devoted and busy with state affairs and governance.]

[Every day, a massive volume of memorials from the thirteen provinces was delivered to the prime minister's office. Back in the era of Wanli, these memorials would certainly have simply piled up and gathered dust. The decline of the Great Ming was largely due to that old slacker Wanli's inaction and dereliction of duty, so his cautionary tale naturally became the lesson for your future endeavors.]

[With the major affairs of the realm now resting entirely in your hands, you naturally had to review the memorials with utmost diligence. Much like Emperor Yongzheng of the Great Qing, you always reviewed them from dawn till dusk, truly staying up late and rising early with unflagging dedication!]

[However, you did not consume immortal elixirs like Yongzheng did, because you knew elixirs were fraudulent things, and you yourself possessed formidable divine power. Protected by divine power, coupled with your innate and boundless energy, you were able to stay up all night reviewing memorials at will without ever neglecting state affairs—truly possessing the congenital physique of a relentless beast of burden...]

[Yet, speaking of divine power, a sudden thought occurred to you: Hasn't the Divine Emperor distributed divine power stipends to his subordinates for quite a while?]

[With this realization, it dawned on you in a daze: Ever since the suppression of the rebellion in Yangzhou, it seemed... it seemed you hadn't received any divine power for over a decade? Although you hadn't really actively consumed much divine power anyway, it was awfully strange for the Divine Emperor to never mention it.]

[Moreover, because you had poured your heart and soul into the modernization of the Beijing Garrison's new army, you hadn't paid attention to the Jinyiwei for a long time either. In other words, it seemed their stipends hadn't been distributed for ages either...]

[Your brows twitched: Could it be... that the Divine Emperor had resorted to his traditional skill of defaulting on military pay again?]

[Thinking this, you felt it necessary to head to the imperial palace and inquire...]

[That very day, having finished your memorial reviews ahead of schedule, you took the initiative to walk into the imperial palace and respectfully questioned the Divine Emperor about the matter.]

[The Divine Emperor did not seem to be in the best of states. Faced with your inquiry, he brushed it off directly, stating: The realm is at peace now, so the Jinyiwei and officials no longer need divine power for things like suppressing rebellions... The divine power issued ten years ago hasn't even been used up by them yet, so there is clearly no need to issue more!]

[Hmm... It sounded quite reasonable. Since it wasn't being used anyway, it didn't matter whether it was issued or not.]

[However, a bold conjecture arose in your mind: Could it be that the Divine Emperor's divine power had grown even weaker, and therefore he didn't want to waste it?]

[Thinking this, you cautiously glanced at him, wishing to observe his condition closely. But it was precisely this single look that left you dumbfounded...]

[For the Divine Emperor reflected in your eyes no longer bore the image of his middle-aged self, but rather... that of a man in late middle age to elderly?!]

[You saw that his temples were streaked with gray, his skin had lost its former luster, and a few wrinkles had emerged on his face... Although he wasn't exceptionally aged, by the standards of this era, he looked at the very least like a man around fifty years old!]

[Barely a decade or so had passed, and he had aged to this extent?!]

[You were stunned into a momentary daze...]

[It wasn't until after you had left the imperial palace that it belatedly dawned on you: The Divine Emperor was never young to begin with. Today was the eighty-sixth year of Chongzhen, and his actual age was already over a hundred years old!]

[An elderly person over a hundred years old ought originally to have completely white hair and be counting down his remaining days. Yet the Divine Emperor's appearance was around fifty, which could already be considered a mastery of preserving one's youthful looks.]

[However... could it be that he was not truly capable of eternal youth and immortality?]

***

[This question filled your mind with utter bewilderment: All along, you had regarded him as an immortal, and immortals naturally possess eternal youth. But now... he was actually growing old!]

[This was incredible, and it shook your worldview to the core, so much that almost instantly, you thought of numerous stories about regicide and usurpation...]

[For the longest time, the Divine Emperor had loomed over your mind like a massive mountain. Naturally, you had desired his death. The reason you hadn't thought this way before was because your foundation was still shallow; if he were to meet an untimely death, the Great Ming would lose its pillar of support and very likely collapse in an instant!]

[Now, however, your foundation was secure, and the modernization reforms of the Great Ming had achieved remarkable results, bringing about a rich country and a strong military. The hundred thousand troops of the new Beijing Garrison were more than enough to resist any current external enemy... The Great Ming of today, while still far incomparable to a true golden age of later generations, would certainly not reach the point where the entire nation couldn't survive simply due to the absence of a Divine Emperor.]

[Therefore, his value as a deterrent had drastically decreased...]

[Furthermore, he remained the backing behind that pack of imperial relatives and nobles. It was precisely because of his existence that you dared not fall out with them, forcing you to make compromises on the issue of the reforms!]

[That pack of domestic swine had long been a thorn in your side and a thorn in your flesh!]

[If you could just get rid of the Divine Emperor, then facing this pack of domestic swine, you would no longer need to hold back—you could simply whip them fiercely like tops!]

[Yet...]

[Yet in the end, you put aside this tempting thought. Since you had already decided to be a loyal minister who perfectly conformed to feudal values, modeling everything after Zhuge Liang, you could not violate your own decision now...]

[Forget it, you'll just have to endure it in this lifetime!]

[You sighed and walked far away from the imperial palace.]

[Yet you never imagined that while you wanted to let him off, he had no intention of letting you off...]

[...[

[In the eighty-sixth year of Chongzhen, just as the Great Ming was flourishing from top to bottom, the Tatar tribes of the grasslands suddenly moved south!]

[The northern puppet forces march south! Prime Minister, please issue your orders!]