"Qian Jieren! Do you know your crime!"
The Empress suddenly became furious and roared.
"Your subject, your subject knows his crime, but during my tenure, there could not possibly be such a huge error! I implore Your Majesty to investigate clearly!"
Qian Jieren knelt on the grand hall, his old face tear-streaked, shouting, "When I first took office as the Minister of Revenue, I did indeed check these records. At that time, the registered population of our country was nowhere near 75.5 million, not even 50 million! It was only 43 million!"
"Forty-three million?"
The Empress was stunned for a moment, and became even more enraged, "Qian Jieren, are you saying that under my rule, the registered population of the Yunyue Kingdom has decreased by 18 million?"
Qian Jieren hesitated to speak, but thought, Your Majesty, don't you have any idea? Your governance of the country is abysmal, you don't pay attention to these figures at all, and your subordinates report only good news and not bad news. If you don't inquire about bad news, you won't even ask about it! Did you think that if you gave an order, someone would proactively tell you? Wouldn't that be looking for trouble for yourself when you have nothing better to do?
Since its founding, the Yunyue Kingdom has had six emperors. The current Empress is the sixth emperor of the Yunyue Kingdom and the second female emperor. The previous empress was her mother.
Due to the prevalence of martial arts in the Qingzhou Continent, royal family members with martial arts aptitude would all cultivate martial arts, thus their reigns were relatively long, averaging about thirty years per reign.
Six generations of imperial succession, averaging thirty years per generation, equates to 180 years, nearly two centuries.
Calculating this way, it means that since the founding of the Yunyue Kingdom until the fourth emperor, a large-scale population concealment began.
This simple arithmetic problem, Chu Chen calculated clearly, as did the civil and military officials, and the Empress herself, whose face was ashen.
Qian Jieren's words were practically slapping her and her mother in the face. Did the Yunyue Kingdom decline in national strength due to two female emperors?
During her reign, 18 million people were hidden from the state. What about the previous Empress, her mother? Were seven million or even about ten million people hidden?
In terms of civil and military achievements, she had not expanded her territory by even an inch since taking the throne. The only area where she, as Empress, could claim some merit was in internal governance.
But now, Qian Jieren was essentially saying that her internal governance was also a complete mess?
"Damn it, Qian Jieren, you deserve to die! Chen Guangliang, who is already dead, should go to hell!"
The Empress, her past exposed, became enraged and not only cursed Qian Jieren and the deceased former Prime Minister Chen Guangliang, but also turned to the civil and military officials and roared, "You useless courtiers are even more deserving of death! With 18 million people hidden, could it be that among you hundreds of esteemed officials, not a single one discovered it, not a single one dared to inform me?"
"Could it be that all of you, the civil and military officials, are rebels?!"
"Your subject! Deserves death!"
Except for Chu Chen, all the civil and military officials were sweating profusely and knelt down, repeatedly shouting.
"Deserves death? Hahaha, well said, 'deserves death'!"
The Empress laughed in anger.
These fellows always liked to say "deserves death" without offering any solutions for rectification, no plans for future improvement, and no methods to prevent further population concealment!
All they offered was the phrase "deserves death"! Leaving me in this predicament! These are truly my good ministers!
The Empress glared fiercely at the civil and military officials and shouted, "Where are the Imperial Guards?!"
"Your subordinate is here!"
With a clatter of armor, more than ten Imperial Guards who heard the shout rushed in and knelt on one knee.
"These civil and military officials all say they deserve death! Since they deserve death! Then let them all die!"
The Empress, driven to the brink of madness by anger, actually intended to slaughter all the civil and military officials: "Seize all the kneeling civil and military officials, drag them out and behead them!"
The more than ten Imperial Guards who entered the grand hall were stunned.
What was going on? Dragging out and killing all the ministers? Then who would be left in the court? This...
The Chief Guard was bewildered and at a loss, sweating profusely, unsure whether to obey or not.
The civil and military officials were also stunned. In the past, when they did this, it was always effective. The Empress would always go easy on them, and only those unlucky enough would be dealt with by Her Majesty.
But what was happening now? Were they really going to kill them all?
At once, Wei Zi became anxious. What did this have to do with them, the military officials? They were just going along with it. Could it be that the Empress was scolding the civil officials, and the civil officials knelt down, but they, the military officials, were still standing?
Was this just a perfunctory gesture of agreement and kneeling, only to be beheaded?
This mess was the doing of the civil officials, and the blunder was made by the civil officials. What did it have to do with them?
"Your Majesty!"
Wei Zi had only uttered two words when the Empress's eyes suddenly flashed with sharp light. With her spiritual energy and aura at the Lingtai realm, she directly suppressed Wei Zi, preventing him from speaking further.
Wei Zi's face was filled with horror. His eyes were filled with disbelief. He, a dignified Qi Transformation realm cultivator, was rendered speechless by a mere glare?
What kind of aura was this? No, this was the suppression of a higher cultivation realm over a lower one, a difference of a full two major realms!
When did Her Majesty attain such cultivation? What on earth was going on? In this world, wasn't the highest cultivation level previously only the Foundation Establishment realm, and with the recent spiritual energy resurgence, it had only been possible to cultivate to the Qi Transformation realm?
But Her Majesty's cultivation... this was simply outrageous!
Among the civil and military officials, anyone with cultivation could feel the Empress's aura. However, they were not at the Qi Transformation realm, so they could not accurately analyze and judge the Empress's realm.
But they were all so shocked that they were speechless.
"Why are you still standing there? Seize these people and behead them! Do you not obey my command either?"
The Empress was extremely angry, almost exploding with rage as she shouted.
"Your subordinate dares not!"
The Chief Guard's sweat flowed like a stream. He tried and found that he was not suppressed. He quickly called for men to come forward and seize the ministers.
Chu Chen was also stunned. Had the Empress gone mad from anger?
What if she really killed all the court officials? The newly recruited officials did not have enough experience to be important court ministers!
Not to mention that among those being suppressed were Lü Youwei, the Minister of Commerce, Zhang Chenzhu, the former acting Prime Minister who had been reinstated as the Minister of Agriculture, and An Xian among the military officials.
These three were his people! If they were killed, wouldn't Chu Chen lose three rare talents?
"Wait!"
Chu Chen shouted in a hurry, regretting having brought this matter up at the court meeting. He should have submitted a memorial to the imperial study first to greet the Empress.
"What? Are you, Chu Chen, also trying to stop me?"
The Empress looked at Chu Chen with an icy expression, and her Lingtai realm aura immediately surged towards him.