Chapter 48 Thinking

Tan Weixin chuckled and said, "Trying to pick up another Kirsten Dunst?"

Ye Tao was amused as well. "What are you thinking?"

Back at Zhengyuan, Ye Tao was still pondering how to handle the job as Yunzhou Pacification Commissioner. Even dinner became somewhat tasteless.

"What's wrong?" Dai Qiuyan quietly asked, tugging at Tan Weixin.

"He's been appointed as the Yunzhou Pacification Commissioner and is worrying about it," Tan Weixin replied with a smile.

Dai Qiuyan asked in confusion, "Wasn't he supposed to be listening to who was being appointed? How did he get appointed himself?... Sister Xin'er, did you know about this beforehand?"

Tan Weixin said helplessly, "Actually, I knew it a long time ago. I expected it. But, Father wouldn't let me say anything, and we had to wait for the Dai family's patriarch to come and discuss it."

Dai Qiuyan nodded and continued to ask, "Then isn't being an official a good thing? It sounds like a very, very important position."

Dai Qiuyan had at least heard some rumors about the current state of the Eastern Plain court, but she didn't know just how important the position of Yunzhou Pacification Commissioner was. In her mind, it was probably only a little higher than the original Canal Governor.

Tan Weixin didn't continue to explain, but simply smiled. The Yunzhou Pacification Commissioner wasn't just a high-ranking official, it was practically being granted land and given complete authority within the jurisdiction. Moreover, it was undoubtedly an ultimate position. No matter how great the merit, there would be no further promotions. That was true now, and it would be true in the future. When the Eastern Plain was able to unify the world and establish an imperial throne, there would probably be titles and rewards. At that time, whether based on merit, seniority, or connections, Duke would probably be the lowest possibility. According to Tan Weixin, if Ye Tao and she didn't want to rebel and become emperor and empress themselves, then this position could be considered a one-step arrival. Ye Tao, who wasn't particularly picky about official positions, naturally had other goals. But if someone whose goal was to become an official, a high-ranking official, was promoted to this point, they would basically lose the motivation to continue striving.

Liu Yong suddenly leaned forward, coughed, and reported, "Your Highness, Madam, His Majesty, the Crown Prince, and the Prince have arrived at Zhengyuan in disguise and are currently waiting in the front hall."

Tan Weixin curled her lips in an unladylike manner and said, "Uncle Liu, I'll call Ye Tao to go over together. I'll leave the other matters to you." Liu Yong nodded and turned to leave.

As they walked towards the front hall together, Ye Tao and Tan Weixin occasionally looked at each other. They couldn't really muster much attention towards the guards and personal soldiers who were adjusting the defenses of Zhengyuan. The ruler, the crown prince, and the prince had all come together. What kind of major event was this? What kind of favor? Ye Tao and Tan Weixin weren't too surprised by this kind of treatment. Since the three of them had come to Zhengyuan in disguise, without putting on an exaggerated show of an entourage that probably numbered over a thousand, and had come to Zhengyuan as if they were visiting relatives, then they would simply treat them as if they were receiving visiting relatives. Rather, the timing of their arrival, almost immediately after the end of the meeting in the imperial study, was certainly related to the matter of appointing Ye Tao as Yunzhou Pacification Commissioner. But what couldn't be said in the meeting in the imperial study?

"Your Majesty, Your Highnesses..." After saluting, Ye Tao calmly asked, "I don't know what matter is so important that you all had to come here together?"

Tan Xiaopei sat down with a broadsword stance, while Tan Weiming and Tan Weiran were even more relaxed and comfortable as they studied the sliding rail that Ye Tao had asked the workshops to make, which served as both a decoration and a great toy. When an iron ball was placed at the top of the rail, it slid down the rail's extremely complex shape little by little, making a soft metallic scraping sound.

Tan Xiaopei said with a smile, "We've come to put your mind at ease and explain the bottom line... the bottom line for you as Yunzhou Pacification Commissioner, which is also the bottom line for the Eastern Plain court. Some things, if spoken openly in court, probably wouldn't be very appropriate."

"Your Majesty, you could have instructed me to stay for a while, right? There was no need to make such a fuss and come all the way here, right?" Ye Tao said with a wry smile. A home visit from the ruler wasn't a good thing for him, even though he was thick-skinned enough to completely ignore the attacks of those in the court who didn't like him. But this kind of favor wasn't so easy to repay.

"There was a need," Tan Xiaopei said lightly. "Even if you don't quite understand the affairs of officialdom, you must be able to imagine how much determination I needed to make to appoint you as Yunzhou Pacification Commissioner. After this appointment is announced, I'm afraid that tomorrow there will be countless memorials telling me to consider it carefully, to think twice, and that will find evidence from all sides to prove that you are not competent... Naturally, you will know that even for me, this is a very... very stressful matter."

"Yes, Your Majesty." Ye Tao looked directly at Tan Xiaopei, just as Tan Xiaopei looked directly at him.

Tan Xiaopei stood up and stood at the door of the hall facing the silent courtyard. The surroundings had already been completely controlled by "his own people," and he wasn't worried at all that anything he said here would be leaked out. "Back then, when the ancestors of the Tan family finally became the rulers of a country, even if it was just a country that wasn't very large and didn't seem to have much of a future, it took two generations, a full forty years, to understand just how different governing a country was from governing an army. And fifty-five years after the founding of the country, the Eastern Plain army finally stepped out of its borders for the first time and began to gradually expand its territory. After that, as the territory gradually expanded, as the Eastern Plain began to have ports that could go to sea and iron mines that could be smelted and mined to forge its own weapons and armor, many problems emerged. It can be said that we were lucky, or that we were a bit stubborn, but the Tan family managed to run the Eastern Plain to this point generation after generation. We in the Tan family have always ignored many broken rules. Sometimes, we even have some of the simple and bold style of when we were bandits and mountain robbers gathering in the mountains. As long as we believe that something is right, we will do it to the death, no matter what others say. When the Eastern Plain implemented a policy of emphasizing commerce, how many people cried and wailed, saying that customs were corrupted and the country would be ruined. And now? Among the merchants of the Eastern Plain, there are naturally still bad apples, but more of them are loyal and upright men who are devoted to the country's fate. The merchants of the Eastern Plain may not be the richest in terms of wealth, but their credit has always been very good. And then there was the implementation of land taxes to help the poor and restrict the powerful landlords from annexing land. We even fought for several years over this matter. Even though the Eastern Plain has a strong military force, everyone felt that there was no need to throw too much money into the sea. But now the Eastern Plain navy has the Cangshui-class and Lanshui-class powerful warships, and even the Yaoshui-class monster warship... The Eastern Plain has been charging forward like this all the way. If we think something is right, we do it. If we think something is wrong, we change it. There are no other tricks. It's just that in matters of national importance, admitting mistakes isn't always that simple."

Tan Xiaopei turned around, looked at Ye Tao, and then at Tan Weixin, and said, "Since I ascended the throne, perhaps the thing I've done that makes me feel most like the past ancestors of the Tan family is when I combined the seven sea taxes into one, set the Hai Shi Zhengshui (Maritime Affairs Regular Tax), and completely unified the collection of this part of the tax rate at several land checkpoints. At that time, the people who resisted this matter the most, besides Huang Xuping's predecessor, that Lord Situ with the surname Situ, were the several aristocratic families who started out as merchants. In order to calm this matter down, I threw each of them five hundred thousand taels of silver, as compensation for them. Hehe, my Tan family's entire palace lived on less than eight hundred thousand taels of silver for a year. After that, not to mention the rolling sources of wealth from taxation, but surprisingly, relying on merchants and on adjusting the entry and exit of various materials, the Eastern Plain's development in just a few years surpassed the previous ten or twenty years. Naturally, in this situation where everyone was getting rich, because we had Xin'er, my Tan family has also become wealthy. Now, occasionally doing things that cost a fortune is no longer so painful."

Tan Xiaopei said self-deprecatingly, "Everyone says that my Tan family has never had the aura of emperors, that the ruler doesn't look like a ruler, the crown prince doesn't have the demeanor of a crown prince, the princes run around all day long, and the princesses are all wasting their time... Hehe, I really don't think those damned emperor auras are anything. Chunnan can be considered to have the aura of an emperor. The set of rules from the former empire was almost completely adopted, and it's still like that today, but aren't they still begging me? The aura of an emperor can't be eaten. On the contrary, occasionally acting tough, occasionally sticking to principles, and believing that kinship and loyalty are better than those balances and checks, and believing that it's more satisfying for me to treat others the way I want to be treated by them."

"Of course, I know that as a ruler, this may not be right. If you encounter only loyal and righteous people around you, you will naturally live a good life. But if you encounter treacherous and villainous people, then you don't need to ask to know that you will be a muddleheaded ruler. But even if I know that this is wrong, I still can't control myself and occasionally have to act like this."

"Ye Tao," Tan Xiaopei said with a very earnest tone, "Appointing you as Yunzhou Pacification Commissioner is indeed because I think you can do those things well. In addition, it's also because I hope that you and Xin'er will take out all your abilities together. Those strategies that you think are feasible, implement them boldly. Don't care whether there's a precedent, whether it conforms to convention, and don't care what the court says... There will definitely be all kinds of arguments. I can think of quite a few now, such as Weiran and you two being in cahoots to usurp the throne and rebel. Don't worry about these."

"Because... the unified dynasties that you, Ye Tao, have talked about, those patterns of disintegration, are really too chilling. I can't care about those so-called ancestral systems and precedents, because if I plan the country like all the previous rulers, I don't dare to say that I'll have the luck to do better than them, and I don't dare to say how long such a dynasty can last. Perhaps, the Tan family ultimately doesn't have the fate to achieve an eternal imperial legacy, but at least I want to be sure of one thing: I haven't fallen on the path that predecessors have already proven to be wrong. Of course, I'm not saying that those things that you and Xin'er advocate are necessarily correct, and that your path is necessarily the correct path for the future of the Eastern Plain. But at least I should give you a chance to prove how wide and easy this road is to walk, and how much it will cost to build the road!"

"I hope you succeed, but I also allow you to fail. I will help you withstand the pressure. No matter what others say, I will let you do things according to your ideas to the end, until you can prove that you are right, or until you admit that you have failed. How about that?" Tan Xiaopei's eyes flashed with a fiery light. "Are you willing, do you dare to create a new path for the Eastern Plain?"