Chapter 1319 - 1259. Decision Made

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Mi Zhu’s eyes widened slightly, his sharp mind instantly grasping the terrifying administrative power of instant communication. "And the second one, Your Majesty?" Mi Zhu asked, his breath catching slightly as he heard about the Optical Telegraph.

"The Iron Centipede," Lie Fan stated, the sheer weight of the concept hanging in the air. "A huge multi tubular steam iron carriage. It does not run on dirt, it runs on a continuous path of flanged iron rails. It can haul hundreds of tons of cargo, like grain, iron ore, troops, and many more, across the plains with a mechanical reliability that ignores the weather and outpaces any beast of burden. I intend to lay the first iron tracks from the western quarries directly to the Xiapi foundries, and eventually, extend them to the Great Wall."

Mi Zhu stared at the Emperor in shocked paralyzed silence.

As the head of a great merchant family, the concept of a machine that could haul hundreds of tons of cargo without needing to rest, sleep, or eat organic fodder was the holy grail of logistics. It would completely obliterate the cost of time and supply for transports. It would make the land easier to go through.

But as the Minister of Finance, the immediate, upfront capital required to mass produce these hige steam engines, cast huge amounts of tons of refined iron for continuous tracks, and build thousands of fortified, steam powered towers... it was an economic black hole.

Mi Zhu slowly sank into the plush chair opposite the Emperor. He rubbed his face with his hands, letting out a long, shuddering sigh.

"They are wonders, Your Majesty," Mi Zhu whispered, genuine awe mixing with utter despair. "They are miracles of our thinkers. If you build them, the Hengyuan Dynasty will become truly immortal in the annals of history. The logistical efficiency would shatter the known world."

Mi Zhu dropped his hands, looking at Lie Fan with a grim, hollow expression.

"But as I say Your Majesty, the treasury cannot fund them," Mi Zhu stated flatly, the absolute, brutal reality of his ledgers crashing back down. "To build such huge expanse of network of towers and cast hundreds of miles of solid iron rails... it would require the entire economy income of several provinces in the mainland combined. I cannot pull that silver out of thin air. It simply cannot be spared right now. We must wait until the Great Wall is finished."

"I will not wait a decade to give my empire eyes and arteries, Master Mi Zhu," Lie Fan countered, his voice hard and uncompromising. "The Kushans are allying with the Parthians according to the Oriole Agents. The western front is solidifying into a unified shield against us. I need the telegraphs, and I need the trains, and I need them now."

Lie Fan leaned back, steepling his fingers once more. "You are one of the greatest financial mind of our era, Mi Zhu. You do not just count the coins, you dictate the flow of our trades and profits. Tell me what must be done to fund these projects without touching the emergency surplus."

Mi Zhu sat in silence for a long agonizing minute. His mind raced through the taxation codes, the export tariffs, the monopolies of industries under the Imperial Clan, and the agricultural yields. He looked for loopholes, he looked for hidden reserves, but the math was brutal and unforgiving.

Finally, Mi Zhu looked up, his expression hardening into cold pragmatic resolve.

"There is only one financial solution, Your Imperial Majesty," Mi Zhu stated, his voice steady but laced with reluctance. "We must increase the revenue stream. We must raise the taxes."

Lie Fan’s eyes narrowed instantly. A cold, dangerous silence fell over the small tea table.

"No," Lie Fan said, the single syllable echoing with the absolute finality of an imperial decree.

He stood up, pacing the length of the opulent office, his dark robes swirling.

"I have spent decades building a reputation among the common people," Lie Fan argued, his voice tight with suppressed anger. "When I conquered a province, I did not just bring the sword. I brought the plow, I brought the high yield seeds, and I brought a standardized, fair taxation system that did not bleed the peasantry dry. The people are living well, Mi Zhu. The economy is booming because they have surplus grain to trade and surplus silver to spend. I promised them stability. I will not suddenly strangle their prosperity to fund my war machines."

"I understand your reluctance, Your Majesty," Mi Zhu countered, standing up, his own mercantile pragmatism refusing to yield to the Emperor’s idealism. "And your commitment to the peasantry is the foundation of your popularity. But we must look at the historical context of our current taxation rates."

Mi Zhu walked over to his desk, picking up a smaller, older ledger bound in cracked leather.

"Under the late Han Dynasty, during the reigns of Emperors Huan and Ling, the peasantry was subjected to crushing, arbitrary taxes to fund palace eunuchs and disastrous northern campaigns," Mi Zhu lectured softly, tapping the old ledger. "The tax burden was often upward of forty percent of a farmer’s yield, supplemented by forced, unpaid corvee labor."

He set the ledger down and looked at Lie Fan.

"Your Majesty," Mi Zhu said earnestly, "your current taxation system is the lowest, most equitable in the recorded history of the mainland. You take barely fifteen percent of the yield, and you pay your laborers in silver. The peasantry is not just surviving, they are accumulating generational wealth. The economy is not just booming, it is overheating.".

Mi Zhu stepped closer to the Emperor, his voice dropping into a tone of intense, calculated persuasion.

"Increasing the baseline tax rate by a mere three percent across the empire would generate an astronomical influx of silver into the treasury," Mi Zhu calculated rapidly. "A three percent increase will not starve a single family in any province. It will not force a single merchant in any province into bankruptcy. They are wealthy enough to absorb it without significant hardship."

Lie Fan stopped pacing, his brow furrowed in deep, conflicting thought. He knew Mi Zhu’s math was flawless. The empire was incredibly wealthy, and a minor tax bump would indeed solve the immediate capital crisis without triggering a famine. But it was the principle of the matter. It was breaking the unspoken contract he had forged with the common people.

"It is a betrayal of the stability I promised them," Lie Fan muttered, looking out the window at the cloud filled sky of the capital.

"It is not a betrayal, Your Majesty. It is an investment in their continued survival," Mi Zhu argued passionately, recognizing that the Emperor was actually listening.

"You do not need to present it as a tyrannical decree," Mi Zhu suggested, his brilliant mind pivoting to political optics. "You use the very ideology you have so carefully cultivated. You use the nationalism of the Hengyuan Dynasty."

Mi Zhu gestured toward the massive map of the empire hanging on his office wall.

"We are surrounded by potential enemies," Mi Zhu continued, spinning the narrative. "The Kushans and the Parthians are allying in the west. The remnants of the steppe tribes still lurk in the deep far north. You issue an Imperial Edict. You explain to the people, in plain, factual truth, that the empire is threatened. You tell them that the Great Wall must be finished, and that new, terrifying machines must be built to secure the borders and protect their children."

Mi Zhu smiled, a sharp, confident expression.

"You do not call it a tax increase, Your Majesty. You call it the ’Imperial Defense Contribution,’" Mi Zhu advised. "You tell them that the Son of Heaven is asking for their help to forge an invincible shield. The people of Hengyuan are very proud people. They have tasted the prosperity of your rule, and they are terrified of returning to the chaos of the warlords and tyrannical emperos. If you explain the why, I guarantee you, they will not only agree to the three percent increase... they will pay it with patriotic pride."

Lie Fan turned slowly from the window, looking at his Minister of Finance. The anger had evaporated, replaced by a cold calculating respect.

Mi Zhu was right. The sheer level of nationalism that Lie Fan had instilled in the populace through the public academies, the standardized history, and the relentless propaganda of Hengyuan supremacy was a massive, untapped psychological resource. The people didn’t just fear the Emperor, they worshipped the idea of the empire he had built.

If he framed the tax increase not as a burden, but as a shared, patriotic duty to secure the borders against the ’barbarians’ of the west, the populace would swallow it. They would view paying the extra silver as a personal contribution to the invincibility of the Hengyuan Dynasty.

Lie Fan walked back to the tea table and sat down heavily. He rubbed his temples, feeling the immense, crushing weight of the humongous empire governance pressing down upon him.

"Three percent," Lie Fan murmured, testing the words.

"Three percent, Your Majesty," Mi Zhu confirmed, standing at attention. "It will fully fund the mass production of the optical telegraph network and the initial track laying and casting for the Iron Centipede, without touching the emergency surplus or halting the Great Wall."

Lie Fan sat in silence for a long time, the only sound in the opulent office the ticking of a complex, brass water clock in the corner. He weighed the political capital against the technological imperative. He weighed the abstract concept of a promise against the brutal, physical reality of the flanged iron wheels.

"Draft the edict," Lie Fan finally commanded, his voice heavy with reluctant acceptance.

Mi Zhu let out a long, silent breath of relief. "It shall be done perfectly, Your Majesty. The wording will be flawless."

"Ensure that it is," Lie Fan warned, his eyes narrowing slightly. "Coordinate with Chen Qun and Lu Su in the Ministry of Rites. I want heralds reading the edict in every city square, every market, and every farming village from here to the southern jungles. They are to emphasize the danger that are still on the horizon. They are to emphasize the necessity of rapid communication and invincible supply lines. Make them understand that this ’Contribution’ is the price of eternal peace and prosperity."

"I will personally oversee the distribution of the narrative, Your Majesty," Mi Zhu promised, pulling fresh parchment toward him, his administrative energy completely revitalized by the influx of new capital.

"And also Mi Zhu," Lie Fan added, standing up, preparing to leave the suffocating confines of the financial fortress. "The moment the first copper coins of this new tax enter the treasury, you are to open the floodgates for the Imperial Workshop. I want Liu Ye drowning in iron, and I want Zhuge Liang buried in coal. We are building the future, and we are building it now."

"The wealth of the empire will flow exactly as you command, Your Imperial Majesty," Mi Zhu bowed deeply, pressing his hands together.

Lie Fan turned and strode out of the office, the heavy oak doors closing behind him with a solid, echoing thud. The Yellow Ghost Bodyguards instantly fell in around him as he navigated the corridors of the Ministry, the terrified clerks still keeping their heads bowed low.

As he stepped out into the bustling courtyard and swung up onto his horse, Lie Fan felt a complex mixture of guilt and exhilarating anticipation. He had broken a personal rule, he had increased the tax of the peasantry, but he had secured the funding for the greatest logistical revolution in human history.

The heavy oak doors of the Ministry of Finance clicked shut, sealing the profound, terrifying weight of the Emperor’s departure within the room.

Mi Zhu remained standing for a long moment, staring at the polished wood of the doors. The terrified clerks in the outer corridors would be picking themselves up off the stone floors, whispering frantically about the Emperor’s sudden, stormy visitation. But inside the opulent office, the silence was absolute, save for the rhythmic, metallic ticking of the brass water clock in the corner.

Mi Zhu let out a breath he felt he had been holding for an eternity. He walked slowly back to his massive mahogany desk and collapsed into his high backed chair.

He looked down at the immaculate, empty sheets of premium imperial parchment resting before him. Beside them sat a block of the finest Hui ink and a delicate wolf hair brush. These were the tools with which he managed the wealth of a continent, the instruments that dictated the flow of grain to the starving and the flow of silver to the foundries.

And now, they were the tools he would use to write the most dangerous document of Lie Fan’s entire reign.

A tax increase.

Mi Zhu picked up the brush, his hand trembling ever so slightly. His mind drifted back across the decades, cutting through the smog and the steel of the modern capital, returning to the sun drenched, perilous days of his youth in Xu Province.

He remembered how it was in chaos during the Yellow Turbans. He remembered the warlords circling like starving wolves, and the common people bleeding out under the crushing, arbitrary levies demanded by panicked bureaucrats.

Then, Lie Fan had risen. A young, brilliant, terrifyingly ambitious lord who had done the unthinkable: he had lowered the taxes. He had standardized the land registries, broken the predatory monopolies of the corrupt nobility, and introduced a system of taxation so fair, so predictable, that it had sparked an economic miracle.

The common people had not just accepted Lie Fan, they had exalted him. They had willingly forged his armies and built his cities because he had promised them that the days of being bled dry by the throne were over.

For decades, through the unification of the mainland, the conquest of the southern jungles, the subjugation of the northern steppes, conquest of the far southeast lands, and the colonization of the eastern lands, Lie Fan had never broken that promise. The baseline tax rate had remained an untouchable, sacred covenant between the Emperor and the peasantry.

Until today.

"Three percent," Mi Zhu thought, dipping the brush into the dark, fragrant ink. "It is a necessity. But politically, it is a spark in a powder magazine."

He began to draft the initial announcement. His calligraphy was sharp and pragmatic, lacking the flowery, poetic flourishes of the court scholars. He focused on the raw numbers, the immediate needs of the treasury, and the terrifying geopolitical reality of the Kushan-Parthian alliance that the Oriole Agents had uncovered. He wrote of the towering masts that could speak across the sky, and the iron beasts that could drag mountains.

But as he stared at his own writing, his mercantile instincts rebelled.

"This reads like a merchant’s ledger," Mi Zhu realized, setting the brush down with a sigh. "If we read this in the city squares, the people will not see a miracle of engineering. They will only see an Emperor breaking his oldest promise to pay for toys they do not understand."

This was not merely a financial issue. It was a crisis of public perception, a delicate psychological operation that required minds far more attuned to the nuances of statecraft and propaganda than his own.

Mi Zhu rolled up the draft, tucked it carefully into the wide sleeve of his robes, and stood up. He pass by his terrified clerks without a word, striding purposefully out of the Ministry of Finance and heading toward the sprawling, heavily guarded complex of the Imperial Secretariat.

The Secretariat was the bureaucratic heart of the Hengyuan Dynasty. It was a massive fortress of administration, filled with thousands of scholars, legal experts, and scribes who translated the Emperor’s violent ambitions into functioning, daily law.

Mi Zhu navigated the labyrinthine corridors until he reached the inner sanctum of the Grand Secretary. The guards, recognizing the Minister of Finance, immediately opened the heavy, lacquered doors.

Inside, the atmosphere was one of quiet, intense intellectual labor. Chen Qun, the Grand Secretary and the supreme architect of the imperial legal code, sat behind a wide desk, meticulously reviewing a stack of provincial judicial rulings. Seated opposite him on a comfortable silk divan was Lu Su, the brilliant, affable Minister of Rites and the foremost expert on foreign diplomacy and public relations.

Both men looked up in surprise as Mi Zhu entered, his face pale and his expression grim. It was incredibly rare for the Minister of Finance to leave his vault during the daylight hours unless an economic catastrophe had occurred.

"Master Mi," Chen Qun greeted, setting his brush aside, his sharp eyes instantly catching the tension radiating from the merchant. "To what do we owe this unexpected honor? Has the price of southern grain collapsed, or have the shipyards in Yangzhou finally bankrupted us?"

Lu Su smiled gently, gesturing for a servant to pour a cup of tea for their guest. "Sit, my friend. You look as though you have seen a ghost. Or worse, an empty vault."

Mi Zhu did not smile. He waved away the servant and walked directly to the center of the room. He reached into his sleeve, pulled out the rolled draft, and placed it on the low table between the two statesmen.

"I have not seen an empty vault," Mi Zhu said, his voice low and incredibly serious. "But I have just received an imperial mandate that will test the very foundations of the stability we have built. The Emperor visited my office not an hour ago."

Chen Qun’s brow furrowed. "His Majesty? He just returned from Taiwan. He should be resting. What mandate could be so urgent?"

"Your Majesty requires a massive and immediate influx of capital," Mi Zhu explained, taking a seat on the edge of a chair, leaning forward. "Capital that cannot be sourced from the emergency surplus, nor pulled from the Great Wall expansion budget."

Lu Su frowned, his diplomatic mind running through the possibilities. "Does he intend to conquer the Kushans preemptively by supplying Samatata with more money? A massive military mobilization would explain the sudden need for silver."

"No," Mi Zhu shook his head. "It is not for an army of men. It is for an army of engines that the Imperial Workshop have invented for Your Majesty."

Mi Zhu then detailed the two projects. He described the Imperial Optical Telegraph, the towering, steam powered masts that could flash coded military intelligence across the continent in a matter of hours. Then, he described the Iron Centipede, the huge flanged wheeled steam locomotive designed to haul hundreds of tons of cargo across continuous iron rails.

______________________________

Name: Lie Fan

Title: Founding Emperor Of Hengyuan Dynasty

Age: 37 (204 AD)

Level: 16

Next Level: 462,000

Renown: 2325

Cultivation: Yin Yang Separation (level 11)

SP: 1,121,700

ATTRIBUTE POINTS

STR: 1,010 (+20)

VIT: 659 (+20)

AGI: 653 (+10)

INT: 691

CHR: 98

WIS: 569

WILL: 436

ATR Points: 0