The World Online

Chapter 1248 – Palace Coup

The fall of Pill Sun city was a huge blow to Great Song.

The voices of those wanting to surrender suppressed those who wanted to fight. Looking at the situation, surrendering would become Great Song’s only choice.

However, at this moment, news of India’s Ashoka Dynasty taking over Tibet and their imminent war with Great Xia had spread out in China, giving the despairing Zhao Kuangyin a little hope.

“Let’s hold on for a while longer. Maybe Great Xia will withdraw their troops.” Zhao Kuangyin was thinking like that.

Zhao Kuangyin wanted to press on, but the Great Song officials did not, as there was only a day left till the deadline set by the Xia emperor.

The order was like a butcher’s knife hanging over the heads of the Zhao family.

In the eyes of the nobles and the officials, even if Ashoka threatened the west order of Great Xia, with Great Xia’s strength, it could still take care of Great Song while stabilizing the west.

When that happens, they would have no choice but to be buried together with their emperor.

In Great Song Imperial Court, one side wanted to hold on, while the other side wanted to keep their lives. The two sides could not come to a consensus. When Zhao Kuangyin made his mind up to fight on, the conflict exploded.

7th month, 3rd day, night.

Jin Prince Zhao Guangyi started a coup with the support of the officials and imprisoned Zhao Kuangyin.

History had repeated itself.

On the 9th year, 10th month, 19th day of the Kaibao year, Zhao Kuangyin had invited Zhao Guangyi into the palace to drink and spend the night. On the morning on the 20th, Zhao Kuangyin had suddenly died. 21st day, Jin Prince Zhao Guangyi ascended to throne and became Song Taizong.

The death of Song Taizu and the ascension of Song Taizong was a huge puzzle and mystery to the next generation.

No matter what, along with the coup succeeding, the fate of Great Song was already settled. The next day, Zhao Guangyi represented Great Song to express their willingness to surrender.

The moment the news spread out, the world was shocked.

…

Imperial capital, emperor city.

The cold and chilly winter that was seemingly like yesterday had turned into a blistering summer in the blink of an eye.

After half a year of hard work, the modifying work on the emperor palace was close to completion. Along with large amounts of cash being pumped in, the new city region of the imperial capital was looking more and more exciting, becomeing the new engine to the Emperor dynasty’s growth.

There would basically be new things sprouting out from the new city region every week.

Recently, there was a bicycle craze amongst the nobles. Especially the young men, who rode on Shanying brand bicycles outside.

Anyone still riding horses would be falling behind the pack.

The smooth water like production line of the Shanying brand bicycle factory not only meant that the bicycles were become more common in the imperial capital, but it also meant that such a production model was slowly replacing the low efficiency small factory model.

Great Xia’s industrialization had reached a whole new level.

The development of a new region could not happen without the support of a certain group of people – the adventure gamemode players who went back to their old jobs. Based on the data from the Industrialization Department, in just half a year, there were 150 thousand workers recruited.

Along with the new city region heading onto the right path, this scale would continue to rise.

At the start of the year, when Great Xia opened its doors to adventure gamemode players, more and more players changed jobs. Doctors, workers, teachers, merchants, farmers, and more could obtain a job in Great Xia.

Human resources being allocated to the right spots allowed Great Xia’s economy to grow at a fast pace.

In just the 5th month that had recently passed, the Imperial Court had collected close to 17 million gold in taxes. To exceed 200 million in taxes for the year would be simple matter.

Making use of the four banks, Great Xia’s currency was being released. A large quantity of gold coins were being taken back and made into gold bricks that would be stored in the Great Xia treasury.

During the early parts of the game, Gaia made use of monster drops, mission rewards, imperial city shops, and the like to directly buy back gold from the wilderness players.

Gold also became the common currency of the world.

Along with the game world becoming more and more realistic, Gaia interfered less and less in the game. Along with the fall of the imperial cities, gold mainly turned into gold bricks.

This also meant that the position of gold as the currency in the world was slowly being challenged.

Based on financial logic, gold was a pure and hard currency, so it was not the best trading currency. The first dynasty to stabilize a new currency system would benefit the most.

Along with the Great Xia currency becoming more common amongst the people, gold was used more to make jewelry and not as a currency.

In just half a year, the amount of gold jewelry in the market grew by four to five times, showing that the Great Xia civilians were becoming richer.

All in all, Great Xia was undergoing a deep revolution internally.

The atmosphere of a feudal dynasty was slowly disappearing, getting replaced by a new country brimming with life and energy. It was this point that made the elite players in China move toward Great Xia.

The Great Xia official field was welcoming a change of guard.

As an emperor, Ouyang Shuo was happy to see new blood take over. If this did not happen, they would become a stale pool that would lose its desire to move forward.

Change was the main topic in Great Xia for this half a year.

Things were changing by the day like a dream. If one’s thinking paused slightly, they would lag behind the trends.

Even the hall that Ouyang Shuo worked in welcomed unassuming but meaningful changes. Just a few days ago, the Construction Department had followed his instructions to modify the hall.

The changes were actually really small. For example, he had a big room built beside the Imperial Reading Room with a long table and a wooden chair, creating a very modern meeting room with an ancient flavor.

Ouyang Shuo named this room as the 1st meeting room.

From now onward, be it military or administrative meetings, apart from those that had ritual needs, Ouyang Shuo would hold the meetings here.

Within it, everyone would sit together and not need to look up to Ouyang Shuo as he spoke.

Ouyang Shuo was annoyed with sitting on the cold throne all day long and looking down as he spoke to the officials. The true authority of the son of heaven was not built up through such useless methods.

The Imperial Court system also welcomed a few new people.

6th month, 15th day, after completing the handover of Difeng, Juedai Fenghua officially took over. Ouyang Shuo kept his promise and appointed her as the advisor in charge of intel.

She was his intel secretary.

This appointment really surprised her because no matter where it was, intel was the most classified. Especially intel that reached Ouyang Shuo’s level, which would all be top-secret information in the Emperor dynasty.

The intel advisor should be one of the people that he trusted the most.

However, he chose Juedai Fenghua who had just joined. Not only this did surprise her, but it also made the other officials look at her weirdly.

Ouyang Shuo was not fazed; he simply stuck to the principle of, “When you use someone, do not doubt them; if you doubt them, do not use them.”

Putting suitable people at suitable positions was the most important thing to Ouyang Shuo. This was also a really difficult job, and Ouyang Shuo felt that her work in running Difeng would make her suitable for this role.

As for her loyalty, there were the Shanhai Guards to monitor her.

Before she went to work, Di Chen had already left the imperial capital to go around the world.

Ouyang Shuo could understand his feelings and knew that he needed an adjustment period. Hence, he did not restrict Di Chen or set firm rules about what he could do. Ouyang Shuo just gave him a sum of gold.

As for what he would do with it, that would depend on Di Chen himself.

Ouyang Shuo believed in his eye for people. Since Di Chen had accepted the role of Honglu Temple assistant, he would definitely try to achieve bright results.

All he needed was an adjustment period.

The only matter that surprised Ouyang Shuo was that after Great Zhou surrendered, Lianpo gave up his military position. He was willing to follow beside Di Chen and become a guard.

The friendship from their previous relationship changed from ruler and official to master and servant.

Since this was his choice, Ouyang Shuo would not force him and allowed nature to take its course. It seemed like with Di Chen’s achievement value, he would be able to instantiate one Lianpo.

Apart from Lianpo, the original Great Zhou officials all received new appointments.

Strategist Fan Zeng remained in Jingdu to spend his after years and was not going to work. Zhang Hongfan, who Ouyang Shuo had shown no interest in left, Great Zhou the day they surrendered and secluded himself.

Not everyone could adapt to Great Xia and start a new life.

With the ability of the Shanhai Guards, they could obviously find Zhang Hongfan’s location, but Ouyang Shuo did not do that. Since Zhang Hongfan knew his place, Ouyang Shuo would simply let him off.

Amongst the Great Zhou officials, only Japan general Toyotomi Hideyoshi was given an important appointment, becoming a Legion General in the Heluo legion corps.

At this point, the final traces of Great Zhou had disappeared.

The sunlight in the afternoon was still really piercing, shining through the window and onto Ouyang Shuo, casting a long shadow onto the wall.

In front of the table, Ouyang Shuo was closing his eyes and resting.

The Ashoka Dynasty swallowing Tibet and the Great Song coup, the huge changes during these past few days had caught Ouyang Shuo off guard, making him feel really exhausted.

Taking the chance of the noon break, Ouyang Shuo decided to gather his thoughts.