The Mirror Masters quickly cleaned the scene, and the eunuchs' servants came in, wiped the floor clean, sprinkled flower petal water, lit ambergris, and quickly painted the place inside and out.
The court meeting continued, and the ministers began to numbly report memorials from various places and various court affairs.
But the little emperor suddenly took off his dragon robe and put it on Pei Zhiyuan's shoulders.
"Your Majesty, what are you doing?" The ministers in the hall were all shocked when they saw this.
The tender and clear voice quickly silenced the entire court. The little emperor calmly pressed his hand on the dragon robe that was a little too small for Pei Zhiyuan's shoulders, and spoke clearly and logically.
"I am still young and cannot shoulder the heavy responsibility of governing the country. I am afraid that I will listen to slander and kill loyal ministers because of my lack of discernment. In order to prevent the country from being destroyed by treacherous hands, I will do my best to save it.
Today, I have specially appointed Lord Pei as the Regent and handed over all government affairs to Lord Pei.
Lord Pei comes from a family of renowned generals, whose loyalty to the Haoyue Kingdom has lasted for generations. He even braved the odds with the female prime minister, killing the imperial preceptor and suppressing the rebellion, making an invaluable contribution.
If anyone questions his loyalty, they must have ulterior motives.”
As he said this, he posthumously conferred the title of King of a different surname on Captain Song and Song Lin. Since their bodies were not found, he ordered the Ministry of Rites to build a cenotaph for them and to bury Song Lin's family with the rites of a prince and princess.
In this way, the young emperor had no objection and directly handed over the power to Pei Zhiyuan, and no one else had any strong objection either.
Pei Zhiyuan quickly cleaned up a group of officials who refused to implement the new policy, including officials of all ranks in the Ministry of Revenue who refused to pay food and wages and refused to cooperate with disaster relief.
It has to be said that when it comes to dealing with fence-sitters, tyranny and hegemony are far more effective than benevolent governance.
Of course, this move was bound to cause dissatisfaction. While the royal army was concentrated in Linzhou and Jiangling prefectures, some people had already started to make small moves in other places. However, before the fire was ignited, it was put out by the angry people.
It turned out that Pei Zhiyuan and Shen Xu combined what happened in the desert war and the confessions of the rescued Blue Armor Army, and speculated that as early as when Master Hua was in power, the Yang family was the one who colluded with the Beihai people to assassinate the envoy of Yanyang Kingdom.
Once the envoy is assassinated, the people of Yanyang can declare war on the Haoyue Kingdom.
By then, Jiangling Prefecture's defense will be as strong as an iron barrel, and Dongning Prefecture will be protected by the Donggang Treaty. The Yanyang people will inevitably attack Qingzhou Prefecture.
Qingzhou and Yazhou will inevitably gather their troops to resist the foreign enemies first, and the three wealthy southeastern prefectures will be dragged down by the foreign enemies.
The Northern Wolf Army and the Royal Cavalry were fighting on the northern defense line and were unable to take care of themselves.
If the people of Beihai take advantage of the situation and invade from Beiyuan Prefecture and Beizhixing Port again, the three northern prefectures will surely fall.
The Northern Wolves and the Royal Cavalry will be annihilated on the northern defense line.
The Xue family will also become the great sinner for the loss of the three northern prefectures of Haoyue Kingdom, be nailed to the pillar of shame, and be cursed by the people of Haoyue for generations.
When the Haoyue Kingdom was in chaos, the Yang family had the strongest military force.
At that time, whether to punish the rebels or support the king will all be decided by the Yang family.
To seize power and invite foreign nations to attack the Haoyue Kingdom is more than just murdering a female prime minister and disrupting the imperial court. To collude with foreign enemies and usurp the throne is enough to cost the entire clan their heads.
Pei Zhiyuan quickly spread the news, and with the efforts of Li Shuang and He Tieshou, the fact that the Yang family bribed the assassin Yun Nuan from the Dark Pavilion of Yanyang Kingdom was also exposed.
It turns out that in order to seize power, the Yang family secretly did things that were treasonous to the enemy.
The whole country was in an uproar for a while.
With the personal support of the young emperor and the fact that Pei Zhiyuan controlled the three imperial city offices, the Xuanjing office, and the heavy troops of the royal cavalry, he quickly secured the position of regent.
Xue Yan's disappearance aroused the anger and fighting spirit of the northern military and civilians. They called for severe punishment of the Jiangling Yang family and wanted to fight to Beihai.
The nobles who originally advocated anti-war overwhelmingly supported the royal cavalry and also supported the regent to send a large army to capture Jiangling, eliminate the bandits for Haoyue Kingdom, and avenge the female prime minister.
Those nobles who wanted to collude with the Yang family to start a rebellion were quickly reported and arrested before they had time to raise food and money.
As a result, the Yang family was left alone to fight and resist stubbornly. It was only a matter of time before they were defeated.
After letting Pei Zhiyuan seize power, Shen Xu led a team and continued to search for Song Lin in the desert Gobi area.
She would occasionally send back some letters, which were responses to Pei Zhiyuan's policy proposals, as well as blueprints of weapons and ammunition.
The Beihai Kingdom quickly sent a reply letter, informing the envoy that Xue Yan was indeed in their hands, and demanding that the Haoyue Kingdom give up the ownership of the Tianxing Lake gold mine and cede the gold mining area to Beihai.
Pei Zhiyuan originally wanted to ensure that Xue Yan was safely brought back to Haoyue Kingdom at all costs, so he readily agreed to Beihai Kingdom's request.
Unexpectedly, the North Sea Kingdom suddenly increased the pressure. The other party wanted Haoyue Kingdom to hand over the Beiyuan Prefecture's Zhenyu City, which was ceded by the North Sea Kingdom three hundred years ago.
This made the people in the north furious. The three northern prefectures spontaneously assembled their armies and threatened to go to war with Beihai. They refused to accept the cession of land or payment of compensation and only wanted to use force to bring back their eldest master.
Xue Yu finally managed to suppress the anger of the crowd. Right now, the food and grass reserves in the north were barely enough to sustain survival. All of them were allocated to the soldiers for fighting. How would the common people survive?
Everyone had to postpone bringing Xue Yan back, and Xue Yu temporarily took over the position of head of the Xue family.
Originally, some people doubted the extent to which a young girl could govern the three northern prefectures, but Xue Yu quickly demonstrated through his actions how capable and valuable the daughter of a prominent family that had been nurtured for centuries could be.
She took the initiative to shoulder the heavy responsibility of commanding the Black Armored Wolf Cavalry, and all the generals were impressed by her martial arts.
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