Just as he was about to imprison the other party, Shang Rong received the news in advance and fled the capital with his loyal subordinates. They went to the Taihang Mountains to become outlaws, and then claimed that they were persecuted by King Zhou and the sorceress Daji. They welcomed all kinds of people who could not stand King Zhou's perverse actions to join them.
The second prime minister, Xin Jia, was also very dissatisfied with this. He directly berated Zu An in the court and then resigned. Later, it was said that after leaving the capital, he fled west and became a guest of honor of the Zhou people.
Zuan was furious. It was clearly these guys who betrayed the country, but now public opinion was that he was too cruel and forced the regent to leave.
After all, the power of public opinion was in the hands of the royal nobles, led by Bi Gan and Ji Zi.
He couldn't help but lament that King Zhou had been such a failure in his conduct over the years, which had led to his widespread alienation and betrayal.
However, he did not attempt to ease tensions with Bi Gan and others, because he knew that the interests of the two sides were destined to be irreconcilable.
Having served as the Shang king during the trials, he had come to understand many substantive issues. The conflict between the two methods of succession—brother-to-brother and father-to-son—led to considerable tension among the various factions within the royal family. At the same time, the position of high priest was often held by nobles who used the power of the gods to rival the Shang king's authority.
So he began to rebuild his own faction from other social classes, including minor nobles, the poor and lowly, and even some impoverished slaves.
After a period of observation and selection, Pei Mianman finally chose a group of talented individuals.
Feilian and his son Elai were father and son. Feilian was skilled at running and was extremely fast; Elai was incredibly brave and could be considered a match for ten thousand men on the battlefield.
Fei Zhong had terrible personal morality, but he was a resourceful and intelligent person, making him a rare talent.
Jiao Ge, a captive of the Dongyi people, was extremely skilled at business and accumulating wealth.
Upon seeing these familiar names, Zu An's expression turned strange. He vaguely remembered that, apart from Jiao Ge, these were all notorious treacherous officials from history books. He never expected that he would follow in the footsteps of King Zhou of Shang.
But now he has no other choice; he has no one else available, so he has to resort to these people as a desperate measure.
Fortunately, these people were truly capable, and through their joint efforts, the once-damaged state of the Shang Dynasty gradually began to recover.
Zuan has already begun discussing with Pei Mianman a grand plan to proactively eliminate the Western Zhou.
Unfortunately, problems arose in the court. Fei Zhong and others rose to prominence and entered the center of power, which aroused dissatisfaction among a group of old nobles led by Bigan.
Then they collected a large amount of material on the exploitation and corruption of the people by these individuals, impeaching them and subtly criticizing the king for employing such scoundrels.
Zuan was also very troubled. Fei Zhong and others were indeed morally corrupt, and given their humble origins and sudden acquisition of power, they were likely to seek personal gain.
It's not that Bi Gan and other old nobles didn't embezzle, but rather that their family background was so strong that they didn't need to resort to any unsightly methods of corruption. Moreover, their ways of profiting were more subtle and skillful, accumulated over hundreds of years. How could Fei Zhong and others with unstable foundations possibly learn such methods?
In the past, Zuan might have gradually resolved the feud between the two sides, but now he didn't have that kind of time. His only goal was to help Xi Zhou pass the trial.
Although people like Bi Gan were of noble character, they were destined to be useless to him. On the contrary, people like Fei Zhong, despite their questionable personal morality, still served him wholeheartedly. He finally began to understand why so many foolish rulers in history had to appoint treacherous officials...
Next, he acted swiftly and decisively, using Fei Zhong and others to smear Bigan. These scoundrels were masters at scheming and harming others.
Bi Gan soon resigned in anger. Zu An was worried that he would also defect to the Western Zhou, so he sent people to put him under house arrest. In the end, he was not so ruthless as to kill such a minister who had no moral failings.
However, due to his house arrest, all sorts of rumors and even some outrageous statements circulated outside, saying that Daji had a heart ailment and needed to be treated with Bigan's seven-aperture exquisite heart, which led to Bigan's death after having his heart cut out.
Zuan was speechless and sent people to investigate who was spreading such rumors, but unfortunately they could not find the source at all, and the rumors only got worse.
Another prince, Ji Zi, witnessed his ruthless methods and feared he would repeat the same mistake, so he resigned from his post and went back to his hometown to feign madness.
Zu'an naturally knew his tricks, but since these people in the court had left, it would be easier for him to do his thing, so he did not try to stop them.
For the next period of time, he and Pei Mianman were busy with government affairs and training the army, respectively, and they had very little rest time, because they knew that time was running out.
Not long ago, Ji Fa of the Western Zhou Dynasty held a grand meeting of eight hundred feudal lords in Mengjin, appearing ready to wage war against the Shang Dynasty.
The network of relationships cultivated by the Western Zhou Dynasty over a century unleashed terrifying power. Most of the vassal states in the land maintained good relations with it, and many of them, dissatisfied with the rule of the Shang Dynasty, attended this conference.
However, Ji Fa was not blinded by his own power. He realized that the Shang dynasty's strength seemed to have increased, and he was not entirely confident of victory. Therefore, he abandoned the decisive battle and waited for the right opportunity.
Zu'an ignored the so-called eight hundred vassal states. He knew that the opponent was always the Western Zhou. As long as he defeated the most powerful Zhou people, the other vassal states would naturally surrender.
Both sides tacitly and intensively prepared for the decisive battle.
After some time, the Dongyi suddenly launched a large-scale invasion of the Shang Dynasty's territory.
Since its founding, the Shang Dynasty had always been engaged in campaigns to the east and west, including against the Qiang people in the northwest, the Guifang people in the north, the Dongyi people in the east, the Huaiyi people in the southeast, and the Ba people in the southwest...
From a later perspective, this laid the foundation for unifying the country, but for the time, it was somewhat militaristic and wasteful.
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