Covering the sky: Starting with the holy body, the immortal Taoist comes to attack

Chapter 171 Going Against the Heavens? (One more chapter coming later)
It is far more difficult to touch someone's interests than to touch their soul.

Since arriving on this land and replacing the Zhou king, Gu Xuan has deeply felt this point through almost every day of his experiences.

no doubt.

As King Zhou, he was the supreme ruler of the entire dynasty, theoretically the person with the greatest power.

However, by the time he truly wanted to make improvements...

You will soon know what kind of existence truly represents the underlying power on this land.

He immediately understood that his so-called "internal pacification" was to confront an enormous and long-standing power.

In a sense, the numerous landlords, large and small, represented by powerful clans, were the true masters of this land within the entire dynasty.

They are the most deeply rooted and intricate interest groups accumulated over thousands of years by the Great Zhou Dynasty.

Or rather, what Gu Xuan was fighting against was the chronic problems and inertia that the dynasty had endured for thousands of years.

It could even be some kind of global trend!

To try to fight against the general trend of the world with one's own strength is like a mantis trying to stop a chariot.
What he is about to do is defy the will of Heaven; how difficult that is!

……

In fact.

Throughout history, there have been two or three powerful rulers who sought to change this dark situation.

Standing in such a high position, they also saw the erosion and harm that the landlords, represented by powerful clans, were causing to the entire dynasty.

As a dynasty develops to a certain stage, the distribution of interests gradually becomes vastly different, class stratification becomes severe, the people live in misery, and there is no ability to mobilize or unite them.

If it is not improved from within, it will eventually collapse completely.

This was already quite evident in the case of the Great Zhou Dynasty.

The once-prosperous dynasty, which continues to this day, is now beset by internal and external troubles, and its people are suffering.

Even the Jie tribe, a former vassal state, was swaggering around the Great Zhou territory, burning, killing, raping, and looting, displaying an utterly unbridled and domineering attitude.

They began to mock the "cowardice" of humans, and then looked down on every human they encountered.

Even a so-called Jie envoy dared to harass human women in the capital without any fear of punishment.

Of course, all of this became a thing of the past with the destruction of the Jie tribe by Gu Xuan!

but.

The two or three great rulers of the past barely managed to unify military forces and drive out external threats.

When they tried to take action internally, they all died for various reasons.

Some died from accidental drowning.

Some of them caught a cold by chance, but after being "treated" by the Imperial Hospital, their condition worsened and they eventually died on the emperor's bed.

Another was even strangled by a trusted eunuch.

Wait, there's more.

In Gu Xuan's view, it can be bluntly understood that, for the various powerful families, if His Majesty the King of Zhou was at peace with them, then he would naturally be their king.

However, if things do not go smoothly, then I'm sorry, it would be best if Your Majesty were laid to rest in peace!
After these powerful rulers died, there was no doubt that the government and even the military once again fell into the combined control of various powerful families.

Only a "weak" Zhou king who is supported by the powerful clans is in the best interest of the aristocratic families.

In this way, they can continue to be high above and continue to shamelessly leech off millions of people.

...Faced with this dark world, there was a vast and profound iron curtain that was vaguely visible yet truly real.

Gu Xuan had considered using brute force to overcome all techniques.

That is, simply and directly, to smash this filthy, rotten world with violence.

For example, secretly supporting a figure similar to Huang Chao, so that "all the nobles and officials are trampled on the streets".

For example, thousands or even tens of thousands of elite soldiers, more loyal to them, were selected from the Imperial Guard to physically eliminate the powerful clans and aristocratic families.

And so on.

However, it is clear that these ideas should only be considered as a last resort and should not be adopted unless absolutely necessary.

Upon closer examination, there are several main reasons.

First, in this day and age, the power of powerful clans should not be underestimated; they are not figures like Huang Chao who can deal with them.

In reality, the imagined powerful clans were families where the entire clan, including the elderly and children, lived under the emperor's nose, with two thousand servants and eight hundred clansmen, who could be slaughtered at will with a single imperial decree.

The real powerful clans were local tyrants with deep-rooted and complex connections. They had leaders in the imperial court, thousands of clansmen, tens or even hundreds of thousands of tenant farmers, and thousands or even tens of thousands of core retainers. They were no different from local emperors and were allied with various large and small aristocratic families throughout the country.

In ancient Chinese history, Huang Chao was able to succeed because the times had changed.

First came the imperial examination system, which gradually broke the monopoly of powerful clans.

After Emperor Taizong Li Shimin, Emperor Gaozong Li Zhi and other emperors continuously weakened the powerful clans, these people gradually lost their foundation.

During the mid-to-late Tang Dynasty, the fragmentation of the country by regional warlords and the constant warfare terrified powerful families, who fled to the capital to hide, which gave Huang Chao the opportunity to wipe them all out.

If this were during the heyday of powerful clans, like in the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Huang Chao would probably have been crushed before he even showed any signs of taking action.

Meanwhile, in the Great Zhou Dynasty, where Gu Xuan lived at this time, the landlord power represented by aristocratic families had become terrifying after thousands of years of accumulation.

Second, destruction precedes construction. Destruction may not be difficult, but building a new world is.

Otherwise, killing one group of evil aristocratic families might not prevent the emergence of a new one.

Without a more advanced concept to support it.

What good would it do to smash this old world? It would only create a new cycle!
Therefore.

After Gu Xuan had roughly taken control of the Central Imperial Guard and the three major border military groups in the north and west, he did not make any rash moves.

He did not reveal his intentions.

Instead, they acted like the Zhou kings in the ancient history of the Zhou Dynasty, uniting military forces in order to better consolidate their power as Zhou kings and secure their position.

No one expected that his true purpose was to eliminate the powerful clans that had existed for thousands of years!

Even the two or three powerful rulers of the Zhou Dynasty in ancient history would never have had such an understanding, because it was beyond their vision and knowledge!

Gu Xuan had no doubt that even though he was the King of Zhou, if those powerful families discovered his intentions, they would go to great lengths to deal with him.

That would mean an endless stream of assassinations and murders...

Even someone as powerful as Gu Xuan, with unparalleled martial prowess and divine prowess enough to fight against a thousand men, couldn't claim that he could defend himself every single moment.

There is no reason to be a thief for a thousand days, but not to guard against thieves for a thousand days.

Even so, he remained cautious.

In recent days, he has spent most of his time in the Central Imperial Guard's barracks under the pretext of reorganizing the army.

(End of this chapter)