A thousand-year-old family begins with one fighting against ten thousand.

"So what?"

"Why are you saying this? I'm ordering you to take Li Bai and the others away now."

"If you don't do it, plenty of others will."

"Guards, take Zong Shen and the others away and lock them in the imperial prison!"

The other Imperial Guards exchanged glances. Zong Shen was their captain, and they had always treated him with great kindness. It was hard for them to accept that they were now being asked to personally send Zong Shen to prison.

"I just learned from the Minister of Personnel that Gao Lishi has arranged for one of his clansmen to serve as the magistrate of my hometown."

"When ordinary people get married, the county magistrate has to take a look first."

"Entering the city requires paying a gate tax, digging a well requires paying a mining tax, drinking water requires paying a water fee, and cutting firewood requires paying a firewood tax."

"That magistrate would walk on the road and snatch anything he saw. If you obediently gave it to him, you were fine. But if you resisted even slightly, he would lead his constables to execute your entire family."

"My cousin was getting married not long ago, no wonder we haven't heard from him for so long."

"My family has always been known for its strong character; how could we possibly endure such a humiliating disgrace?!"

"I'm afraid the entire clan's corpses have already turned into piles of white bones by now?"

"Your Majesty, I implore you to severely punish Gao Lishi and to stop favoring eunuchs."

The man did not shed tears, but he did not go to the sad place.

Zong Shen was also a seasoned veteran who never shed tears, but how could he bear the grief after such an event?

Li Longji was speechless. The other family had been killed, so why couldn't they take revenge?

"Maybe it was just something that happened at home that caused the delay; it doesn't necessarily mean something bad has happened."

Li Longji could only offer dry words of comfort, words that even he himself didn't quite believe.

He's incompetent, not useless.

He was aware of what those eunuchs and relatives of the empress had done.

Zongshen's worry was not that it might happen, but that it would definitely happen.

He couldn't help but curse Gao Lishi's clansman in his heart. Zong Shen was a captain of the Imperial Guard by his side, with a clean background. How could he even lay a hand on such a person? He was courting death.

The imperial guards standing nearby also felt a sense of shared misfortune; if Zong Shen was like this today, would they be the next ones to suffer?

If eunuchs and imperial relatives are not eliminated, they will one day end up like this.

They disobeyed Li Longji's orders, expressing their resistance through silence.

Looking at the performance of these Imperial Guards, Li Longji secretly thought that things were not going well.

These imperial guards felt a pang of sorrow at the loss of their comrade.

Li Bai never expected things to take such a dramatic turn for the better.

Even Li Longji's imperial guards betrayed him, and he hadn't even had a chance to use his prepared backup plan.

Li Longji finally began to panic. His voice was slightly hoarse and trembling, yet he still managed to maintain his imperial dignity and reprimand sternly.

"How dare you! Even your royal guards dare to coerce the monarch?"

Of all those in the court, only Wei Mai, who was closest to Li Longji, noticed the tremor in Li Longji's voice.

A hint of mockery flashed in his eyes. If Li Longji had died 10 years ago, he would have been ranked third or even first among the emperors in history.

Unfortunately, because he got old and confused, he played his good hand terribly.

"The Secretariat and the Chancellery?"

No one from the Secretariat or the Chancellery moved.

"Ministry of War, Ministry of Rites, Ministry of Revenue, Ministry of Works, Ministry of Personnel, Ministry of Justice?"

The people from the Six Departments remained completely still.

Needless to say, the people in the Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs were always the ones who listened only to the Prince of Yan, not the Emperor.

"Is there no one left in this court who truly serves the Tang Dynasty?"

Li Bai's voice remained calm and steady, "Your Majesty, we are all subjects of the Great Tang Dynasty."

"Good medicine tastes bitter but is good for the disease; honest advice is unpleasant to the ear but is beneficial to conduct."

"It is precisely for the sake of the Tang Dynasty that we risked defying the imperial decree to speak frankly and offer our advice."

"A treacherous minister only knows how to flatter and fawn, while a loyal minister speaks frankly and honestly."

"This, on the contrary, proves our loyalty to the Tang Dynasty."

Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, Li Longji, certainly knew that Li Jin could not possibly have rebelled.

But he knew even more clearly that Li Bai loved the Tang Dynasty, the mountains and rivers of the Tang Dynasty, and the millions of people of the Tang Dynasty, but he did not love the emperor of the Tang Dynasty, not him, Li Longji.

He is the emperor; he doesn't distinguish between right and wrong.

"Your Majesty, the court has its own laws and regulations, and these laws and regulations are the foundation of the dynasty's rule."

"If the legal system collapses, how can the court rule the country? And why should the country submit to the court?"

"If a monarch is enraged, he can kill ministers at will without the need for a joint trial by the three judicial departments, and disregard the laws of the court. In that case, the laws will become nothing more than empty words."

"With Your Majesty setting such an example, no one will obey the law anymore. Has Your Majesty ever considered what chaos the world would descend into?"

"Does Your Majesty still remember how chaotic the laws were during the later years of the Wu Zhou Dynasty, when Empress Wei held power?"

"The first thing His Majesty did after ascending the throne was to reform the laws, which won the approval of the people and laid the foundation for a prosperous era."

In the sixth year of the Kaiyuan era, Your Majesty, based on the Yonghui Code, deleted a large number of severe punishment articles that were temporarily added during the reign of Empress Wu, corrected conflicts in sentencing, unified the standards for judging cases nationwide, streamlined cruel punishments, and reduced the scope of application of exile and collective punishment.

In the seventh year of the Kaiyuan era, His Majesty personally reviewed the laws, decrees, regulations, and forms established since the founding of the Tang Dynasty and promulgated a complete legal code for the Kaiyuan era, which was far more comprehensive than that of the Zhenguan era.

With the superiors setting an example for the subordinates, all officials took the law as their standard, obeyed the law and performed their duties, and a prosperous era naturally followed.

"Does His Majesty still remember all of this?"

"We are not disobeying Your Majesty, but rather upholding the laws Your Majesty has promulgated!"

Li Bai's sincere words seemed to evoke memories of the past for Li Longji, a time when he was full of vigor, had quelled the rebellion of Empress Wei, and the whole country was in a state of panic.

He rewrote the laws and used ruthless methods to severely punish those who violated them, proving his resolve.

The world was in an uproar, and countless people wept bitterly, praising him as a wise ruler.

When did he start to change?

It seems that after the Kaiyuan era was established, amidst the calls for him to be the greatest emperor of all time, and after realizing that all the power in the world was in the hands of one person.

At that time, he could only listen to boastful words and could no longer listen to advice.

"At that time, His Majesty was well aware of the dangers posed by the maternal relatives and eunuchs, and he explicitly wrote it into the national law: eunuchs should not interfere in politics, maternal relatives should not monopolize power, and he strictly ordered the whole country to prohibit extravagant tributes and restrict powerful families from annexing fertile land."

Li Bai continued, saying that these were all achievements that Li Longji was once deeply proud of, but now they had become the sharp swords that Li Bai used to attack him.

Was he wrong?

No, he did nothing wrong.

The word "wrong" had barely flashed through Li Longji's mind before he banished it to the winds!

How could he possibly be wrong?!

Emperors can never be wrong!