Deposed? I couldn't be happier! I wouldn't even be a dog to the crown prince.

Upon hearing the words "charge for air," Wang De was so frightened that he dropped his whisk to the ground, staring at Li Shimin, who had become completely capitalist, with a look of utter disbelief.

The white silk whisk, representing the highest level of decorum in the Inner Palace, rolled a few times on the floor tiles.

The scattered threads were covered in dust, but Wang De didn't even dare to look at them.

His legs were as weak as noodles, strange gurgling sounds came from his throat, and his withered old eyes were fixed on the emperor in front of him, whose face was full of fanaticism.

The entire hall fell eerily quiet for a moment, with only the faint whistling of the wind emanating from the holographic globe as it slowly rotated.

"Your Majesty... Your Majesty, this air is a gift from Heaven, how... how can you charge for it?"

Wang De finally managed to regain his tongue, his voice trembling like a spider's web in the wind, and even the wrinkles on his face were twitching violently.

"Given by Heaven? Within the territory of the Tang Dynasty, that is my asset!"

Li Shimin suddenly turned around and slapped the top of the holographic sphere.

The pale blue light spread violently with his movements, transforming into a network of data that completely covered the map representing the provinces of Europe.

There was not a trace of joking in his eyes; instead, they revealed a kind of fanatical obsession born from having discerned some kind of business secret.

"That brat Chengqian told me that industrial development leads to environmental degradation, which is called carbon emissions."

As Li Shimin spoke, he rapidly tapped on the virtual panel in mid-air.

His large, calloused fingers, worn smooth from countless battles, now traced afterimages across the pulsating code.

"Those barbarians in the European provinces use the heavy blast furnaces I built for them every day and sail the ocean-going steamships of the Great Tang Merchant Guild."

Every breath they exhale pollutes my macro-ecological environment. Shouldn't they pay an "environmental credit point"?

He became more and more excited as he talked, and he almost pressed himself against the glowing Earth model.

"Wang De, come here and help me calculate. There are 40 million people in Europe now."

Even if each person only breathes 30 kilograms of air per day, the cost of air purification according to the latest air quality purification system of Tian Shu is calculated.

[At this point, I hope readers will remember our domain name 1110 ...

If someone charges him 0.01 credit points a day, how much extra revenue would Datang Digital Treasure's backend generate for no reason in a single day?

This tyrannical logic, brimming with the bloody aura of cyber capitalism, crashed down word by word in the empty Taiji Hall.

The high-ranking officials standing below, listening to the proceedings, felt a chill run from the soles of their feet straight to the top of their heads.

Fang Xuanling swayed, and his face turned even more ashen than a dead man's in an instant.

He subconsciously glanced at Changsun Wuji beside him and found that this Tang Dynasty prime minister, who was usually most adept at understanding the emperor's intentions, was also ashen-faced, with large beads of cold sweat dripping down his forehead.

"Your Majesty... this action might incite a rebellion among the barbarians. Breathing is essential for the survival of all living beings; if even breathing is denied them..."

Wei Zheng took a step forward with a stiff neck, his neck, which had been stiff with remonstrance all his life, suddenly became shaky with excessive fear in that second.

"A riot? I have the power armor of the Great Snow Dragon Riders and the orbital cannons of the Celestial Pivot System. What do they have to fight with?"

Li Shimin didn't even bother to look at him, and pressed down hard on the control panel with his fingertips.

"I am protecting their environment and building a high level of digital security for them. If they don't pay the environmental points, I will cut off their digital spending privileges!"

The coldness and arrogance that arose from absolute control over technology were magnified dozens of times in every micro-expression of Li Shimin.

The courtiers watched as the "Europa Province Air Quota Management Regulations" began to automatically generate on the screen, their lips moved, but in the end, they couldn't utter a single word.

They discovered that the man sitting above had completely changed.

He no longer needs to use so-called Confucian benevolence to whitewash the situation; he only needs to use cold, hard data metrics to turn people thousands of miles away into fuel for his production lines.

This combination of feudal tyranny spanning millennia and modern monopoly capital exudes a suffocating sense of despair.

"The order has been generated and is being forcibly synchronized with the Global Governor's Office via the Datang Quantum Satellite Network."

The system's mechanical beeping tone sounded relentlessly.

That bright red beam of light, in that instant, transformed into an invisible cyber shackle, crossing the ocean in a flash along the radio waves.

Thousands of miles away, in Europe, at the provincial governor's office.

The night sky here was tinged with an eerie dark purple by the sulfurous fumes spewing from the heavy blast furnaces in the distance.

Inside the luxurious Baroque-style office, the quantum receiver in the governor's mansion suddenly emitted a piercing red flash.

"Beep—Top-level imperial edict loaded!"

Li Xizhi, the Tang Dynasty's governor-general in Europe, was sitting in a large mahogany chair when he straightened up in confusion.

When he saw the "Breathing Tax" document, which appeared word by word on the holographic projection and was stamped with the Great Treasure Jade Seal of the Tang Dynasty and certified by the Tian Shu System, he realized that...

His eyes widened instantly, and he seemed to be frozen in place, unable to move.

"This...this is His Majesty's imperial decree? Credits will be deducted from each person daily based on their lung capacity?"

Li Xizhi's voice was trembling; the absurdity and horror caused his brain to completely shut down in an instant.

He didn't even have time to reach out and wipe the large amount of cold sweat that had seeped from his forehead due to extreme shock.

At the very second that this policy was issued, a deafening explosion suddenly erupted from the darkness outside the Governor's Mansion without warning.

"Boom—!"

The raging flames instantly tore through the dark night sky, and the shockwave shattered the priceless stained glass windows of the governor's mansion.

Amidst a shower of flying glass shards, an angry human wall of tens of thousands of foreign miners covered in coal dust and engine oil, holding aloft blazing torches, surged toward the governor's mansion like a black tsunami, their terrifying roars shattering the night sky.

Inside the Europa Governor's Palace, the Governor was looking at the imperial edict on the "Breathing Tax" that had been sent to him. Before he could even wipe the cold sweat from his brow, a deafening explosion and an angry roar suddenly came from outside the window.