Da Ming: The system granted me immortality; I clock in every day.

Once the emperor's decree was issued, it was carried out swiftly and decisively.

Meanwhile, the residence of the Grand Secretary was shrouded in gloom.

Li Xian sat in the main seat of the study, his face gloomy.

Wang Hua, sitting in the guest seat, looked even more dejected, his hand holding the teacup trembling slightly, as if he had aged ten years in a single day.

"Your Excellency... I am ashamed."

Wang Hua put down his teacup and let out a long sigh, his tone revealing a deep sense of frustration.

"That Pei Yuan is simply a prodigy born with knowledge. His sophistry hits the nail on the head in every sentence, and even with my extensive knowledge of classical texts, I am completely powerless to refute it."

"His Highness the Crown Prince is young and his mind is not yet settled. He has already been seduced by his domineering tactics. If this continues, the country will cease to exist!"

Li Xian rubbed his temples, his heart filled with exhaustion and helplessness.

"Your Highness, please do not blame yourself. Pei Yuan's actions are unconventional. He holds the most abundant financial resources in the Ming Dynasty, and the Emperor listens to him without question."

"Our stubborn resistance is ultimately a poor choice."

Li Xian stood up, walked to the window, and looked at the old locust tree in the yard that had just sprouted green leaves.

"I heard today that His Majesty has tacitly approved Pei Yuan's trip to Tianjin with the Crown Prince. Zhenhai Fort is Pei Yuan's stronghold where he holds absolute power. If the Crown Prince goes there and witnesses firsthand the shady merchants and bloody soldiers, how will he be able to tolerate the Emperor's words?"

Wang Hua stood up in a hurry.

"Your Excellency, we cannot stand idly by! We must submit a memorial to stop the Crown Prince from leaving the capital!"

"it's useless."

Li Xian shook his head, turned around, and his eyes became deep and cold.

"His Majesty is determined to give the Crown Prince experience. If we try to stop him, it will only make him dislike us old ministers even more. Since we can't stop him, let him be."

"What does the Grand Secretary mean?"

Li Xian walked back to his desk, picked up his brush, and wrote several names on a Xue Tao letter paper.

"Pei Yuan boasted that he could teach the Crown Prince practical matters. So I selected several of the most outstanding young talents from the Hanlin Academy and the Imperial Academy to accompany the Crown Prince to Tianjin as tutors in the Eastern Palace."

"I want to see if Pei Yuan is really as flawless as he boasts, in that Zhenhai Fortress."

"If he makes even the slightest mistake, or allows the Crown Prince to pick up bad habits he shouldn't, these attendants will immediately ride back to the capital to report."

Li Xian handed the paper to Wang Hua, his tone chilling.

"At that time, I will use this as a pretext to unite scholars from all over the land, and even if it costs me my old life, I will bring this treacherous official down from his horse!"

A few days later, the sky was clear and the breeze was gentle.

Outside Zhengyang Gate, a motorcade that did not flaunt royal regalia but exuded a chilling and menacing aura slowly drove out of the capital.

The convoy was accompanied by elite Imperial Guards, all dressed in flying fish robes and carrying embroidered spring knives at their waists.

Lu Zheng personally led the team, riding ahead on horseback to clear the way.

In the very center of the procession was a large carriage pulled by four pure black Liaodong horses.

The exterior of the carriage looks simple and unadorned, but the interior is extremely luxurious.

Pei Yuan changed into a bamboo-green casual outfit and leaned against the soft cushions in the carriage.

He stretched lazily and turned his gaze to the Crown Prince Zhu Youzhen, who was sitting upright opposite him.

The young prince was dressed as an ordinary rich young master today.

Although he tried his best to maintain the dignity of the crown prince, his darting eyes betrayed his childlike nature, which was new to him and everything was new to him as he left the palace for the first time.

Beside the Crown Prince sat two young civil officials in blue robes, who were the tutors for the Eastern Palace that Li Xian had forced into the position.

They held the books of sages and sat upright.

They didn't even dare to breathe loudly, for fear of angering the notorious Right Vice-Governor opposite them.

"Your Highness, the scenery along the way from the capital is much more interesting than the red walls and green tiles of the Forbidden City."

Pei Yuan fanned himself with a folding fan and lifted the curtain of the carriage.

Along the official road, farmers carrying loads on shoulder poles and merchants driving mule carts would pass by from time to time.

In the fields on both sides of the road, farmers are working hard and sweating profusely during the spring planting season.

Zhu Youzhen leaned closer to the window, looking at the bustling scene outside, and couldn't help but ask:

"Lord Pei, Master Wang once said that agriculture is the foundation of the nation, while commerce is secondary. Yet, I see more merchants than farmers on this official road. Why is that?"

Upon hearing this, one of the two attendants quickly cleared his throat.

He was about to use classical texts to answer the Crown Prince's questions and promote the righteous cause of emphasizing agriculture and suppressing commerce.

Pei Yuan snapped his folding fan shut and tapped it on the window frame of the carriage.

With a soft "snap," the servant's words were abruptly cut off.

"Your Highness, if you listen to their recitations, you will never understand the true nature of the Ming Dynasty in your entire life."

Pei Yuan put down his folding fan, turned his gaze from the window to Zhu Youzhen.

Everyone knows that agriculture is the foundation of society, because if you don't farm, you'll starve. But in this world, it's not enough to just have enough to eat.

"The farmer grows more grain than he can eat, so he wants to exchange it for cloth to make clothes and iron tools to make hoes."

"These things don't grow in the ground, so where do they come from? They can only be obtained through trade between merchants."

Pei Yuan picked up a delicate pastry from the table and handed it to Zhu Youzhen.

"Your Highness, please have this pastry. The flour inside is grown by farmers, but the sugar was transported from the south, and the sesame seeds were grown in the north."

"Without merchants acting as intermediaries to facilitate travel between the north and south, Your Highness would be stuck in this carriage eating only plain steamed buns."

"Commerce is not the end, but the lifeblood. If water does not flow, it becomes a stagnant pool that stinks; if commerce does not flourish, the world becomes a dead end."

Zhu Youzhen took the pastry and chewed it thoughtfully.

"However, Master Wang said that merchants value profit over righteousness. If they are allowed to grow too big, they will exploit the people, even seize land, and disrupt the government."

Pei Yuan chuckled softly, picked up his teacup, and took a sip.

"What Lord Wang said isn't entirely wrong. Merchants, driven by profit, are like tigers descending from the mountain. If they aren't restrained, they will naturally harm people."

"But we, as the imperial court, cannot kill all the tigers in the world just because we are afraid that they will harm people. Otherwise, wild boars and jackals in the mountains will become rampant."

Pei Yuan leaned forward slightly, his eyes revealing a profound understanding of the world's affairs.

"What the imperial court needs to do is not to suppress merchants, but to become stronger than them."

"We must use the laws of the land as a bridle and the soldiers as a whip to drive these tigers to where the court needs them."

"For example, go to Southeast Asia to earn silver from those foreigners, and go to the Northeast to exchange it for warhorses from the Tatars."

"As long as the imperial court is the biggest merchant in the world and holds the sharpest knife, those merchants in the common people can only obediently follow behind us to eat meat and drink soup, and contribute to the construction of our great Ming Dynasty."

"This is the way I have taught Your Highness to govern the country, which I call 'controlling merchants'."

Zhu Youzhen's eyes lit up as he listened.

These unheard-of theories completely overturned his education over the past decade.

Yet, it also somehow resonated with the ambition and pragmatism inherent in the Zhu family emperors that flowed through his very being.

The two attendants standing nearby broke out in a cold sweat and inwardly cried out, "Heretics!"

But due to Pei Yuan's tyrannical power, they could only bury their heads even lower.

He secretly kept these treasonous words in mind, preparing to complain to the Grand Secretary after returning to the capital.