The Empress remarried, and I retaliated by wiping out the court.

Cui Yueqiao tilted her head:

"Your Majesty, what do you mean by 'chicken turns into lotus root but not lotus root'?"

Ye Wudao continued, "What's the next line after 'Imperial Jade Liquor'?"

Cui Yueqiao: "Huh, what kind of wine did you say?"

Ye Wudao grew impatient: "Then you should at least know what 'The vast horizon is my love' means..."

Cui Yueqiao: "???"

After some probing, Ye Wudao reluctantly concluded that Cui Yueqiao was not a time traveler.

"Your Majesty, I wish to cooperate with you. Your Majesty will be responsible for all political conveniences, while I will be responsible for the money. From now on, all of the Cui family's businesses will be at Your Majesty's disposal and will serve the royal family as their master."

"Of the profits, 70% will go to Your Majesty, and 30% will be used to maintain operations."

Ye Wudao clapped his hands and laughed loudly: "Interesting! Interesting! Truly interesting! Why did you do that?"

Cui Yueqiao stared at him intently: "Because just now, His Majesty showed me one thing through his actions: wealth without the protection of power is nothing more than a lamb laid out on the table."

"If my father can seize my property today, someone else can seize the entire Cui family tomorrow."

"Therefore, this humble subject is willing to hand over the Cui family to Your Majesty, not out of submission, but to find a master who can ensure the long-term preservation of our wealth!"

Ye Wudao tossed out a jade token, lowered the curtain, and said calmly.

"Understood. Come to the Imperial Study."

Cui Yueqiao beamed with joy:

"Thank you, Your Majesty!"

…………

Next, Ye Wudao originally intended to go to the last house, the Jiang family.

Unfortunately, on the way, the Jiang family sent two million taels of silver ahead of time as an apology.

Seeing that the other party was sensible, Ye Wudao gave up the idea of ​​going to the Jiang family and changed his route back to the palace.

For him, the greatest wealth of this trip was not the gold and silver treasures obtained from confiscating his family property, but the business genius Cui Yueqiao.

In his view, the weight of a cabinet minister is less than one percent of that of Choi Wol-kyo.

A person with a modern business mind is far more useful than an official who only knows how to talk big in court.

Before long, the Imperial Study received a report of the house being searched.

Cao Ji, holding the roster, bowed and said:

"Your Majesty, during this raid on the Fan family, a total of 1.8 million taels of silver, 300,000 taels of gold, and countless antiques, paintings, jewelry, and jade artifacts were seized. According to the Imperial Household Department's estimate, the total value is approximately 5 million taels of silver."

Ye Wudao stared wide-eyed in shock.

"You mean 'seize the young master'? You mean 'seize the young master'?"

"Five million taels of silver."

"Damn it!"

Ye Wudao felt an urge to swear.

The annual tax revenue of the Great Yan treasury is only ten million taels of silver, but he only confiscated one house, which is equivalent to half of the national treasury's revenue.

The Fan family is incredibly wealthy!

"What about the other families?" Ye Wudao asked.

Cao Ji turned to the second page.

"A total of 900,000 taels of silver, more than 100,000 taels of gold, rare medicinal herbs, jewelry, and various shop deeds were seized from the Zhong family, with a total value of approximately 3 million taels of silver."

"Furthermore, knowing that His Majesty was furious, the Jiang family took the initiative to offer two million taels of silver as an apology."

Cao Ji paused for a moment.

"Excluding the Cui family, the proceeds from this transaction amount to approximately ten million taels of silver."

"Ten million taels?"

Ye Wudao's eyes widened suddenly.

He originally thought that today was just to give a few powerful families a warning and, incidentally, replenish the national treasury with some silver.

But the result...

The wealth he casually slashed out was equivalent to a year's worth of tax revenue for the Great Yan Dynasty.

It feels like a destitute person who rummages through all the broken boxes in their house and finds a mountain of gold hidden inside.

This also illustrates that the empire's wealth did not disappear, but was merely transferred.

The common people create wealth year after year, and the imperial court collects taxes year after year, but this large amount of silver is left to languish in the treasuries of aristocratic families.

The whole world is like a great river, but the river is blocked by the dams of several powerful families.

What Ye Wudao did was merely to cleave open a gap, but a large amount of fresh water gushed out!

Ye Wudao's eyes lit up: "Cao Ji, you said that just confiscating the property of three noble families is equivalent to the entire court's annual revenue. What if I confiscated the property of ten noble families? A hundred noble families? How much money would that be?"

Upon hearing this, Cao Ji shuddered violently.

"Your Majesty, aren't these remarks a bit too shocking?"

Ye Wudao patted him on the shoulder: "Don't be afraid. I'm not a bandit. Why would I do something like robbing people of their money?"

Cao Ji stared at him with wide eyes, his gaze seeming to say:

Yes!

You are!

"Oh, right..." Ye Wudao reminded him, "Deposit all the money that has been confiscated into my private treasury."

He didn't want to deposit it into the national treasury. He wasn't completely in control of the court anymore, and if it went into the national treasury, it would probably be gone in a few days.

Cao Ji's eyes widened: "Your Majesty, according to the law, the proceeds from the confiscation of property should be confiscated."

Ye Wudao blinked: "Isn't 'I' the Duke'?"

"But what about the court officials..."

"Oh, just say that he fell into the river on the way back to the palace with the tainted silver."

"Aren't you going to pick it up?"

"It was washed away by the river. If they ask again, just tell them to look for it in the sea!"

Cao Ji: "???"

…………

Ye Wudao visited the aristocratic families and almost completely wiped out three of them. The main branches of the Fan and Zhong families in Yujing City were almost completely destroyed.

The far-reaching impact of this event was that it put the prominent families in the capital and even across the country on edge.

People die for wealth, birds die for food.

After witnessing Ye Wudao's ruthless killing style, all the surviving aristocratic families and officials were filled with fear, and almost all the powerful officials in the court gathered at Li Juzheng's house.

In the past, they would not hesitate to go to the Regent's Palace to discuss matters.

However, after the failed coup a month ago, Xiao Linyuan's power in the court plummeted.

Li Juzheng, the Grand Secretary of the Cabinet, became the backbone of the group.

"Your Excellency, Ye Wudao has gone too far!"

"The Fan and Zhong families have worked diligently for decades, serving the country and its people. Yet that tyrannical ruler Ye Wudao kills people without any investigation. Is such behavior any different from that of bandits? How is it any different from that of a tyrant?"

Minister of Justice Zuo Zongming said indignantly.

Fang Xiao stroked his beard and said in a deep voice, "We absolutely cannot let Ye Wudao continue to act recklessly. If he can kill the Fan family and the Zhong family today, he can kill us tomorrow. We absolutely cannot sit idly by and wait to die!"

Li Juzheng's aged eyes were drowsy; at over sixty years old, he couldn't stay up all night.

He slightly raised his eyes and looked at Zhang Shouzhi: "Lord Zhang, what do you think?"

Upon hearing this, everyone fell silent.

Who doesn't know that Zhang Shouzhi and Wu Qingxun are Xiao Linyuan's men?

When Li Juzheng asked Zhang Shouzhi for his opinion, he meant more deeply that he was asking Xiao Linyuan for his opinion.

Zhang Shouzhi and Wu Qingxun exchanged a glance, then bowed to Li Juzheng in unison and said, "We are willing to follow Grand Secretary Li's lead!"

"Hiss~"

Everyone gasped!

The deeper meaning behind these two statements is that the regent behind them has chosen to stand with Li Juzheng through thick and thin!

It should be noted that Grand Secretary Li and the Regent have always been at odds, engaging in countless open and covert struggles in the court. Now, for the first time ever, they have chosen to stand on the same side!

Upon hearing this, Li Juzheng was not pleased, but rather became somewhat worried.

He said expressionlessly, "In that case, let's go to the palace together to see His Majesty tomorrow."

After everyone left, Li Juzheng tapped his fingers on the rosewood table.

A bodyguard dressed in black climbed in through the window.

"Give this letter to Yan'er and have her relay what happened today to Ye Wudao."

Li Juzheng handed a letter to his bodyguard and said calmly.

The guard stuffed the note into his robes, then disappeared into the darkness without looking back.

Li Juzheng yawned, looked up at the bright moonlight on the horizon, and murmured:

"You old fox, you think you can hide behind the scenes and let me lead the charge? No way!"