At the Emperor’s absurd decision, those inside the palace thought the same thing.
It would not last even a month.
In the end, the Emperor would declare surrender to the Hanlin Academy, and ultimately, the world would belong to the Hanlin Academy and the Eastern Depot.
The ministers who had belonged to the Hanlin Academy also laughed at the Emperor’s ridiculous policy.
He was creating grounds for criticism all on his own.
Was this not killing two birds with one stone?
Not long after, word came from the Eastern Depot.
If the Emperor admitted his mistake, they wanted the Hanlin Academy officials to return to the palace and assist them.
The Hanlin Academy, now allied with the Eastern Depot, eventually turned entirely toward supporting Noble Consort Man.
They thought that if they simply stayed still, time would solve everything for them.
However, a reversal occurred.
*****
When these people first entered the palace and began working, even the lowest-ranking subordinate officials and the clerks who assisted them sneered.
“This is absurd. Just how lightly do they take state affairs, to gather such a rabble?”
“They say he brought in talents from all over the Central Plains. Let us watch and see how well they do.”
“Well? They will not last even a month before all running away.”
“Isn’t a month too long? Just looking at those piled-up documents, they will probably flee by tomorrow.”
“Even those who passed the imperial examination could not handle those properly and left them stacked up. How would ignorant fools deal with them?”
“For now, it is an imperial order, so let us at least pretend to help.”
“Bah! My pride is so wounded I do not even know if I can do the work properly.”
“Endure it a little longer. His Majesty will soon realize what a terrible mistake he has made and summon the old officials back.”
“Since it has come to this anyway, let us make sure to obstruct them thoroughly.”
“A fine idea. Let us give them only the troublesome work we could not deal with.”
“Excellent.”
In this way, the subordinate officials, clerks, and eunuchs remaining in the palace united and decided to interfere with the work of the talents Jeok Wigang had brought in.
If they interfered openly, their own lives would be in danger, so they planned to hand over tasks those people could not possibly handle and make them grow sick of it and flee.
But that was their grave misunderstanding.
The practical talents were people who had reached the level of masters in their respective fields.
At a glance, they grasped what the problems were and what needed to be handled first, then began rapidly processing the work.
At the beginning, the Minister of Revenue felt uneasy about employing practical talents instead of the ministers who had been doing the work until then.
His feeling was, How much could people who have never once handled state affairs possibly do?
A country’s finances were a matter of tremendous importance. If mishandled, they could lead the nation down the road to ruin, so his unease was all the greater.
And were the people coming in not completely unverified?
If they harbored malicious intentions and embezzled taxes, could that be stopped?
That too worried him.
But this was a policy the Emperor and Jeok Wigang were pushing forward, so he could not recklessly step in.
In his heart, he wanted to quit like the other ministers, but if he did, Jeok Wigang did not seem likely to stay quiet.
He could only pray earnestly to heaven that nothing would go wrong.
The remaining officials felt the same way.
Their livelihoods would be cut off immediately, so even if they wanted to leave, they endured and held on.
They thought these new people would be unable to handle the work properly anyway, and that only those who had remained would suffer to death.
However, all those thoughts were shattered in the very first week after the practical talents arrived.
As soon as they entered, the practical talents began examining the account books and documents piled up like mountains.
Without even sleeping, they rapidly organized the tangled numbers.
The two greatest headaches currently facing the Ministry of Revenue were land tax and poll tax.
But under Ghost Calculator’s command, the practical talents began finding solutions to those problems.
Because they had directly experienced those two taxes, they resolved the problems even faster.
The Minister of Revenue and the officials were astonished.
To think these could be handled this quickly.
The Minister of Revenue, in particular, was deeply shocked.
The reason they had suffered headaches over these problems until now was that they had tried to find solutions only through theory from their desks, without properly reflecting reality.
How could a solution possibly come out no matter how much they thought about it?
But the practical talents, based on what they had personally experienced, quickly began identifying and organizing the problems and solutions.
When the Minister of Revenue saw the organized results, he slapped his knee without realizing it.
It felt as though something that had been lodged in his chest for a long time had finally gone down cleanly.
On top of that, Ghost Calculator examined the tax ledgers piled up like a mountain at astonishing speed, then picked up a brush and quickly wrote something down before handing it to the talents he had selected.
The talents understood what Ghost Calculator meant just by looking at the scribbled contents and quickly corrected them.
Documents that had not been properly organized even after two years were resolved in just a few days.
Watching that happen from beside them, the Minister of Revenue marveled, then lamented the fact that such talents had been barred from office simply because of their low status.
The Minister of Revenue was excited.
Seeing the documents that had given him such headaches rapidly decrease made him feel as if he could finally breathe.
Compared to these people, those who had been in the palace until now were not talents. They were useless things that did filthy work poorly and only wasted food.
This phenomenon was not limited to the Ministry of Revenue. It unfolded everywhere.
In their respective posts, they instantly grasped the palace’s situation and perfectly understood how the systems had been operating.
And they did so with astonishing perfection.
The first thing they did after finishing that assessment was reform.
They tore out and overhauled all the methods that had been chronic problems until now.
The result was astonishing.
The speed of processing work became three times faster than before.
The entire reporting system, which had been concentrated on the Emperor, was dispersed, and it was transformed into a system where only truly important matters required the Emperor’s approval.
The Six Ministries were further subdivided, allowing work to proceed more professionally.
The backlogged work began to be handled rapidly, and policies for the people were carried out.
As a result, the hearts of the people quickly began turning toward the Emperor.
Zhu Seogi was extremely satisfied. He raised their official ranks by one level and employed even more talents.
When word spread that anyone could enter office as long as they had talent, regardless of status, people gathered like clouds from all over the Central Plains to show off their abilities.
The role of selecting talents from among them was taken by Yu Muncheol, the Human-Heart Thief.
Every person he pointed out was a heaven-sent talent, and each was assigned to a department suited to their aptitude.
Once the offices were made up of experts, the work proceeded even faster and produced outstanding results.
The existing vested interests, sensing a crisis, gathered urgently to devise countermeasures.
“The things we thought were insignificant are doing their work far better than expected.”
“This is not merely somewhat better than expected. They are processing work far more excellently. They are handling in just a few weeks problems that took us years to solve.”
“The state of public sentiment is unusual. Voices praising the Emperor are being heard everywhere, saying heaven has sent down a true Emperor for their sake.”
“I have heard those words here and there as well. At this rate, everything we built will be taken from us.”
“It has already been taken. They are selecting talents not through the imperial examination, but according to practical ability and aptitude. Because of this method, people are coming and going until the palace threshold is worn down.”
“What are we supposed to do? We cannot simply stand by and watch.”
“First, gather all the Confucian students. We must show them our united strength. Also, we must coordinate with the Eastern Depot and reclaim the positions we lost.”
“Will the Eastern Depot help us properly?”
“From what I hear, the Eastern Depot is also greatly flustered. They too will not simply stand by and watch as lowly things seize control of the palace.”
At those words, sighs leaked out from here and there.
“Haa. To think I would live to see the day we joined hands with eunuchs.”
“There is no choice. Confucian learning, which has stood for thousands of years in Central Plains history, is on the verge of disappearing. We have nowhere left to retreat.”
“Understood.”
“Whatever we can do, pour all our strength into it!”
“Yes!”
*****
Eastern Depot safe house.
The Chief Eunuch, his face full of irritation, was berating the eunuchs.
“What exactly have you idiotic fools been doing?”
“O-our apologies!”
“No, what kind of work did you do for things to run even better than before? Does that make any sense?”
“They are madmen. They are work fiends who cut down even on sleep and work like lunatics.”
“No matter how much sabotage we carry out, they lightly avoid it and handle the work. No, they are actually one step ahead of us in processing matters, so we cannot keep up.”
“They are that capable? No, why are things that have never once handled state affairs so good at this?”
“Every one of them has spent at least ten years, and at most several decades, rolling around in that field. Perhaps that is why the subordinate officials and clerks are unable to keep up with their work and are falling behind.”
The plan was going completely awry.
But there was an even greater problem.
“They say His Majesty has fully recovered his strength.”
“What? What does that mean?”
Impossible.
The poison injected into the Emperor was not a poison any human could detoxify.
It was a poison that, the more good medicine was fed to detoxify it, only made the poison’s energy grow stronger and caused the victim to die faster.
And yet he had recovered his strength?
That was absolutely impossible.
“That makes no sense. Did every physician not shake his head and say he did not know the cause?”
“T-that is... they say Jeok Wigang treated him.”
“What? That bastard treated His Majesty?”
“Yes. The palace attendant in charge of His Majesty said so.”
“Why are you only telling me such an important thing now?”
“That palace attendant... was following His Majesty, not us. We felt that proper information was not coming in, so we tortured him...”
“Aaaaargh! Jeok Wigang! Jeok Wigang!”
As the Chief Eunuch shouted in a voice full of rage—
RUMBLE.
The large hall shook violently.
“Everything began to twist out of place once that damned bastard attached himself to the Emperor! We should have removed him first.”
“Shall we remove him now?”
“What became of the investigation into him?”
“Nothing has come up. It feels as if someone is deliberately blocking information.”
“Wait... Where did they say most of the bastards currently working inside the palace came from?”
“Ah... the Lower Gate.”
“You idiot! The Lower Gate is an information organization! Those bastards have been hiding information deliberately!”
“Are you saying the Eastern Depot’s intelligence agency is inferior to a group made up of those measly insects?”
“You fool. Which two forces are said to have the greatest intelligence networks in the Central Plains? The Beggars’ Union and the Lower Gate. And what kind of groups are those two? They are those at the very bottom. Such people are spread throughout the entire Central Plains in numbers beyond counting. Look even now. Outside that door...”
CRACK.
The Chief Eunuch crushed a walnut on the table with his fingers.
Then—
BANG.
When he struck the table, the walnut shell rose into the air.