The three fell silent.
This truly was a difficult problem.
Without ambitions of Investiture of the Gods, these high-ranking ministers would never have set their sights on East Hundred.
For one thing, the other side had always been obedient; for another, it was better to avoid trouble when possible.
Third, instead of spending the court's money on war, wouldn't it be better to spend it on themselves? War was a matter of grave national importance. Though military achievements at the border were good, things could easily go horribly wrong.
And now, the three began racking their brains for a solution.
After a long while.
The Minister of Works was the first to speak. "If we want tens of millions of people not to cause trouble, we must make them believe that they are also people of Great Ming, part of Great Ming."
"If that is the case, we must first unify the written language, then make their spoken language consistent as well."
"Unifying the written language will be easy enough. They call themselves Little *China, and they already use Great Ming's script," said the Minister of War.
"Actually, there is another major issue now: our writing system is somewhat difficult to promote."
"They all think Chinese is too difficult to learn."
The Minister of Personnel nodded. "That's right, especially those traditional characters."
"So our next step should be simplifying the characters. Only then will they be easier to learn."
"Exactly. Let's begin simplifying them. As for claims that traditional characters are beautiful, simplified characters are ugly, and simplification will sever our heritage—ignore them," said the Minister of War.
That was right. Before Investiture of the Gods, what did literary inheritance amount to in their eyes?
It was all trivial.
As long as something benefited their path to godhood, they were