"Do any of you, My Lords, have a clue?"
The matter concerned the stability of the throne beneath his backside. The Sovereign was terribly worried, yet he could not show it too plainly. All he could do was seek counsel from the civil and military ministers. He had thrown out the question, but no one dared answer. Every one of them feared becoming the bird that stuck its head out first. He swept his gaze around the hall. His already gloomy expression instantly darkened until it seemed ink might drip from it. "You have all lived off the ruler's stipends for years, yet at a moment of crisis, not one of you is willing to share my burden?"
The Sovereign's question was rather heavy.
For a time, the ministers either lowered their heads or offered apologies.
Their silence was not because they lacked ability—the genuine wine skins and rice sacks could never have thrived in the Imperial Court—but because this matter could not be investigated too deeply.
In this chaotic age, where regimes changed hands with dizzying frequency, there were not many nations that truly wished to grow strong and prosperous. Those minor states knew from the beginning that no matter how diligently they governed, other powers would eventually swallow them up. Their regimes would not last. Since that was the case, they might as well make a quick fortune. Thus, from top to bottom, from the Sovereign to the court ministers, the practice of selling offices and noble titles flourished, and corruption naturally ran rampant as well.
Qi had been destroyed and restored several times.
Throughout those reversals, they had tasted the sweetness of it.
Therefore—
This warlord faction might have been deliberately raised up by an external enemy to consume their national strength. But it might also have