Ao Huang muttered softly, "When the workshops were doing well, those workers were all good workers. When the workshops failed, they all turned into bad workers. If they were so good at changing, they would've become officials long ago. Of course, there must have been problems among them."
Fang Yun shot Ao Huang a glare. "Yingwu, continue. Did you personally experience what happened back then?"
Fang Yingwu shook his head. "How could I have experienced it myself? But Mr. Wu, who once worked alongside me, was an aide to the director of the Mi Prefecture Works Office back then. His analysis was very thorough. After Liu Shan successfully vilified the workshop workers, he began having the workshops dismiss them. Naturally, the workers refused to accept it. They blocked the county office gates and blocked the roads. But Liu Shan had already slandered them as incompetent people steeped in laziness. Not only would the other people of Mi Prefecture not sympathize with them, they would even despise them."
Ao Huang froze. "What a vicious method—he's even worse than Fang Yun. Worthy indeed of the Left Prime Minister; I never would have thought of such a trick! With this one move, he isolated the workers and set them against the people and officials of the entire kingdom."
Fang Yingwu said, "Radiant Prince, you can infer three things from one; I am impressed. What I just described was Liu Shan's method against the workers. Afterward, Liu Shan began deceiving the people. Hadn't he claimed that officials were corrupt? So he forcefully purged the bureaucracy. Yes, he did deal with a very small number of greatly corrupt officials. But over eighty percent of the officials he punished were those without deep backing who opposed his sale of the workshops, as well as officials opposed