Li Jing spoke up then. "The King of Shu keeps insisting that Your Majesty is unworthy of a sovereign, violates the Human Dao, imposes excessively harsh punishments, and has lost the people's support."
"Look at these letters. Has Your Majesty truly lost the people's support?"
Du Yu's smug satisfaction vanished in an instant.
His Sheep Eating People plan had indeed succeeded, but never in his wildest dreams had he imagined that it would devour the Qiang rather than the Shang People.
With that, the three sides-the Great Shang court, the common people, and the nobles-no longer had any conflict. The court and the nobles even had a common enemy. Every contradiction had been pushed onto an external foe.
This was tantamount to binding the nobles firmly to Great Shang's war chariot of shared interests!
Today, they could plunder the Qiang's cattle and sheep; tomorrow, they could plunder those of the Western Rong...
Li Jing continued, "His Majesty has said that even nobles are subjects of Great Shang. He has poured his heart and soul into treating them generously, yet in the end, some people still confuse right and wrong and turn around to accuse the very person they have wronged. What is the meaning of this?"
"Could they harbor malicious intentions-indeed, thoughts of rebellion? If so, the Ministry of Punishments must investigate thoroughly, discover who is stirring up trouble and what motives lie behind it, and deal with them severely!"
Du Yu could not utter a word for a long while. Something seemed to clog his chest, like a fishbone lodged in his throat.
How had I ended up sewing someone else's wedding gown?
From the look of things, King Zhou had formed a united front with the nobles outright!
The assembled ministers in the hall were actually rather puzzled.