At the banquet, Ning Fengzhi was not in a particularly good mood.
Xue Ye had resolutely avoided him to negotiate with Leng Xiyue this time. He had known this benevolent emperor might be planning something, but he had never expected anything this big.
After looking through the Empire Convention, Ning Fengzhi, well versed in politics, quickly identified three important changes.
First, the imperial family intended to weaken the nobility and begin centralizing power.
Second, once the Jiuzhou Empire's troops were stationed here, they would not merely meet the Jiuzhou Empire's everyday needs. They would also become a sharp blade that could help the imperial family sweep away all opposition, because with sufficient profit to motivate them, the Jiuzhou Empire's garrison would certainly not mind helping an allied nation eliminate a few "rebels."
Third, most of the treaty's major operations would be handled directly through the imperial family, leaving the noble class, headed by the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Sect, unable to extract any benefits. If the imperial family really managed to train those two hundred thousand new troops, the nobility's position in the Empire would be hanging by a thread.
Without a doubt, Xue Ye was now doing something that would offend a great many people, and perhaps he was already prepared to shoulder the blame-these decisions were his, so if Xue Qinghe ascended the throne later, that blame would have little to do with him. The treaty, already an established fact, could no longer be changed, while the imperial family would have received tangible assistance.
Noble privilege and imperial power had always existed together. Without the nobility, imperial power would be hanging by a thread; without imperial power, the nobility would lose both their support and their legitimacy. Yet how much weight each side carried had always been something