Pei Ye paused in surprise. He had indeed seen all of it once already.
To open the path to official advancement, reforming the imperial examination was indeed the only way. Only with a clear path upward could society avoid growing distorted. But even if official posts could be added or removed, power remained constant: the more humble families held, the less the aristocracy had. No means could soften this conflict. At its heart, this meant biting flesh straight off the great families.
An irreconcilable conflict could, of course, only end with a victor and a loser. This often pointed toward fierce, brutal violence, yet at that point you would discover... that the enemy before you could not be overthrown.
The great families-or rather, the entire bloc built around them-would stand in your way. To put it in more alarming terms... that meant the whole of Great Tang.
You could not simply submit a Fiefdom-Cutting Edict and expect the emperor to stand with you; you could not negotiate or maneuver against them, because you held no cards capable of shaking them. As for a coup, that was a joke. This was not a matter of having nothing to eat and no way to survive... and even a hundred thousand scholars, together with the families behind them, could not outweigh any one surname.
Pei Ye's thoughts stalled. Before the little stove, Xu Chuo watched him with quiet, deep, clear eyes.
Unlike in storybooks, the "great families" were not some powerful, festering sickness, much less an abscess obstructing Great Tang's progress. Below, they connected to the lifeblood of all Great Tang; above, they bore the Heavenly Mandate bestowed by Qilin. They were its arms, its legs, even its head and heart. They were Great Tang itself.
...As Great Tang's chancellor, with all your