Chapter 1232 – Divine Martial Rule

Yet another New Year’s Eve night.

As Liu Xiyi mentioned in his poem, “Flowers are the same every year, but people are different.”

Every year, Great Xia would improve, stepping to whole new levels. This year’s upgrade to Emperor dynasty was like adding oil when cooking. The prosperous scenes were showing signs of stepping into a grand and successfully age.

There were some officials who suggested they termed this era as the divine martial rule.

After upgrading to the Emperor dynasty, the Imperial Court was not happy with staying at their current level, which excited the civilians. Right after they upgraded, they brought out three new policies and accepted the talents of players with a magnanimous heart.

The Xia Emperor’s desire to swallow up the four seas awed everyone.

To have such an emperor was the good fortune of Great Xia and its people.

Night, the imperial capital was bustling with excitement. The fireworks that started from evening still had not stopped. Along with the lanterns, candles, and the like, the imperial capital turned into a city with no night.

The civilians of the imperial capital were celebrating the New Year and celebrating this rare prosperous time.

Imperial city, emperor palace.

The emperor’s family feast was coming to an end, and the interactions that happened were as usual, without nothing really interesting occurring.

A year had passed, and the members of the royal family had grown up. Be it in the military, in the offices, or in the groups, they were slowly gaining a footing and becoming a huge presence in the dynasty.

Out of all the members, Ouyang Heng who was appointed as the Wuzhou Prefecture Governor was undoubtedly the shining star.

“Your majesty, let me toast to you!”

Ouyang Heng left his seat to pour wine for Ouyang Shuo. He knew that being appointed as Wuzhou Prefecture Governor would mean that he would face a lot of trouble. There were many jealous people inside and even within the royal family.

For him to gain a footing in Great Xia, apart from his personal ability, he also needed the support of the emperor.

Ouyang Shuo was sitting at the host position. On his legs was Luo’er, who was already a year and a half old. When Ouyang Heng walked over, Ouyang Shuo was peeling the grapes that his daughter loved the most. How much he spoiled and loved her was hard to be described in words.

Ouyang Shuo did not want to follow the ways of the ancient emperors and kings and talk about how the royal family was heartless. Ouyang Shuo did not restrain Yu’er either and allowed him to as he wished and enjoy his childhood.

To allow the two to gain a firm cultivation foundation, Ouyang Shuo even purposely went offline every day to use the Five Emperor True Manual’s primordial energy to nourish their meridians.

Seeing Ouyang Heng walk over, Ouyang Shuo placed down the grapes before raising up his glass and smiling, “Third Uncle, Happy New Year!”

“It’s all because of your majesty!” Ouyang Heng enjoyed the respect and importance the emperor placed on him. However, he knew that at this moment, many eyes were staring over in his direction.

The uncle and nephew duo took the chance to discuss some work matters.

At this moment, seeing that her father and uncle were talking and not peeling grapes for her, little princess Luo’er got angry. She pouted and reached out with her hand, grabbing her father’s beard.

The authority and fierce image that Ouyang Shuo tried so hard to maintain instantly dissipated.

“Hehe, little princess is angry, so I’ll leave now.” Seeing his majesty in such an awkward situation, it would be inappropriate for him to remain.

After talking for such a short while, Ouyang Heng had already achieved his goal.

In truth, Ouyang Shuo would not bother about these small customs and simply said, “Take care, Third Uncle.” After that, he turned around to play with the little princess.

Speaking of Luo’er playing with his beard, there was a story within.

Ouyang Shuo was young and suppressing and leading all the officials was not an easy thing. At least from an image standpoint, he seemed too young and could not give one a mature feeling.

Due to that, Song Jia recommended he grow a beard to make up for the age gap.

As expected, the beard that he kept made him look a lot more mature. At a glance, he was not that hot-blooded teen that had just entered the game. Instead, he seemed like a mature uncle.

Although he was a little old, Ouyang Shuo was still satisfied.

After the small interlude, the entire feast was close to its end as they each went their own ways.
…
1st day of the New Year, Ouyang Shuo had to worship the ancestors as usual.

The only difference was that in the ancestral temple this year, Ouyang Shuo’s ancestors of the Ouyang family were listed in the temple. The spirit tablets of his parents were placed within the ancestral temple, and they were even given the title of retired emperor and retired empress.

That was also showing to the world his filial piety toward his parents.

A long holiday followed. Apart from paying attention to the Africa battle, Ouyang Shuo did not bother about other administrative matters and focused on spending time with his family.

In the blink of an eye, it was the 2nd month, 15th day and the Imperial Court offices opened once more.

Imperial city, emperor palace.

Long ago, before the Chinese New Year, after visiting Old Zhang and Old Guo, to remove the misunderstanding the elites had toward Great Xia, Ouyang Shuo had been preparing something big.

After the offices opened, this matter was officially being discussed.

Ouyang Shuo was ready to establish the biggest legal court outside of the Cabinet; they would discuss with the Administrative Mentor Court, Honglu Temple, and the Censorate about the final description of the Great Xia law system.

Under special circumstances, the Great Xia court of law left the legal rights to investigate to the Internal Affairs Court procuratorate department or the local Procuratorate Divisions’ important cases.

It was like hanging a sword of Damocles over the head of the Internal Affairs Court.

Under the Internal Affairs Court was the law and order department, procuratorate department and Regulatory Department, which was like gathering up all law organizations as one. In terms of pushing out a law system and protecting the authority of the Great Xia law system, it was really detrimental.

After the court of law was established, it could work together with the Censorate and the Internal Affairs Court to form a stable triangle to keep each other in check while helping one another out.

More importantly, to execute legal rule and protect the prestige of the law system, Ouyang Shuo was going to give the court of law one principle, “If the son of god commits a crime, he will be punished like a normal person!”

As such, Ouyang Shuo was restraining himself.

Ouyang Shuo was doing this to reply to those who said that he was a feudal lord and was perfecting the internal ruling system of Great Xia.

Ouyang Shuo naturally trusted Internal Affairs Minister Wei Yang a lot, but he would not be able to always be in control of the Internal Affairs Court. The entire internal affairs system would not always run based on his goals and intentions.

The way to solve the root of the problem was to be restrained by the system.

However, Ouyang Shuo did not expect that no one in the Cabinet would agree when he brought up the idea. Restricting the power of the ruler was unprecedented and should not happen.

One could say that when Ouyang Shuo set the Yanhuang ideology, the idea of how the power of the ruler was not given by heaven was only somewhat accepted by the officials.

Then this time, he was truly facing resistance.

Ouyang Shuo knew that the officials were resisting on the surface to protect the authority of the emperor, but in truth, it was to protect their own interests.

Think about it, if even the son of heaven was restricted by the Great Xia law system, then the unspoken rule of officials not being punished would be broken, which really worried them.

This would have a huge impact on the historical talents, so for them to be unable to accept that was normal.

Even then, Ouyang Shuo was determined to do so.

From the 6th year of Gaia, when setting Great Xia’s policies, Ouyang Shuo connected it to the future on Planet Hope. As time passed, this connection would only become deeper.

Ouyang Shuo’s final goal was to open up the bridge between the two worlds.

In the future when they arrived on Planet Hope, Ouyang Shuo wished that he could easily replicate the system in the game onto Planet Hope to fulfil the connection between the game world and the real world.