I Have 10 Trillion Dollars only Usable For Simping Chapter 2836 - 1759: Sick (2)

"Who are we supposed to tie up?"

Boss Jiang finally pushed the door open and came in. He was much more at ease than Li Shuru, spring breeze written all over his face, not a hint of anything unusual.

"Mr. Luo is giving us a lecture."

Li Shuru’s gaze followed his figure.

"I’ll join in too."

Boss Jiang sat back down again, and even nodded and smiled at his girlfriend.

What a Nuannuan guy.

"You two smell that?"

Luo Peng twitched his nose and said to Bai Zheli and Li Shao, "It’s that sour stink of romance."

Only then did Li Shuru finally move her eyes away from a certain someone.

True enough.

This is the office.

Need to mind our behavior.

"Should I spray some perfume?"

Putting on an act, she actually looked like she was about to go get her bag.

Having failed to get a laugh, Luo Peng cleared his throat lightly. "Where were we?"

Bai Zheli lowered his head to look at the notebook in front of him. "We’re supposed to be entering middle age."

"Right, we’ve reached greasy middle age."

Luo Peng nodded and resumed the meeting. "At this stage, for the Emperor it’s no longer a question of wanting to reform or not, but of daring to reform or not.

Because that ring of flab is no longer satisfied with just being flab; it’s already turned into a tumor, and it’s grown together with many of the body’s vital organs—you in me, me in you.

It has already seeped into every capillary of the Empire: in the court, the Chief of Staff and the Assistant Ministers are their people. Out in the provinces, the governors and巡抚 are their people.

Even the eunuchs closest to the Emperor may well be dogs they’ve fattened up with money.

They’ve seized the lifelines of the national economy—land, salt and iron.

They control the power of discourse in society; every single scholar is their reserve force.

They can even sway the loyalty of the army; senior generals need them to smooth the way with connections.

At this point, if another Emperor of grand talent and great vision appears, we’ll call him Old Zhu plus.

He sees through it all.

He says, No, if we don’t scrape the bone and cure the poison now, this country is finished.

He decides to wage war on this colossal interest group.

He’s going to get serious.

He promotes newcomers, bypassing the old bureaucratic system.

He sends out imperial envoys, Imperial Sword in hand, to conduct thorough investigations in the provinces.

He even wants to go straight for the richest bunch and impose a property tax.

Tell me, what’s going to happen?"

Because he’d come a bit late, Boss Jiang couldn’t easily pick up the thread, so he shot a look at note-taking Bai Zheli, signaling him to pass the notebook over to help him catch up, but Bai Zheli didn’t budge.

Uh-oh.

Don’t say I didn’t warn you?

Boss Jiang refused to accept this reality; his gaze grew more forceful. Bai Zheli, after all, wasn’t some treacherous rebel, and in the end, caught between embarrassment and hesitation, he still handed the notebook over.

Jiang Chen took it and glanced at it, and immediately smiled.

That was no notebook.

It was clearly a sketch.

The girl in the sketch looked a bit familiar; he’d seen her once in the company cafeteria.

"A wave of soft resistance sweeping the entire country has begun."

Luo Peng ignored their little antics, his bearing imposing, his voice firm and ringing. "Once the Emperor’s edicts leave Beijing, they turn into waste paper. Out in the provinces, the imperial envoys are either stripped of all real power or die of some mysterious illness.

In the court, all the officials start collectively slacking off.

Today the Ministry of Revenue says there’s no money; tomorrow the Ministry of War says there’s no grain.

Memorials reporting every kind of natural disaster and human misfortune fly to the Emperor’s desk like snowflakes.

At the same time, all sorts of rumors about the Emperor start spreading among the people.

They say he levies cruel taxes; they say he employs petty villains; they say he’s going to plunge the realm into chaos.

The Emperor suddenly becomes utterly isolated.

He realizes that the bureaucrats he wants to rely on are exactly the ones he needs to strike.

The commoners he wants to protect—he can’t hear their voices at all.

He’s like a doctor who wants to operate on his own body, only to discover his hands, feet, eyes, ears all refuse to obey him.

They’ve all been taken over by tumor cells.

A muddle-headed Emperor might still think the country is prosperous, the people at peace, songs and dances everywhere.

But he is far too clear-headed.

He can clearly see this Empire rotting away bit by bit.

He can clearly hear the countdown to the dynasty’s collapse ticking away.

But there’s nothing he can do.

All his efforts land as if on a ball of cotton.

In the end, he can only choose to compromise.

Or be slowly worn to death by this system.

Zhang Juzheng, Wang Anshi... every great reformer in history ended up like this.

It’s not that they weren’t smart enough, or ruthless enough.

It’s that what they tried to challenge wasn’t some individual, but that system that had already grown a mind of its own.

The system’s power is always greater than any individual’s power, even if that individual is the Emperor."

Luo Peng sighed,

"The last years of a dynasty are like a person’s old age. The body has already been completely hollowed out. Ninety percent of the country’s land is concentrated in the hands of a few people. Countless peasants have lost their land and become drifters."

"The state’s finances are already bankrupt. Because there are almost no self-cultivating peasants left to tax. And those landlord classes who possess the vast majority of the land don’t have to pay taxes."

"The army is rotten to the core as well."

"Soldiers’ pay is shaved off layer by layer. The soldiers can’t even get enough to eat, and their weapons haven’t been replaced for decades."

"At this point, it only takes a single, tiny straw."

"For example, a natural disaster."

"Several consecutive years of severe drought, or a great flood."

"The last batch of self-cultivating peasants goes bankrupt too."

"The drifters turn into the starving."

"The starving, in order to survive, can only turn into rioters."

"A single spark starts to set the prairie ablaze."

"The last emperor sits on his rickety Dragon Chair."

"Is he smart?"

"Maybe he’s quite smart."

"He wants to send troops to suppress the unrest."

"The Minister of War spreads his hands: No money, we can’t pay the soldiers."

"He wants those princes, nobles, and great merchants to donate some money, to share the nation’s calamity."

"Those people were still drinking and listening to opera with him yesterday; today they bury their gold and silver deep underground, then go crying to the Emperor: ’Your Majesty, even my household can’t put food on the table anymore.’"

"They would rather let their money rot in the ground than bring it out to keep this dynasty on life support."

"Why?"

"Because they’re smart too."

"They’ve done the math very clearly:"

"This dynasty is already a ship about to sink."

"Throwing money into it is just throwing it into the water."

"Better to keep it, wait for a new ship to arrive, and then buy a first-class ticket."

"So history keeps cycling back on itself."

"After sucking the old dynasty dry, this enormous interest group will, like a swarm of locusts, fly to the next newly established, brand-new, vibrant dynasty and begin a new round of gnawing."

"Pa, pa, pa..."

Li Shuru took the lead in clapping—light, calm—and in doing so echoed Li Shao’s earlier joke from beginning to end.

"So this is why you won’t take the civil service exam?"

The atmosphere, which had been somewhat heavy, relaxed in an instant.

Luo Peng laughed and spread his hands. "More or less. Whoever goes in will be assimilated into a locust. And I don’t want to be a locust."

Even though he hadn’t heard the full version, Boss Jiang more or less got it.

Luo Peng’s view was very sharp, and very pessimistic, but it also matched the facts.

The Emperor has to safeguard the interests of the Imperial Family.

The scholars have to safeguard the interests of the scholars.

This is human nature.

It’s hard to blame them.

Everyone is making the choice that is most beneficial to themselves.

And countless local optimums eventually converge into the collapse of the entire system.

It’s like on a ship, all the smartest people are frantically bailing water toward their own side.

In the end, the ship sinks.

Not a single person is innocent.

Nor can a single person escape.

Jiang Chen suddenly thought of a face.

That Crown Prince who teaches at Kyoto University.

Could this be why he also refuses to "take the civil service exam"?

Even someone like him feels despair in the face of this historical question?

"Meeting adjourned."

Boss Jiang was still lost in thought when Luo Peng, having thoroughly enjoyed his rant and feeling refreshed, pushed back his chair, stood up, and briskly made his exit.

Bai Zheli, who had been caught spacing out in a meeting, hurried after him and didn’t even dare go back to reclaim his notebook.

Li Shao walked out last.

By the time Jiang Chen came back to his senses, only he and his girlfriend were left in the conference room.

Even if he couldn’t seem to find a point to refute, at the very least, right now they were still in the "youth stage."

It should count as youth, right.

And even if you step back another step.

No matter how long a person lives, can they escape death?

Since death is a predetermined endpoint, why be excessively anxious.

Live in the present, cherish what’s before your eyes.

—Be true to your own conscience.

This is Boss Jiang’s Adapt ability—his mentality is so strong it’s almost monstrous, enough to make people gnash their teeth.

He then pushed the confiscated notebook over to his girlfriend. "Xiao Bai’s in a relationship?"

Li Shuru didn’t answer, didn’t even spare the notebook a glance, her eyes straight ahead, fixed on the wall of the conference room.

"Come with me to the hospital."

Boss Jiang, whose will was usually unshakable, furrowed his brow slightly; a vague sense of unease surged up out of nowhere.

"What’s wrong? Are you sick?"

Li Shuru said nothing, stood up, picked up her bag, and walked out.

Someone’s brows knitted even tighter.