The next day the King married off his daughter to the young and upcoming general Ying Zheng whom he promoted to the great general.
The King did not want to hold a wedding just after his father died but he saw the prime minister and his followers were willing to cut ties with him if he did not agree.
What made the King more aggrieved was the fact that his sons were willing to join the prime minister's side and worse yet the daughters were trying to convince him to let them marry the new and upcoming great general.
In this world being a prince or a princess was not like a fairy tale. If the King dies the princess would be married off by her brothers for political gain to another state which they might start a war with a few months later.
So marrying a great general was a good investment since he might even become the next general Meng Ao who built a great family of generals.
On the other side, the life of princes was even harder since their brothers and fathers would send them to another state ad hostage, making them join the military as lowly foot soldiers with no chance of being promoted or even worse being executed or killed.
So everyone needs friends in Xianyang be it the King minister or general thus they developed a balanced circle of life.
The King married off his favorite daughter to Ying Zheng to keep her safe and use her to monitor and control Ying Zheng.
...
After mourning King Zhaoxiang's death King Xiaowen was crowned as King.
On the day of his coronation Ying Zheng's party arrested many of the Ying family for rebellion and scheming against the King.
Ying Zheng's party even brought out fake proofs such as text letters and even from the mouths of servants chefs and even fellow low-ranking family members.
Birds die for food and men die for wealth.
Ying Zheng bribed them with a lot of money that even cost him a tenth of his fortune and since most of these men supported his enemy the King even praised Ying Zheng for his foresight and wisdom.
The biggest enemies of the King were not outside members but the members of the Ying family.
The Ying family lost almost half of its power in the imperial court and more than half of the higher-ranked family members.
As for now, the Ying family was dealt with for the most part since Ying Zheng asked the prime minister to cut the former King's military feathers.
When any King is crowned they always have to deal with the problems of the family members but after ten to twenty years, that family members will be their backing so Ying Zheng had to thank God for making the former King was paranoid.
As of now, Ying Zheng controlled most of the military power in the prime Minister's faction himself and a third of the imperial court of the prime Minister's faction.
That would make Ying Zheng have control of almost twenty percent or a fifth of the imperial court by himself.
The King was sitting in the imperial court. He was tired frustrated and excited at the same time. His first day went better than he expected. He then heard a voice
"Your highness we already sent messengers to inform the lords and generals of your ascension to the throne."
The King sighed in relief when he saw Ying Zheng "Oh right Ying Zheng it is you. I am grateful for what you did."
"It is my job as your general to stabilize your realm for you. I hope your highness is not too tired we prepared a feast and celebration in honor of your ascension to the throne."
"Hmmm?" The King wrinkled his eyes a bit.
"Your highness the people are still sad about his highness's passing so we made a feast and celebrations in your honor to show people your grace and recover from the mourning."
"Put it off. Make it only a few minister generals and their families can attend. I do not want people to think I am celebrating my father's death."
"It will be as you command."
...
two days later King Xiaowen passed away due to unknown circumstances.
And this time there were many more factions in Xianyang.
Ying Zheng was pleased that everything was going according to plan.
All the members of the Ying family returned to Xianyang within one month of the King's death
The biggest factions were crown prince Zichu's faction, prince Ying Zixi's force, the neutral side, and the other weaker princes.
Ying Zheng believed that one of the causes of the fall of Kingdoms and the splitting or destruction of empires is the civil wars amongst the descendants and relatives of the Kings and Emperors.
Ying Zheng would clear the way for his successor by either killing his brothers and sisters or imprisoning them and making this a law for all his successors.
Ying Zheng believed he would be different from all the waste of Kings and Emperors starting from Alexander to Qin Shi Huang to Genghis Khan all the way to Mehmed the second.
All though they accomplished great things they all gave people too much freedom.
People need to be controlled yet feel free and even if you let them off their leashes or cages they need to come back and leash themselves or cage themselves.
You give them freedom of speech yet you secretly control it by filtering it or giving them the wrong information in the first place.
And second, they failed to control the money.
Sure they were rich but so what? that was their money and they could not make other people's money useless.
Ying Zheng's plan was simply to take back the gold and silver from the people and print out paper money.
Ying Zheng would provide his enemies and friends alike that money in exchange for gold or silver and he would continue printing the money until it was more useless than the paper it was printed on.
And if his enemies or his subjects rebel he would make all their money pieces garbage they could only use to wipe their shit.
They would have no money to raise an army against him.
That is the power controlling others so much that even if you give them gold they would return it to you in exchange for useless paper with numbers written on it.
In Ying Zheng's previous world money was divided into three types first was God's money which was gold and silver.
The second was Government's money which was paper with numbers on it.
Last but not least was the people's money which was on the web.
The government's money and people's money could fluctuate but God's money would stay the same.
If one Kilogram of God's money is equal to three papers but the government decided to print more money then the ratio would continue to change from three to one until it is a thousand to one or more.
You could go and buy with the same 1kg a loaf of bread at the beginning and a hundred years later it would still be the same.
But the paper would probably be not the same and it would be less than what it was before.
As for people's money, it is useless to think about it now.
***
I had to reveal a part of the future plans in this chapter because I want to put the whole civil in the next chapter.
Let me explain what I was trying to say it was actually very simple:First of all, money actually gains value and loses but gold does not do that. Money changes relative to its scarcity gold does not do that. All in all, gold does not lose value nor does it gain it.
If you don't believe me I will quote this "Investors have long been enamored by gold and the price of the metal has increased substantially over the past 50 years. Like most commodities supply and demand is incredibly important, but gold also retains additional value."
I did not see this in one book or website but in several places with evidence.
Anyways, I hope this chapter was entertaining and informative for you guys.
End of chapter
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