Dark Sand: My Players Are All Actors
Chapter 287 - 215 I’ve Gone Dark!

Chapter 287: Chapter 215 I’ve Gone Dark!

"Scholars are utterly useless!"

Back at the starting point, Chu Ge’s heart was filled with frustration.

He now somewhat understood how Li Hongyun must have felt back then.

Li Hongyun was tormented by the dog of an emperor, Emperor Weizhao, in the scholar instance and changed his job to an assassin out of sheer anger, which undoubtedly included such frustration.

"I’ve noticed a problem.

"As a civil servant, it’s very easy to mess things up, but to accomplish something is very difficult.

"Is this reasonable?"

Having been ousted in the first round twice in a row, Chu Ge’s mentality began to crumble.

As the saying goes, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Chu Ge clearly realized that the matter of reform was certainly not as simple as he had initially thought.

It’s useless to just treat the head when it aches and the foot when it hurts; a serious and in-depth analysis is needed to find the only correct solution.

With this in mind, Chu Ge calmed down and continued to analyze the reasons for this failure.

"Factions.

"This word is absolutely unacceptable to the emperor.

"After all, without reforms, the empire might perish in a hundred years; but with reforms, it might fall in a few decades.

"In the eyes of a mediocre ruler, they might momentarily see the prospects of reform, but as soon as some unexpected problems arise, they would easily retreat and return to their comfort zone.

"From Wang Wenchuan’s perspective, others criticizing him for forming factions is utterly baseless, not even worth refuting and indeed, there is nothing to refute. To push new laws and reform the bureaucracy, one must allow some people to rise and others to fall.

"However, if the old-guard officials insist that this is forming factions, they can secure an invincible position.

"Because for the emperor, he can’t fully trust Wang Wenchuan. Or rather, he can’t fully trust anyone.

"Even if someone else were put in charge of reforming the bureaucracy, the end result would only be the same...

"It’s really exasperating!"

After analyzing, Chu Ge found that reforming the bureaucracy was utterly unworkable.

The two essentials Chu Ge proposed for the bureaucracy reform, which he thought were the most basic, were also seen by other scholars and officials as the most fatal.

This was a paradox.

The excessive officials in the Qi Dynasty existed because the emperor had given these scholars too many benefits, so these civil servants had formed a huge established interest group.

They were the bureaucrats from top to bottom and also the high-level forces secretly connected to landlords and rich merchants. Or rather, they were the ruling class itself of the Qi Dynasty.

To target this class?

That would inevitably make oneself a minority.

So, shallow reforms would inevitably be ineffective and have little impact; and if one wanted to make an impact, enrich the nation and strengthen the military, it would necessarily upset these peoples’ interests and provoke their collective opposition.

After analyzing, Chu Ge reached a conclusion.

This was essentially an unsolvable problem!

"Have there been successful historical reforms?

"Of course, there have. Only those that succeeded are called golden ages or periods of revival. Those that failed are called reforms.

"At the end of the day, the matter of reform doesn’t depend on officials, but on the emperor. Using imperial power to drive reform is fine, but if one uses the power of the Prime Minister to drive reform, it’s almost certainly doomed to end with personal and political demise.

"Because reform itself is a life-or-death collision with the established interest groups; the power of the Prime Minister comes from imperial power, which is too easily shaken..."

Chu Ge replayed in his mind the several historically famous reforms and realized even more clearly the crux of the problem.

In the past, he had read these historical records, but like others, he often attributed the failure of reforms to the personal capabilities of the reformers.

For example, the policies were poorly conceived, or the reforms were too hasty, or they failed to take a step-by-step approach, starting with the reform of the bureaucracy...

Under this mindset, Wang Wenchuan was clearly a classic case of "great ambitions but inadequate talents."

You are the Prime Minister; you want to implement reforms, yet you ultimately fail, then of course, it’s because your consideration was not thorough.

If you had anticipated all the problems in advance, then surely you wouldn’t have failed, right?

But Chu Ge personally tried his hand at it and then realized that the problem was not as simple as he had thought.

Human effort is after all limited.

Have there been any historically successful reforms driven by the power of the Prime Minister? Strictly speaking, not even once.

Indeed, some reforms were pushed by the Prime Minister, but without exception, they all had nearly complete abandonment and absolute trust from the emperor.

In some cases, the emperor and the Prime Minister trusted each other as deeply as green mountains and pine trees, never betraying each other; in others, the emperor stepped back and let the Prime Minister do as he pleased; in yet others, the Prime Minister completely usurped the emperor and became the king without a crown.

Wherever the Prime Minister fully pushed, but the emperor wavered and was indecisive, they almost all ended in abject failure.

To say the necessary conditions for successful reform, without a doubt, there are at least three points.

First is the absolute support of imperial power, able to suppress all opposition.

Second is an ample amount of time, like ten, twenty years, or even the entire life of an emperor in his prime.

Third is the result of the first two factors: a strong interest group born from the reform.

Only with the existence of this interest group could reform gain continuous and robust support and prevent it from being overturned later.

However, Wenchuan’s reforms actually did not possess any of these three conditions.

The support of the royal power was actually very limited; the emperor only wanted to immediately see benefits from the reforms, such as a well-filled treasury and smooth governance, but he could not accept the problems arising from the reform process, such as the temporary emptiness of the national treasury or the mutual vilification and chaos in the imperial court.

Once problems arose, the emperor would begin to doubt the reforms and even grew suspicious of Wenchuan.

Wenchuan also lacked the luxury of time.

Setting aside the emperor’s issue for the moment, the Qi Dynasty was in a period of significant internal and external crises, with the northern powers covetously eyeing the south, ready to annihilate the Qi Dynasty at any moment. Wenchuan did not have a particularly stable window of opportunity, so many measures had to be taken in haste for quick results.

Because he was also worried that if he took his time, there simply wouldn’t be enough of it.

As for the third point, it was even more unattainable.

If, during the process of reform, Wenchuan could have gained the active support of the vast majority of peasants, or even obtained the support of a portion of the peasants and some wealthy merchants, then the reforms might have lasted longer, and the possibility of success would have been greater.

But in reality, Wenchuan’s reforms nearly offended all social strata, whether landlords, peasants, bureaucrats, or merchants, all held an absolute opposing stance to his reforms.

With this, his failure was predestined.

But if you think about it carefully, even if Wenchuan understood this, which social class could he have won over?

If he could have obtained the emperor’s unequivocal support and continued the reforms for decades, straightening out bureaucracy and allowing the benefits of the Green Seed Law to manifest, then he could indeed have won the support of the peasants, but clearly, he never had that chance.

"So are you saying... this was fundamentally an impossible mission?"

As Chuge analyzed back and forth, the thoughts in his mind grew clearer, but the hope for successful reform grew increasingly slim.

After much thought, there seemed to be only one path to successful reform.

That was to promote reform with unwavering royal power.

Either Wenchuan had to find a way to sideline the emperor and become the uncrowned king himself; or he had to be the emperor; or the emperor was an unparalleled sage who absolutely supported and trusted him.

Only by achieving these could one become qualified to discuss the details of reform.

But for Wenchuan, these were clearly impossible.

"I’m done with this!

"Why should I laboriously try to be Wenchuan, when this is just a game!

"Since being a good officer won’t save the Qi Dynasty, then I might as well be a corrupt one!"

This time, Chuge was genuinely angry.

As the top literary player, he had always relied on his profound historical knowledge and flexible mind to solve one instance after another, feeling very good about himself.

From Governor Lin to Emperor Taizu of Sheng, Chuge had always been able to find the optimal solution amidst the complex and chaotic situation.

But with Wenchuan, he was completely stuck.

When playing Governor Lin, although he had given up his own prospects, he managed to secure military supplies from the emperor and helped General Deng quell bandits;

And while playing Emperor Taizu of Sheng, even though he was tormented by mountains of documents and reports in his later years, he at least extended the reign of the Great Sheng Dynasty.

But what about Wenchuan?

After racking his brains, he found that every path was impassable.

In the end, not only was he exhausted, but he also had to take all the blame for the emperor and the other ministers, and be vilified for hundreds of years.

Why should I?

If this was reality, then Chuge indeed had no good solution.

He could either knowingly engage in a hopeless cause and follow Wenchuan’s old path, or he could choose to protect himself wisely, joining the conservatives, enjoying the high rank and rich rewards of the Qi Dynasty, wandering brothels, composing poetry, and living out his days in obscurity.

In fact, the methods employed by Wenchuan at the time were indeed the least bad options.

Although the aggressive implementation of new laws led to many peasants going bankrupt and becoming homeless, it also indeed filled the treasury of the Qi Dynasty, constructed many water conservancy projects throughout the country, and achieved some military victories in the northwest.

Although Wenchuan ultimately died in despair and the new laws were completely abolished, overall, he still managed to die with a clear conscience.

But Chuge was not Wenchuan; he had not been educated in Confucian thought and could be said to be a person without a father or a sovereign.

Wenchuan died with a clear conscience, but Chuge could not accept such an outcome.

Maybe if he followed Wenchuan’s old route, he could at least have obtained sufficient military resources and coordinated with Yu Jiaxuan to train a new army and win the battle at Niuzhu.

But what would be the point of that?

Too frustrating!

Since it’s a game and simply a simulation trial, why not play something more thrilling? Whether he cleared the stage or not didn’t matter for the moment; what was key was that he should have fun.

Thinking this, Chuge suddenly had a bold idea.

You all say I’m a treacherous minister?

You all say I’m involved in crony politics?

Fine, then I’ll be a treacherous minister for once! I’ll truly engage in crony politics!

After all, I’ve seen big treacherous ministers like Yan Maoqing in previous instances; wouldn’t I be able to learn from them?

The reforms might not succeed, but you old party ministers and this damned emperor, you’re all going to die!