Dark Sand: My Players Are All Actors
Chapter 294 - 217 Conspiracy and Open Scheme _4

Chapter 294: Chapter 217 Conspiracy and Open Scheme _4

"Then, in Minister Wang’s opinion, from where should I start?"

Chuge paused slightly before speaking, "Please lend me the Wude Bureau for a use, Your Majesty."

...

Not long after Chuge returned to his mansion, Liu Zhi’en, the top officer of the Wude Bureau, arrived.

The face of this high eunuch was clearly filled with confusion and bewilderment.

Because he truly could not understand why the Emperor had sent him to find this obstinate official, what was the reason.

Chuge smiled slightly and said to Liu Zhi’en, "Master Liu, please have a seat."

The so-called Wude Bureau, was a spy agency directly under the emperor of the Qi Dynasty.

Unlike the Jinyi Guard of the Great Sheng Dynasty, the power of the Wude Bureau was actually very limited. Due to the ancestral teaching of the Qi Dynasty that "punishments should not extend to high officials," the environment for scholars was very relaxed, and they hardly suffered any severe persecution.

Even if the Wude Bureau caught criminals, they still had to send the suspects to the Ministry of Justice for sentencing.

At that time, even the emperor had no way to deal with these scholars, let alone the Wude Bureau.

Thus, although the Wude Bureau was a spy agency responsible for palace guards and spying, it actually had no significant effect on the matters of the court and had a very subtle presence in history.

In the Qi Dynasty, this agency was highly despised.

Within the court, since the Wude Bureau reported directly to the Emperor and was not under the jurisdiction of any ministers, including ministers like Wen Jun, who repeatedly submitted memorials to impeach and severely criticize it; in the civilian population, the Wude Bureau was also scorned by the common people. Anyone with a bit of prospects would not take a position in the Wude Bureau, let alone talented scholars.

This led to the members of the Wude Bureau, or its peripheral members, being mostly thugs and hoodlums who, under the Emperor’s banner, bullied the market, committed all sorts of evil, tarnished the Bureau’s reputation, and left the Emperor unable to raise his head in front of the scholars.

The Emperor did not want to abolish the Wude Bureau so he eventually compromised by limiting the Bureau’s operations area to the capital.

Although Chuge had assured the Emperor that he would take down these old factions, he still had to carefully consider how to do so.

Blunt actions were definitely not an option; if an official had not committed a crime but was forcefully framed, it was too obvious and could easily provoke an attack from other old factions.

At that time, the Emperor would also be left in a difficult position.

However, if there was evidence of guilt, carrying out such actions would be much more justified.

Whether to collect evidence of guilt or to fabricate it, the Wude Bureau was an essential agency to have at hand.

Since the establishment of the Qi Dynasty, the Wude Bureau had always played a role and had always been cursed by the civil officials and scholars.

In the eyes of the original Wang Wenchuan, this was obviously a detestable spy agency, unlikely to be seen favorably.

But in Chuge’s view, the problem with the Wude Bureau was not that it did too much, but that it did too little.

This agency had not fulfilled its proper role.

Thinking this, Chuge, acting as Wang Wenchuan, directly threw a memorial into Liu Zhi’en’s hands.

Liu Zhi’en was startled for a moment, then took a closer look.

"On the Patrol Inspections of the Officers of Wude Bureau," author, Wen Jun.

This was a memorial previously submitted by Wen Jun to impeach the Wude Bureau to the Emperor.

Liu Zhi’en glanced over it roughly and looked up at Chuge, acting as Prime Minister Wang, "Prime Minister Wang, what is this..."

He was completely confused by the unconventional moves of Wang Wenchuan.

Chuge smiled slightly and picked up a small section of the memorial to read aloud, "’I have heard that the Wude Bureau secretly dispatches patrols to listen to the public speak ill of the government, arresting and punishing those who do. They also post rewards to encourage people to arrest those who slander the government. I do not know whether the politics of the saintly emperors and wise kings of ancient times were ever like this?’

"This is a memorial previously submitted by Wen Jianyi impeaching the Wude Bureau for their unlawful behavior, arbitrary actions, framing and slandering, and creating crimes out of words.

"Master Liu, if the Emperor truly listened to Wen Jianyi’s words, abolished the Wude Bureau, and arrested and severely dealt with the criminals within it, how would you manage then?"