On the eighth day of the twelfth lunar month, Gu Yun secretly sent envoys to ‘visit’ the Dongying and Nanyang islands. So far, the front line had been on a stalemate for more than three months. Some fronts had been expanded under the constant struggle of both sides, the flame of war had spread from Jiangbei to the thirteen counties in Jiangnan, even to Guangdong and Guangxi.

      A large number of people who refused to abandon their ancestors' land and cross the river began to form their own militia. Although the common folk mechanics did not have Ziliujin, they tried every way to replace it with coal and explosive powder as fuel, and forged a number of less fancy military equipment in various ways.

      These equipment did not have much variety, hence Ling Shu Institute announced the establishment of many branches all over the country to exchange and teach technologies outside of the highly confidential military type.

      The far-reaching impact of the war also gradually emerged.

      Fang Qin never thought that it wasn't the Yan Wang Party that would break the peace in the court, but the pure officials of the two courts——

      Great Liang's Autumn Examination hosted once every three years happened this year. Because of the war, it was interrupted in the middle, then continued to be delayed for some time; only until January did the names of the people who passed were released, gathered into a "Plum List", which was nicknamed "Moldy List" by scholars all over the country.

*”Plum(梅)” and “Mold(霉)” are homophones, both pronounced as méi

      Less than three days after the announcement, a scholar in Shaanxi Province committed suicide. The officials dared not let troubles happen at this key moment, trying their best not to report it to the superiors. However, suppressing it for a few days, when the grand meeting of the imperial court was dismissed, someone stopped at the gate of the imperial platform wanting to report it to the emperor.

      This was a long story.

      Yan Wang went to Jiangnan twice, cut off countless heads, and issued the most severe administrative governance* to date, which made the serious and ever-growing problem of corruption in Great Liang from the Yuan He Dynasty to decline for a while. In these few years of war, even the Imperial Palace was tightening the spending, the official salaries had to be reduced again and again, plus the Feng Huo tickets had made it worse, being closely linked with the assessment of the administrative governance; it was no different than closing the source but opening the outlet. The life of officials had never been so difficult in the past hundreds of years.

*in an administrative governance(吏治), the ministers and other members of the court are merely civil servants who can only implement policy, but not make them

      There was a saying: it was easy to go from poverty to extravagance, but difficult the other way around. When it involves the large possessions of gold and silver, no one would care about ‘everyone is responsible for the rise and fall of the country’.

      But even if life was difficult, there's no other way. No one dared to receive gifts. Everyone knew that Yan Wang was behind the rich merchants, receiving something incorrectly would perhaps turn the gift into a life-claiming token. No one dared to dip their hands in the military expenses. The taxes after the reform was also impossible to touch, and there was no need to mention the relief funds for natural disasters, the heads of Yang Rong Gui and his party had yet to become bones.