Sage Monarch (Sage Emperor)

How could Yang Qi not realize what the confucians were really up to? In order to create his government, he’d carefully studied innumerable civilizations that had existed throughout history. Considering how huge the god world was, and the countless nations that existed within it, it begged the question of exactly how many civilizations that included. And that was taking in billions upon billions of years of history.

Yang Qi had studied them all carefully.

Only then did he set his targets on the confucians.

They were the best at running governments, so much so that it was pointless to mention them in the same breath as devils or demons. The latter didn’t care about order at all. With them, the law of the jungle prevailed, and the weak were the prey of the strong. Chaos reigned. The daoists and buddhists were slightly better, but not much, and they were always plagued by corruption.

The confucians were the only ones who espoused knowledge, and constantly maintained the spark of civilization. However, no matter how well they ran things, they could never avoid the maxim that all things start to crumble after reaching the zenith.

Yang Qi’s sage monarch magistrates possessed the quintessence of the confucians, but at the same time, had removed any last bit of rubbish that their teachings contained. The infiltrating confucians had a simple plan: spread knowledge, then stir up public sentiment with falsehoods. Seize power, then usurp the Son of Heaven and turn him into nothing but a tool to be manipulated. Then they could seize the destiny of the nation and form a truly confucian empire.

That was how confucians had done things in all of the countless civilizations in which they existed. And the empires in which they operated were helpless to do anything about them.

Any truly mighty emperor who wanted to control his empire would have to call on the help of the confucians. And they would surreptitiously infiltrate every aspect of the government, until they controlled the emperor himself.

Even the Sovereign Lord had fallen victim to their scheme.

He had used numerous confucians in his government, and they had eventually tried to seize power. Sadly for them, he had, in his fury, executed almost all of them. Unfortunately, the removal of the confucians created a huge power vacuum, and in the end, the entire thing was destroyed.

It had really been a lose-lose situation.

The reason Yang Qi was allowing the confucians into his empire, and was even going so far as to encourage them to establish schools of learning, was that the more order they created, the more sage monarch magistrates he would get. In the end, he would force them to accept his rulership and do away with confucian thinking, or at least the negative aspects. For instance, there would be no cliques or interest groups, and there would be no sharing of imperial power.

He would let them spread knowledge as long as it benefited him, but he wouldn’t let them have any true influence.

When the confucians finally entered his empire, it was to their shock that they found things were very different than they had imagined. There were already countless schools of learning, in which instruction was given in reading, writing, language, daoist techniques, divine abilities, magical laws, machinery, culture, cultivation, godhood, and even business.

Even more astonishing to the confucians was that the students had the option to study whatever interested them.

They had originally envisioned marching into the empire, setting up schools, and getting masses of students to flock to them for learning. Then they could use those schools to propagate their philosophy and subtly promote their own way of doing things. However, contrary to expectation, there were already a host of schools in existence. And everyone in the empire had the option to attend classes.

When the confucians set up their schools, people would flock to them to learn divine abilities and magical techniques. But when they tried spreading their unique way of thinking, not a single student would attend their classes.

The reason was that Yang Qi’s way of thinking had long since permeated the land, and everyone was used to giving their faith to the empire. In fact, they didn’t even give faith to their emperor. In this empire, even the emperor was beholden to the law.

And of course, the sage monarch magistrates saw to it that everything ran according to the law.

Soon, the confucians and their existing students started protesting. They complained that the sage monarch magistrates didn’t run things properly, and were too strict, taking away the freedom of the people in the empire.

The leaders of the empire quickly sent this news to Yang Qi.

Of course, he had simply been waiting for this to happen, and had already prepared a response. Thus, it was announced that there would be debate competitions in every college in the empire! And the debates would be held between the sage monarch magistrates and the confucian disciples!

They would talk about politics, national identity, issues among the citizens, history, civilization, and a host of other topics. Everyone in the empire was invited to attend, and they were encouraged to listen to whoever made the most sense. It was a fair arrangement, and the confucian disciples had to admit that it made sense. If the empire had tried to suppress them, they would have incited further unrest, but instead, they were given a chance to speak their mind in the open, in front of the eyes of all.

Soon, the debates were underway everywhere.

Almost immediately, the confucians were flabbergasted by how ineffective their arguments were. There was no way that they could call themselves sages of any sort. As it turned out, even the average citizens in the empire were extremely knowledgeable, and would often ask questions that were so difficult the confucians found themselves tongue-tied and unable to respond.

When the sage monarch magistrates taught classes, they would encourage debate, regardless of the topic at hand. And they taught classes in a witty and interesting manner, constantly quoting the classics and teaching in a way that surpassed any of the confucians.

After all, the sage monarch magistrates were a collective that contained knowledge from innumerable civilizations. Their understanding of everything from mathematical calculations to daoist techniques actually surpassed that of the God-Lords.

Each sage monarch magistrate was like an embodiment of the heavenly workings calculations systems, and they could perform functions that would normally take hosts of photonic computers working together to do. The sage monarch magistrates were good at everything. For example, when common citizens had problems with their cultivation, or had personal disputes, they could always seek answers from the magistrates.

They weren’t just administrators, they were also all-knowing teachers. In fact, most people in the empire didn't view the sage monarch magistrate as government officials, but rather as tools, or expressions of the law.

The confucians’ entire plan had revolved around getting people to think of the sage monarch magistrates as cold-hearted, inhuman machines that weren’t fit to serve as officials. Simultaneously, they would set themselves up as all-knowing sages who were worthy of respect and even worship. By slowly changing the hearts of the people, they would then be able to seize power.

But now, they realized that wouldn’t be possible. In fact, the truth was that they couldn’t match up to many of the common citizens, let alone the sage monarch magistrates.

As the debate competitions continued, the confucians lost over and over again.

“Ai! Another confucian lost a debate. They're always struck speechless by the sage monarch magistrates.”

“Those confucians want to be teachers? They can’t even hold their own in a debate. They're completely useless. They probably ought to study history a bit more.”

“That’s right. It's really a pity. We haven’t even been alive that long, yet we've been taught so much by the sage monarch magistrates. We know of the downsides of all sorts of civilizations, and we've identified our own dao. We're actually superior to those pedantic confucians. And they want to be in charge of us?”

“What? The confucians want to be in charge? You've got to be kidding me!”

Such talk could even be heard among children in the empire who were only a few years old.

The Sage Monarch Empire hadn’t existed for long, but time passed differently in the Everlasting Aegis. There had already been several generations of children born.

“It would be better to have pigs in charge than them. Even we can beat them in a debate, and they want to run things? Yeah right. Our sage monarch magistrates are trillions of times superior to them. Ai. What a ridiculous situation.”

“Maybe if they put in a few more years of study, they might reach the same level as us ordinary citizens of the Sage Monarch Empire.”

The debates went so poorly for the confucians that many were coughing up blood in shock. Of course, the failure of the debates shook the foundations of many of the confucians.

With this one move, Yang Qi had broken their dao hearts.

A few months went by, and while the confucians continued teaching classes, they hadn’t made any progress in establishing a power base. In fact, most people just made fun of them for their lack of knowledge.

The sage monarch magistrates were like mountains that absolutely crushed the confidence of the confucians. Confucians didn’t fear military conflict, nor did they fear death.

Yet when it came to debate, they were flummoxed. And that went to show how deeply they were shaken internally. In fact, because of the debates, Yang Qi was actually learning more about the governing of nations.

Deep in his heart, radiance and light shone, and he felt as though he was just on the verge of grasping at the half-Annulled.