Battle Royale of the Sinners

Within a few months after the coronation ceremony, several nobles displayed their dark side.

One of Tong's faction, a former Yellow Turban subordinate of Zhang Jiao, hired a group of assassins to kill Liu Xie's supporters. The group of rogues assaulted the official's residents at night.

Fortunately, Lu Zhi's systematic police forces were patrolling all official residential areas. They caught all assassins and saved the officer.

The mastermind was dragged out, and all culprits were executed in public along with their families.

A few days after the public execution, the police caught a group of thugs in Ye City. A son of a Liu Xie's supporter noble led a group of hoodlums to assault a daughter of an official, who was in Tong's faction.

The father of the offending young master was sacked from his post. The hoodlums were sentenced to work ten years in a Jinyang coal mine, while the young master was castrated and imprisoned for 20 years.

The police also caught a group of minor officials in a tavern, fighting in a brawl. The offenders had a debate about the political issues as they were on a different faction. In the end, it escalated into a physical fight.

All officials were released from their positions on the day they were arrested. They were banned from participating in any scholar activities for one year. However, they could rejoin the noble ranks again by working their way up from a worker class.

The police department was also not an exception to these outbreak crimes. FBI agents from Lu Zhi broke into a resident of a police supervisor, rescuing several young girls from his resident. Upon investigation and intelligence report from Sima Lang's men, this officer took bribes from Xiongnu slave merchants.

The arrested police officer was stripped of his title, noble tiers, and rank. Lu Zhi sentenced him 20 years of public service by working in Jinyang coal mines.

The Department of Justice's strictness towards the official increased with their number of newly graduated policemen from Julu. Furthermore, Te Langpu released a massive campaign and propaganda about police family welfare to recruit more police officers.

In July, 188 A.D., Ye City housed 20,000 garrisoning police officers and a thousand FBI agents. Julu became a capital city of the police academy as another batch of 20,000 policemen were being trained. All top students from the police classes were promoted into FBI trainees, which had a higher salary and noble tier.

This put the heated-infighting between the two factions to a hold. As the laws became more sacred, they were afraid of the consequences of their planned dirty deeds.

As such, over 90% crooked nobles aborted their secret plans. The rest of daredevils went through with it, but they met received their bad-endings as a result.

Then, a change occurred again within Liu Xie's faction.

Liu Ye, a 12-year-old scholar who aspired in machinery and war tools, managed to achieve a notable deed first.

Inspired by the prototype cannons, he combined the gunpowder technologies and used arrows instead of cannonballs as ammunition. Instead of using bronze as a primary resource to build a cannon, Liu Ye degraded it into something more procurable and more comfortable to make.

Liu Ye created a wooden platform arrow shooter, which could launch 200 arrows at once by igniting the fused gunpowder behind the arrows platform.

The wooden platform weapon was a wheeled cart with 200 tubes. It was 150cm tall and over three meters in length. The width was over a meter, and the platform dimension was 50cm x 80cm.

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Liu Ye brought his new invention and presented it to Tong and Liu Xie in Ye City's throne room. Although he kowtowed to both of them, his eyes were gleaming with pride and joy.

"Your majesty, your highness, I wish to present this new invention for you."

Liu Xie's eyes brighten in excitement, misunderstanding that this was a big toy.

"What's this called?"

"This is my prototype arrow cannon, your highness. This thing can shoot a hundred arrows at once with only a few crew members. The distance is also longer than the standard repeating crossbows!"

"Eh? A tool of war, huh?"

Liu Xie was disappointed. He thought that it would have been something that he could play, but it was just another weaponry.

The young boy was not fond of war and conflicts. As his mother died because of it, it left a scar in his mind. As a result, he hated wars.

Seeing the reaction of the prince, Liu Ye was disappointed. Then, he realized that Liu Xie was not matured enough to handle military warfare and official meetings.

Subconsciously, Liu Ye glanced at the new emperor in the golden robe, Tong.

Opposite from Liu Xie, Tong stared at the tool with widened eyes, impressed by the machine.

Tong recognized the machine structure. It was similar to Korea's invention, the hwacha.

A hwacha was a gunpowder-fused arrow launcher, used by Koreans in the 15th-century. During the period, Koreans utilized this with their fortification to repel the Japanese invaders and pirates.

Hwacha machines demonstrated their power in the 16th-century as 3,000 Korea soldiers and 40 hwachas managed to repel the invader army of 30,000 Japanese samurais in the Battle of Haengju.

For a non-cannon weapon, this hwacha worked best in ancient warfare where soldiers grouped together in a large army.

"What's your name, scholar?"

"M-My humble self is Liu Ye, Liu Ziyang, your majesty!"

"Oho! That explains a lot."

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Historically, Liu Ye was from Huainan, near Shouchun Commandery, south of Xiapi and Qiao, and east of Runan.

In 199, Zheng Bao, a bandit leader, attempted to migrate people from Jiujiang County south, crossing the Yangtze River. He tried to recruit Liu Ye, who had become famous in this region, but Liu Ye killed Zheng Bao instead.

Then, Liu Ye joined forces with Liu Xun in Lujiang, who was once Yuan Shu's subordinate and became his strategist.

In the same year, Sun Ce, who had conquered Jiangdong region after leaving Yuan Shu, asked Liu Xun for help. He wanted Liu Xun to attack Shangliao so that they could steal this county's supplies.

Liu Ye saw through Sun Ce's ploy, and he advised Liu Xun against it. Unfortunately, Liu Xun did not listen to Liu Ye. He accepted the bribes of Sun Ce and attacked Shangliao as he had been asked, which Sun Ce backstabbed him by attacking Liu Xun's Lujiang.

After losing Lujiang, Liu Ye abandoned Liu Xun and fled to the north, which he joined forces with Cao Cao and became one of his advisors.

Liu Ye participated in the campaign of Hanzhong in the later years. After Zhang Lu's had surrendered to Cao Cao, Liu Ye and Sima Yi urged Cao Cao to attack Yi Province of Liu Zhang. As they predicted that Liu Bei might claim this province in the future, he wanted Cao Cao to occupy it before Liu Bei could steal it.

Unfortunately, Cao Cao declined the suggestions, which Liu Bei took over the Yi Province as Liu Ye and Sima Yi had foreseen.

Liu Ye gave many critical advises to Cao Pi and Cao Rui, who succeeded in the legacy of Cao Cao. As luck was against this strategists, none of the emperors understood Liu Ye's value and mistreated him.

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Understanding Liu Ye's background in history, Tong did not want to repeat Cao Pi and Cao Rui's mistakes for misusing this strategist. Although Liu Ye was overshadowed by the genius Sima Yi, he was still a talented advisor in this era.

"How old are you this year?"

"T-Twelve, your majesty!"

"Since when have you moved into this city?"

"Err, about last year, your majesty. I migrated here with my parents."

"Is your father one of my official?"

"Y-Yes, your majesty. We are descendants of the Emperor Guangwu, so we're a noble family."

Emperor Guangwu was the founder of the Eastern Han Dynasty, which he reclaimed the throne from Emperor Wang Mang, who had usurped the throne and ended the Western Han Era.

"So, you also have the royalty bloodline, right?"

"I-I won't dare! We're just distance descendants from a concubine. We wouldn't dare to claim the bloodline!"

Tong glanced at Liu Xie, who was younger than Liu Ye. A new idea came to his mind.

"You see, Liu Ye, I like your invention, and I think that it will benefit our dynasty in the future. Unfortunately, I can't promote you into a domestic officer or give you a position at your age, or other seniors will bully you and destroy your future. But, I can give you something that can protect yourself from all harms."

Tong patted Liu Xie's shoulder, "My son doesn't have many friends, and he still lacks worldly experience. How about it, Liu Ye? Will you accept the position of my son's private tutor and be his friend?"

All scholars and officials were in an uproar. They raised their hands to protest without caring if Liu Ye was one of their faction or not. All of them shouted, offering themselves as Liu Xie's tutor instead.

Tong rolled his eyes as he was tired of these greedy officials. He fired a bullet at the ceiling, leaving another mark next to the old bullet hole.

"STFU, all of you! You haven't done shit, and you want to steal a child's promotion? Shame on you!"

All officials receded and bowed in shame. Their faces blushed when they recalled that Liu Ye was still only 12.

"Listen up. Liu Ye's creation can improve our military prowess by another step! None of you might be able to see what it can do, but I can tell that this will benefit us in the long term! Because of this, I deem Liu Ye's achievement that it's on par with Te Langpu and Li Feihong's cannons. I'm going to give him the crown prince's royal tutor as a reward as a prime example of his merit. If there is anyone who wants a promotion in my court, you'll have to earn it like him! Do you understand me!?"

All 1,000 officials in the throne room knelt and bowed, "We understand, your majesty!"

"Xun Yu, help Liu Ye migrate into our military system and train him as a strategist when he's free from his tutor job. As for this invention, I want both of you to draft a blueprint so that we can develop them. I want to build 500 of these for each of our city and county!"

Xun Yu walked forward from the side. He bowed without saying a word. However, he glanced at Liu Ye with curiosity.

'Placing Liu Ye with Liu Xie will turn him into the royalist faction by default. Does his majesty want to balance the power scale between factions?'

Currently, Tong's supporter faction overwhelmed the loyalist faction as Tong controlled both his subordinates and the police. Adding a genius child into Liu Xie's side would naturally boost this faction's strength in the future.

'Well, it's another weird move from his majesty. Let's see what he's planning.'

As such, Tong obtained another talented officer into his ranks.

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The news about a 12-year-old child promoted into the crown prince's tutor spread. Because of the achievement of Liu Ye, more scholars had hopes that if a child could obtain rewards by hard work, so could they!

After that month, scholars, researchers, blacksmiths, carpenters, and nobles were in frantic, trying to create something new and beneficial for the army.

The officials in Tong and Liu Xie's faction also did not sit still. They scrambled to find talented people to join their side, hoping to find diamonds in the rough. Both sides also competed to gain a better achievement than the others without bothering hindering their growth.

The productivity boost from the political rivalry system began taking effects.