Chapter 132: The Black Tortoise Gate Plaque: The Struggle for the Heir Has Always Been Like This!

Outside, seeing Wang Cheng join forces with that core faction of the Tanka people, Mao Haifeng's expression gradually grew gloomy.

Although this escaped fish seemed to pose no threat to him at all, barely half a day after returning, it made him feel that the situation, which had previously been entirely within his grasp, was beginning to slip out of control.

Turning around, he strode toward another small circle enclosed by screens, found his trusted confidants from the Black Peak Banner, and spoke with an icy expression:

"I cannot afford to make amateur mistakes and give that foolish boy any further opportunities to jump around! I must break through to the top three tiers as soon as possible."

Clenching his teeth, he fished an ancient plaque out of the Cosmos Pouch at his waist. The three characters "Xuanwu Gate" were conspicuously inscribed upon it.

[Miraculous Object: Xuanwu Gate Plaque (A National Treasure)]
[Anchored to the history of the ascension of Emperor Taizong of Tang—the Prince of Qin, Grand Commandant, Minister of Works, Director of the Secretariat, Imperial Chancellor, Director of the Secretariat of the Shangdong Circuit Grand Administrative Office, Director of the Secretariat of the Yizhou Circuit Administrative Office, Governor of Yongzhou, Supreme Pillar of State, General of Heavenly策, and the strongest biological entity on the planet in the 7th century.]
[Effect: Whoever wins is the Crown Prince!]
[Upon killing or thoroughly defeating an opponent, one will be tacitly acknowledged by other key figures within the same regime as the successor to the nation and other factions. The will of the people will follow, and the momentum will be unstoppable.]
[At the same time, one inherits the brother's peerage, widow, property, and so on.]
[The competitors are not limited to the Crown Prince; they can also include any faction leader, high-ranking official, or successor.]
[Prerequisite: One must possess the qualification to vie for that position ab initio. Even if a minor figure successfully assassinates the Crown Prince or leader, they will not be recognized.]

Mao Haifeng's palm lightly brushed across the plaque, and his ears were suddenly filled with the fierce, tragic cries of battle that transcended a millennium, further hardening his intent to kill.

"When Wang Cheng's incident happened in November of the 39th year of Shaozhi last year, he hadn't yet ignited his heart lamp. Now it is merely March of the 40th year of Shaozhi, a full four months at most. It would already be impressive if he managed to advance to the seventh rank. Taking advantage of the fact that he is still unprepared and causing him to suffer an accidental death requires nothing more than a few words from me; it is no more troublesome than crushing an ant."

Turning his head toward [The Mountain-Carrying General] Sun Xiong, he instructed him:

"Didn't you say that a female assassin has recently been frequently active in Pinghu Port, assassinating our men? And she even went near your home? This person is definitely an enemy of our Five Peaks Banner. Do not capture her just yet. Tonight, you will personally patrol the city, bring along a few elite experts from the middle three tiers, and drive her toward the Litan Hall where the Heir Apparent resides! Take advantage of the fact that it isn't dark yet and make your arrangements now. I will have the garrison under our control cooperate with you. Once tonight passes, there will be no such opportunity again. Which assassin could resist snapping up such a big fish served on a silver platter? It just so happens that the diplomatic mission will arrive in Yingzhou tomorrow. Whether they come directly to Pinghu Port or go to other *daimyo* who have tally-trade relations with us, we can pin the blame entirely on them. Then we can pull out the naval fleet and slaughter them all!"

This [Black Qilin] truly possessed the qualities of an ambitious warlord, being sufficiently decisive not to wait even a single day before resorting to borrowing a knife to kill someone.

His gaze seemed to pierce through the screen to look at Wang Cheng in the other corner of the grand hall.

"Don't blame me. The struggle for the heir apparent has always been this way. Rest in peace."

On the other side, Wang Cheng was holding forth eloquently before his core team:

"The first category is the nominal selector group—people who can nominally choose the new Prince of Jinghai, but in reality have zero influence on upper-level power struggles. Look at our Five Peaks Banner; they are actually the ordinary ship captains, skippers, elite Five Peaks guards, gunners, and rigging sailors of the naval fleet... Under the collective-power system, they seem to be the most powerful force and the foundation of the entire Five Peaks Banner, yet their strength is dispersed and they cannot unite. They cannot concentrate their power to accomplish major tasks and can only further lean upward to depend on middle-level managers. If placed in the Great Zhao Dynasty, they are equivalent to the gentry and powerful clans everywhere. Nominally, they are extremely important to Great Zhao; they are the true 'people,' claiming to jointly rule the world with the masters of the state. Yet, as for who ultimately sits on the throne in successive dynasties—even when a foreign vassal inherits the grand succession—they do not have the slightest bit of participation right."

Everyone present was a "survivor" who had fought their way up from the humblest beginnings. After a brief moment of thought, they verified that these words were true based on their many years of what they had seen and heard. Just like many groups in reality whose voices might be very loud, they were actually utterly useless.

They suddenly felt that this summary was extremely brilliant, refining accidental experience into systematic theory in a single phrase, giving a profound sense of parting the clouds to see the sun.

Marveling at Wang Cheng's keen insight, they all nodded in agreement:

"Indeed so."

Wang Cheng continued:

"The second category is the actual selector group. These people are the ones who can truly determine the ownership of the throne. For instance, the Five Peaks Banner generals, commanders, the Thirty-Six Fierce Warriors, the Twenty-Four Generals who control at least one naval fleet or at most an entire faction—such as the [Black Qilin] Mao Haifeng, the [Thousand-Gold Peddler] Xu Weixue, and the [Credit-Knife Monger] Peng Laosheng. They are akin to the grand councillors of the Great Zhao Cabinet, the interest-aligned imperial clansmen, the eunuchs of the inner court, the heads of the six ministries, and the group of nobility. As long as it is not a time of dynastic transition, whether or not these powerful figures give their support is the key to whether the Emperor can securely sit on the dragon throne! Similarly, whether through literary debates, martial struggles, or compromises of interest, these people within the Five Peaks Banner are the ones who can truly decide who the second Prince of Jinghai will be. They are the actual selectors. Even if they trot out the nominal selectors—who possess the strongest physical strength—to fight, the former will not express their own thoughts, and even if they disagree in their hearts, they will not resist."

Wang Cheng spoke in one breath.

"The third category is the winning coalition group. The winning coalition comes from the actual selectors who can truly play a key role. It is simply that their factions differ; they are the community of shared interests that will fully support a certain successor's ascension. Since ancient times, almost no Crown Prince in the second generation of any dynasty has succeeded by the proper order of succession; rather, quite a few have perished with the second generation. Unstable laws and unpredictable popular sentiment give opportunistic schemers an opening. Which of them—my sworn brother the [Thousand-Gold Peddler] Xu Weixue, who is never satisfied with current maritime merchant interests, or the [Credit-Knife Monger] Peng Laosheng, who is accustomed to preying on the black market—does not want a share of the pie? Or even seize the nest of the magpie? To them, the core backbone of the same faction is their winning coalition. To me, born likewise among the Tanka people, all of you who watched me grow up are my winning coalition—we rise and fall together, sharing honor and disgrace! If someone else takes power, you will also be the first batch of 'former dynasty veterans' to be purged."

"Next, the matter becomes crystal clear. The true essence of seizing power is to unite one's own winning coalition, vie for the other actual selectors, and wipe out competitors and the actual selectors belonging to their command. Mobilize all resources to strike directly at the vitals, applying every ounce of resource to the cutting edge! As for the nominal selector group, which is the most numerous and possesses the strongest physical force, it is sufficient to appease them with a plausible excuse. Playing at so-called populism is essentially just performing a persona. The hearts of people in this world have always been thus: as long as their lives and fortunes are not involved, whoever ultimately wins is whom they will help. Fortunately, my father is called Wang Cheng! The righteous cause represented by this name is already sufficient to give the entire nominal selector group the most irrefutable justification."

"The Wen Emperor, the Taizong of our current dynasty, is a living example. When he raised troops in the Jingnan campaign, most parts of the country were enjoying peace and prosperity; whether the imperial clan internal struggle ended in victory or defeat had nothing to do with the gentry lords. In any case, whoever won would eventually have to employ them."

The hall fell into a heavy silence!

Not only were Dong Piao and Zhang San struck speechless with astonishment, but even Shui Rou and Huang Yuanzhou, who had long known Wang Cheng's true face and ruthless methods, felt as though they were meeting their young master anew.

On the other side, Old Tail Dragon had once followed two epoch-shaking figures: "Louse-Mother Immortal" Zou Pusheng and "Unifying the Realm" Liu Bowen. While he might not have possessed great personal might, his experience and vision were far beyond what ordinary people could compare to.

Having merely listened to these fundamental viewpoints, he knew that his young master truly had substance in his belly. Furthermore, these ideas subtly transcended a single "feudal autocratic" system; once adopted, they could be applied in various organizations and polities to wage political storms time and again, and even subvert the regimes of minor nations.

In the future, even founding a school of thought of his own did not seem like an Arabian night—this was true imperial learning, the art of slaying dragons!

Compared to those lofty moral principles of classical texts, the practicality of this body of knowledge was vastly higher.

Huang Yuanzhou and Shui Rou at this time also appropriately recounted some of the major events he had orchestrated in Moon Port, omitting Wang Fuguan's identity and interpersonal relationships, and simply picking what could be said.

Even though it was only a glimpse of the whole, the expressions of the other three changed repeatedly.

They could no longer connect the current Heir Apparent with that mediocre Wang Cheng of the past—one so utterly unremarkable he could even be called a "dog son of a tiger father."

In a daze, it seemed as though they were watching another, younger and even more high-spirited "Prince of Jinghai" steadily rising.

Old Tail Dragon sighed:

"Young Master, your return this time has truly exceeded this old servant's expectations by a wide margin. To speak disrespectfully, although the Master possesses formidable strength, his judgment in reading people has never been particularly good. But now it seems that the one he misjudged most was not the imperial court, but you, his successor! None of them looked favorably upon you, yet you are the one who strives the hardest! Even with an innate bone-weight of only two Liang and eight Qian, with this breadth of vision and knowledge, you are still entirely capable of accomplishing a great enterprise."

Dong Piao and Zhang San nodded in agreement.

To say nothing of the major events accomplished at Moon Port, simply being able to utter such words was enough for them to risk their lives and accompany him in a high-stakes gamble.

Since ancient times, China has had the saying: "First fate, second luck, third feng shui, fourth accumulating hidden virtue, fifth studying books."

"Destiny and chart" refer to the innate astrological destiny matrix composed of the four pillars and eight characters, and bone-weight is also calculated based on the eight characters.
"Qi-luck" refers to a person's cyclical fortune through the years.
"Destiny" and "luck" combined are called fate, which jointly determines a person's glory, disgrace, ups, and downs throughout life, as well as their fateful encounters.
For ordinary people, once born, the eight characters of their birth time are fixed, and the "destiny and chart" cannot be altered, but "qi-luck" has ebbs and flows.
"Destiny" can be seen as the carriage, and "luck" can be seen as the road. Carriages can be divided into good ones and broken ones, and roads also have broad highways and winding paths.
A broken carriage traveling on a broad highway may still achieve small successes, while a fine carriage driven on a winding path may remain destitute for a lifetime.
Studying books and understanding principles is equivalent to learning how to drive a carriage, allowing one to travel faster and steadier under the same carriage and road conditions.
At the crossroads of critical life nodes, every single choice has the potential to alter one's destiny.

It was just uncertain what kind of expression they would wear if they learned that Wang Cheng, who had not yet reached the age of twenty, had already begun setting his sights on the entire world, writing books and establishing doctrines, aiming to be the very first person in the Great Zhao to open his eyes and look at the world.

And this was not the end.

Wang Cheng's voice turned low:

"Gentlemen, you were all my father's most trusted brothers and confidants during his lifetime. What are your views on his being ambushed and besieged to his death last year?"

[The Storyteller] Dong Piao's expression turned stern:

"There must be foul play afoot in this matter!"

This Seventh Uncle originated from one of the Four Great Garrisons of Great Zhao, possessing an innate talent, and he never let anyone's words drop to the floor.

Wang Cheng couldn't help thinking to himself that if he were to introduce "Miscellany of Ballad Arts" to him,
would this Seventh Uncle, who was a cultural worker possessing profound literary culture, be able to pioneer a brand-new performance track and become the founding grandmaster of cross-talk—initiating speaking, mimicking, teasing, singing, smoking, drinking, and perming?
And in a short period of time, soar directly into the top three tiers of the [Living Ghost and Deity] realm?

Third Uncle Zhang picked up the thread beside him, his form of address shifting unconsciously:

"Young Fleet Master, actually the few of us have always suspected there was a mole.
Big Brother took a full naval fleet when he went to the appointment back then, dividing it into front and rear detachments. Mao Haifeng went ahead to negotiate, and only after confirming everything was fine did Big Brother go ashore, and then the incident occurred.
Mao Haifeng came back saying he had also encountered an ambush at sea, and that he was delayed from providing rescue because he had fought a pitched battle with the Great Zhao naval forces.
Then he gave the order to summon the large ship captains from all locations back to Yingzhou, claiming he wanted to avenge the Old Fleet Master, while also beginning to recruit soldiers and horses and win over some of the Twenty-Four Generals and Thirty-Six Fierce Warriors.
Although his ambition is vast and his suspicion is heavy, after all, he is Big Brother's adopted son, and the things he does are faultless on the surface, so many people flirt with him and cast him glances.
It wasn't until the news of your successful escape was passed back that we finally managed to stabilize popular support once more."

Wang Cheng did not beat around the bush, directly pointing out their primary enemy at present:

"Your suspicions are correct.
I have confirmed that the person within the Five Peaks Banner who colluded with a noble personage of the Han family imperial clan, certain gentry, and the pure-stream patrolling Censor Wang Bengu is none other than Mao Haifeng!
Whether or not I become the Prince of Jinghai is of little consequence, but this ungrateful wolf must die!"