Star Gate

Chapter 195: Joint Administration From Nine Ministries (III)

Various thoughts floated to the fore of Li Hao’s mind. He gazed upon rises and falls of the grassy plain around them, watching wild rabbits cross the road. Trees lined the road, some withered away, some snapped into two. It didn’t seem likely that anyone was maintaining this road either.

“Silver Moon’s not too chaotic, so why is the provincial government so lax when it comes to the surroundings around the cities?” asked Li Hao. The others might understand this, but he truly didn’t.

“The supernatural world appeared twenty years ago and the Night Watchers were formed after that.” Being a White Moon native and hailing from a powerful family, Wang Ming more or less knew some of the particulars. “The agency’s formation didn’t have much of an impact at first, but as the land’s powerhouses grew stronger, the Night Watchers needed to wield more authority.

“Conflict already existed between the provincial council, army headquarters, and Night Watchers. While it wasn't large-scale conflict, it existed all the same, particularly from the provincial council. The provincial council directly answers to the dynastic government, yet the Night Watchers are under the Inspectorate. Though they’re not of the same system, the provincial council has long wished to take Night Watcher reins. And so some clashes occurred...”

Li Hao looked on silently. It looked like struggles for power were inevitable no matter where one was.

“Has Skystar Dynasty lost control over the provinces?” the young man continued asking.

“I don’t know,” Wang Ming answered with a half smile. “They say that roughly twenty provinces are still under dynastic control. But apart from that, the dynasty does not exercise authority in the other regions.”

Three-fourths of their domain was out of control! This exceeded Li Hao’s expectations! He’d thought that only a province here or there was disorderly, but to think that all of the others were intractable apart from two dozen!

Skystar Dynasty was the first dynasty in all of history to unify the land. When it came to unification, one didn’t mean just a few provinces—it was all of the central plains! Everything beneath the heavens had been conquered!

Only some of the more remote kingdoms, such as the Great Li Dynasty, were deemed too small and too far to be worth the effort. Separated by multiple mountain ranges, they remained unconquered.

It’d taken fifty years of battle to conquer the land and establish the dynasty. It was nearly two hundred years since its founding and the imperial family had long retreated behind the scenes.

Eighty years ago, Skystar Dynasty proposed a system of joint administration from nine ministries. The imperial family then stepped behind the curtains to enjoy the fruits of their labor, but no longer participated in actual government. That was given over to the nine ministries, of which one was the Inspectorate!

Of course, not a small branch like the one in Silver City, but its headquarters. Even now, the Night Watchers were grouped under the Inspectorate. It was a testament to its strength that it could stand toe-to-toe with the dynasty’s military faction and local army.

The local army was relevant only to Silver Moon—it answered to the Ministry of Military Justice. All of the dynasty’s military power answered to this ministry.

The Ministry of the Inspectorate was in charge of local security. In some ways, it was weaker than Military Justice, but it oversaw more matters and thus boasted of more personnel in its ranks. It was more deeply involved in the dynasty’s particulars.

“The Night Watchers are still the government’s only official supernatural agency,” Wang Ming continued. “But I hear that the central region is starting to build other supernatural agencies! The Skystar Troops that the Ministry of Military Justice is forming are said to be all supernaturals.

“The Ministry of Administration is creating a Supervisory Office, apparently to recruit supernaturals.

“The Ministry of Commerce is establishing the Trade Security Committee, also to recruit supernaturals...”

Li Hao listened intently, these were the trends of the times! He hadn’t paid attention or cared about them before. He’d yet to explore all of Silver City, much less the world. The world was big, far too big! Many were those who never walked out of Silver City, and if they did, many were those who never walked out of Silver Moon!

What central region, what nine ministries, what imperial family... Everything was far too removed.

“Then why don’t all of the ministries build up the Night Watchers together?” he asked.

“Heh!” Wang Ming laughed, as did Yuan Shuo and the others.

“Such is balance!” Yuan Shuo called out. “You’re too young, Li Hao. The Inspectorate is just one of the nine ministries. The supernatural wasn’t that strong when the agency was first formed, so it was fine to give it jurisdiction over the supernatural world. But now that the supernatural grows stronger by the day, do you think the other eight ministries are comfortable letting the Inspectorate oversee all of that domain?”

Very well then! Li Hao understood the logic, but he still felt that the government should concentrate its strength when facing the various supernatural organizations. It was too decentralized as things stood.

“Have the three great organizations grown so powerful?” The young man frowned. “To a certain degree, most of the ninety-nine provinces still listen to the nine ministries. Add to that hot weapons that operate on a large scale... are we unable to bring the three great organizations to heel?”

“It’s not that simple!” Yuan Shuo was the one to answer as he had more knowledge. “We’re not sure how strong the three great organizations are either, and they definitely have some provincial backing! The provinces use them to plague the central region and curb the dynasty’s power. They seek independence and supply intelligence, weapons, people, and resources to the organizations. Meanwhile, the organizations are comprised of supernaturals with perplexing methods of operation and numerous heavyweights. Thus, it’s hard to eliminate them!”

There wasn’t a singular, straightforward reason for why the supernatural world had risen to such prominence. An important reason was that it had significant backing. The dynasty had been in control for two hundred years and ruled over ten billion people. Troubled times were upon the world and Skystar was losing control. Many ambitious characters hoped for the world to grow even more chaotic and for the government to fully lose control!

This was common knowledge, but what of it? There was no evidence of anyone’s ulterior motives, and even if there was, the highly placed personages ready to mutiny had long made their preparations. A chain reaction would occur as soon as they were threatened.

The entire world would spontaneously collapse.

“I will not make considerations or pass judgment since I do not sit in that position!” sighed Li Hao as he didn’t fully understand their rationale. “Based on my thoughts, governance by the nine ministries is an optimal system. Apparently, the times were truly chaotic eighty years ago when the imperial family still held power. No one checked their authority and they randomly killed innocents, haphazardly proclaimed judgment, and utilized an unclear set of laws and regulations. That was real disarray! But now that the nine ministries jointly administer the land, commerce booms, agriculture prospers, urbanization increases, everyone goes to sleep with a full belly, and all manner of technology is improving...”

What was the point of overthrowing the order of things? It was the people who suffered when unrest gripped the world. The young man regarded the nine ministries with a certain favorable light. While they weren’t completely fair and held their share of problems, at least no one in Silver City had heard of anyone dying from hunger in eighty years of ministry rule.

That had been a common occurrence eighty years ago.

Now that the imperial family was curtailed, it wasn’t as unbridled as in years past, despite exercising numerous privileges. It kept an exceedingly low profile—wasn’t this a good system of governance?

Did the lofty personages up there wish to be the next emperor? But after experiencing the rule of the nine ministries, did the people want an emperor over their heads again?

Li Hao was willing to bet that if the general public was polled right now, ninety-nine percent of the population would not be willing to be under the fist of an emperor. The rest were either idiots or would somehow benefit from an imperial arrangement. How could one succeed without support from the citizenry?

While those were his thoughts, he didn’t voice them. All of this was too far removed from him, it was the concern of greater characters. Silver Moon didn’t show signs of wanting independence, or perhaps he was too far down in the rank and file and completely oblivious to the desires of those higher.

The car sped over the road, leaving Silver City behind until it vanished in the rearview mirror.

......

“A car’s coming!”

The road was damaged beyond repair on Rift Canyon’s outskirts, less than fifty kilometers from the canyon proper. It used to run straight through the terrain, to Rift Bridge at its end. The bridge that spanned the entire canyon had cost a colossal amount of effort and resources to build. It’d been blown up a dozen years ago, severing the connection between north and south of the province.

North and south were fully connected when Rift Bridge stood. Commerce flowed freely between the cities of either side in a thriving picture of prosperity. Now that north and south were separated, the entire province’s economy had shrunk.

Silver Moon made multiple attempts to rebuild the bridge, but they ended without result. Fewer and fewer people these days raised the idea of restoring Rift Bridge.

Someone at the end of the road stared at the approaching car and muttered, “Do we rob it?”

“Do you have a death wish?! Can’t you see that’s an Inspectorate car?”

“So what? It’s not like the Inspectorate’s hand stretches here!”

Murmuring could be heard behind a massive boulder. The Inspectorate was an organization of note, but that was within city walls. What of it outside the cities? It’d long lost its prestige upon the rise of the supernatural. It was one thing if it was Night Watchers in the car, but even they had to exercise caution in the wilderness.

Several martial masters and Starlight conversed quietly from their cover. In modern society, those who dared commit robbery in the wild were no ordinary people. Certain martial masters and Starlight were weak, yet unwilling to answer to others. Thus, they turned to a life of robbery and thievery.

If they were lucky, they nabbed a few treasures for themselves. If not and they ran into a powerhouse, then that was the way the chips fell. Since they were unlucky, they were wood on the chopping block for their would-be targets.

As the conversation carried on, the current speaker suddenly realized there was no sound around him. His face drained of color when he looked back and he twitched to get away, but a staff slammed down and smashed his head to pieces!

Three people walked out from behind the boulder. They were two young men and one young woman; eight corpses lay strewn around them. Some had been smashed to death by a staff, others had their throats crushed.

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