221: Chapter 221 War Taxes and the Siege

“Cannot go on like this.”

Li Qingzhao opened her eyes abruptly!

A look of determination and perseverance flashed in her beautiful eyes!

“We must find a way to find a new blood transfusion for this war!”

...

The next morning, morning court.

Gao Feng sat high on the Dragon Throne, listening expressionlessly to the reports from the civil and military officials below.

When it was the turn of the Minister of Revenue, Li Qingzhao, to step forward and report, the atmosphere in the entire Hall of Supreme Harmony seemed to become heavy in an instant.

Everyone knew that every time this female prime minister, who held the entire Empire's purse strings, spoke, it meant that some major policies capable of influencing the entire Empire's economic direction were about to be introduced.

“Reporting to Your Majesty.” Li Qingzhao held an ivory tablet, her voice, though somewhat hoarse, was still full of unquestionable power, “I have two strategies to increase revenue and reduce expenditure for our Wu Dynasty, to resolve the urgent needs at the front line.”

“Speak.” Gao Feng was sparing with his words.

“First, I humbly request Your Majesty to issue a new phase of ‘Victory Bonds’ to merchants and the common people nationwide again!” Li Qingzhao said loudly, “These bonds are guaranteed by the national credit of our Wu Dynasty! Anyone who purchases them, after the victory of the Western campaign, can receive triple the principal in return upon presenting these bonds! Furthermore, they will have priority rights to conduct trade and investment on the newly conquered Western continent!”

Once these words were spoken, a low murmur of discussion immediately arose throughout the court.

Issuing bonds was nothing new.

At the beginning of the war, Gao Feng had already issued them once.

That time, due to the royal family taking the lead in purchasing and the temptation of the incredibly generous returns, they had raised nearly 100 million taels of silver in startup funds for the war in just a short month.

But now, four years had passed, and there was still no sign of the war ending.

Those merchants and common people who had purchased the first phase of bonds had not yet seen their bonds redeemed.

At this time, if a second phase were issued, would anyone still be willing to buy them?

However, Li Qingzhao's next proposal caused the entire court to fall into a deathly silence.

“Second, I humbly request Your Majesty to issue an imperial decree to levy an additional 30 percent ‘War Tax’ on all industries and commerce nationwide!”

“This tax revenue is to be used exclusively for its designated purpose; all tax funds will be directly remitted to the Ministry of War to support all military expenditures at the front line!”

“War Tax!”

These three words were like three claps of thunder, exploding in the ears of all the civil and military officials!

Shock and disbelief appeared on everyone's faces!

Since the founding of the Wu Dynasty, it had always followed the basic national policy of light corvee and low taxes, allowing the people to rest.

Especially regarding industry and commerce, it had adopted an unprecedentedly relaxed and supportive attitude.

This was also the fundamental reason why the Wu Dynasty's economy had been able to achieve such unprecedented prosperity and development in just over a decade.

But now, Li Qingzhao was actually proposing to levy a high 30 percent War Tax!

This was undoubtedly cutting a piece of bloody flesh from the entire industrial and commercial class of the Wu Dynasty!

“Prime Minister Li! This must never be done!” An Imperial Censor was the first to stand out, opposing with an agitated expression, “Such a harsh and heavy tax will inevitably arouse strong dissatisfaction and backlash from domestic merchants! If this continues, I fear it will shake the foundation of our Wu Dynasty!”

“Indeed, Your Majesty! Please think twice!”

“Tax increases are no small matter; I hope Your Majesty will be prudent!”

For a time, voices of opposition rose throughout the court.

However, Gao Feng slowly stood up from the Dragon Throne.

His deep eyes, filled with endless majesty and dominance, slowly swept over the faces full of agitation and anxiety below.

Finally, his gaze landed on Li Qingzhao's beautiful face, which was slightly haggard but still full of firmness and determination.

“I approve.”

Gao Feng only said two words.

But these two words were like three heavy mountains, pressing hard on everyone's hearts, causing all opposing voices to cease in an instant.

The Emperor's words are not a joke.

Once the Emperor's will is made, it cannot be changed by anyone.

Although these two policies of iron and determination from Li Qingzhao acted like two shots of adrenaline in the short term, injecting new vitality into the already overburdened war finances of the Wu Dynasty and solving the urgent needs at the front, the negative impact it brought also began to surge quietly like an invisible undercurrent within the entire Wu Dynasty.

Especially that 30 percent “War Tax” caused strong dissatisfaction and resistance from some profit-seeking big merchants in the country.

Although they dared not openly oppose the imperial decree, they complained bitterly in private, feigned compliance while acting in opposition, and exhausted every means to evade taxes, even beginning to secretly transfer their assets.

And just as this undercurrent of dissatisfaction intensified, a black hand from the West, full of poison and evil, also quietly reached in.

The Taixi Empire's “Inquisition,” that terrifying secret agency that had always been hidden in the darkness, immediately became excited like a shark that had smelled blood after learning of this subtle change in the rear of the Wu Dynasty.

They dispatched countless elite spies and secret agents, infiltrating the interior of the Wu Dynasty through various secret channels.

They began to spread all kinds of inflammatory and vicious rumors in taverns, teahouses, brothels, and entertainment districts among the people.

They slandered this national war, which determined the ultimate fate of two civilizations, as an unjust war of aggression launched by the “tyrant” of the Wu Dynasty to satisfy his personal ambition of militarism.

They blamed the skyrocketing prices and heavy war taxes caused by the war on the cruelty and incompetence of the “tyrant.”

They even secretly contacted and incited some big merchants who were profit-driven and whose Soul had been completely corroded by money and interest.

They promised these traitors unimaginable wealth and benefits.

They made these traitors use their influence in the business world to secretly hoard goods, drive up prices, create financial chaos, and even destroy important workshops and mines that produced military supplies for the front line!

They attempted to create a huge economic turmoil within the Wu Dynasty that could shake its foundation, thereby cutting off the economic lifeline of this huge war machine from the inside!

For a time, the entire rear of the Wu Dynasty fell into a strange and tense atmosphere, like the calm before a storm.

Facing this severe situation of internal and external troubles, the Martial God Gao Feng, who had been sitting in the Divine Capital and calmly controlling the overall situation, finally displayed the thunderous means and compassionate heart that a mature emperor should have.

He displayed the contradictory but perfectly unified duality of an emperor.

On one hand, he ordered the “Net,” a massive intelligence agency that had already penetrated every corner of the Empire, led by Xu Changqing, to carry out a thunderous roundup!

Overnight, countless black-clad agents, like messengers of death walking out of Hell, appeared on the streets of the Divine Capital and major commercial hubs in the south.

A bloody purge began!

Those traitorous merchants incited by the Inquisition; those Western spies spreading rumors among the people; those unscrupulous profiteers who dared to hoard goods, drive up prices, and attempt to make a fortune from the national disaster...

Everyone involved in this matter, regardless of how prominent their status was or how astonishing their wealth was, could not hide under the thunderous strike of the “Net,” which had long since grasped ironclad evidence!

Heads rolled!

Blood flowed like a river!

For a full week, the ground at the vegetable market in the Divine Capital remained a wet, dark red with a pungent smell of blood.

Gao Feng used the most direct and bloody iron-fisted means to root out and eradicate all the villains who dared to extend their evil claws at this critical moment of the country's crisis!

With those thousands of bloody heads, he sent the clearest and harshest warning to all those who harbored ulterior motives!

When the country is in crisis, anyone who colludes with the enemy and commits treason will be executed without mercy!

Anyone who disrupts the rear will be executed without mercy!

Anyone who harms the country will be executed without mercy!

This thunderous and bloody suppression instantly intimidated all the villains who were ready to make a move, strangling that evil undercurrent that had just begun to rise in its infancy.

On the other hand, after showing his cold and ruthless iron-fisted side like thunder, Gao Feng immediately showed his warm and gentle side like a spring breeze.

He personally took off the cold Dragon Robe that symbolized supreme power, changed into simple casual clothes, and accompanied by the Eldest Son Gao Chengzhi and the Chief Cabinet Minister Liu Chengfeng, personally visited the largest wounded soldier camp located in the suburbs of the Divine Capital to comfort the wounded soldiers who had returned from the front line.

He would personally feed a mouthful of hot meat soup to those soldiers who had lost their arms.

He would personally crouch down to tidy up the worn-out bedding for those soldiers who had lost their legs.

He would patiently listen to the stories of every soldier, remembering their names, their merits, and their longing for their families.

With the most sincere actions, he expressed the highest respect and gratitude that an emperor could give to all the heroes who had shed blood and been injured for this Empire.

Immediately after, he issued a series of warm decrees.

He ordered the pension for all fallen soldiers to be increased by three times the original amount!

He ordered the Eldest Son Gao Chengzhi to personally preside over the establishment of a special “Military Family Assistance Foundation” nationwide.

The children of all martyrs who died for the country could enter any government-run school to read and study for free, with all expenses covered by the state.

Their parents could receive a generous pension from the local government every month, enough for them to enjoy their old age in peace.

If their wives were willing to remarry, the government would prepare a generous dowry for them. If they chose to remain chaste, the government would provide them with a decent and stable job.

Gao Feng used this series of compassionate measures to completely resolve the worries of all the soldiers fighting bloody battles on the front lines.

He let everyone know clearly.

This country has not forgotten them!

This Emperor has not forgotten them!

Every drop of blood they shed on the front lines will not be in vain!

Iron fist and warmth.

Slaughter and leniency.

These two seemingly opposite and contradictory arts of governance were perfectly fused together in the hands of Gao Feng, this increasingly mature legendary Emperor, revealing a terrifying power that inspired awe!

The entire rear of the Wu Dynasty stabilized rapidly after experiencing a brief period of turmoil.

All potential crises were eliminated invisibly.

The hearts of all the people were united together as never before!

They twisted all their strength into a single rope, transforming it into a continuous, powerful torrent of spirit and material resources sufficient to support the soldiers on the front lines to continue fighting!

This ancient yet young, massive Eastern Empire, after experiencing the severe test of internal and external troubles, not only did not fall, but instead became more united, more resilient, and more filled with an unyielding conviction of victory—a determination to never return until the enemy is defeated!

When the rear of the Wu Dynasty stabilized rapidly under the iron-fisted methods of the Martial God Gao Feng, who wielded both thunder and warmth, and erupted with unprecedented powerful cohesion and war potential, the Western expedition front, thousands of miles away, where the bloody war situation had long been in a stalemate and anxiety, finally reached a brand new turning point.

In the early summer of the 18th year of Qiyuan, when the supreme commander of the Central Route Army, the veteran general Zhao Yu, planted the "Expedition" commander flag—which had long been blackened by blood and gunpowder smoke—on the highest peak of the mountain range named "Eagle Sorrow," all the surviving soldiers of the Central Route Army let out a heaven-shaking cheer like a landslide or tsunami!

Because when they stood on the summit of this mountain and gazed far into the west, a magnificent, holy white city, grand as a miracle, appeared without warning at the end of their vision, which had long been numbed by endless blood and fire.

The city was entirely built from an unknown, snow-white giant stone.

Under the shining summer sun, the entire city emitted a soft and sacred, holy white halo, just like a holy kingdom left behind by a Heavenly God in the mortal world.

Hundreds of exquisitely shaped, artistic, towering spires rose from every corner of the city like sharp swords piercing the sky, reaching straight into the clouds.

In the very center of the city, a huge white circular domed cathedral, even more magnificent and grand than the Wu Dynasty imperial palace, stood quietly there like a holy king overlooking the masses, receiving the worship of believers from all directions.

That was the second largest auxiliary capital of the Taixi Empire, apart from the capital city, the "City of Holy Light"!

That was the second largest religious Holy Land in the entire Church of Light belief system, second only to the Vatican in status!

That was the resting place where the Souls of the past saints and heroes of the Church of Light were buried!

— "St. John City"!

By the sixth year of the war, after paying the extremely heavy price of over one hundred thousand soldiers killed in action, the main force of the Central Route Army of the Wu Dynasty finally, like a red-hot, sharp dagger, forcibly tore through the layers of defense lines composed of countless fortresses and strongholds in the Eastern Theater of the Taixi Empire, and arrived before this holy city that held extraordinary spiritual symbolic significance for the entire Taixi Empire!

At this moment, all the soldiers of the Central Route Army forgot their fatigue, forgot their pain, and forgot all the suffering and torment they had experienced over the past six years.

In their eyes, only endless excitement and fanaticism remained!

Because they knew that as long as they could conquer the magnificent holy city before them, it meant they would completely destroy nearly half of the Taixi Empire's spiritual faith!

Then, the final victory of this damned war would no longer be far away!

However, in stark contrast to the high morale of his soldiers that was almost boiling over, the expression on the resolute face of General Zhao Yu, the commander-in-chief of the three armies, which was covered with the weathering of time, was unprecedentedly grave.

He was not carried away by the impending great victory before him.

His eyes, still as sharp as a hawk's, stared fixedly at the huge white holy city in the distance, which appeared quiet and peaceful, and his brows were tightly locked together.

As a peerless military god who had fought through countless battles and spent his whole life in the military, his perception of danger possessed a keen intuition almost like a beast's.

He could clearly feel that beneath the calm exterior of that seemingly holy and beautiful white city, there was hidden a terrifying aura of destruction, one that was enough to make even him feel palpitations and suffocation!

That feeling was as if a terrifying ancient Vicious Beast, long driven to a dead end, was slowly opening its blood-colored eyes, filled with endless madness and destructive will, in the deepest part of that city.

"Pass on my order!"

Zhao Yu slowly withdrew his gaze, and his voice, filled with endless majesty, resounded across the entire mountain peak.

"The entire army is to stop advancing! Make camp at the southern foothills of the Eagle Sorrow mountain range! Without my order, no one is allowed to launch any form of attack on St. John City without authorization!"

"General! Why?!" A young general, who had long been blinded by the bloodlust of battle and was eager to be the first to charge into St. John City and make a name for himself, asked with a puzzled face, "Our army's morale is at its peak right now! And the defenders inside St. John City are nothing but a group of old, weak, sick, and disabled people cobbled together! We should take advantage of their instability and capture it in one go!"

"Yes, Commander Zhao! Speed is the essence of war!"

"This subordinate requests to be the vanguard! Within three days, I will surely present the head of the lord of St. John City before the commander's tent!"

For a moment, the crowd was agitated, and the sound of demands for battle was endless.

However, Zhao Yu turned his head abruptly and slowly swept his cold, stern gaze—which commanded awe without anger—over everyone present.

All the generals who were scanned by his gaze simultaneously felt a cold chill rise up their backs, which instantly woke up their brains that had long been muddled by the joy of victory.

"Do you think war is a child's game?!" Zhao Yu's voice was cold and devoid of even the slightest emotion. "Have you forgotten the Holy Light barrier formed by those one hundred thousand Temple Knights on the Wind-Breath Plains?!"

"Have you forgotten how those ghost-like, elusive hunting-type magic golems tore our 'Thor' giant golems to pieces one by one?!"

"Have you forgotten every city we conquered along the way, how those Taixi civilians fearlessly clutched alchemical explosives and perished with us?!"

Each of Zhao Yu's questions was like a heavy hammer, striking fiercely at everyone's hearts, making their faces show expressions filled with shame and lingering fear.

"St. John City is the auxiliary capital of the Taixi Empire, their second largest religious Holy Land!" Zhao Yu's voice became increasingly cold and grave. "Do you really think such a city, which holds extraordinary spiritual symbolic significance for them, would be as vulnerable as you imagine?!"

"I tell you! The more we are in the face of such a seemingly attainable great victory, the more we must maintain absolute calmness and caution!"

"Because often the most fatal trap is hidden under the most tempting cheese!"

"This battle concerns the final success or failure of the entire Western expedition cause! We are only allowed to succeed, not to fail!"

"Therefore, I am going to conduct a siege battle that is foolproof!"

Under the suppression of Zhao Yu's unquestionable and powerful majesty, all the soldiers of the Central Route Army had to temporarily suppress their restless and anxious hearts.

They began to strictly follow Zhao Yu's orders, constructing a massive, continuous temporary military camp at the southern foothills of the Eagle Sorrow mountain range, a full fifty miles away from St. John City.

In the following half-month, Zhao Yu did not launch a single probing attack.

He was like the most patient hunter, quietly waiting for the best hunting opportunity.

He sent out all the most elite engineering troops that had survived under his command.

Day and night, they constructed solid and hidden permanent artillery positions all around St. John City.

One after another, the "Divine Might" heavy cannons with ferocious shapes and filled with the aura of death, as well as those newest, longer-range, and more powerful "God-Killing" giant cannons, were slowly transported from the rear supply troops and then carefully placed into those already constructed artillery positions.

The pitch-black, huge cannon muzzles, filled with an aura of endless destruction, aimed tightly at that seemingly quiet and peaceful giant white holy city from all directions, like countless iron beasts, long hungry and impatient, opening their bloodthirsty maws capable of devouring everything.

At the same time, Zhao Yu also sent out countless scouts and spies to conduct all-around, no-blind-spot reconnaissance and surveillance of St. John City day and night.

However, what was eerie was that in the face of the immense military pressure from the Wu Dynasty army right at the city gates, and the undisguised, provocative war preparations, St. John City remained in a death-like silence.

The city gates were tightly closed.

There was not even a single guard soldier's figure to be seen on the city walls.

The entire city was like a huge, abandoned empty city, or perhaps a huge white tomb, exuding a creepy and eerie aura.

This abnormal calmness made the ominous premonition in Zhao Yu's heart become increasingly strong.