Chapter 298 The Eight Banners of the Great Western King
[Ding! You are dead. The wrong choice led to the wrong ending... Actually, it is not wrong. At least you have found out the details of the court through this trip to the capital.]

[The Empress Dowager and the Emperor are at odds, and the old ways collide with the new policies... Even though there are still some foundations left by the founding emperor that can keep the court going for a while, it is obviously only a temporary solution. In the situation where there are wolves all around, the court without the Shinto monks presiding over it will not last long! ]

[When you have the chance to do it again, you only need to build high walls, store up food, and slowly waste time with the imperial court. Sooner or later, they will fall under the swords of the rebel army one after another... The more critical the moment, the higher your value of fighting will be, and the more substantial the benefits you will legally gain from the imperial court in the future.]

[Until you completely swallow the imperial court...]

[Also, you have a big unexpected gain on this trip! ]

[It turns out that after death, monks can enter the underworld and reincarnate, but because the Emperor of Heaven withdrew the Yin God from the underworld for some unknown reason, the underworld was abandoned, which led to the current structure. ]

[What is the purpose of the Emperor of Heaven? Why did the Underworld have to be closed down after being open for a while? ]

This is a very important question...

[Then, you learned something about the founding emperor from the strange Taoist: It turns out that the founding emperor also had lofty ambitions, and wanted to fight to the heavens, and then change the situation where the gods in heaven did not care about worldly affairs, and let them benefit the world! ]

[However, Taizu did not fulfill his promise in the end. He was unable to make the Heavenly Court benefit the human world. He himself only persisted in serving the human world for a short period of 120 years. After that, he completely gave up his original intention, chose to ascend to heaven and become a god, accepted the official title of the Emperor of Heaven, and became corrupt with the heavenly world...]

[Is Taizu's faith so weak? Was he defeated by the high position and generous salary, or was there some other reason? ]

[These questions require you to investigate slowly...]

[No! Perhaps what is needed is not a slow investigation, but a drastic measure! ]

[In the last moments of your disappearance, you secretly thought: The human world is full of mortals and monks, and they don’t know much about the affairs of the heavens. Even if you dig up everything in the human world, it is unlikely that you will find too many clues.]

[Instead of wasting time in the human world, it is better to go directly to heaven after becoming a god! ]

【Give the heavens a little bit of a havoc in heaven shock! 】

【…】

[Can we go back in time and return to the previous node in our life? ]

"This time I'm dead..."

Seeing that Lin Liu's last wandering life was over, Zhao Si was finally sure that he was dead and there would be no reversal in this branch line.

However, the information provided by Lin Liu's wandering life in just seven days is really quite a lot, even more than the information he provided in his decades of life in the world of the living!
How do you say that?
"Your death is more valuable than your entire life..."

Zhao Si sighed:
As expected, the more you simulate the protagonist, the more you have to die! The more you die, the more information you can use...

"Now, the worldview has been roughly determined!"

With the information Lin Liu had exchanged for his life, Zhao Si pondered for a while and roughly outlined the world view of this chapter:

"The world is divided into three realms: heaven, human, and ghost. The heaven is where the gods live, and Xue Xuan is the emperor of heaven here. The human world is where mortals live, and it is divided into four continents, each ruled by a country. The ghost world is only open to cultivators. It used to help people reincarnate, but now it has been abandoned by the emperor of heaven, so even if the souls of cultivators come here, they can only completely dissipate after seven days."

"In theory, the heavens should help the human world to seek welfare, but in reality, the people in heaven are idle and don't care about anything. There is no god to control floods and droughts, and they are allowed to spread everywhere..."

"The emperor of the human world rules one side, but except for the founding emperor, all the emperors after him were mortals. The founding emperor originally wanted to ascend to the heavens so that the heavens would fulfill their duties for the human world... But in fact, he later accepted the title of the Emperor of Heaven and became a god in heaven who didn't care about anything."

"It's possible that he is two-faced, saying one thing in front of you and another behind your back. Or it could be that he was subdued by the iron fist of the heavens..."

"And the ghost world is also very strange. Even when it is operating normally, it does not accept the souls of mortals, but only the souls of monks... Now the entire organization has been disbanded..."

All in all, one word: weird!
There is a sense of letting things go wrong everywhere. The heavenly realm is letting things go wrong and not working. The founding emperor of the human world is also letting things go wrong. The ghost realm is even more powerful and just disappeared.

Besides being in a bad state, there is also a sense of discrimination and class oppression, especially in the ghost world:
In normal times in the underworld, ordinary mortals are not even worthy of being reborn!
Now that you’ve given up, even a monk isn’t worthy of reincarnation!
The whole world is like a pyramid, enveloping all living things. Some people are high above, while others are just the materials for the operation...

The more terrifying and solemn the world was, the more strange it seemed to Zhao Si:
Because Xue Xuan is the Emperor of Heaven!
"Little Blackie... has he fallen too?"

This is impossible. Although the little black man in the previous chapter was not a perfect good man, he could never fall to this level...

"It's getting weirder..."

Zhao Si shook his head:

"It seems that if we want to find out what happened, we have to let Lin Liu take the monkey to the heaven and cause some trouble in the Heavenly Palace."

"No matter what evidence you have, it's better than asking someone face to face..."

"Back in time!"

【Time has gone back...】

[……][……You return to the time when you made the decision. Looking at the imperial edict from the court, you don’t know what to choose. You can only place your hopes on “your other self”…You choose: (?)]

[A: Go, the arrow has been put on the string and has to be shot. Things have come to this point and there is no room for hesitation! B: Don’t go. Your life is more important. It’s not easy to get to this point. How can you rashly put your life in the hands of the untrustworthy court?]

"Choose B!"

[You choose option B. Don't go. Your life and property are more important. You have finally come to this point. How can you rashly put your life in the hands of an untrustworthy court? ]

[Back to the time when you received the decree, you are filled with emotion...]

[After suffering a loss once, you naturally wouldn't want to suffer a second time, so when faced with this imperial edict issued by the Empress Dowager to receive the Emperor, you did not choose to accept it directly, but instead rejected it respectfully.]

[You randomly sent a group of people to take the four rebel kings you had captured alive to the capital, and also wrote a letter to express your loyalty to the court. In the letter, you wrote all the disgusting words you could think of, trying your best to create a loyal and brave character.]

[Then, before the imperial court’s reply arrived, you secretly took the confused monkey on a long journey...]

[A few days later, you returned to the base camp with an even more confused stranger.]

[This person is the kind-hearted Taoist priest you met in the underworld in the previous branch. He answered many questions for you last time. This time, you should return the favor and save his life! ]

[However, you did not tell him about the previous branch, you only said that you were good at fortune-telling and predicted that he would have this disaster, so you saved his life.]

[Faced with your life-saving grace, the Taoist was so moved that he cried, and kept shouting things like "The Master's grace is not over yet"...]

[Finally, in order to repay you for saving his life, after learning that you were plotting to overthrow the imperial court, he immediately decided to join your group!]

[This is your purpose...]

[After successfully using your kindness to attract the first outsider monk to join the group, you continued to work hard. With his active introduction, you successively recruited several Shinto monks to join the group.]

[Finally, in addition to the monkey and the Taoist priest, you successfully attracted five wild Shinto monks of varying levels! ]

[They joined the gang for no other reason than to earn money from the gang, and you generously said that as long as they were willing to join, you could give them a share of the money...]

[You offer a very generous salary. How could a bunch of unscrupulous people have ever seen such a scene? After some discussion, they decisively expressed their loyalty to you! ]

[In this way, your forces now have a total of eight Shinto monks. Although there are many rogues, the number is already considerable, and it is indeed a considerable force. ]

[Just when you have won over everyone, the imperial court's reply arrives! ]

[The Emperor said: Although I am very sorry that you were unable to come in person, I have read your letter and it is very sincere. However, please do not write something so corny next time...]

[Then, it’s about rewards: the imperial court allows you to establish a vassal state, and you can recruit soldiers and horses on your own... The content is basically the same as in the previous branch. ]

[With this official recognition, you can finally expand your power openly! ]

[You know, the emperor rewarded you so much because he wanted to win you over to carry out new policies and let you help him fight against the queen mother's conservatives... But you are not interested in this. When you grow up, the entire court will be unable to escape.]

[After all, it’s better not to have a teammate like this stupid little emperor...]

[Holding the imperial edict that allowed the establishment of a vassal state, you respectfully thanked the emperor for his great kindness: Your Majesty’s kindness is not enough! ]

【Then, you turned around and began to build the six-county headquarters. 】

[You will expand the previous 8,000 "loyalty troops" to 80,000, and then divide them into seven flag teams, with 10,000 people in each flag. The names of the seven flags are "loyalty, filial piety, benevolence, righteousness, courtesy, wisdom, and trustworthiness"! ]

[As your disciple, the monkey receives the "filial piety flag", and the other six new monks each receive the remaining six flags.]

[Each of the seven flag teams has a flag master commander, and the main Xianzhong Army is under your direct command, so there are eight flags...]

[“From today on, the name of our vassal state will be Eight Banners!”]

【You solemnly announce to everyone! 】

[Although the seven flag owners felt it was strange, it was also quite novel, so they had no objections.]

[Eight Banners, officially established! ]

[The King of Daxi led the "Zhongxiao Renyi Lizhixin" to form the "Xianzhong Army", which was divided into eight banners. They were to quell the peasant uprisings across the country for the court at the end of the conflict between the Empress Dowager and the Emperor...]

【Abstract, you are worthy of it! 】

……

(End of this chapter)