Shentu Yang was practically flying on jealousy, but Huo Quan did not want to put the Emperor in a difficult position. He suddenly straightened up, a towering nine-foot-tall man unexpectedly acting completely considerate. He spoke up on his own initiative, saying, “Since the Prime Minister is so deeply bothered by this, why not let the Prime Minister handle this matter? I am willing to assist the Prime Minister.”

The moment these words of absolute compromise left his mouth, the expression of the Imperial Grand Secretary Zhao Bushi became rather subtle. He cast a sharp, knowing look at Huo Quan and then at Shentu Yang. The Duke of Yan, who was already young and hot-tempered, looked like he was getting even angrier. However, he also seemed to know that he shouldn’t keep pushing too hard. He took a deep breath and let out a series of cold laughs, saying, “Didn’t the Grand Marshal say earlier that he wanted all the civil and military officials to recommend people who are virtuous, upright, straightforward, and dare to offer blunt criticism to enter the court?”

Huo Quan bowed slightly, maintaining a proper attitude as he replied, “Indeed.”

“In my opinion, there is no need to make things so troublesome.” Shentu Yang glanced at the Emperor and said, “Why do we need to let the whole court of officials and regional authorities recommend talents? Why not just have Your Majesty issue an edict to recruit talents? As long as someone has real ability, they can come to the capital to take an exam. We won’t care about family background or social status. This prevents the aristocratic families and nobility from recommending one another to exchange favors, only to push forward a bunch of corrupt, worthless people, while truly brilliant minds are left forgotten in the countryside because they do not form factions.”

Huo Quan’s expression remained unchanged, saying, “The Prime Minister considers all sides carefully.”

The Imperial Grand Secretary Zhao Bushi, who originally just wanted to watch the drama unfold, frowned with some dissatisfaction, saying, “Since the High Ancestor Emperor founded our Yin Dynasty, we have always used the recommendation system. We select talents through methods like recommending the filial and honest or direct imperial appointments. Only in this way can we guarantee that the talents we select are of top-tier moral character and scholarship. Now the Prime Minister is suggesting that Your Majesty should select people based purely on talent. Is there no need to consider an official’s moral integrity?”

“We must remember that when one’s virtue does not match their position, disaster will surely follow. If morally corrupt people occupy high positions, they will only bring harm to everyone.”

Shentu Yang snapped back with sharp sarcasm, “Then does the Imperial Grand Secretary believe that those regional officials who completely ignored the court’s laws, stood by as powerful families converted wheat fields to mulberry orchards, and drove the common people to rebellion are sages of high moral character?” Whether they were sages or not was hard to say, but anyway, most of those officials had been selected through that exact recommendation system.

Shentu Yang’s words stepped right onto the Imperial Grand Secretary’s landmine. Zhao Bushi’s old face turned red, and he was instantly left speechless.

Shentu Yang continued to beat a dog that was already down, saying, “Since the talents strictly selected by the major families all turn out to have this kind of moral character, is there any need for us to repeat the same mistake?”

“Furthermore, when the High Ancestor Emperor was on the throne, he also issued an edict to recruit talents, calling on capable individuals to serve the court and promising them wealth and honor. Now that Your Majesty has just taken personal control of the government, copying the High Ancestor Emperor by issuing an edict to recruit talents based purely on ability without asking about social standing or background, what is wrong with that?”

“As for whether those talents will turn out to have ability but no morals and bring harm to everyone, if I may speak bluntly, if a talent from the countryside harms the people, the court only needs to punish that single person according to the law. But if a talent from an aristocratic family colludes with local powerful forces to harm the people, the court will instead hesitate to act out of fear of the fallout.”

Regardless of whether this argument was completely flawless, it was closely tied to reality and actually sounded quite feasible.

The Imperial Grand Secretary Zhao Bushi was filled with deep emotion and completely speechless. He wanted to defend the officials from aristocratic families, but the facts were right in front of him, and even he could not argue his way out.

This time, it was the Grand Marshal Huo Quan’s turn to keep his eyes fixed firmly downward, staying out of the crossfire.

Shentu Yang’s original goal was not to assign blame for the Imperial Grand Secretary’s mistakes. After all, the Emperor had already said he would let Zhao Bushi make up for his past mistakes with new merits, so why should Shentu Yang offend the Emperor just for an unimportant person?

Therefore, after tearing into Zhao Bushi, Shentu Yang immediately turned his focus back to Huo Quan, saying, “According to the regulations, recommending talents and appointing officials is the responsibility of the Prime Minister. For this recruitment of talents, I cannot deflect my duty. As for the Grand Marshal, if you wish to assist me, I will naturally be glad. After all, the Grand Marshal comes from the Huo family. Years ago, when Huo Yan served as Prime Minister, the Huo family was immensely powerful, and it could be said that all the talents in the world fell right into their trap.”

Huo Quan’s face changed instantly.

Hearing Shentu Yang’s words, which on the surface praised the Huo family for being full of talent but secretly hinted to the Emperor that the Huo family intended to use this recruitment to plant their own followers in the court, Huo Quan could no longer sit still.

“Your Majesty can see clearly that my loyalty is plain for heaven and earth to see. I only wish to assist Your Majesty.”

“Why is the Grand Marshal’s face covered in cold sweat?” Shentu Yang suddenly spoke up, asking with a pleasant smile, “Could it be that I said something I shouldn’t have just now, and it touched a sore spot for the Grand Marshal?”

“You Shentu brat, do not push people too far!” Huo Quan glared at Shentu Yang with a bright red face, his eyes completely bloodshot with rage, saying, “You!”

“I naturally know the Grand Marshal’s loyalty.” At the critical moment, the historically silent Yin Shuhuai finally spoke up, saying, “If the Grand Marshal hadn’t advised me, I wouldn’t have even thought about recruiting talents. From this, we can see that the Grand Marshal acts entirely out of public duty. Prime Minister, you shouldn’t always bully an honest man.”

Yin Shuhuai looked at Shentu Yang with a pleasant smile, his eyes carrying a hidden warning, which meant that’s enough, don’t actually push an honest man past his boiling point.

With this single sentence from the Emperor, Huo Quan’s emotions slowly stabilized. Although the way he looked at Shentu Yang was still not very pleasant, he no longer had the explosive fury of a man ready to fight to the death.

Looking at the young Emperor whose eyes held a warning, Shentu Yang gave a resentful snort, saying, “Is Your Majesty being a bit too biased toward the Grand Marshal? His idea comes from a place of public duty, but does my idea come from private interest?”

Of course not. Regardless of whether Shentu Yang’s idea was meant to strike at the Grand Marshal, being able to think of a method similar to the imperial civil service exam in an instant to counter the recommendation system proposed by Huo Quan made Yin Shuhuai look at Shentu Yang with increasing curiosity. He did not expect this guy to be so mentally agile, proposing a way to select talents through exams so quickly.

Shentu Yang’s thinking was not actually advanced enough to explicitly invent the imperial examination system. He just intuitively felt that the recommendation system was useless. After all, the Yin Dynasty had lasted for over six hundred years, and the royal family had been stripped of real power for so long that the recommendation system used to select talents had long been monopolized by the aristocratic families and nobility through various means. No matter how much the Emperor wanted to recruit talents, as long as the scope of selection did not leave the circle of aristocratic families and nobility, he would still be taking water from their bowl.

Wouldn’t the talents selected this way still be members of aristocratic families? Wouldn’t they still protect the interests of those families?

Therefore, if one wanted to drink fresh water, they had to change the bowl used to scoop it, or simply change the water entirely.

After witnessing so many cases of regional officials colluding with local powerful families, Shentu Yang had vaguely realized that if the court wanted clean governance, the channels for selecting and appointing officials must never be entirely controlled by the aristocratic families. However, as for exactly how to bypass these families to select new talents, Shentu Yang did not have a clear plan yet.

After all, in this era, the only people who could afford to focus on studying were the aristocratic families. Ordinary common people couldn’t even fill their stomachs, so how could they have the energy to study, learn, and worry about the knowledge needed to govern the realm?

Fortunately, while Shentu Yang did not fully understand, Yin Shuhuai, who had traveled there from the future, knew the imperial examination system inside out. It was just that because he had only recently taken personal control of the government and had not yet stabilized his throne, he did not want to make moves that were too drastic and risk alarming the aristocratic families. But since Shentu Yang had mentioned that selecting talents should mean choosing based purely on ability without asking about background, Yin Shuhuai could follow Shentu Yang’s lead and add many rules and technical details for the upcoming first examination of the Yin Dynasty.

Thinking of this, Yin Shuhuai couldn’t help but express appreciation for Shentu Yang’s sharpness and bold nature.

Noticing the Emperor’s appreciative gaze, Shentu Yang straightened his back and cast a subtle glance at Huo Quan, his expression full of pride and arrogance.

Thus, the very first talent recruitment edict after the Emperor took personal control of the government was directly finalized under the discussion of the ruler and his three ministers.

When the imperial edict was sent to the front court, it immediately caused a massive uproar.

The entire court of civil and military officials could not understand the Emperor’s approach of selecting based purely on ability without asking about background. When they heard that this idea was given to the Emperor by Prime Minister Shentu Yang, people immediately started gossiping with deep dissatisfaction, saying, “The Prime Minister comes from the bitter cold lands of Yan and lived among the nomads for fifteen years. He is uneducated and has never read the classics, so how can he possibly understand the cultural traditions of our central plains? He even says things like ignoring background and choosing based purely on talent. Haven’t we always heard that people from the countryside have shallow knowledge? Even if they get a chance to read some books, they are nothing more than people who waste their youth on fancy writing and grow old studying text without understanding reality. How could they know how to govern a nation and educate the people? If Your Majesty lets such people become officials, wouldn’t that harm the citizens?”

“Exactly! Although the Duke of Yan became the Prime Minister, he is a military man after all. How could a military man understand the great matters of governing a state and bringing peace to the country?”

When these words reached Shentu Yang’s ears, he simply laughed them off, saying, “This bunch of aristocratic officials just think too highly of themselves. They truly believe that except for their own nobility, no one else in the world knows how to read or govern. Haven’t they heard that when the High Ancestor Emperor started his uprising, the talents he used were nothing more than ordinary local officials from small counties, yet most of those people ended up being appointed to high offices and noble titles? From this, we can see that governing the realm is nowhere near as difficult as they brag it to be. Most people are just following established routines. As long as you push them into that position, provided they aren’t completely foolish, they won’t cause any major chaos.”

In contrast, those regional officials who prided themselves on being deeply knowledgeable and possessing great governing talent managed to execute a good policy meant to benefit the nation and the people to the point where official oppression drove the citizens to open rebellion, angering everyone. Doesn’t that prove that these capable officials from aristocratic families are actually worse than completely foolish individuals?

Unlike the aristocratic officials who only dared to gossip about Shentu Yang behind his back, Shentu Yang spoke these words directly during the grand court session. A crowd of officials from aristocratic families found themselves publicly insulted to their faces by Shentu Yang, and they instantly became so red-faced with anger that several of them fainted right on the spot. The remaining officials who did not faint tried to swarm him to attack, but Shentu Yang struck them in the face with his sword scabbard, throwing the scene into utter chaos.

A perfectly good grand court session instantly turned into a noisy chaotic market. Sitting squarely at the head of the hall, Yin Shuhuai watched the civil and military officials suddenly staging a massive physical brawl, and he silently let out a long sigh.