Chapter 195: Joint Administration From Nine Ministries (III)

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.

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.