Li Weiyang lowered her head and said, “To share Your Majesty’s burdens, Father specially dispatched spies to investigate among the disaster victims. He mentioned that when those local officials heard the censors had arrived, they immediately worked through the night to set up kitchens and build stoves, hung yellow flags from tall poles with the four characters ‘Imperial Relief Gruel’ written on them, and gathered disaster victims to wait. After the censors arrived, they rang bells and began distributing gruel to the victims. As soon as the censors left, they immediately dismantled the kitchens and leveled the stoves—the relief ended right there. Your Majesty, not only do local officials line their own pockets, even worse is that they mixed white clay into the relief grain to fill out the quantity, and finally simply put tree bark into the pots. The disaster victims struggled bitterly drinking this kind of ‘gruel’ until they starved to death. With such relief efforts, how could riots not occur?”

The Emperor, upon hearing this, was almost dumbstruck. He never imagined such things could happen. The reason he didn’t believe Li Weiyang’s claims about local officials lining their pockets was because he had dispatched three waves of inspection censors who couldn’t determine the cause of the riots. Yet this little girl before him spoke about these matters so coherently—forcing himself to believe she was talking nonsense was simply impossible.

“The people I sent discovered nothing! Not just the censors, but also the palace spies!” The Emperor said word by word.

Li Weiyang lowered her head. Of course the Emperor couldn’t discover anything, because all the surface evidence had been destroyed by those local officials, and they had also suppressed the disaster victims, making it impossible to extract any truth. However—in every disaster she experienced in her previous life, she had witnessed these things with her own eyes. These were all the usual tricks of corrupt officials.

“Father’s people also couldn’t find anything at first, because the disaster victims refused to say anything, filled with resistant emotions. Later I suggested Father simply have people disguise themselves and pretend to be rioters to infiltrate among them. Of course, to make them believe it naturally required considerable effort…”

“You—” The Emperor was nearly speechless.

“Fourth is what Big Sister mentioned about reducing and exempting taxes. Your Majesty issued the tax exemption decree and sent envoys to the disaster area to announce the relief—this was originally a good thing to pacify the people’s hearts. But some local officials continued pressing disaster victims for taxes after the disaster occurred. By the time the tax exemption decree reached the disaster area, tax collection work had basically been completed. Your Majesty, your subjects could only receive Your Imperial grace in vain.”

The Empress Dowager glanced at the scribe beside her, who was writing furiously, recording Prime Minister’s third daughter’s frank words.

“Fifth is the Ever-Normal Granary. Your Majesty, the Ever-Normal Granary has the name of benefiting the people on the outside, but inside it actually exploits the common people. The local officials in charge of the Ever-Normal Granary collude with powerful clans and corrupt merchants, using their authority to buy and sell grain, embezzling Your Majesty’s disaster relief silver. Combined with their usual withholding of stored grain, measures to benefit the people naturally become competition for profit with the people. This system cannot be implemented. Therefore, the Five Strategies for Disaster Relief are merely empty talk on paper—they even provide opportunities for greedy rats to embezzle. This truly brings disaster to the country and people!” Li Weiyang’s words were compelling, sentence by sentence.

The Emperor sat on the imperial seat for quite a while without saying a word.

Everyone looked at him with tense expressions, not knowing when a word would emerge from his mouth and this beautiful little girl’s head would roll.

However, the Emperor finally let out a long breath: “These five strategies came from your elder sister.”

Li Weiyang lowered her eyes, utterly respectful: “Your Majesty, Big Sister never leaves her chambers—naturally the methods she devised were good. Unfortunately during implementation, many difficulties were encountered. This subject’s daughter differs from Big Sister—because of poor health, Father sent me to the countryside since childhood to recuperate, so I have considerable understanding of poor people and tenant farmers… Please forgive Big Sister’s transgression, Your Majesty.”

Such penetrating insight, precise analytical ability, and broad perspective appearing together in a young girl. The Emperor stared intently at Li Weiyang, the sharpness in his eyes alarming: “You knew there would be problems all along?”

Li Weiyang raised her eyes and said, “Your Majesty, Weiyang is merely discussing the matter as it stands. I cannot predict the future.”

She wasn’t an immortal—how could she predict the future? The Emperor nodded and said, “At such a young age, having such insight is truly rare. Then according to your thinking, how should this be resolved?”

Li Weiyang smiled slightly: “Disaster relief should begin with reforming official governance. Please dispatch censors again, Your Majesty, to severely punish corrupt officials.”

The Emperor’s brow twitched. He waved his hand and said, “Pass down the decree—any ordinary citizen who discovers corrupt officials can bind them and send them to the capital for punishment. Checkpoints along the route must grant passage, and if anyone dares obstruct, execute them immediately.”

Li Weiyang said softly, “Please establish a range for the embezzled silver, Your Majesty.”

The Emperor said coldly, “Henceforth, anyone who embezzles disaster relief silver—with one hundred taels as the limit—execute them all!”

Li Weiyang’s eyes blinked: “But there are numerous embezzlers. I’m afraid they cannot all be executed at once, and there won’t be enough officials to fill the vacancies.”

The Emperor looked at her and suddenly smiled: “According to you, what should be done?”

Li Weiyang smiled slightly: “Regarding filling official vacancies, Your Majesty will naturally have imperial judgment. This subject’s daughter can buy a little time for officials to succeed their positions.”

The Emperor nodded and said, “Good. Then I shall entrust the matter of official succession to your father.”

The old madam’s heart leaped with great joy upon hearing this. Executing corrupt officials would certainly offend a large group of people, but if one also held the power of succession appointments, regardless of whether officials were from the left or right faction, they would do everything possible to curry favor with and please the Li family. This was an enormous benefit.

The Empress Dowager smiled: “This widow has never seen such an intelligent little girl. Your Majesty, you must reward her heavily.”

The Emperor glanced at Li Weiyang and shook his head: “This child is too young—not suitable to receive an imperial honor. Better to reward gold and silver.”

Indeed an old fox—now he was reluctant to grant an imperial honor? Li Weiyang’s heart sank, but the smile on her face grew even more brilliant. Neither humble nor arrogant, she bowed down and kowtowed three times heavily, her voice sincere: “Receiving the Empress Dowager’s praise, this subject’s daughter is unworthy. This subject’s daughter merely had good fortune, happening upon Your Majesty’s enlightened rule that permits women to discuss state affairs. This subject’s daughter also happened to have lived among the common people, thus having the opportunity to share Your Majesty’s burdens. This subject’s daughter dare not accept rewards. Please retract them, Your Majesty.”

Her neither proud nor impatient, neither humble nor arrogant attitude immediately won the Empress Dowager’s favor. The Empress Dowager smiled lovingly and waved her hand: “Silly child, when something is given to you, just take it. His Majesty’s golden words are jade decrees—he will not go back on them!”

The Emperor nodded in agreement and waved his hand. Palace servants immediately acknowledged and withdrew from the main hall. After a while, when they entered again, they carried over twenty trays in succession. Each tray contained heavy gold and jewels—everything was extremely rare. Even though the old madam was accustomed to seeing gold, silver, and precious stones, she still felt dazzled.

Such generous rewards were truly unprecedented.

The female officials watching from the side were burning with envy, thinking to themselves: This girl has truly struck great fortune.

Li Weiyang didn’t raise her head to look at the gold even once, only kneeling quietly prostrate on the ground, her expression unreadable. Gold? She didn’t need it! What she wanted was worth far more than gold!