三

'Your majesty, my name is DeYue surname Mu.'

'Mu DeYue? Aren't you the candidate that obtained the highest honor in the imperial examination?' the emperor asks.

'Such praises aren't suitable for a lowly peasant, thank you, your highness.' He thanked.

'Then let me asks you, how are your views in dealing with these problems?'

DeYue remains silent, standing there with his head facing down. 'The emperor is asking you a question! Are you deaf or you don't know the answer to this question?' an official mockingly asks.

"Your highness and my lords, I have a solution to these problems but I request to be able to speak to my mind's content." DeYue requested.

"You may speak freely" the emperor permits.

"Thank you, your majesty! I shall begin my opinions. As we all know, our armies had been outmatched and outclassed by others. In the Opium Wars, the war against the Japanese and the costly Taiping rebellion. Their weapon had a greater efficiency in destroying our armies, and canon's firing greater range than ours. Therefore, I propose that we must modernize our armies and change our ways of thinking." "With that said, we must acknowledge other countries as equals rather than keep on viewing others as inferior barbarians! As so, we must learn from the advances others had made in the past century and industrialize all parts of China!" "As in my opinion, we could play the Westerners against themselves while we modernize our military. Self-strengthening our empire without any costly wars." He states. "Comparing to the idea of supporting the rebels, this would be safer and wouldn't cost that much in terms of money and manpower." He added.

"Hmph! Isn't this a show of cowardliness? Instead of facing them head-on, we hide ourselves? And admit defeat" an official argued.

"Our so-called "barbarians" had defeated us in the past few wars and is now slowly carving up our empire into their own! We must work together to save our Empire!"

"By learning how to become a barbarian? How dare you come out with such a disgusting idea!" an official scolded.

"What's wrong in modernizing our empire?" TongQi refuted. As the hall is filled with arguments and debates. "That's enough!" the emperor shouted, and the hall instantly quiets down. "DeYue!" the emperor calls.

"Yes, your majesty?"

"I grown interest in your ways in dealing with these foreign threats, in such I decided to have you assigned to deal with these problems."

"I shall not disappoint you, your majesty!" DeYue says. Saying this he swears at the bottom of his heart that he, Mu Deyue will put back the fracturing dynasty piece by piece. Even it takes a lifetime to fulfill, he wouldn't hesitate to do so.