bookbashuk Page 57
Page 57
The Imperial Guards were equally unconcerned, but there was one other force that was extremely concerned: the High Lords.
It was clear that the high lords were quite dissatisfied with Zhou Qing's behavior, especially since he had completely ignored them when he came to the Ministry of State Affairs looking for Guilliman last time.
Although the High Lords of the mortal realm are a bunch of insects, they have their merits, namely that they have always served the Empire and have therefore learned some lessons from history.
For example, the Horus Rebellion.
At the beginning of the Horus Rebellion, Horus was also appointed as the Imperial Warmaster, and thus he launched a grand birthday celebration.
How similar the situation was back then! Zhou Qing was also appointed as the War Marshal of the Sun Lord Empire. What does that mean?
Isn't that just the resurrection of the War Commander position from the human empire?
What's even more terrifying is that Zhou Qing violated the Astartes Grand Ceremony by having so many Space Marines.
The appearance of massive numbers of Space Marines on Terra is a major concern for the High Lords.
Don't assume that these high lords are always working tirelessly for the human empire; in reality, they are just a small minority of outstanding individuals.
Most of the high lords represent the interests of their respective families, and Zhou Qing's appearance means that their interests are threatened.
Zhou Qing did not engage in any exchange of benefits with them; he was parachuted in directly, which means he had no vested interests with the local nobles.
This is completely different from the high lord's usual exchange of interests, and Zhou Qing's sudden appearance also means that he also needs to share a piece of the profits.
How much of the spoils does an Imperial Warmaster need to claim?
The high lords couldn't make a specific deduction about this, because they didn't know the true extent of Zhou Qing's ambitions. However, what was certain was that the benefits the Imperial War Marshal, the Sun Lord, needed to distribute were enormous.
However, the benefits are now basically in the hands of these high lords, and the overall interests of the empire have been largely distributed among their respective families.
Zhou Qing's appearance means that a part of them will be taken away.
In addition to Zhou Qing, Guilliman also exists.
Guilliman's arrival also meant that they would lose the power they had gained, and the loss of power meant the loss of family interests.
The high lords were already somewhat dissatisfied. Just as Guilliman would have needed to use his powerful political abilities to suppress their opposition even without Zhou Qing, the high lords were already somewhat dissatisfied.
Now, due to Zhou Qing's presence, the high lords' resistance has become even more intense.
The Imperial Guards could easily shred these people into mincemeat, but the Empire cannot function without them.
Because the empire is too large, it needs a sufficient number of government officials.
Aside from these guys' families, the empire couldn't afford to send that many government officials.
A single palace requires 100 billion government officials.
Even if all the people on Zhou Qing's entire colony were drawn from Terra, there wouldn't be enough government personnel.
These people's family empires cannot be touched lightly, because the human empires in Warhammer are themselves an abstract entity.
They don't have a sufficient compulsory education system; who would believe that an interstellar empire would need to talk about literacy rates?
Some of the senior leaders had long been dissatisfied with the combination of Zhou Qing and Guilliman.
Now, Zhou Qing has mobilized his planetary defense forces to do everything in their power to wipe out the rebels on Terra, giving them some peace.
The greatest flaw of the human race—internal strife—is vividly displayed in these high lords.
On the second day, when Guilliman entered the High Lords' Council to discuss a matter, Grand Marshal Avila Drahma of the Ministry of Justice's Gendarmerie stepped forward and challenged Guilliman.
"Lord Guilliman, I think you need to impose some restrictions on Lord Zhou Qing."
He has seriously violated the Reich's Astartes Codex, and now the number of Space Marines under his command far exceeds the Reich's limits!
"The Holy Scriptures stipulate that each Astartes Chapter can only have 1000 people, but where is Zhou Qing now?"
As the Sun Lord, he actually mobilized so many Space Marines; one of his chapters alone had over 3000 men!
"Such behavior undoubtedly violates the provisions of Imperial Law, and you are obligated to restrain it."
Although these guys wanted to target Zhou Qing and Guilliman, they knew very well that it was impossible for them to target Zhou Qing with their own strength.
At the same time, they are completely unqualified.
Zhou Qing was personally appointed by the Emperor as the War Marshal of the Sun Lord Empire; how could a few high-ranking lords possibly have any objections?
They need Guilliman to do it.
They needed Guilliman, who was also directly appointed by the emperor as the regent of the empire, to personally intervene and restrain Zhou Qing.
It was obvious that these high lords were just ordinary people, so they did not know Zhou Qing's true status. They believed that Guilliman, as the regent of the empire, should have the right to govern Zhou Qing.
After all, Guilliman was the Emperor's 13th son. They might not be able to do anything to Zhou Qing, but they believed Guilliman could.
Unlike the various thoughts in the minds of the High Lords, Guilliman looked at the group of idiots in front of him with disbelief.
His head was full of question marks.
At this moment, Guilliman began to doubt the things he had thought when he promulgated the Astartes: was it really the right thing to let mortals govern mortals?
Does this guy even have a brain?
The crisis in Terra was far from over. If Zhou Qing hadn't brought in the army, who knows how long the battle would have lasted?
Even before the crisis was over, these guys were already planning to target Zhou Qing.
They didn't even consider that those troops were all Zhou Qing's, and whether they could successfully target him.
Guilliman felt like he was about to laugh in anger, but considering he still needed these insects.
Now is not the right time to replace these high lords, so Guilliman decided to skip over it for now.
Guilliman took a deep breath and suppressed his anger.
"I'll pretend I never heard about this, and let's not bring it up again. Now let's talk about other issues related to food rations."
Chapter 83 still echoes that sentiment: the empire is too vast, but precisely because the empire is so vast...
Guilliman wanted to skip this now; he didn't want to waste his time arguing with these high lords.
However, it was clear that Grand Marshal Avila Drahma of the Ministry of Justice's military police did not understand Guilliman's meaning at all, and she did not go over the topic with Guilliman.
Instead, she stood up further, placed her hands on the table, and spoke to Guilliman again, like a righteous person.
She's determined to force Guilliman to deal with Zhou Qing's problem today.
After all, she represents something else entirely.
Grand Marshal Avila Delaheima of the Ministry of Justice's military police represents the interests of the nobles on Terra.
Before Guilliman's return, Drahma tolerated the bailiffs' oppressive rule over the commoners of the hive and misappropriated law enforcement resources to protect the interests of the nobility.
The Ministry of Justice at this time was no longer the Ministry of Justice that Guilliman and his companions knew ten thousand years ago. Instead, it was a Ministry of Justice composed of noblemen's sons, where corruption was rampant throughout the empire.
The main goal was to protect the interests of the nobility while oppressing the common people at the bottom.
Even though the civilians on Terra didn't actually have much value, they were still being suppressed relentlessly.
They were trying to plunder another share of their own interests from the common people who couldn't even feed themselves.
Theoretically speaking, if he did this, it shouldn't cause any conflict with Zhou Qing.
However, Zhou Qing was a member of the People's Federation. As a moral person, he treated people at the bottom of society very well.
Zhou Qing was not a traditionalist in the empire, and therefore, he would not treat the lower classes the way the imperial nobles treated them.
In order to settle these people, Zhou Qing can be said to have greatly damaged the interests of those imperial nobles.
Land on Terra is very valuable. These nobles of the Empire control most of the land on Terra, and Zhou Qing will inevitably clash with them in order to settle these commoners.
Under his orders, Zhou Qing's planetary defense forces completely ignored these nobles. They either had to hand over their land so that they could settle these ordinary people, or they had to be killed without mercy.
While Zhou Qing was settling the lower classes, more than 184 million Terran nobles had died at his hands during this period.
This is no small number, and the implications behind it are even more astonishing. It shows that Zhou Qing doesn't care about these traditional nobles at all and kills them without hesitation.
As a representative of the interests of the nobility, Avila Delahma received a joint request from several other major noble families.
They demanded that he teach Zhou Qing a lesson, get Zhou Qing to talk to them, and make some exchange of benefits.
These traditional nobles on Terra were still thinking of using a deal-making process, completely unaware that Zhou Qing was someone outside the rules.
Avila Delaheima insisted that Guilliman come up with a resolution to restrict Zhou Qing, which greatly displeased Guilliman.
His brows furrowed as well; this vengeful son, who had always maintained his rationality, now revealed his displeasure on his face.
It's not something a competent politician should do, but Guilliman did it anyway, and what that signifies is self-evident.
However, this represents a final warning.
However, it was clear that even though Avila Drahma had seen Guilliman's change in expression, she was still unwilling to back down.
Now is her best chance, because Guilliman is still unfamiliar with the area and has no way of gathering evidence against them and then dealing with them.
At this point, Guilliman would never kill them, so this was the only time that could force Guilliman to comply.
Since Guilliman couldn't kill him, why should he back down? Therefore, instead of backing down, he made himself appear even more righteous.
Avila Delaheima stared intently into Guilliman's eyes, refusing to back down.
Such a situation is extremely rare; the senior representatives of the Ministry of Justice actually confronted the Regent.
The other high lords did not intervene in this dispute.
Instead, they continued to watch from the sidelines, wanting to see how Guilliman would handle the situation.
This relates to their future attitude towards Guilliman.
Sensing the attitudes of the other high lords around him, Guilliman's anger intensified, and his face darkened completely.
Isn't this just trying to sow discord between Guilliman and Guilliman?
This is simply unreasonable.
Guilliman slowly scanned the surrounding high lords, looking at their expressions and trying to analyze what they represented.
However, these guys were all competent politicians, so none of them showed their true feelings.
After looking around and not getting the answer he wanted, and finding that it was no different from what he had expected, Guilliman stopped pretending.
He stretched out his hands and clapped them a few times in the air.
"Clap clap clap..."