The Fallen Nation System, Turning the Tide - Chapter 11: Rotation

Chapter 11: Rotation

“Implementing a job rotation system would be better.”

In the middle of inserting Zhang Yu’s letter, Xu Ying happily finished replying to two stacks of memorials in one go, finally setting down her brush to take a break.

A palace maid serving nearby perceptively stepped forward to offer tea. Just as Xu Ying reached out to take it, a flash of white light suddenly appeared. The maid’s eyes instantly gleamed with malice, revealing a dagger from her sleeve, thrusting straight toward Xu Ying while shouting, “You damned emperor, give me your life!”

Before Xu Ying, who had been called a “damned emperor,” could react, a pink figure flashed before her eyes, blocking her. The sharp dagger plunged into flesh with a sickening thud, followed by a muffled groan.

“Guards! There’s an assassin”

Xu Ying, stunned, held the person in her arms. The assassin, failing in her first attempt, prepared to strike again. But guards outside, hearing the commotion, rushed in. Seizing the opportunity, Xu Ying gently laid down the maid who had sacrificed herself to save her and lunged toward the assassin.

Seeing Xu Ying’s face light up with delight, the assassin froze for a moment, unsure of her intentions. Blood dripped from the dagger onto her palm.

In that critical moment, the assassin tightened her grip on the dagger and thrust toward Xu Ying. But midway, she felt something strike her wrist. Her hand went numb, losing strength, and the dagger clattered to the ground.

The chance to assassinate was gone in an instant. Guards flooded the room, surrounding the assassin, their blades pressed against her neck.

Xu Ying hurriedly raised a hand to stop them. “Wait”

“Let her go,” Xu Ying said, pressing down on the guards’ blades. She turned to the assassin and spoke sincerely, “Go back and tell your master that if he wants me dead, he should send more people. The more, the betterif he can kill me, that’ll be his skill.”

The assassin’s expression was complex as she relayed the message verbatim. In a small, cramped house in Chang’an, the sound of a heavy slap on a table suddenly echoed.

The damned emperor’s words were full of mockery, as if she didn’t take them seriously at all.

The person in the room gritted their teeth. “I swear enmity against Xu Ying. If I don’t kill her, I am not human.”

When Xu Lang heard about the assassination attempt on Xu Ying, she rushed back in a panic, grabbing Xu Ying’s shoulders and turning her around to check for injuries. “Are you hurt?”

Thinking of the maid who had taken the dagger for her, Xu Ying sighed helplessly. Forcing a smile, she took Xu Lang’s hand and said, “Don’t worry, I’m fine. There was a loyal and brave maid by my side who sacrificed herself to protect me. I wasn’t hurt at all.”

If only she knew how much regret Xu Ying felther heart bled as she spoke those words. She had been so close, so close to leaving this place.

If she had known the assassin would come at that moment, she would have sent everyone away.

If that maid hadn’t thrown herself in front of her, Xu Ying would surely be lying on a soft sofa right now, enjoying air conditioning and eating watermelon, instead of being stuck in Youzhou as a wretched emperor.

Actually, Xu Ying recognized the maid who saved hershe was a spy planted by Zhang Yu. Xu Ying couldn’t understand why she had risked her life to save her. Was Zhang Yu worried that he wouldn’t find a suitable puppet emperor if she died?

Xu Ying was frustrated.

An assassination attempt was no small matter. Xu Lang, hearing how dangerous it had beenhow close the assassin came to succeedingfelt it was unacceptable.

Xu Lang said sternly, “This won’t do. It’s too dangerous. With more people around now, it’s harder to control, and it’s easy for ill-intentioned individuals to slip in. We must replace them with people we know well and can trust.”

Hearing her say this, Xu Ying quickly grabbed her arm. “Even the most meticulous plans have flaws. Even if we replace all the attendants, assassins will find other methods. Besides, we’re unfamiliar with Youzhouwhere could we find trustworthy people here?”

“We can’t just let assassins come and go freely like this,” Xu Lang proposed another idea. “What if we strengthen the defenses and deploy more garrison troops?”

Xu Ying gave a dry cough. The guards could already summon reinforcements with a single shout, making assassination difficult enough. If they stationed troops right beside her, what assassin would dare come?

Considering every angle for the assassins’ convenience gave Xu Ying a splitting headache.

“No, that won’t do. The garrison’s primary duty is defending Youzhouthey can’t be casually redeployed.” Xu Ying waved her hand dismissively. After pondering for a long time, a sudden inspiration struck her, and she suggested an alternative: “How about implementing a rotation system?”

Xu Lang frowned in confusion. “What’s a rotation system?”

Xu Ying explained: “Instead of having fixed palace staff around me, we’ll periodically select a portion from all personnel to serve in rotating shifts. The order will be randomized too. This way, even if assassins want to strike, they’d need to work in peripheral positions first while waiting for their rotation turn. Over time, they’re bound to reveal flaws or slip up.”

The advantage was the unpredictability of selectionlike drawing mystery boxeswith strong uncertainty about who would be chosen. An assassin might get lucky and be selected, successfully getting close, or they might have bad luck and never get chosen.

Moreover, the decision-making power for selection remained in her hands. During preliminary selection, they could investigate the backgrounds of rotation candidates to confirm their innocence. Once the rotation roster was finalized, it would be publicly posted, allowing anyone with suspicions to report them.

However, this approach had significant drawbacks.

First, the lack of professionalism meant that for important tasks, they’d still need to find reliable people separately.

Second, investigating personnel during selection would be time-consuming and labor-intensive, likely becoming mere formality that revealed nothing substantial.

Finallyand this was Xu Ying’s primary designthe large number of people would create a mixed bag with many loopholes to exploit. Anyone could potentially reach her side, offering more opportunities to approach her compared to the previous fixed positions.

After hearing Xu Ying’s explanation, Xu Lang still hesitated. Eventually, Xu Ying made the final decision: “The only person I truly trust is you, sister. I’m entrusting you with the crucial task of selecting rotation personnel.”

This was undoubtedly putting her life completely in Xu Lang’s hands. Besides Xu Lang, indeed no one else could shoulder this responsibility. Hearing this and bearing the duty of protecting Xu Ying, Xu Lang immediately responded: “Your Majesty can rest assured, Lang will not fail this trust.”

“Additionally, there’s one more matter.” After pondering for several days, Xu Ying decided to assign an important task to Xu Lang.

Having exhausted herself with all these efforts yet still remaining alive, she had been thinking these past days that she shouldn’t put all her eggs in one basket. While Liu Xu and Zhang Yu were busy with court struggles, she could simultaneously shift direction and focus on her ultimate goalthe country’s downfall.

Since her death would still be judged based on whether the country fell, she might as well aim for both outcomes at oncenational collapse and assassinationto avoid the scenario where she finally got killed but the country remained intact, forcing her back to the starting point.

If after all that hard work over months, she ended up back where she started with such an outcome, she would probably truly go mad.

Xu Ying planned to follow the tyrant routebeing disliked in the early stages, then gradually increasing pressure to stir public anger, ultimately inciting rebellion to overthrow her.

Now she still gave Xu Lang the impression of being ambitious and ready to achieve great things to create a prosperous era, so she couldn’t speak directly and had to adopt a roundabout approach.

Xu Ying said, “As the ancient saying goes, the ruler is the boat and the people are the water; the water can carry the boat but also capsize it. If we gain the support of the people, Chancellor Liu and others will no longer be a problem. But the people are too distant from us and don’t understand us, which leads them to misunderstand my policies and resist them. Therefore, propaganda is extremely important.”

Xu Lang sat up straight and listened attentively, immediately grasping the point and nodding in agreement. She guessed, “Does Your Majesty want me to send people to blend in with the crowd and build momentum for you?”

Xu Ying shook her head. What Xu Lang suggested was having people pretend to be commoners and lead the praise for hera tactic many had used before major undertakings, mainly exploiting herd mentality. This method was too easily successful and absolutely could not be used.

“No, that would be deception.Xu Ying waved her hand grandly, speaking with righteous conviction: “We must have the government come forward to provide explanations. This not only carries authority and reassures the people but also promotes the relationship between officials and citizens, making policy implementation more effective.”

Not at all.

The people had their own measure of how well the court was doing. In this era where the government held supreme authority, who would dare openly criticize it? That would be considered treason.

If people didn’t like something and you forced them to accept it, the more you did so, the more likely they were to rebel.

Xu Ying was distorting concepts, conflating policy implementation with self-praise. What she wanted Xu Lang to do was the latterofficial propaganda praising how well the emperor was doing and where she excelled.

Chinese culture valued modesty and humility. Those who achieved minor successes and acted as if they were unparalleled, looking down on everyone, would eventually lose goodwill.

Moreover, a word or two of praise was fine, but if done year after year, the compliments would become worthless.

Additionally, excessive flowers and applause would push her to great heights, leading the people to have high expectations and demands of her. If she failed to deliver and proved unworthy of her position, there would inevitably be backlash.

Xu Lang only half-understood, feeling that Xu Ying’s words made sense but somehow sensing something wasn’t quite right.

Before Xu Lang could figure it out, under Xu Ying’s series of statements like “Sister, you’re the only one I have” and “Only you can help me accomplish this,” Xu Lang became passionately stirred and immediately agreed.

When Xu Lang left Xu Ying’s room, she began to worry about how to achieve the effect Xu Ying described. Only when she actually started working on it did she realize that reality seemed somewhat contradictory to what Xu Ying had said…

While Xu Ying was embarking on this new journey, the Northern Barbarians were not faring well. Tanmuhu was unwilling to submit completely but couldn’t openly defy the Khan’s orders either.

At his wit’s end, Yanjie approached him: “Right now, Xia Chenglie is far away at the Northern Barbarians’ royal court, which means Youzhou must be weakly defended. Why don’t we launch a surprise attack to capture it and seize their empress? We can use her to force the Jin dynasty to return our Khan and withdraw their troops.”

Tanmuhu was shocked. “You would defy Father Khan’s orders?”

In his youth, the Khan had conquered the grasslands with a terrible temperthose who disobeyed him were killed and fed to wolves. Though now aged, physically weaker, and indulging in pleasures, his past intimidation remained.

“This is to save the Khan. If we don’t do this, the Northern Barbarians will forever kneel at the feet of Jin. If you’re willing to accept that, I won’t try to persuade you further.”

With these words, Yanjie turned and strode away, as if deeply disappointed in Tanmuhu.

Tanmuhu’s anger was instantly ignited. Did Yanjie look down on him, thinking he was timid and cowardly?

He, Tanmuhu, was never one to shrink from a challenge.

Yanjie’s words were not without reason. Either attack Youzhou, capture the female emperor to exchange for the Khan, or obediently retreat to the grasslands, never to roam freely along the border again. No matter how one looked at it, the former was clearly more worthwhile.

As for whether they might fail and provoke the Jin Dynasty into killing the Khan, Tanmuhu had never considered it. He believed in his own strength.

Author’s Note:

“The ruler is the boat, the people are the water” originally comes from “Xunzi: The Governance of Kings”: “The ruler is the boat, the common people are the water.” The water can carry the boat, but it can also capsize it.”

We haven’t gotten to Xia Chenglie’s return yet, so let him stay outside for now. The thoughtful little secretary I want to write about is about to make an appearance.

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