With the agreements made, Lin Mu and the rest came up with a pipeline for the events. They hoped for the best and planned for the worst, making contingencies for contingencies. They even made plans in case Gu Yao decide to directly come out and attack them or even start his takeover of the empire.
Jing Luo also agreed to set up some better formation arrays around the Hong Lin kingdom just in case they needed to protect from attacks. It was needed since they were their allies and their survival was essential to them in the long term.
Plus, King Hong was going to use the entire kingdom to provide the resources now. He knew it was no time to skimp on things and put the administrative machinery into work. While this was happening, Adviser Liu efficiently weeded out the corrupt officials of the kingdom and replaced them with the right people.
During the reign of minister Fu Delun, a lot of good workers had been wrongfully dismissed or transferred to other positions. Adviser Liu rectified these mistakes and checked the records to see who actually did well.
This was not easy as the records were heavily manipulated as well and they had to take a lot of direct testimonies from people and then cross reference them before actually checking the differences.
It was a long and hectic process and it would have been impossible if not for the people's support. When it was announced that Minister of Law Fu Delun has been arrested along with several other officials on the charges of corruption and forgery, a lot of the other good officials that had been suppressed were overjoyed.
Even the commoners who had suffered during this time were pleased that their king and adviser were taking action. In the royal court, half of the people were either greatly fined or arrested entirely due to their involvement with Minster Fu Delun.
As for Fu Delun himself, since he was under the control of Gu Yao, there was always a chance that he would try to escape and contact Gu Yao. As long as Gu Yao didn't know what was happening in the kingdom, they would have the advantage.
Thus, to prevent Gu Yao from discovering what had happened, Lin Mu and the rest put Minster Fu Delun in a tranquilized state perpetually. The royal physicians and an alchemist combined their skills to make a strong tranquilized which won't harm the body but would truly put the person it was used on in a deep sleep.
They wouldn't wake up even if the person was beat up and was rather deadly if one thought about it. It was fine to use on cultivators, but if it was used on normal humans, they would die of thirst before they could even wake up.
For Fu Delun at least, the physicians set up a nutritional solution made of several herbs that would prevent the man from dying. Because in the end, Lin Mu and the rest knew that Fu Delun was a victim too and wasn't doing this on his own.
Killing him would be a grave injustice when they still had the capability to restrain him. King Hong and adviser Liu had spoken of how Fu Delun truly took his responsibilities very seriously all these years.
In fact, it was that very reputation that led to them overlooking all the mistakes that had been made in the past few years. Had it not been for that, Adviser Liu and King Hong would have been more hands-on in their approach with administrative matters.
A wise man once said, 'having competent subordinates makes one's life easier, but it also makes one dependent on them, thus taking away their caution.'
This was one of the reasons why strong clans and sects always chose to let their juniors train and experience the world and get some setbacks. Otherwise, if they were given a smooth carved out path by their seniors, they would get complacent.
Of course, doing all these changes brought their own set of problems. The new people for higher positions were hard to find and for lower positions, they needed to be trained from the start.
The biggest issue though, was finding a suitable replacement for the minister of Law. So far, Adviser Liu had taken over the duties for that, but it was no longer viable for him to keep on doing that as his duties were expanding by the day.
They needed someone to replace Fu Delun. Plus, since the mess started from this position, the eyes of everyone in the kingdom would be on this position. Thus, anyone who took over, would be facing great pressure.
For this, Lin Mu actually had a suggestion. The person he suggested to King Hong and adviser Liu was none other than the head of the law enforcement department. Lin Mu himself had seen how hard the man worked, despite the bad hand he was dealt and still managed to keep the department running.
Adviser Liu had already seen the work ethic and productivity of the man and accepted it right away. But when they actually called in the man to offer him the position, he cried.
He said that he would die if he took on more work. Lin Mu couldn't help but chuckle when he heard this and gave a few solutions.
First, they gave the man a well deserved vacation and secondly they gave him enough resources so that he could break through to the Core Condensation realm.
Xian Po was stunned and had not expected this at all. To him, it was completely out of his scope that he would ever reach a higher cultivation base.
They knew that he was a hard worker and was pushed to the limit. But these limits were also there because of his cultivation base. Thus, the easiest option was to simply upgrade it and that's what they did.
And thus, Xian Po's vacation week also turned into a secluded cultivation session which he did like.
