Chapter 639: The People, The Root Also! (1/2)

At the end of the first round, only An Yue was remembered, which made Zheng Gong’s face grimace as if he had eaten a fly. He had been dead set to win the first game and had put in a great deal of effort for it, but the sudden emergence of An Yue completely overturned his plans.

After a short rest at the end of the martial test, the competition entered the second round – reports on the princes’ handling of national affairs.

An Bang Ting had divided the national affairs into four fields for the four princes to pick: military, politics, commerce, and agriculture. The deceased An Ming had chosen military, An Ye had chosen politics, An Feng had chosen commerce, and An Yue, who had arrived late due to waiting for Bai Xiaofei, had been left with agriculture…

This round compared the princes’ results of this month and at the same time their own views on their respective matters after the reports.

According to the order of selection, An Ye and An Feng carried out their debriefs respectively. Each one was fairly satisfactory and had no faults. No major problems had happened during the period of their governance, which alone was enough to prove their abilities.

When it was An Yue’s turn, everyone had expectant eyes. Unfortunately, he wasn’t at all spectacular unlike the martial round. Bai Xiaofei simply pretended that he wasn’t watching at all…

You win some, you lose some. The majority of An Yue’s time was spent on training and the rest was used to follow Bai Xiaofei to develop connections. The affairs assigned to him were basically solved through communication, so An Yue didn’t quite have a feel for them. Besides, agriculture itself took a year, the seeds hadn’t even sprouted yet…

It could be said that the second round ended without a highlight. No one was particularly good, but An Yue did poorly.

However, this didn’t have much impact because only officials of the respective field could understand the reports, so what was bad and what was good sounded the same to many people. It was so bland that they just wanted to doze off…

After the second round, An Ye and An Feng regained their confidence.

As the saying goes, the one who gets fat first won’t necessarily end up the fattest one. Although An Yue shone brilliantly in the first round, all he had was a leap in personal strength. His brothers knew very well that he was an idiot in activities requiring brains.

And the third round concerned intelligence – Speech!

Drawing lots on the spot, An Yue ‘unfortunately’ ended up being the last one and An Ye went first.

Regarding communication, An Feng was recognized as the strongest among his brothers, while An Yue was recognized as the weakest, so it was understandable that An Feng would have this thought.

“The army is the ultimate strength of a country. With a powerful army, not only can we effectively defend against foreign enemies, but also expand our territory when necessary…” An Ye started his speech. Although he had been handling political affairs, his speech was about the military. What he said was pleasing to the military officials.

In this kind of situation, one’s speech would basically represent their political orientation after ascending the throne. Since An Ye chose the military from so many aspects, it was clear that this would be his focus, and at that time, the military officials would become the biggest beneficiaries.

However, there weren’t many people that An Ye could persuade when he chose this aspect. After his speech, the majority felt like he was too militaristic and even somewhat paranoid.

After An Ye finished, a confident An Feng slowly stepped onto the platform and swept a look around the crowd.