Chapter 833: Not Enough to Trust the Country
It’s still that alley.
A cold wind rushed in from the entrance of the alley. A woman walked out of the alley timidly. She inadvertently caught a glimpse of a young man standing outside the alley. His eyes were as bright as ink and his expression was calm.
What a handsome young man!
The woman secretly praised.
"Long Wilbur!"
A horseman came galloping over, dismounted, bowed and said with a smile: "I am late."
"It's not too late!" Jiang Qingzhi said, "I just got here too."
"It's Long Webber?" the woman muttered. At this time, Mo Zhan behind Jiang Qingzhi glanced at her. His eyes were as sharp as a knife. The woman shuddered and said, "It's so cold. Let's go get some soy sauce!"
"Please!" Lu Song stretched out his hand.
Jiang Qingzhi nodded, and the two of them went in side by side.
A few birds chirped and landed on the wall in front, tilting their heads to look at the two people who walked in.
"A weary bird returns to its nest, an old man returns to his roots. I had already made preparations to return home, but I never expected that..."
Lu Song felt a little emotional.
"Willing to do that?" Jiang Qingzhi said, "You, Lü Song, have great ambitions. If you give up when you encounter setbacks, this is not the Lü Song I know."
Lu Song was surprised and said with a smile: "The one who knows me best is Chang Wei Bo!"
Smoke from cooking fires rose from the houses on both sides. Children were waiting for their meals, or shouting that they were hungry, or making trouble in the kitchen and stealing food, and were beaten out by their mothers.
The dog smelled the food and started to drool while barking at the strangers, doing his job conscientiously.
"After learning about what Chen Yao did, I felt unwilling to accept it. All that I have learned will be wasted like this? I feel unwilling to accept it!" Lu Song smiled bitterly.
"To be honest, you, Old Lu, are to blame for Chen Yao's matter." Jiang Qingzhi said seriously.
"As the Minister of Revenue, I naturally cannot shirk my responsibility." Lu Song nodded. "Your Majesty is very kind."
There is no need to say more about the rest. The two of them entered the tavern and were greeted by heat and enthusiasm.
"Old rules." Lu Song said familiarly.
The two of them sat at a table in the corner. The door curtain of the kitchen had been pulled unevenly at the lower half over time. The kitchen was adjacent to the lobby, and the heat and the aroma of food kept pouring in from the gap.
"Hey, man, where's my wine?" several men asked dissatisfiedly.
"Coming soon." The waiter came out with a wine jug. "Steaming hot wine, one sip warms your mouth and stomach."
"Hey, another pancake."
"okay!"
"Where's my food?"
"Please wait a moment. It will be ready soon."
Lu Song was completely relaxed, with a smile on his face, "In fact, what I like most is the atmosphere of this world. If I hadn't been worried about something, I would have gone back to my hometown to teach, and I would have gone to the tavern to have a drink every day in my spare time. A plate of beans, a bowl of muddy wine, watching people coming and going... This is also a way of life, isn't it?"
"Yeah!" Jiang Qingzhi nodded. In his previous life, he liked to go to quiet bars for a while, drinking beer alone in a corner, watching people coming and going, watching the clinking of glasses...
At first he thought he was quite shady, hiding in the dark, like a creepy man who liked to peek.
But he didn't find any fun in it.
Watching those young men and women having fun, Jiang Qingzhi felt an inexplicable loneliness and a sense of detachment from the world.
In the darkness, he felt that he was isolated from the whole world, and the hustle and bustle outside had nothing to do with him.
Being in a foreign country, surrounded by people of different skin colors, different languages, and different customs, made him feel like he was alone in the world.
He didn't like this feeling at first, but later he gradually became addicted to it.
"People can't just be busy all the time." The drinks came, and Lu Song poured wine for Jiang Qingzhi, saying, "After being busy, you also need a quiet place."
"Chen Yao also said something like this." Jiang Qingzhi inexplicably thought of Chen Yao.
Lu Song paused, and the drinking stopped, with only a few drops dripping.
"I come here from time to time, hoping to find something from these peddlers to alert myself."
Lu Song moved his hand, and the wine slowly flowed down. After filling the wine pot, he put it down and said, "High officials and dignitaries, if they live like this for too long, they will forget their roots. Look at these..."
Lu Song pointed at the diners and said, "They either gossip about family matters or complain. Their words are full of the flavor of fireworks and the sufferings of the world. When I listen to these sufferings of the world, I will be alert to myself... I should remember the motto when I was studying."
"Oh! What is it?"
"Serve the king."
"Old Lu, who did you serve?" Jiang Qingzhi asked with a smile.
"This Ming Dynasty." Lu Song did not mention why there was no king.
Jiang Qingzhi laughed and said, "Let alone the minister, even if it is the prefect or the county magistrate, if he keeps talking about serving the king, he is either lying or stupid."
"You, you!" Lu Song pointed at Jiang Qingzhi and smiled, "You are so bold. No one else would dare to say that."
"Did I say something wrong?"
"That's right." Lu Song said, "After serving as an official, I was able to learn about the current situation of the Ming Dynasty. I gradually became confused and thought that the world had become like this, why didn't the emperor take action?"
Ha ha!
Jiang Qingzhi smiled.
"Your dish is here!" the waiter called over.
Jiang Qingzhi was delighted when he saw that it was pickled radish, "Good stuff."
"But gradually, I learned about the situation in the capital from government orders and various news. It turned out that your majesty had been fighting with the literati and officials, but he was defeated..."
The Taoist thus fell from the altar in Lu Song's heart.
"It was then that I suddenly realized that the emperor is not omnipotent, nor is he the son of heaven. The emperor is just a mortal."
"I am just a mortal."
Jiang Qingzhi chewed the pickled radish, the sweet and sour taste made him unable to stop. "I have been an official in the local area for many years, watching those people struggling at the bottom and being ignorant. I can't bear it." Lu Song drank a glass of wine, and Jiang Qingzhi said, "Drink slowly."
"I can drink a lot." Lu Song said calmly, pouring himself a glass of wine, and said slowly: "At that time, I wanted to do something for the world. But what is missing in this world... I looked around and found that what is missing is money and food. So I specialized in money and food, and worked my way up to the Minister of Revenue."
What the hell!
This huge gossip shocked Jiang Qingzhi. He picked up a pickled radish from his chopsticks and asked, "Specializing in money and grain?"
"That's right." Lu Song said, "I have submitted more than 30 memorials, all of which were suggestions about money and grain. Your Majesty accepted them 29 times."
Jiang Qingzhi couldn't help but cover his forehead.
He knew that he had been fooled by the Taoist priest.
Would a minister who made more than thirty suggestions and had twenty-nine of them adopted by Emperor Jiajing give up easily?
What about taking down Lü Song, dealing a heavy blow to Confucianism, and making a good start for the new policy? What about killing a Confucian general, just to sacrifice for the new policy.
It seems that not killing Lu Song would be appeasement and would be a mistake for the country.
Jiang Qingzhi felt that something was wrong and rushed forward to intercede for Lu Song.
Little did he know that all this fell into Daoye's calculations. Daoye went downhill and Lu Song stayed in the Ministry of Revenue.
So I am redundant!
Jiang Qingzhi felt like a clown at that moment.
I was taught a lesson by the ancients!
Lu Song raised his glass. "Your Majesty is a wise ruler. It's just that he was born in the wrong era. If he were in the early days of the founding of the country, he would have made great achievements."
"It's not too late now." Jiang Qingzhi said angrily.
"It's too late." Lu Song said sadly: "The world's general trend has been determined. If we want to completely change it, we have to tear out the tendons and skin, or even break the bones and replace the marrow. If we are not careful, the Ming Dynasty will collapse in the struggle between the two sides."
Lu Song looked at Jiang Qingzhi, "Is it possible that Chang Wei Bo will sit back and watch all this?"
"But if nothing changes, all this will vanish in a few decades." Jiang Qingzhi pointed at the diners, "These worldly pleasures you enjoy will turn into a sea of blood and corpses under the iron hoofs of the foreign race. The Ming Dynasty will become a horse ranch for the foreign race, and everyone will..."
Jiang Qingzhi rubbed the back of his head and held back his words. "Think about the Former Han Dynasty. At the end of the Former Han Dynasty, the world was in chaos. How many people died? The Sima family was incompetent, so the foreign tribes marched south in large numbers. My people became two-legged sheep. How many people died?"
"This is the Ming Dynasty. Altan doesn't have that ability." Lu Song smiled.
"But what happened after Altan? Remember the Liao Dynasty was powerful before the Song Dynasty, but the Jin Dynasty rose rapidly and destroyed it easily. How powerful was the Jin Dynasty? They marched to Bianjing and abducted Emperors Huizong and Qinzong. But in a blink of an eye, a new overlord appeared on the grassland, the Mongols... Old Lu."
Jiang Qingzhi sighed: "If all this remains unchanged, what will happen to the Ming Dynasty in a few decades?"
“People are living in poverty.”
"What if there is a natural disaster?"
"That... is a repeat of the events of the former Han Dynasty."
"The Cang Tian is dead, and the Yellow Turbans must be established." Jiang Qingzhi said softly, "The country is in chaos, and the foreign tribes on the grassland are rising. Now is the time to strike. How long can the Ming Dynasty... last in such a desperate situation? Those people, those so-called literati... Oh! I forgot, they are not afraid of this."
Jiang Qingzhi raised his cup and took a sip of wine, then said sarcastically, "When thieves come, surrender to thieves; when officials come, surrender to officials. When foreigners come, the worst that can happen is that we kneel down and recognize a new master. If the foreigners kill people without mercy, we will have to have someone to govern the world, right? Then we can rise again and be prosperous and wealthy again..."
Lu Song sighed: "What you said... is all conjecture!"
"Let's not talk about this for now. Let me ask you one thing. Lao Lu, if the alien race comes, how many of those Confucian disciples who suck blood from the Ming Dynasty will risk their lives for the Ming Dynasty? Tell me the truth."
Under Jiang Qingzhi's gaze, Lu Song smiled bitterly, "About... 10%?"
"Old Lu, do you think you can achieve 10%?"
"Then..." Lu Song rubbed his face, "Forget it. If foreign races invade, among the people I know, out of a hundred, I'm afraid only one or two would be willing to serve the country."
"You are still exaggerating."
"Then how much did you say?"
Jiang Qingzhi thought of that period of history.
The alien army invaded and massacred people.
The soldiers and civilians of Jiangyin resisted the order to shave their heads and rose up in resistance. In the end, only fifty-three soldiers and civilians were left in the city.
The passion of people like Yan Yingyuan, the Dianshi, will be remembered for generations to come.
The Three Massacres of Jiading... the endless killing made this great nation once again experience the same tragedy as the Five Barbarians' Invasion of China.
"Old Lu, do you know the story of the water being too cold?"
Lu Song shook his head.
"It is said that in the previous dynasty, when the foreign tribes came south, a senior official was passionate and vowed to die for his country. When the foreign tribes broke into the city, he said he would commit suicide and die for his country. But later he became a senior official of the foreign tribes. Someone asked him why he didn't commit suicide. The senior official said: I want to jump into the water, but the water is too cold."
"Confucianism is not enough to be trusted with the family and the country!"
Jiang Qingzhi stood up, put his hands on the table, and looked down at Lu Song.
"That's the Mohist School?" Lu Song sneered.
Jiang Qingzhi shook his head. "No!"
"Who is that?"
"Everyone in the world!" Jiang Qingzhi said, and at the same time, he whispered in his heart: "It's me!"
I will pull back the Ming Dynasty, which is standing on the edge of the cliff!
And all this requires help!
"I don't want to say anything about betraying Confucianism! But I want a promise!"
"you say!"
"Here!" Jiang Qingzhi pointed at Lu Song's heart. "From now on, no matter what the situation is, I need you, Old Lu, to be impartial and act according to your conscience. Is that okay?"
In the back kitchen, a plainclothes man gave the shopkeeper and the waiter a fierce look, and both the shopkeeper and the waiter lowered their heads in submission.
Lu Song's voice came from outside, very serious.
"it is good!"
Later, these conversations were reported to Emperor Jiajing.
"Conscience?" The Taoist said faintly, "I haven't heard this word for many years."
(End of this chapter)
