Chapter 1280 - No Escape

The little emperor's words became more and more 'outrageous', bluntly saying that being an emperor is too hard, and you have to worry about being coveted, jealous, calculated, and plotted by others. Seize its position, you can command the world, don't dare to disobey, the glory and wealth are endless, this must be a great attraction. So foreigners seek it, outsiders seek it, party henchmen seek it, relatives seek it, and even sons seek it, and wives seek it...... Only by being an emperor can we truly understand what internal and external troubles are. Therefore, ancient emperors were generally real loners and enemies of the world.

Listening to these words that can be called 'great rebellion', Wang De was so frightened that he just wanted to cover his ears, but he couldn't help but listen, in the past, the little emperor had similar complaints because he worked too hard, but it was not as shocking as today, but at that time, His Majesty was young, even if people heard it, they would only treat it as a child's joke, at most, it was the queen mother's lesson, and the masters advised for a long time.

Now Wang De understands in his heart that if the words of the little emperor are leaked out today, it will cause shocks in the government and the opposition, after all, the emperor is no longer a child, and people will not treat His Majesty's words as a child's complaint, but they will be used by some people with intentions. And if there is such a rumor in the outside world, then he is the biggest suspect, so he has an absurd feeling that His Majesty will not kill himself.

Of course, Wang De, as the little emperor's personal person, has been by his side for more than ten years, although he will not participate in political affairs, but he also understands the current situation better than ordinary people under the influence of his ears and witnesses. Now it looks like a very good place, basically the territory before the Nandu has been recovered, it is many times larger than when it was in Qiongzhou, the population ruled by tens of millions, the Chinese subjects of the dynasty are like clouds, the military generals are like covers, the subjects are respectful, the financial situation is much better than before, and the taxes collected every year are tens of millions.

But Wang De also knows that this is only a superficial phenomenon, in fact, there has been an undercurrent surging in the DPRK and China, and the situation is more complicated. Although a series of military victories allowed the Great Song Dynasty to seize the initiative, the relationship between the two countries was still an endless situation, and war was the only way to solve the problem; In China, with the promotion of the new policy by the little emperor, the interests of some people were affected, and the opposition of the government and the opposition was received, and even if the contradictions did not intensify for the time being, they could break out at any time.

Therefore, Wang De knew that the little emperor and a group of ministers loyal to him were facing great pressure, and others did not know, but he knew that Lu Xiang and others had reported almost every day in the past month, and there were many worries about the government. The Northern Expedition can be said to have mobilized the strength of the whole country, and it can be said that it spent all the savings of the treasury after entering the south of the Yangtze River, and the recovered Lianghuai and Huaibei regions were exempted from taxes, so all expenses needed to be subsidized by the imperial court, and military expenditures depended on the supply of the imperial court.

This is equivalent to overdrawing the income of the imperial court after several years. In other words, in the eyes of some, the victory of the Northern Expedition was more like a face-saving project, and the recovery of vast lost territory brought huge financial pressure to the imperial court. In this way, the imperial court will inevitably reduce expenses, officials have no money to squander, and even have to reduce the salary, and the people may have to bear more taxes, which does not seem to bring any benefits to the imperial court and the people of Jiangnan, resulting in the voices of the government and the opposition demanding the end of the Northern Expedition.

The little emperor and the generals can be said to have insisted on hitting Yingtianfu under great pressure, and when faced with the close Bianjing City deciding whether to stop here and end the Northern Expedition, Wang De witnessed the difficulty of the little emperor's decision. In those days, the little emperor kept writing to his opposing ministers, hoping to persuade them to go one step further. However, it was still difficult to reach a consensus, and after analyzing and considering the current situation with several important ministers in the court, the little emperor still made the decision to stop at Ying Tianfu.

Although Wang De didn't know what the little emperor thought, he could understand the anger and helplessness of the little emperor at that time. But the little emperor didn't get off the ship for three days, barely said a word of gossip, didn't think about tea and dinner, and wandered on the deck all night, which shows how unwilling he was to fail to recover Bianliang, but he couldn't treat others in his bitter place, and his anger had nowhere to vent, so he could only stuff it in his heart.

But what the world sees is only the king of a country, the body of the Son of Heaven, the head of thousands of people, the emperor that countless people have dreamed of from ancient times to the present, and regard this as the pinnacle of life. But who knows how tiring it is to be an emperor? How dangerous is it? Wang De saw the little emperor experience the battlefield with his own eyes, and how many times he was trying to survive in death. When the little emperor decided to go on a personal expedition, the three mothers were pregnant, and now the birth is imminent, and His Majesty is ready to return to Beijing, but Xiangyang has a situation again, so he can only change his itinerary and abandon his family and business to fight in a new battlefield.

So what the world sees is only the emperor's scenery, and who knows the emperor's suffering? And Wang De has been with the emperor for more than ten years, he knows that the emperor is not a god in the eyes of people, he is also a person, and he has the same joys, sorrows, and sorrows, but he can't show the negative in front of people, and he always gives people a shrewd and capable, wise and powerful side.

Fortunately, the little emperor gradually became sleepy in the chatter, and actually fell asleep in the water, which finally made Wang De breathe, and let the little emperor gently lift out, wipe the water stains on his body, change his clothes, and send him to sleep in the dormitory. And the little emperor slept very well this night, after dawn he was still worried about what His Majesty said yesterday, and in disappointment, he really wanted to abandon his position and go away, and then ignore the government.

However, to Wang De's relief, the little emperor woke up, as if he had long forgotten what happened yesterday, and after getting up, he practiced with the soldiers of the guard battalion, because it was a fasting period, and he did not use his weapons. Then he took a bath, changed clothes, ate, and handled official business, everything was as usual, and there was no situation he imagined, just a false alarm, which made him breathe a sigh of relief......

Sacrifice was a very solemn thing in ancient times, and it was through sacrifice that people established and strengthened their relationships, status, and rights and obligations as human beings and specific individuals in the spiritual, life, ethnic and cultural lineage that they inherited and upheld.

The Song Dynasty revered Confucianism, and sacrifices were also based on Confucian etiquette. "The Book of Rites and Rituals" emphasizes that "there are five classics of rituals, and nothing is more important than sacrifices". Sacrificing "those who do not come from the outside" is "born from the heart". "Offering it with a bow in the heart" is the foundation of only "the sage can fulfill the righteousness of sacrifice". Therefore, the essence of Confucian sacrifice is to "teach what is the sect", and to place oneself in the spiritual relationship established by the sacrifice is to place oneself in a religious system to obtain the meaning based on this religious system and its response to human problems.

To worship the heavens is to show that man, as a person born of heaven, is endowed with human life and nature, and to devoutly obey and follow the human destiny and its laws expounded by the sages of the ages, and to undertake the moral obligation to let the heavenly virtues prevail in the world, let the heavenly principles and principles prevail in everything, and then receive its teachings. It responds to questions such as where people come from and what principles and morals they follow.

Ancestors, as the founders and accumulators of life forms, achievements, and cultural traditions, are part of the foundation of life. Ancestor worship is to show that a person recognizes himself as a descendant of an ancestor, inherits and receives the bloodline, career and education of his ancestors, so as to clarify the historical basis of his own life, and undertakes the responsibility of carrying forward the traditions of his ancestors and constantly innovating, so as to glorify his ancestors and imitate the cultural traditions created and accumulated by his ancestors, which is the basic method for determining the order of the world and the hearts of the people in the world.

According to Confucius: "If I don't sacrifice, it's better not to sacrifice." Whether it is to praise the virtues of heaven or to "pursue filial piety", first of all, it is the expression of inner piety and the need for emotion, and to shape the emotions and morals of loyalty and filial piety in the sacrificial activities, and a person who despises the gods and ancestors will not have the behavior of going to sacrifice to the gods and ancestors. The way of this sacrifice is also. ”

In order to express one's devotion, one needs to fast before the sacrifice, and fasting consists of two aspects: fasting and fasting. Fasting comes from Qi, mainly neat, such as bathing and changing clothes, not drinking, and not eating meat; Abstinence mainly refers to abstaining from recreation, such as not sleeping with wives and concubines, and reducing recreational activities. And the emperor should also not eat meat, onions, garlic, leeks and ginger and other dishes with a pungent smell, do not drink, do not listen to music, do not approach concubines, do not mourn, ignore criminal matters, etc.

According to the rules, Zhao Yu has to rest and fast in the palace these days to cultivate his mind and temperament, but he is not a 'rule-talking' person, and this sacrifice is just a political show for him, and he has to do it. It is precisely because this is a national festival that not only the officials of the imperial court from the Lin'an Rite Department and Taichang Temple came to preside, but also officials from neighboring states and counties also rushed to participate in the ceremony, so for a time the civil and military generals gathered here.

In the name of fasting, all the officials above the seventh rank and the military generals above the commander who came to Ying Tianfu were summoned to the palace for a meeting, to report the current situation, interpret the policy, and discuss and solve the new problems that arose in the newly restored land during this period of time.

Most of the officials currently serving in the newly acquired land have come from several imperial examinations in Qiongzhou, and they can be said to be staunch supporters of Zhao Yu, and they are also hard-line fighters, with the lofty ambition of "expelling the Tartars and grazing horses to the north". Therefore, he hoped to recover his homeland in one fell swoop and return to the old capital, but he was very puzzled by the sudden end of the Northern Expedition and the stop in Bianjing.

Zhao Yu knew that if he did not untie this knot, it would inevitably affect the unity of the imperial court, misunderstand the imperial court and himself, and then produce negative emotions, which would then affect the subsequent reconstruction work. But it was not easy to convince these radical officials, but he knew that he could not escape it, and he had to do it, to face their criticism......

Book Keju Reading Website: