Chapter 890 A Dream of Youth 422

The saying "Horses are released to graze on the southern hills, and weapons are stored away" perfectly describes this situation.

Whether it was the Northern Jin or the Great Zhou, this phenomenon existed. Perhaps there were insightful individuals who were vigilant, thinking of potential dangers even in times of peace, and trying every possible way to strengthen their power and change the current situation.

However, most people, especially the powerful and wealthy at the top, are immersed in a false sense of peace. They enjoy a life of luxury and are unwilling to change this situation, because any change would inevitably affect their own interests.

King Wumeng secretly warned himself that he must not become like the former emperor of the Northern Jin Dynasty, and he must not let his subordinates be spoiled and wasted.

The current emperor of Northern Jin is a wolf cub, so ruthless! A whole bunch of the powerful and influential people in Northern Jin have already been killed.

While preparing for war, Yan Xi also began to take action. Recently, the atmosphere in the court had become somewhat tense. The Empress Dowager, with her keen political sense, naturally noticed something was amiss and thus secretly tested Yan Xi.

Yan Xi was waiting for the Empress Dowager's test.

Although the Empress Dowager had served three emperors and was quite old, her original intentions remained unchanged. If she truly only cared about her own family, she wouldn't have offered her advice when Emperor Jing appointed Li Yu as commander-in-chief.

She was able to assist Emperor Jing in ascending the throne and then relinquish power. Now, as Yan Xi's advisor, she naturally favors Yan Xi.

Yan Xi had a certain degree of trust in the Empress Dowager, so she revealed some of her thoughts.

The Empress Dowager did not leave the palace, but many of the palace servants around her were arranged by Yan Xi. Therefore, the Empress Dowager heard both good and bad information about the new laws, which made the information more accurate.

Therefore, the Empress Dowager was favorable towards the new reform policies, but after listening to Yan Xi's ideas, she did not agree with them.

To prevent a repeat of the situation during Emperor Jing's reign, where those in power paid lip service to policies, misinterpreted their true meaning, or failed to implement them effectively, Xie Ning specifically increased the intensity of oversight.

Moreover, in order to instill fear in them and thus reduce the extent of corruption, severe punishments were used.

At first, Xia Xiang disagreed. He never imagined that Xie Ning, who seemed so gentle, would be so ruthless.

In the Great Zhou Dynasty, the interpretation of "rites do not apply to commoners, and punishments do not apply to high officials" was that scholars valued rites and knew the law, and would not voluntarily violate the provisions of the law. Therefore, there was no need to set up provisions in the criminal law to punish the crimes of high officials, so as to respect high officials and despise commoners.

However, the reality was that the emperor did not refrain from killing scholar-officials. Rather, there was a system of mutual protection among officials in the Great Zhou Dynasty. Even if two people were political enemies in the court and one of them brought the other down, the most they would do was be demoted or exiled, rather than be executed.

When the emperor wanted to kill someone, his ministers would protect him, so in many cases the emperor would let the matter drop.

These are internal rules within the imperial court; once broken, no one knows whether they will be the next person the emperor kills.

This was a privilege that the scholar-officials had fought for themselves.

Xie Ning knew what they were thinking, so she didn't mention the emperor, only the law.

Previously, his efforts to consolidate power for Yan Xi were merely to help him secure his throne and advance the implementation of the new laws.

However, Xie Ning did not want to place imperial power above the law. This was not only the same point as others, but the effect was the same: to impose certain restrictions on imperial power.

If most of the court officials had a good impression of Xie Ning in the past, then in the period since the new laws were implemented, Xie Ning has stood on the opposite side of the vast majority of court officials.

Even though Xia Xiang acknowledged most of Xie Ning's policies and measures, he still couldn't agree with the heavy punishments, even though he knew Xie Ning intended them to make officials more diligent in implementing the laws.

Xie Ning did not continue to argue, because she knew that after she returned from Nanzhao, Xia Xiang would know that the punishments she had devised were already mild enough.

Yan Xi thus learned of the Empress Dowager's thoughts and concealed her other methods.