Chapter 197: Erasing the traces of Luo's existence
In the main hall of the Qin Palace, all the ministers were silent and the First Emperor's face was full of frost.
Meng Cheng realized his biggest mistake. He should not have thought about the problem from a practical point of view, but from the perspective of the emperor.
but.
He doesn't want to!
He is not only a Confucian, but also a descendant of Mencius.
His ancestor Mencius was a Confucian sage, ranked after the two sages Luo and Confucius, and even married Luo's legitimate daughter.
Because Mencius's teachings were too anti-king, after absorbing the knowledge about righteousness, even within Confucianism there were gradually many people who rejected Mencius's teachings.
But the Luoguo public office always supported it.
When the State of Qin attacked Luo, he wanted to die with the State of Luo.
However, Luo Hou persuaded him to leave, saying that he was well-educated and could be of great use to the world, and he should not die in vain in Zhaocheng.
He was a man from a fallen country and should have spent the rest of his life writing books in the mountains.
However, for the sake of the world and Confucianism, he still came to Xianyang to meet the First Emperor.
Facing the furious First Emperor, Meng Cheng showed no fear and said loudly: "Your Majesty.
I have a question.
Do you want to be the emperor of the Qin people?
Or do you want to be the emperor of the world?"
The First Emperor was stunned and said in a deep voice: "Of course he is the emperor of the world.
More than a decade ago, I said, 'I am now the king of Qin, and I will be the king of the world in the future'!"
Meng Cheng said immediately after hearing this: "You have been the King of Qin for more than 20 years, so you must know Qin very well.
But you have just become the emperor of the world, and you don't know what the people of the world think, but you directly use the method you used to rule the Qin people to rule the world.
Is this correct?
Parted on bad terms.
The anger in the Emperor's heart had actually subsided.
But he fully realized how terrible it was when Han Fei said that Confucianism would disrupt the law with literature.
Li Si came to the back hall as a close minister of the First Emperor.
The First Emperor said softly: "With thousands of miles of territory and tens of millions of subjects, if there is such constant noise, how can the government's orders still be implemented?
I did not argue with Meng Cheng, not because he was right, but because I discovered that he wanted me to kill him simply because he missed Luo Guo too much.
How many people like this are there in this world?
The people of these six countries miss their homeland and cannot integrate into the Qin Empire. How can the Qin Empire be stable?
This has never happened in the world before. If I want to accomplish this great thing, the first thing I have to do is to establish an official school. All the rest are heresies.
I didn't want to do this, but now it seems I have to.
Especially the Luo State, many people will do things under its banner, which is not good for Daqin, King Su and the Luo State. Let's erase it from the history books.
All the historical books of the six kingdoms were burned. Without historical books, there would be no sources. Only then could they live in peace as Qin people. Otherwise, there would always be disagreements.
It's not just the Confucians, but those scholars who made irresponsible comments on government affairs, check and see why. "
These words were full of murderous intent, but when the First Emperor spoke them it was as if he was killing a chicken or an ox.
Li Si was completely dumbfounded. He was radical enough, but he did not expect the First Emperor to do this. He mumbled, "Your Majesty, this..."
The First Emperor suddenly sat down, then said with a smile: "My dear, please sit down."
Li Si rarely saw the First Emperor so amiable, so he knelt down and sat down below.
The First Emperor seemed to be recalling something, and said softly: "There were two kings in the Zhou Dynasty, King Wu and King Su.
King Wu established his rule over the world, a feat unparalleled in history.
But what kind of person is King Su?
Don’t be afraid to express the image in your mind as best you can.”
Li Si hesitated and said, "The King of Su is naturally a saint. There is no one who can be compared with him in the past and present. Whether it is civil governance, martial arts, virtue, or knowledge, he is completely a man of heaven."
The First Emperor burst into laughter upon hearing this. Li Si was a little confused, and then he heard the First Emperor say, "My dear minister, what you said is not wrong. People all over the world probably think so.
But you all overlooked what King Su had done. Bai Qi was known as the butcher and had killed millions of people in various countries, but compared to King Su, he was just a child.
In the past, King Su went on an expedition to the east, and eight out of ten of the old Shang clans were wiped out, especially the Jianyan. Has there ever been such a cruel purge since ancient times?
The Zhou Dynasty established hundreds of vassal states in Shandong. Don't you wonder why there is so much vacant land suitable for farming?
Because King Su killed them all, no one in the entire tribe survived, from top to bottom, old or young, women or children.
Do you really think that King Su relied on Zhou rituals to preach?
He pacified the world with a sword in hand, and anyone who did not obey his laws would die.
The most ridiculous thing is that the State of Song used the old customs of the Shang Dynasty. The real old customs of the Shang Dynasty had long been destroyed by King Su.
But the survivors of the Shang Dynasty don’t know. If you ask them what the Shang Dynasty had, who else in this world can tell them?
This is how King Su unified people's thoughts by using Zhou Li, and I will now use the thoughts of the Legalists to unify them again."
The First Emperor's words were like a bolt from the blue, shocking Li Si so much that he was completely speechless.
No one had ever looked at King Su's behavior in this way, but these words made so much sense.
However, Li Si hesitated and said, "Your Majesty, the Su Wang is like the sky!"
Li Si also came from the Six States of Shandong. In his heart, he more or less believed that the King of Su was really watching over the world from heaven.
The First Emperor smiled and said, "My dear minister, you should read more history.
Regardless of whether Su Wang’s spirit is really in heaven as the people of Luo said, Su Wang never interfered in the human world.
So far, it has been Luo who has used the theory of destiny to pretend to be the King of Su.
King Su and Luo Shi are very different, because King Su is a minister in name but a king in reality, while Luo Shi is a complete minister.
Looking at King Su's behavior, he has no taboos at all. He is nothing like the Luo family, who are bound by layers of restrictions.
If King Su were in my position, he would definitely do the same thing as me, so what I did was absolutely not wrong. "
Ji Zhao would not pay attention to the world all the time now, but if he heard what the First Emperor said, he would probably agree.
Because what the First Emperor did to the nobles of the six countries now was far less cruel than what he had done to the nobles of the Shang Dynasty.
There is one thing that the First Emperor said is very right, Ji Zhao and Luo are really very different.
Compared with Luo Shi, Ji Zhao was more selfish and more concerned about the continuation of his family, but the education he gave to Luo Shi's descendants was to take the world as their own responsibility.
He hopes to cultivate a family of philosophers from generation to generation.
He hoped that his descendants could do what he could not do, and the Luo family never let him down over the years.
For thousands of years, Ji Zhao hardly interfered in any matter of the Luo family except the continuation of the family.
Moreover, since the system blocked vocabulary, he did not reveal any future to Luo Shi, and everything depended on Luo Shi's own hard work.
…
The newborn Qin Dynasty was full of contradictions, and now it was completely relying on the prestige of the First Emperor to suppress them. If Qin Shihuang could live a few more years, he might have been able to manage the situation with his own abilities.
The current Qin Dynasty needs Qin Shi Huang to be alive. As long as he is alive, many people will not dare to rebel, and the Qin Dynasty will have time.
Just a few days later, an imperial edict that shocked the world was issued from Xianyang.
Countless officials walked out of their offices and began to arrest those who had discussed state affairs and the sorcerers who had deceived the First Emperor.
Meng Cheng did not expect the First Emperor to be so straightforward. He tried his best to ask someone to send his disciples out of Xianyang. He knew he could not escape, so he sat quietly in Xianyang waiting to die. The implementation of various government decrees immediately became much smoother.
Then the First Emperor ordered all county governors and magistrates to collect all the history books of the six kingdoms into Xianyang and not leave a single copy among the people.
At the same time, he required that people all over the world, with the exception of books on medicine, divination, and agriculture, should not keep any and all of them should be gathered in Xianyang.
The First Emperor issued an edict.
Anyone who discusses state affairs will be killed!
Anyone who privately keeps books on Confucianism, Taoism, Mohism or Legalism will be killed!
The Great Qin Academy was established in Xianyang, and the most virtuous people in the world were appointed to head it.
He called on the chiefs of Qin and Qian to study the law and serve as officials, not to be boastful Confucian scholars or Mohists who violated the law.
However, the First Emperor still retained the right of Qin nobles to keep books in their homes. He was just more self-centered, but he was not stupid.
If the Qin nobles were asked to hand over their collections of books, the whole country would probably rebel immediately.
At the same time, the First Emperor began to make trouble for the nobles of the six countries who moved to Xianyang, and naturally all the fiefdoms that were promised to them were cancelled.
After all, even the royal family's meritorious officials were not given any land, so how could the descendants of the previous dynasty possibly get any land?
The First Emperor believed that in order to put an end to the nobles' dreams of success, he had to completely abolish the royal families of the six countries. So he demoted them all to common people and asked them to build his mausoleum.
How could these nobles possibly endure such heavy corvee labor? Some of them simply died of illness on the way. By the time the mausoleum was completed, there would probably be no one left alive.
For a while, the city of Xianyang was filled with grief. At least other countries came to Xianyang only after they were defeated in the war.
The nobles of Qi surrendered on their own initiative. Now when they think of what the King of Qi had said before, they feel only regret.
The First Emperor also required officials from all regions to collect weapons from the people and transport them all to Xianyang City for destruction, especially in places where nobles of the six kingdoms once gathered, so that they would not be allowed to get hold of weapons again.
…
Luo Ling never expected that such shocking news would come from Xianyang City again. He certainly understood what the First Emperor was doing, but he never dreamed that the First Emperor would have such great courage.
The reason why King Su dared to do this was because he killed all the opponents in the entire land of Zhu Xia. The remaining ones were either barbarians or living together with the barbarians, such as the State of Xu, which was apparently within the Bang Zhou system but was actually a distant existence.
Luo Ling asked: "If it weren't for the inheritance ring, how much of the cultural essence of the past thousand years would have been lost?"
Those books from hundreds of schools of thought and countless magnificent ideas are the true essence.
Although the First Emperor said that he wanted to collect the books in Xianyang, some of them would inevitably be damaged or lost during the collection process.
It is extremely normal for those officials to save trouble and burn them directly during this process.
No matter how powerful the First Emperor was, it was impossible for him to make everyone in the world obey his orders. It is easy to deal with the King of Hell, but it is difficult to deal with the little devils. This is the truth.
Qiao Yun sighed and said, "One person's will wants to replace the will of the world. This is something that only the Su King can do. If the First Emperor wants to do this, he will be retaliated. Not everyone is as gifted as the Su King."
Luo Ling sighed and said, "Every king in this world has the potential to become a tyrant. This is what a king is!
This is because the root of the penalists' thinking is the fault of indulgence towards people.
Everyone has infinite selfish desires, and kings are no exception.
Therefore, the principle of teaching kings is to let them restrain their selfish desires and have a little compassion for the people in their hearts. That is the best king. "
Qiao Yun was silent for a moment after hearing this, and then asked: "Master, what should we do now?"
Luo Ling touched the inheritance ring on his hand, not panicking at all. Burn it. I have a backup here after you burn it.
But as for the young men from the hundreds of families in Xianyang City, Luo Ling frowned and said, “Send someone to Xianyang City, especially the Meng family. It would be bad if they suffered heavy losses.
But be careful not to reveal your family's whereabouts, otherwise the First Emperor will definitely come after you again."
Qiao Yun agreed, and then said: "Master, the First Emperor has recently recruited large-scale corvée and military service in the old territory of Chu State. It seems that he is going to start a war again. He is recruiting soldiers from Chu State, probably to fight Nanyue and conquer those barbarians who are still outside the civilized world.
Another possibility is that the First Emperor wanted to conquer the gathering place of the Luo people. After all, these were people who were unwilling to be his subjects, and the First Emperor must have hated them deeply in his heart. "
Luo Ling pondered and said, "If the First Emperor wants to conquer Nanyue, then we should give way to him. The Luo family must not be a hindrance in conquering the barbarians.
But if the Qin army were to attack the gathering place of the Luo people, it would probably suffer a great loss.
The mountains here are high and the forests are dense. It is not a city like Zhaocheng that was built on a plain and had no strategic location to defend.
But we still need to contact them as soon as possible. If the Qin army dares to come, let them die without a burial place."
————
After the establishment of the Qin Dynasty, Qin Shihuang was keenly aware that there was a huge ideological split within the Qin Dynasty. The Qin Dynasty was a new unified regime, and the existence of these heretical ideas could tear the entire dynasty apart at any time. So Qin Shihuang took a series of measures to quickly unify the thoughts within the entire Qin Dynasty under the central dynasty.
Judging from the results in later generations, this was a great progress, and a unified nation was gradually formed. - "The Biography of Qin Shi Huang"
(End of this chapter)
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