Chapter 185: The River is Uncrossable
Lu Haowen thought that Mr. Lu was also having a hard time. He was already old, and in such hot weather, he had to travel back and forth because Emperor Zhao was pretending to be sick.
However, Prime Minister Lu's attitude was still very good, and he expressed his approval of Emperor Zhao's political stance. He also believed that the families of the soldiers in the imperial camp should be redeemed uniformly, or directly pardoned, because doing so would be a favor to the soldiers and boost morale... In his words, 'tens of millions of dollars have been spent, there is no reason for them to end up in a bad way because of this kind of thing'.
However, the Prime Minister of the capital province opposed a large-scale unified amnesty, and even more so opposed abolishing the system of pawning one's body directly through legal means.
"I understand some of Mr. Lu's concerns." Although Zhao Guanjia, who was ill in Dengfeng, rarely showed extra expressions, his face was ruddy and his speech was smooth. "Hundreds of years of system and customs have long been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people. The country is not in a normal state now. Sudden changes to such important laws will only cause trouble. It is better to wait until the situation stabilizes and then discuss it in detail... I just don't understand why the refugees in Hebei can't be pardoned uniformly?"
"Because of the war for several years, most of the refugees from Hebei sell themselves not in Henan, but in Huainan, Nanyang, and even in the southeast and Jingxiang areas further south." Lu Haowen answered calmly in the pavilion under the flowers and trees in the backyard of Dengfeng County Government. "Your Majesty, Henan has experienced war disasters, and it is also the place where the emperor's imperial camp is stationed. It is related to military affairs, so most of the rich and powerful families can understand. Even if they can't understand, they dare not and can't cause any trouble. And those places must be in the rear, and some people may not know and understand the difficulties of the court..."
When Emperor Zhao, who was sitting opposite Prime Minister Lu, heard this, although he still had no expression on his face, the sense of anticipation he had before was obviously gone.
Obviously, he sensed the sincerity in Lu Haowen's words and realized the real difficulty of this matter... Because according to Zhao Jiu's poor understanding, such issues concerning personal interests as "I do have a concubine that I bought for five strings of cash" have always encountered huge resistance.
If he could be a peaceful emperor, with a stable country and abundant finances, and slowly sort out these things, it might be okay. But now, during the war, the military threat from the Jin people has always been constant, especially since the court has just increased commercial taxes in the southeast and in-kind taxes in Jingxiang. It would be extremely inappropriate to stimulate the rear again.
Moreover, not to mention that people's joys and sorrows are not the same, one thing that made this time traveler alert is that, or in other words, as early as when he had no choice but to choose to increase taxes, he had already keenly realized that as the anti-Jin war became prolonged and its scale expanded, class contradictions would become more and more prominent.
What is even more frustrating is that the concept of nation-state had not yet been formed at this time, and it was very likely that a situation would arise where class contradictions conflicted with national contradictions.
We need to resist the Jin in the front, so we have to increase taxes in the rear.
The common people in the rear were suffering terribly, but their suffering came from the oppression of the imperial court. They had no personal feeling of the danger of the Jin army, so they had to choose to rebel... For time travelers, this was undoubtedly an act worthy of sympathy, but this act would inevitably lead to a lack of strength to resist the Jin army at the front, forcing the military forces that should have been used to resist the Jin army, or even to maintain the safety of the people in the rear, to be used to suppress the internal situation.
And this was exactly the reason why Zhao Jiu specifically called all the generals and ministers together that day and turned his face away in public.
Because deep down he always believed that no matter what the superficial reasons were, in terms of basic motives, the resistance of the grassroots people was always understandable and even correct.
In addition, as a time traveler, Zhao Jiu also had to face another problem derived from this, that is, his own positioning. And this matter was also a difficult problem that he had to face recently.
First of all, what was he doing here? Putting aside the vague and illusory theory of the Taoist ancestor, he must live a good life, and living a good life naturally means doing meaningful things... So what are meaningful things?
Resist the Jin!
There is no doubt about this.
Then what, be a good emperor?
How to be a good emperor?
Immerse yourself in this role, be a filial son and grandson of the Zhao Song royal family, learn from Guangwu to restore the country, and then be a "sage emperor" like Renzong internally and an "enterprising emperor" like Shenzong externally?
By then, the country's culture will flourish and it will be obvious... I believe it will also receive a relatively high historical evaluation.
After all, he is definitely more of a saint than Song Renzong.
There was a severe drought in the country. Song Renzong prayed for rain. He didn't find any followers with water on the way, so he resisted drinking. In the end, he really moved the heavens, and a timely rain fell in Tokyo. Only the people in Yizhou, Jingdong, continued to suffer from the disaster. Then they were so hungry that they chose to rebel, kill officials and rob food. What kind of saint is this? If it were me, I would definitely carry a big water bottle and take the initiative to share some with others on the way. Who knows, I can move the Taoist ancestor, and the Taishang Laojun will issue an urgent order, and even a few drops of rain will fall in Jingdong!
Then he became more aggressive than Emperor Shenzong of Song. After Emperor Shenzong ascended the throne, the Khitans came to blackmail him. He asked all the old ministers and they all said that they could not defeat the Khitans, so he was prepared to cede 500 li of land. If it was Zhao Jiu, he would definitely only cede 50 li! And he could also blame the ministers.
But how can one bear to be so saintly and enterprising?
But let's get back to the point. Given the current situation, it would be ridiculous for him to maintain the mentality of a time traveler and refuse to integrate into the values of the time. If that were the case, he would end up being a heretic and be regarded by everyone as King Zhou of Shang and King Jie of Xia.
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