Although both of them had something on their mind, they stared at each other for a long time before coming to their senses. As the saying goes, the scenery can open people's hearts, and now they are more open about it.
"Does Jiedu Yue know about the recent major events in the court?" Liu Hongdao said with his hands behind his back facing the wind.
"Is it about peace talks?"
"good."
"Then may I ask, as a local commander, do you advocate war or peace?" Yue Fei said with his hands folded behind his back.
"I don't know either." Liu Hongdao sighed and spread his hands on the Xunyang Tower. "I am from Qingzhou. I was hastily appointed as a deputy minister of the Ministry of Personnel during the Jingkang period. Then, I almost fled back home when the Jin army marched south. As a result, Li Gang, the prime minister, appointed me as the governor of Qingzhou regardless of the precedent. I became the governor of my hometown..." At this point, Liu Hongdao paused and then sneered. "I remember that you wrote a letter saying that Li Boxi was a traitor. Of course, this was biased. But now, people all over the world say that your impeachment with Li Yanxian is not false. At least that guy doesn't know how to fight."
Yue Fei smiled awkwardly, which was a rare moment... Who didn't have some embarrassing experiences when they were young?
"But in my opinion, although some of what Lü Jinglue said was unpleasant, it was also honest. That is, Li Boji not only did not know how to fight, but also did not know how to judge people." Liu Hongdao looked at the river bank with more emotion. "At that time, Hebei sent two people. Zhang Suo was a man of honor, but Fu Liang was the main culprit who sold out Chang'an City; Jingdong sent three people. Liu Yu is now a pseudo-emperor, and Zhao Mingcheng and I, who were appointed at the same time, are recognized as a pair of wastes... Zhao Mingcheng fled without fighting, and I was defeated in one battle. I could only abandon my home and the city and flee alone. I was not more decent than Zhao Mingcheng. Therefore, if you ask me whether I advocate fighting or not, of course I advocate fighting, because I regard the departure of Qingzhou that day as the greatest regret of my life, and I always want to avenge my previous shame."
Yue Fei nodded heavily, obviously feeling the same way, but he also heard that the other party had not finished speaking.
"But I met the emperor on Bagong Mountain and was assigned to Jiangxi. For four years, I first helped to clean up the bandits who had transformed into the loyalist army along the Yangtze River, then helped to deal with the military riots in the southeast, and then helped Jingxiang to besiege Zhong Xiang and Yang Mo. Now I am trying my best to assist you, Yue Jiedu, to clean up the Qian bandits." Liu Hongdao smiled bitterly again. "Year after year, Jiangnan West Road is a poor place, but it has never stopped paying corvée. What's more, the Qian bandits themselves occupied 30% of the world in Jiangxi and harassed half of Jiangxi... Seeing the people's livelihood declining and the officials suffering, I gradually couldn't shout out those grand words, otherwise I would be disliked. Moreover, let's be fair, Jiangxi is poor, so there are more corvée, but the southeast is a little richer, so don't they also increase the money? Jingxiang is a little more abundant, so don't they also increase the grain? And Bashu, for the battle of Yaoshan, even paid two years of money and grain in advance! The rise and fall are all the suffering of the people!"
Yue Fei felt more and more empathetic, and thinking about his experience of going south, the complacency that had risen up in his heart due to the success of the battle and Liu Hongdao's personal pursuit disappeared in an instant.
"Of course, the south is suffering, but aren't tens of millions of people in Lianghe, Jingdong, and northern Shaanxi suffering? Can we tolerate the humiliation of Jingkang? Not fighting will not convince people. Moreover, if it were me, I would lose tens of thousands of lives in the battle of Qingzhou. Even if the Jin people took back the five counties of Jingdong, I would never tolerate it..." Liu Hongdao finally said seriously. "Jiedu Yue, I came upstairs to talk about this matter with you, just to tell you that both sides have their reasons and arguments, and both have their own difficulties. In the end, it depends on the decision of the government and the court. As ministers, you and I can write letters to express our opinions, but we should not do unnecessary things without authorization. Especially you, you have won easily this time, and you are going to lead tens of thousands of troops back to the front line of Jingdong with almost no losses. At this time, you should be more cautious, especially for the reputation of the government... Do you know what I mean?"
Yue Pengju finally came to his senses, but he still found it absurd: "Liu Jinglue thought Yue Fei was a military officer who disobeyed military orders and took the initiative to provoke trouble, or was he worried that most of the front troops in the imperial camp were from Hebei, and would do something improper when they returned to the shores of Tokyo?"
Liu Hongdao shook his head and said nothing.
Yue Fei was a little drunk and felt suffocated, so he wanted to explain, but a breeze from the river blew outside the building, which sobered him up but made him feel bored again... It was not that he did not want to argue, but he knew that it was difficult to gain trust between the civil and military officials. More importantly, he had experienced a lot since the beginning of the war, and he knew that although the civil officials had gone too far in oppressing the military officials, the military officials were still the ones who crossed the bottom line in the troubled times.
Civil officials will not skin people, nor will they massacre people in their own city.
Of course, without mentioning Yue Fei's complicated thoughts, let's just talk about why the military generals of the Song Dynasty were always cruel to their own people, and the civil officials of the Song Dynasty were always on guard against military generals rather than foreign aggression. This was the fundamental reason why this country collapsed a few years ago... Such a big country, with hundreds of millions of people, such a developed economy and technology, its strength is more than several times that of the Jin people, but because of the ancestral family rules of defending the inside, all the strength was used to deal with their own people. How could it have room to deal with outsiders?
Previously, Zhao Jiu was yelling in Tokyo, asking why the Western Xia could not be pacified in a hundred years. Zhao Ding and his people put forward a very convincing proposal, clearly explaining the causes and consequences of the founding of the Western Xia. It was roughly that the affairs of the Western Xia were passed down from the Five Dynasties and the late Tang Dynasty, so the Song Dynasty could not be blamed. It seemed very reasonable... but was it really true that the Western Xia could not be pacified?
No matter how many strong roots Xixia has, or how excellent its geographical conditions are, the power balance between the Song Dynasty and Xixia is unmistakable. It is impossible to say that it is reasonable for them to fall into the current situation, right?
If we follow these theories, how could the First Emperor of Qin use the remaining power of the six previous emperors to swallow up the six kingdoms with stronger foundations? How could Emperor Taizong of Tang Dynasty directly destroy the Turks in just a few years?
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