"The current government's lenient policies are even more extreme than those of Emperor Zhenzong. Seven or eight out of ten officials in the country are corrupt. It's not an exaggeration to say that. It wouldn't be excessive to dismiss all these tens of thousands of officials, but can I do that? I can't do anything."
At the end, Fan Zhongyan sighed deeply and said, "No matter how you appear, it will not change the fact that the officialdom is like this now."
"Why?"
Zhao Jun couldn't help but say, "The government has already promised me to change all this."
"No."
Fan Zhongyan said: "You can help them manufacture firearms, you can help them with the industrial revolution, you can help them improve productivity. But you can't change the bureaucracy, change land annexation, and change the current situation of rampant corruption."
Zhao Jun felt his blood rush to his head, and then, unable to suppress his anger any longer, he roared, "So that's why they granted me the title of Tongjinshi? I foolishly believed it, thinking that Tongjinshi's status in the officialdom was low, and I wanted to take the top spot! Turns out it was all fake."
"It can't be considered fake."
"Do you remember what you said? As long as productivity continues to expand indefinitely, the people will always have a way to survive and won't rebel. Besides, you also said that as long as the Song Dynasty existed, peasant uprisings wouldn't pose much of a threat to the Song Dynasty."
Fan Zhongyan sneered, "Zhao Jun, I find you're just as naive as I was when I was young. You naively believe everything everyone says, but you don't realize that sometimes, you need to be more cautious."
Zhao Jun was puzzled.
Fan Zhongyan laughed and said, "If I don't do this, how can I let you know that this official position is hard-earned? Only by doing this can I let you know that your position is their charity, not theirs begging you for it."
Fan Zhongyan shook his head and said, "What they need is for you to join them. Perhaps you were full of ambition when you first joined, hoping to change the bureaucracy. But over the decades, the more you learn, the more hopeless you become. Your initial passion has long since faded. So, they're asking you to join, not to do nothing, but to do things that benefit them, not to harm them."
"Then we asked them to help change the difficulty of the imperial examination, but they're still making excuses?"
He was one of the people who advised me at that time, so why didn't I tell him at the beginning?
"I couldn't tell you anything at that time, so I might as well be with them and let them think I was on their side."
"Then you joined them in opposing it?"
Zhao Jun looked unfriendly.
Zhao Jun opened his mouth wide.
"It's not a conspiracy, it's their instinct."
Fan Zhongyan shook his head and said, "And you don't really know much about the Song Dynasty either. Only when you gain a deeper understanding of the Song Dynasty's situation will you realize how difficult reforms were throughout history. Now you've looked around and only seen the tip of the iceberg, yet you're already furious and come to me in a rage. Isn't that exactly what I want to see? To be honest, if you hadn't come to me, I still wouldn't be telling you this."
"It turns out this is all a conspiracy."
No wonder Zhao Zhen granted him the same status as a Jinshi right from the start.
At that time, he was considering that the Song Dynasty was not like the Ming Dynasty. In the Ming Dynasty, one did not have to enter the officialdom. One could join the Jinyiwei system, have the power to judge officials, and hold the power of life and death.
Fan Zhongyan sighed and said, "Your existence has become a serious threat to them. They are afraid that if you really gain power, you will change the entire official order. Therefore, they have no choice but to let you into this order."
Zhao Jun understood a lot in an instant.
So he didn't think too much about it at the time. He felt that there seemed to be no problem in joining the officialdom, understanding it first, and then reforming it.
But if you think about it carefully, as a knowledgeable outsider, it is easy to make people in the system feel deeply afraid, so the most reassuring way is to pull them into the system. First, it is controllable, and second, the system is the thing that can easily assimilate people imperceptibly.
But this was not the case in the Song Dynasty. There was only one power system in the Song Dynasty, and that was being an official.
Military generals and the Imperial City Administration are nothing in front of the civil service group.
I was lucky that I listened to Yan Shu's words and thought that I could help Zhao Zhen and others. Then I felt that they were right. I should enter the system and understand the system before I could change it.
It turns out that all of this was their conspiracy, or rather, it was all what they instinctively did.
As long as Zhao Jun did not touch the officialdom, the emperor and ministers would be at ease. Then he could reform hot weapons, carry out the first industrial revolution, and spread the mathematical, physical and chemical knowledge in his mind.
Later, the productivity of the Song Dynasty increased, and with the availability of hot weapons such as flintlock rifles and cannons, they were able to launch a dimensionality reduction attack on the Western Xia and Liao Kingdoms. Then they no longer had to worry about foreign enemies, and could just muddle along and maintain their rule as long as they did not panic in their hearts.
After all, no one would revolutionize their own life.
They want to become one of them and become one with them!
They say they support their own reforms.
In fact, when I enter the system and reach that position, when my head is determined by my butt, I will probably have more concerns and will not dare to be as ruthless as I said before.
"We have to kill someone!"
After a moment, Zhao Jun suddenly spoke.
Zhao Jun understood everything in an instant, and many things became clear to him at once. His mind was much clearer than when he was admitted to Renmin University.
Fan Zhongyan didn't say anything either. He continued to drink tea and wait quietly.
"I've figured it out."
Zhao Jun nodded. "I'm very angry right now, so I have two options. One is to give up and quit."
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