Chapter 27 A Prosperous Age Where the Ruler Values the People More Than the Ruler
Ouyang Rong suddenly discovered something.
Something that he overlooked while he was engrossed in his work after arriving here.
First of all, the current Great Zhou Dynasty is indeed a prosperous era that may go down in history. Luoyang and Chang'an in Guanzhong are indeed a prosperous scene where all countries come to pay tribute. The imperial border army is full of martial virtue. Even the record of destroying a small country is hard to call a famous general. The influence of the culture after integrating Confucianism, Buddhism and Taoism has swept across the surrounding barbarians.
Even if the scheming Empress Wei could not be considered a wise ruler, she could certainly be called a strong ruler, and was by no means a foolish one.
This young dynasty, which has been established for just eighty years and changed from Gan to Zhou, is undeniably at its peak, with its national power surging unstoppably upward. Its foundation is relatively solid, and it is far from reaching the end of the historical cycle.
Ouyang Rong was reborn from a period that was considered a golden age into a dynasty that was also considered a golden age.
But he overlooked the fact that... this glorious era had nothing to do with the tens of thousands of disaster victims in Longcheng County at this moment, nor with the majority of ordinary people in the ten provinces.
Most of the wealth of this prosperous empire was concentrated in the hands of the royal court, the powerful nobles of Guanzhong, the five surnames and seven clans, and local tycoons and gentry, with at most the wealthy people of Guanzhong living in the heart of the empire.
So what does a prosperous era have to do with you?
The most tragic thing is seeing widespread suffering beneath a prosperous era. Even historians are unwilling to record your deeds, fearing they might tarnish the "rule of so-and-so" or the "golden age of so-and-so." Even future generations who read history are unwilling to look at you, fearing they might destroy their illusions and aspirations for the great dynasty established by their ancestors.
Even if you try your best, you can't overthrow this prosperous era; it's still there, perfectly fine... Just think about how desperate that is.
Even a "prosperous era" was like this, so Ouyang Rong never wanted to look at any history books again.
But he is now in the midst of a possible entry in some future history book, only he is a minor seventh-rank county magistrate, staring wide-eyed at the widespread suffering that goes unnoticed beneath the surface of a prosperous era...
"What should we do, Ouyang Lianghan?"
Ouyang Rong flew up to the clouds again, gazing at the ancient pagoda standing before him and asking himself a question.
But no one answered him.
After standing outside the tower for a long time, Ouyang Rong turned and left, returning to reality.
He hadn't entered the Tower of Merit for many days. Since the establishment of the disaster relief camp and the organization of work-for-relief, he had indeed heard the clear sound of the wooden fish from time to time, which should have accumulated a lot of merit points, but Ouyang Rong had not gone into the tower to check.
He waited, until the disaster relief and flood control were mostly arranged, then he would go into the pagoda one last time. If he had accumulated 10,000 merit points, he would go directly to the Pure Land Temple to collect his blessings and leave. If not, he would continue serving as the magistrate of Longcheng County for a while longer; after all, his term was four years, so he wanted to do as much as possible.
Even though he had accumulated 10,000 merit points before completing the disaster relief and flood control work, Ouyang Rong couldn't get over his conscience and ran away halfway through.
He never gives up halfway through a project unless there are unavoidable circumstances. This was true for his previous experience of returning to Donglin Temple after his account was banned from the Gongdeta APP, for his insistence on returning to his "hometown" to take the postgraduate entrance exam, and for his current work on disaster relief and flood control.
So why go into the tower before you've finished?
...
"Absurd to the extreme."
Once again, in that garden where plum blossoms fluttered, in a quiet waterside pavilion, a beautiful woman arrived wearing a crown and carrying a sword. As soon as she sat down, she uttered these four words.
"Who upset Sister Xie?"
Su Guo'er lowered her head and stroked the cat.
She sat alone by the water in a crimson narrow dress, with a rather peculiar cat in her arms. The cat was pure white with black spots on its mouth, resembling a butterfly.
At this time, cats were called "Li Nu" in the Great Zhou Dynasty. Their numbers were small, and many came from foreign countries as tribute, such as Persian cats. Court ladies and princesses kept many cats. Princess Chang Le, who was favored by the court, was a "cat slave" and was said to have seven beautiful cats, all of which had elegant names.
Thus, the raccoon dog gradually became popular among the upper-class ladies of Luoyang. However, it was still extremely rare in the south. Xie Lingjiang had only seen a few, except for one kept by an older woman named Wang in Wuyi Lane. The raccoon dog was indeed pleasing to the eye, but she thought it was too delicate. Xie Lingjiang disliked anything that was pampered.
"Large rats, all of them are large rats! They even steal the grain that is meant to save lives in the Jimin Granary... How absurd!"
Su Guo'er looked up and saw that the Xie family girl was still tightly gripping the hilt of the sword on her knee after she sat down, her five fingers turning blue and making a cracking sound.
"Sister Xie comes from a prominent family that has been in power for six generations, so naturally she thinks their claims are absurd."
Xie Lingjiang turned around. "Don't you find this absurd?"
“Absurd, but not surprising.”
Xie Lingjiang stared at her, "You're not angry either."
"What's the use of Guo'er's anger? Everyone has their own destiny."
"What if... I gave you the power to make decisions?"
"Behead both the top and the bottom."
Su Guo'er lowered her head and stroked the cat. Xie Lingjiang turned her head, looking at the night view outside the waterside pavilion, and stopped talking, her eyes somewhat blank.
There was a chubby-faced maid waiting outside the door. Seeing that the young lady and the Xie family's daughter had stopped arguing, she brought tea into the room and served tea and snacks to Xie Lingjiang. She also placed a book box next to the young lady.
Su Guo'er called out "Cai Shou" and handed the cat in her arms to her personal maid. This cat was named "Xian Die Nu" and was a gift from her distant aunt. Actually, it was a gift of a pair, but one of them had broken.
Unlike Xie Lingjiang, Su Guo'er prefers things that are docile to her, and the more fierce a creature is, the more she wants to tame it.
The chubby-faced maid named Caishou happily took the butterfly-shaped cat and ran to the side to pet the cat for her mistress. Only then did Xie Lingjiang notice that the white cat with the butterfly-shaped markings on its mouth had a limp.
However, her attention was not on such trivial matters at the moment.
"But... even if we kill them all, it won't solve the problem of disaster relief food. How will you manage the flood control efforts, Senior Brother?"
Su Guo'er, who was taking books out of the small box, lowered her head and said, "Just follow the path of the previous county magistrates."
"What approach?"
With floral makeup between her brows, she said nonchalantly, "Go ask your senior brother. He should know. Even if he doesn't, someone will tell him."
Xie Lingjiang frowned and looked at the plum blossom-adorned girl who was flipping through a book of poems for a while.
This young lady from the Su family is indeed very intelligent. I heard that her father and brother often come to consult her for questions and opinions. Many things in the Su family are decided by her casual remarks in her boudoir.
However, compared to her father and brother's gentle and modest nature, this Su family sister was too arrogant and indifferent to most things. Sometimes Xie Lingjiang wondered if there was anything or anyone in this world that she cared about, except for her father and brother.
Xie Lingjiang didn't press further, but took a deep breath and said:
"What's even more absurd is that the imperial court's first thought wasn't disaster relief, but rather stabilizing the local areas and preventing displaced people from causing trouble! They weren't being given food, yet they weren't allowed to cause trouble. Forgive me for not understanding, but in those people's eyes, what exactly are the common people?"
“It’s water.” Su Guo’er nodded, reciting it fluently. “Emperor Taizong often said, ‘The ruler is the boat, and the people are the water. Water can carry the boat, but it can also capsize it.’”
"When Emperor Taizong said this, did he mean that the people are the most important, the state is next, and the ruler is the least important? And did they have any fear of the people?"
"Yes. However, the saying 'the people are more important than the ruler' was said by your Confucian sages, not by Emperor Taizong."
What's the difference?
"In the ears of you Confucian scholars, Emperor Taizong spoke of the people being more important than the ruler, but in the ears of me... in the ears of the descendants of the Li family, Emperor Taizong taught the art of rulership. A ruler should be mindful of dangers, for when the waters are calm, the boat is stable. Is issuing a decree to stabilize the region while subjecting the people to further suffering just another way to keep the waters calm, only the worst possible method?"
Xie Lingjiang turned around and stubbornly asked, "Then who is more important, the people or the ruler?"
"If Sister Xie asked my father or brother, they would sincerely give you the answer you want to hear, but I am not them, and what I say is not what Sister Xie wants to hear."
"No, you speak, I'm listening."
“Alright, my sister also thinks the people are more important, because all the people in the world combined are certainly more important than a monarch, since this great flood is enough to capsize a boat.”
After Su Guo'er nodded, she asked again:
"But what if there are only one-tenth of the people in the world, only one-hundredth, only one ten-thousandth, or even only... one person? Compared to the king, who is more valuable? If he is more valuable, then he is the king, and the king is the person. In the end, isn't the 'king' still more valuable? But if they are equally valuable, then is he still called a king?"
“Even you Confucian scholars acknowledge the distinction between ruler and commoner, and everyone tacitly agrees on the distinction between noble and lowly. So why bother asking who is more important and who is less important?”
Xie Lingjiang coldly asked, "So, does that mean a monarch can have the will of one person and the will of millions?"
Su Guo'er shook her head:
"Of course not. The last one to do that was the mad emperor Sui, who forged two swords at the same time; the first one to do that was the First Emperor of Qin, who sought the elixir of immortality a thousand years ago. Both of these tyrants eventually died under the swords. Therefore, the founding of the nation no longer wastes resources and manpower to forge swords; that's why Emperor Taizong warned that water can carry a boat, but it can also capsize it, and one should not become a tyrant."
"But the problem now is, how much of this 'people's water' is considered large enough to capsize the 'ruler's boat'? If it's just a small splash at the bow, should we care? Every ruler has his own scale in his heart."
"If all the people in the world are likened to a lake, then all the disaster victims in Longcheng County, Jiangzhou, are not even worth a ripple. They are just a small spoonful of water. Zhou... doesn't care."
Xie Lingjiang fell silent.
The room quieted down, and Su Guo'er quietly flipped through a collection of poems she often read, while the chubby-faced maidservant pouted and quietly teased the cat.
Until a woman suddenly stood up.
She stood before the woman with the aloof plum blossom makeup and said, word by word:
"You may not care, but others do."
Xie Lingjiang turned her back and left.
(End of this chapter)
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