"Eating, drinking, and having fun??"
Liu Hong's words caused Xi Zhicai's expression to change. He opened his eyes wide and looked at the emperor in front of him. He could tell that the emperor seemed to be speaking from the heart.
"Your Majesty is the hope of all the people, the hope for the revival of our Great Han Dynasty. You must not have such thoughts!!"
Xi Zhicai quickly stood up, bowed to Liu Hong, and offered his advice, his face showing extreme regret.
"I was just expressing my feelings for a moment. I still remember the scene when Zhi Cai and I expressed our aspirations to each other!"
Liu Hong also got up and helped Xi Zhicai up, then smiled and looked into Xi Zhicai's eyes.
"Your Majesty...you!!"
Looking at the emperor's gaunt face and weary eyes, Xi Zhicai's own eyes reddened. No wonder the emperor had just spoken of eating, drinking, and having fun.
"Your Majesty must take care of your health!"
Looking at the mountain of memorials and secret letters from officials across the country piled up on the desk, Xi Zhicai also looked at Liu Hong with concern.
"I know... It will be fine once Yuan Hao and Yuan Chang return!"
Looking at the things on the desk, Liu Hong smiled helplessly. In the end, he still didn't have enough people under his command, and he didn't trust those bureaucrats to handle things, so every day he had endless memorials to review and countless secret letters to read.
"By the way, did Zhicai come here this time because the Imperial Guard has been reorganized?"
"Your Majesty, after multiple assessments including political, military, physical, archery, and daily scoring, the preliminary list of those to be eliminated has been drawn up, totaling three thousand five hundred people!"
As they spoke, Xi Zhicai handed the list to Liu Hong.
Liu Hong took the list and glanced at it briefly. He discovered that most of the people on it were from powerful and influential families, which made Liu Hong's face darken considerably.
"Hmm~, select five hundred people with higher political scores to stay, and the rest can pack their things and go home!"
Liu Hong frowned and handed the list to Xi Zhicai. Since these people could not be reformed, it was better to expel them as soon as possible. As for the five hundred people left behind, it was to shut some people up so that they would not say that he was targeting those powerful and influential families.
"promise!!"
Xi Zhicai carefully put away the list and sighed inwardly. He had been in contact with the Imperial Guard trainees for so long, and most of them were actually loyal to the Han Dynasty and the emperor, and were equally determined to die for them.
Moreover, they trained very hard and were capable of using their skills, but their family-centric mentality held them back.
"Zhicai, why don't you take a look at this first..."
Liu Hong then took out Xun You's secret letter and handed it to Xi Zhicai.
"Gongda's plan is far-sighted. Gaochang is located in the heart of the Western Regions. Once our Great Han controls and absorbs Gaochang, it will be like an iron nail driven into the ground, ready to uproot the entire Western Regions at any time in the future!"
After reading Xun You's plan, Xi Zhicai couldn't help but admire it, but he also tacitly refrained from mentioning Zhang Xiu and Lan Zhi.
Subsequently, Liu Hong and Xi Zhicai carefully studied and discussed the matter of establishing a presence in the Western Regions.
"Zhicai, I believe that in order to control and assimilate the Western Regions, besides military, economic, and livelihood factors, there is one more crucial factor..."
"Oh? Your Majesty means... unification?"
Xi Zhicai's expression shifted, and he couldn't help but think of the struggle for supremacy among the feudal lords during the Zhou Dynasty.
"Indeed! In the past, Qin Shi Huang Ying Zheng was a man of great talent and ambition. After conquering the various states, he devoted himself to unifying the written language and weights and measures. Later, through the painstaking efforts of the successive emperors of our Han Dynasty, we successfully unified the thoughts and identity of the people!"
Even if dynasties change in the future, this country will still be a unified country, and the nation will still be a unified nation.
It must be understood that the power of a unified nation and people is formidable. No matter what disasters or blows they encounter, they cannot be defeated or conquered. Only in this way can our Yanhuang lineage not perish, and can our spirit and civilization be perpetuated!
Liu Hong's tone was unusually heavy, and his eyes reddened as he thought about the series of misfortunes that this long-suffering nation had suffered in later generations.
"Your Majesty possesses a heart that encompasses the world and profound wisdom; this is a strategy for the continued existence of future generations! Your subject is willing to follow Your Majesty to the death and dedicate my life to the eternal continuation of our Yan and Huang lineage!!"
At this moment, Xi Zhicai's thoughts were further elevated by Liu Hong. From the time of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors to the later Xia, Shang, and Zhou dynasties, it can be seen that there are no dynasties that last forever, but there is a national spirit that lasts forever. Liu Hong understood this, and Xi Zhicai understood it as well.
Their goal also rose from the revival of the Han Dynasty to the continuation of the nation for generations to come.
What should we do? Only by letting the civilization and spirit of the descendants of Yan and Huang cover the entire world, and absorbing all those outside the civilized world, such as the Western Regions, the northern grasslands, the southern barbarians... and so on!
"Then, Your Majesty, how do you plan to unify the thoughts and culture of the Western Regions?"
With a goal in mind, problems arose, because the Western Regions had their own independent scripts and languages, and were also a region where many ethnic groups lived together, making them fundamentally different from the descendants of Yan and Huang who shared the same lineage.
Ultimately, no matter how the states in the Central Plains fought, it was always one of their own people fighting another. Regardless of who the final winner was, the bloodline in their bodies could not be changed, and no outsider could ride roughshod over them.
The difficulty of eliminating the barriers between their languages, scripts, and ethnicities, and integrating them into one, is self-evident.
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