"Then why is he asking for trouble?" Hu Shizhong asked in confusion.

"Because he doesn't want to rely solely on the civil service group to win." Yan Shannong said, "He has some ideals, there is no doubt about that. And your master and I want to take advantage of this and try to help the poor get more."

"At least he didn't stop us. So, today we actually gained a lot." He Xinyin finally smiled and said, "We have achieved the best and got the middle, that's good enough."

"That's right." Yan Shannong smoothed his beard and lay flat on the bamboo chair, saying, "Take your time. Don't always think about becoming fat in one go."

"Yeah." He Xinyin nodded and said, "There is really no rush."

Seeing that his master and grandmaster had finished their conversation, Hu Shizhong, who was still full of questions, asked, "If he doesn't want to be the emperor, what does he want to do?"

"Who knows? Duke Zhou didn't want to be the emperor, and Cao Mengde didn't want to be the emperor either, but what was the result..." Yan Shannong closed his eyes, shook his head and said, "When the dust settles in the future, don't forget to tell your father during the family sacrifice."

"Uh..." Hu Shizhong swallowed his saliva and asked again: "Will the world be in chaos soon?"

"That's why I always tell you that even though we read the scriptures against others, we should read them more. Otherwise, how can we fight against others?" He Xinyin blamed his disciple and said in a deep voice, "Think about the origin of the sentence 'Zhou can be defeated', and you will understand his mentality at this time."

"Watching the troops in Mengjin?" Hu Shizhong was a juren, after all, but he had lived abroad for many years and no longer read classics. After his master reminded him, he naturally understood.

The so-called "Mengjin Military Review" means that after King Wen worked hard to govern the country, the Western Zhou Dynasty was stronger than the Shang Dynasty. After King Wu ascended the throne, in order to test his appeal and test the attitudes of the vassal states and King Zhou's reaction, he held a large-scale military review in Mengjin, which unexpectedly attracted 800 vassal states to come to the meeting.

The princes all said, "Zhou can be defeated now!" But when King Wu found that several large princes had not come, he refused and said, "You do not understand the will of heaven, so you cannot do it now."

So he resolutely withdrew his troops and continued to accumulate strength and wait for the opportunity.

"The fact that Duke Zhao thought of reviewing the troops at Mengjin instead of King Wu's attack on King Zhou shows that his current mentality is closer to the former, and he also believes that the time is not yet ripe..." Hu Shizhong suddenly realized.

"Of course it's not mature yet. Zhu Yijun hasn't taken power yet." He Xinyin laughed and said, "What kind of King Zhou are we attacking at this time? We'll be cursed by the world!"

"And the success of King Wu's conquest of King Zhou was actually mainly due to his strategy, not his victory by force." At this time, Yan Shannong closed his eyes and said as if in a dream:

"The strategy Taigong Wang formulated for him was called 'Destroying the Shang Dynasty'. After reviewing the troops, King Wu first bribed King Zhou's important ministers Weizi Qi, Jiao Ge and others to urge them to surrender. He also used a trick to teach King Zhou to kill Bigan and imprison Ji. Afterwards, the Shang Dynasty lost all morale. Weizi fled, and the Grand Master Bi and Junior Master Jiang fled to Zhou. There was no one left in the court who could be used."

"King Zhou was unaware of this and still insisted on sending a large army to the east to attack the Yi people. With all the main forces gone, the capital of Yin was left empty. This gave King Wu the opportunity to take advantage of the situation."

"Yes, actually, when King Wu attacked King Zhou, he did not engage in direct combat with the main force of the Shang Dynasty's regular army. King Zhou could only use slaves as his army in a hurry to resist King Wu's army. As a result, the slaves 'turned against their own side' and turned around to help the Zhou army attack the Shang army. In the battle of Muye, the Shang army was wiped out, and the Zhou army surrendered Chaoge. King Zhou fled to Lutai and burned himself to death. King Wu defeated the Shang Dynasty in one fell swoop!"

"Is that so..." Hu Shizhong finally understood everything and clapped his hands, "It looks like it, it really looks like it!"

"This moment is just like that moment." He Xinyin patted his disciple's head and said, "But he doesn't want to talk anymore. It's useless to tell you."

"Yes, if Lord Zhao heard these three strategies to eliminate Zhu, which are no less powerful than Zhu Sheng's nine strategies, he would definitely regard our master as Jiang Ziya," Hu Shizhong said regretfully.

"Oh..." Yan Shannong sighed, turned his back to him and started snoring.

~~

On the carriage back to the dock, Zhao Hao leaned against the cushion and looked at the book "Wang Gen Miscellaneous Records" given to him by Yan Shannong. He laughed for a long time and said, "Good fellow, you are indeed a master of psychology. If I had read this story on the spot, I might have been convinced."

"Is it so powerful?" Zhao Shizhen took it with some disapproval. He did not have a good impression of these people from the Taizhou School. He felt that they were always fanning the flames and were afraid that the world would not be in chaos.

I saw that the "Eel Fu" was a fable. It said that a Taoist was strolling in the market and saw a water tank where yellow eels were kept. There were too many eels in the tank and the space was too small. The eels were trapped and entangled, and they were dying.

At this time, a loach came out and moved around like a dragon. The eels were able to turn around and breathe, and they came back to life.

After a while, the sky suddenly changed color with thunder and lightning. The loach took advantage of the situation and jumped into the Milky Way, now able to fly in the sky.

However, it looked back at the caged eel, thinking of a way to save it. So it turned into a dragon, and created a thunderstorm, filling the eel tank. Then, those who were entangled and pressed by it all became happy and alive. When it regained its spirit, they would return to the Yangtze River and the sea together...

The Taoist was moved and sighed, "I am raised together with my kind between heaven and earth. Am I not like the eels raised together in this tank? I heard that a true man regards heaven, earth and all things as one, establishes his mind for heaven and earth, and establishes his destiny for the people. Isn't this right?"

So he vowed to be like the dragon-like loach, to awaken the ignorant people like eels with his own power, and expressed his aspirations in a poem:

"Once spring comes, I am not free, I travel all over the world to make the imperial state strong. One day, the world will be harmonious with heaven and man, and the unicorn and phoenix will return in the autumn of Yao and Shun..." Zhao Shizhen read the poem softly and said with awe:

"This Wang Xinzhai is really different..."

As he spoke, he slapped his forehead again, and suddenly realized: "Take the initiative to transform into a dragon and save the eels from the cage! This is what Yan Shannong wants to convey to my uncle!"

"That's right." Zhao Hao nodded with a smile and said, "But it's also true that their Taizhou school opposed the revolution of Tang and Wu. It would be perfect if King Wu defeated King Zhou and then welcomed Weizi to the throne."

"You are just playing house." Zhao Shizhen spat, "If the revolution is not thorough, then it is not a revolution at all. If you don't understand this principle, I think the Taizhou School is nothing more than this."

"I can't get rid of the shackles of Confucianism." Zhao Hao was also a little disappointed.

"In fact, I came here with high expectations, thinking that after so many years, they would be able to improve a little bit and break the rut of emperors and generals. Unfortunately, it seems that without experiencing the pain of losing their country and their race, and losing their clothes and customs, they can't get out of Huanglizhou, and even reach the height of Tang Puting..."

Zhao Shizhen listened silently. Although he didn't understand what "pineapple porridge keeps flowing" meant, he had long been accustomed to his uncle's occasional mumbling.

"However, if you choose the tallest among the short ones, they still stand out from the crowd." Zhao Hao changed the subject and said, "This is the first time that someone has revealed the true meaning of my free education. I endured it again and again and finally refrained from killing them."

Zhao Shizhen nodded. He was Zhao Hao's most trusted nephew and naturally knew his uncle's true purpose.

Over the past 20 years, Zhao Hao has spent a total of 200 million taels of silver on education, most of which was spent on free education for the public.

On the screen wall in front of the Jiangnan Education Group office building, there are two instructions from Zhao Hao engraved:

'There is no family in the town that is not learning, and there is no family that has no son who is not learning'!

In order to allow poor families to send their children to school, the group's schools not only did not charge tuition, but also provided meals. In order to have one less mouth to feed, poor families had to send their children to the Jiangnan Group's primary school.

For older teenagers, Zhao Hao launched a one-year literacy crash course and also opened night school literacy classes in the workshop, using the literacy rate as an important assessment indicator.

This gives people a strong feeling that Mr. Zhao makes money just to run an education program. It seems that his greatest pursuit is to let all the people read and understand reason.

This greatly eliminated the smell of money from the Jiangnan Group and added greatly to Mr. Zhao's glorious image.

Local gentry who were unaware of the situation also donated generously to support education. As the saying goes, many hands make light work. The rapid development of education in Jiangnan and the high literacy rate of the people are absolutely inseparable from their sponsorship and support.

However, what they don't know is that Zhao Hao's purpose of establishing free education is to break the gentry's monopoly on knowledge. And not only to break the monopoly, but also to eliminate their extremely outdated and extremely pedantic...

But Zhao Hao did not intend to dig up the roots of the gentry class as He Xinyin said. First of all, he was already firmly tied to these people. The top leaders of the entire group, including himself, all came from the gentry class, so he would not block their way completely.

Secondly, history has proven countless times that the gentry, with their strong economic advantages and profound cultural heritage, can always keenly grasp the changes of the times and make timely adjustments. No matter how the selection method changes, they can still occupy a more advantageous position than ordinary people. It's nothing more than the content of the children's study has changed from classics, history, and literature to mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology...

But relatively speaking, the imperial examination system is more advanced and fairer than the Nine-Rank System. Adding a few more subjects to the imperial examination, such as science, mathematics, economics, etc., is also a huge improvement.

After twenty years of scientific dominance over the imperial examination system, this was entirely possible to reach a compromise with the gentry class.

Zhao Hao always kept in mind the old man's teachings to maintain a united front and focus on major contradictions.

At least in the two capitals and thirteen provinces, he did not intend to implement the overseas system, nor did he have the conditions to do so.

To put it bluntly, the Ming Dynasty was already a mess with hundreds of generations of accumulated problems, a mess that had no solution. My father-in-law had been carrying out reforms for five more years, but it was still hopeless.

This fully shows that it is completely rotten and there is no value in repairing it. It is now just a beautiful exterior with rotten cotton inside.

Zhao Hao was not interested in wasting his energy to become a Ming Dynasty paperhanger, nor did he believe that he could do a better job than his father-in-law.

His lifelong pursuit has always been to achieve a century-long immigration, to make China a land where the sun never sets! Rather than changing dynasties!

If we get stuck in the domestic quagmire, we might be completely doomed...

Wang Gen's two lines, "Once spring comes, I am not free, I will travel all over the world to the magnificent imperial state." really expressed Zhao Hao's thoughts, but the world in his mind and the world in Wang Gen's mind are obviously not the same concept...