"In the face of the power of heaven and earth, can humans really only rely on themselves?" Xu Weiguang felt uneasy just thinking about it.

"God can't help us if we can't do it ourselves. Instead of asking God for help, we should ask ourselves to become stronger!" Zhao Hao said firmly:

"But individual power is ultimately limited, so we must form a government, form a country, unite as one, and jointly resist powerful enemies and natural disasters to create a better future for our nation and for the descendants of each of us! This is the ultimate legitimacy of the new regime in the future!"

"Is there such a country?" Xu Wei's eyes moistened. He understood that in Zhao Hao's interpretation of the Way of Heaven, Heaven retreated to the objective environment, and man advanced to the center and leader of the human order.

In this way, at least in terms of law and system, everyone is equal. Although wealth and power still bring inequality, it is no longer legal inequality, and it is no longer an inequality that will never change...

This progress is undoubtedly a qualitative change, because it will liberate the souls of the common people, allowing them to no longer be content with being lowly, and believe that they can change their fate!

'Are kings, princes, generals and ministers of different species? ! '

Even if only one-tenth of the people can produce such noble souls, China will surely surpass the Han and Tang dynasties, be unique in the world, and reach unprecedented heights!

But Xu Wei, a veteran who had experienced so much frustration, was an incurable skeptic. He immediately shook his head and said:

"In this case, the Kong family's ethical system of ruler-ruler and subject-subject will have no basis for existence. Will the rituals and music collapse and the world fall into chaos? Well, it's almost time now..."

"No, it's been two thousand years, and those things have been engraved in our bones. The truly valuable things don't need to be imposed by etiquette, and we will pass them down from generation to generation." Zhao Hao shook his head and smiled:

"For example, respect your parents, be friendly to your brothers, be friendly to your neighbors, and obey the law. Be honest and trustworthy, be hardworking and dedicated..."

"Stop, stop, stop. My head hurts." Xu Wei quickly covered his ears. He didn't want to stay in the group, largely because he couldn't stand these official documents.

"Let me ask you again. There are thousands of people in a family, but only one person is in charge. Now that you have lost the emperor, who will be the emperor? Well, the emperor is gone too, who cares? Who will be the big boss?" After Xu Wei finished speaking, he looked at Zhao Hao, rolled his eyes and said, "Okay, Boss Zhao, am I not talking nonsense..."

"I will retire on time, too." Zhao Hao smiled and touched his increasingly high hairline. "I'm an administrative level 1 employee, and I can retire at the age of 65. I still have 29 years before I can go home and hug my grandchildren."

"Who will take over?" Xu Wei asked faintly, "Your son?"

"That's not necessarily true." Zhao Hao said calmly, "According to the group's charter, administrative level one is promoted from administrative level two. There's no rule that only people with the surname Zhao can be promoted, right? So it doesn't matter whether your surname is Zhao or not. But no matter what your surname is, you should be promoted level by level first."

"You are turning the group into a government!" Xu Wei suddenly realized, "Good fellow, everyone is qualified to be a big boss, at least it sounds very progressive."

"Sarcastic." Zhao Hao glanced at him with a wry smile, not correcting Xu Wei's inaccurate statement. "Even if it's a tiny hope, it's a qualitative leap compared to absolutely no hope."

"Actually, it's a little early for you to ask this question. We are thinking simply here, but if we really want to put it into practice, we don't know how much resistance we will encounter and how many compromises we will have to make." He lit a cigarette, took a deep puff and said:

“Although theory guides reality, reality can never live up to the beauty of theory.”

"That's right." Xu Wei nodded and said, "It's just like a writer. No matter how perfect his idea is, it will fail when he starts writing..."

"To be honest, I can't say for sure how far this step will go. Will it be a nominal monarchy, a republic, or a people's republic? I'm worried that if I take a big step, I'll get into trouble, but I'm also worried that if I'm too conservative, the effect of the revolution will be greatly reduced." Zhao Hao chuckled, rubbing his frown and said:

"Damn, if only I could really predict the future..."

"If you ask me, since you have no selfish motives, then you don't have to be afraid. Just control the group firmly and let everyone jump around as much as they want. Anyway, no matter how they jump around, they can't jump out of your palm. Only when they jump around can you see their underwear clearly...except for those who wear pants." Xu Wei stretched his waist and said, "That's great. If I were 20 years younger, I would go to the south and start doing it right away."

"Minister of Rites Xu Xuemo is the same age as you, Minister of Personnel Wang Guoguang is nine years older than you, and my elder brother Zhao Jin is five years older than you... They are all full of energy, why can't you have a second spring?" Zhao Hao patted Xu Wei's round white belly and said:

"I have so much talent that I need to release it so that my life will not be in vain."

"Fuck you." Xu Wei slapped his hand away and said, "I'm already 67 years old, and you still won't let me go. You can't use the production team's donkey like this, can you?"

"Even the donkeys in the production team don't dare to rest like this." Zhao Hao laughed and said seriously:

"I don't need you to run around here and there. Just stay in Suzhou and serve as the leader of the Three Antis Leading Group for me."

"Three Antis? Against what?" Xu Wei smoothed the white hair on his head and said

"Anti superstition, anti-ethics, and anti-empty talk." Zhao Hao replied: "The court will soon reopen the academy for lectures, and the scholars will inevitably be in chaos. We must take this opportunity to occupy the public opinion front."

"It is definitely necessary to promote science and oppose superstition. Otherwise, the people will not allow you to play with God." Xu Wei smiled and said, "Opposing etiquette is necessary to loosen the shackles of the monarch and the minister. But what do you mean by opposing empty talk?"

"We are against empty talk because we are afraid of grassroots staff. We cannot win the debate against those sour Confucian scholars." Zhao Hao said with a smile: "So we should vigorously advocate that we must have evidence when speaking and oppose empty talk. And this 'evidence' means evidence. Evidence must come from actual investigation! Without investigation, we have no right to speak!"

He pressed the cigarette butt heavily into the ashtray and said word by word: "The scientific attitude can be summed up in one sentence: Show me the evidence!"

"Hahaha, you are so mean!" Xu Wei was overjoyed. He already had a picture in his mind:

Under the watchful eyes of the crowd, the old country gentleman quoted from classics and talked about the connection between heaven and man, the yin and yang energy, and the existence of gods above our heads.

But the young man who was still wet behind the ears said, "Show me the evidence," and he was speechless...

"Produce evidence" is the most common phrase used by people who question science.

"There is no other way. We can only use magic to defeat magic." Zhao Hao gently blew away the ash from his fingertips.

"But the word 'anti-morality' should be changed. It's too hateful." Team leader Xu said, already getting into the role.

"Then let's call it Anti-Old Morality. You can choose any name you want." Zhao Hao said indifferently.

"Do you have any writings on this subject? It is far from enough to establish a new morality just by what you said today," said Xu Wei.

"Of course I made up for it with you." Zhao Hao said with a smile: "Li Zhi is also in Suzhou, you can get closer to him."

"No, I still have one egg." Xu Wei declined politely, "I don't want to lose it again."

"Also, I have collected a batch of books in the past few years. I don't know who wrote them, but some of the ideas are quite novel. I'll show them to you later. If you think they can help your work, I'll print some pamphlets and distribute them." Zhao Hao was completely immune to his crazy talk.

"Hehe..." Xu Wei sneered. He dared to bet that those books were written by Zhao Hao.

This guy is always like this, he dares to write but not to admit.

Of course Zhao Hao didn't dare to admit it. "Mingyi Daifanglu", "Qianshu", "Rizhilu"... These books by the four great masters of the late Ming Dynasty would be poisonous weeds no matter which dynasty they were in.

Besides, if you blame yourself for all those people with different opinions and thoughts, wouldn't that be considered schizophrenia?

He still wants to be a junior cabinet minister for a few years in peace and stability.

~~

In the flower hall, although both parties were old acquaintances, Xu Xuemo still insisted on paying homage to the Prime Minister in the status of a subordinate.

Zhao Shouzheng had no choice but to follow him.

After the greetings, they sat down and drank tea. Xu Xuemo presented the imperial edict.

Zhao Shouzheng saw that Emperor Wanli wanted to promote Concubine Zheng to Imperial Concubine, and ordered the Ministry of Rites to prepare all the etiquette.

"Hiss..." Mr. Zhao couldn't help but frowned slightly. How much money would this cost? He thought that these emperors had so many things to do.

Today my younger brother is getting married, tomorrow he will celebrate the birth of his son, and later he will confer a title on his concubine. Each time, the Ministry of Rites has to spend tens of thousands of taels of silver, and they have to take the opportunity to withdraw hundreds of thousands of taels of silver from the Taicang. I don't know where the money in the inner treasury has gone...

However, Prime Minister Zhao remained calm as he handed the imperial edict back to Xu Xuemo and asked, "What does the Ministry of Rites mean?"

Otherwise, why do people say being a leader is easy? You can let your subordinates talk first and just listen. If you don’t understand, you can just say, “You go back first, I’ll think about it.” You don’t have to worry about making a fool of yourself…

"The budget of the ministry is really not much this year, but we can still make do with it if we tighten our belts." Xu Xuemo came today, of course, not to make things difficult for the Prime Minister. He sighed and said, "It's just that the timing..."

"Ah." Zhao Shouzheng nodded, understanding what he meant. Suddenly he remembered something and asked slowly, "Has there been a similar decree before?"

"The Prime Minister is really skilled." Xu Xuemo flattered him first, then said, "Yes, on the fifth day of the first lunar month last year, the third son of the emperor was born. After the full moon, an imperial edict was sent to the ministry, which also said, 'Noble Consort Zheng will be promoted to Imperial Noble Consort.'"

"Yeah." Zhao Shouzheng thought, damn, yes! Now he remembered everything! Still expressionless, he said, "It was the Grand Tutor who stopped me at that time, saying that we cannot reverse the order of seniority and that ethics are not in line. We should first establish the mother of the eldest son, Concubine Gong, as the Imperial Noble Concubine."

"Yes, yes, yes." Xu Xuemo nodded hurriedly and said, "The Grand Master also ordered me to submit a petition to appoint the eldest son as the Crown Prince as soon as possible. But the Emperor said that the Queen is still young and has given birth to a princess, so it is very likely that she will give birth to a legitimate prince. Will the Crown Prince be deposed at that time? The Grand Master was unable to refute it, so the matter was put to rest."

He said with a worried look, "Now that the Grand Tutor has just left, the Emperor has brought up the old matter again. I am really unsure, so I can only ask the Prime Minister for instructions."

"Well, this is a serious matter, so it's right to be cautious." Zhao Shouzheng said calmly: "Please keep it to yourself for a few days, and let me think about it."

"Yes, the Imperial Observatory has checked the date and we have to wait for a few months. There is still time." Xu Xuemao apologized with a smile.

"Thank you, Grand Master." Zhao Shouzheng was about to serve tea to see the guest off.

"There is another important matter to report to the Prime Minister." Xu Xuemo hurriedly lowered his voice and said, "Some censors want to impeach Pan Xinchang."

Pan Xinchang is Pan Sheng, who is from Xinchang, Zhejiang. This is the real purpose of Xu Xuemo's visit.

"Oh?" Zhao Shouzheng's hand, which had just touched the tea bowl, stopped. "Is the news accurate?"

"It's absolutely true. It was Minister Liu Ziming who told me." Xu Xuemo said, "He said he didn't want to win unfairly."