The Ministry of Justice prison is located in the northwest of Jinling City. It was first built during the Zhenwu period of the previous dynasty and has a history of thirty years.
As a place to detain suspects, the environment inside the Ministry of Justice's prison is naturally incomparable to the outside world. It is filled with the smell of dampness and decay, and a heavy iron door separates the inside of the prison from the outside world.
Just one door separates two worlds.
In the dead of night, in the dimly lit and damp prison cell of the Ministry of Justice, most of the prisoners and the guards responsible for watching over them had already fallen asleep.
Only at the end of the prison corridor, where death row inmates were held, was a thin, frail figure. With his hands, bound by chains and handcuffs, he held a small stone he had picked up from somewhere and, by the flickering light of the oil lamp in the corridor, he was diligently carving something on the cell wall.
This person was none other than Yu Siqian, a candidate from Wuzhou City, who wrote on his answer sheet for the first imperial examination of the Tang Dynasty that made the examiners from the Ministry of Rites exclaim "outrageous" in unison.
The statement that "Could it be that the Tang Dynasty has only half of its territory left?" was first made by him at the post station after he was stripped of his qualification for the provincial examination and his status as a provincial graduate, when he was drowning his sorrows in alcohol.
Little did he know that it was his drunken, careless remarks that ultimately led to his imprisonment, and he might even face execution at the execution ground.
However, Yu Siqian seemed completely unconcerned about it.
Even though he was in the Ministry of Justice prison, even though he had been severely tortured by the yamen runners, even though he was already covered in wounds, it did not dampen his enthusiasm, nor did it make him forget the purpose of his trip to the capital.
Under the dim light of the oil lamp, one could vaguely see the four large characters he had carved on the wall of the cell—"Strategy for Pacifying the Borders".
Then came densely packed lines of small characters, which contained the specific content of the strategy for pacifying the border.
Yu Siqian himself was stripped of his eligibility for the provincial examination and his status as a provincial graduate because of this essay on border defense. He was also imprisoned because of this essay and could be executed at any time.
Yu Siqian felt no guilt about this, and even in death, he believed he had died a worthy death.
Yu Siqian tirelessly drew and wrote on the wall with pebbles, the rustling and squeaking sounds of which disturbed the death row inmates in the next cell, making it impossible for them to sleep.
So he simply rolled off the filthy thatched roof and, while searching for lice in his disheveled, dirty hair, chatted idly with Yu Siqian, who was carving his theory of border defense on the walls of the death row cell.
The older death row inmate said, "Hey, young scholar, all you do all day is write your bullshit 'Ethnic Integration Strategy for Border Pacification' on the wall. Is it useful? Is it interesting?"
"Do you really think that after you're executed at the execution ground, no one will have the leisure to come and watch you in your cell?"
"Take my advice: save your energy and strength. You're about to die, why not conserve your energy so you don't fall behind the procession on the road to the underworld and get whipped by the ghost messengers!"
"I'd love to!"
Across from him, Yu Siqian, upon hearing the commotion next door, indeed stopped what he was doing, turned to the disheveled old man, and said, "No one understands the importance of my strategy for pacifying the borders now, but in the future, ten, fifty, or even a hundred years from now, a wise ruler will surely understand it."
"By then, my name, Yu Siqian, will surely be etched in history."
"This is what they mean by 'I fear not being crushed to pieces, but only wish to leave behind a pure reputation in the world!'"
Hahaha!
In the next cell, the older death row inmate suddenly burst into laughter and said to Yu Siqian, "You poor, pedantic scholar, you're quite amusing."
"You nobody, do you really think you're Sima Qian?!"
After a pause, the older death row inmate continued, "Young scholar, do you know what kind of person our founding emperor of the Tang Dynasty was?"
Do you know how he acquired this empire?
"And do you know that whether it's the Turks on the northern grasslands, the Tibetans on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, or the various kingdoms of the Western Regions, or even the Goguryeo east of the Liaodong Peninsula, would they give up their centuries-long plundering and looting of the borders of the Central Plains dynasties just because of your few words on 'mutual trade and intermarriage'?"
snort!
As he spoke, the older death row inmate sneered, "Naive, utterly naive!"
"Of course I know!"
Yu Siqian's eyes shone with determination as he said, word by word, "But ultimately, someone has to do this, someone has to try to bring about change, before we can possibly achieve this goal."
"We can't just keep suppressing and slaughtering people with force and the butcher's knife, can we?"
"In that case, how can we truly achieve lasting peace and stability? I'm afraid it will only incite endless resistance from foreign tribes, resistance that will last for generations!"
It turns out that Yu Siqian, who was born in Wuzhou City, a key town on the border of Youyun, wrote this essay on pacifying the border in the examination hall of the Tang Dynasty’s special imperial examination. It was based on the fact that the Tang Dynasty had always used force to conquer other countries in the early days of the dynasty, including Goguryeo, the Western Regions, and even the Arab Empire.
In the view of the scholar Yu Siqian, this move was not only a terrible strategy that wasted manpower and resources and depleted the country's strength, but it would also sow endless seeds of resistance on the borders of the Tang Dynasty, leaving the dynastic borders in turmoil.
Therefore, Yu Siqian proposed in his essay on pacifying the borders that the current emperor, Chen Huai'an, should adopt a policy of appeasement towards foreign lands and ethnic groups through "mutual trade and intermarriage." By influencing the Central Plains culture through these trades and intermarriages, he aimed to assimilate these ethnic groups and ultimately achieve the grand goal of national integration and an end to war and conflict.
It was precisely because of Yu Siqian's concept of ethnic integration that Emperor Zhaowu Chen Huai'an, who was a time traveler, was greatly impressed when he saw Yu Siqian's strategy for pacifying the borders.
This essay on pacifying the borders is nothing short of treasonous to the civil and military officials, scholars, and Confucian scholars of the Central Plains dynasty at that time. How could the mighty Central Plains dynasty possibly integrate with foreign tribes?
Isn't this an insult to civility and a disgrace to the nation?
How could the legitimacy of the Central Plains dynasties be maintained in this way?
However, for Chen Huai'an, a time traveler, this was something he had always wanted to do but had been unable to accomplish for a long time.
It is not hard to see from the fact that when he first conquered the Western Regions, the Uyghur Khan Moyanchuo took the initiative to suggest that Princess Yueqiluo of Bilge go to the Central Plains for a marriage alliance, Chen Huai'an had the idea of establishing empresses in the East and West Palaces.
He hoped that through his own efforts, he could truly build the Tang Dynasty, which he had established, into an unprecedentedly powerful nation where all ethnic groups were integrated and united, just like the place he lived before he traveled through time.
However, in the actual process of implementing this, Chen Huai'an discovered that there were many obstacles and it was by no means something that could be accomplished overnight.
Furthermore, his decision to end the war with the Arab Empire in the Western Regions and begin implementing the new policy of "separation of military and political power" in the Western Regions was also a prelude to the great ethnic integration of the Tang Dynasty in the future.
Therefore, after reading Yu Siqian's essay on pacifying the border, Chen Huai'an immediately realized that this young man was no ordinary person. Even though he was exhausted, he had to rush to the Ministry of Justice prison overnight to meet Yu Siqian, who could write essays on pacifying the border and still put forward the concept of national integration under the etiquette and moral education of the feudal dynasty for thousands of years.
Inside the dimly lit cell, the two death row inmates continued their verbal sparring, neither able to convince the other.
Suddenly, the heavy prison door, which had been closed, was pushed open, and the creaking sound was particularly jarring in the quiet night.
The guards on duty rushed over, first lighting the wick of the oil lamp, then heading straight for Yu Siqian's cell, their expressions tense as if they were waiting for the arrival of some important person.
A moment later, a tall and imposing figure strode out of the prison corridor.
In the cell next to Yu Siqian's, the older death row inmate lifted his long hair that covered his eyes, and upon seeing the figure of the person who had come, he almost instinctively knelt down and kowtowed.
In the end, the words that were about to come out were swallowed back down.
With a mix of trepidation and irresistible curiosity, I huddled in a corner of the death row cell, watching intently at every move from the cell opposite.
At this moment, the mysterious man who had visited late at night arrived outside Yu Siqian's cell and asked Yu Siqian, who was continuing to carve on the wall as if no one else was around, "Are you Yu Siqian, the scholar from Wuzhou?"
The mysterious man's voice wasn't loud, but it carried the imposing aura of someone in a superior position.
Inside the cell, Yu Siqian didn't say anything and continued carving on the wall.
The mysterious man then asked, "Are you Yu Siqian, the one who wrote the 'Pacifying the Borders' essay on the imperial examination paper?"
"It's me!"
This time, Yu Siqian finally reacted.
A moment later, as the last character of Pingbian Celun was carved on the wall, Yu Siqian finally showed a satisfied smile.
He tossed the pebbles, already worn down to tiny pieces, into the corner, clapped his hands, and exclaimed, "Finally finished writing!"
Then, he turned around to face the mysterious man who exuded an extraordinary air, and said calmly and frankly, "Let's go, send me on my way!"
"By the way, should we go directly to Caishikou or Chengtianmen?"
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