Water Margin people

Chapter 1558 I am a robber

"Your idea is not right. If you stay in the palace and just analyze the memorials submitted to you every day, wouldn't you be a fool who is fooled by others?"

Sun Lei looked at Li Qingzhao and said.

"How could that be! The ministers' memorials state the affairs of the country, and the emperor reviews and handles them. This is the most efficient way! The emperor can't run all over the country!"

Li Qingzhao explained.

"But everyone has their own selfish desires. If you tell me something bad, you'll inevitably be punished. Why not say something auspicious for the New Year? As for national affairs, just muddle through and it will be over. It will only make the people suffer! Don't you think this is the truth?"

Sun Lei shook his head and said, the ancient feudal dynasties had many shortcomings, deceiving superiors and concealing the truth from subordinates was one of the biggest problems.

The emperor seems to be the master of the world, but in fact he hears and sees very little. Most of what his ministers want him to hear and see are what he wants him to hear and see. This makes it impossible for the emperor to truly understand his own world.

"Perhaps the world is already in turmoil, the people are rising up, the war is raging, the country is in turmoil, but the emperor in the palace still thinks that the world is at peace and the people are living and working in peace!"

Sun Lei made another analogy.

Li Qingzhao wanted to refute, but she was also a well-educated woman, so she naturally knew that what Sun Lei said was true. Many times the emperor was the one who did not know the truth, and even the truth had been beautified in the style of the Spring and Autumn Period.

"Throughout the dynasties, the founding emperors had good reputations, and there were many wise rulers who had made sufficient political achievements. The reason was that they had to travel around to conquer the world, and they had seen too many things, so they naturally knew what to do right!"

"But after the country was stabilized, the emperor never left his house. At most, he would travel around the capital to offer sacrifices. He had no idea what was happening in the world!"

"To put it bluntly, letting the emperor live in the palace seems to be for the sake of the emperor and the stability of the country, but isn't it also a form of confinement? Isn't it in the best interests of the bureaucracy to have a stupid and ignorant emperor who only knows how to enjoy himself?"

Sun Lei took another bunch of grapes and started eating.

"Bureaucratic group, you..."

  Li Qingzhao was frightened by this title. The emperor and the officials should be one, but Sun Lei directly beat the officials into a gang. Does this mean he wants to be a solitary monarch?

"Why are you so surprised? There is a saying in the martial arts world: wherever there are people, there is martial arts. This saying applies everywhere. Aristocratic families, cliques, and interest groups are all unavoidable. Don't they exist if I don't think about them?"

Sun Lei found Li Qingzhao's surprised look somewhat amusing. After all, her thoughts could not escape from it. Escaping was the stupidest thing in the world.

"You tell me this...I can't help you!"

Li Qingzhao lowered her head. How could she not know these things? She was the daughter of an official family. Such things were not surprising to her. It had always been like this in the world.

"Of course you can help me! Because the school is independent, there are always talented people emerging from generation to generation, and I want to cut them off at the root!"

Sun Lei said with a smile.

"I encourage the establishment of schools and allocate huge sums of money. Promoting social development is one reason, but more importantly, it is to enlighten the people. Stupid and ignorant people are the easiest to control. Shang Yang's policy of keeping the people ignorant has caused harm for thousands of years. It's time to change!"

Sun Lei said that the most brilliant period of Chinese civilization should be the era of the Hundred Schools of Thought, and now he is about to restart the process of this era.

"You're not afraid..."

Li Qingzhao did not dare to continue. The policy of keeping the people ignorant was actually to consolidate the imperial power. The imperial power was the biggest threat to the enlightenment of the people. Therefore, no matter how prosperous the imperial examination was over the past thousand years, education could not be popularized. The literacy rate has always been below 10%, and the imperial examination has become a cage for scholars. "What am I afraid of? Am I afraid of the strength of Qi or the well-being of the people?"

Sun Lei smiled and said that he didn't understand where this fear came from. Only trash with extremely low self-esteem would be afraid of becoming better, because trash would eventually be abandoned by the times, but the development of the times could not be stopped by trash.

Sun Lei stared at the West in a daze. His time was actually very tight. The West would develop very quickly. There were still more than two hundred years before the beginning of the Western Age of Navigation. Once those guys completed their primitive accumulation, they would soon become powerful. What he had to do was to kill all potential enemies in advance.

"The emperors before were too stupid. They were so stupid that they only knew how to be ruthless to their own people. When they ran out of money, they only knew how to target merchants and ordinary people. Didn't they ever think of going out to rob? There are mountains of gold and silver overseas, why would they let the cheap barbarians go?"

Sun Lei said, since they are all going to be plundered, why not plunder others yourself?

"You really act like a robber!"

Li Qingzhao looked at Sun Lei speechlessly. What they said before was fine, but in the end it turned into a bandit's logic.

"Hey, I am a robber! It's too late for you to realize it now!"

Sun Lei smiled and walked forward and hugged Li Qingzhao.

Li Qingzhao's face suddenly turned red like a peach. She wanted to push Sun Lei away, but how could a weak woman like her do that?

The city of Gaochang was quiet. The people who entered the city did not dare to go out. They were afraid of the powerful State of Qi from the bottom of their hearts.

But to their surprise, the Qi army did not create chaos in the city. Apart from the soldiers on normal patrols, no one else appeared on the streets.

Those merchants who were allowed to do so started to take action. They organized a large number of laborers to start working. Both transporting goods and preparing supplies required a large number of manpower, and it was impossible for the Qi army to do it.

"Military Advisor Zhu, there are still a lot of winter melons, honeydew melons and grapes in the west!"

The merchant pointed to the west and said that that was the main producing area of ​​fruits and vegetables.

"Go ahead and harvest them all!"

Zhu Wu nodded. They had no shortage of food and fodder, but there were not many vegetables in the Western Regions. According to the food standards of the Qi army, there were requirements for meat, vegetables, and staple foods every day. Now that there were not enough vegetables, they would use fruits and vegetables to make up for it.

After getting permission, the merchants immediately took their people out of the city, but they also took into account the possibility of the civilians escaping, so they only looked for people who had families in the city, so that people would not dare to escape.

"Military Advisor, do you want me to keep an eye on it?"

Ou Peng looked at the people leaving the city and spoke to Zhu Wu.

"No need. These people in the city have been registered. Although the Western Region is large, it is now the territory of Qi. Where can they escape to?"

  Zhu Wu shook his head. The area within a thousand miles had been controlled by Qi State. Where could these people escape to?

Gaochang City gradually began to return to normal the next day. The people in the city also needed to buy food. They had been hiding in their homes since the city was captured, and the stored grain had long been eaten up.

What made the Gaochang people unbelievable was that the price of food did not rise much. They bought food easily. The only problem was the purchase limit.

The Qi army did not appear in large numbers on the streets, and the city was peaceful.