After the whole family was swept away, I lay down flat

Chapter 1034 Righteousness
After the family dinner, everyone went back home, and Haitang went to talk to her brother Haijiao.

After listening to Xiaomei's story, Haijiao also felt that Fang had a lot of psychological problems. After he returned to his hometown after many hardships in his previous life, he lived a stable life for a few years thanks to Fang's care. He was willing to help Fang get revenge. Later, because the revenge failed, Fang's mother and daughter had a bad end. He fled in embarrassment, but he didn't have any resentment at all. Instead, he always felt uneasy and thought that Fang didn't deserve such an end. Later, when the Jiang family fell, he also helped privately, but his role was limited.

In his two lives, he has always been thinking about saving Fang, saving the lives of Fang's mother and daughter, and letting them live a comfortable and stable life. The reason why he did not stay in the capital to prepare for the martial arts examination before the start of the examination, but rushed back to his hometown in the winter to worship his ancestors in the wind and snow, was to stop Fang in time before she attacked the Jiang family, so as to avoid her failure and murder. Later, when the Jiang family got into trouble, he learned that the Jiang family was related to the Shanhaiwei corruption case, and he complained to General Gu, the new commander of the Shanhaiwei, while encouraging Fang to provide the Jiang family's accounts and secret intelligence.

Hai Jiao had done so much to help Fang's mother and daughter escape from the Jiang family's quagmire and live a stable life in Beijing. How could he be willing to see Fang trapped by the attitude of the Hai family and become increasingly depressed and sad? If this problem could be solved and Fang could live a peaceful life from now on, he would definitely be willing to do more.

Haijiao whispered to Haitang: "Do you have any ideas? This is still the problem of those old men in the Hai family. If we can make them shut up and say something good about my cousin, maybe she won't be sad anymore." He thought that he had already coaxed the two old men in the family today, and if he threatened the rest of them again, they should change their words, right? If they were unwilling to change their words, he would find a way to drive them away. This group of idiots who only bully the weak and fear the strong are actually not difficult to deal with.

Haitang said, "If you had done this when your cousin was just backstabbed by the clan members, maybe it would have been okay. But now a year has passed, and the whole clan has become accustomed to hearing those elders belittling your cousin. The impression is deeply rooted in their hearts, and it is not so easy to change. Even if we deal with those leading elders, the rest will still be disrespectful to your cousin, so what difference does it make? If your cousin thinks that she lives in the capital and can't hear the criticism of the Hai clan members, she can just ignore the gossip, then she won't be so worried and sad now.

"Besides, the clansmen came to our house today and made quite a commotion. The neighbors will have heard some of the rumors, and it won't be long before someone starts talking about it. If they don't know the real situation and misunderstand it, I don't know how worried my cousin will be. If it weren't for the fact that Sister Baozhu's fiancé is Cousin Qiao and he knows who is right and who is wrong, I'm afraid my cousin will be even more upset."

Haijiao frowned: "That's difficult. Even if we can deal with a few trouble-making elders, we can't force the entire tribe to change their wrong ideas..."

“So, I think for things like this, we still have to find a solution from above,” Haitang said.

Haijiao was stunned: "Think of a solution from above? Which above? What method?"

Haitang pointed in the direction of the palace and said, "The reason why the elders slandered my cousin is because she remarried after becoming a widow. This kind of thing is not popular in the northwest, but in the areas around the capital and the south of the Yangtze River, people value etiquette and morality, so they like to encourage widows to remain chaste, and even make chastity archways and chastity archways, preaching that 'starving to death is a small matter, but losing one's chastity is a big matter', as if a woman remarrying is a heinous crime. In fact, in my opinion, that statement should be more about that it is a small matter for scholars to starve to death, but treason and surrender to the enemy, and losing one's integrity, that is a big matter. It's just that some people don't want to discuss the issue of scholars losing their integrity, and turn a blind eye to the fact that when dynasties change or enemy troops attack, scholars are unwilling to fight to the death. , only talking about widows remarrying has led to a distorted worldly atmosphere. But in this world, is there really nothing more important than a widow's chastity?" Haijiao often heard his younger sister say shocking things, and he just laughed when he heard it: "What my younger sister said is certainly reasonable, but there are always some selfish people in the world who can't stand hearing you say this. If scholars don't talk about widows chastity, but instead praise scholars for being loyal to the emperor and chastity, and sticking to their integrity in front of the enemy, and preferring death to surrender, then when dynasties change, how can they seek wealth and a future? Even for this reason, they will insist that widows losing their chastity is a big deal, so that the world will only focus on women and forget that men should also keep their integrity."

Haitang clasped her hands and said, "That's right. So I thought, we don't need to go against those people, let alone say that widows shouldn't be chaste, lest we cause a storm and forget about the main thing. We should find a way to let the palace reward those widows who can't be chaste for the sake of justice. Even if some scholars accuse them of being unchaste, there are more important things that come before personal reputation. For the sake of justice, personal honor and disgrace are not important. Sacrificing the self for the sake of the overall situation is also worthy of the world's praise."

Haijiao immediately understood what his younger sister meant and lowered his voice: "You want... to let Queen Mother Xu..."

Haitang blinked, "Empress Dowager Xu has certainly gotten rid of her original troubles. Her identity was determined when the late emperor was alive. Now her biological son is on the throne, and the Sun family has fallen. It is expected that no one will be so ignorant as to come up with the matter of her remarriage. But fake is fake, and there is no guarantee that it will be leaked one day. In order to prevent the outside world's public opinion from forcing the palace to affect her peace and even implicate her relatives and younger generations when that day comes, it is understandable to make some public opinion preparations in advance, right?"

If the public opinion is not so harsh on the widow's remarriage, and recognizes that the widow should not be blamed for remarrying for the sake of justice, but should be praised, then even if the world knows that Empress Dowager Xu is actually a concubine for the second time, the impact will not be too great. After all, she entered the palace as a wet nurse, and in order to protect the legitimate son born by Empress Wu, she became a palace maid in the Cining Palace under an assumed name. It was also to protect Empress Wu's son that she became a concubine to the late emperor. She did save the life of Empress Wu's son, and let him grow up and start a family. As for the prince she gave birth to after becoming a concubine and inherited the throne... that was an unexpected gain.

Queen Mother Xu was a representative of women who "married for the sake of justice", but she was not a widow at the time. However, the late emperor had also done a good job with Jin Juren and completed the divorce procedure. In addition, Jin Juren was suspected of divorcing his wife and remarrying, so it was not Queen Mother Xu who betrayed him first. She stayed in the palace to serve the Queen Mother, protect and raise the legitimate prince, and was unable to stay with her husband and son, which was not a crime. No matter which minister in the court knew this, they would not object.

Although Empress Dowager Xu no longer has to worry about her secret being known to the world and affecting her son's throne, it is better to be prepared for some things. Let the public recognize the political correctness of "remarrying for justice" in advance. Even if the secret is exposed in the future, she will not be criticized too much. Even if someone spreads the lies of the late emperor, the responsibility lies with the late emperor.

If Empress Dowager Xu intended to prepare public opinion, she couldn't bring up the topic of widows remarrying for no reason. Fang is a good example.

Even if the old students in the Hai family had misunderstood, Fang agreed to marry into the Jiang family in order to protect the lives and assets of the Hai family, and later she even had thoughts and actions of revenge against the Jiang family. Who dares to say that her second marriage was not for "righteousness"?