Thousand-year-old family: its rise began with Shang Yang’s reforms

Chapter 519: Difference of Thought
Zhao Jiong looked calm, and even had enough time to pick up a piece of meat roll from the pot in front of him with chopsticks, put it in his small bowl, and eat the mutton dipped in sesame paste in one bite. Then he looked at Zhao Kuangyin and said.

"Brother, his life is a threat to me. He is disabled. What if he has a legitimate eldest son in the future?"

"If he doesn't die, how can I have a chance?"

He smiled and said, "Just like the meat in front of me, if I hadn't sat here, how could I have eaten the meat? Even if the meat was old and you couldn't eat it, you wouldn't let me, a latecomer, eat it. You would just throw it away."

“It’s like taking out a bunch of trash.”

"Even if the meat is rotten in the pot, you, the pioneer, will never let me, the latecomer, eat it."

Zhao Kuangyin looked at Zhao Jiong in front of him in silence. He didn't know what to say for a moment. In the end, he just sighed and said, "Third brother, why do you think so?"

Zhao Jiong looked at Zhao Kuangyin's puzzled expression and said frankly, "Brother, it's not me who thinks so, but I know what you really think. You won't share the meat with me. You are more likely to share the meat with others, even ordinary people."

"But you will never give me any of your meat."

"It is very likely that you will not even give them any of your own children."

Zhao Jiong sighed softly: "But I am different from you, brother. I want to enjoy these things myself, or even leave them to my descendants. This is the most basic difference between you and me."

He looked at Zhao Kuangyin very seriously and said, "Can you accept this kind of thinking? You can't accept it, brother. Didn't you cooperate with Chen family in the first place just to give an explanation to the people of the world, even at the cost of damaging the interests of the royal family?"

Zhao Jiong in this life seemed to know his future, so he stopped pretending and acting. He looked at the person in front of him very frankly and said with a smile: "The two of us have different and changed our most basic ideas, brother. You and I cannot coexist."

"I can't watch you continue to do this, because it will damage the interests of our Zhao family and my interests as a member of the royal family. What kind of life did the former King of Jin, not to mention anything else, just the King of Jin in the Sui Dynasty, lead as the King of Jin?"

"and I?"

"Yang Guang was extremely extravagant. Even when he was the King of Jin, he still enjoyed extremely extravagant life. But I have to be supervised in various ways, and even allow some peasants to be on an equal footing with me."

Zhao Jing looked at Zhao Kuangyin and expressed his inner dissatisfaction and annoyance: "How can you let me be content?"

"This is our Zhao family's world."

He spoke very calmly words that he had never said before, and these words came from his heart.

Zhao Kuangyin's expression gradually calmed down. In his opinion, these words did not make any sense, but they made him understand one thing - that was the reason why Zhao Jiong did this. He could not accept that his good brother suddenly became a murderer who killed his own child, but he could accept that this person was not in the same mind as him from the beginning.

It is always better to be bad at the beginning than to be good at the beginning and suddenly turn bad.

Because his sudden change to badness might be because he did something that hurt Zhao Jiong's heart, so that he became such a person.

This is what Zhao Kuangyin could not accept the most.

"I see."

At this moment, he looked calm: "When did you have this idea? From the beginning? Or from when?"

Zhao Jiong looked at Zhao Kuangyin with some helplessness in his expression: "What do you want me to say, brother? Maybe from the very beginning, at the very beginning, when you and I were studying, we had different concepts."

"You always have the people in your heart and think that the people are the most important. You always read the books left by the Wansui Emperor."

At this point, Zhao Jiong had a mocking look on his face. He suddenly turned his head and looked at Chen Chen beside him and said, "But what kind of bullshit books are those left by the Wansui Emperor? They are simply books that the Wansui Emperor stole from Chen's Zhuoshen Building!"

"I have studied the life of Emperor Wansui. This emperor who influenced two dynasties lived in Chen's family for a period of time when he was young. Perhaps it was the books he read in Chen's family during this period that influenced him."

He said disdainfully: "No - maybe it wasn't stolen from Chen's Zhushen Building, but Chen did it on purpose!"

Zhao Jiong seemed to have reacted suddenly, with a look of coldness and sudden enlightenment: "Based on Chen's power, how could the Wansui Emperor get something from Zhushen Building? Unless Chen did it on purpose!"

"The ideas expressed in Wansui Emperor's books are taboos for a minister, enough to make all emperors take Chen seriously and be wary of Chen - so Chen began to cultivate Wansui Emperor's ideas from the very beginning, when he was young."

"That's right, that's why the Wansui Emperor developed this concept, and Chen used the Wansui Emperor to spread this concept!"

As Zhao Jiong was talking, he looked at the expressions of Chen Chen and Zhao Kuangyin, and suddenly calmed down again.

"I see."

He looked at Zhao Kuangyin, and in contrast to his previous excitement and madness, he asked calmly: "When did you first know about this?"

Since when?
Zhao Kuangyin smiled dumbly: "Is it difficult to see that such a concept actually came from the Chen family?"

"The Chen family has never hidden their ideas. They have even laid out their ideas clearly in front of every emperor in every dynasty, letting everyone know about it. If the emperor accepts, they will continue to roll out their ideas. If the emperor opposes, they will lie dormant - and then slowly expand."

"Old Third, you have never recognized Chen."

"In your eyes, the Chen family is an aristocratic family, the mastermind behind the entire world, and a dark curtain hanging over the heads of the world's powerful people."

"But in fact, Chen has only had one identity from beginning to end."

"Chen is a reformer."

“This is an identity that has never changed.”

"It has been the same since the time of Duke Mu of Qin until now."

"They don't hide who they are, it's just that others have never believed it."

Chen Chen sat aside, as if the family they were discussing was not his family. He just ate his meal silently, bite by bite, just like what the Chen family had been doing in China for so many years.

Low-key, no one can ignore him, and no one will notice what he does.

The sense of presence is very low.

However, the reforms promoted by Chen lasted for more than a thousand years from beginning to end - starting from Shang Yang's Reforms during the time of Duke Mu of Qin. To be precise, Shang Yang's Reforms should be called the "Qin Reforms" because the main person in charge of the reform was no longer Shang Yang, but Shang Yang and Chen Ye.

After Duke Mu, the Chen family continued to promote reforms throughout the country. Who promoted the technological reforms during the reigns of the First Emperor, Emperor Gaozu of Han, Emperor Wen of Han, and Emperor Jing of Han, and the Three Kingdoms period? Wasn't it the Chen family? Who invented gunpowder during the Sui Dynasty? Wasn't it the Chen family? Who promoted the construction of universities and academies of science during the Tang Dynasty? Wasn't it the Chen family again?

After Zhao Kuangyin finished speaking, Zhao Jiong fell silent. After a long while, he slowly said, "That's true."

He relaxed immediately, and said silently: "Big brother is still big brother, he still sees things more clearly than me."

"I didn't lose unfairly."

Zhao Kuangyin didn't say anything, but looked at Zhao Jiong and said, "Third brother, I've always been curious about a question and want to ask you."

He paused for a moment before looking at Zhao Jiong: "If you become the emperor, what will you do?"

Zhao Jiong was stunned, then looked at Zhao Kuangyin and said, "What will I do after I become the emperor?"

He was a little confused: "Brother, you wouldn't still think that if I can change, you will let me be the emperor at this time, right?"

"Hahahahahahahahahaha—"

"Brother, you are too soft-hearted."

"This kind of soft-heartedness can sometimes cost you your life!"

Zhao Jiong did not lie. He looked at Zhao Kuangyin and said, "If I become the emperor, I will continue to maintain everything you have done now, brother - but I will no longer give the people such great rights and benefits."

"Although the Song Dynasty is now very powerful and stands at the top of the world, it has not yet reached its own peak!"

"Burn them and help the Song Dynasty!"

"Besides, you have been too aggressive towards the rest of the world so far, brother."

"Be gentle with them and use all the power you can——"

"Let them see the benevolence, generosity and nobility of the Song Dynasty, and then educate them."

Zhao Jiong drew the grand plan he had imagined for Zhao Kuangyin, then he sighed and said, "What a pity, it's a pity that such a grand wish cannot be realized now."

Zhao Kuangyin listened to Zhao Jiong's big promise and felt more and more moved. Finally, he could only sigh and said, "You actually want to do it this way."

He said silently: "There is a fundamental difference between you and me."

"I'm afraid you don't have to think about the throne anymore."

Zhao Kuangyin looked at Zhao Jiong and said, "After I die, you will follow me."

Looking at Zhao Jiong's condition and what he said, Zhao Kuangyin finally made a decision. His expression was very sad, and he looked like a tired man with all his strength gone.

In fact, at the beginning Zhao Kuangyin did not want to give the throne to the third son, Zhao Guangyi, but as time went by, Zhao Guangyi's intelligence gradually emerged.

Zhao Kuangyin hesitated and struggled, and finally sent Zhao Jiong away three times, and finally transferred Zhao Jiong to Chang'an three times. However, these three moves did not make Zhao Jiong appreciate Zhao Kuangyin's painstaking efforts, but instead made his rebellious thoughts even stronger.

This really makes people not know what to say.

At the very end, Zhao Kuangyin and Zhao Gui were sitting in the Fengtian Hall. There was a pot in front of the three of them. Although the meat in the pot was boiling hot, everything seemed so ordinary.

The steam slowly rose along with the air, blurring everything and blurring the eyes of the three people.

Time is like this steam, rising slowly, and then slowly disappearing into the world.

When Chen Chen got up from the bed, he vaguely thought that he was still eating hotpot with Emperor Taizu and the former King of Jin, but in fact, nearly twenty years had passed.

In the 30th year of Kaibao, Emperor Taizu passed away, and then handed the throne to his second son. This was the ethical code of succession to the throne, and there was nothing wrong with it.

The new emperor was still young when he ascended the throne, and because of that he had many ideas for reform, but he also respected Chen Chen very much and treated Chen Cheng as his teacher - even though Chen Chen was not actually his teacher.

And the situation in the world continued to improve slowly under the emperor's reforms.

During the Tang Dynasty, life in the Central Plains of China had already become very good. Now in the Song Dynasty, the development over the past thirty years has transformed the Central Plains into a completely different place.

The Song and Tang dynasties have similarities and differences.

The similarity is that they are both powerful enough to put the world at their feet.

The difference lies in the overall temperament of the Song Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty.

The overall temperament of the Tang Dynasty was free, open and a bit "fierce", while the Song Dynasty was a bit gentle.

If I have to give an example, it would probably be a muscular man holding an axe, and a gentleman holding a long sword, wearing a Confucian robe, and looking elegant.

But both of them are equally powerful and have everything under their control.

After the new emperor ascended the throne, he changed the era name to "Qianwu". During the Qianwu period, the Song Dynasty's sphere of influence continued to expand. The territory left by the Tang and Han dynasties not only did not decrease, but expanded a lot.

Today's Great Song Dynasty stretches from the Hanhai (today's Lake Baikal) in the north to the Jiaozhou Ocean (today's Indian Ocean) in the south, from the East China Sea (today's Pacific Ocean) in the east to the Gaohai (today's Caspian Sea) in the west. It is a vast empire spanning thousands of mountains and tens of thousands of seas. The people of this vast empire stand at the pinnacle of the world. When some of them see the sun, it is still night for others, but on this land, the sun can always be seen.

In Europe and other places, this place is also called: the land where the sun shines forever, the kingdom of heaven.

Time passed by little by little.

The emperors of Song Dynasty were not as capable as those of Tang Dynasty, but they were not too bad after all.

Emperors appeared and passed away one after another, and the Chen family and the Song Dynasty were both following their originally predetermined fate.

And if future generations were asked to choose the peak of this dynasty, probably everyone would say that reign title.

"Ren Xuan".

(End of this chapter)