My life is like walking on thin ice

Chapter 517: Shanglin Banquet

Shanglin Garden, outside the Bowang Palace.

Since he was named Crown Prince by Emperor Xiaojing and Empress Dowager Dou seven years ago and was granted Bowang Garden as the crown prince's private garden, this was the first time that Liu Rong entertained such a large number of court officials in Bowang Garden.

You can’t blame Liu Rong for not taking it seriously.

But there really is no suitable opportunity.

——When Emperor Xiaojing was still alive, Crown Prince Liu Rong was regent. It was said that he held great power, but in fact he was dancing on the tightrope of power.

Even if the late emperor had no guard against Liu Rong at all, Liu Rong did not dare to go too far and openly held a banquet to invite all the ministers in the court.

When the previous emperor passed away, Liu Rong ascended the throne and became the true emperor of Han. He had the objective conditions to invite his ministers to a banquet and communicate with them.

But at the beginning of his reign, Liu Rong also had to face the scrutiny of Empress Dowager Dou of the Eastern Palace, who directed her towards the young emperor, and even some vague malice towards him.

To put it bluntly, Liu Rong at that time was the emperor in name only, but in reality he was half a puppet.

The power he holds may even be less than when he was the crown prince regent!
After all, when Liu Rong was the regent prince, the power of the Han emperor was completely in the hands of the late emperor, who personally entrusted most of it to Liu Rong.

After the death of the previous emperor, Liu Rong was still an adult, and the country was in a state of uncertainty. Naturally, a considerable portion of the power of the Han emperor fell into the hands of the Empress Dowager of the Eastern Palace.

Under the circumstances at the time, it was not difficult to draw the conclusion regardless of whether Liu Rong had the foresight of a time traveler or not.

——Before you truly hold power, you must keep a low profile as much as possible and not let Empress Dowager Dou of the Eastern Palace feel that "the emperor wants to seize power from me."

Liu Rong naturally wanted to take back the emperor's power.

But the means must be gentle, and must be done in a subtle and silent way, like boiling a frog in warm water, so that Empress Dowager Dou will unknowingly hand over the power in her hands back to Liu Rong.

By the time the old empress dowager realized what was happening, Liu Rong was no longer so easy to control - this was the most sensible and safest choice for Liu Rong at the time.

Therefore, in order not to irritate Empress Dowager Dou, Liu Rong maintained a relatively appropriate distance from the ministers and officials of the outer court for a long time.

What happened afterwards is known to everyone, young and old.

——Since the first year of Emperor Liu Rong's reign till now, the continuous wars between Han and Xiongnu have occurred at a frequency of almost one war per year, which has established unimaginable prestige for Liu Rong in a way that was beyond everyone's expectations.

It is no exaggeration to say that the current emperor Liu Rong already possesses higher political prestige and status than the previous Emperor Xiaojing!

After all, during the reign of the late emperor, the Han Dynasty never gained any advantage over the Huns.

While Liu Rong was in power, the Han Dynasty continued to break records and set precedents for foreign wars.

——The Battle of Chaona was the first time since the founding of the Han Dynasty that the Huns were completely and thoroughly blocked from the country.

This is something that neither Emperor Gao nor Maodun Chanyu had ever achieved in the Battle of Pingcheng.

The Hetao-Mayi Campaign was a two-front war with success on both sides - if Mayi was not lost, the Hetao Campaign would change hands!

In a sense, the Han Dynasty's capture of Hetao has made the current emperor Liu Rong the only Han emperor with the merit of "expanding territory" since the founding of the Han Dynasty!

Liu Rong's martial arts skills have surpassed those of his father, grandfather, his cousins ​​the former and later Shaodi, and his great-uncle Liu Ying, and are second only to Liu Bang, the "founding emperor"!
The recent Battle of Gaoque completely reversed the Han Dynasty's strategic disadvantage when facing the northern nomadic peoples, turning defense into offense and completely grasping the strategic initiative.

With this series of increasingly exciting and thrilling victories in foreign wars, the current emperor Liu Rong is no longer someone who can be easily deposed or enthroned by Empress Dowager Dou with just a few words.

Now, Liu Rong can say with confidence: Even if I follow the example of Emperor Wu of Han in history and launch a chaotic New Deal of Jianyuan, Empress Dowager Dou of the Eastern Palace will never dare to send me to the Taimiao to face the wall!

It was these victories in wars that gradually established Liu Rong's prestige, allowing him to finally get the opportunity to invite court officials to a banquet at his own private garden, Bowang Garden, in the fourth year after he ascended the throne, using the "slavery" case.

Receiving an invitation to a banquet from the Emperor, the ministers and officials in the court should have been overjoyed.

After all, the emperor and the ministers and officials in the outer court are, to some extent, in opposition to each other.

In this context, the emperor's ability to host a banquet and invite important officials from outside the court was not only a symbol of a relatively stable political situation and harmonious relations between the emperor and his officials, but also a means to ease the relationship between the emperor and outside the court and further stabilize the situation between the court and the country.

What's more, this is also an honor!

After all, not everyone can be invited to a banquet by the emperor, go to the prince's private garden when he was the crown prince, and drink and chat in a private capacity.

However, due to the "slavery" case which had no signs but caused a huge uproar, even though they received such an honor, the faces of the important officials in the court were not very good.

The chief seat naturally belonged to Emperor Liu Rong.

On the right hand side of Liu Rong, closest to Liu Rong, Prime Minister Dou Ying, Marquis of Weiqi, had a gloomy look on his face, as if he wanted to say something but hesitated.

The second-ranked Imperial Censor, Wei Wan, Marquis of Jianling, did not react as violently as Dou Ying, but his expression was definitely not good either.

If Dou Ying was in a bad mood and was sure that something was wrong, and wanted to talk to Emperor Liu Rong, but didn't know how to start;
Wei Wan was in a bad mood. He was not sure whether this matter was good or bad, and he didn't know whether he should communicate and discuss it with Emperor Liu Rong.

After all, no matter what, there is still a very obvious gap between the characters of Dou Ying and Wei Wan.

——Prime Minister Weiqi Hou Dou Ying, has a very high Confucian character!

During the reign of Emperor Taizu Gao, it could even be considered a lethal dose!
However, in the eyes of Dou Ying, a great scholar of the time and the most staunch supporter of Confucian thought and moral system, such a thing as a slave suing his master should never happen.

Regardless of whether it was filed in the government or what the complaint was about, even if it was a slave suing his master for rebellion, the government should not pay attention to the slave owner's rebellion.
Instead, all attention should be focused on the slaves' rebellion against Tiangang and lawsuit against their masters.

Like this time, a slave suing the slave owner directly triggered a public opinion storm throughout the world, and even political turmoil, which is absolutely unacceptable!

Once this precedent is set, slaves are no longer slaves, masters are no longer masters, the hierarchy between superiors and subordinates, and the moral principles of human relations will be turned upside down, and the country will no longer be a country!

On the other hand, Wei Wan, the Marquis of Jianling and the Imperial Censor, was relatively hesitant and ambiguous compared to Dou Ying's clear-cut attitude of "This is the way to disrupt the country!"

Because Wei Wan was not a Confucian by nature. It was just that his cautious and law-abiding character made him instinctively like Confucianism, which values ​​and emphasizes order.

Wei Wan also instinctively resisted sudden incidents such as slaves suing their masters, which violated and disrupted order.

But compared with Dou Ying, the fake Confucian general, Wei Wan was a real Confucian general.

——The emphasis of Dou Ying, a Confucian general, is on "Confucian", and "general" is just a by-product.

However, Wei Wan, the Confucian-style general, came from a military background. The main character of the title is "general", while "Confucian" refers to the character of Wei Wan as a military man.

Therefore, Wei Wan's attitude towards this matter, in addition to his instinctive dissatisfaction with the disruption of order, also includes the basic political sensitivity possessed by military men and politicians, which brought him a sense of danger.

Wei Wan couldn't tell where the danger came from.

But vaguely, a figure told Wei Wan: This incident was far from as simple as a slave suing his master, rebellion, and disruption of order.

It’s not even about the slave suing the master!

Rather, it is about the slaves suing the slave owners, which is the so-called "slave case" that is now so powerful that it has spread all over the world.

Therefore, when it came to Emperor Liu Rong's move to invite all the ministers and officials in the court to attend a banquet at Bowang Garden, Wei Wan was doubtful and hesitant, but he was not like Dou Ying, who had a clear expression on his face saying "I want to talk to His Majesty about this!"
Compared with Dou Ying's violent reaction and Wei Wan's hesitation, Han Anguo, the Grand Marshal who was also one of the Three Dukes, was relatively calm.

First of all, unlike Dou Ying, who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, spoiled from childhood, and became the Prince's Secretary when he first started his career, became a general immediately after the Wu-Chu Rebellion, became the Prince's Tutor when he returned, and was destined to be the Prime Minister, and Wei Wan, a military man who came from the military and started his career as a court official with a salary of 2,000 stones;

Han Anguo climbed up little by little from the bottom, commanded the defense of Suiyang after the Wu-Chu Rebellion broke out, and had a "grassroots experience" in the Guandong counties. He had neither the idealism of Dou Ying nor the innocence of Wei Wan.

Han Anguo is very clear: politics is often not as clear and clean as people imagine, and there is no clear-cut black or white, either this or that.

According to the political experience accumulated by Han Anguo over the years, politics is often a medium for two parties - or even several forces - to strike a blow to the enemy and pursue their own interests.

In this process, all parties will strive to seek common ground while reserving differences, find their common goals, and reach consensus;
When consensus cannot be reached, compromise and concession are used to get a result that no one is very satisfied with but that everyone can accept reluctantly.

After the matter was resolved, everyone seemed to be chatting and laughing on the surface, and were in a friendly mood, but secretly they were fighting for power and everything was as usual.

For example, the reason why the slavery case this time could spread rapidly and develop to the current "out of control" point is that the tacit approval of Emperor Liu Rong, and even his intentional or unintentional instigation, is an indispensable factor.

The purpose of Liu Rong doing this is also very obvious.

——Through this slavery case, some of the problems existing in the Han family were moved from behind the scenes, where everyone knew about it but didn’t talk about it, to the surface where no one can play ostrich anymore.

For example, the problem of official corruption;
For example, local county officials and businessmen colluded, and the powerful became increasingly out of control;
For example, in order to further improve the slavery system, they took the opportunity to give a strong push to "advocating the use of foreign slaves."

As vested interests and executors of Liu Rong's theoretical will, the attitude of the court officials towards this matter was bound to be inconsistent with Liu Rong's purpose.

Official corruption?

You, Tian Zirong, are naturally unhappy, but we all are part of the so-called "corrupt officials"!
If you want to get rid of corrupt officials, doesn't that mean you want to get rid of us?

Even if they don't target high-ranking officials like us, at least they will make an example of us to scare the monkeys and shock us, so that we can be more restrained.

Thus, the first contradiction arises.

As for the second point: collusion between officials and businessmen has led to local county tyrants becoming increasingly out of control, threatening the foundation of state rule. The demands of both sides are relatively consistent.

——As the controller and owner of the Liu Han ancestral temple and the country, Emperor Liu Rong certainly does not want his country to be harmed by local tyrants.

As the assistant managers of the Han family's ancestral temples and the country's altars, and also the beneficiaries of special privileges, the important officials of the court could be said to rise and fall with the Han family.

Therefore, important officials in the court also did not want the Han Dynasty to be threatened by the problem of local powerful people.

In this regard, both sides have the same demands.

As for the last point: Liu Rong wanted to advocate that slave owners throughout the world use foreign slaves, but the attitude of foreign dynasties was noncommittal.

——After all, the method Liu Rong advocated was not to increase taxes on Han slaves, but to reduce taxes on foreign slaves.

This is equivalent to telling slave owners: If you continue to use Han slaves, you won’t have to spend more money, but if you are willing to switch to foreign slaves, you can spend less money.

In a sense, this can be considered as benefiting the people, or even reducing taxes and duties.

The important officials of the court, in addition to being the managers of the country, were also members of the aristocracy and privileged class, and the most solid backbone of the slave-owning group.

Therefore, Liu Rong's targeted guidance of Han slaves and foreign slaves is beneficial to everyone.

As slave owners, they could save a considerable amount of slave taxes by using foreign slaves instead.

As court officials, you can gain the love of the people of the world by implementing the policy of "guiding the people of the world not to enslave the Han people."

So on this point, there is no conflict between everyone and Emperor Liu Rong.

In this way, the contradictions and conflicts that both parties need to resolve are clear at a glance.

- First, during the fermentation of this incident, the malice shown by Emperor Rong towards corrupt officials, and the intricate connection between the outer court and the slash identity of "corrupt officials", were in serious conflict of position.

Secondly, the negative impact of the incident itself on social order and the hierarchy made the outer court feel instinctively dissatisfied with Emperor Liu Rong, who condoned the incident.

The third is that after this incident, Liu Rong’s solution to corrupt officials - no matter what the solution is, the ultimate goal must be to prevent officials from engaging in corruption.

This is closely related to the personal interests of almost every bureaucrat in the outer court.

(End of this chapter)