No war in the Northern Song Dynasty

Chapter 83 First Issue

Everyone looked at Yang Zong, and heard Yang Zong say:
"I heard from my brother that Brother Su was impeached by the censors. This 'coming-of-age banquet' should be hosted by Brother Su!"

Su Ze then remembered that when an official in the Song Dynasty first entered officialdom and was impeached by the censors for the first time, he had to hold a "coming-of-age banquet".

Having been impeached by the censors, he still held a banquet to celebrate? This was also something Su Ze had read in his previous life while studying the history of the Song Dynasty, but he could never understand it.

But after traveling through time and becoming an official, Su Ze finally understood the reason.

The censors of the Song Dynasty were really too distorted.

Like any other department, the Censorate and the Court of Remonstration, the two supervisory systems of the Song Dynasty, also had their own examination standards, which were the KPIs that later generations placed on office workers.

The KPI of the censors is the number of memorials submitted in a year.

In other words, the job of the censors is to impeach people, and there are targets for impeachment every year.

The Censorate and the Court of Remonstration, plus Emperor Renzong's substantial increase in the power of the Censorate, now have dozens of people in the Censorate system.

In order to improve their performance, many censors submitted more than a dozen impeachment memorials every month, and some even made a remonstration every day.

However, the image of the censors in history books is naturally lofty and they participated in major political struggles to impeach the prime minister and powerful officials.

In fact, the censors are not fools. They will only frantically impeach the prime minister when the prime minister is about to fall. Most of the time, the censors do not dare to impeach the prime minister or powerful ministers easily.

In the end, in order to meet their performance targets, these censors would either find fault with the emperor all day long, making nonsense memorials like "The emperor cannot work too hard, and the emperor's health problems are a loss to the Song Dynasty", or they would find some vulnerable officials to impeach.

So in the end, the saying even emerged in the city of Bianliang that if you were an official and were not impeached by the censors, you would be useless.

Yes, if even the mad dog-like censors don’t bite you, it only means that you are incompetent.

Therefore, when a new official was impeached for the first time by the censors, he would gather his friends and hold a "rectification banquet." This was taken from the famous saying of Emperor Taizong of Tang: "Using copper as a mirror, you can correct your attire; using the past as a mirror, you can understand the rise and fall of things; using people as a mirror, you can understand your gains and losses."

When impeached by the censors, one must "rectify one's attire." I don't know whether this is a respect for the censors or a satire on them.

Yang Zong's brother was a censor, so he was naturally well-informed.

Upon hearing that Su Ze was impeached, Wang Gui, a new official, and Zeng Gong, who had not yet entered the officialdom, became anxious.

Wang Gui asked, "Is Brother Su okay?"

Zeng Gong also said:
"We're still gathering here even though we've been impeached by the censors. Will this be detrimental to Brother Su's career?"

Han Jiang, who had been an official and whose family members also held high positions, was much calmer. He said:

"People impeached by the censors earn at least fifty a month, if not a hundred. Brother Su is a person valued by the government, so it's okay."

Yang Zong's words were even more venomous. He said:

"The censors are like mad dogs. Brother Su, who acts in such a way, should be impeached. When the treacherous minister Lu Yijian was in power, they said nothing. Yet, Brother Su, a commoner, tripped up the treacherous minister with a single drawing! What is so pure about the "clean stream"? "

Wang Gui was shocked when he heard Yang Zong's words. He said quickly:
"Brother Yang, be careful with your words!"

Su Ze looked at Yang Zong and said, "Your brother is a censor. Is it really okay to say that?"
The character of this number one scholar was even more violent than Wang Anshi's. When he got mad, he would even scold his own brother!
However, since Yang Zhuang treats you as a friend, he truly treats you as a friend, the kind who is willing to go against his will and go through fire and water for you.

Su Ze hosted the banquet instead. Yang Zong gave up his seat and let Su Ze sit in the main seat. After chatting for a while, they finally got down to business.

First, Zeng Gong finally handed the sample issue to Su Ze.

Su Ze's tabloid is different from the pirated court bulletins that previously pirated news from the Imperial Court. Su Ze defines it as a more flexible collection of short stories.

Whether it is prose, poetry, or lyrics, as long as it is good, it can be published there.

Rather than spreading news, this tabloid was positioned more as an entertainment source for readers. Su Ze had considered serializing novels in the tabloid to attract more public attention.

But he quickly rejected the idea.

The purchasing power of ordinary people in this era was still limited, and the literacy rate was not as high as in later generations.

The important thing is that Su Ze’s goal in running this tabloid is to collect cultural energy, and it doesn’t matter whether he makes money or not.

Only by setting a high tone for the newspaper can it attract readers to contribute.

This is just like organizing a literary gathering. The more prestigious the organizer is, the more outstanding the scholars who participate will be.

[The spiritual energy has been detected. Do you want to absorb it? ]

It really has the spirit of cultural context!
Su Ze specially invited Zeng Gong to bring the original manuscript in order to absorb the spirit of the literary context!

Su Ze opened the manuscript and found that the first article was actually a policy paper?
To be precise, this is an essay written in classical Chinese, discussing the relationship between the Song and Liao dynasties.

This was a tough speech, which basically meant that the Song Dynasty could not continue to compromise with the Liao Dynasty. If it ceded territory in exchange for peace, the Liao Dynasty would think that the Song Dynasty was weak and would become increasingly greedy.

These are all old stuff and there is not much new, but Su Ze noticed that the article contains a lot of content advocating new political reforms and requesting the court to recall Fan Zhongyan to Bianliang.

The article also mentions the Party Imprisonment at the end of the Han Dynasty: "During the reign of Emperor Xian of the Later Han Dynasty, all the famous scholars in the world were imprisoned and labeled as party members. When the Yellow Turban Rebellion broke out and the Han Dynasty was in chaos, the emperor repented and released all the party members, but it was too late to save them."

When Su Ze read this, he already knew the author of the article.

He put down the manuscript, looked at Zeng Gong and asked:

"Is this the article written by Scholar Ouyang?"

Zeng Gong looked at Su Ze in surprise, and his expression already explained Su Ze's guess.

Su Ze silently absorbed the literary context of the manuscript.

【Absorbed 100 points of cultural energy! 】

Then he handed the article back to Zeng Gong and said:
“This article cannot be published.”

Everyone circulated Ouyang Xiu's manuscript. Wang Gui was shocked when he saw it, while Han Jiang had no expression on his face. Yang Zong, who was always bold and inclined to reform, clapped his chopsticks in admiration.

Yang Zong said puzzledly:
"Why can't such a masterpiece be published?"

Su Ze looked at Yang Zong and was almost speechless.

Ouyang Xiu's articles are very well written, but he is really courting death!

This article talks about the Party Factions in the Han Dynasty. Isn’t it talking about what happened a few years ago when Lu Yijian attacked Fan Zhongyan for forming a faction and exiled the core members of the reform faction out of the capital?

You said Fan Zhongyan belonged to the party of gentlemen, so which emperors were Emperor Huan and Emperor Ling?
Moreover, you, the Emperor of Song, were most averse to your ministers forming factions. Yet, you, Ouyang Xiu, openly advocated factions. Were you dissatisfied that the reformists were getting along too smoothly because you dismissed Lu Yijian too early?
Thinking of this, Su Ze felt sorry for Fan Zhongyan. It was really hard to lead such a bad teammate!
Su Ze was a minor official at the selectman level, even if he had Zhang Yaozuo as his backer.

If such an article is published, the tabloid will probably be banned as soon as it is published!

Su Ze could only say:

"The purpose of running a tabloid is to cultivate the sentiments of scholars and to promote the reputation of talented scholars in Bianjing. Scholar Ouyang's article is not suitable for our newspaper."

Su Ze looked at Zeng Gong again and said:
"If Scholar Ouyang has any travelogues, they can be published. Su will definitely pay a fee for them."

　It will be on the shelves tomorrow at noon, and the chapter in the morning will also be updated after 12 o'clock. Thank you for your support
　　
　
(End of this chapter)