Great Warriors of Sui and Tang Dynasties

Chapter 1217 Donglin Party

Xuanzheng Hall.

At the imperial round table meeting, a report was placed in front of every minister participating in the meeting.

Luo Cheng looked a little haggard.

"Masters, today I summoned you to the Xuanzheng Hall to discuss matters, mainly about the locust plague. The report before you was produced by the Jinyiwei, the Imperial City Division and the Military Hospital, and it took a lot of effort to get it out. You can take a closer look first, and we can discuss the matter after reading it."

Fang Xuanling looked at the report in front of him, and knew that the matter must not be simple, and it must be very difficult to make the emperor so worried.Open it and read it carefully, the more you read, the more you will be surprised, this report is so informative.

At the beginning, it talked about the living habits of locusts, and then talked about some reasons and terrible consequences of their disasters, and even directly drew the appearance of locust eggs, five-year-old hoppers, migratory locusts and other stages.Finally, it is about the results of Jinyiwei's investigation and sampling of locust eggs in various places, as well as the early warning of locust disasters.

The final report concluded that there will be a large locust plague this year, from Longyou in Hexi to Shuofang in Guanzhong, from Henan to Shandong, from Hebei to Shanxi, from Bahan to Hubei, and then to Huainan, the entire Yellow River Basin, the northern Yangtze River, and the Huaihe River Basin. A large locust disaster is about to break out, involving half of the country, dozens of counties and hundreds of counties.

The locust plague this time is so severe that it may happen once in 50 years or even once in a hundred years. Compared with the locust plague once in [-], it will be much more serious.

If not handled properly, the consequences will be disastrous.

After reading it, there was silence in the hall.

"Is this report an exaggeration?" Sun Wuji, the newly appointed Yushi Zhongcheng, asked.

"Here is another report, which was made by Prince Jiawen himself." The emperor beckoned, and Feng Lishi sent another report to the ministers. This report was much simpler and was written by the prince himself. The emperor’s experience of personally digging locust eggs on the Yellow River beach in the north of Luoyang also included a lot of data. For example, the prince dug a centimeter of land and dug out more than 2 locust egg blocks from it, and each locust egg block There are fifty to one hundred locust eggs.

Now Changsun Wuji couldn't make a sound. The crown prince dug in person and was accompanied by the emperor. This cannot be faked.

All the ministers were secretly frightened. They had read a lot about the locust plague in history books, and even experienced a lot in person, but they didn't really understand the causes of the locust plague, the habits of the locusts, etc.

Now seeing the data one by one, I am even more shocked.

Li Gang was a little surprised. He is the prince Zhan Shi, not only the prince's teacher, but also the chief official of the East Palace. Zhan Shi's mansion was set up in imitation of the imperial court's Shang Shusheng, but the prince neither called him nor even asked him to do this. Tell him that this makes him feel that the prince is his birthright.

"Your Majesty, the locust eggs do not mean that there will be a locust plague. The locust plague is actually related to the emperor's virtue. As long as he cultivates virtue and good governance, the locust plague can be eliminated."

What he said is completely related to the relationship between heaven and man advocated by the great Confucians of the Han Dynasty. Earthquakes, catastrophes, and even meteors in the sky can all be attributed to warnings from heaven, saying that moral government does not cultivate, and so on.

In fact, how many of the Confucians of the Han Dynasty who were elites at that time did not know that these things had nothing to do with the administration of the emperor or the prime ministers?

But they just wanted to pretend to be ignorant, and deliberately made up such a theory of the relationship between heaven and man, just to restrain the emperor. After all, the emperor is the son of heaven, and none of the courtiers can control the son of heaven, so they just It can use the warning from the sky to show visions in the sky, so as to restrain the emperor.

This is actually like the later Taiping Heavenly Kingdom, the heavenly king Hong Xiuquan called himself the second son of God, and called Jesus the heavenly brother.As a result, Yang Xiuqing claimed to be possessed by God the Father, so instead he asked Hong Xiuquan to worship him.And Xiao Chaogui claimed that he could get the rumors that the heavenly brother Jesus possessed himself.

It's all the same thing.

Luo Cheng looked at Li Gang with a smile.

Sure enough, as he expected, Li Gang then began to talk about some of the emperor's inappropriate government affairs, saying that the emperor refused to suppress martial arts and culture, refused to rest with the people, continued to use troops to conquer foreign countries, engaged in royal industries, and endlessly competed with the people for profit. He also said that the emperor's wanton distribution of feudal lords was actually planting disasters for the future.

He also mentioned that the professional military system of the imperial army and the internal army is not good, and tens of millions of military expenditures are spent every year, which is redundant.It is also said that officials have broken the boundaries of promotion, which is to make it clear and turbid.

Luo Cheng simply crossed his legs and listened to the old man's spouting.

Seeing how he was drooling from one policy to another, Luo Ye simply let him spray to the end.

"According to what the Dongge University scholar said, is my crime committed now?" Luo Cheng waited for him to finish spraying, and asked slowly.

Li Gang was stunned.

"If you know your mistakes, you can correct them. There is nothing good about it. As long as your majesty can turn back when you are lost, it will be a great kindness."

"I just asked Li Dongge, if I have committed the crime, if I change these national policies as you said, and change according to what you said, can this year's locust plague be avoided? Will those locust eggs not hatch?"

Li Gang was stuck there. Of course he knew that the locust plague was mainly related to nature. Although it was also related to people, it was not related to these things.

If he dared to say this to the emperor, he might not be able to justify it.

But now that the conversation has come to this point, there is no way to retreat.

He can't always live up to his words.

"Your Majesty, the old minister asks Your Majesty to implement benevolent government, cultivate morality and good governance, and the locust plague will naturally be quelled."

"absurd!"

The emperor slapped the table with a slap. Luo Cheng understood Li Gang's thoughts and wanted to use the locust plague to persuade the emperor, but if he still said that, it would be really nonsense. This kind of beginning is a bad example. If everyone is like Li Gang, then wouldn't he become the Donglin Party in the late Ming Dynasty?
"Disregarding the facts, turning black and white! I really misjudged you. I thought you were of good moral character, so I specially asked you to work for Prince Zhan, and I also asked you to be a scholar of Dongge University and enter the Imperial Academy as a minister, but in the end you I am so disappointed. At present, the locust plague, what the imperial court needs is not empty talk about cultivating virtue and good governance. What we want to talk about now is how to prevent it. What we want to talk about is the places where disasters are about to occur. We must actively dispatch and reserve food, and how to catch locusts and dig eggs To minimize the disaster, even if a disaster occurs, even if the crops are eaten up, the people will not be starved, there will be no food to eat, let alone let people eat each other, but you are talking about Yanwu Xiuwen, talking about What else, you are pretending to be ignorant, you are doing evil!"

Li Gang stood there in a daze, never expecting the emperor to criticize him so mercilessly.

"Chen... Your Majesty has criticized me so much. I have no face to stay in the Imperial Academy, and I have no face to stay in the East Palace. Please resign and return to your hometown for retirement!"

(End of this chapter)