The Tang Dynasty started from saving Empress Changsun

Chapter 279
This article by Chen Jingke talks about the formation of the gentry, affirming the positive role of their existence.

For example, the people are self-protected, and the gentry is powerful, which can often affect a state or several states.

After the imperial system was breached, the nobles could use their local power to mobilize the power of the state and county to form a group training force to resist.

The Yellow Turban Uprising was so powerful that it once had the momentum to change the dynasty.However, when the emperor ordered to allow local clansmen to recruit troops to form regiments to train their forces, they were quickly wiped out.

The reason is that after these local lords had an army in their hands, they actually separated the Yellow Turban Army and then defeated them one by one.

During the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Sun En's Wu Dou Rice Religion uprising started with great momentum.Then the gentry mobilized the family power to be trapped in the local area, and finally was wiped out by the assembled imperial army.

Including Zu Ti, who everyone is familiar with, also used the influence of the family to recruit an army to go north to fight against Hu.

After the gentry was destroyed, because of the rise of the imperial examinations, the gentry class controlled the place, so there was a saying that the imperial power could not go down to the county.

But on the other hand, the influence of the emerging gentry class is limited to a corner of their hometown, and there is no such huge family in society that can influence a state and a capital.

When the imperial system was breached, there were not enough influential people or organizations to mobilize the local people.It would be great if the gentry could organize the people to protect themselves against the bandits, and they would be powerless to stop them.

Things like exterminating traitors and resisting foreign aggression can only be left to the state.

In the ancient times when information exchange was not smooth, the response speed of the country was super slow.By the time the court reacted, the rogue bandits had snowballed in size.

The force sent by the imperial court to suppress the thieves was weak, so they dared to wrestle with the army head-on.The force sent by the imperial court to suppress the thieves was strong, so they ran around to hide and seek with the army.

Therefore, a bandit can disturb the whole country, and the most famous one is Li Zicheng, the Chuang Wang.

So when reading history books, people always wonder why there is such a big difference in the way of resistance to foreign invasions before and after the Tang Dynasty.

……

In addition, it also talked about the positive role of the gentry in cultural inheritance.

There is one thing to say, the gentry did make great contributions to cultural protection during the turbulent years, if there were no ancient books lost by them, there would be more.

This is also one of the main reasons why the gentry can monopolize the right to annotate knowledge.

Although Chen Jingke hates the gentry, he will not completely deny their contributions. In this article, he fully affirms the achievements of the gentry in this regard.

And these are also the two biggest arguments of his article. It can be said that the whole article revolves around these two points.

When the latest issue of Wangyuetan was released, Li Shimin immediately called him into the palace, pointed to this article and asked, "What do you mean?"

Chen Jingke had already made preparations, and without saying much, he took out a few pages from his sleeve and said, "You will understand after reading it."

Li Shimin took it and looked it over, turned his anger into joy and said, "So that's the case, this move is not bad."

Chen Jingke said leisurely: "The influence of the gentry is really huge, blindly belittling them will make people think that we are jealous of them."

"Think about it from another angle, praise them fiercely, praise them so much that they make people feel envious and jealous, maybe the effect will be better."

Li Shimin said: "That's right, sometimes flattery is better than stick killing. Maybe they are looking at Mochizuki and chatting happily at the moment. I don't know how they will feel when they see the new chapter next month."

……

The gentry really liked this article, and someone immediately said: "This is an article written by Sun Zhenren under the guise of his disciples. It is a recognition of the gentry and a dissatisfaction with the court's targeting of the gentry."

Someone else said: "It was our old friends who wrote letters to Sun Zhenren that had the effect. He still values ​​old friendships."

In short, when this article came out, it really made the gentry and their supporters feel proud. Many people took this article to visit officials to inquire about the situation.

For example, Wei Zheng slapped Wangyue Tan in front of Fang Xuanling, saying: "Fang Xiang, Sun Zhenzhen's article has clearly explained the merits of the gentry, are you still obsessed with it?"

"What exactly did the sage say when he summoned you that day, and what are you going to do next? Is it really necessary to destroy the gentry?"

"Let's not talk about whether doing so will cause chaos in the world. Without the gentry guarding the place, who will take care of it in case of an accident?"

"Besides, you are also a descendant of a noble family, and your wife is also from the Fanyang Lu family. Due to emotion and reason, you should not support the sage in doing this self-defeating."

Fang Xuanling said calmly: "It's okay to tell you, the population was checked last year, and the data obtained are exactly the same as ten years ago."

"The population of the world has not increased in the past ten years. Do you believe it? Everyone knows why. Some people don't take saints seriously."

"At the beginning of this year, the clan annals compiled by Xu Guogong and others even listed the Cui family as the first, which completely angered the saint..."

"That's why the sage issued a death order. The census must be completed this year. He wants to get a real data."

"If not, he will transfer all the frontier troops back and let the army assist in the population check."

Although Wei Zheng felt that Li Shimin was a little emotional, he was relieved instead.

Checking the population would cause the gentry to lose part of their strength, but in his opinion, the gentry passed on their knowledge, and this loss was not a big problem.

So he left satisfied.

It's not that he completely believed Fang Xuanling's words, he would visit other parties next time, and he could always find the truth by asking a few more people.

After sending him away, Fang Xuanling went back to the lobby and sat down, then heaved a long sigh.

At this time, a middle-aged woman entered from the outside and said, "Mr. Lang, why did you lie to Prime Minister Wei?"

Fang Xuanling said: "I didn't lie to him. When these newly appointed officials take office, His Majesty will order a thorough investigation of the population of the whole country."

Fang Lu said: "You know what I mean. The population check this time must not only be aimed at the gentry. Which family of meritorious dignitaries has no Tibetans?"

"What good did His Majesty promise to make them willingly hand over these people, even you can give up everything to support him?"

"Also, it's impossible for His Majesty to work so hard just to check the population. What exactly does he want to do with the gentry?"

Husband and wife know each other best. Fang Xuanling knew that she couldn't be fooled, but he certainly couldn't tell the truth, so he could only ask rhetorically:
"If Fang Lu could only choose one, which would you choose?"

Hearing this, Fang Lu pulled off the cloth strip wrapped around his eyes emotionally, pointed at the blind eye, and cried:
"Can't this eye express my heart?"

(End of this chapter)