I, Liu Bian, Sanxing Han Dynasty

Chapter 265 Struggle
The Confucianism of the Later Han Dynasty inherited the "Five Virtues of Reincarnation" and "Influence between Heaven and Man" of the Early Han Dynasty, and there were also disputes between ancient and modern texts. However, both sides actually learned from the lessons of Wang Mang's new dynasty and made changes.

Liu Bian looked at "Salt and Iron Theory", and then looked at the records of the dispute between Cao Song and Xu Qiu provided by the school affairs department, the governor of Yuzhou, and the supervisor of Runan County.

Tian Fengying has just arrived in Runan County, but with these three documents, their authenticity is almost certain.

From Sang Hongyang's point of view, Cao Song, even with the emperor standing behind him, would not dare to talk about utilitarianism as coldly and straightforwardly as Sang Hongyang, to stand up for businessmen, let alone attack Confucius directly.

No courage, no ability.

The policy of "deposing hundreds of schools of thought and respecting Confucianism alone" has been in effect for more than three hundred years, and times have long since changed.

Xu Qiu, who stood as a virtuous and literary person, would not talk about the ancient sage kings and the rule of the Three Dynasties. Wang Mang's failure to restore ancient times broke the innocence and illusions of virtuous and literary people.

In particular, Xu Zhuan has been an official for many years and knows what it means to be pragmatic.

The era of the Holy Kings is far away from now. Duke Wen of Jin was cunning but not upright, Huan of Qi was just but not cunning. Although Confucius demoted Duke Wen of Jin and respected Duke Huan of Qi, both could dominate.

Since Guangwu, Confucian scholars have been looking for a way to establish a true utopia. Confucian scholars are not afraid of change, but they are worried that change will develop in a bad direction.

Xu Qiu, who opposed Cao Song, did not actually oppose the method of equalizing losses. What he opposed was the use of businessmen as equalizing officials. What he opposed was that Cao Song only knew utilitarianism and did not know righteousness.

We obviously have grain in our hands, and we can obviously use it to suppress grain prices to a certain extent, but we just make less money. However, Cao Song allowed the price of food to rise, preparing to wait until the cold weather and twelfth lunar month to make profits.

Where does this extra profit come from? Who will buy the high-priced food?

But for Cao Song, the existence of the uniform loss method itself was to fill the shortfall of the treasury and to support the soldiers fighting in Liangzhou and guarding the border. Isn't this a great righteousness?
Although "morality is the key to mountains and rivers, not danger", no one dares to say that danger and armor are not needed for the sake of virtue. Even Liu Yu, who had always advocated being gentle towards the Hu people, had to fight back when faced with the Xianbei invaders.

This is the source of the contradiction between the two.

To put it simply, it was a conflict caused by lack of money.

To put it more seriously, it is no different from the essence of the salt-and-iron debate - there are always trade-offs between armaments and people's livelihood.

Having said that, isn't this the reason why Ma Rixi and Lu Zhi persuaded Liu Bian to slow down because of the Luoyang material dispute?

The current Han Dynasty is like recovering from a long illness and cannot withstand much hardship.

For Liu Bian, of course he wants them all.

The second best thing to do is to focus on people's livelihood.

But on the other hand, the Liangzhou Qiang people either fought or appeased them, and until now, Hexi was just one breath away from being recovered, so it couldn't just give up.

Although the current Xianbei people cannot be compared with the Huns, and they split again after the death of Tan Shihuai, they invade the invaders almost every year. One of the main reasons is the cold climate outside the Great Wall in the north and insufficient output. Unless their population is reduced to the output outside the Great Wall, To the extent that they can provide enough support, or let one or several of them be included like the Southern Xiongnu or Wuhuan... Otherwise, the Xianbei people who cannot survive will still go south every year.

Even if Xu Xuan's method is adopted and the grain in Cao Song's hands is used to lower grain prices, not to mention that the total amount is probably not enough, in the current lack of supervision, once it is spread on a large scale, a large number of middlemen may appear to make the difference.

Moreover, Liu Bian originally agreed to use big businessmen as general officials, and he had the idea of ​​​​killing him once he stopped doing things.

Otherwise, even if Cao Song said to send a censor to investigate and go through the motions, Liu Bian would still have to add a "what if" in front of the sentence about being impeached by Tian Feng. Of course, these problems are not completely without solutions. There are always ways to enable some people to benefit from low-priced government food through supervision and random inspections, and by killing chickens to scare monkeys.

Liu Bian understands the merits of Xu Qiu's concept. This is the correct use of the equalization method and the equalization strategy in people's livelihood, not just to make money.

As long as he had an annual income of 6 billion yuan, which was at the peak of population and taxation when Liang Ji was in power during Emperor Huan's Yongshou period, he would not hesitate to spend both on people's livelihood.

But now, Liu Bian could only support Cao Song and ignore Xu Xuan's petition.

But not all opponents see and distinguish clearly like Xu Qiu.

When something happened to the Junshu official in Runan, before Tian Feng could finish the investigation, someone, like Liu Bian, first convicted him, and used this to impeach Cao Song, and asked Junshu to be dismissed.

When the Chujun losing method was first implemented, it was the time when Beidi County was victorious, and there were only a few voices of opposition.

But now, the voice of opposition suddenly became louder, and there were already memorials equating Cao Song's behavior to treating the people harshly.

While he was thinking, Lu Zhi, who was summoned by him, came.

After bowing to each other, Liu Bian said: "Master Lu, I read "Salt and Iron Theory" and saw Prime Minister Tian Qianqiu asking virtuous people and literature about any good strategies to eliminate the country's ills. The answer I got was nothing more than telling the country's ills and admiring the rule of the holy king. , scolding high officials and powerful people.”

"It's interesting to say that after that, the prime minister stopped talking in "Salt and Iron Treatise"."

Lu Zhi was well aware of the content of Liu Bian's ridicule, because he had annotated and summarized the "On Salt and Iron" that Liu Bian read.

He explained: "The virtuous and literary debaters were not in power, and what they thought and said came from enthusiasm. Moreover, today's Confucianism is different from the past, and it emphasizes the way of applying the world."

Liu Bian did not refute. The person who best reflects today's Confucianism is undoubtedly Zheng Xuan, who is a master of ancient Chinese and modern Chinese. In addition to the theological content with the usual Han Confucianism, Zheng Xuan is generally relatively pragmatic, such as It emphasizes cultivating the mind to cultivate virtue, the order of monarch, minister, father and son, local obedience to the central government, etc.

Liu Bian did not continue to tease, but said: "It's just his original intention."

"Salt and Iron Theory" contains many contents in which virtuous people and writers speak out for the poor people.

We cannot rigidly equate all Confucian scholars with landlords or even representatives of large landowners, although the overlap between the two is very high.

Liu Bian said: "It has been more than a year since Master Lu last lectured at Taixue. I intend to order the famous scholars and scholars in Luoyang and the princes of the court to meet at Taixue to discuss every issue and discuss the law and peace. What do you think of Master Lu?"

Of course Lu Zhi understood what Liu Bian was doing and agreed: "Good!"

Even if the equal loss method is a temporary profit-seeking move by businessmen, its ultimate goal is to stabilize prices. It was proposed during a great victory, so how can it be easily abolished.

There was a heated debate over the salt and iron debate, and Huo Guang's political attempt to suppress Sang Hongyang was hidden. But in the end, he only abolished the liquor monopoly.

He Jin was also left behind by Liu Bian, waiting until the Taixue discussion before setting off.

(End of this chapter)