A thousand-year-old family that began with the Battle of Makino

Chapter 26: Defense against the people, Chinese people riot

The capital of Zhou Dynasty, Quarong
The official Rui Liangfu heard that Emperor Zhou appointed Duke Rongyi as a minister and wanted to enrich the royal family's treasury, so he decisively went to the palace to meet Emperor Zhou and said:
"Your Majesty, you will live forever! I would like to ask your Majesty, is the royal family going to decline?"

Emperor Zhou asked in confusion: "Why do you ask this?"

Rui Liangfu said: "I often hear people say that Rong Gong loves money and is good at amassing money, but his methods of amassing money are not in line with criminal law and etiquette. And your Majesty, you appoint a person like Rong Gong as a minister, which makes the world What do people think of you?
Duke Rong likes to amass wealth, but he himself does not know that a disaster is coming. How can he remind the king how to avoid disaster? How could it not bring disaster to the royal family? "

Rui Liangfu looked at Emperor Zhou who was thinking and continued: "Your Majesty, wealth and profit are produced by all things in the heaven and earth, and are carried by the heaven and earth, but if you want to take it for yourself, there are too many harms.

I want to take possession of everything in the world, how can I take it for myself? It offends too many people and does not prepare for disaster. Duke Rong used these to teach the king, how could the king rule for a long time?

Those who rule the people should channelize wealth and distribute it from top to bottom. Even if you do your best in everything in the world, you still have to be worried every day, and worry causes dissatisfaction.

Therefore, the "Ode" says: "In memory of Hou Ji's literary virtues and outstanding achievements worthy of heaven, all people in the world will be stable, and they will all follow your example." "Daya" also wrote: "Extending kindness will make the Zhou Dynasty successful." 'Isn't this just saying that we should give away wealth and be afraid of disasters? That is why the Zhou Dynasty continues to this day.

Now the king is learning to amass wealth and profit. How can this be done? An ordinary person who amassed wealth was called a thief, but as the emperor had to do this, there must be very few people willing to join him. If Rong Gong was reused, the Zhou Dynasty would definitely decline. "

After listening to his advice, Emperor Zhou said: "If you don't make money, the royal family will not have the wealth to support the army. Without the army, it cannot ensure the security of the border. The border is not safe. This is the reason for the decline of the Zhou Dynasty. Could it be that King Mu and Haven’t you learned Prince Gong’s lesson yet?”

Rui Liangfu said: "Your Majesty's concern is justified, but you must not use money-making to maintain the rule of the Zhou Dynasty. Although money-making can maintain the number of troops, it will definitely lose the support of the people in the world! Please take back your appointment, please." !”

After thinking for a long time, Emperor Zhou still did not listen to Rui Liangfu's suggestion, and finally appointed Rong Gong as a minister and asked him to manage national affairs.

Bai Zheng, who was in Baiyi, heard about this and immediately summoned the young master Bai Qi to discuss the matter. Bai Zheng said:
"Qier, what do you think of this matter? This is not only a dilemma for the Zhou Dynasty, but also a dilemma that I, the Bai family, will definitely encounter in the future!"

Bai Qi thought for a while and said: "Father, the root cause of this matter is that the royal family has no money, so what caused the royal family to be short of money? And why was the royal family not short of money in the past?

First of all, let me say that the former Zhou royal family was not only not short of money, but also had money to supply a large number of troops. I think this is because the Emperor of Zhou held the most land in his hands, plus the tribute collected from various vassal states every year. The wealth is absolutely immeasurable.

Since the emperor continued to reward the land in his hands to meritorious nobles and clan members, but the land in his own hands did not increase, the land in the hands of Emperor Zhou continued to decrease.

As a result, there is not enough wealth to maintain huge military expenditures, so the current royal family is short of money. "

Bai Zheng nodded approvingly and asked, "Then how should we solve this problem?"

Bai Qi said: "First of all, you must not wantonly collect money from your own territory. This behavior of robbing your own people of property is no less than drinking poison to quench your thirst.

So there are no more than two ways to increase wealth, one is to generate revenue, and the other is to reduce expenditure. There are two types of sources of students. The first is the simplest and crudest way to rob. If you can't rob yourself, just rob others. This is what Emperor Zhou did a hundred years ago.

However, this method has many disadvantages, that is, it is good if we can win. If we fail to win, it will cause our Bai family to stagnate in development or even be backlashed.

In addition, this method will also cause us to make enemies everywhere, making our living environment very harsh. It will also cause our people to have the idea of ​​​​getting something for nothing, and even threaten the rule of our Bai family.

The second method is to survive, to continuously increase the production of wealth in one's own territory, or to increase exchanges with other forces to obtain wealth, not to increase quantity, but to increase quality.

Saving money is to use resources where they should be used most, and not to be extravagant and wasteful. For example, our Bai family’s thin burial is a kind of saving money. In addition, we should not reduce our own resources arbitrarily. For example, we cannot be like Emperor Zhou. Give land to others as you please.

We must let the land flow and keep it in the hands of the Bai family. It can be harvested and sealed, but it cannot be sealed. "

After hearing this, Bai Zheng expressed his approval and asked Bai Qi to perfect it. When he becomes the head of the family, he should implement it slowly and not be too impatient.

As Emperor Zhou appointed Rong Gong as a minister to manage the country's affairs, Rong Gong lived up to Emperor Zhou's expectations and brought in a lot of wealth for the royal family.
As time went by, the royal family's wealth continued to increase, the surrounding Rongdi people continued to surrender, and the Emperor Zhou continued to be arrogant, even extravagant and arrogant.
He promulgated many cruel policies, which aroused strong dissatisfaction among the Chinese people, who criticized him on many occasions.

At this time, Duke Zhao also entered the palace to admonish the Emperor of Zhou: "Your Majesty, many of your practices and unreasonable policies have really harmed the people's interests and even their lives. The people said they can no longer tolerate it." After hearing this, Emperor Zhou said arrogantly and angrily: "The late king Gong Wang once said: 'Is it the land of the king in the whole world, and the ministers of the king on the shore of the land?' I very much agree with this sentence. Now I am taking my own property." Thing, isn't this a reasonable thing? Now there are still people making irresponsible remarks, which is intolerable to me. "

So Emperor Zhou found a wizard from the Wei Kingdom and asked him to monitor people who criticized Emperor Zhou. If he saw someone criticizing Emperor Zhou, he would be executed immediately after reporting it to Emperor Zhou, without the need for trial or evidence. As a result, there were fewer people criticizing the Emperor of Zhou, and the princes stopped coming to court.

King thirty-four years (844 BC)
Emperor Zhou's control over the people became even stricter. The people of the country did not dare to speak casually and winked at each other when walking on the road.

When Emperor Zhou went to the city for a parade, he saw this situation and was very happy. He summoned Duke Zhao and said:
"I have been able to quell people's criticism. Look, they don't dare to speak anymore. There are no voices criticizing me."

Duke Zhao said: "Your Majesty, you just blocked their mouths. Blocking the people's mouths is more dangerous than blocking the flood."

The flood is blocked. When it accumulates enough power, it will break through the dam and hurt many people. The same is true for blocking the mouths of the people.

I heard that during the time of Emperor Shun in ancient times, there was a flood in the world and the people were in dire straits. Emperor Shun asked Gun to control the flood. Gun kept building dams in an attempt to block the floods, but the floods always broke the dams, making the floods worse. flood.

In the end, Gun was punished by Emperor Shun for failing to control the flood. Later, Emperor Shun appointed Dayu to control the floods instead of his father Gun. After observation and thinking, Dayu did not use his father's method of blocking the floods, but evacuated the floods, and finally successfully solved the flooding problem.

Therefore, those who control floods should open up the siltation and channel it, and those who control the common people should also open the way for them to express their opinions.

When the emperor handles political affairs, he should let the ministers and even the nobles present poems, let the musicians present music, let the historians present books, let the grand master give instructions, let the blind musicians without eyes sing poems, and let the blind musicians with eyes recite the instructions. , let all the workers come to give advice,

Let the common people discuss with each other, let the ministers try their best to advise, let the relatives make up for the mistakes, let the blind musicians and historians teach together, let the old wise men admonish, and finally let the king think carefully. In this way, political affairs can be carried out without violating reason.

The people have mouths, just like the land has mountains and rivers, and wealth comes from there; just like the plains have fertile soil, food and clothing all come from there.

Let the people speak out, and the success or failure of governing the country can be seen. Doing good deeds and guarding against the bad things that will happen is the same as generating wealth, food and clothing.

What worries the people's hearts is what they say on their lips. Only by knowing the worries in the people's hearts and solving them in time can things be done well. If the people's mouths are blocked, how can we know what they are worried about? How could the Zhou Dynasty's rule last long? "

After hearing this, the Emperor of Zhou felt that Duke Zhao was criticizing him, so he did not listen to Duke Zhao's advice. As a result, the people of the country were even more afraid to speak.

King thirty-seven years (841 BC)
Because the Emperor of Zhou appointed Rong Gong as a minister and implemented the "patent" policy, the mountains, forests and lakes were directly controlled by the emperor, and the Chinese were not allowed to enter and make a living.

Therefore, many Chinese people could not make a living. So in this year, the Chinese people in the capital city were dissatisfied with the tyranny of Emperor Zhou. The "Chinese people" in the capital gathered together, armed with sticks and farm tools, and besieged the palace, claiming to kill Emperor Zhou.

When Emperor Zhou heard the crowd outside the palace, they all shouted: "Get rid of the tyrant! Get rid of the tyrant! Get rid of the tyrant!" From time to time, there was the sound of sticks hitting the palace door. Emperor Zhou hurriedly ordered the mobilization of troops outside the city to suppress it.

A minister next to the Emperor of Zhou said helplessly: "Your Majesty, our Zhou Dynasty mobilizes troops among the people of the country. The people of the country are the soldiers, and the soldiers are the people of the country. The people of the country are in riot, who else can we mobilize?"

So Emperor Zhou had no choice but to lead his cronies to escape from the city through a secret passage and fled along the banks of the Weishui River until they reached Hu (today's Huozhou City, Shanxi Province).

After a while, the Chinese invaded the palace, but did not find the Emperor of Zhou, so they turned to look for the Prince Ji Jing. At this time, Prince Ji Jing had heard the noise and had fled to Duke Zhao's mansion. Seeing this, Duke Zhao quickly had people hide him.

Soon, the people of the country heard that the prince was hiding in Duke Zhao's house, so a large number of people surrounded the palace and demanded that Duke Zhao hand over the prince Ji Jing.

Duke Zhao saw that the people of the country had discovered that the prince was in his home. In order to protect the prince, and also thinking that no one in the country knew the prince, Duke Zhao said:
"I have advised the king many times in the past, but the king did not listen, which is why today's disaster occurred. If I kill the king's prince now, the king may think that I am venting my anger out of revenge, right? Serving the king does not mean being in danger. You should hold grudges, and you shouldn’t vent your grievances, let alone serving the emperor!”

So he replaced the prince with his own son, and finally the prince Ji Jing was able to escape the riots of the countrymen.
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Defend the people better than Fangchuan
——"Bai's Spring and Autumn Period"

(End of this chapter)