I, the prince, only want to be deposed.

Chapter 252 As long as I’m not embarrassed, you’ll be the one embarrassed

"Your Highness, thank you for your compliment. I have heard of your name before. Now that I have seen you, I understand what it means to be young and capable. I admire you even more."

Dongfang Shuo bowed again and smiled.

Everything he did was in accordance with etiquette, and now it seemed quite normal, at least it had nothing to do with the ridiculous actor...

Then Dongfang Shuo continued:

"It's just... I wonder what your Highness thinks of Chen's strategy?"

Hearing this, before Liu Qi could say anything, Dongfang Yu's face changed and he quickly advised:

"Father, this is the national policy that His Majesty has already decided. As subjects, we only need to follow His Majesty's will. How can we make comments in private?"

After saying this, Dongfang Yu bowed and apologized to Liu Ju:
"Your Highness, my father is just talking nonsense. You don't need to pay attention to him, and you don't need to say more to him."

"Rebellious son, how can you say that about your own father? I just wanted to hear the Crown Prince's opinion. How can I be considered as talking nonsense when I haven't even said anything?"

Dongfang Shuo immediately widened his eyes and shouted loudly.

"Your Majesty and Your Highness are father and son, so they are naturally of the same mind and purpose. Why should father ask more questions?"

Dongfang Yu was not afraid and refuted immediately.

"You are my father and I are my son. Do you share the same mind and purpose as me?"

"That's because the father behaved improperly and behaved dissolutely. Although the son has tried his best, it is really hard to agree with him!"

"Do you want to listen to what you are saying? The biggest mistake I made in my life was recommending you as a prince. Now that you have become an usher and have grown wings, you have learned to smear and belittle me. Is this your filial piety? It's a good opportunity to teach His Royal Highness the Crown Prince how to behave like a son!"

"Father!"

Seeing that Dongfang Shuo was getting more and more outrageous, Dongfang Yu finally took out the seal and the imperial edict, and said in a serious manner,

"This time, I am the main person (diplomat) negotiating with the envoy of Chen State, and I am just an official who came to assist me. If this matter fails and I betray your majesty's trust, I will be the first to bear the brunt. When my son is punished and demoted by your majesty, I am afraid that I will have a hard time in the future...Does your father feel at ease now?"

"Ugh!"

At this point, Dongfang Shuo finally stopped arguing, and instead shook his head with a look of dejection and sighed,

"Dongfang Shuo, Dongfang Shuo, you really gave birth to a good son."

"In the face of the emperor's order, he has no regard for his father and son. How upright he is."

"My father is not celibate and does not agree with others. What a noble character he has."

"Being loyal to the emperor without showing favoritism, what a loyal and courageous person you are."

"Since ancient times, it has been difficult to be both loyal and filial. Since you have entered the court as an official, you should be loyal. How can I not understand? I was just testing you. Seeing your performance, I can rest assured."

"..."

Liu Ju was listening at the side and couldn't tell whether Dongfang Shuo was praising Dongfang Yu or teasing him.

I just felt that Dongfang Shuo changed the subject very quickly, and was somewhat disrespectful to his father. He deserved the glorious title of "funny hero" given to him by Sima Qian.

However, Liu Ju could also hear it from their conversation.

Dongfang Shuo seemed to have some complaints about Chen State's strategy, so Dongfang Yu tried his best to stop him from saying it in front of him...

Just as I was thinking about it.

Dongfang Shuo had already taken advantage of the moment when Dongfang Yu was somewhat confused by the flattery and seized the opportunity to speak to Liu Chuan at a very fast speed:
"Your Highness, I personally think that there is something wrong with Chen's strategy!"

"Our great Han is a great country. We can treat these small countries with the kingly way to subdue them, or we can use the hegemonic way to conquer them. But we should not use such treacherous and sinister tricks. Otherwise, it will damage our national dignity. Even if we can make these small countries surrender, I am afraid they will lose respect for our great Han."

"Although I don't know who proposed this strategy, it is clear from this strategy that this person must be a treacherous villain with a treacherous heart."

"As the saying goes, 'Slanderous words are endless, causing chaos in the four kingdoms.'"

"Your Highness should still remember the 'Ma Yi Conspiracy'. That was when Your Majesty listened to the slander and trickery of treacherous villains, which resulted in wasted money and troops, and not a single captive was captured. Not only did it fail to resolve the threat from the Xiongnu, but it was ridiculed by the Xiongnu for many years, causing them to attack the Han border more and more frequently. In the end, Your Majesty had to resort to tyranny and march north to attack them, and only then did we have the peace we have today."

"Now that the Han Dynasty is strong, Wei Man Joseon and Chen Kingdom are both small and vulnerable countries. There is no need to lower our national dignity. It is better to defeat them with force."

"Therefore, I dare to ask Your Highness to think twice and persuade Your Majesty to change his mind, stay away from cunning and slanderous words, and either subdue him with the kingly way or defeat him with the tyrannical way. Abandon such treacherous and sinister schemes!"

Liu Ju naturally knew about the "Ma Yi Plan" mentioned by Dongfang Shuo.

That happened on the eve of the Han-Xiongnu War. At that time, the Xiongnu sent envoys to ask for a marriage alliance. Grand Chancellor Wang Hui believed that the Xiongnu had made marriage alliances with the Han Dynasty many times before, but always violated the alliance after a few years and sent troops to invade the Han border. He suggested that Liu Che should not continue to tolerate it.

However, most of the court officials at that time were afraid of the incident when Emperor Gaozu Liu Bang personally led a large army to attack the Huns, but was still besieged in Pingcheng for seven days by the Huns. They insisted on continuing to make peace with the Huns in order to seek temporary peace.

In the end, Wang Hui presented a strategy of a Mayi merchant to Liu Che, deceiving the Xiongnu Chanyu into entering the city on the pretext of offering the city, setting up an ambush to attack the Xiongnu army, and capturing the Xiongnu Chanyu alive.

In the end, the plot was exposed, and the Xiongnu Chanyu withdrew his troops ahead of schedule, leaving the Han army with nothing. However, since then, the Han Dynasty has completely ended its humiliating marriage policy with the Xiongnu, and officially kicked off the prelude to the Han-Xiongnu War, which led to the later Fuxi River, Jue Damu, Po Yan, and the attack on the royal court, which made the royal court in the south of the desert no longer exist...

As for Dongfang Shuo's remarks.

Liu Ju said he did not agree.

Perhaps it was because it was still the Western Han Dynasty and the interactions between the Celestial Empire and these small foreign countries were not frequent enough, so people like Dongfang Shuo did not have a clear understanding of these small foreign countries, and therefore had such naive ideas.

The historical books after the Western Han Dynasty had already given Liu Ju the answer. These small foreign countries had only one common feature, which was

——Fear power but not virtue!
The king's way of accepting it is simply nonsense.

Doing so will only make them treat the big man as a stupid landlord, who will cling to him when there are benefits and betray him when there are no benefits.

To attack them by force is indeed a means.

However, for such a remote and poor place with little oil and not even much decent arable land, even if it is destroyed very smoothly in one fell swoop, the cost will be extremely high. At the same time, more costs will have to be paid to maintain the rule in the future, but even taxes cannot be collected. It will only become a heavy burden for the Han Dynasty.

Doing so will not only fail to enhance the national strength of the Han Dynasty, but will instead drag down the Han Dynasty step by step. When the Han Dynasty's finances are no longer supportive and its control is slightly weakened, these small countries will immediately betray it and even become the vanguard of the Han Dynasty.

In short.

Blindly expanding territory in such an agricultural era is definitely not the way to become stronger, but rather the way to self-destruction.

So how to solve this problem?
History has also provided a reference answer

——The most cost-effective way is to become a troublemaker in a region, supporting one group of people, suppressing another group, and intensifying their internal conflicts.

Although a certain British empire that had already fallen in later generations lacked a lot in terms of being a human being, it was actually quite capable in this regard. At least for an empire with strength and a need to expand, there are indeed many things worth learning from.

Perhaps this method cannot last forever, but it should not be a problem to maintain it for a hundred or two hundred years.

During these one or two hundred years, the Han Dynasty did not have to pay much cost for ruling, but could continuously extract benefits from them, making itself stronger and more powerful, benefiting the country and the people...

Is this dirty?

Of course it’s dirty!
Is it mean to be a villain to do this?

Of course it’s a villain!
But what Liu Ju knew better was that, let alone a country, even an individual, when facing a villain who uses all means to achieve his goals, only by being more unscrupulous than others can the villain be truly feared and submit to him, just as "if a loyal minister wants to get things done, he must be more treacherous than a treacherous minister."

This is especially true when facing those small countries that fear power but not morality.

Moreover, the history of more than 2,000 years has clearly marked out the conduct of the small countries surrounding the Celestial Empire for Liu Ju, so he does not need to have any psychological burden and can only regard it as collecting some interest from them in advance...

However, Liu Ju did not argue with Dongfang Shuo about this matter. He just looked up at him and smiled as he made a decisive move:

"Haha, to be honest, this 'evil-hearted villain' that Mr. Dongfang mentioned is now standing in front of you."

"!!!"

Dongfang Shuo was stunned for a moment and stared at Liu Ju in a daze.

The look of embarrassment slowly spread from his eyes to his entire face, and then to his entire body. He even started to pick his toes unconsciously. Even when he was drunk and urinated in the Xuanshi Hall, he had never felt so embarrassed after he sobered up.

"..."

Dongfang Yu's cheeks trembled when he heard this, the corners of his mouth twitched slightly, and he almost couldn't help laughing out loud.

His father was quick-witted, humorous, and wise, and sometimes even shamelessly unreasonable. Few people could match him, and he never suffered any loss in the eyes of the emperor.

But now even he could clearly feel the embarrassment that Dongfang Shuo showed from head to toe.

The most important thing is that Liu Ju was not embarrassed at all. Instead, he was smiling indifferently.

This made him, as a father, even more embarrassed.

"Your Highness, Your Highness, that is not what I meant. What I meant was..."

Dongfang Shuo finally recovered, but his speech had already become incoherent. He seemed a little overwhelmed and did not even dare to look Liu Ju in the eye.

"It doesn't matter."

Liu Ju still smiled.

"It can be seen that Mr. Dongfang disdains to associate with a treacherous villain like me."

"But it doesn't matter. Mr. Dongfang gave birth to a good son. He is upright, has noble character, and is loyal and courageous."

While speaking, Liu Ju looked at Dongfang Yu who was standing beside him:
"We have already met in Zhumu Garden that day. I believe that you, who have abandoned filial piety, will not betray my father's trust, nor will you let your father have no money to 'change his wife every year', right?"

(End of this chapter)