I open a history tutorial class in Daming

Chapter 186 You Go and Advise His Majesty to Move the Capital

Zhang Wei sat up straight and listened attentively.

Song Shen paused and asked:
"This is a serious matter. Brother Congming, are you sure you want to talk about this here?"

His meaning was very clear - could Ji Gang in front of him be trusted? Could he be allowed to listen to something that would cost him his life if it got out?
Zhang Wei wiped the snack crumbs off his face calmly, but he was actually wiping sweat off his face.

Ji Gang looked like someone sent by His Majesty to protect Song Shen. In fact, he just changed his name so that he could stay by Song Shen's side and get information. Of course, the things that needed to be found out also included what Song Shen wanted to talk to him about.

Regardless of whether he is trustworthy or not, one thing is certain, that is, Ji Gang cannot be driven away, he must stay here and listen to the whole story honestly, and then the two of them will go back together to report to His Majesty before saying anything else.

Zhang Wei has no say in judging whether Ji Gang is trustworthy. Only His Majesty has the final say on this matter.

"It's okay, just tell me."

He laughed, his voice normal:
"Ji Gang is an honest man. I have found out where his parents are and where his family lives. If he behaves well, I will find some jobs for his family in Yingtian Prefecture. In this way, they can be reunited in Yingtian Prefecture, and they won't be unable to take care of anything that happens when they are far away, right?"

Song Shen nodded suddenly.

Oh, after all this time, it’s not that Zhang Wei is so naive that he dares to believe anyone, it’s because he had already planned to hold the whole family hostage!

In that case, he didn't care too much about Ji Gang hearing anything he shouldn't hear.

Song Shen thought for a while, then asked Lan Yun at the door to close the study door, told the servants to stay away, and asked the newly appointed bodyguard Ji Gang to patrol and make sure there was no one around before he spoke slowly.

"I think you can go and suggest to His Majesty the matter of moving the capital."

Zhang Wei was stunned for a moment, then immediately retorted:
"Ziwei, have you drunk too much, or are you sick and have a fever burning your brain?"

"The country has only been established for ten years. Yingtian Prefecture is not only the birthplace of the emperor, but also the place where your majesty began to establish his rule in the Central Plains. The tax revenue from the entire Jiangnan region accounts for more than half of the national treasury. Where should we move the capital to?"

"Besides, His Majesty never mentioned moving the capital. If he was interested, why didn't he mention it?"

"I treat you as a brother, please don't hurt me!"

Song Shen smiled and asked him:
"If Your Majesty doesn't say anything, then you definitely don't want to do it?"

"Then let me ask, has Your Majesty ever blamed Prime Minister Hu in the past? Has Your Majesty ever been extremely dissatisfied with the Secretariat? Has Your Majesty ever said that you felt that the nobles were arrogant and disobedient because of their favor and wanted to take action against them?"

Zhang Wei was choked.

Your Majesty certainly did not express these ideas.

Although the people in the Secretariat often go against Your Majesty and have become more and more excessive in recent years, this can only be regarded as an ordinary friction between the monarch and his subjects. It is not a big deal.

But Song Shen always speaks with a purpose, and what's more, apart from His Majesty the Crown Prince and the harem, the person His Majesty has had the most contact with recently is Song Shen.

Most of what he said was not groundless.

After a strange silence for a moment, Zhang Wei asked cautiously and uncertainly:
"You mean, Prime Minister Hu and the Secretariat, and even those founding nobles, will be... "

Song Shen nodded very affirmatively:
"Yes, that's what I mean."

"Let's not talk about this for now. Let's get back to the point. His Majesty must be interested in moving the capital, but he hasn't figured out where to move it to. Without a reason, it's hard for him to make up his mind to do it."

"And I tell you, letting you bring it up is giving him this excuse."

Zhang Wei didn't know why he was so sure, just as he didn't know why Song Shen was the only one who could win the favor of His Majesty.

Song Shen could produce something as magical as potatoes, and he had a way to make alcohol that saved countless lives on the battlefield, but this ability did not mean that he had the same insights in government affairs. Before he fell and went blind, Song Shen was just an ordinary civil servant in the inner court, a seventh-rank official, and was not considered to be in the mainstream in the capital where throwing a stone could hit an official.

Even if he was Song Lian's eldest grandson, so what? Zhang Wei himself was a student of Song Longmen, so he naturally knew that although his teacher was knowledgeable, he was always too lazy to get involved in political affairs. Could his eldest grandson Song Shen be much more capable than his grandfather?
Therefore, even though Zhang Wei trusted and had high hopes for Song Shen, he was still not sure about his approval.

"Zi Wei, why do you say that?"

"If you can convince me with your explanation, I will take care of it. I will go to see His Majesty and make a report even if I risk my life."

"But if I can't even convince myself, how can I tell His Majesty about this?"

His doubts are normal.

Even though he was used to having his say count in the tutoring class, Song Shen was still prepared to advise Zhang Wei. Zhang Wei was not one of his "students". He didn't know that he knew all the history, and he didn't know that he had a system plug-in, and that he could listen to the instructive debates of emperors and generals from all dynasties during class.

Song Shen went over the speech in his mind and spoke clearly:
"First of all, you must be aware of what has happened in the capital recently. Something big is about to happen, and His Majesty will make a big move."

"Whether it's all the princes being recalled to the capital, or the emperor posting an imperial decree to recruit craftsmen, these things are extremely abnormal. Brother Congming, you are such a smart person, don't you notice something unusual?"

Zhang Wei is stuck.

He just stopped working in the government office, but he was not out of touch with the world. Not to mention that he still had contacts with so many of his former colleagues, just these imperial edicts, which one was not openly laid out by His Majesty?
"So what does this mean?"

Zhang Wei couldn't figure out why Song Shen said this, so he humbly asked for advice.

Song Shen nodded slightly:

"The return of the vassal king to the capital means that there will no longer be a person of sufficient weight to guard the north."

"The fiefs of the nine great kings of the frontier are mostly distributed in the north. This is your majesty's foresight. Since the fall of the Tang Dynasty, after the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, the Sixteen Prefectures of Yanyun were ceded by Shi Jingtang and have not been completely recovered for hundreds of years. Yue Fei was almost there at the beginning, but still failed."

"And this is why Your Majesty wants to enfeoff nine great kings."

"The north and the south have not lived under the same emperor for hundreds of years. Brother Congming, you must have heard people talk about northern barbarians in disdain, right? Is there even one northerner among the high-ranking officials in the court?"

"To put it bluntly, if I were a northerner, I wouldn't accept it either. For example, if I were in the north, the private school teacher I studied under might not even have a degree, but what about the south? The flourishing literary style of the Song Dynasty has been nurtured for hundreds of years, and now the capital of the country is in the south. When the imperial examination is really restored, can we northerners pass the exam better than the southern scholars?"

"Not only that, you also know that Jiangnan is a wealthy place with abundant fish and rice, and it has a flourishing literary style. It is also very rich and close to the capital. How can the northerners feel comfortable with this?"

"Even if the world is unified, I'm putting this on the table. If there is no major national policy that benefits the North, the North and the South will still be like they have been for hundreds of years. They are not of one mind at all. The North and the South won't even think of themselves as people of the same country." "Do you agree or disagree with this?"

Zhang Wei was silenced for a long time.

He himself is from the Central Plains, which is neither the south nor the north, but the Central Plains has been the orthodox place since ancient times, recognizing both the north and the south, so Zhang Wei, with his background, actually doesn't have much feeling about the conflict between the north and the south.

However, some things are just because you don't feel the pain when the knife doesn't stab you, it doesn't mean that you are really blind and can't even feel the atmosphere.

There are also northerners serving as officials in the court. Your Majesty has held several imperial examinations. Even if the northern literary style is not as good as that of the south, it is impossible that no one has made it through, but the number is indeed very small.

When Zhang Wei was working in the Censorate, he knew that his colleagues privately disliked northerners. They didn't even think that northerners were Han Chinese, because the Yuan capital was in Peking and the Yuan people also came from the north. So even if they knew that the other party was Han Chinese, they still called them northern barbarians in private.

It's quite funny. Once upon a time, the Central Plains also called southerners "barbarians"... Now it's the other way around.

Song Shen didn't wait for his response, and turned his head slightly to look in another direction:
"Ji Gang, did you understand what I just said? How much did you understand? There are only three of us now. Since you have listened, you can also tell me what you think."

"It doesn't matter if you haven't read much. You have made a living on the streets. If you can talk about it from the perspective of ordinary people, it will also be helpful to us."

Ji Gang's heart almost rose to his throat.

He knows nothing about market sense!

The background that Song Shen had told him was half true and half false. The true part was that he was indeed from Suqian, and his family did not want him to join the army; the false part was that he had never lived on the streets, and had never been to a restaurant to throw away drunkards and freeloaders for the owner.

His father followed His Majesty and died in battle, earning military merit. His widowed mother raised him and, after much difficulty, she naturally did not want him to go to the battlefield like his father who died early, otherwise the Ji family would be cut off. Therefore, Ji Gang relied on his father's little merit to become a guard of the imperial city at a young age.

If nothing unexpected happens, this will probably be the end of his life.

But now an accident happened.

If anything went wrong in the conversation with Song Shen, not only would he lose his job as a guard, but he might even lose his head if he let the cat out of the bag!
Ji Gang's sweat was dripping from his forehead into his eyes.

"I am... I am stupid. I have never seen many northerners before."

He grunted for a long time before he managed to speak:

"But I heard that although northerners look the same as us, they are very rude in their speech and behavior. They are scholars, but they act like soldiers. They don't like to eat rice, but prefer noodles."

"The rest of what I know...is not much. I just heard about it."

Of course he had heard it, but he heard it from his colleagues and the officials who came in and out when he was guarding the city gate.

It's not what the common people say, but it's pretty close.

Song Shen nodded, not caring too much, and turned to Zhang Wei again and said:
"Look, Brother Ming, we can see the attitude of southerners towards northerners."

"Your Majesty is a heroic ruler who is determined to unify the north and the south. Since he decided to divide the kings of the Sai River, it is enough to show his determination to bridge the gap between the north and the south."

"But now, perhaps due to other reasons, the King of Sai was recalled before he had the chance to go to his fiefdom."

"In this case, what should the North do? Should it just watch helplessly as both sides, who are clearly citizens of the Ming Dynasty, refuse to recognize that the other side is one family?"

"impossible."

"So I think that moving the capital is imperative. Your Majesty must either restore the feudal monarchy system or move the capital north. There is no other possibility."

Zhang Wei was convinced by him.

This statement is well-founded, and the Ming Dynasty's decisions over the past decade have also shown sufficient signs that Your Majesty must care about the hearts of the people in the north.

But the first problem is solved, there is still one more.

"Okay, I agree."

Zhang Wei slid down to his knees and admitted defeat, then asked:
"Then where do you think Your Majesty would like to move the capital to?"

"Xi'an, Luoyang, or Beiping, or somewhere else... Central Plains?"

There are not many places that can be used as a capital in the north, but there are more than in the south.

Xi'an, formerly the city of Chang'an, is the ancient capital of 13 dynasties. If you were to ask where in the world is most suitable to be a capital, this would definitely be the first choice.

Luoyang is not bad, and its water transportation is more developed than Chang'an. However, it still seems to be a little bit lacking to be regarded as a capital.

Today's Beiping was once the capital of the Yuan Dynasty. It already had a relatively complete imperial city plan and palaces, so it would be less difficult to repair. In comparison, although Chang'an City had been the ancient capital of many dynasties, its palace buildings had been almost destroyed in thousands of years of war. Repairing it would not be much different from rebuilding it completely.

As for the Central Plains, Kaifeng, its location is good, covering both the north and the south, with flat terrain and developed transportation. However, first of all, this place is not very auspicious, as everyone knows about the Jingkang Shame in the Northern Song Dynasty; secondly, Kaifeng is flooded almost every other day, so it is a bit unreliable to use it as a capital, as no emperor wants his capital to be flooded.

If we really weigh the pros and cons, it seems that Beiping is the least troublesome and labor-saving. What's more, in order to welcome the Prince of Yan, Beiping has already built most of the royal palace, so it would be very convenient to move the capital.

But the problem is that the place is too close to the grassland.

Although there are dangerous passes and the Great Wall, once the barbarians from the grassland march south, Beijing, as the capital, will be the first place to be hit.

It is true that having an emperor sitting in Peking can calm people's hearts, but the emperor's life is the most important life in the world. If something unexpected happens, won't the country be destroyed directly?
No no no!

Zhang Wei had just crossed out one option after another in his mind, especially the place name of Beiping, which he rejected strongly.

Then Song Shen spoke softly:
"Move the capital to Peking."

"Given the temperament of our Majesty, the emperor guards the country's borders and the king dies for the country, when this slogan is shouted out, won't he immediately clap his hands and applaud with great enthusiasm?"

Zhang Wei: ???
Zhang Wei was shocked:
"You want me to die first?"

(End of this chapter)