I open a history tutorial class in Daming

Chapter 33 Is He Really a Genius?

After saying so much, Song Shen was able to extract some information that he could understand.

In short, the Ming Dynasty had only been established for ten years, but the distribution of power in the court had already become quite unbalanced.

The Huaixi nobles headed by Hu Weiyong and Li Shanchang, the fellow townsmen who had followed Zhu Yuanzhang to conquer the world, were now rapidly expanding their power in the court, posing a great threat to Zhu Yuanzhang and almost overwhelming the imperial power.

Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang has been trying to use the Zhejiang East civil service group that is not part of the Huaixi Party to balance the power.

There are not many people who can be named among them, roughly Liu Bowen, Song Lian, Yang Xian, etc., and this group of people obviously failed to live up to Zhu Yuanzhang's expectations.

Even though Song Lian was his grandfather and treated him very well, Song Shen had to make such an evaluation -

He felt that his grandfather was a little confused.

Perhaps, this is a common problem among literati?

Although most of these literati were born in the Yuan Dynasty, the books they read and the history they studied were still the Confucian classics of the Han people. After more than a hundred years, their thinking patterns were still similar to those in the Song Dynasty.

So they wanted to fight against the emperor and wanted the literati to get the same status and power as the literati in the Song Dynasty. They were unwilling to take the blame for Emperor Zhu Yuanzhang, or they hoped to gain more benefits through mediation.

If the current emperor was not Zhu Yuanzhang, but a descendant of Zhu Di, then Song Lian's approach could still be tried. After all, in the middle Ming Dynasty, the civil service group and successive emperors fought each other to great pleasure. It was a game of one after another, with each side taking turns to counter the other's moves, which was extremely exciting.

But that was Zhu Yuanzhang!
Will an emperor who came from a humble background and fought his way out of a sea of ​​blood and corpses follow the rules and play nice with you?
They will just overturn the table.

Look, three years later, when the Hu Weiyong case broke out, not only were half of the Huaixi nobles confiscated and their families exterminated, but the old Song family, who had always wanted to stay out of it, also suffered. It is hard to say what kind of treasonous things the original Song Shen had done in history, but in essence, Zhu Yuanzhang just found a reason to eliminate the Song family, and it had nothing to do with what Song Shen had done.

After a long silence.

Song Shen rubbed his temples and sighed deeply.

"Grandfather, I understand what you mean. But do you really think that as long as you leave Yingtian Prefecture, our family will be able to live in peace?"

"You have retired and returned to your hometown, but I, my father, and my second uncle are still in Yingtian Prefecture. If nothing had happened to me, then both of our generations would have been working in the palace and the court. Once the situation in the court changed, there would be no way for us to avoid it."

"Even if we are accidentally implicated, even if you have already returned, you will still be implicated."

"Faced with a figure like the current emperor, it is useless to try to be opportunistic. I am afraid it will only make him more resentful and cause greater disasters."

"Which is more terrible, offending Hu Weiyong and the Huaixi gang or offending Your Majesty?"

Song Lian looked at his grandson in silence for a long time before he said:
"Do you think I'm afraid of death and implicate my family?"

No?
Song Shen's face was full of confusion.

Didn’t my grandfather mean just now that he had retired and didn’t want to make enemies for his children and grandchildren, and wanted to preserve the Song family in this melee?
Song Lian laughed and said:
"Ziwei, you misunderstood."

"I am a scholar. I have served as an official in the court for more than ten years and have almost never participated in court struggles. I just want to organize classics and historical essays, repair and annotate classics, and teach and set questions from time to time. This is my job."

"Although scholars of my generation should take the world as their responsibility, carry on the lost knowledge of the ancient sages, and bring peace to the world, in the final analysis, I was already old ten years ago. I am not as energetic and passionate as young people. To be honest, maybe returning to be a teacher is more suitable for me."

"It is my responsibility as an elder to protect the Song family." "I don't want to get involved in court struggles, and I don't want to be caught between the nobles and the emperor. This is the nobleness of an old scholar like me."

"It doesn't matter if you don't understand. Ziwei, you are still young, just do what you want to do. I know you are a good kid, just do what you know in your heart. Even if something goes wrong in the future, it is fate, we can't blame anyone."

Song Shen was silent.

Although he had been trying his best to avoid it, just now, he still subconsciously looked at the person who was talking to him from the perspective of future generations looking at history.

He is narrow-minded.

In history books, many things about the early Ming Dynasty were not detailed, and later generations speculated a lot. But Song Lian in front of him now made him understand that not all the celebrities involved in the four major cases of Hongwu wanted to cause trouble. At the very least, his grandfather was just sticking to the bottom line, but he was still crushed by the wheels of history and could not escape his fate.

After a long while, Song Shen finally spoke.

He heard his voice was a little hoarse.

"Grandfather, I want to move out."

Feeling the inhalation sound and the breeze, Song Shen guessed that it was his grandfather trying to interrupt him in a hurry, or perhaps waving his sleeves to catch him.

He smiled and said:

"It's not about dividing the family, nor is it about being angry with you. Please listen to me."

"I understand exactly what you mean, and I have no objection, but if you want to pretend, then you should do the whole thing."

"After you retire, only our first and second wives will live in the Song residence. You know, I have no memory now, and I haven't seen my father and second uncle since I was injured. After you leave, it will be more awkward for me to get along with them, and it will be inconvenient to live here."

"It's already like this, why not just move out and find a quiet little yard? He said he needs to rest because of his injuries. It's the best of both worlds."

"Actually, the reason is irrelevant. What's important is what other people will think after this gets out."

Song Lian was stunned for a moment by his own grandson.

Yeah, what will other people think?
Your Majesty might relax his vigilance and won't take any action against the Song family for at least a year or two. The old man has retired and returned to his hometown, and the young one is blind and moved out to recuperate, so they are separated from the Song family and have nothing to do with it. The two people in the middle, Song Zan and Song Yan, are of mediocre talent and can't cause much trouble. Your Majesty doesn't need to worry about such a family of old and disabled people.

Hu Weiyong and Li Shanchang would probably celebrate, thinking that Song Shen had been ruined and the Song family had basically no future. And because the eldest and second sons of the Song family were still officials in the inner court, they would not do anything too extreme, at most they would suppress him.

and also……

And there are those literati from eastern Zhejiang.

They were probably hesitant, wondering what the old Song family was up to. Why did they just say that Song Shen was fine two days ago, and then they moved out? Was there something wrong? Could Song Shen's illness be incurable? Was the Song family ruined?
As long as this group of people from eastern Zhejiang no longer come to Zhu Yuanzhang to win them over, the value of the Song family in Zhu Yuanzhang's mind will decrease, and naturally he will not pay too much attention to them.

The fire of infighting in the court cannot burn those who have no sense of existence.

Song Shen was able to achieve this simply by moving out of his house. It was truly a case of moving one move to move the entire body. This move was a bit unorthodox, but brilliant!

Is he really a genius?!
(End of this chapter)