I open a history tutorial class in Daming

Chapter 97 Qin Shi Huang, have you taken too many pills?

Daqin, the 29th year of the First Emperor’s reign.

In Zhangtai Palace, Ying Zheng and Meng Tian both woke up.

Fusu watched them open their eyes at the same time, and asked impatiently:

"Father, General Meng, what did you hear today? Can you tell me?"

In the past, Ying Zheng would go to tutoring classes during his nap time.

But today, with the presence of Meng Tian, ​​a new minister from the same dynasty as himself, Ying Zheng did not choose to go back to his bedroom and pretend to sleep. Instead, he called Fusu and Meng Tian to Zhangtai Palace in advance, and waited for them to enter together after dismissing the palace servants.

Ying Zheng did not answer Fusu's words first, but looked at Meng Tian instead.

he asks:

"Meng Tian, ​​you just listened today and didn't say anything. I want to ask you, how do you feel after listening to the class today?"

This was Meng Tian's first time in a tutoring class. After coming out, he was a little uncomfortable with the feeling of rapid change of space.

He was stunned for a while before he came to his senses, stood up, saluted and replied:
"Your Majesty, I...I can't say."

Ying Zheng burst into laughter:

"Why is it so hard to say this? Could it be that you think the people inside are talking so rebelliously that you dare not comment?"

Meng Tian knew that His Majesty liked honest people - even if they only looked honest, they had to be honest.

So he nodded somewhat embarrassedly:

"Yes, Your Majesty, I was really shocked by what you just said. Even if I hadn't been warned by you, I wouldn't have dared to speak rashly."

"This matter has long been a matter of dispute in the court. If you really considered it, you would have summoned the doctors to the palace to discuss it. However, you originally hated Confucianism very much, and even the eldest son of the emperor occasionally clashed with you. This... I really dare not speak nonsense."

Fusu looked confused after hearing this.

Why do you still have your own business to attend to?
He recalled carefully that most of his previous conflicts with his father were due to differences in ideas.

His father had an ambition to unify the world, and he did it. Fusu believed that what should be done after unifying the world was to revise the original harsh laws to adapt to the larger territory and replace the strict Legalist ideas with some relatively lenient Confucian ideas.

Could it be that the content of today's class talked about the dispute between Legalism and Confucianism?
His eyes lit up and he looked at his father:

"Father, can you tell me what we talked about in today's class?"

Fusu received the most rigorous gentleman education since he was a child, and Ying Zheng rarely saw him like this.

After a pause, Ying Zheng said calmly:

"In today's class, the teacher discussed with us how to save Daqin."

"Emperors and generals of later generations have given me many suggestions, but they all agree that the Qin Dynasty should now be covered with a layer of Confucianism."

"Meng Tian probably knows that I hate Confucianism, so he doesn't dare to express his own views."

Save...Daqin?
Fusu's face was full of confusion:

"Isn't Daqin doing well now? Is there anything that needs saving?"

"Zhao Gao, who could have been a threat to the foundation of the Qin Dynasty, has been executed by you, and Hu Hai has been imprisoned in the deep palace and is not allowed to go out. Without Zhao Gao's help, he would not have had the opportunity to forge an imperial edict and usurp the throne."

"Father, without the harm caused by these two people, how could the Qin Dynasty fall so quickly? Even if something really happened, you originally said that the law of later dynasties is about every 200 to 300 years. What can we do now to guard against it?"

Ying Zheng sighed.

This child...his heart is truly sincere.

He glanced at Meng Tian and said:
"Meng Tian, ​​I have heard so much from them. If I wanted to be angry, I would have done so long ago. Just speak boldly and I will not punish you."

Meng Tian knew that His Majesty wanted him to have a discussion with the eldest prince and did not really want to seek advice.

Or could it be said that His Majesty just wanted him to guide the eldest prince to express his opinion?
After pondering for a while, Meng Tian turned to Fusu and said in a deep voice:
"Young Master, Mr. Song didn't say much in today's class. More than half of the content was discussions between His Majesty and other students."

"Sir, you have raised a very important point, which is that all national policies need to be guided by the situation and changed at the right time. This is just like when fighting a war. If I only know how to follow the order in the military manual, then I will definitely not win the war. However, if I break down the Thirty-Six Stratagems and use them in turn according to the situation, or even use one method twice in a different shell, it will be very effective."

"He said that being half a step ahead is genius, while being one step ahead is madness. Methods that have been proven successful in later generations may be counterproductive when used in our current situation. This is also because the times are different. So after explaining these reasons, the gentleman allowed His Majesty to discuss with others freely."

"The dynasty after Qin was called Han. In the early days of Han, the Huang-Lao philosophy of tranquility and inaction was used to govern the country. The county-state system was very useful at first, but after a few decades or a hundred years, those county kings became as powerful as the vassal states. There was a Han Wudi Liu Che in the tutoring class, and he used several methods to solve this problem."

"First of all, the Enfeoffment Order. Your Majesty should have told you about this, right?"

Fusu nodded when he heard this. This was what was discussed in the previous class. My father also mentioned it during the review and thought that this method was indeed very powerful. It was also called the first conspiracy in history in later generations.

Seeing this, Meng Tian continued:

"The second is to abolish all schools of thought and respect Confucianism alone!"

"At first glance, not only Your Majesty, but even I find it absurd. What good is it for Confucianism to govern a country? Can we teach the people of the world who can't even read a single word about etiquette by promoting benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom and trustworthiness?"

"But Emperor Wu of Han said that the Confucianism he used was actually not the same as the Confucianism we know today."

"The people who offered the advice actually used Confucianism as the basis, mixed in the Yin-Yang and Five Elements, and most importantly used the passage in the Doctrine of the Mean about the interaction between heaven and man to promote the idea that the emperor was appointed by heaven, so that the people of the world could be educated by Confucianism."

"And he didn't abolish the rule of law. The Han people also have laws."

"In the final analysis, in my humble opinion, the so-called Confucianism used by Emperor Wu of Han is actually a mixture of Confucianism, Taoism, Legalism, Yin-Yang and other schools of thought. All of them are for one purpose - to educate!"

"If we simply use the Confucianism of today, I'm afraid your Majesty won't even mention it when he returns. But now it seems that Confucianism is not that unpleasant."

"Of course, there are better and more perfect methods in the future, but your evaluation is that such a system is not applicable to the Han Dynasty. To put it bluntly, it is easy to break your balls if you take too big a step. You have to eat one bite at a time and do things step by step."

"In addition, there is a man named Zhang Liang, who is said to be a counselor in the early Han Dynasty. He is very powerful. He gave Your Majesty several suggestions. One is to divide power. The second is to use the county-state system first, and then the Enfeoffment Order to divide and transform the nobles of the six countries with gentle means, and use one group to attack another. In this way, we can use the other's spear to attack the other's shield, and make the rebels of the six countries fall apart without form."

Fusu was completely stunned when he heard this.

When his father vaguely mentioned the course content just now, he guessed that today's course would definitely not be easy, but he didn't expect the amount of information would be so huge.

We have already discussed the level of national policy!

You know, when the country was unified, the civil and military officials in the court argued over whether to use the feudal system or the county system, and my father obviously preferred the county system from the beginning. Fusu also knew that his father was afraid that the situation of the Zhou Dynasty's princes fighting each other would happen again in Qin. But now, even without Mr. Song's intervention, the emperors and generals of later generations have already discussed an effective solution, and even made my father, who hated Confucianism, start to consider Confucianism.

Yes, Fusu is not a fool. He certainly realized why his father asked Meng Tian to tell him these things.

The father was moved.

After a long silence, Fusu suddenly noticed a problem:
"General Meng, you said that the person who finally proposed that idea was Zhang Liang?"

"Is it Zhang Liang, Zhang Zifang, who was the prime minister of Han for five generations and looked like a beautiful woman?"

Meng Tian was surprised:
"Master, do you know this person?"

The corner of Fusu's mouth twitched.

Of course he knew. Not only that, he had even seen the person imprisoned in the imperial prison.

When Fusu heard his father talk about Zhang Liang's life experience before, he knew that this man was indeed a talent, but even after meeting him once last time, Fusu still couldn't understand why his father went to so much trouble to recruit this man under his command.

But now...

Zhang Liang could come up with such a method casually, and even explained the process clearly. He sounds like a really powerful person.

The most important thing is that the method proposed by this person is really weird. It is different from the so-called Emperor Wu of Han Liu Che's open enfeoffment order. He seems to be well aware of the dark side of human nature. He has taken the method of beating someone with a stick and then giving them a sweet treat to the extreme. He first used the Huang-Lao technique to implement the county-state system to divide the nobles of the six countries, and then used the enfeoffment order to divide the winners, leaving them no way out.

No wonder my father wanted to keep this person!
Fusu sighed:
"...This person is now in the imperial prison. If General Meng wants to see him, he can see him now."

Meng Tian looked at Ying Zheng.

After Ying Zheng pondered for a moment, he nodded and said:
"Let's go. I have something to ask him."

…………

Imprisonment.

Zhang Liang's limbs were tied up. He could neither move nor read, and he could not find anyone to chat with. He was so bored that he wanted to commit suicide.

He knew that Ying Zheng would never let him go, and he knew even more clearly that he would never work for the Qin Dynasty, so what was foreseeable was that -

Perhaps until Ying Zheng's death, he would have to spend his entire life in this dark imperial prison.

These days are so boring, so long, and I can see the end of them at a glance.

Zhang Liang rubbed his itchy face with his arm and sighed.

But at this moment, footsteps were heard outside the door approaching from afar.

After being a fugitive for so many years, Zhang Liang was very sensitive to such things. He immediately frowned and looked towards the door.

Soon, three people appeared outside his cell door?

Zhang Liang originally thought that it was Ying Zheng and Fusu, father and son, coming again, but he did not expect that there was one more person coming now.

"This is my great Qin general, Meng Tian."

Facing Zhang Liang's inquiring gaze, Fusu took the initiative to explain:
"He wants to meet you."

Meng Tian...

Zhang Liang's eyes were inquiring, but more complicated.

Of course he knew Meng Tian, ​​but as a noble of the Six Kingdoms, Zhang Liang was more familiar with Meng Tian's father, Meng Wu.

When Qin conquered the six kingdoms, the first one to be conquered was Han. That battle had nothing to do with Meng Wu, but in the following ten years, Meng Wu participated in the most difficult war - the attack on Chu. At that time, Wang Jian was the main general and Meng Wu was the deputy general. They led an army of 600,000 to the Chu land with great momentum and defeated the Chu army twice.

With a father like Meng Wu, Meng Tian, ​​as a descendant of a general, was naturally not too bad.

I heard that this man was also appointed as a general and attacked Qi State in the later period of Qin's conquest of the six states. However, Qi State was already the last one at that time and had no chance of winning at all, so Meng Tian's achievement was nothing.

From the moment he opened his eyes to the moment he closed them every day, Zhang Liang was always thinking about how to assassinate the First Emperor, so he knew all the important officials within the Qin Dynasty like the back of his hand. However, he actually didn't know much about Meng Tian himself. He only knew that this man had been stationed at the border for a long time, but he had very little information about how many battles he had won and lost.

"Last time there were two, this time there are three. Will there be more people next time to surround me and treat me like a monkey?"

After sneering, Zhang Liang withdrew his gaze from Meng Tian and spoke in an aggressive tone.

No one could say such words in front of the First Emperor, but he could, because he wished to die sooner and be freed sooner.

Meng Tian frowned slightly and looked at the Emperor with a puzzled and inquiring look.

Ying Zheng smiled and shook his head:
"Why, is he different from the Zhang Liang you imagined?"

Meng Tian was full of doubts. He stroked his rough beard and said hesitantly:
"When I first met him, he seemed to have a good temper and was polite to you. How come today, when I see him, he looks like this when he was young?"

"It seems that a person's personality has a lot to do with age..."

Fusu interrupted curiously:
"Father, General Meng, is the Zhang Liang you met really very different in temperament from him?"

Ying Zheng sighed:

"A person in his twenties who is obsessed with revenge is naturally different from a person in his forties who has achieved success and fame."

The three people outside were chatting with each other, not caring about Zhang Liang's life or death in the cell.

The more Zhang Liang listened, the more he felt that these three people were sick.

What does "when I first met" mean? When did you meet Meng Tian?
What does it mean to be polite when speaking to Ying Zheng? Didn’t I just call him a tyrant last time?
Are the brains of these three people stuck in the door of the imperial prison? They always say some incomprehensible things!
He said impatiently:
"What are you talking about? If you want to chat, go outside and chat. Is the Imperial Prison a good place?"

After hearing him speak, Ying Zheng suddenly realized:

"Oh, you don't understand."

"It's okay. I can tell you that General Meng had seen you before when you were in your forties. He also thought you were a talent at that time. You even gave me some very good suggestions at that time, which could be used as national policies. That's why he wanted to come to the Imperial Prison to meet you."

I, Zhang Liang, proposed national policy to Ying Zheng?
Zhang Liang's eyes widened:

"Qin Wangzheng, have you taken too many pills?"

(End of this chapter)