Meiwu, a small garden to the west of the Yangxin Hall, has always been a courtyard where Qing emperors took a temporary rest after handling official duties. It was very private and could not be entered by ordinary courtiers!
But today Emperor Tongzhi's roar was heard in Meiwu. Weng Tonghe, who was kneeling on the ground, was covered in cold sweat from being scolded, but he still stubbornly raised his head and looked at his disciple Aixinjueluo Zaichun.
"Master Weng, what do you want? What do you want? Tell me the truth, what do you want? Why did you do such a thing!"
Zai Chun roared so hard that his saliva sprayed onto the old man's face. Weng Tonghe, who was kneeling on the ground, didn't even wipe it away, and he really did it!
"Your Majesty! Do you still need to ask about my thoughts? I just hope that our Qing Dynasty will be good! Don't you hope that Tongzhi will revive China and that the prosperous age will come again?"
"But look at the world surrounded by wolves, not to mention the foreign devils... Now even the Japanese devils like Xiao Letian are bullying people like this, how can we, the Qing Dynasty, do well in the future?"
"Ugh... I'm so sad! I'm sad that the military generals are incompetent and cowardly, and I'm also sad that the civil servants are greedy! Let more than a hundred people be killed like this, and in the end they'll extort our money?"
"Is there still justice? Is there still right and wrong? It's us who have died, it's us who have died! Why do you have to give the Chinese millions of taels of silver to him!"
"I can't figure it out, I just can't figure it out! Since those generals are useless, all the nobles in the palace have given up! I, a scholar, still have a few strong bones in my body, so I will fight for it!"
"We have to let Xiao Letian see the anger of our Qing Dynasty! We can't be bullied and don't even dare to fart. If this continues, if he doesn't kick his nose and face, will he still have his head in the future?"
With a bang, the old man's head hit the stone slab, and a red and swollen blood bag bulged. He lay on the ground and cried bitterly, regardless of the pain!
Zai Chun really had no way to deal with this teacher, so he stamped his feet and reached out to help him. The old man was quite stubborn and couldn't even pull him up several times. In the end, Zai Chun dragged him up.
"Master Weng! You always talk about a prosperous age. What kind of prosperous age do you want? Do you have to go back to the old world where scholars, farmers, industry, and commerce were divided into four categories?"
"Disciple, let me tell you something from my heart. Is this prosperous age of Kangxi and Qianlong... really a prosperous age?"
As soon as Zai Chun said these words, the old man blocked the emperor's mouth. He looked around and found that the eunuchs, maids, etc. had all been driven away far away. They were the only two masters and apprentices here in Meiwu.
Only then did the old man feel reassured and said with lingering fear, "Is Your Majesty crazy? If such words were spread, what would the ministers think and what would the nobles of the Eight Banners think?"
"Forget it...there are no outsiders here, I'll just tell the master what's on my mind!"
"You don't need to explain. I was educated by you. Don't I know what you think? You just want to go back to the past era, and you just want to live a good life like the pastoral pastoral before!"
"There is no famine in the world, and the people live and work in peace and contentment...Officials are honest, the landlords and gentry are friendly, courteous, and morally noble. But what about the emperor? He does not favor treacherous ministers and opens up his channels..."
"Isn't that what it is? After all, I have listened to these great principles taught by the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors countless times!"
"It's not that you are wrong, you are not wrong. These ideals are indeed very good, and they did exist for a short period of time in history. That is the prosperous age you are talking about!"
"But can we go back to this prosperous age? Is the thing we pursued before really the best? Maybe it was the best at that time, but is the world still good today?"
The little emperor's questions made the old man's heart skip a beat: "Your Majesty! What kind of ecstasy has Xiao Letian given you again? You are trying to abandon the Confucian way of governing the world!"
"Stop! Stop for a moment...Teacher, don't be angry. We, master and disciple, have a heart-to-heart talk here and talk about what's on our minds! Do you think it was Xiao Letian who gave me the ecstasy soup?"
"Actually, no, of course I learned a lot from the head of state, but I learned even more after going to Europe!"
"If you don't compare, you won't know the difference! What we call a prosperous age in Confucianism, after all, isn't it just a prosperous age for farmers? Did businessmen have a place in this prosperous age?"
"Businessman! Your Majesty, are you going to change the order of scholars, farmers, industry and commerce? Are you going to overturn the situation for the merchants?" The old man's face turned pale with fright!
"Master!" Zai Chun frowned and said angrily, "Master, are you waiting for me to finish what I'm saying? If this were the beginning of the founding of the People's Republic of China, I would never think about such nonsense, and I would not engage in any industrial revolution or WeChat reform! "
"But the world has changed now. Europe has used the power of commerce to rise. This power has promoted industrial development, and eventually formed a huge force that will beat us to pieces!"
"What exactly is this victory over? In fact, it's just that commercial civilization defeated our farming civilization! Don't you still understand such a simple truth?"
Zai Chun stamped his feet and said fiercely, "Why did I counterattack so successfully this time and successfully force Prince Gong to write a letter claiming to be ill? It is because of this emerging power, which has allowed us Chinese to suppress it for thousands of years!"
"Uncle Liu and his friends wanted to reverse the course of history, but they offended the huge merchant power...not the merchant power of the Qing Dynasty, but the merchant power of the whole world!"
"Of course, now the head of state has given this force a new name, called the power of capitalism!"
"Master, you have never been to Europe! You have no idea how huge this force is. It is simply not something that our farming country can resist!"
"This is a whole new game mode, not the way you think it is played!"
"Cai Bixia's price has increased, from five million to seven million, but so what? If this money is used in the past land tax and corvee labor of the Qing Dynasty, it will be an incredible amount of money, but if it is used in commerce, In our country, it’s just that the textile mills produce more cloth and the steel mills make more steel!”
"I will never give money to the Chinese at all! Even if I accept Cai Bixia's offer, I will not give the money. I will use other methods to pay for these arms!"
"In the Qing Dynasty, there are countless coal and iron deposits under the mountains and rivers. Wouldn't it be enough to just give them the mining rights of a piece of mine?"
"You don't need to give it forever, selling it for fifty or sixty years will be enough to pay for the goods!"
"We can even swap debt for equity! The Jingshi Iron and Steel Plant we want to build lacks technical and managerial personnel, and lacks experience...convert these debts into shares and give them to the Chinese!"
"Wouldn't the end result be that Xiao Letian uses arms to invest in our industrial business? Then he will have to send knowledgeable people to manage and provide us with technology, and we can start the business in a sedan chair!"
"What's more, the special zones where the Chinese want to make concessions will also give us high rents, which can be offset!"
"Master! In the capitalist world, there are countless ways to play with money. It's not like you thought before. How much grain you harvest in a year, and then how much grain you spend, see if there is any leftover in the final accounting!"
"It's not like that anymore! You have to adapt to a new world!"
