Chu State Imperial Palace, Imperial Study Room.
In the spacious study room, every bookshelf is filled with books collected from various places, many of which are handwritten and unique. The sporadic arrangement of potted plants with plum blossoms, orchids, bamboos and chrysanthemums is even more original, making the place look simple and elegant.
Thick memorials were piled up on the table, and Sun Ce was sitting upright among them, writing furiously.
"Your Majesty, Marquis Wu has arrived."
"Let him in."
Soon, Sun Quan entered the imperial study and bowed to Sun Ce.
"Brother, I pay my respects to Your Majesty."
"You all go out, Zhongmou and I have something to say."
Sun Ce wrote something on the note in his hand without raising his head. The two maids and two guards in the room bowed and left after hearing this.
There were seats placed on both sides of the study, but Sun Quan did not sit down. He just stood there quietly waiting for Sun Ce to speak.
"What do you want to do?"
Sun Ce stopped writing and looked up at Sun Quan, his eyes were cold and majestic.
Sun Quan lowered his head and bowed.
"My brother, I don't understand what your Majesty is referring to?"
Ah!
Sun Ce let out a complicated laugh. All the past events came to mind. When he was a child, he liked to join the army and fight. Sun Quan liked to read and ponder. Sun Jian had few advisers in his army. Sun Quan often gave his father and brother advice. At that time, they talked about everything.
"You and I, brothers, have now reached the point where we can't speak our minds."
"Okay, let me get it out of the way first. You have privately encouraged many members of the Sun family to target Ji Shu's Xunchen faction. Now that the two sides of the Chu State are at war, the national treasury is tight, and some funds from Tiangongyuan have not yet been stopped. It makes sense. You want to change the examiner of the imperial examination from Zhuge Jin to Fa Zheng to win over the centrists, and I can follow your lead. But what about the rumors of Ma Liang's imperial examination fraud?"
Sun Ce tapped the table with the knuckles of his index and middle fingers, making a dull sound.
"I hate being framed the most! What on earth do you want to do? Pull Ji Shu down and take Situ's position?"
Sun Quan raised his eyes and looked directly at Sun Ce. The two of them had not looked face to face like this for a long time.
"What happened back then was that I was sorry for my eldest brother. At that time, I kept my words in my heart. Since my eldest brother has said what I said today, there is nothing I can't say."
"I know that you still blame me in your heart and don't want me to interfere in the affairs of the court, but what do you want to do?"
Sun Quan smiled coldly, completely ignoring Sun Ce's majesty, and said sarcastically.
"It's rare that you still know about the Xunchen faction and the centrist faction. I thought you didn't know. Oh, the important positions in the court are controlled by foreigners, especially the military power! That Ji Shu, during the Northern Expedition to Xuzhou, stopped such a big thing as the war in Jingzhou Not reporting to you is already a crime of deceiving the emperor. This time I am recruiting troops privately in Yizhou! This time and again, I am challenging your monarchy, brother!"
"Just because he is your sworn brother, you trust him so much? I don't understand! I'm shocked! What about Sun Yu? Sun Yu is your cousin. He grew up with us since he was a child. He is both civil and military. , not to mention being a small official at the command level, it is more than enough to be a general. You dismissed him with just one word and asked him to take part in the imperial examination."
"The rumors of fraud in the imperial examination were not caused by me. I led the Sun clan to fight, but it was an upright fight, otherwise the clan would not agree. Besides, rumors may not be without reason. Ji Shu placed his own people everywhere in the court. Brother, have you really never thought that Ji Shu will rebel one day? Rumors may not be rumors, you should investigate them carefully."
After saying that, Sun Quan glanced aside with a cold face to see what Sun Ce had to say.
"Okay, okay, today our brothers finally spoke their minds again."
Unexpectedly, after Sun Quan made some sarcastic remarks, Sun Ce's tone softened a lot. Sun Quan had mixed feelings for a while, and his eye circles turned slightly red.
Sun Ce stood up, left his seat, and asked without answering.
"Do you know why there are no eunuchs in this palace? There are only restricted areas for female officers and female soldiers to enter?"
Sun Quan swallowed, as if suppressing something, and replied.
"My eldest brother has been in the military since he was a child and doesn't like the rules of the palace."
"wrong!"
Sun Ce said as he walked forward.
"Learning from history can help us understand gains and losses. Where did the fake eunuch Lao Ai come from? Someone in the harem wanted to have an affair. Did Ying Zheng, the First Emperor, guard against it?"
"The human heart, the human heart, people in the world always want to follow the existing old road, but if we don't overcome the thorns and thorns, how can we find a wider road?"
"If you look at Dong Zhuo, the people he uses most highly are either his adopted sons or his sons-in-law; if you look at Cao Cao, most of them are brothers of the Xiahou family and the Cao family. But I prefer people with foreign surnames, just to tell the people with lofty ideals in the world that Chu State It’s about merit.”
Sun Quan frowned. He had never considered employing people in the court from the perspective of a scholar with a foreign surname, but Sun Quan was not convinced.
"But in order to show his magnanimity, my eldest brother indulged them too much in employing people. Just like Ji Shu, he overstepped his authority many times. Even if he took a step back, even if he didn't have any intention of overstepping his authority, he had a large number of troops, enough to threaten the imperial power of my Sun family. This That's enough to convict him. I also want to say, brother, there are many capable people in the Sun family, why not reuse them?"
Do you think you can replace Ji Shu?
Sun Ce looked at Sun Quan with a smile on his face. He walked a few steps, passed Sun Quan and said seriously.
"Zhongmou, if I give you the position of Situ, can you make Chu State stronger?"
Sun Quan felt happy and was about to answer when he heard Sun Ce continue.
"The guild system was established by Ji Shu. It surpassed taxation and became the heart of the court's money-making. Three years of free education was established by Ji Shu. The colleges it established were an important cornerstone of the imperial examination and continuously supplied talents to the court. Scholars going to the countryside was set up by Ji Shu, which allowed the imperial government to bypass the state capital and directly transfer it to the countryside to develop agriculture. It not only greatly increased local agricultural output, but also extended the imperial government's control from counties to counties. Village Pavilion.”
"Zi Yuan is in that position because he can make the big ship of Chu ride the wind and waves and travel farther. It's not that I can't replace him in that position, but your talents are not enough to replace him."
Sun Quan's face darkened.
"Brother, you only see the value of Ji Shu, but you don't see his danger. Brother Chen has nothing to say. Since you said that only talents are useful, then I will also tell the people of the Sun clan. If not As for other matters, I have resigned."
Watching Sun Quan bow and leave, Sun Ce was silent for a long time.
After a long time, Sun Ce raised his eyebrows and said to him behind him.
"Come out, why are you hiding?"
After the words fell, a little head popped out from behind the screen, and then an eccentric child walked out and walked forward to hold his fists.
"Father, grandma asked me to come and take a look."
This child is Sun Shao, the eldest son of Sun Ce.
"Ha, did you betray your grandma so quickly? Are you afraid that you skipped class and sneaked out to play again, and used your grandma to frame me?"
Sun Ce stepped forward and touched Sun Shao's head, sat on a chair on the side of the study, and asked a little tiredly.
"Then do you think what dad said makes sense, or what your second uncle said?"
Sun Shao scratched his face and said.
"I don't even know what Uncle Er and the others are fighting about? Isn't it good to eat and drink at home?"
Is anyone as lazy as you?
Sun Ce stared, but he held Sun Shao on his lap and sat down, sighing.
"It would be nice if your uncles and uncles thought so."
"Then if uncles and uncles insist on fighting for power, father, what will you do?"
