The sun was shining brightly on this day. It was a very good day. In the courtyard of the Confucius Mansion, a group of children and a group of women were gathering together to play happily.
As the saying goes, where there are people, there are rivers and lakes. In the small courtyard of the Confucius Mansion, so many children from famous gentry families gathered together. It would be a pity if there was no talent competition or something.
Going back a thousand years, during the Eastern Han, Wei and Jin Dynasties, every gathering like this had a strong political significance.
At every gathering, one or two "prodigies" can always be "selected". If the celebrities attending the meeting give a comment, they can make them famous. When they grow up, they can be filial and honest, successfully embark on an official career, become an official, and die. In the future, it will also be recorded in the history books as "smart since childhood".
Times have changed, and the imperial examination system has become deeply rooted in China. Even foreign countries like the Jin Kingdom had to use the imperial examination system to win over Han people.
Under the imperial examination system, reputation before gaining fame is insignificant. At most, it is the icing on the cake and cannot help when the time is right. Gradually, such gatherings lose their political significance and instead become a competition among high-ranking families to compete for the cultural level of their heirs. It’s a big folk stage.
There is a big stage between scholars who have achieved fame but have not yet become officials, and there is also a big stage between scholars who have not yet achieved fame, and everyone has a happy time together.
Adults roll up, young people roll up, and of course children also roll up.
Today's Chicken Baby Conference was held under this name.
People played the piano, sang poems, debated scriptures, and spelled Chinese characters. Children and children from various families happily rolled up together on this high-level stage.
On the outside, the hostesses of each family are kind and like sisters, but on the inside they are worried about their children.
It’s a matter of parents’ face, there’s no room for error, give it to me!
They were happily curling up here, and the atmosphere was hot.
In the inner room not far away, where a group of middle-aged and elderly men gathered, there was no such enthusiastic atmosphere at all, but instead seemed a bit dignified and uneasy.
Some people picked up tea bowls and drank tea slowly, some played with jade antiques in their hands, and some people leaned back on their chairs and closed their eyes to meditate.
Everyone is silent.
They were not so silent at the beginning. They had been talking about a certain topic for a while, and now they were waiting for the speech of Kong Zheng, the head of the Northern Sect of the Kong family and the contemporary Duke of Yansheng, who was sitting at the top.
The uneasy silence lasted for a while. Zheng Chengze, the head of the Zheng family, could no longer hold his breath and broke the silence.
"Mr. Kong, it's getting late. You should be right. We didn't come all the way here just to drink tea here. Don't you think so?"
Liu Xu, the head of the Liu family, did not remain calm and spoke as well.
"Kong Gong, it's not that we are impatient and can't hold our breath, it's just that the current situation is too weird. The Jin people have been defeated, Wan Yanliang is dead, and the Central Plains is about to change hands. What is the attitude of Su Yonglin? , we don’t know yet!”
With Zheng Chengze and Liu Xu taking the lead, the heads of the other families also spoke with emotion, forcing Kong Zheng to speak.
Kong Zheng has not been in good health these days and is not very energetic. He is very annoyed by the chattering of this group of people.
"Everyone, everyone, don't be so nervous and anxious. What should happen will definitely happen. What's the use of being so anxious?"
Zhou Guangyu, the head of the Zhou family, rolled his eyes angrily.
"Mr. Kong, you are standing and talking without pain. You have a younger brother who became the magistrate of Qufu County appointed by Su Yonglin. It is a blessing in disguise. He is also protected by his status as a descendant of a saint. We are different from you.
It’s not like you haven’t heard about what happened in Hebei. How many families were slaughtered by the Jin people? Although there are few in Shandong, it is not without them. How many people were killed around Jinan? My distant relatives were killed by the Jin at that time..."
As he spoke, Zhou Guangyu's eyes turned red and he wiped away his tears: "My poor uncle!"
Zhou Guangyu's words also caused several families to cry.
The Wei family, the Chen family, the Niu family, etc. all said that some of their distant relatives had died in the previous war, and that their entire family had been wiped out, with no one surviving. They talked about how miserable they were.
Kong Zheng became even more agitated.
"Okay, okay, what's the use of you crying to me here? Why don't you come to see Su Yonglin yourself when you have the time? It's not like you don't know about my family's affairs! It's his own responsibility to be the county magistrate for his younger brother. Is that true? None of you know everything about it?"
As soon as these words came out, the crying family heads suddenly fell silent.
They were indeed very aware of what happened at that time. Not long after the Liberation Army revolted, Su Yonglin led his troops to attack Qufu, and even broke into the Kong family's mansion. He forced Kong Zheng to make Kong Li the magistrate of Qufu, thereby tying up part of his family in Qufu. On the chariot of the Liberation Army.
At that time, I don’t know how many people looked at the Kong family’s jokes and gloated about the Kong family. They felt that the Kong family would be settled by Wan Yanliang sooner or later, and they were just waiting to see the Kong family being sorted out.
At the end, they were shocked to discover that the clown was actually me!
The Kong family actually won again!
Who would have guessed that the Liberation Army would actually use the wild tactics of fortifying walls and clearing fields to turn against the wind and annihilate the Jin Army's 500,000-strong army!
Damn it, anything can happen these days. The rebels who started the rebellion less than two years ago actually turned against the wind and destroyed the old empire. The emperor was dead!
Where can I reason from this?
Who can come and help them get justice?
Only then did each family start to get anxious and panic, realizing that the Central Plains was about to face a new round of power reshuffle, but they were very embarrassed - they didn't get on the bus.
When the Guangfu Army started, they thought that the Guangfu Army was taking jujube pills, and they even thought that Zhao Kaishan, who was born as a rich man, was nothing special. A group of bumpkins who didn't understand military and politics could be wiped out by the Jin Army in three strokes, five divided by two.
Who knows, Zhao Kaishan did not expect anything unexpected, but his subordinate Su Yonglin turned out to be a dragon!
A fierce man appeared from the sky, conquered Shandong and Hebei, and almost single-handedly defeated the main force of the Jin army in Hebei and Shandong.
The civil strife in the Liberation Army did not do anything to him. Zhao Kaishan and Zhao Xiang died successively. Zhao Zuoliang, the father-in-law who later came to power, looked like Su Yonglin's white gloves.
This process was so fast that even the eternal masters of this land could not react.
In just a few short months, the Liberation Army transformed from a cocoon into a butterfly, and the carp jumped over the dragon gate, sublimating.
So much so that when they collected intelligence from all directions and concluded that the Liberation Army was going to achieve great things, Su Yonglin had already consolidated the results and started the Northern Expedition and the Western Expedition.
They quickly sent people to deliver gifts and greeting cards, requesting to meet Su Yonglin, or seeking opportunities to meet through the Liberation Army personnel they could contact, but they were unsuccessful.
