The meeting continued. Su Yonglin talked about some key points for subsequent political work and listened to relevant reports from members.
When the meeting came to an end and Su Yonglin was about to end the meeting, Kong Maojie, a member of Fuxing and the instructor of a certain regiment of the Tabai Army, raised his hand and asked a question.
"Chairman, there is something I feel I must say, and it cannot be delayed."
"you say."
Su Yonglin nodded.
"Earlier, I was counting the wounded and sick in the army, and I heard that there were voices in the army that wanted you to establish a new country and be the emperor, and these voices are not small."
As soon as Kong Maojie said this, several people raised their hands and told similar news they had heard.
It seems that this kind of voice is really not small.
Then everyone looked at Su Yonglin, hoping to get his true opinion from him.
Su Yonglin was silent for a while and then slowly opened his mouth.
"When I was in Jinan, I convened some senior members of our Renaissance Association for a secret meeting to discuss this issue. Before the Northern Expedition, I had already expected that this day would come, and my answer is very clear. If the situation requires me to do it, Emperor, I will do it.”
Everyone looked at me and I looked at you, but no one spoke for a while.
Su Yonglin put his hands behind his back and walked slowly.
"From the earliest emperor, Qin Shihuang, to now, emperors have existed for almost 1,400 years. The inertia of 1,400 years cannot be underestimated. Everyone who calms down troubled times will become an emperor. As time goes by, People naturally think that only the emperor can stabilize the world, and they need the emperor.
But in my opinion, those who really need an emperor are not ordinary people, but scholars and bureaucrats. With an emperor, they can become officials naturally, and then use the power assigned to them by the emperor to do whatever they want, and maintain this system until no longer possible. Until it can no longer be maintained.
Since a long time ago, our history has been a strange circle. One generation of outstanding people calmed down the troubled times, proclaimed themselves emperors, ruled the world, declined, perished, and were in troubled times. Then another generation of outstanding people came out to calm the troubled times. It goes around and around until now.
Now, the person standing on the cusp of the storm has become me, and if I become the emperor and pass on the throne, I can be sure that the country I founded will be equally strong, decline, fall, be chaotic for a while, and then reappear. One person calms down the troubled times and then becomes emperor. "
"Then why do you want to be emperor?"
It was Kong Maojie who asked the question just now and asked Su Yonglin: "You said that because of the emperor and unrestricted imperial power, there are superior people who can do whatever they want. And in order to eliminate the superior people, you worked hard. In this case, Why do you still want to be emperor?"
"Because there are too few people like you who think you don't need an emperor to live a good life."
Su Yonglin gave him a clear answer: "The long-term emperor's rule and the propaganda of Confucian scholars have made people naturally think that there should be an emperor to rule them. Without an emperor to rule them, they might panic.
For example, you are a knight passing through a certain village. In this village, you see a bully bullying the villagers. The villagers are miserable but dare not resist. You teach the bully a lesson, drive the bully away, and then You left in style, but you didn’t know that the villagers didn’t thank you, but instead complained about you. "
"What's the point?"
Kong Maojie looked shocked: "You have done good things and you still have to be criticized?"
"Yes, because you left after doing a good deed, and the bullies are not dead yet, they will come back, and when the time comes, they will bully the villagers even harder, and you have left. Have you ever thought about the villagers after you left? How should we deal with the bully coming back?"
Kong Maojie was stunned for a while and asked tentatively: "Then I stay? Continue to protect the villagers?"
"How to protect?"
"I'm a knight, so of course I can defeat bullies."
"What if the bully brings more helpers from outside the village? What if you can't fight them alone?"
"I called on the villagers to join me in resisting."
"What if the villagers are too scared to join forces with you? What if they sit back and watch the success or failure?"
"How...how could this happen?"
"During the earliest days of the uprising, before we conquered the Jin Kingdom's city, did the oppressed residents of the city unite and actively cooperate with us from within the city?"
"this……"
Kong Maojie couldn't answer.
"People are not educated and do not understand the relationship and contradiction between superiors and cows and horses. They are illiterate and cannot think. They only know how to seek advantages and avoid disadvantages. At this time, the only thing they know is to help whoever wins. They won’t offer to help you unless you win.”
"I see."
Kong Maojie nodded slowly, and the people around him also nodded slowly.
Su Yonglin found a seat and sat down, and asked others to sit down too, and then he continued.
"Faced with such a group of people who only seek advantages and avoid disadvantages, as a knight from a foreign village, what can you do to make them risk their lives and follow you to fight against the bullies?"
"I……"
"This is why I want to be the emperor. Everyone knows that the emperor is the winner. The emperor has natural appeal and legitimacy, and can naturally make people obey orders. Those who oppose the emperor are naturally rebels.
This is the easiest way to motivate those who seek advantages and avoid disadvantages, and there are too many such people around us. Not to mention how many people in the new rural areas under our control really understand our philosophy. How many people in the army think that I should not be emperor? "
Su Yonglin's explanation made everyone present understand this truth.
There are too few people who don't need the emperor, and there are too many people who need the emperor.
Being an emperor can help a newly established country quickly gain a foothold and embark on the path of development and growth without worrying about precarious situations.
This is the biggest benefit.
Su Yonglin put all this in front of people so that they could see it clearly.
However, there are advantages and disadvantages, and Su Yonglin sees this clearly.
"There are many benefits to being an emperor, but there are also many disadvantages to being an emperor. The most important thing is to absorb a large number of old officials and powerful gentry into the new court and give them power to do things, which will bring us great resistance. , there are some things that we must endure.
However, this is also the price that must be paid to obtain benefits. There is no law that has the best of both worlds. Choose the lesser of two evils. This is the final conclusion I came to after weighing the pros and cons. This conclusion was expressed in the previous meeting by the Prime Minister and the Vice-President. The Prime Minister, as well as the various ministers, all agreed with the conclusions I reached. "
So the revival members present nodded to express their understanding and did not continue to raise objections.
"However, being an emperor is not my goal. Being an emperor is a means to achieve an end. Becoming an important minister of the country and holding important authority is not your goal, but a means to achieve your ultimate goal. I hope everyone knows this."
"Here."
They all nodded to show their understanding.
"When I am the emperor, we must make full use of our advantageous power to develop and expand our organization, attract more talents, and gradually replace the old officials and powerful gentry with them, and ultimately, realize a brand new court.
If you want to save the bullied villagers, the knight cannot fight alone. He must tell them why they resist the bully and why they cannot continue to swallow their anger, and then teach them the skills to fight against the bully, letting them know that their combined strength is stronger than any bully. Neither can be fought against.
Let them learn knowledge, let them learn organization, let them learn to fight, let them know that fighting alone can never defeat a group organization, and when they unite, they can destroy any bully! By then, everyone in the village will be a knight, and there will be no need for knights. "
Su Yonglin smiled and pointed at himself: "Then the emperor is no longer needed."
Su Yonglin's words gave a deep impression to the 108 people present.
Then, Su Yonglin said that he believed that the time to proclaim himself emperor was not now.
Now he cannot rashly proclaim himself emperor, because there is still a Southern Song Dynasty in the south. If he rashly proclaims himself emperor now, the Southern Song Dynasty will lose all illusions and immediately regard him as an enemy. Therefore, he cannot immediately declare himself emperor and make the Southern Song Dynasty an enemy.
The time to proclaim the emperor is after the Jin Kingdom has been completely defeated, in order to comply with the prestige, stabilize people's hearts, and no longer worry about war between two sides. At that time, it is the best time to proclaim the emperor.
Before that, he had to deal with not only the Southern Song Dynasty but also the Xixia Dynasty, giving them the illusion that the Liberation Army would not be their enemy and that there was room for change.
This will buy time for the new Liberation Army regime to become stable and strong.
It was already very late when the meeting ended. Su Yonglin asked most of the people to leave first, leaving Zhou Chong and Kong Maojie behind.
"People who think they don't need an emperor are still relatively rare nowadays, so you are a very valuable fire in my opinion, letting me know that my investment and dedication have not been in vain, I am very happy.
You have to persevere and don’t let your luxuries and wealth blind you and obscure your vision. You have to resist this temptation, and you have to find ways to win over more comrades who can support us. When most people think that the emperor is no longer needed, I don’t have to be an emperor anymore. "
Su Yonglin turned around and looked at Zhou Chong and Kong Maojie: "I will be very pleased by then."
"You won't always be the emperor?"
The young Kong Maojie looked at the equally young Su Yonglin and asked boldly: "I heard that the emperor is the most powerful person in the world. He is the Son of Heaven. He can do whatever he wants. He is the most superior person. You often say that power is intoxicating. So once you become Emperor, can you get drunk yourself, Chairman?"
Zhou Chong looked at Kong Maojie a little surprised, and was very surprised that Kong Maojie dared to ask this question.
How brave!
But he also cares about this issue.
Su Yonglin stared at Kong Maojie for a while.
Kong Maojie, he was not an old member of the rebellion who followed Su Yonglin to Shandong. He was a Yizhou native who followed Su Yonglin after Su Yonglin arrived in Shandong and recruited soldiers in Yizhou.
At the same time, he was also the second batch of members in the development of the Renaissance Society.
When Tian Guizi reported the list to Su Yonglin, he highlighted Kong Maojie, so Su Yonglin still had some impression of him.
He was originally a farmer and his surname was Kong. I wonder if his ancestors were related to the Kong family in Qufu.
But in his generation, there is obviously no connection, otherwise he would not be illiterate, and his family only has a few acres of thin farmland, and he lives a hungry and full life.
After Su Yonglin led the troops to liberate his village, he divided the fields among the villagers and the Kong family. His father was grateful to Su Yonglin and asked him to join the army and join the Shengjie Army at that time.
He was the second of three brothers in his family, so when he joined the army, his name was Kong Xiaoer, which was not conspicuous at all.
But this kid was really a bit of a genius. After three months of training, he not only learned basic military skills, but also knew more than 700 Chinese characters. He was the most literate among the recruits at that time.
After that, he fought bravely, was active in literacy, and was also very active in learning culture and thoughts, so he became a squad leader within a month, and then a platoon leader. After the Hebei battle, he accumulated merits and was promoted to battalion commander, and entered the training class of the Guidance Department. Further education.
In the training class, he showed extraordinary talents in political work, and was noticed by Tian Guizi, who then talked to him and asked him if he was willing to engage in political work.
Kong Maojie thought for a while and nodded in agreement, so he transferred from the military command position to the political position, and was promoted to regiment-level instructor a few months later.
Tian Guizi was very happy and helped him change his name to a more cultural name, Mao Jie. People in the province always called him Xiaoer, which sounded quite unprestige.
In short, Kong Maojie is a rare talent with a strong memory and understanding ability. He is a genius. If he had not been discovered by the Liberation Army system, he would have spent his whole life doing farm work with his back turned to the sky until he died. , where can he use his talents?
Looking at the courageous young man in front of him, Su Yonglin once again understood what it meant that "horses with a thousand miles of horses are often found but bole are not always found".
With a population of nearly 100 million, how many geniuses are there?
There are many geniuses, but most of them are lost in the crowd without being discovered.
Kong Maojie is lucky, and there are many people with the same talent as him who are still doing farm work with their backs turned to the sky, or playing in the mud with bare feet, and have not yet been discovered.
but……
It was only a matter of time before he was discovered.
So Su Yonglin laughed loudly, patted Kong Maojie's shoulder heavily, and then put his hand in front of him.
"Let's make a promise. On the day when I end the emperor's existence, you will take the crown for me with your own hands, peel off the yellow robe, and burn it to the ground. Are you willing... No, do you dare to make a promise with me?"
Kong Maojie obviously didn't expect Su Yonglin to ask him this.
but……
What's there to be afraid of?
After embarking on this road and doing this kind of thing, I have no intention of fearing anyone.
No matter how cruel the superior person is, he is still a human being. If a person is killed, he will die!
As long as I hold the knife tightly, no matter how strong the superior person is, they can't make me kneel down again!
Kong Maojie gritted his teeth, stretched out his hand, high-fived Su Yonglin three times, and made this agreement.
"Anyone who violates this oath will be killed by both heaven and man!"
"Anyone who violates this oath will be killed by both heaven and man!"
The two made an agreement and looked at Zhou Chong who was standing aside with his mouth agape.
"Zhou Chong, come and be a witness. When that day comes, if you are not there to witness, it will not count."
Su Yonglin smiled.
"That's right, you have to be a witness. When that day comes, you have to watch with your own eyes as I completely burn the emperor's crown and yellow robe! There will no longer be an emperor in the world!"
Kong Maojie looked at Zhou Chong fiercely.
Zhou Chong blinked, and it took him a while to realize what he had witnessed.
"This...I...I know."
He swallowed hard and made a vow that he thought he might never see the result of.
but……
What if?
Does something that has never happened really never happen?
