It is easy to say that it is easy to unify a divided country, but how difficult is it to do it?
Xin Qiji followed Su Yonglin all the way, watching helplessly as he put this fragmented country together step by step, putting in a lot of effort and effort.
The Ming army was said to be invincible, but what the war could bring was military unification.
Political, economic, and cultural unification cannot be brought about directly by military unification. After all, it must be accomplished by other means, which will take longer and cost more money than military war.
If everything could be accomplished by military means, the world would be unified long ago.
And precisely because we cannot rely solely on the military, it truly shows the importance and extraordinaryness of a leader with political and military capabilities.
Looking at the high-spirited Su Yonglin, Xin Qiji was filled with emotion.
"Who could believe that you, who was just the leader of an army of more than a thousand people back then, would become the emperor of a country with tens of millions of people today? I think even the most discerning sage at the time could not have imagined such a day."
"At that time, even I couldn't believe that I could succeed. I was always ready to die in Shandong, let alone others?"
Su Yonglin slowly shook his head and sighed: "There have been too many things that were facilitated by luck along the way. Many sneak attacks, many deadly battles, and many dangers turned into dangers. Thinking about it now makes me scared.
At that time, even if one more arrow could hit me, I would not be standing here as well as I am now. I might die on the battlefield. In that case, there would be no Ming Dynasty. "
Saying this, Su Yonglin and Xin Qiji felt sad when they thought of the thrilling battles.
"But in the end, we have not abandoned our earliest ideals, nor have we let this country take a detour. So far, I feel that what I have done is worthy of the soldiers who died for me because they believed in me."
Su Yonglin raised his head and let out a long sigh.
"What you did is worthy of anyone in this country."
Xin Qiji said seriously: "The existence of you as a leader is a blessing to all living beings in the world. They should be grateful for this. It was you who led them out of the sea of suffering. It was you who gave them land, houses, and peace. It was you who allowed them to Save yourself from further suffering!”
Su Yonglin shook his head.
"Am I the only one who can do this? Without those who shed their blood and sacrifice, can we do all this? It is their blood and sacrifice that make all of this meaningful, and everything I do is also for Don't let them down.
If I don't do what I promised them, their deaths will be meaningless and they will resent me. It's okay for me to be alive, but what if I die? After I die, what face will I have to face them? "
"You didn't let them down."
Xin Qiji smiled and said: "You succeeded, you fulfilled your promise to them, and everyone in the world has benefited from your success."
"We haven't reached this point yet, You'an. Our journey has just begun. What's the hurry?"
Su Yonglin patted Xin Qiji on the shoulder: "It can't end here. All this has just begun. It has just begun."
Xin Qiji knew what Su Yonglin meant.
"Yes, all this has indeed just begun."
"So as a symbol of the beginning of all this, I think I want to go back to Lin'an... It should be Hangzhou. I want to go back."
Su Yonglin laughed and said: "My story begins there, from the dinner party at Xichun Tower in Hangzhou twelve years ago. Then, I will also end my previous journey there, and then start a new journey.
And speaking of it, I really haven’t been back to my hometown for twelve years, and I haven’t been to Hangzhou to see the Hangzhou Night Market for twelve years.
I don’t know if Hangzhou still has the bustling night market that it did back then, and I don’t know if I can still drink that bowl of clear snail soup. Twelve years later, sometimes I really miss it. "
Xin Qiji thought for a while and sighed.
"It's probably difficult now. Hangzhou has also encountered many wars and disturbances in recent years. I don't know how many people have escaped or died because of this. Even if there were not these, how many people would be killed by corrupt officials in Hangzhou every day?
I didn't find that store last time, but as long as the Ming Dynasty conquers Hangzhou and destroys the Jiangnan Kingdom, it will only take two or three years for the city of Hangzhou to regain its prosperity. There will definitely be more vendors making clear snail soup, and you will definitely be able to make it again. Drink to. "
Su Yonglin smiled, walked to his chair and sat down, while recalling, he spoke slowly.
"Twelve years ago, before I left the Southern Song Dynasty and went north to rebel, I went to Hangzhou and killed the dog official who had been threatening my life. At that time, the reason why I did this was actually to make me truly determined. Determined never to look back.
To be honest, at that time, I was not sure that I could really rebel against Wan Yanliang. The Kingdom of Jin had hundreds of thousands of troops and powerful cavalry, and I only had a few hundred subordinates. Who dared to believe that I could Defeat the Golden Man?
At that time, let alone my earliest subordinates, even I was also suspicious, but I was definitely not willing to just stay in the Southern Song Dynasty until I died.
I didn't want to spend my life just doing nothing, so I decided to do something cruel to myself. I wanted to burn the boat, and I wanted to kill the officials of the Southern Song Dynasty, so that I would lose my way out.
In this way, even if I am defeated, I am defeated by the Jin Bing, I have lost many of my subordinates, and even I am the only one left. I want to give up, but I find that I am not qualified to give up at all, and I have no way out. , I can't go south, I can only go all the way north. "
Xin Qiji listened quietly to Su Yonglin's memories and looked at the emotion on Su Yonglin's face.
"In the Hongwu political treatise, I only wrote about why I wanted to go north, but I didn't tell people about my inner struggle at that time. In a sense, I was leading them to their death. They believed in me, but I didn't believe in myself.
Can I defeat those golden soldiers? Can I deal with their cavalry? Can I rectify our internal conflicts and lead everyone to overthrow the Jin Dynasty court in one go? You only see my calmness and my determination, but you cannot see the fear and struggle in my heart. "
After saying this, Su Yonglin smiled and looked at Xin Qiji.
"You'an, you didn't expect that I would have such thoughts, right? You didn't expect that I'm just an ordinary person, right? You didn't expect that I'd be afraid too, right?"
Xin Qiji was silent for a while and then slowly spoke.
"I really haven't thought about it, but I think something like this has happened, which makes me feel that you are even greater. How great is it to become a saint with a mortal body?"
Su Yonglin laughed.
"Can it get to this point?"
"To be able to take that step, to leave the Southern Song Dynasty and go to Shandong to launch an uprising under such fear and pressure, this is something that countless so-called heroes simply cannot do. They only care about reciting poems and making mistakes. How can they risk their lives? What about a future?”
Xin Qiji smiled and said: "Maybe, I mean maybe, without you, I would have gone to the Southern Song Dynasty when I was desperate, and then my steel knife would be taken away, and I would have only a pen in my hand. I could do nothing but act as a Their household dogs, what can they do next? Just write poems and lyrics."
"Your poem Sapphire Case is very well written. It's no wonder that everyone praises this poem for its excellent writing. When it comes to this kind of cultural skills, in our entire court, if you say you are second, no one dares to say that you are first. You should write more."
Su Yonglin didn't know what chance it was that Xin Qiji wrote the song "The Sapphire Case", but this poem did dominate the charts in China for a long time.
After Xin Qiji went to the Southern Song Dynasty as an envoy, many people were spreading the word about the song "The Case of Sapphire". When Su Yonglin heard about it, he was stunned for a while before he realized that this was indeed the song "The Case of Sapphire".
This poem, according to Su Yonglin's vague memory, he remembered that his former teacher once said that this poem was composed by Xin Qiji secretly to express his unwillingness to join forces with some bird people and to firmly resist the Jin Dynasty's Northern Expedition. The meaning Of course, Li was dissatisfied with the Southern Song Dynasty leader and faction.
But times have changed, and Xin Qiji is already the chief of staff of the Ming Dynasty. What does it mean to write this poem?
