If you want to deceive, then deceive thoroughly, and if you want to use it, you must use it thoroughly.
If a Han Dynasty elder with such a reputation and status as Liu Yu is not used, if his utilization value is not squeezed out, it will be somewhat wasted.
Therefore, Liu Bei decided to let Liu Yu preside over the Zen ceremony for him, and let Liu Yu become the witness and representative of the Han clan clan. With Liu Yu as the fulcrum, he raised up the entire Han clan clan group and asked him to endorse him.
Of course, Liu Yu must be somewhat reluctant.
Therefore, Liu Bei wanted to use Mrs. Dong’s name and add a bit of extra code.
Then Liu Yu was very depressed.
"I?"
Liu Yu was stunned and said in shock: "The Empress Dowager asked me to preside over the abdication ceremony?"
"Yes, you are highly respected and have served as Zongzheng. You are a well-known elder in the clan. Everyone in the Han clan knows you. Your participation in this matter will be more helpful to me."
Liu Bei smiled and said: "The Empress Dowager said that after all, her surname is not Liu, and she does not have enough authority. She cannot be too involved in the internal affairs of the Liu family. It is most suitable for an old man with wide prestige within the Liu family to preside over it." ."
"This, this, this...the Empress Dowager really said that?"
Liu Yu looked shocked: "This...isn't this putting me on the fire? I...although I have served as Zongzheng, but this matter...I'd better...not do it, okay? Xuande, why are you doing this?" Why don’t you ask your teacher, or Zheng Jijiu?”
Liu Yu wants to divert trouble to the east?
This is not okay.
These two are my beloved teachers and wise guides.
Not even adding money.
I still expect them to do something for me in the future. If I ask them to do this, I will break the golden body, and then I will not be able to do things efficiently in the future.
But you, Liu Yu, are different. You are a royalist, conservative, and have no enterprising spirit. Isn't it just for the one-time use right of you at this moment?
Do you still want to run?
Can you run away?
"Situ Gong, do you also want to violate the Queen Mother's wishes?"
Liu Bei said seriously: "This is a matter related to the continuation of the Han Dynasty. As the elder of the clan, you have a high status and are respected by everyone. You cannot avoid it no matter what.
After all, this is an internal matter within the Han Dynasty. The Empress Dowager's surname is Dong, so it is still inconvenient to participate. The Empress Dowager's decree will be issued soon. When the time comes, you cannot refuse. "
Do you really want to issue an edict?
Seeing what Liu Bei said about having noses and eyes, Liu Yu's head became even more confused. For a while, he didn't know what to do or how much impact this matter would have on him.
But what he knew was that if Liu Bei really became emperor and he was not willing to help him, then his role as Situ would be over and he could prepare to retire and return home.
In this regard, I still have to worry about whether Liu Bei will wear small shoes for himself after becoming the emperor, and whether he will not be peaceful enough in his later years.
He and Liu Bei didn't have much of a relationship or deep feelings, unlike Zheng Xuan and Lu Zhi, who were both very benevolent to Liu Bei. Liu Bei didn't want them to take the lead in this matter, and he obviously knew about it. It doesn't sound very nice, and it easily arouses criticism.
That's why Liu Yucai had to step up.
Offending the emperor is the most stupid thing in the world. Offending an emperor who has real power or even an authoritarian emperor is even more stupid among stupidities.
Liu Yu was not a fool. He was just a bit of a scholar, but he was not stupid. So in the end, Liu Yu did not dare to refuse. He could only hesitantly acquiesce to the matter, saying that he would still obey the orders of the Empress Dowager.
If the Empress Dowager really issued an order, he would be bound to do so and would never refuse.
This was his last insistence.
Liu Bei immediately rushed to the Secretariat and asked Zhang Rang to write it himself. He secretly drafted the edict for the Zen throne of Emperor Liu Xie in the voice of the Empress Dowager Dong, and then took the edict into his arms under Zhang Rang's shocked gaze.
Zhang Rang once imagined many possibilities for Liu Bei's future. Of course he also imagined the possibility of becoming emperor, but he didn't think too much about it. But this possibility that he didn't think too much about has now come true.
He felt a little unreal.
So he looked at Liu Bei and asked.
"Xuande, are you...really going to be the emperor?"
Liu Bei raised his head and looked at him.
"This is not my intention, but the matter has come to this, I have no choice, and the same goes for you, Lao Zhang. After I ascend the throne, I will also need eunuchs to serve me. By then, you will be the only leader of the eunuchs."
Liu Bei patted Zhang Rang on the shoulder: "It's not difficult for you to serve me, right?"
Zhang Rang looked at Liu Bei's hands and face, swallowed, and came to his conclusion without hesitating for a long time.
"It is my honor to serve you."
He bowed his head to Liu Bei and showed his respect to Liu Bei like a slave to his master.
Liu Bei looked at him, sighed inaudibly, looked calm, and patted his shoulder again.
"Get rid of everything that needs to be removed. Don't worry about old relationships. Sometimes when you care about old relationships, people use you as a bargaining chip to bargain with others. This kind of thing is the most hurtful. And I can accept it as the emperor and the courtiers. , just you."
Zhang Rang felt a chill in his heart, wondering if Liu Bei already knew something, so he sighed secretly.
But he did not hesitate in his statement.
"Your request is my purpose. I will never let anyone with evil intentions stay in the palace. The last person who stays must be absolutely loyal to you and absolutely clean."
Liu Bei believed that Zhang Rang was a smart man and it would not be difficult for him to survive as long as he ignored old feelings.
Therefore, he safely handed over this task to Zhang Rang.
Time was running out, so Liu Bei, who brought the edict with him, returned to the old lady's bedroom again, retreated to the left and right, and showed the old lady the edict on the Zen throne.
"This is the Zen edict drafted by Duke Situ and my ministers together. Do you think there is anything else that needs to be added?"
The old lady read the edict several times and sighed.
"You are so well prepared. Even Liu Yu has helped you so much. What else can the old woman say? Just do as you say. Just do what you have to do. The old woman is powerless to take care of it."
The old lady shook her head. After a while, she took out a seal from the bedside and handed it to Liu Bei.
"You can seal it yourself. There is nothing more to say. You will be the emperor. This is something passed down from generation to generation by emperors. This imperial seal will be yours from now on."
Liu Bei nodded, took the imperial seal, and looked at it.
This national seal is four inches in diameter, with five dragons on the top button. On the front are engraved with eight flower and bird seal characters, "Ordered by heaven, you will live forever". One corner of it is filled with gold. It is said that it was thrown by the Queen Mother Wang Zhengjun when Wang Mang usurped the throne. bad.
Wang Mang's rise to power was purely based on his reputation and various mysterious and mysterious deception techniques. His political foundation was not shallow, but he lacked actual military achievements and the actual prestige to dominate the world.
From Liu Bei's point of view, Wang Mang is a typical internal leader with a weak foundation. He relies entirely on reputation and everyone's illusions. He is a fantasy saint. Once the illusion is broken by his actual operations, his throne will be shaky.
So Wang Mang cares about this thing very much. This thing can provide blessings to his name and give everyone an extra layer of fantasy filter for him.
Mrs. Dong seemed to care about this object very much. She smiled when she saw Liu Bei looking at the imperial seal.
"This imperial seal is really an interesting object. Even what happened is exactly the same. Back then, Wang Mang took this thing away from Wang Zhengjun. Wang Zhengjun was furious and smashed the thing to the ground, breaking it. Got a corner of this thing.
Wang Mang felt distressed, so he quickly picked it up and asked the best craftsmen to repair it with pure gold. It looked like this. But two hundred years later, this thing was handed over to you from the old woman's hands. The old woman was also a lonely old woman, and so was Xie. A miserable child without a father or a mother, and you..."
The old lady looked at Liu Bei helplessly and mockingly: "Xuande, do you think it would be better for the old lady to break another corner of this thing and then give it to you? Isn't this more appropriate?"
Of course Liu Bei heard the emotions in the old lady's words that he couldn't hide and didn't intend to hide.
But he didn't care.
The old lady was dying. Even if he pointed at his nose and scolded her, he would not do anything to her. He would only smile and face her.
He looked at the smiling old lady leaning on the bed, then looked at the small national seal, then smiled softly, threw the thing out of his hand, and let it fall to the ground. .
Just like throwing away a wine glass or a bowl, there is no fuss.
Fortunately it wasn't broken.
Then the old lady's expression changed.
"What are you..."
"The emperor's status and power never come from these things, nor does orthodoxy. These things come from the army, from merits, from the hearts of the people, from everything I have done and experienced, precisely because Thanks to these things, I have been able to get where I am today.
Otherwise, even if I have this thing, will the people of the world recognize me as the emperor? Are you going to put your seal on this Zen position edict just because I took this thing away from you? No, we are not that simple. This thing is the trophy of the winner, not the reason for the winner. "
Liu Bei smiled and said: "The Empress Dowager, people who pursue this kind of thing just want to add a little comfort to their guilt-filled hearts. They know how dirty and sinful their superior position is, and they know the methods they use." Very despicable.
Under normal circumstances, they all know that everything they do deserves to be hacked to death, so that when they dream back at midnight, they will be awakened by their own nightmares. They know that they are sinners and know how big a crime they have committed. sin.
Therefore, they are afraid that their position will be taken away by others in the same way. In order to satisfy their selfish desires and gain enough security, they need all kinds of mysterious and mysterious things to show their uniqueness and try to make themselves stand out. Everyone in the world believes that this is his fate. "
The old lady was stunned.
"this……"
"But I don't need to."
Liu Bei pointed at himself: "I have never committed any unforgivable sins. What I have done is never just myself. I want to make this country better and make people on this land suffer less." Sin, eat a few more full meals.
I don't become an emperor for the sake of being an emperor. In addition to my personal thoughts, I am also somewhat involuntarily involved in becoming an emperor. Now, I am not so happy to be an emperor.
The main reason is that there are too many people outside who are scared and need a sense of security. Otherwise, they will feel that their power and status cannot be maintained, and the safety of their family cannot be maintained, so they want me to be the emperor.
And the reason why I became the target of their support is because of my military exploits, because of my political achievements, because I turned the tide and pulled the big man back from the brink of collapse, saving tens of millions of lives. Visible achievements, not prophecies or auspiciousness. "
After saying this, Liu Bei stood up, bent down to pick up the Imperial Seal, took the Imperial Seal from the old lady's hand, and put the Imperial Imperial Seal back into the old lady's hand.
"So they need me, they need me to protect them, so they are willing to exchange the emperor's status and power with me to make me their protector. In essence, they need me more than I need them.
All this is just a formality according to the process, to make the process look better and make those people who are full of selfish desires feel better. This is what they need, not what I need, because I have never been a sinner. "
"I never think that what I did was a wrong thing. In this matter, I was by no means a pure perpetrator. For the big man, my merits are far greater than some of the mistakes I have made, and I did The emperor will make up for these mistakes in the future."
"Empress Dowager, please put this thing away. Just treat it as a valuable object that can be collected. Take it out to play with when you are bored. It will relieve your boredom. When I become the emperor, I will give orders and I will not give up because of this thing. It’s effective.”
After saying that, Liu Bei took the imperial edict, bowed respectfully to the old lady, turned around and left, without even the slightest thought of the imperial jade seal.
It wasn't until long after Liu Bei left that the old lady calmed down while stroking her chest.
Then, he sighed deeply.
She turned her head and glanced at the national seal in her hand, and slowly shook her head.
For the first time, she felt that this thing was so eye-catching, so annoying and so... dirty!
"The more you lack something, the more you want it. This is true, but since ancient times, have there really been people with such a clear conscience? Is Liu Xuande really completely unselfish?"
After a moment of silence, the old lady frowned in pain. After a while, the pain in her chest subsided slightly, and then she called someone in.
"Go and call Xie, I have something to tell him."
"only."
A young chambermaid attended.
After leaving the palace, Liu Bei came to Situ's Mansion again and showed Liu Yu the Zen edict with the seal on it. Liu Yu took the edict with fear and read it several times.
When he saw the final seal, he knew that all this was irreversible.
Everything is true, Liu Bei will be emperor.
The imperial seal has been sealed, all legal procedures for this process have been completed, and the Empress Dowager Dong, who has the highest claim to imperial power, has obeyed.
Therefore, he, the elder of the Han clan, had nothing to say.
So he closed his eyes, sighed slightly, and shook his head.
"Xuande, the position of emperor is not so easy to achieve. Compared with the general, the emperor is more honorable, but the burden on him is also greater. I hope that after you become the emperor, you will not forget everything now, and don't let it happen because you become the emperor. If you let yourself go wild, everything you have worked so hard to build will soon collapse."
Opening his eyes, Liu Yu smiled at Liu Bei.
"Good times don't come easily. I haven't lived enough yet. Please don't let me worry and worry anymore, okay?"
"I promise you."
Liu Bei smiled and said: "You have done me a big favor, so letting you live in peace and prosperity until you grow old is my promise to you."
"That way, I feel relieved."
Liu Yu then breathed a sigh of relief, as if he had made some determination, put down the edict in his hand, straightened his clothes, and bowed to Liu Bei.
With the courtesy of a courtier.
"Your Majesty, Liu Yu, pays homage to your Majesty."
Liu Yu was the second person to bow down to Liu Bei with the courtesy of a minister, and also the first minister to recognize Liu Bei's status as emperor.
Liu Bei didn't have any deep feelings about this.
He bent down and helped Liu Yu up.
"Situ Gong, please rise."
"Thank you, Your Majesty."
Liu Yu finally made his attitude clear, and the entire prelude to this big drama came to an end, and the most important preliminary preparations were completed.
Next, it’s time for the real drama to take place.
By the way, there's also Zheng Tai, that bastard can't be let go.
The people sent to spy on the Zheng family's movements sent Liu Bei accurate news, saying that the Zheng family had made preparations to flee south several months ago, and now it seemed that the route had been planned.
This is not something Liu Bei wants to see.
These bastards don't deserve a future at all, just take them all down, wait until the day they ascend the throne, and then kill them to declare to the world that they no longer have a so-so relationship with the Ancient Literature School.
Zheng Tai's whereabouts have been firmly monitored, and even if he had wings, he would not be able to fly out of Luoyang City.
As for the Zheng family, Liu Bei ordered Cheng Pu to lead his troops to Kaifeng at night and capture the Zheng family in one fell swoop.
Now that we have decided to break up, there is nothing more to say. It is time for these bugs from the Ancient Literature School to know what it means to be a strong military man.
Don't really think that I won't take action against you.
(End of chapter)
