Contest (7)

In the autumn of August of the 15th year of Hongwu, the first battle between the old and new forces was Chen Bin's comeback. Just as the curtain fell, the old teacher Li Shanchang died of exhaustion and Chen Bin died of illness. This was a costly victory. In just two years, countless heroes were put on the altar of national rejuvenation as sacrifices. However, the competition between nations, between nations, between countries, between new and old forces, was endless. This game of chess was just beginning, and it was far from the time to collect the sons.

All the costs you paid must be recovered, and there is no unnecessary sacrifice. I swear. No matter who is blocking the harvest, he must pay the price. Wu Anguo silently looked at the mansion and Jiangnan news delivered by Kuaima in his old house in Peking. When there was too much pain, people often no longer felt the pain. Guo Pu and Zhang Wu Ge sat next to him, with the same silence. After years of experience as an official, it can be inferred that after this blow, Wu Anguo will no longer be the original Wu Anguo, and he finally entered the officialdom. From Wu Anguo's eyes that occasionally raised, Zhang Wu could no longer see the confusion that was back then, nor could the warmth inside. Instead, he was a deep and firm gaze, which made people shudder.

Li Shanchang was the first hero in the founding country to be a king, died as the king, and was posthumously named Wenzheng. His two grandsons were named Earl. The Li family has not been used for death penalty for generations, and it was full of honor. In contrast, Chen Bin's funeral was much shabby. Officials grew old before taking office. According to the rules of the Ming Dynasty, he was not as surrendered as a rule, not to mention that he had the status of making meritorious contributions. Several former colleagues raised money to handle his funeral. However, according to the "Jiangnan News", the merchants who had no power and power were always on the side of the river and heard the news, and the river was covered with white sails overnight. There were also several pleasure boats on the Qinhuai River, which traveled thousands of miles to see him off. The businesswomen of Chen were finally liberated in their misfortune and danced and sang lightly, playing joy to repay their confidants...

"This scene is rare in the world. I don't know how many talented men will envy." Guo Pu saw that Wu Anguo didn't speak for a long time, and was afraid that he would be bored and would explain his kind words.

"The court bosses are aimless, but the fireworks know how to cherish Mr. Chen's talent." Wu Anguo replied with a long sigh and turned his eyes to the letter he wrote to him in front of Li Shanchang's sick bed.

Li Shanchang's handwritten letter was also sent to Wu Anguo by the confidants of the Li family. From the trembling handwriting, it can be seen that this was written by Li Shanchang when he was sick. In the letter, Li Shanchang once again explained the reason for sacrificing Chen Bin to preserve the customs that day, and frankly reminded Wu Anguo that those who ruled without selfishness. At the moment of holding power, every person in power must give up his personal life, death, honor and disgrace. The complex political situation made him only seek stability between all forces and seek relative correctness in addition to stability. Except for the emperor himself, all ministers are making transactions every day, in exchange for favorable conditions for others to support themselves. No one who can stand in the court can be established. People are fools. No matter how many stupid legends there are in the alleys, in fact, all dementia and stubbornness are just appearances. Every step of seemingly unintentional advance and retreat contains a hint of wisdom. He appreciates the responsibility mentioned by Wu Anguo, but the balance of the country is heavier than seeking an inner balance of the individual. He also knows that what Wu Anguo did will definitely change the country completely, but he hopes that before the interests can be accepted by everyone, Wu Anguo must find ways to protect himself first. Only by survival can he have the opportunity to continue. Sometimes, taking two steps back and three steps is not cowardly. Sacrifice of innocent people is not betrayal, as long as the final result makes this sacrifice worthwhile.

"Brother, let's beg you for the sake of your condolences." Guo Pu gently patted Wu Anguo on the shoulder. Compared to his Jiangnan Xiushou's body, Wu Anguo was too tall, so every time he wanted to pat Wu Anguo on the shoulder, he had to stand up and walk around behind his seat.

Sighing, Wu Anguo chuckled softly, "I have no intention to mourn anything. I am thinking about who will make up for the power vacuum after Master Li's death."

"Vacuum"? Guo Pu was stunned for a moment. This analogy was good. Vacuum was a new word created by students of Peking Academy. They proved the existence of vacuum through glass tubes and pistons. After the vacuum appeared, it seemed that there was a great force to push the things around to make up for it. Li Shanchang went, and his position as the First Auxiliary Minister was indeed the focus of the competition among all forces. Wu'anguo could think of this level and make progress.

"I don't think the emperor may hope that another Grand Tutor will appear. No matter who it is, he will not be favored again." Guo Pu took a martial arts "brush" from the pen holder, dipped it in some ink, and scratched it on the paper. "Although the emperor has worked much harder now, he no longer has to consider the opinions of the veterans. He acted less and controlled the elbows."

"That's true. I will choose this way to seek profit and avoid harm. If it comes to power, who else in the world can be superior to the current emperor?" Thinking that such a powerful figure as Wu'anguo was placed around like a chess piece by the emperor, and there was no room for a fight back, the fifth brother looked around nervously, for fear that there would be ears across the wall.

Guo Pu picked up a pen and wrote a few names on the paper, and then painted them one by one. Shao Zhi, Wu Chen, Fei Zhen, these grand sages are all pen holders and they will not have any independent opinions. Even if they have any dissatisfaction with the new policy of Peking, they dare not say it too clearly. Moreover, the property of some of them is closely related to Peking. The ministers of various departments have received many benefits from emerging merchants. Although they have always been disliked by Peking, they will not be too difficult to make the new policy. In the future, special attention should be paid to the third to fifth grade Beijing officials. Most of them are from the imperial examination in the south of the Yangtze River, and their families are all owners with land and land. Once they become a group and cannot get along with Peking, the three of them will inevitably become tigers. Just like Bai Zheng, the initiator of this attack, was just a famous scholar, without any power, which almost caused the new policy to die.

"No need to draw. No matter how we do it, there will always be people jumping out. These are two different lifestyles, and it is hard tolerate it. It is better to seize the time to strengthen our own strength if you have that skill." Wu Anguo saw Guo Pu hesitant and made a decision for him.

"It may not be possible. As long as everyone can get benefits from this knot in Peking, there will be no conflict between them. You can sit down and say, don't make trouble for the emperor to tear your face." Zhang Wu was confident and carefully took out an envelope from his close-fitting pocket and put it in Wu'anguo's hands.

This thing that was dyed with the smell of fifth brother's sweat must be of great importance. Wu Anguo slowly picked up the fire paint under the lamp and pulled out the contents inside. A contract was written on a few thin pages of paper, but the contents of this contract were worth a thousand gold in Wu Anguo's eyes.

"Oh my God, what did I do?" Wu Anguo fell into the chair and shouted wildly in his heart.

This contract is actually a dirt-dirt agreement. After the Battle of Liaodong, Su Ceyu's independent cavalry brigade became the fat in the eyes of all the princes. When Zhu Yuanzhang dismembered the Zhenbei Army, many forces extended their hands here. Those who could have been on the grassland for so many years without food or assistance, the blind man could not see its intrinsic value. In order to prevent Wang Feiyu's tragedy from happening again, the King of Yan asked Su Ceyu to ask Su Ceyu for the title of a entrusted envoy, so that the Su tribe would completely separate from the Zhenbei Army. On the surface, the Su tribe was like a small microcosm of the Zhenbei Army, which was dispatched by the King of Yan, and the court did not care about its supplies, and the supplies were completely supplied by the merchants in Peking. In fact, the Su tribe was jointly issued by the King of Yan, senior generals of the Zhenbei Army and hundreds of Beiping merchants.

With the support of capital, King Yan Zhu Di sent his confidant Huang Yi as the steward of the business, while the merchants in Peking entrusted Yang Tiezhu as the accountant of the business. Su Ceyu used the funds provided by the shareholders to purchase weapons and luxury goods, and used war and sow discord to create trouble among the Mongolian ministries, and gained the greatest benefit from it. Although at Su Ceyu's personal call, the business also did some good deeds to help the poor and help the victims, and the merchants who accompanied the army also opened some mines and logging farms with the leaders of the local tribes in Liaodong. However, the theme of the business was very clear, and they should do everything possible to seize land and wealth, and when necessary, they had the right to deprive all their forces, and the profits made by the shareholders were distributed according to the size of the share capital.

This is clearly an East India company, which is almost selling opium. Wu Anguo's heart kept twitching. "Fortunately, they didn't want to sell black slaves, which is better than those so-called civilized people back then."

The only chat was quickly broken by the dream of masturbation by the fifth brother's words, "That fat man wanted to invest, he was very familiar with the Hezhongdi. The semen beard there was very cheap, just like Qing'er, and women like a wealthy family in Jiangnan were very popular, and it was cost-effective whether it was selling or giving gifts."

"Fifth brother, how could you do this?" Wu Anguo explained to this old man somehow that when did this kind old man value interests so much, even forget his roots.

"My benefactor, I know what you want to say. You are a great charitable man. You can't bear it. You think this transaction is not moral, right? But they are not our own people. If we want to be kind to our own people, we have to have money. If we want it, we have to do everything. With the money, we can handle things up and down and ask for convenience. I just want to tell you that those officials are actually not difficult to bribe. The key is that we can afford the price. The King of Yan and Mr. Chang are not in the same group as us. Who would have thought of it three years ago! You don't have to get involved, we won't be the bad guys." Zhang Wu's face turned red, and he loudly defended his actions, attacked grain merchants and stock markets. The Zhang family made great efforts and almost gave up all their capital. Now that they want to make some money back, Wu Anguo showed dissatisfaction. No wonder the old man was sad.

"Fifth brother, I, I don't mean that," Wu Anguo quickly explained, and the more he described it, the whiter it became. Peking has changed. After three years, Peking has changed completely, and it has become impossible for him to recognize it.

"Fifth brother, you drink a glass of water to relieve the fire. The Marquis was not prepared, so I was shocked. I was shocked by you and Su Ceyu, the Liao Menglian account." Guo Pu quickly came out to smooth things over. Zhang Wu is now the leader of the public recommendation of many business names in Peking. Whether it is private or public, it is not easy to make the old man angry.

The old man stumbling his neck and was a little stubborn. "Mr. Guo, you are the largest official in Peking, and Wuhou is a superb. I, a commoner, shouldn't talk to you like this. But I have never considered myself an outsider, so I am a polite person today and you are more responsible but you are here. Today I will rely on my old age to say, "Who is not for profit in this world? If you can't become an official, you can't earn a salary, will anyone recite scriptures? Just like in Peking, the person who went to the academy was more than ten times more than the juren exam. Why did Marquis Mu defeat Annan and didn't take the emperor and didn't speak?

The emperor also felt that if he occupied that place, the people who were the people of the Ming Dynasty would not be bullying others openly. If he did not occupy it, Mr. Mu could still extort him every now and then. Why didn’t you think Mr. Mu had done too much and cleaned up the people’s pot? That’s because the people of the Ming Dynasty got benefits from it, at least they wouldn’t starve to death! Fatty Gao said he was selling some people, and I think this is the same. If he wanted to be good to everyone, we must have the strength. If not, let us live our own people first and then calculate something else.”

Zhang Wu is no longer the original Zhang Wu. He has changed, becoming independent, confident, and a little persistent. A leading temperament slowly emerges from the old man, making his waist gradually straight.

Is this the change I brought to the Ming Dynasty? Is this the ideal Peking in my ideal? Wu'anguo was confused. Previously, Chinese people in the dynasty attacked him, and he felt that others were bored, short-sighted, and dirty, and he occupied the moral advanced. Now, he found that this so-called morality was basically his own fantasy. When capital came to the world, it was bloody from head to toe. The welfare society he saw in later generations was a butterfly after breaking out of the cocoon. The gorgeous colors covered the ugliness of its original caterpillar.

"Fifth Brother, I'm sorry," Wu Anguo apologized in a low voice, his face pale as if he had died.

Zhang Wu looked at Wu Anguo's face and knew that he had said it was serious. He sighed and whispered: "My benefactor, I don't want to and have no right to say to you. After all, all this was given by you by my Zhang family. Whatever you said you asked me to do, I browsed all the time. But you can't be too kind, whether to the court or the foreign tribe. If you are kind, will they let us go?"

Without the mind to listen to what Brother Wu said, Wu Anguo smiled and replied easily: "Brother Wu, don't be anxious, give me some time, I'll think about it. What you said makes sense, I'll try to listen to you as much as possible."

"Then I'll leave first, you two brothers talk slowly. The shareholders probably agree with Fatty Gao's investment, but we can discuss whether to sell women or not. Let's see if there are any other ways to make big money." Zhang Wu looked at Wu Anguo helplessly and made some concessions. This benefactor removed his apparent mystery. Yang Dahe thought of him as a child he picked up. Although it was not as painful as his own flesh and blood, who would feel better when he saw him being bullied by others.

He sent Zhang Wu into the carriage, and his brothers returned to the former residence of Wu'anguo. He was on the lawn that was already a little yellow but very neatly trimmed in the yard, and continued to walk while the moonlight. In the years when Wu'anguo was not in Peking, Yang Da, Chen Xing, Xu Zhichen and others paid for someone to take care of his former residence. Li Shanping suggested that he be in charge of it several times, but everyone refused because he was not convenient to delay his official duties. From this small yard, Wu'anguo could feel everyone's attention.

The moon was as cool as water, and it shone with Wu Anguo's broad but tense back. Guo Pu patted it gently and asked in a low voice: "Brother, I'm still angry with my fifth brother. He is also for our own good. He raised funds for several of his own steel mills. If this battle cannot be won, he will return to Huairou's first start. Seeing that you are still so gentle, how can he not be anxious?"

"I know, I didn't blame him, I just don't quite understand the current Peking." Wu Anguo sighed and said quietly.

"What's wrong with Peking now? Isn't it much the same as when you were there? It's just a little more prosperous. Besides, the night schools you booked, overtime pay, working hours, and insurance, aren't Peking still doing the same as before?"

"I know, but I always feel that it is different from what I think. Brother Guo, do you still remember what we said about equality back then?"

"Remember, if it weren't for this, I might have gone home to eat sea bass. I haven't been back in Jiangnan for many years. I have a hundred thousand pounds of money and rode a crane to Yangzhou. Your sister-in-law is from Yangzhou. We have more than 100 thousand pounds of money now. It's easy to put down my hands and live a fairy-like life."

"But why do I feel that if this continues, it is getting further and further away from the equality we say?" Wu Anguo was very unwilling.

"Didn't you say that equality requires a process? We don't know the process and how to implement it, so we can only take one step at a time. You see, if Brother Wu dared to talk to us like this three years ago, wouldn't this be aimed at equality?"

Wu Anguo shook his head gently. All this was too far from what he hoped, and it was difficult to compare the ideal country with the current model of Peking. Along the way, Peking, Henan, Yongping, and even the entire Ming Dynasty were all too different from what he expected. If we divide this society according to the six-part method he learned back then, it would be difficult to explain what it was. He has indeed sowed seeds over the years, but what grew on the land was a freak.

"Four-Dislikes", Wu Anguo sighed to the sky, only in front of his brothers, he did not need to hide his feelings.

Guo Pu was stunned and smiled, "Brother, what do you want Peking to look like, or what do you have ever seen a place where equality and people are deeply rooted in the hearts of the people? I am different from you. I think like a non-foot-binding woman like Jiang Min, we have raised a group of children here. Maybe they are not smart, but they are growing up in their own way and have begun to protect themselves. Then what are we worried about? Just make sure that he is not bullied by others."

"Make sure he will not be bullied by others"! Wu Anguo couldn't react to Guo Pu's metaphor, "Then we instigated him to bully others."

"It's not the case. It seems that something is wrong. We are guiding and persuading, but we must not be strong. Otherwise, we will become Bo Chen's nerd, saying that he is equal to others, but he regards himself as a saint and is pressing on others' heads. What is this called a thing? What is the difference between this and the treacherous ministers who persuade others to do the saints but steal the traitors."

"How to guide and persuade"? After thinking for a while, Wu Anguo was still very disappointed. Guo Pu was right, what he wanted to be like, and why did Peking become what he thought. He didn't like to be arrogant and thought that he had a long-term vision than everyone in the world. I was the smartest corrupt scholar. I wanted Peking to develop according to my wishes, and I only smiled fifty steps and one hundred steps with corrupt scholars. They closed their eyes and painted the same frame. But if they let them develop like this, what would the Ming Dynasty become? Equal society and capital society still took a walk and changed their appearance and retreated back to their original place, becoming a monarch society covered with emerging economy and technology. Everyone is still the monarch's private slaves, and security and freedom are still a luxury in their dreams.

"Take the situation and let it go." Guo Pu seemed to be confident, "Fifth brother said, only those who do benefits will do it. The more people who get benefits, the more talents who support us. First of all, we have to ensure everyone's survival, and then find a better way to make profits than doing things that are contrary to morality. In fact, from ancient times to the present, many things have never escaped the word "profit". Just like Long Live Now, no one can guess whether he will admit that the mother of the King of Yan is a Mongolian, but we know that he will definitely do it. Even if the mother of the King of Yan is not a Mongolian, he will also create a Mongolian mother for the King of Yan. Because the benefits here are too great, he can't help but be moved."

"However, who is more careful than Long Live?" When it comes to Zhu Yuanzhang, Wu Anguo was even more disappointed.

Guo Pu looked at him and smiled, "Don't be so discouraged. I think it's good now. Anyway, new things are something we haven't seen before. Why not participate in them together? No matter what the result is, I have a clear conscience!"

Participated? Wu Anguo was stunned for a moment. This is the difference between himself and Guo Pu. He has always been an outsider. He has been a person who has been aware of his own ideas and knowledge that he has been hundreds of years higher than his knowledge. However, Guo Pu was involved and felt the taste and changes inside with his heart. He could evaluate the right or wrong of everyone's actions, but Guo Pu, Wu Ge and others have been integrated with Peking and closely related. They are defending the new policy and at the same time defending themselves.

Participate in, work hard to influence it and change it, but you cannot restrict it by imposed means. With time and space, it will grow slowly by itself. Everything is changing. The Ming Dynasty began to equip firearms, the Mongolians introduced heavy artillery and longbows, and the emperor weighed more between power, and merchants such as Wu Ge were supporting their agents and fighting for more rights. Wu Anguo turned his attention to the bright moon in the air. In the sky, the ancient starlight shone on everyone, and these billions of years of existence

In comparison, the future of himself and this world is just a flashing moment. In these countless moments, who can prove that there is only one way to choose, and who can prove that it is eternal and unchanging. The contest in front of him not only includes the new class and old forces, foreign tribes and homeland, ideals and reality, but also the past and present self. Time is different, and the opponent is also changing. Slowly, he feels that he has understood something, as if he has not understood anything, and just stands blankly.

Guo Pu did not disturb him anymore. Two backs of different heights stood under the moonlight in Peking, lonely, but not lonely.

Drunkard Note: The audio is not something I read, but I haven’t had the chance to listen to it yet.
Chapter completed!