Thousand-year-old family: its rise began with Shang Yang’s reforms

Chapter 150 "Establishing Qin with one's own body" [st update, please subscribe]

The king has always been unkind and quick to fall out of favor.

I may flatter you when I use you, but when I don't need you, I will abandon you like a shoe.

Chen Shen looked at Chen Jing standing there and sighed helplessly: "What do you think?"

Ying Ji wants to use not only him, but also the rest of the Chen family.

It's easier for him to say it himself.

Chen Jing shrugged his shoulders, looked at Chen Shen and said, "Now the king is eager to prove that he is not that kind of ungrateful king, so he must use people from the Chen family."

"But there's no need for everyone in the Chen family to go back, right?"

"One person is enough to prove it."

Chen Jing casually sat next to Chen Shen, secretly waving for Chen Zan to leave quickly, and said with emotion: "Brother, just go back alone."

"Speak to the king for me. Jing's talents are sparse and his knowledge is shallow. He may not be able to assume the position of chief agricultural officer."

Chen Shen looked at Chen Jing and sighed slightly after a long time.

As long as the Chen family is still in Qin, the relationship with the King of Qin cannot be too bad, but now that they are separated, there is no need to worry so much.

He whispered: "I will arrive in Xianyang in two days."

"All the king needs is a label, and I will become this label for Chen."

"Sooner or later, Zhao'er will become an official. After he travels to various countries, and when my fourth brother and I can no longer hold on, let him enter the court."

Chen Shen wants to separate the Chen family from the Qin State, but it does not mean that it has nothing to do with the Qin State. That is impossible.

Because Qin will definitely unify the world in the future. If the Chen family wants to last for thousands of years, how can it exist independently of the state power?

If that's the case, how can a family last for thousands of years and become a "noble family"?

All he needs is to temporarily put the too "hot" relationship between Chen and King Qin into ice water to cool it down temporarily.

Chen has become the teacher of two Qin kings, and this relationship cannot continue.

In the autumn of the fifteenth year of King Zhaoxiang, Lord Wen'an Chen Shen entered the court in response to the imperial edict and once again assumed the position of Qin's Right Prime Minister. However, the rest of the Chen family refused the call on the grounds that they were "scarce in talent and learning".

It was exactly as Chen Shen had imagined before. With him entering the court, there were a lot less rumors in the world.

After all, Chen once again occupied two of the positions of San Gong and Sanshi.

And one of them is the position of Prime Minister, the head of hundreds of officials.

Those who had clung to Chen before and then felt that Chen was about to fall over, saw Chen Shen become the prime minister again and wanted to gather around him again.

But this time, Chen, with Chen Shen as his watchband, rejected the "gathering" of these people.

Chen doesn't need them anymore.

When Chen Shen returned to the court again, he suddenly discovered a problem. Now the court was almost unfamiliar to him.

Qin State has undergone tremendous changes compared with when he was there before.

The first is domestic politics and trends.

Because Qin and Chu were in the honeymoon period again, many courtiers from the Chu lineage were once again activated and occupied a large part of the power in the court.

The representative among them is Wei Ran, the elder brother of Empress Dowager Xuan.

Wei Ran's power in the court gradually expanded after Chen Shen left. They wanted to change Qin's laws several times, but because "Ying Ji" knew the great role of Qin's laws for Qin, he rejected them.

But they still don't give up.

Because these "Chu people" felt that the reason why the Chen family was able to control the court for so many years relied on their interpretation and reliance on the "Law of Qin".

If you can control the laws of Qin, you can control the court like the Chen family.

In order to achieve this goal, people from the Chu family controlled the position of "Sikou", but this term of Sikou was not able to make "fair and impartial" decisions on many matters.

This led to changes in many things at court and domestically.

The citizens began to question Qin's laws, because sometimes, Qin's laws were not implemented well.

The "trust" that Chen had built over three generations in the past few years was almost completely consumed within just five years of leaving.

But people from the Chu family didn't think so.

They believe that "the people" are not important, and the people of the country are not important. What is important is the "aristocratic" forces. If Qin wants to become stronger, it must gather this part of the forces.

This is the most fundamental difference between them and the Chen family.

This is also the most fundamental difference between Qin and Chu.

The Chu State now has three major forces in the country, Jing, Qu, and Zhao. These three family forces are like three "feudal states". They and the King of Chu actually govern the Chu State together.

For example, the "Xiang family" that would later become famous all over the world had not yet had any signs of success at this time.

It was from Xiang Yan that he gradually became a major force in Chu State.

If the Qin State during this period has become a relatively complete "feudal autocratic" country, then the Chu State is like a "slavery" country cloaked in the guise of a feudal autocratic country.

His ruler seems to be the King of Chu, but in fact he is four big slave owners.

The King of Chu, the Jing family, the Qu family, and the Zhao family.

After Wu Qi's reform, the King of Chu did not seize the rare opportunity to suppress many feudal forces in the country. Instead, these forces seized the opportunity, and it became what it is now.

Chen Shen put down the bamboo slip in his hand and pressed his forehead slightly.

This is the first question.

The second question is Tian Wen’s question.

Compared with Su Qin and Zhang Yi, Tian Wen's tendency is more similar to wanting "peaceful and stable" development. This can actually be seen from when he governed Qi.

But whether "Su Qin", "Zhang Yi" or "Chen Shen" or "Chen Ye" were the prime ministers, the strategies they formulated were all "foreign invasion".

The sudden and huge changes made many people in Qin unable to adapt.

The sergeants are eager for war and are eager to change their class and become upper-class people through "military merit", but the upper-class people have begun to think about stopping the war.

If a war machine wants to be stopped, the people who control the machine inside may be subject to the machine's backlash.

In the original history, this was the reason why the First Emperor Ying Zheng was unwilling to stop foreign wars and why he still launched foreign wars after unifying the world.

Because he can't stop.

If he stops the war, the soldiers who have lost their upper class will be the first to tear the country apart.

"Knock Knock Knock-"

Chen Shen knocked on the table slightly, which was a huge challenge for him.

The solution to these problems must rely on "war."

Silent war.

Chen Shen turned his eyes slightly to a place in the distance. The beginning of the war and the important leverage were to be found from that place.

Xianyang Academy!

Zhao Guo

Lin Xiangru's Mansion

The carriage and horses slowly stopped in front of Lin Xiangru's house, then stopped, and three people got off.

Chen An, Chen Per, and Lin Li. Lin Li looked at the home in front of him with a little sadness on his face, and he said with emotion: "I haven't been back for a long time."

But seeing Lin Li acting like an adult, Chen An couldn't help but laugh out loud: "You."

He was not as happy as the two people next to him, because he felt the reason why the teacher asked them to come back this time.

The teacher's body may not be able to support it for too long.

And his teacher probably saw something, so he asked him to follow Lin Li to Zhao Kingdom, right?

He looked at everything around him that was completely different from Qin's and shook his head slightly: "Who can know what will happen in the future? Let's take it one step at a time."

Xianyang Academy

The old Meng Ke sat there, watching his disciple appear respectfully in front of him. He smiled and said: "I thought you had forgotten me as a teacher, but I didn't expect that you still remembered him. Come and see me."

Chen Shen said slightly embarrassed: "Teacher, what are you talking about?"

He sighed quietly: "In the past few years, wasn't it because of those reasons that I couldn't come to Xianyang City?"

Chen Shen turned around and said to the first army: "Teacher, you have never been out of Xianyang Academy in these years, not even to Guandu. You must have been so happy here that you forgot about your disciples."

Meng Ke looked at his disciples who were still as good as before, and pointed tremblingly at the books in front of him.

"This is the book you spent five years compiling?"

Speaking of the work in front of him, Chen Shen's expression became a little more serious: "Yes, teacher."

“The content in the Dharma Sutra is not so much a Legalist work as it is a true work about the Dharma. It is also some of my experiences after studying with my father, and I have recorded my father’s ideas here. "

"Of course, this is not the most important thing."

He whispered: "Teacher, as the mountain chief of Xianyang Academy, how long has it been since you really managed Xianyang Academy?"

Meng Ke smiled leisurely: "You want to say that many things in the academy today have violated the original intention of establishing the academy, and you want to know if it was my instruction?"

Meng Ke, who has lived for so many years and is already over 80 years old, can see through Chen Shen's purpose at a glance.

He smiled and said: "I know, you want Zhao'er to stay away from the domestic political battles as much as possible, but if the King of Qin calls him, he can only come back, so you want him to serve as the "mountain chief" or the wine sacrificer after my death. s position."

Meng Ke's expression was a little helpless: "But the academy today is no longer the academy it was back then."

"It's better not to let Zhao'er get contaminated."

Time will change everything. Even Mencius, who was high-spirited at the beginning, gradually felt powerless due to the passage of time. Of course, the same was true for Xianyang Academy.

During the Chen Ye period, Xianyang Academy was a place where sages from hundreds of schools of thought gathered together.

It is sacred and educational.

Today's Xianyang Academy is more like a "political center", a place mixed with politics and education.

He is no longer as innocent as he once was.

Chen Shen listened to Meng Ke's words, and for some reason he suddenly felt melancholy in his heart. Too many things had changed with time, and everything seemed to have changed.

"teacher."

He changed his mind and did not reveal the purpose of his visit.

My teacher is already aging, so it would be inappropriate to drag him into this quagmire at this time.

"Take care of yourself."

Zhangtai Palace

Ying Ji sat in the palace with a gloomy and uncertain expression.

These glooms are not directed at Chen, but part of them are caused by Chen.

Because in order to fill the hole left by the Chen family, he had to use some people from his mother's side, such as Wei Ran.

But when Fan Ju abandoned his official position and fled, and when he heard Tian Wen's report on many things in the court today, he really understood some problems. For example, why his father asked him to deal with the Chen family before he died, but told him that Qin could not do without the Chen family and asked him to control it within a certain limit.

Ying Ji finally saw clearly that Chen's departure from Xianyang five years ago was probably not just for himself.

It's more because - Chen wants to leave, right?

The political changes in Qin's country did not affect the turmoil in the world.

After the collapse of the Five-Nation Alliance, the relationship between Yan and Qi seemed to be uncontrollable.

The two countries had some hatred because of their bordering. At the beginning, Yan and Qin teamed up with Geng Sihan to capture several cities in Qi and extended their tentacles deep into the inland.

Qi has always hated this.

And the Yan State, which had obtained these cities and occupied certain places in the Central Plains, also felt the benefits that the hinterland of the Central Plains could bring.

Yan State began to want to gradually annex Qi State to expand its power.

After all, when the Qi State was at its peak, it often bullied the Yan State.

King Yan Zhao wanted revenge.

This thought continued to spread in his mind, forming layers of dark haze.

And these hazes finally became uncontrollable at some point.

Autumn, the sixteenth year of King Zhaoxiang of Qin.

Yan State, with Le Yi as its general and an army of 200,000, launched a war to attack Qi State.

At the same time, Chu State was also involved.

As a country that had also been occupied by Qin and suffered heavy losses in the war, Chu made a completely different move than Qi.

He wanted to use war to ease the growing conflicts in the country.

This approach should be very effective.

While external wars were raging, Qin's internal wars did not stop either.

Court meeting.

Ying Ji sat in the main hall and looked at the many courtiers in the audience.

Chen Shen took a deep breath, then stood up and walked to the center of the hall, his expression a little solemn.

He recited Chen's family motto over and over in his mind.

"You should look up to the sky and be worthy of the sky, bow down to the earth and have a conscience that is worthy of yourself."

When seeing the court in Qin being in turmoil because of the Chu clan, when seeing the dignity of Qin's laws and justice being challenged, "Chen", who had already been abandoned by Qin once, could of course choose to stand aside.

But as soon as he closed his eyes, Chen Shen, who thought of the trusting eyes of the Chinese people, could not go against his "heart" and remain idly by.

So he decided.

To change all this.

No matter who made the country like this, no matter what decisions he made before.

At this moment, he couldn't stand idly by.

"I am reporting to your Majesty that I want to impeach Qing Wei Ran and Sikou Chasheng."

The drums of war are already beating.

(End of this chapter)