In the Ganlu Hall of Daxing Palace, Yang Ji and Yang An hurriedly walked into Yang Jian's imperial study. Yang Ji saluted Yang Jian: "Meet the uncle."

"This is a private occasion, the whole family does not need to be polite! Sit down and talk." Yang Jian was in a very good mood. Although Yang Ji encountered huge risks, he was not even slightly injured after all. What made him even more happy was that the prince Yang Guang could

He Ruobi, who assassinated Yang Ji, was used as a chess piece to attract a large number of Guanlong nobles. This move was very beautifully played.

As for He Ruobi, he and Yang Jian have done their best. No matter what his fate is, it can only be said that he brought it upon himself. If he knows everything and is not punished severely, how can he explain to his deceased brother and Yang Ji? The important thing is that if he is not punished severely, wouldn't it be?

Encourage others' arrogance, and resort to illegal means such as assassination to kill royal family members and political opponents?

"Here." The Manlu Hall is located in the palace city. It is the third of the three halls. Its status is equivalent to the inner study room or the living room of an ordinary person's home. Yang Ji was very familiar with this place, so he found a seat and sat down.

He asked: "Uncle, when I entered the palace, I heard that many heads of aristocratic families were arrested. Are you going to attack them?"

"I would like to lock them up like Chen Shubao, but this is impossible." Yang Jian said with a bitter smile: "The hundreds of thousands of generals at all levels in our Sui Dynasty army are all the disciples of the Guanlong nobles, so if the officials are trusted,

Once I take action in the capital, those people will not be able to rebel against the Sui Dynasty. And the soldiers and horses of other major states cannot be counted on. How long can we last with just a few of us and the soldiers and horses in the capital?"

When Yang Ji heard this, he asked puzzledly: "Why did the uncle let my brother arrest so many people?"

"I'm just taking advantage of the topic and grabbing these people as bargaining chips in negotiations." Yang Jian laughed. His nephew is not only good at fighting, he is also smart, strategic and responsible. He dares to fight hundreds of thousands of Turkic troops at critical moments.

Say, and defeat him. Such a person is extremely rare in the civil and military affairs of the entire dynasty. Among the younger generation, I am afraid that no one can do it.

He smiled lovingly and said: "These are all matters of the imperial court, you don't need to pay too much attention to them. Moreover, you are too young and have experienced very little. If you get involved in this circle of right and wrong too early, it will do you no harm at all.

It’s enough to do your duty now.”

"Yes!" Yang Ji also knew that Yang Jian was doing it for his own good, so he no longer dwelled on this issue. To be fair, although he knew that some things were unavoidable, he did not want to get involved prematurely in various dirty political struggles in the court.

, if you become a politician who has exhausted all your agencies too early, and it is too tiring to devote yourself to conspiracies all day long, you might as well go to Liangzhou to fight, bully the aliens, and do more meaningful things like fighting monsters and leveling up.

"Uncle, I have a question for you. What should I do if I accidentally make Tuyuhun angry?"

"Do you still need me to teach you? Of course I will kill him and then take possession of him." Yang Jian glared at Yang Ji and said, "That damn place in Tuyuhun is different from the northern grasslands. Although the land in Tuyuhun is barren and the climate is harsh, there is nothing

It is of real use, but of great strategic significance. It has great influence on our Sui Hexi Corridor, Liangzhou, and the northern part of Yizhou.

It has a condescending geographical advantage; as long as Tuyuhun is not destroyed, the Silk Road will become unsafe. Only by incorporating it into the territory of the Sui Dynasty can the western part of the Sui Dynasty be completely peaceful. Just because of its strategic position, no matter how difficult it is, it must be fought

Come down, even if we have to spend countless dollars every year to support the soldiers and civilians above, this account must be acknowledged."

"Uncle is wise! Wait until I kill Tuguhun, and then send me to Youzhou to fight Goguryeo." Yang Ji thought to himself: If he takes the lead in destroying Tuguhun and Goguryeo, let's see how Yang Guang, the prodigal son, will do.

"Goguryeo is not that easy to fight." Yang Jian looked serious and said: "Goguryeo has been encroaching on the territory of the Central Plains Dynasty since the Han Dynasty. Every inch of its land is a county during the Han Dynasty. Naturally, we cannot

appoint

Let it continue to expand like this. Moreover, the east is a vast sea, and our future focus in the Sui Dynasty is in the west and north. If the western strategy does not go well, Goguryeo will definitely jump out to cause trouble, so we must destroy it before it becomes strong and completely

Only in this way can we solve the future worries of the Northeast and develop westward without worries. However, it has been entrenched in Liaodong for hundreds of years and has long been well established. The population is as high as 600,000 to 700,000 households and more than 3 million people. It can be fought.

There are more than sixty scholars

Thousands of people, and at the same time, Goguryeo is not like the independent Turks. Its power is highly concentrated in the hands of the Goguryeo court, and its system is no different from that of the Sui Dynasty. In addition, the Goguryeo people are brave and sturdy in combat, and are good at riding and shooting, so their strength cannot be underestimated."

"When it comes to military combat effectiveness, weapons and equipment, fighting will, etc., our Sui soldiers actually have an absolute advantage, but Goguryeo has dangerous mountains and rivers, and its terrain and climate are countless times worse than those of the grasslands. In the 18th year of the founding of the Emperor, I let

Liang'er, Wang Shiji was the marching marshal, and Zhou Luohou was the commander-in-chief of the navy. They led an army of 300,000 people to attack Goguryeo by land and water. However, when Liang'er led the Sui army by land out of Linyu Pass, it happened to be the rainy season, and the roads were muddy and the food and grass supplies were in short supply.

Not on,

There was a lack of food in the army, which brought about epidemics that ravaged the entire army. The Sui army on the waterway, which was responsible for supplying supplies, was led by Zhou Luohou. They set out to sea from Laizhou and went straight to Pyongyang City. They encountered strong winds at sea and many ships sank. Logistics

All supplies

They were buried at the bottom of the sea, so both land and water routes were forced to return. In the end, eight to nine tenths of our soldiers died. After that, Gao Yuan went up in court and called him "Liaodong dung earth minister Yuan", and professed his tribunalship to us during the Sui Dynasty, ordering us to

The Great Sui Dynasty gained some face."

Yang Jian smiled bitterly, looked at Yang Ji, and said solemnly: "But both sides know that this false 'relationship between monarch and minister' is just to build momentum for the next war. So this war will still be fought sooner or later. And Goguryeo's

The war is an unprecedented humiliation for our Sui Dynasty. One day we will definitely annihilate Goguryeo and build the capital to comfort more than 200,000 heroic souls."

The status of the aliens in Yang Jian's heart is just like that. Even if they are all dead, he will only applaud and applaud, instead of lamenting and lamenting in a womanly way. After all, this is a struggle between races, and there is no subordinate.

The word of mercy.

"I understand." Yang Ji suddenly remembered something and said with a smile: "If Wang Tong hears what uncle said, I'm afraid he will be jabbering all over again."

Wang Tong was a rare Confucian scholar in the world. Although he was only twenty years old, he was already well-known as a scholar. Especially his father, Wang Long, who had written "Essential Theory on the Rise and Decline" in the early years of the founding of the Emperor and was praised by Yang Jianjian.

Not long ago, Wang Tong presented "Twelve Policies for Taiping" to Yang Jian, advocating "respecting the king's way, promoting hegemony strategies, reviewing the past and verifying the present, and bringing the world under his control", which was highly praised by Yang Jian.

It’s just that Wang Tong firmly believes that human nature is good and naturally possesses the "five virtues" of benevolence, righteousness, propriety, wisdom and faith. Only through education can we help people develop a complete personality and achieve the state of "happy heaven and knowing destiny, exhausting reason and rationality"

, and eventually became a "gentleman" and a "sage".

Yang Jian, who always valued practical talents, didn't like hearing his empty theories.

Yang Jian was the emperor for so many years and punished countless corrupt officials. The highest record was the removal of hundreds of corrupt officials, incompetent officials, and incompetent officials in Jizhou, which made the prefectures and counties awe-inspiring. His vigorous purge of officialdom,

It can be said that the main reason why the Sui Dynasty was able to prosper today was to govern the country according to law.

And Wang Tong, a young boy who had never even been a county official, didn't even know the fundamental reasons why the Sui Dynasty was rich and how the people were healthy, but he talked about the goodness of human nature and the promotion of moral governance. This was not established with the Sui Dynasty.

Is it contrary to national policy?

However, Yang Jian valued this boy very much and hoped that his thoughts would be more practical and less boastful, so he appointed him as the secretary of the Yizhou Sihu, hoping that he would have more contact with the people at the bottom in order to improve his ideas.

However, this guy was so arrogant that he resigned before even taking office.

As an emperor, Yang Jian has a lot of talents. How could he take such an arrogant and impractical guy to heart? If Yang Ji hadn't mentioned it, he would have forgotten about this person.

At this time, when Yang Ji mentioned Wang Tong, he shook his head and laughed: "Wang Tong is a descendant of the Wang family in Taiyuan. Because of his talent and reputation as a child prodigy, he has always been valued by the family. Since he was a child, he has lived in a world where he can reach out for clothes and open his mouth for food.

How can we know how difficult the world is when we are well-dressed and well-fed? If we were living in troubled times or hungry for days, we would not encourage others to

Nature is inherently good. You have to remember that when you are ready to reuse a person, you can’t look at what he says or how famous he is, but what he has done. Only in this way can you get real talents.

, rather than a boastful person. If you really want to use this kind of person, it is best to throw him into a difficult place to hone his skills."

"Thank you, uncle, for your teaching." Yang Ji laughed, and in his heart he fully agreed with Yang Jian's way of employing people.

When he thought about it carefully, he found that the current center of the Sui Dynasty did not have many capable Confucian ministers.

Compared with the unparalleled Guanlong aristocracy, the Shandong gentry, which claimed to be authentic in Confucianism, was very weak in the center of the Sui Dynasty. A closer look revealed three reasons. First, the Sui dynasty focused on hard work and despised exaggerated Confucianism. Since the abolition of gentry lai

After the nine-level Zhongzheng system was established, the Shandong gentry became dissatisfied with the Sui Dynasty, and most of them focused on family education rather than serving as officials.

Second, during the Heyin Incident, Er Zhurong massacred all the Shandong gentry officials in the Northern Wei Dynasty, causing severe damage to the famous families in Shandong, and they have not recovered to this day.

The most critical point is that the Sui Dynasty and the Northern Zhou Dynasty were in the same line. The Guanlong nobles established by Yuwentai were the core force of the Eastern Wei, Northern Zhou, and Sui Dynasties, while the Shandong nobles mainly served Gao Huan's Western Wei and Northern Qi. In order to win, Yang Jian

On behalf of the Zhou Dynasty, the Northern Dynasties

To fight against the powerful Northern Turks and Nannan Chen, it was necessary to unite all the forces of the Guanlong nobles, so they needed to compromise with the Guanlong nobles. As a result, most of the officials in the center of the imperial court came from the Guanlong nobles, especially the army, which was almost conquered by the Guanlong nobles.

The forces are firmly under control.

Emperor Yang Jian's lack of attention and the exclusion of Guanlong nobles left Shandong gentry with almost no place to establish themselves in the Sui Dynasty. They could only hold insignificant local positions through self-recommendation and recommendation, which were inherited from the nine-rank Zhongzheng system.

Although Yang Jian now began to support the Shandong nobles against the Guanlong nobles, and did not hesitate to let Pei Ju, one of the Wenxi Pei clan, serve as the powerful minister of the Ministry of official affairs, the Shandong nobles' previous power in the court was too weak, so Pei Ju's rise was just a

Accident, an accident, cannot change the power composition of the Sui Dynasty. Traditional noble families such as the Taiyuan Wang family, Fanyang Lu family, Boling Cui family, Qinghe Cui family, Xingyang Zheng family, Zhaojun Li family, Longxi Li family, etc., all

Not a single high-ranking official of the imperial court appeared.

Yang Ji knew that Yang Jian's emphasis on talent, the rule of law, and disrespect for Confucianism had led to him being completely blackballed by the Confucian scholars who held pens and wrote history books, and his historical status was mixed.

His merits cannot be lost, so his status and existence can only be downplayed.

When talking about the Three Provinces and Six Ministries, he did not hesitate to praise the Tang Dynasty in splendid articles, but ignored Yang Jian, and the "renting mediocrity" became the creation of the Tang Dynasty; whenever Daxing City was mentioned, it was said that the Sui Dynasty wasted people and money,

But once he arrived in the Tang Dynasty, his writing changed and he praised Chang'an in its prosperous period. However, when foreign historians wrote about Yang Jian, they were able to give him the historical status he deserved from a fair and objective perspective.

If the Sui Dynasty had developed in the direction that Yang Ji was familiar with, the Sui Dynasty would have been described as something that even the people of the Sui Dynasty would not recognize. And Yang Ji would have probably been turned into a butcher.

Thinking of this, Yang Ji said to Yang Jian: "Uncle, I want to do something in Liangzhou, which requires a lot of paper craftsmen. How about you arrange some outstanding paper craftsmen for me?"

"You want to make paper?" Yang Jian did not give an answer, but looked at Yang Ji: "Vajra slave, tell me the truth, what are you doing making paper?"

"Uncle!" Facing Yang Jian, Yang Ji had nothing to hide, so he said: "From ancient times to the present, aristocratic families have controlled education. Their children have no worries about food and clothing, and can devote themselves wholeheartedly to the palm of their hands, so generation after generation

Talented people have been at the top for generations. However, children from poor families and ordinary people do not even have the opportunity to read and read. How can they compete with children from aristocratic families? With the development of aristocratic families, they have controlled more and more living conditions, learning conditions, and career advancement.

This way, all officials in the world come from aristocratic families. They have formed powerful interest alliances through marriage, teacher-student, affiliation, alliance, etc. While maintaining and improving their own interest system, they ignore the interests of the court.

Whenever the imperial power of the past dynasties weakened, they ignored the imperial decrees and even controlled the imperial court. Since the officials inside and outside the court were their 'own', even the emperor had to become a puppet for their interests."

"It's a good idea, but it's not easy." Yang Jian said with a wry smile: "The aristocratic families know where their advantages lie, so they try their best to suppress the poor people and strictly control education. They don't give it to the poor people or ordinary people to study at all.

Opportunity. If ordinary people cannot study, they cannot understand reason and cannot be officials, how can we compete with them?"

Yang Ji solemnly said: "Why can aristocratic families have a monopoly on education? Why are all the talents in the world coming from famous families, but it is difficult for scholars from poor families to get ahead? I think the reason is that the cost of learning is too high, and scholars from poor families are still afraid of expensive books. In the end,

Ordinary people at the bottom dare not even think about reading. Nowadays, the paper used for writing is either too expensive or too expensive.

Either the terrible rice paper or the extremely poor quality bamboo paper, neither of which can satisfy the needs of books and the vigorous popularization of knowledge. So I went to find some papermakers to develop new paper that is as good as rice paper and as low-priced as bamboo paper. As long as I have this

By planting new paper, everyone in the Sui Dynasty will have books to read and everyone can afford to read, and it will also diversify the source of talents in the Sui Dynasty without relying too much on aristocratic families."

In fact, in the Sui Dynasty, it was reasonable to say that they were "rich in literature and martial arts." The cultural carriers of the Sui Dynasty were mainly bamboo slips, silk books, silk books, and rice paper books. The price of books was very expensive, and the cost of studying literature was not much lower than that of studying martial arts.

Therefore, the term "Aristocratic Family Tianxia" is very appropriate to describe the Sui Dynasty. The aristocratic families not only monopolized official positions and power, but also monopolized cultural inheritance. They controlled the power of the Sui Dynasty, controlled the world's top talents, and recruited poor people into official positions.
To be continued...