Chapter 494: Foolish boy, if I don’t listen, how long can I live?
There is no doubt that this is an act of great filial piety, even more unfilial than not allowing the crown prince to enter the capital. It is an act of filial piety that even the Qin Dynasty, which believed in solving problems with fists and did not attach importance to etiquette, could not accept.
All the officials were in an uproar and talked a lot, and many people's eyes fell on Zong Zheng with a white beard.
Zong Zheng was one of the Nine Ministers.
He is in charge of royal relatives and registers the genealogy of the royal clan. If any member of the royal clan is guilty, his or her citizenship will be revoked.
Qin II was getting married and Zong Zheng was preparing for it.
Lao Zong was really old and lacking in energy. He sat at his desk, nodding constantly and feeling drowsy.
Can you sleep in such cold weather
After a careful look, the ministers discovered that the clothes worn by the old master were bulging and at least an inch thicker than the clothes worn by everyone else!
It was as if the old patriarch had known that the palace was cold and had put on several more layers of clothes before going out.
The ministers looked away with eyes colder than the temperature in the palace.
It seems that Lao Zongzheng, who is in charge of this matter, will not wake up until Your Majesty has finalized the matter.
Ying Chengjiao didn't care what the people below thought and stretched out two fingers.
"Noisy!
"Shut up, I want to talk about the second thing."
The Xianyang Palace fell silent. No one wanted to walk around the Xianyang Prison and then be mysteriously drowned in a bucket, leaving covered in filth.
"The people of Qian have treated me like a king and a father, and I should repay them by being my own son. I have ascended the throne as the emperor, and this happy event should be celebrated by the whole world. I should grant amnesty to all prisoners except those on death row, and abolish slavery for servants and concubines."
There was no uproar this time.
The ministers in the hall lowered their heads and looked at the table in front of them, with coldness in their eyes enough to freeze into ice chips.
Prime Minister Lu Buwei, who went by the alias Jiang Shang, held his head high and shook his head slowly.
The left prime minister Li Si's brows were furrowed on his face, which was more rigid than the Qin Law.
The old patriarch's kowtow frequency slowed down, showing signs of waking up.
Zhang Han, the doctor who usually appeared in armor, was wearing a black official uniform that he rarely wore, and he felt a little uncomfortable sitting there.
The whole world celebrates and amnesty is granted.
Although this operation had never been done by the previous Qin kings and there was no precedent to check, and although Qin had been a country ruled by law since Shang Yang's reforms, such an act was suspected of undermining the dignity of the government.
However, compared to what Ying Chengjiao said casually at the end about abolishing the system of slaves and concubines, it was nothing at all.
The word "slave" still existed in China until the Republic of China period, and the concept of indenture disappeared only after the founding of New China.
Which family, if they can sit in the imperial court, doesn’t have a ton of servants and concubines?
If the previous decision to take a concubine was simply due to Ying Chengjiao's personal flaws, then abolishing the system of slave concubines would have angered the public and infringed upon the core interests of all the nobles.
Without slaves and concubines, who would till their land? Who would drive their carriages? Who would serve them? Who would they kill when they were upset and wanted to kill someone?
There was an eerie silence in the hall.
Ying Chengjiao's attitude remained the same as before, as if he didn't see it.
He was not wearing a crown and robes, but only a snow-white fox fur coat on such an important occasion. From the moment he sat down, he seemed to have forgotten many things.
For example, etiquette, for example, the heart of a minister.
"Please don't be anxious, gentlemen. Once I finish telling you the last thing, you can start talking."
Ying Chengjiao laughed, and his smile was as strange as the deathly silence in the hall.
"Someone, bring up my peerless divine horse!"
As he shouted, the palace door opened wide and the howling north wind rushed in.
Before he could walk a full circle in the spacious hall, he was blocked outside the hall again. He howled unwillingly in front of the door, his voice like a ghost.
Women in Xianyang usually used this to scare their young children, saying that if they continued to cry, they would be caught by an evil wind. The young children would stop crying when they heard the sound of the wind.
Two armored soldiers led the peerless divine horses to the front of the court.
Ying Chengjiao was overjoyed. He leaned forward and rested his arms on his knees.
"This is a great horse! I and you all are watching it together!"
The ministers , who had suffered many shocks today and thought that their hearts would be calm and not disturbed anymore , looked up and were all stunned.
No matter how much psychological preparation they had done, their faith was shattered when their eyes fell on the thousand-mile horse.
The thousand-mile horse had small horns on its head, long and thin limbs, a short and small tail, and was covered with short hair. When it stood up, it was not even as tall as a soldier's arm.
His eye sockets were deep and his whole body was brown. He twisted his small head to look around, curiously sizing up the people sitting there.
This is not a peerless divine horse, it is clearly an ordinary fawn! The most common deer in Luming Garden!
Looking at the stunned and helpless expressions of the ministers in the hall, Ying Chengjiao smiled even more happily.
Calling a deer a horse is a famous historical scene, and he has been looking forward to it for a long time.
"From the looks on your faces, you seem to be dissatisfied with my steed. This is the holy horse I found on the Xiongnu's sacred mountain, Langjuxu Mountain. Isn't it divine and handsome?"
The expressions on Qin's ministers' faces were very varied, but no one spoke and the hall remained silent.
Ying Chengjiao raised his hand and said with a laugh:
"Gentlemen, it's time for you to speak!"
Doctor Zhou Qingchen stood up with the help of the table, but suddenly he stumbled and was hit hard on the back.
He didn't even look back to see who had committed the crime. The moment he stood up, he had already made his choice.
"This horse is so handsome, I have never seen it before in my life! Compared with the black horse walking on snow, it is like a firefly competing with the bright moon!"
Ying Chengjiao laughed out loud.
"Your words are very convincing. I like honest people. I will reward you fifty gold coins!"
"Thank you, Your Majesty!"
Zhou Qingchen bent down so much that his head hit the table with a sound that was neither too loud nor too soft. If he hadn't remembered that Qin II didn't like to kneel, he would have prostrated himself at this moment.
"Evil ministers are in power! Qin will fall!"
The left prime minister Li Si stood up immediately. Although he was not a court judge, he seemed to still have the strictness of the Legalists who abide by the law in everything!
"It's clearly a deer, how dare you say it's a horse! The Yanyan court is polluted by sycophantic ministers like you. You are deceiving the emperor and deceiving the superiors. I will beat you to death!"
Li Si rushed over, grabbed Zhou Qingchen and started punching and kicking him.
Li Si, who was a disciple of Xunzi, was proficient in the six arts and had very good boxing and kicking skills. He defeated Zhou Qingchen, who was also a martial artist, and he could only parry but had no power to fight back.
Zhou Qingchen, the first one to stand up and call the little deer a divine horse, shouted between blocking and parrying.
"You are so rude in the court, you should take His Majesty seriously!"
Not only did the continuous shouting fail to provoke Ying Chengjiao to stop, but it instead attracted more punches and kicks.
"The thief deserves to be beaten!"
"Kill him, kill him!"
"It's useless to read the books of sages! I'm here to help the left prime minister!"
“…”
Qin ministers pounced on him one after another, and Zhou Qingchen was drowned in the crowd in an instant. His two arms could no longer withstand the punches and kicks from all directions, and the shouts stopped suddenly.
"presumptuous!"
Ying Chengjiao was furious and slammed the throne.
"Stop it, everyone!"
There were forty or fifty people, and not one of them stopped.
Their punches and kicks were extremely powerful, and each of them had red eyes and gritted teeth as they tried to kill.
They were going to beat Zhou Qingchen to death in front of Qin II!
This action tells Qin II how determined they are in opposing this!
You are the emperor, we can't beat you, but we can kill your running dogs!
There were forty or fifty of them, all important officials in the court. They just didn't believe that the boy sitting there would drown them all in Xianyang Prison just for beating a doctor to death.
At this time, whoever comes to stop them is their enemy and they will beat him to death.
The Qin State valued martial arts, and even most of its civil officials had good martial arts skills.
When forty or fifty people come together to beat up one person, even the most famous masters in the martial arts world cannot stop them. Almost every one of these forty or fifty people can be called a master in martial arts, even Zhou Qingchen who was beaten.
Martial arts masters are mostly rich people.
Suddenly, the state commander Lian Po, who was sitting in the front row of the court, moved.
This old general, who was feared by Bai Qi, the Marquis of Wu'an, and had not fought with him, rushed out like a tiger descending from the mountains!
Relying on his physique that could eat ten kilograms of meat in one meal, he forced his way through a path, and all the people on the path were slapped aside by him one after another.
The doctor-in-chief Zhang Han also took action.
A peerless master without armor is still a peerless master. He was no match for Ying Chengjiao with his bare hands, but he broke into the encirclement and threw out the important officials with his cleverness, which was much gentler than Lian Po.
Meng Yi also moved.
The second son of the Meng family, who had long been appointed as the Internal Secretary, had a determined look on his face and rushed towards the chaotic crowd with very regular military steps.
Obeying the king's orders is the way of life and the way of survival that Meng Ao, the founder of the Meng family, laid out for his descendants. It cannot be changed.
More and more people joined the battle, but not all of them came to stop it. Some even went up to kill the traitor Zhou Qingchen.
Fights were common in the Qin court. For the martial Qin people, if they couldn't win an argument with their mouths, they would use their hands to hit others. This was very Qin.
But no fight had ever been so brutal, involving the entire court, with almost all court officials joining the fight.
They split into two groups and fought fiercely until the armored and armed officials rushed in.
Zhou Qingchen was beaten to the point where he was only breathing his last breath. If it weren't for the protection of Lian Po, who was like an ancient ferocious beast, he would have been beaten into a pulp.
He is very unfortunate.
But compared with the seven court officials who lost their lives and whose doctors from the Imperial Medical Bureau shook their heads on the spot, indicating that they had no vital signs and were already dead, he was lucky.
Zhou Qingchen’s luck doesn’t end there.
The furious Qin II looked at Li Si, who had caused the fight, with murderous eyes and said coldly:
"Li Si, you were once a court judge, so you should be very familiar with the Qin Law. I want to ask you, what is the punishment for a fight in the court?"
Left Prime Minister Li Si had a bruise at the corner of his eye and his face was a little swollen.
He brushed off the footprints on his official uniform and laughed proudly.
Because of his swollen face, his vague words were like thunder, resounding in the Xianyang Palace.
"Before I started, I didn't even think about staying alive! A real man should die, so how can he serve a king without virtue? Stupid king! You can kill me, and I will follow the previous king! So what if I drown in the toilet? All that filth will become my glory in history!"
Li Si stood in the field with pride and integrity, like a giant.
"color!"
The Qin officials who beat Zhou Qingchen applauded and cheered, saying that this was the style of scholars. At a glance, there were more than sixty people.
But there were only four Qin officials who stood up and spoke passionately, saying that they would stand together with the Left Prime Minister.
They laughed as heroically as Li Si. They hoped that the tyrant would throw them and the Left Prime Minister into the same prison. After they drowned in the same bucket, they would rub shoulders with the Left Prime Minister's glory and leave their names in history.
"Okay, okay."
Ying Chengjiao smiled grimly and applauded.
"You want to die, but I won't let you die. I will let you off the hook.
"I will exile you to the desert, and ask you who don't know the sacred horse to go to Langjuxu Mountain to take a good look at the sacred horse!
"It has been two thousand years since King Yu founded the Yu Dynasty. There have been countless loyal ministers, but the only one who has survived is Bigan, who died by having his heart dug out.
"I want to see whether you loyal ministers who were not sentenced to death but only to imprisonment can be recorded by historians of all generations!
"Drag him away!"
The five men were full of anger, and while being escorted by the officials, they shouted loudly, "You are a tyrant, you are a tyrant! The foundation of the Qin State will be destroyed in your hands! Kill me, kill me!"
For those of them who are not dead, it is almost impossible for their names to be recorded in history, because countless loyal ministers who died did not even leave behind a surname or a name.
The ministers who stayed behind did not think that Qin II was magnanimous, but only thought that he was vicious.
The difference between exile to the desert and the death penalty is whether it will go down in history.
The desert was never Qin's land, and in the past it was a dead end. Those backward and ignorant Hu people were always rude to the Qin people.
"Li Si got into a fight in front of the palace, was sentenced to exile in Hanhai, stripped of his title, and removed from his position as left prime minister.
"The new left prime minister will be Zhou Qingchen, who has a keen eye for talent."
The unconscious Zhou Qingchen did not move.
If he had any consciousness, he would struggle to express his gratitude and shed tears of gratitude to these loyal ministers who almost beat him to death.
After a beating, he was promoted from a doctor to a prime minister, rising to the top in one step.
Ying Chengjiao yawned and pointed at the frightened deer that had just been caught in Luming Garden and was struggling in the hands of the soldiers.
"Take a closer look, everyone. Is this a horse or a deer?"
…
Calling a deer a horse...
The room was filled with the smell of medicine. Xunzi lay on the bed, listening quietly to his student Fuqiubo telling what happened in the court today.
"…More than 20 treacherous officials in the field said it was a horse, while most people remained silent, including my disciple. His Majesty had no choice but to admit that he had made a mistake and mistook a deer for a horse. After many requests from his entourage, His Majesty finally agreed to let the prince enter the capital and pay homage to the late king at the imperial mausoleum.
"Taking concubines, granting amnesty to the whole nation, and abolishing the slavery of concubines will be implemented after the Prime Minister drafts the regulations. Your Majesty's retreat is already a great progress. The ministers should not continue to force you..."
Cough cough cough~
Halfway through the conversation, Xunzi suddenly started coughing violently.
Fu Qiubo quickly stopped talking, helped his teacher up, and picked up the steaming medicine on the table.
"Teacher, take the medicine first. I will explain it to you after you finish it."
Xunzi took the medicine bowl, picked up the spoon, scooped a spoonful, blew on it twice, and put it into his mouth.
Ignoring the bitter taste in my mouth, I said:
"I'll do it myself. I'll eat and listen. You continue talking."
Fu Qiubo looked worried.
"The doctor said that you can't stress yourself with this illness, you should just rest and recuperate. Teacher, for the sake of us disciples, just listen to my advice and don't worry about it."
Xunzi suppressed the urge to cough in his throat and forced a smile.
"Fool, if I don't listen, how long can I live?
"Forget it, go and invite His Majesty to come and see me, an old man who is about to die."
Fuqiu Bo did not move.
Xunzi frowned and coughed violently.
“Go quickly!”
