Chapter 59: Debate in the Court
The debate in the court has lasted for as long as an incense stick.
Ying Chengjiao was listening at first, but soon his thoughts were no longer on the court.
He fell into deep thought.
He has already achieved the first step of sparking debate among the ministers.
The second step is, how can we get the officials to support the county system?
On the surface, it seems that at this moment, he could just follow the original script and say that all the fiefs would be given to him first, and then he would divide them among his nephews after a few years when they grow up. He would let the officials choose the lesser of two evils and take the initiative to choose the county system.
After all, apart from the fact that the order of Li Si and himself's appearance was swapped, everything seemed to be the same.
It's possible, but not entirely possible.
Although this would make the ministers reluctantly accept the county system, it would not achieve the effect he wanted - harmony between the ruler and his ministers.
Because of preconceived ideas, a large number of officials believed that Li Si was Ying Zheng's alias.
In the West, this is called the primacy effect, which means that the first words heard or the first impression gained will occupy a dominant position in people's minds, making it difficult to accept different opinions in the future.
During the Three Kingdoms period, Pang Tong, a strategist as famous as Zhuge Liang, met with Sun Quan.
When Sun Quan saw Pang Tong, who had thick eyebrows, a raised nose, a dark face and short beard, and a strange appearance, he felt unhappy.
So he refused him entry with the excuse that "I will come back to you when I need you", and even Lu Su's repeated persuasion was of no avail.
Pang Tong went to seek refuge with Liu Bei again. Uncle Liu was displeased by Pang Tong's ugly appearance, so he sent him to Leiyang County, 130 miles northeast of here, to serve as the county magistrate.
Pang Tong failed in his two attempts to recommend himself.
The main reason was that he failed to leave a good first impression on Sun Quan and Liu Bei, so he was not reused and his talents could not be fully utilized.
At this moment, since Li Si jumped out first and had been identified by the ministers as Ying Zheng's alias, whether he jumped out or not would not let the ministers dispel their doubts.
Because the county system proposed by Li Si was obviously not in his own interest.
There are only two kinds of people who do things that are not in their own interests: one is a fool, and the other is a saint.
The ministers did not think that Li Si, who wrote the "Remonstrance Against Expelling Foreigners", pushed for the construction of Zhengguo Canal and came up with the county system, was a fool.
I also don't think that Li Si, who traveled through the Three Kingdoms period and was rumored to have broken into the prison at night and killed his senior brother Han Fei, could be a saint.
In this case, unless Ying Zheng did not choose the county system.
As long as Ying Zheng selected counties and abolished the feudal system, the ministers would think that Li Si was Ying Zheng's alias, and there was nothing that could be done about it.
This is the human heart and also human nature.
Is it possible to influence Ying Zheng to not choose the county system for the sake of his ministers' hearts?
Not to mention whether his hot-tempered brother Ying Zheng agrees or not, if he really does this, he will be guilty of this crime in his present life and for future generations.
Closer view.
Only by implementing the county system could the Qin State achieve complete and thorough unification and give the court absolute control over the local areas.
Look from a distance.
The county system effectively ensured the integrity of China's territory, suppressed ethnic divisions, and made all Chinese people have the concept of a great country and a unified country, so that China has been in a cycle of "long-term division will lead to unification, and long-term unification will lead to division".
Instead of being like the Frankish Kingdom established by Charlemagne in Europe , which split into France, Italy and Germany and never reunited.
Our land has experienced the separatist turmoil of "Three Kingdoms, the Jin Dynasty, the Southern and Northern Dynasties, and eighty-three emperors fighting together", as well as the bloody and tearful humiliation of "Five Barbarians Invasion of China, the Shame of Jingkang, and the Allied Forces Invasion of China".
But this will only be temporary, not forever.
After the turmoil of separatism, we will usher in the prosperous Tang Dynasty when "the palace gates of the Nine Heavens are opened, and people from all over the world dress in formal attire and pay homage to the emperor."
After the blood, tears and humiliation, we will usher in the "Order to Kill the Hu" issued by Wudao Heavenly King Ran Min, the Ming Dynasty where "the emperor guards the national gate and the king guards the country", and the earth-shaking mushroom egg in Lop Nur.
There are many reasons why China is the only one of the four ancient civilizations that has survived into the modern era, and why the Chinese nation has been able to prosper for so long .
The county system is undoubtedly an extremely important reason.
Having traveled through time from two thousand years later, I understand this principle very well.
The harmony between the ruler and his subjects was the icing on the cake based on the county system.
This point is still clear, and the county system and the harmony between the monarch and his subjects will not be put upside down.
But this is difficult to deal with, because the two are inherently contradictory, and you cannot have your cake and eat it too.
Ying Chengjiao sighed several times and wanted to kill Li Si with a knife.
While Ying Chengjiao was thinking hard, Li Si had already defeated seven Qin ministers in an argument.
When he was at the Jixia Academy, Li Si once debated alone with the entire hall and won applause from everyone in and outside the hall.
Now that he has arrived in Qin, his opponents have changed from students in the academy to the world's top elites.
Li Si, with a stern face, still had the same charm as before and won seven debates in a row.
But today, standing in opposition to the ministers, he is destined not to get unanimous applause.
Watching his men retreat one by one, Wang Wan's legs and feet felt sore and he could hardly sit still.
The First Emperor has been listening to this and has not yet come to a conclusion. Wang Wan is now certain that Li Si was not arranged by the First Emperor.
"If the Zhou dynasty's feudal system is not followed, and there are no royal family members guarding the borders , who will save the emperor if the Tian family replaces Qi and the three families divide Jin in Qin? Li Si! You were originally a minor official in Chu and a student in Jixia Academy. You have been in Qin for only a few years and have become the chief justice. His Majesty has treated you well. I really don't know why you would plant such a disaster for Qin!"
Although Wang Wan had been observing the First Emperor, he did not miss a single word that Li Si said.
He noticed that the county system described by Li Si seemed to have no countermeasures when the royal power was threatened by his subjects.
So he aimed at this point, and his words were extremely sharp and offensive from the start.
This image does not look like a prime minister who is responsible for protecting the basic base for the First Emperor, but rather like a general who is attacking cities and capturing strongholds.
Although the Qin minister who stood up first argued fiercely with Li Si, he was mostly talking about the advantages of the feudal system and the disadvantages of the county system. It was a normal argument.
But Wang Wan was different. Not only did he point out the drawbacks of the county system, he also accused Li Si of having bad intentions.
Tian family replaced Qi, also known as Tian Chen usurping Qi, refers to the event in the early Warring States Period when the descendants of Tian family with the surname Gui of Chen State replaced Lu family with the surname Jiang of Qi State and became the Marquis of Qi.
The Three Families Divide Jin refers to the event in the late Spring and Autumn Period when the state of Jin was divided among the nobles of Han, Zhao and Wei. These two examples are typical of ministers usurping the throne of the monarch.
Under the feudal system, if someone rebelled, the feudal princes were obliged to help the emperor quell the rebellion.
However, the county system seems to be relatively weak in this regard.
Wang Wan accused Li Si of knowing this but deliberately omitting this step because he did not want Qin to last long.
This was not over yet. Before Li Si could respond, the Left Prime Minister Wei Zhuang also stood up.
