Chapter 331 The So-called Clear Stream
Han Zhang left the hall, came to Hu Zhongyan, and said, "Minister Hu, please stand up first. I have something to tell you."
"If you want to be a lobbyist, then don't say anything." Hu Zhongyan shook his head and said sarcastically, "The court is full of random thoughts now. Your Majesty doesn't listen to the court officials and even arrests the scholars who petitioned. But you don't advise Your Majesty. With such behavior, are you worthy of the trust of the emperor?"
Han Zhang frowned and said, "I don't want to bother with whether I am worthy of the trust of the Emperor. I don't mean to persuade you, but His Majesty wants me to convey a few words to you. If you are willing to listen, follow me. If you are not willing to listen, forget it."
After Han Zhang finished speaking, he turned around and left without caring what Hu Zhongyan thought.
Hu Zhongyan hesitated for a while, and seeing that Han Zhang had already walked far away, he quickly got up and chased after him.
"Master!"
Hu Zhongyan caught up with Han Zhang and said, "Sir, just speak frankly if you have anything to say."
Han Zhang repeated what Zhao Xing had said before and said, "Based on my understanding of your majesty, your majesty has reached the limit of his patience. Since your majesty has said that he will not watch the drama, Minister Hu should just quit while he is ahead."
"Quit while you're ahead?" Hu Zhongyan's face turned pale and he said, "Your Excellency, are you saying that I have selfish motives? Everything I do is for the Song Dynasty. Can Your Majesty really kill me?"
Han Zhang's mouth curled up slightly when he heard this, and he said sarcastically: "Minister Hu, I can guess what you did. Although I have no evidence, do you think His Majesty has it? Emperor Taizu said that officials who speak out should not be killed. If you do this, His Majesty really can't kill you. But if His Majesty has evidence of your illegality, he won't have so many concerns. That's all I have to say, you should think about it carefully!"
After saying that, regardless of what Hu Zhongyan thought, Han Zhang left directly.
Hu Zhongyan's face was gloomy.
Some of the officials kneeling outside the Longtu Pavilion at this time felt, like Han Zhang, that Zhao Xing had gone too far in arresting those scholars and taking away their fame.
Another group of people, like Hu Zhongyan, wanted to force Zhao Xing to compromise.
As Han Zhang said, the confidence they had in doing so came from Emperor Taizu's statement that officials who spoke out would not be killed.
Although Zhao Xing denied that Emperor Taizu had said that scholars and officials would not be killed, he could not deny this point.
Because the former was misinterpreted by officials, but the latter was indeed said by Emperor Taizu.
What they did was "speaking out", and no matter how they made trouble, Zhao Xing could not kill them unless he went against the words of his ancestors.
But there are exceptions to everything. Zhao Xing could not do anything to them for forcing the emperor to abdicate, but he could deal with them under other names.
"Impossible! If the government had evidence, they would have taken action against me long ago." Hu Zhongyan muttered to himself.
It was indeed he who arranged for someone to kill Peng Qingzhong, and he knew that Zhao Xing could guess it.
But he did it very cleanly and Zhao Xing couldn't find any evidence at all.
As for what he had done in the past, if Zhao Xing had evidence, why didn't he take action against him?
Although Hu Zhongyan comforted himself in this way, there was always a trace of uneasiness in his heart.
When Hu Zhongyan returned to the outside of Longtu Pavilion, he found that most of the officials who had been kneeling before had dispersed, leaving only about thirty people.
All the officials who had a good relationship with him left.
Most of the remaining thirty-odd people are censors and officials of the Court of Censors.
This group of people are also the "clean stream" in the court.
These people neither form cliques nor engage in corruption and bribery; they only follow the moral standards in their own hearts.
"Colleagues, where are the others?" Hu Zhongyan asked.
An imperial censor said: "Minister Hu, just now..."
The official recounted what had happened.
When Zhao Xing learned that Han Zhang had not spoken his words in public, he asked Sanshui to speak again, and at the same time told everyone about his "reward" for them. After hearing this, many officials were afraid.
When Zhao Xu attacked Peng Qingzhong and others before, they speculated that Zhao Xing might have evidence of some people's crimes.
Some of them had something to hide, while others were afraid because Zhao Xing rewarded them with the families of several convicted officials.
It just so happened that Zhao Xing also said that he would release those scholars, so he took the opportunity to go down the hill and leave.
Han Zhang left in the direction of Zhizheng Hall, which was opposite to the direction the other officials left, so Hu Zhongyan did not meet him.
Hu Zhongyan's face turned pale after hearing this. Now he was alone and helpless, what should he do?
…………
Inside Longtu Pavilion
When Zhao Xing learned that most of the officials had already dispersed and only a few dozen clean officials were left, he felt very troubled.
The so-called clean officials are not necessarily good officials.
In Zhao Xing's view, these people are more like "diehards".
This kind of person has high moral pursuits and strictly abides by etiquette.
In their eyes, morality and etiquette are everything, and violating morality and etiquette is wrong no matter what the reason.
This kind of people are even more difficult to deal with than corrupt officials.
Standing on the wall, no desire is just.
As long as there is desire, there will always be weaknesses.
But these people are not like that. They are not greedy for money or power, and they are not even afraid of death.
It's not that they are completely without flaws, these people love fame more than anything else.
This is also the reason why Zhao Xing feels a headache.
He could scare off other officials, but not these people.
They even hoped that Zhao Xing would execute them so that they could be known as loyal ministers and their names would go down in history.
Zhao Xing rubbed his head with a headache and said, "Call them in!"
"Yes!" Sanshui responded and walked out.
After a while, a group of officials filed in and walked into the hall.
"I will pay my respects to Your Majesty!"
"Stand up!" Zhao Xing waved his hand, looked at everyone, and said, "Other officials have left, why are you staying outside the palace?"
"His Majesty!"
Imperial Censor Liu Zhengqing bowed and said, "The scholars sitting quietly at the execution ground and the gate of the Gong are inappropriate. We only need to disperse them. How can we easily order people to arrest them? The Book of Rites says: No punishment shall be imposed on officials. It means that those scholars are not yet scholar-officials, but we should still show the most basic respect to scholars."
"Ha~"
Zhao Xing smiled and said, "Since Censor Liu mentioned the Book of Rites, then tell me why the common people are not given etiquette and the officials are not punished."
"Your Majesty's question is explained in The Analects of Confucius. The general idea is that when scholars and officials make mistakes, they should be given basic courtesy and maintain their dignity. However, common people are busy making a living and toiling. They do not have the time and energy to learn etiquette, so we cannot have too high expectations of them in terms of etiquette," said Liu Zhengqing.
"Imperial Censor Liu is very knowledgeable, and what he said is correct. But in my opinion, the so-called "no punishment for officials" has another meaning. The officials are well-read and know etiquette, so when they make mistakes, there is no need for the court to punish them, they will punish themselves. Not punishing officials does not mean that there will be no punishment, but that they will reflect on themselves and punish themselves, and there is no need for the court to punish them. Do you agree with this, Imperial Censor Liu?" Zhao Xing said.
(End of this chapter)