Chapter 27: 27. The Golden Age Where the Ruler is Precious and the People are Light

27. The Golden Age Where the Ruler is Precious and the People are Light

Ouyang Rong suddenly discovered one thing.

One thing... that he had been burying his head in hard work since arriving here and thus had ignored.

First of all, the current Great Zhou Dynasty was indeed a golden age that might be recorded in history books. The Luoyang and Chang'an in Guanzhong were indeed prosperous scenes with ten thousand nations coming to pay tribute. And the abundant martial virtue of the imperial border army made it hard for even the achievement of destroying a small country to be called a famous general. The influence of Qian culture, after merging the three religions of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Daoism, swept across the surrounding four barbarians.

Even if the Empress Wei, who was good at power struggles, couldn't be called a wise ruler, she could be called a strong ruler, and definitely wouldn't be a muddled emperor.

This young dynasty, which had been founded for barely eighty years and had changed Qian to Zhou, had to be admitted to be in a flourishing period where the national power couldn't be stopped from surging upward. The foundation was relatively solid, far from the end of the historical cycle.

Ouyang Rong was reborn from an era that could be considered a golden age into such a dynasty that could be considered a golden age.

But he ignored... this glorious golden age had nothing to do with the tens of thousands of disaster victims in Longcheng County at this moment, and nothing to do with the majority of the lower-class common people in the ten circuits of the world.

Most of the wealth of this golden age empire was concentrated in the hands of the royal Zhou court, the Guanzhong power nobles, the Five Surnames and Seven Clans, and the local wealthy landlords and gentry. At most, one could add the Guanzhong commoners who lived in the heart of the empire and were wealthy.

So, what does the golden age have to do with you?

It is most sorrowful to have the land strewn with corpses under a golden age. Even the historians are unwilling to record a stroke for you, fearing it will stain the "Rule of So-and-So" or "Golden Age of So-and-So." Even the readers of history in later generations are unwilling to look at you, fearing it will ruin their fantasies and longings for the great dynasty established by their ancestors.

And even if you try your best, you still can't overturn this golden age. It's still there, perfectly fine... Think about it, how desperate this is.

And even a "golden age" is like this. From now on, Ouyang Rong would never want to flip through any history books again.

But he was currently in a stroke of a certain history book that might exist in the future. It's just that he was a tiny Grade 7 magistrate, facing the corpses strewn across the land under the golden age that weren't being looked at squarely with wide eyes...

"What should I do, Ouyang Lianghan?"

Ouyang Rong flew to the clouds again, staring at the ancient pagoda standing before him and asking himself.

It's just that no one answered him.

After standing outside the pagoda for a long time, Ouyang Rong turned and left, returning to reality.

He actually hadn't entered the Merit Pagoda for many days. Since establishing the disaster relief camps and organizing labor as relief, there had indeed been crisp wooden fish sounds coming from his ears from time to time. He should have accumulated quite a lot of merit points, but Ouyang Rong hadn't entered the pagoda to look.

He had been waiting, waiting until the disaster relief and water control matters were mostly arranged, and then he would enter the pagoda to take a look. If he met the 10,000 merit points, he would go directly to the Pure Land Underground Palace to collect the blessings and leave. If he didn't meet it, he would just work as the Longcheng magistrate for a while longer. Anyway, the term was four years, so he would try to do as much as possible.

And even if he reached 10,000 merit points before the disaster relief and water control matters were completed, Ouyang Rong wouldn't be able to get past his own heart and run away halfway.

He didn't have the habit of running away halfway through something he was struggling with, unless it was an irresistible force. This was the case for the Merit Pagoda APP banning his account and returning to Donglin Temple, it was the case for insisting on returning to his "hometown" to take the postgraduate exam, and it was the case for the current disaster relief and water control.

So before finishing the work, why enter the pagoda?

"Absurd to this extent."

It was that garden with plum petals dancing again. Inside a quiet water pavilion, a beauty wearing a crown and carrying a sword arrived. Just after sitting down, she spat out these four words.

"Who provoked Xie Jie?"

Su Guoer lowered her head to stroke her cat.

She sat alone by the water in a dark purple narrow skirt. The lazy cat in her arms was quite strange, snow-white all over, with black spots on the corners of its mouth, shaped like a butterfly.

At this time, the cat was called a "Li Nu" in the Great Zhou Dynasty. They were few in number, and many came from foreign tributes, such as Persian cats. Court noblewomen and princesses raised them more often. The currently favored Princess Changle was a "cat slave," and it was rumored she had seven excellent cats, all with elegant names.

Thus, Li Nu gradually became popular among the upper-class ladies in Luoyang. However, in the south, there were very few. Xie Lingjiang hadn't seen many, only having seen one treasured by an older Sister Wang in Wu Yi Lane. This creature was indeed pleasant to look at, but she felt it was too delicate, and Xie Lingjiang didn't like anything raised delicately.

"Giant rats, all giant rats! They didn't even let go of the grain used to save lives in the Jiemin Granary... Absurd to this extent."

Su Guoer raised her eyes and saw that the Xie family girl was still gripping the sword hilt on her knees tightly after sitting down, her five fingers turning blue and clicking.

"Xie Jie is from a noble family of six generations, so naturally, she feels they are absurd."

Xie Lingjiang turned her body. "Don't you feel it's absurd?"

"Absurd, but not surprised."

Xie Lingjiang stared at her. "You are also not angry."

"What's the use of Guoer being angry? Everyone has their own fate."

"If... I gave you the power to dispose of it."

"Execute everyone from top to bottom."

Su Guoer lowered her head to stroke the cat. Xie Lingjiang turned her head, looked at the night scene outside the water pavilion, and said no more, her gaze somewhat dazed.

Outside the door, there was a small maidservant with a bun-like face waiting quietly. Seeing that her young lady and the Xie family girl were no longer arguing, she brought tea into the room and presented tea and snacks to Xie Lingjiang; she also held a book box and placed it beside her young lady.

Su Guoer called out "Caishou," and handed the Li Nu in her arms to her personal maidservant. This cat was named "Xian Die Nu" and was gifted to her by that distant aunt. Actually, it was a pair, but one had already broken its wing.

Contrary to Xie Lingjiang, Su Guoer liked things that were docile to her. The fiercer they were, the more she wanted to subdue them.

The small maidservant with the bun-like face named Caishou happily took the Xian Die Nu and ran to the side to stroke the cat for her young lady. And Xie Lingjiang only then discovered that this white cat with butterfly-like spots on its mouth had a lame foot.

However, her attention wasn't on such trivial matters at this moment.

"But... even if you execute everyone, it won't solve the problem of the disaster relief grain now. How will Ru Shixiong control the water later?"

Su Guoer, who was taking books from the small box, lowered her head and said, "Just follow the path of the previous magistrates."

"What path?"

She, with plum blossom makeup between her eyebrows, said indifferently: "Go ask your Ru Shixiong. He should know. Even if he doesn't know, there will be someone to tell him."

Xie Lingjiang frowned and looked at the young lady with plum blossom makeup who was flipping through a poetry collection again for a while.

This Su family younger sister was indeed very intelligent. It was said that her father and elder brother often came to ask her for questions and opinions, and many things in the Su mansion were decided by her casually in her boudoir.

But compared to the gentleness and humility of her father and elder brother, this Su family younger sister was too arrogant and indifferent to most things. Sometimes Xie Lingjiang was curious, were there any things or people in this world she cared about, besides her father and elder brother?

Xie Lingjiang didn't pursue the question, just took a deep breath and said:

"And what's even more absurd is that the imperial court's first thought isn't disaster relief, but stabilizing the local area and not allowing refugees to cause chaos! Not giving them food to eat, yet not allowing them to cause chaos. Forgive me, I really can't figure it out. In the eyes of those people, what exactly are the common people?"

"They are water." Su Guoer nodded, reciting fluently, "Taizong often said, the ruler is the boat, the people are the water. Water can carry the boat, but it can also overturn the boat."

"When Taizong said this, didn't he mean that the people are precious, the state is secondary, and the ruler is light? And do they have any fear of the people?"

"Yes. However, the saying that the people are precious and the ruler is light was said by your Confucian sages, Taizong didn't say it."

"What's the difference?"

"In the ears of you Confucian scholars, Taizong said the people are precious and the ruler is light. But in my... in the ears of the descendants of the Li clan, Taizong taught the art of the emperor. The ruler should think of danger. If the water is stable, the boat is stable. A piece of paper ordering you to stabilize the local area and let the people suffer a bit more is just one way to keep the water stable, just the worst one."

Xie Lingjiang turned her head and asked stubbornly: "Then in the end, is the people precious, or is the ruler precious?"

"If Xie Jie asks my father or elder brother, they will sincerely give you the answer you want to hear. But I am not them. What I say, Xie Jie won't like to hear."

"No, you speak, I listen."

"Alright then. Younger sister also thinks the people are precious, because all the people in the world added together are naturally more precious than one ruler, because this great water is enough to overturn the boat."

After Su Guoer nodded, she asked again:

"But what if it's only one-tenth of the people in the world? Only one percent? Only one ten-thousandth? Or even only... one person? Compared to the ruler, who is precious? If he is precious, then he is the ruler, and the ruler is the people. Then in the end, isn't the 'ruler' precious? And if you say they are equally precious, then can they still be called a ruler?

"Even you Confucian scholars admit there is a difference between ruler and subject, and everyone tacitly agrees there is a distinction between noble and lowly. Then is there a need to ask who is heavy and who is light?"

Xie Lingjiang asked coldly: "So, can a ruler be the heart of thousands of people with one heart?"

Su Guoer shook her head:

"Of course not. The last one who did this was the mad Sui Emperor who cast two tripods; the first one who did this was the First Emperor who sought the elixir of immortality a thousand years ago. Both lone men finally died under the tripod sword. So the Great Qian Dynasty was founded and no longer exhausted the people and money to cast tripod swords; so Taizong warned that water can carry the boat, but it can also overturn the boat, and one cannot be a lone man.

"But the problem now is, how much 'people water' that can overturn the 'ruler boat' counts as big? If it's just a small splash at the bow of the boat, is there a need to care? The ruler has a scale in his heart.

"If you compare all the common people in the world to a lake of water, then all the disaster victims in Longcheng County, Jiangzhou, added together don't even count as a splash. At most, it's just a small spoonful of water. The boat... doesn't care."

Xie Lingjiang was silent.

The room quieted down. Su Guoer was flipping through a poetry collection she often read, while the small maidservant with the bun-like face was secretly teasing the cat with puffed cheeks.

Until a woman suddenly stood up.

She stood in front of the young lady with cold plum blossom makeup and said word by word:

"The ruler doesn't care, but someone does."

Xie Lingjiang turned and left. ===== CHAPTER 28 =====