Life is a difficult practice.

At the beginning of Song Yongping's character, he was born in a family of eunuchs, and his father Song Mao once became a governor in the Jinghan Dynasty, and his family business was prosperous. Song Yongping, who ranked fourth in the Song clan, was bright since he was a child, and had the reputation of a prodigy when he was a child, and his father and everyone in the clan also had great expectations for him.

Growing up in such an atmosphere, shouldering the greatest expectations, learning from the best teachers, Song Yongping has also worked extremely hard since he was a child, and his article was praised as a talent at the age of fourteen or fifteen. However, the family believes in Lao Tzu and the study of the mean, and often says that the truth of knowing the male and guarding the female, knowing the honor and the humiliation, and only when he is seventeen or eighteen years old and has a stable heart will he try the imperial examination.

Eighteen-year-old Xiucai, nineteen-year-old to Beijing to take the entrance examination, for this amazing Song family Shilang, if there is no accident on the side, his official road, at least in the first half, will be smooth sailing, and then the achievements will be higher than his father, and even become the pillar of the entire Song family in the future.

But there are always surprises.

Before Song Mao in Zhizhou, the Song family was a scholarly family, and there were several minor officials, but in the officialdom, the roots were not deep. Small families must be motivated, and many relationships must be maintained and united. Jiangning merchant Jia Su's family is Song Mao's cousin-in-law, with the protection of the Song family to do silk business, in Song Mao's career, also took out a lot of property to support, the relationship between the two has always been good.

Song Mao's cousin is married to Su Zhongkan in the second room of the Su family, and the relationship with the big house is not close, but the Song family doesn't care about these things. In-law is a threshold that connects the two families, but what really supports this family relationship is the benefits that are conveyed to each other later, in this interest chain, the Su family has always been the Song family. No matter who the next generation of the Su family is in charge of, the Song family's knot will never change.

And Song Mao, who is a scholarly family, actually has a lot of cleanliness in his heart when facing this merchant family, if Su Zhongkan can take over the entire Su family later, it will be a good thing, even if it doesn't work, for Song Mao, he will never interfere too much. At that time, this was the situation between the two families, and because of Song Mao's high status, Su Yu's attitude towards the Song family was closer, and to a certain extent, it narrowed the distance between the two families.

The appearance of the son-in-law in the Su family's big house was the initial variable in this family, and the first time he saw Ning Yi in Jiang Ning, who should have no status, Song Mao noticed the existence of the other party. It's just that neither Song Mao at that time, nor Song Yongping later, or everyone who knew him, never thought that that variable would later swell into a hurricane across the sky, crushing everyone's lives, and no one could avoid the huge impact.

The first time Song Yongping saw Ning Yi was when he entered Beijing at the age of nineteen to take the exam, and he easily won the title of Xiucai, and then he was in the middle of the move. At this time, this talented man, although he was rich, had already been favored by Qin Xiang and joined the Prime Minister's Mansion as a staff member.

As the saying goes, there are seven officials in front of the prime minister, for Song Yongping, who came up on the orthodox path, facing this brother-in-law, he still has disapproving emotions in his heart, but the staff is also a staff member all his life, but he is an official with a promising future. With such a cognition, he also maintained a considerable demeanor and politeness towards this sister and brother-in-law at that time.

Subsequently, because of the relationship between the prime minister, he was quickly filled in the real vacancy, which was the first step in his career. Song Yongping was conscientious during the county order period, building commerce, repairing water conservancy, encouraging farming, and even in the background of the Jurchens going south, he actively relocated the residents of the county, fortified the walls and cleared the wilderness, and in the later chaos, even took advantage of the local terrain to lead the army to repel a small group of Jurchens. After the end of the first battle of Bianliang, he was greatly praised in the preliminary reward for meritorious deeds.

However, at that time, this brother-in-law had already launched the Wu Dynasty army, defeated the entire resentful army head-on, and even forced back the first southern expedition of the entire Jin Kingdom.

Song Yongping, who knew the inside story at the time, had a drastic change in his opinion of this brother-in-law. Of course, such a mood did not last long, and then the Right Prime Minister's Mansion lost power, everything took a turn for the worse, Song Yongping was anxious, but later, he was still frightened by the sudden news in the capital. Ning Yi killed the king and left, and the thieves and armies chased all the way, and they were even defeated and fled. After that, the world was turned upside down, and the situation in the whole world became incomprehensible, and Song Yongping, together with his father Song Mao, and even the career of the entire Song family, came to an abrupt end.

In the following ten years, the entire Song family experienced bumps again and again. These bumps can no longer be connected with the major events that affect the whole world, but being in them is enough to witness all kinds of hot and cold worlds. It wasn't until the sixth year of Jianshuo that a princess named Cheng Zhouhai came to find him, and after some tests, Song Yongping, who made a living by opening a private school to teach, made up for the duties of the county order.

At this time, Song Yongping knew that although Ning Yi had killed the monarch and rebelled, after that, many people involved in it were more or less protected. At that time, the guests of the Qin Mansion had their own places, and some people were even leaned on by His Royal Highness the Crown Prince and His Royal Highness the Princess as the humerus, although the Song family was implicated in the Su family and was once dismissed, but after that, there was no excessive rectification, otherwise where would anyone stay in the entire Song family?

Only then did Song Yongping understand that although the rebellious person had done heinous things, no one in the upper echelons of the entire world could escape his influence. Even though everyone in the world wanted to get rid of that demon and get rid of it quickly, they had to value his every move, so that the people who had worked with him in the first place were reactivated. On the contrary, Song Yongping was looked down on a lot because of his kinship, which led to his family's decline for several years.

He was known to be sharp when he was young, but in his early twenties, he was beaten to the ground when he encountered the impact of the great crime of killing the monarch, and after a few years of experience, Song Yongping had a better understanding of human nature, but he also wore off all the edge. After the resurrection, he didn't dare to use the relationship too much, and in the past few years, he has been trembling and acting as a county magistrate. At the age of thirty, Song Yongping's temperament has been extremely calm, for the things under his rule, no matter how big or small, he will do everything personally, and within a few years the county town has become a paradise for living and working in peace and contentment, but in such a special political environment, doing things step by step has also made him not too bright "achievements", and everyone in Beijing seems to have forgotten him. It wasn't until this winter that Cheng Zhouhai suddenly came to him, but it was for this great change in the southwest.

Song Yongping naturally knew about the actions of the Southwest Black Flag Army.

The princess's mansion came to him in the hope that he would go to the southwest and be a lobbyist in front of Ning Yi.

Since the Huaxia Army issued a declaration of war to announce to the world, and then all the way to break the defense of the Chengdu Plain, no one can stop it. In front of the Wu Dynasty, it has always been an embarrassing situation.

On the one hand, the Wu Dynasty could not go all out to conquer the southwest, on the other hand, the Wu Dynasty was absolutely unwilling to lose the Chengdu Plain, and in this situation, it was impossible to seek peace and negotiate with the Huaxia Army. Once the Huaxia army and the Wu Dynasty reach "reciprocity" to a certain extent, if the revenge of killing the monarch is forcibly whitewashed, the Wu Dynasty will also lose the legitimacy of the Taoist system to a certain extent.

We can't fight, we can't talk about it, and we still hope that the interests of the southwest can be preserved, and what we are facing in front of the Wu Dynasty is such an uncomfortable status situation. Invite Song Yongping out, playing the family card is a ridiculous choice, but it is obvious that no matter which way it goes, the court has to go.

There was a small episode during this period. Cheng Zhouhai was arrogant, facing the officials below, usually with a cold face and extremely stern people, he came to Song Yongping, originally talked about the idea of the princess's mansion, and was about to leave. Who knew that after a few glances in the small county town, he stayed for two days, and when he was about to leave, he went to Song Yongping to apologize, and his face became gentle.

"I originally thought that Lord Song had been in office for three years, and his achievements were not obvious, but he was a mediocre person who was a vegetarian in the corpse position, but after looking at it in the past two days, I realized that Lord Song was a great talent for governing the environment and reassuring the people. At this point, Cheng felt ashamed and came to say sorry to Lord Song. ”

Song Yongping's demeanor was calm and humble, but there was a sour feeling in his heart, the Wu Dynasty became Nanwu, the people of the Central Plains flowed into the south of the Yangtze River, and the economy of various places was advancing by leaps and bounds. Song Yongping was in a place of suspicion, and he only dared to write one point for his three-point score, but after all, he only knew that he was thirty years old, and he still had ambitions in his mind.

Cheng Zhouhai chatted with him for most of the day, and he was no longer vague about many things in Beijing and the world, but described them in detail one by one, and the two of them consulted together. Song Yongping had already taken over the task of rushing to the southwest, and then he traveled all the way to Chengdu in the starry night, and quickly rushed to Chengdu, he knew the difficulties of this journey, but as long as he could see Ning Yi's side and snatch something from the cracks, even if he died because of it, he would not hesitate.

The situation in the southwest is tense, and the court is not completely without action, in addition to the surplus troop mobilization in the south, many forces and Confucians are also loud in denunciation of the Black Flag, and some places have also made it clear that they will never do business with the Black Flag side, and when they arrive at the border of the Wu Dynasty around Chengdu, the large and small towns are all panicked, and many people flee in the snow when winter comes.

In the word of mouth, the reason why the Black Flag Army came out of the mountain was because the Zizhou government had captured the brother-in-law of Ning Motou, and the Black Flag Army came for revenge and vowed to level the Wu Dynasty. Now Zizhou is in danger, Chengdu has already become a dead city, there are people who have escaped to say it vividly, Chengdu is slaughtering and looting every day, the city is burned, the previous pillar of smoke can be seen more than ten miles away, and the people who have not fled are probably dead in the city.

Song Yongping is no longer stunned, looking at the scale of this remarks and the caliber of propaganda, he knows that someone must be manipulating behind it, whether it is at the bottom or at the top, these remarks can always put some pressure on the Huaxia Army. Although the Confucian people also have people who are good at incitement, over the years, Ning Yi who has been able to guide the trend through propaganda in this way is Ning Yi who was better at it more than ten years ago. The people who want to come to the court have also been learning that person's methods and styles over the years.

He went all the way to the border of Chengdu, and after reporting his life and intention to the Chinese soldiers guarding him, he did not suffer too much trouble. All the way into Chengdu City, only to find that the atmosphere here and the other end of the Wu Dynasty are completely two worlds. Although you can see many soldiers of the Chinese Army outside, the order of the city has gradually stabilized.

The "offensive and defensive wars" and "massacres" that were rumored to be extremely fierce by the outside world could not be traced much at this time, and the government tried the backlog of cases in the city every day, killing several corrupt officials and bullies in the city who had never fled, and it seems that it also aroused the applause of the residents of the city. Some Chinese soldiers who violated military discipline were even dealt with and publicized, and outside the yamen, there were wooden mailboxes and reception points where they could sue soldiers who violated discipline. Commerce and trade in the city have not resumed prosperity for the time being, but above the market, you can already see the circulation of goods, at least related to the people's livelihood, rice, grain, oil and salt, and even the prices have not fluctuated too much.

Such an army and a city after the war, Song Yongping had never heard of it before.

He recalled his impression of that "brother-in-law" - the contact and correspondence between the two sides was too little after all - in the time when he was affected as an official, and even when he was a county magistrate in the past few years, he felt more hatred and disapproval for this rebellious person, of course, hatred was less, because it was meaningless. The other party has eaten five tripods in life, and can cook five tripods in death, Song Yongping is still sensible, knows the gap between the two sides, and is too lazy to follow the rotten Confucianism and bark.

However, if you think about it carefully at this time, this brother-in-law's thoughts are different from others, but he always has his reasons. The development of Zhu Ji, the later disaster relief, his tenacity against the Jurchens and his determination to kill the monarch have never been different from others. On the battlefield, now artillery has been developed, this is the head of his lead, in addition to many things due to the Gewu, but the output and process of paper, compared with ten years ago, has increased several times or even more than ten times, that Li Pin made "newsprint" in the capital, and now in various cities have begun to appear others to follow suit.

Song Yongping ruled the county seat, using the dignified Confucian law, although the economy must have development, but what is more concerned is the harmony of the atmosphere in the city, the clarity of the case, the education of the people, so that the widows and widows are lonely, and the children have the same body to learn. He is talented and intelligent, and he has worked hard, and he has gone through the bumps in officialdom and the polishing of the world, so he has his own mature system, and the harmony of this system is based on the teachings of Confucianism. But he buried himself in that small place, for the changes in the outside world, finally saw a little less, although some things can be heard, it is better to see with his own eyes, at this time to see the situation in Chengdu, only to gradually chew out a lot of new, unseen feelings.

This does not feel like the Confucian rule of grace and power, when it is gracious, it makes people warm, and when it is powerful, it is cold that sweeps away everything. Chengdu feels more clear and relatively cold. The army attacked the city, but Ning Yi strictly forbade them to disturb the people, and in many armies, this would even break the morale of the entire team.

The legal system is also completely cut off from the military, and the steps of adjudicating cases are more rigid than when they were county magistrates, and they are more strict in the measurement of judging cases. For example, when Song Yongping was the county magistrate, the judgment of the case was more important to the education of the people, and some cases that seemed morally bad, Song Yongping was more inclined to impose severe punishments, and if he could be tolerant, Song Yongping was also willing to go and make peace with the mud.

On the Chengdu side, the verdict of the case naturally has a human factor, but it has been greatly reduced, which may depend on the way in which the "legal officer" decides the case, often not by the chief official, but by three or five officials to state, discuss, vote, and later, more to seek its precision, and not completely inclined to the effect of education.

…… This is to disrupt the order of reason...... I want the world to be in chaos......

While thinking about it, Song Yongping's mind flashed the concept that Cheng Zhouhai had told him—it is said that this is what Ning Yi had said to Li Pin and Zuo Duanyou—and he was shocked for a while.

In any case, after all, he looked and thought about it all the way, and after all, it was used to organize the words when he met Ning Yi. If you want to persuade the other party, you must first find the topic that the other party agrees with, and the common ground between the two parties, so as to prove your own point of view. When he found out that Ning Yi's views were completely deviant, Song Yongping became confused about his statement. The world of rebuke the "truth" can never be reached? Rebuke that the world is cold and impersonal? Or is it that everyone thinks that the whole world will eventually fall apart?

If it is so simple that the other party can suddenly come to his senses, I am afraid that Zuo Duanyou, Li Pin, Cheng Zhouhai and others have already persuaded Ning Yi to repent.

Words that can be falsified, and traces that have been carried out throughout the army and even in the system of political power are true in any case. And if Ning Yi really opposes the law of reason, how much weight can he have as a so-called "relative"? It's not a pity to die by yourself, but if you meet and be killed, it's really a little ridiculous.

He was bewildered by this thought for two days, and then someone came to pick him up and left the city. The carriage galloped through the oppressive sky of the Chengdu Plain, and Song Yongping finally settled down. He closed his eyes and thought back on his life in the past 30 years, when he was a high-spirited teenager, he thought that his career would be smooth sailing, the sudden, head-on blows and bumps, the feelings in the later struggles and losses, and the state of mind when he was an official in the past few years.

After all, the high-spirited is not the real life, the so-called life is a mixture of ups and downs in a magnificent wave.

In any case, it is useless to think about it, the person who dies for his confidant, and he puts this life on his own, if he can take something from the cracks, it is good, even if he really dies, it is not a pity, in short, it is also to justify his life. He made the decision, and that evening the carriage arrived at a small camp by the bend.

After more than ten years, he saw Ning Yi again. The other party was dressed in a casual green robe, as if he suddenly saw him when he was walking, and walked towards him with a smile, and his eyes were ......

Song Yongping suddenly remembered. More than ten years ago, this "brother-in-law's" eyes were as calm and gentle as in front of him, but he was too young at the time and didn't quite understand the aura hidden in people's eyes, otherwise he would have a completely different view of this brother-in-law at that time.

"Little four, it's been a long time."

"Song Yongping, Tan Lingzhi County, pay a visit to Mr. Ning." Song Yongping showed a smile and arched his hand. He is also the age of Erli, he has been an official for several years, and has his own demeanor and majesty, Ning Yi tilted his head and looked at it, and waved his right hand.

"Okay, I know, I won't go back." He smiled, "Follow me." ”

Song Yongping followed, Ning Yi didn't walk fast in front, and when Song Yongping walked up, when he spoke, he was straight to the point and had a casual attitude.

"During this time, many people over there came over, criticizing and interceding in private, and you are the only one I have seen so far. I know what you're here for, by the way, who's on top of you? ”

“…… Release, into the sea. ”

"That's the Princess's Mansion...... It's not easy for them, they can't fight on the battlefield, they can only think of all kinds of ways in private, and they can be considered to have made some progress......" Ning Yi said, and then reached out and patted Song Yongping's shoulder, "However, I'm still very happy that you can come over." After all these years of tossing and turning, and there are fewer relatives, Tan'er must be very happy to see you. They have their own affairs, and I have also informed them, try to come as soon as possible, and you can reminisce about the old feelings. I also want to hear about your situation over the years, and Uncle Song Mao, I don't know how he is, is he okay? ”