Although Zhao Yu was constantly annoyed by his indecision in his heart and wanted to exonerate the queen, he also knew that the cost of deposing the queen was too high. This is not only because it costs a huge amount of money to re-establish a new establishment, but of course, in fact, with the current financial situation, he really does not have the ability and energy to start all over again; In addition, the political cost is not small, not to mention that it will damage his own prestige, and will make the ministers who advocate the appointment of Wu Xi as the queen panic, and they will definitely try their best to prevent it, thus triggering a new crisis. Because in the eyes of the scholar class, this matter is not just as simple as abolishing the queen, but to break the fence they set up for the emperor.

Although Zhao Yu has a lot of disgust with Confucian theories and does not like the rules and regulations in them, but in the past ten years, the ears of the masters, as well as the indoctrination of several months of the year, even if he instinctively resists, the brainwashing education has made him have to passively accept it. But he is not the real Zhao Yu after all, but he is a 'newcomer' with modern thinking and adult thinking, who can think independently, analyze and judge the advantages and disadvantages with his own thoughts, and make use of them.

With the understanding of this era, Zhao Hao also began to use what he learned to reinterpret the world, and seek flaws from it, and find a suitable path for his own development. He sometimes wondered if several of his masters and those famous Confucians who were preaching would be angry if they found themselves listening to them with this kind of thought, and this was also the reason why Zhao Hao suddenly changed his temper and began to take the initiative to learn scriptures and history, after all, knowing oneself and knowing one's opponent can win all battles.

Zhao Yu carefully studied the various constraints imposed on the monarchs of the Song Dynasty, and its completeness can be said to be unmatched by all dynasties, including those common to other dynasties and those that other dynasties did not have. In the more than 300 years of the Two Song Dynasty, there has never been a dictatorial monarch, but a large number of famous ministers have appeared, and a long list can be listed: Ding Wei, Wang Anshi, Cai Jing, Qin Hui, Han Yanxuan, Shi Miyuan, Jia Yidao, and so on.

It can be found that the Song Dynasty did not solve the problem of the dictatorship of the prime minister well, but the power of the monarch was effectively restricted. Through the combination of theory and practice, Zhao Yu found that the reason why his ancestors and ancestors could not 'act happily' like himself was not just afraid of the ancestral family law, but that the scholar class completed the encirclement of the emperor through a series of measures and means, and built an invisible fence between the use of power, making it difficult for the emperors of the Great Song Dynasty to arbitrarily determine the dynasty and reward the killings as they pleased.

First of all, the thing that restricts the imperial power is extremely ridiculous in the eyes of modern people, and that is the 'heaven' of nothingness. After Qin Shi Huang established the imperial system, the emperor was supreme, and in the Han Dynasty, Dong Zhongshu put forward the theory of "bending the people and extending the monarch, and bending the monarch and extending the sky", setting up a higher level of "Heavenly Dao" above the imperial power, so as to transform the absolute imperial power into a relative imperial power.

Zhao Yu really couldn't imagine how strong the ancients' sense of awe for "heaven" was, but in the various dynasties after the Qin Dynasty, the Mandate of Heaven and the Way of Heaven did restrict the monarchy in the world. Ancient monarchs believed in the eyes of heaven watching him and warned the unscrupulous rulers through disasters. Of course, the kings also succeeded in strengthening their rule and emphasizing their legitimacy in the name of the king's power and the Son of Heaven, and those who dared to challenge the authority of the 'heaven' under this psychology rarely came to a good end.

During the Xining period, in order to persuade Song Shenzong to suppress dissent and enforce the new law, Wang Anshi said that "the sky is not enough to fear, the ancestors are not enough to be afraid, and the words of people are not enough to be compassionate", which is actually to bewitch the emperor to get rid of the triple shackles of heaven, the laws of the ancestors and public opinion. This is a very dangerous approach, because the result is likely to lead to the creation of imperial absolutism. Therefore, when Prime Minister Fu Bi heard that Wang Anshi said to Shenzong, "Disasters and differences are days, and it is not about the gains and losses of personnel", he couldn't sit still, and said:

"If you are not afraid of the sky, what can you not do! This is an opportunity to control chaos and cannot be saved without quick help. As a result, everyone saw that Wang Anshi was demoted, and Shenzong temporarily suspended the new law, which was largely out of awe of the "Mandate of Heaven", and an innovation that was enough to change history was changed by the void of God. Obviously, the monarch respects heaven, so he does not dare to go his own way, so that the role of heaven as a mysterious force to control the power of the monarch in the world in the Song Dynasty is obviously not negligible.

However, at the moment, Zhao Yu is still a beneficiary of the Heavenly Dao, and he has successfully used this to consolidate his position and make people believe that he has the ability to communicate with the Heavens, and everything he does is guided by the Heavens. And he knows that things are often victorious and defeated, and if he is abolished, no matter what astronomical anomalies or catastrophes occur at the moment, he will blame himself for going against the sky, and thus suffer the curse of God.

Zhao Hao found that this was linked to the Taizu oath, and some people may think that even if there is really an "oath", it is of little significance, just a secret edict. But to be more precise, this is actually a covenant between the Song royal family and the heavens, and if the monarchs of the Zhao and Song dynasties break the "oath", "the heavens will die". In an era when heaven was revered by the earth, such an "oath" had a greater binding force than ordinary edicts, so that the scholars and doctors were able to obtain a gold medal for avoiding death, allowing them to 'arbitrarily' restrain the imperial power.

In addition, Zhao Yu felt that Taizu could be regarded as a Ming monarch, but he was simply a little too concerned about his children and grandchildren, and was always worried that they would be difficult to keep the country he had built, so he set up many rules for his descendants, and wanted to use the power of scholars to help him maintain the rule of the Zhao family. If the oath is only regarded as a special covenant law of the Song Dynasty, there are also a series of daily rules and procedures that the monarch is required to follow, which in the Song Dynasty is called "Order".

At the beginning of the founding of the country, Taizu realized that the rules were a "wonderful law" to prevent the reckless behavior of later monarchs, so he vigorously formulated many rules. Zhao Hao thought that from the source, these systems did play a role in preventing future generations from losing the river, but from another point of view, they also limited the channels for promising monarchs to enter, and put their children and grandchildren in their own set of traps, and it was difficult to do it if they wanted to. When he was impeached for renovating the house, those people were based on the rules formulated by Taizu, but fortunately, he coerced with force with one hand and messed with the other hand to survive this catastrophe, but what about later?

In addition, Zhao Kuangyin also did something that Zhao Yu thought was very inappropriate. He once answered with Zhao Pu and asked him, "What is the biggest thing in the world?" Zhao Pu said, "The truth is the greatest!" "Taizu thinks it's excellent. This may have been his idea for a while, but the scholars took advantage of the situation and thought that the founding emperor had agreed with the truth. This means that the emperor also admits that power is not the greatest, that imperial power is not the greatest, and that the emperor's words are not always correct or inviolable. It is precisely because the monarch and the ministers have reached the greatest 'consensus' that they do not think that the ministers should be absolutely subordinate to the king.

In Zhao Yu's view, Taizu has certainly spoken chaotically, but the scholars and doctors are not gentlemen, and they interpret this excessively to make it a rule that is beneficial to themselves, which is equivalent to playing scoundrels. Of course, he also complained in his heart about his ancestor, how could he not speak with his brain, and he didn't want to think about what the truth was, could it be something he could decide, and who should judge?

Anyone with a discerning eye can see that it is certainly not explained by the monarch himself. To be precise, the truth is not in the hands of any one person, but is contained in the human heart, the principles of heaven, and the traditions that have been passed down from generation to generation, and has been discovered and expounded by a group of well-educated scholars. Or manifest it through public discussion. And the public discussion is another pit in Zhao Hao's view. According to his understanding, the public discussion is equivalent to the parliamentary system of European and American countries, and everyone discusses something, which is a manifestation of democratic co-governance, but this has a different interpretation in the Great Song Dynasty.

In Zhu Xi's view, the monarch cannot be arbitrary, even if the judgment made by the monarch is correct and "reasonable", it is not for the body of governance, but for the basis of governance, it is to obey public opinion; Su Shi's explanation is: "This statement cannot be moved to his subordinates." If you want to be blessed and not move to your subordinates, then if you sacrifice yourself and follow the crowd, what the many are, I will be with it, and what the many are not, I will go. There is no injustice among the husbands, and the ruler of the people, the lord of the public discussion of the world, so will the blessing be safe? This explanation also has a bit of "democratic politics" implications.

What they mean is nothing more than that the monarch's monopoly on rewards and punishments and monopoly of authority is a monarchy. However, if the monarch is subordinate to public opinion, it is natural that there is no dictatorship of monarchy, and at the same time, it also avoids the authority being arbitrarily used by the ministers of the left and right. So Zhao Hao thinks that this kind of system is really good on the surface, but democracy without centralization is obviously a rope that restricts imperial power, otherwise what is said right and not followed?

In practice, the monarchs of the Song Dynasty may not be able to "sacrifice themselves and follow the crowd", but the emperors did respect the power of public opinion, and if the monarch acted illegally, he would immediately be besieged by public opinion. To put it simply, you are arguing with dozens of mouths, or even hundreds of mouths, not to mention wearing out the skin of your mouth, even if you wear out your tongue, you can't win! As a result, the truth was in the mouths of the scholars, and the emperor could only listen to the truths from their mouths.

To make matters worse, Zhao Yu found that the benevolent monarchs of the Song Dynasty were often the most law-abiding. If the Son of Heaven bends the law for personal gain and favors private ministers, he will be fiercely opposed by the scholar group, and they will come out to argue with the emperor: "The law of the world should be shared with the world, and there is a division to abide by it and die." Although the Son of Heaven is not allowed to be private, then the world is a big public. ”

It can be seen that, at least theoretically, the imperial power of the Song Dynasty was by no means supreme, above it, there was heaven, there was law, and there was reason, the imperial power was subject to all kinds of constraints, and it was also a dynasty that emphasized that the Son of Heaven must also obey the law. If the monarch wants to seize power, it will be regarded as overstepping his authority and encroaching on the legitimate power of the government, and thus will inevitably be protested by the ministers: "Now every hundred ministers have to do their duty, and your majesty can not invade it?" "If the Son of Heaven encroaches on the power of the prime minister, it will be fair!"

The authority of the "oath", "coherence" and "truth" were all established by the founding emperor Taizu, but Zhao Yu had already discovered that the so-called ancestral law was not necessarily the meaning of the previous emperor himself, but a system that included a series of customary laws, conventions, and classics, and was shaped by Confucian governance ideals, because it was preserved in the name of "ancestor", its authority was greater than the power of the current monarch, and when the current monarch made a behavior that did not conform to Confucian ideals, the scholar group would move out of the "ancestral law". So that the monarch had to make concessions.

If these rules and regulations were used by the scholar clique to hold the emperor hostage and force him to co-rule with them. Then there is also the ancient tradition of historians and the system of living notes, which is also a power that the monarch does not dare to fear and fear. You think that every word and deed of the emperor and everything he does will be recorded by the living note official, and the emperor can't control how the living note official remembers.

Therefore, if the monarch cares about the historical reputation behind him, he cannot but act without scruples. Of course, in order for the monarch to have a reverence for history, the independence of historians was very important, and maintaining the independence of historians in the Song Dynasty was also a consensus among scholars. And according to the tradition and practice of the historians of the Song Dynasty, the monarch and ministers need to be present on any occasion when they are deliberating.

This has a similar function to live television in modern politics, both of which are the embodiment of political transparency, except that one is made public in real time, and the other is left to history and posterity. However, this system does not have a great impact on Zhao Hao's current living note system, because the historian does not have the power to pre-govern, that is to say, as long as he doesn't care about the reputation of history at all, the historian has nothing to do with himself except for writing straightforwardly, which can only be regarded as a negative restraining force.

However, Zhao Yu has always been cautious, avoiding excessive remarks in the court, and important words are discussed in private, and often all idle people are turned away in the name of involving secrets. Besides, what can I do if I write it down, I am just a passerby of the Great Song Dynasty, I don't belong to this world at all, and becoming an emperor is just an accident, and I still care what future generations say!

Now let Zhao Hao know the current situation, if he insists on forcibly eradicating the Wu family and deposing the queen, he will definitely be counterattacked by the scholar group, which will make the already unstable court situation even more chaotic, and then there is a danger of losing the country. The Wu family also knew the embarrassing situation that Zhao Hao was facing, and calculated that he would compromise after giving in to his side, but he was so angry that he knew that he couldn't help but take a step back, but he still felt that he was too LO when he threw his anger on a woman......