In previous lives, when people talked about time travel, they often liked to choose the Song Dynasty, believing that it was the best period; If I can live and have a choice, I will choose the Renzong Dynasty, thinking that in this era, the politics are clear, the country is rich and strong, that is, there is no external trouble, and there is no internal strife. Indeed, he is known as one of the most benevolent emperors in Chinese history, and it is not for nothing that he is called Renzong.

Song Renzong ascended the throne at the age of thirteen and served as emperor for forty-two years, except for the twelve years when Empress Dowager Liu listened to the government in the early stage, and ruled alone for thirty years. In the past few decades, there have only been periodic wars with the Western Xia, and the rest of the days can be described as peaceful in the world, which is an unprecedented period of political, economic and cultural prosperity in the history of the Northern Song Dynasty. During this period, the gentlemen were full of dynasties, and there were many famous people. Lu Yijian, Wen Yanbo, Ouyang Xiu, Fan Zhongyan, Han Qi, Fu Bi, Du Yan, Bao Zheng and others were officials in the same dynasty, and Wang Anshi and Sima Guang also emerged. Moreover, because Song Renzong was tolerant and kind-hearted and liked to give advice, various ideas were extremely active during this period.

And Zhao Yu was also very puzzled in the Great Song Dynasty in Renzong affairs into the most glorious period, but then why there was a cliff-like fall, quickly from glory to decline, in addition to a few brief recoveries, until the death of the country has not been able to regain the former grandeur. But after he became the emperor, he not only personally participated in the government politics, but also through continuous learning and experience accumulation, he found that Renzong created a glorious history at the same time, but also left hidden dangers for the country.

Zhao Hao knows very well that where there are people, there will be left, center, and right, and there will be fights. After Taizu implemented the strategy of ruling the country with literature, a new class of scholars began to rise. These people are full of vigor and show new characteristics in terms of academic origin, article style, temperament and political style: because they are fledgling, they have fewer political scruples; And because he mostly served in the Taiwan Counsel and Pavilion, he always regarded himself as a clear stream and boasted of being an example of righteousness in the imperial court, forming the behavioral characteristics of daring to speak out and fighting for himself in case of trouble.

Because the new class has a strong humanistic and moral color in their political stance, advocates orthodoxy, advocates honor and honor, and dares to criticize reality, they not only point the spearhead directly at the old politicians who stick to the rules, but also have relative independence in the face of the will of the people. When internal and external troubles became more and more serious, the outstanding elements among them naturally became bold political reformers and became the mainstay of the political traditions and moral values of the scholars.

Starting with the activities of these people in various fields, the Song Dynasty's consistent policy of "right-wing" has since gained substantial significance: scholars, as a class with a full range of humanistic education and aspiring to a career in public affairs, are decisive figures in embodying cultural unity. They were both interpreters of dynastic legitimacy and practitioners who assisted the emperor in exercising ethical and ceremonial rule. In the Song Dynasty, which was surrounded by strong neighbors, the high development of scholar politics had more practical significance, which helped to enhance the orthodox national concept, cultural unity and cohesion. The Song Dynasty took advantage of the superior position of cultural traditions to compete with its powerful neighbors for a long time.

During the reign of Emperor Zhenzong of the Song Dynasty, this impulse was already manifested in the self-aggranditizing practice of sealing Zen, and later Renzong was transformed into a more enthusiastic revival of the classical tradition by scholars, which had a profound impact on the politics, ideology and culture of the Song Dynasty. In this context, scholars and scholars flaunted the restoration of the way of the ancestors and the politics of virtuous men in political practice, requiring officials to pay attention to the people's foundation and care about the people's suffering while being responsible for their superiors and the monarch, and even advocated that "the people are noble and the monarch is light", advocating morality in government and emphasizing the self-discipline of officials.

However, in the political arena, the new scholars also exposed their own insurmountable weaknesses, words are stronger than actions, goals are more important than means, and intentions are more important than reason; conceited and stubborn, doing things his own way; Corresponding with the same voice, seeking the same breath, it is easy to form a party, and as a result, it gives people a handle, and also attracts the suspicion of the master; At the beginning, the friends are responsible for themselves, and the end is the friends of the party to fight, right and wrong are confused, and there is no distinction between the enemy and me, although they want to eradicate the villain, but they are easy to be mistaken by the villain. Although they have always dreamed of taking the world as their own responsibility, they have also set up many obstacles in their careers, and in the end, it is difficult to make a difference.

In the minds of generations of people, the friends party is a group formed around selfish interests, and there is no morality to speak of. In order to fulfill their selfish desires, people in the same party unscrupulously frame people who are not members of the party, pollute the atmosphere of officialdom, and disrupt the ruling order. For rulers, the phenomenon of punisters is a hoodoo, and the rise of punists leads to the decline of the country. Since this concept has been deeply rooted in the hearts of the people, anyone who is accused of being a friend will not only mean the end of his political life, but will also bear a moral notoriety. Therefore, attacking political opponents in the name of friends has always been a terrible weapon in the struggle of the bureaucratic political clique.

In this relaxed atmosphere, these newly-educated people with active ideas have a new understanding of the "party" and try to break this shackle, but they don't know that they have opened Pandora's box and released the devil of party struggle. They put forward not only the villain has a party, but also the gentleman has the party, the most famous is Ouyang Xiu, he believes that the gentleman abides by morality, cherishes the honor, if the gentlemen are connected to support each other, in self-cultivation and governance can complement each other better.

And Zhao Yu found that Ouyang Xiu was not the only one who had this idea, such as Fan Zhongyan, Sima Guang, Su Shi, Qin Guan and other celebrities also had similar remarks, compared with the previous party struggles, the Song Dynasty was regarded as a friend of the party paid more attention to the moral struggle, and tried to reverse the traditional concept and justify the name of the party. It can be seen that the concept of a gentleman and a party has formed the mainstream in the scholar class, which has given new content and significance to the dispute between friends and parties in the reign of Renzong. It first manifested itself as a struggle between the new jinshi and the powerful ministers for their own interests and ambitions, and then evolved into a split and mutual attack within the new jinshi doctors.

Therefore, the efforts of Ouyang Xiu and others not only failed to correct the name of the party, but caused serious consequences. First of all, he not only considers himself a friend, but also regards the friend party as the patent of a "gentleman". This means that the talk of the Friends is not groundless, and it leads people to conclude that anyone who advocates reform and supports the New Deal is a Friends Party. In the end, he divided his ministers into gentlemen and villains, and those who agreed with his views were gentlemen and those who opposed them were villains, which undoubtedly openly created an atmosphere of division and tension.

These drawbacks have been fully demonstrated in the Qingli New Deal and Wang Anshi's reforms, and the opposing sides have not been able to transcend the limitations of traditional cognition, so these arguments have fallen back into the thinking trap of "the struggle between righteousness and benefit" and "the dispute between the gentleman and the villain", which not only does not help to achieve the goal of promoting the good and eliminating the bad and saving the crisis, but also makes the ruling group fall into endless grievances and grievances, splits and struggles, and also makes the moral code that clarified the officialdom and guided the behavior of officials with the words of the sages of courtesy, righteousness, honesty, loyalty, and filial piety in the past collapse......

"The so-called new party, often under the banner of upholding the new law, is doing things that exclude dissidents. The same was true within the old party, and the atmosphere in the court became worse and worse, and eventually degenerated into a struggle between the two parties and a struggle of pure interests, with the result that those traitors took advantage of the opportunity to dictatorship and disorderly administration, resulting in a situation in which corruption and corruption were rampant in the administration of officials that were difficult to stop. Wen Tianxiang listened to what the little emperor said, and thought it was authentic.

After the Xining reform, the dispute between the two parties became more and more intense, and the two parties were in power alternately, which made some important laws and regulations change at once, so that local officials and ordinary people were at a loss at all, and the authority of the imperial court was greatly damaged, so that when the Jin soldiers invaded on a large scale, the imperial edict actually lost its appeal, and it was unable to organize effective resistance, and finally suffered the shame of Jingkang. Your Majesty is not unreasonable to blame the century-old sluggishness of our dynasty on the dispute between friends. Xie Fangde also nodded, and had to admit that what His Majesty said was correct.

"Yes, Xining's reform was opposed by the old party, and Wang Jiefu drove all the old party out of the court, but he was still deposed by the privy envoy Wen Yanbo, the deputy prime minister Feng Jing, Sima Guang who retreated to Luoyang, and the old minister Fubi who was outside, plus the forces of his relatives attacked him. Although he briefly reverted, he was still blocked everywhere and struggled. As Emperor Shenzong traveled westward, Empress Dowager Gao lowered the curtain, Sima Guang and others immediately reinstated, and he immediately activated a group of conservative officials such as Lü Gongzhu, Liu Zhi, Fan Chunren, Lü Dafang, and Su Shi. And with the treacherous minister Cai Jing entering the court, there is no gentleman above the court! Xie Ao sighed and said.

"The dispute between the two parties has plunged the court into extreme chaos, and it is really sad that the traitor is in power, misleading the country and the people, and the gentleman withdrawing from the court. And Su and Wang were able to shake hands and make peace in their later years, and give wine to poetry, although they could look at each other's strengths more soberly and objectively because of their common frustration in their careers, so that they could tolerate each other's shortcomings, and then understand themselves. But the clear heart and insight can show the gentlemanly style of the two, but their tragedy is also sighing! Zhao Hao also felt sorry.

"Your Majesty thinks that the scourge of friends is endless, and it is still going on for a hundred years?" Wen Tianxiang asked.

"I have also thought bitterly, the party struggle is not except for the DPRK and the central government, there will never be peace, although the current dynasty has gone through the big waves and sands, and the remaining loyal and righteous people, but the haze of party struggle is still not dissipated. We still need to be vigilant, and I think there are three reasons for this. Zhao Yu thought about it.

"The sage has long said that a gentleman is not a party, and the fact that friends in the past generations are troubled is also familiar to you, but the reason why it has been so endless is nothing more than the word right. At the beginning of the founding of the country, Taizu's staff were all northerners, so they regarded themselves as masters and united to squeeze out the southerners, so that in the first 50 years of the founding of the country, no southerners were officials and prime ministers. Their narrow regional conception thus sways the political tendencies of officials and becomes a potential motive for partisan disputes. ”

"Then there is the prosperity of my dynasty and friends, although it begins with a gentleman, but in the end it is not better than a villain, harming himself and the people of the sect society, and it will not die without stopping. And those who claim to be gentlemen also use their techniques to prohibit each other. However, judging from the actual results, it has not opened up a completely new political situation, but has had an extremely bad impact on the atmosphere of the government and the opposition, seriously interfered with the normal operation of government affairs and the smooth progress of innovation, and then evolved into partisan strifes and vicious struggles. ”

In addition, the vicious fighting in officialdom made some scholars discouraged, conformist, cautious, and completely lost their former sharpness. Those who have not yet entered the official career also follow suit, follow suit, lose their enterprising spirit and sense of justice, study only to be officials, and to be officials only for profit. Driven by this consciousness, the books read by the literati and doctors are all the books of the house, and the techniques they learn are all the techniques of seeking officials. The so-called words of the sages and the government of the ancestors have also become a cover, and no one has devoted themselves to studying them, which has caused the malaise of the extremely prosperous literary style and the deterioration of morale in our dynasty. ”

"In addition...... In addition......"

"Your Majesty, what else is there?" The three of them listened to what the little emperor said, and they couldn't stop nodding yes, but they suddenly hesitated, and Wen Tianxiang hurriedly asked.

"......" Zhao Yu was silent for a moment, it was really hard to say. According to the etiquette system, he can't say anything about his father, and his ministers can't say anything about his king, and the cause of the disaster of his friends is precisely because of Renzong's excessive leniency, and to put it bluntly, it is because he is stupid and cowardly.

Due to the rules set by Taizu, the right to speak of the scholar class was supported and guaranteed by the family law, and the emperors of successive dynasties also attached great importance to the right of speech of the scholar. At the same time, the basic personality of the scholars was also respected quite politically, and at least to a certain extent, the political personality rights of the scholars and the emperor were equal.

Of course, history proves that the political personality of the emperor also needs to be maintained by the scholars' own sense of loyalty, so while the imperial power is weakened, the scholars have strengthened their own sense of loyalty. The rise in political status also led to a burst of self-confidence among the scholarly class, who were eager to realize their political ambitions, but who were in conflict with each other because of differences of opinion and approach.

The failure of Xining's reform, the royal family also has an inseparable responsibility. Shenzong was young and vigorous, and he wanted to do big things and support Wang Anshi's reforms, but when he encountered difficulties and resistance, he began to retreat and compromise, and his salary draw from the bottom of the kettle was equivalent to putting Wang Anshi and the new party directly on the fire, which was also equivalent to pushing the party struggle to a climax. When Shenzong died, the ten-year-old Zhezong succeeded to the throne, and the Empress Dowager Gao quickly drove all the new parties out of the imperial court. And she only did this because the change touched the interests of her relatives and her own likes and dislikes, which would make the last chance for Da Song Zhongxing to be lost.

Another thing that made Zhao Yu want to talk and stop was the right to speak on the choice of the 'heir' of the scholar class. Generally speaking, the right of a scholar to speak and do things includes many aspects such as politics, ideology, military, diplomacy, and employment, especially the heir. In fact, whether or not they could participate in such a major event as agreeing on an heir was also a fundamental sign of whether the Song Dynasty scholars had entered the core of their state power.

Historical experience has long proved that whoever controls the power of the heir will control the government, and the dictatorship of eunuchs or relatives in history can be realized precisely because of the power of the heir. Zhao Hao is now facing such a crisis, which can be said to be his last weakness...... 210