When the Liao envoys arrived in Bianliang, they immediately severely criticized the Great Song for providing materials to the Western Xia despite the Liaoxia war. In this matter, from the perspective of strict Confucianism, the Great Song Dynasty may indeed be a bit of a loss. As a result, there was a voice among the people scolding the current prime minister and the prime minister for not listening to Li Buqi's advice, which is a normal thing.

However, in the eyes of most of the self-proclaimed orthodox scribes, it is a very shameful thing for the people to think that Li Buqi is completely correct and that the prime minister is completely wrong. This is using morality as a shield for their weakness. But when it comes to feelings, there's something to talk about.

Since he is untrustworthy to his brothers on the one hand, and untrustworthy to his nominal courtiers on the other, there is something to be done here. This is a problem that Confucianism cannot solve, and it is logical that some people will come out at this time to question whether Confucian dogma can be used to deal with external affairs.

Li Buqi anonymously wrote a 10,000-word article that pointed out that foreign affairs should be both beneficial and courteous, which was serialized in the newspaper of Qingyuan Academy. This led to a fierce pen battle in the newspapers.

The students of Qingyuan Academy, who come from remote areas, may have a poor theoretical level, but compared with the Central Plains Scholars, they are more concerned about the suffering of the people and pay attention to practical interests. In addition, the wealthy areas of Jiangsu and Zhejiang began to rise to pay attention to the "practical learning" of "entity utilization", and the research of Qingyuan Academy is just right for the appetite of practical learning. Some wealthy students in Jiangsu and Zhejiang went to school at their own expense and became an important force in the academy.

As a result, most of the public opinion in the newspapers favored the importance of emphasizing practical interests in diplomacy and criticized the weakness of the ruling party, which not only missed the opportunity to eliminate the annual currency in one fell swoop, but also provoked fire.

So the privy deputy Liang Shi broke into Pang Ji's official room in a rage that morning, and slapped a newspaper that had just been published yesterday on Pang Ji's desk: "Look at it! You and I are called stupid, soft bones! These scholars are talking nonsense, shouldn't the court be in charge! ”

Pang Ji saw that Liang Shi, who was a first-class Qi cultivation kung fu, turned purple with anger, and hurriedly glanced at the newspaper, making sure that he didn't miss anything yesterday to understand the reason for Liang Shi's annoyance, and asked with a helpless smile: "Expressing your own opinions, my Great Song Dynasty does not block the way, and the scholars talk about their opinions, how can this be managed?" ”

Liang Shi was so angry that he blew his beard: "The old man is not annoyed that they express their opinions, but that they only publish their way of controlling their words." In fact, I thought that there were more scholars who responded to Huairou in Western Xia, and they also wrote many articles, but Qingyuan Academy just didn't publish them. Occasionally, a few articles are published as their targets. You see that the only lonely people in this newspaper who support the safe policy are one article and another innocuous article by the old man, and the others are all critics of the old man, which makes people look at it as if the one who supports the cessation of the New Year's currency is the mainstream, and the old man is a lone husband and a thief. ”

Pang Ji has gone through the failure of the Qingli reform, but he can see it more clearly than Liang Shi, who did not participate in the political struggle. He smiled faintly: "The newspaper belongs to Qingyuan Academy, what article to use, what article not to use, naturally Qingyuan Academy has the final say." The so-called Tao is not the same, but Zhongxian rushed to send his own article, don't you know that it is for people to use it as a valve. ”

He can't say that when the Qingli reform was carried out, how did everyone pour dirty water on the reform cadres? It's just that in the past, the anti-change party completely occupied the advantage of public opinion in the officialdom, but now Qingyuan Academy is unbeatable in driving public opinion.

Liang Shi was so angry that he blew his beard again: "But can you let Qingyuan Academy incite the people?" You don't know, a few days ago, by chance, the old man actually heard the servants at home also talking about the old man. ”

Pang Ji was helpless. Now the commercial newspaper is marketing all over the country, especially the readers of the supplement, including the pawns of the three religions and nine streams, and the influence is too great. Now the only one that can compete slightly with the influence of the business newspaper is the imperial court's newspaper, but the influence of the imperial court newspaper is more limited to officialdom. An even worse problem is that so far, the distribution of Di Bao has mainly relied on manual copying and engraving printing, and the circulation and circulation speed are incomparable with that of Commercial Daily.

Thinking of this, Pang Ji couldn't help but smile bitterly. Originally, Qingyuan Academy was printed for a while, but in the imperial history that was inseparable from Li Buqi, it was said that the movable type printed Di newspaper was black, and the taste was not good, which lost the face of the imperial court. Under their righteous and strict insistence, the newspaper returned to its original way of publication. So, who can be blamed for this?

At present, it is impossible to mention that the newspaper should be re-printed with movable type, which involves a matter of face. The imperial history who put forward the opinion at the beginning is still squatting on the imperial history platform, Wen Yanbo is the decision-maker who makes the decision, who says that he will change it back now, that is not to save their face. A gentleman should not offend people in such a trivial matter.

Pang Ji motioned for Liang Shi to be calm and not impatient, and said without hurrying: "Zhongxian doesn't have to be anxious. The old man heard that Guozijian thought that Qingyuan Academy was spreading through the Business Newspaper was quite inadvertent, and in order to set the record straight, he was also preparing to set up a newspaper, and he had already begun to prepare. If you think about it, the business newspaper will no longer be beautiful. ”

Liang Shi hurriedly asked: "Is this serious?" The old man has to urge the country to be imprisoned, so that the old man doesn't even have a place to reason. ”

Pang Ji nodded affirmatively and said, "Naturally, it is serious." "This matter is secretly promoted by him, Wen Yanbo, and Song Zhen, can it be real.

Now Zhao Zhen is also a must-read newspaper every day, especially the supplement of the Business Daily, in which he is even more happy to see anecdotes, folk rumors, and new academic discoveries. Recently, however, he has paid more attention to the discussion on the relations between Song, Liao, and Xia, and asked Li Buqi to report to him immediately as long as he gets information about Liao.

On the second day of December, he called Li Buqi again to ask if there was any information about Liao. Li Buqi happened to receive information from the spies sent to Datong Mansion and Yizhou of the Liao State, and immediately reported: "Your Majesty, it has been ascertained that the Southern Route Army of the Liao State under the command of Xiao Hui is now stationed in Dongshengzhou and Datong Mansion, but one of them has been merged into the Middle Route Army under the personal command of the Liao Emperor. The Middle Route Army led by the Liao Emperor was concentrated in Yizhou and Zhuozhou, and the Liao Emperor's palace was placed in Youzhou. The Liao people in the land of Yanyun have been spread and assembled, and it is expected that the Liao people on the opposite side of Hebei will reach as many as 400,000 by the end of the month. ”

The figure of four hundred thousand frightened the emperor and swallowed his spit involuntarily. "Alas! Don't give up, you say that if you really fight, can you win? ”

Now the emperor no longer asks if he can not fight, but whether he can win the war and make progress. This is obviously not persuaded by Wen Yanbo and others. Recently, the Shang Pao put forward the viewpoint that "you can prepare for war without war, but you can't fight without being prepared" and "there is peace on the victorious side, and there will never be peace when you are defeated", and it seems that the emperor was influenced by the newspaper.

Li Buqi said: "Actually, Pang Shumi is talented. It's just that the minister feels that the Privy Council is not determined enough, blindly defensive, and gives up the initiative to the Liao, just afraid that if something happens, he will lose everything. ”

Zhao Zhen hurriedly asked, "What should I do?" By the way, you are a person who knows the army, why haven't you been seen to give any advice on the strategy of defending against the enemy? ”

Li Buqi said: "The minister's strategy is very different from that of the Privy Council, but I am afraid that no one will understand." The minister thought that if he completely followed the strategy of the Privy Council, a crushing victory was still possible, but if the minister's method was forcibly mixed in, it would definitely go wrong and cause a fiasco. So it's better to listen to the Privy Council. ”

"But what if the Privy Council fails?" The emperor's face was very unsightly.

Of course, Li Buqi could not let the emperor feel that he was an irresponsible person to the emperor, and he said angrily: "Please personally lead the Zhenwu Army and the police cavalry team to fight in Hebei. If there is a critical situation anywhere, the minister will not remedy it even if he fights with his life. ”

The emperor's eyes lit up! The civil official asked for an order to go into battle in person, he has been an emperor for so many years, and he has not seen it! Li doesn't give up, this is the first part! How could the emperor not dare to move at this time? He said, "Good, good." So I can rest assured. ”

After thinking about it, he asked again: "I remember that there are 2,000 police cavalry troops, how many soldiers are there in the Zhenwu Army?" ”

Li Buqi said: "There are 3,000 soldiers in the Zhenwu army who can fight. Ministers can recruit some more courage and utility. ”

The emperor said, "Five thousand is too little. I will give you another 10,000 people. ”

Li Buqi hurriedly shook his hand: "The minister has never commanded five thousand people at once, this is already a worry in my heart." No matter how many people there are, the minister may not be able to command it. Di Hanchen is a rare master of cavalry in our dynasty, so I ask His Majesty to grant him the right to autonomy and let him lead a cavalry of no less than 4,000 elite soldiers to be stationed in the area of Zhending Mansion to help. If there is an unforeseen situation in Hebei, there are two mobile forces of Youchen and Di Hanchen to remedy it, and it can be safe. ”

The emperor thought about it for a while, and seemed to have made up his mind to order the eunuch: "Xuandi Hanchen! ”