Just at the station outside the Fucheng Gate, Wu Youxing and his party were sent to the special train to the southbound Daimyo's Mansion, and Zhu Youzhen, who climbed up to the city gate tower at this time, obviously did not look very good.

On the one hand, it is almost ten days into June, but on the distance from Beijing to Nanjing, there is still not a drop of rain, obviously Henan, Anhui and other places This year's summer harvest is definitely over. At this time, there was another plague in Hebei County, which was so close to the capital, which made Zhu Youzhen feel even more nervous.

Hebei has been able to maintain social stability in the past few years due to successive droughts, and has also solved the problem of sheltering some of the victims from other provinces. It is precisely because of the huge production capacity of this new industrial belt that the people of Gyeonggi and Hebei are not worried about food shortage, and they have also taken advantage of the situation to absorb a large number of disaster victims as labor for these new workshops.

Because the Beijing-Tianjin-Tangzhou region has mature sea and railway transportation, it can transfer a large amount of grain from Korea, Japan, Ryukyu, Jeju Island, Taiwan and other places, coupled with the continuous development of whaling and offshore fishing in Shandong and Tianjin, so that Hebei and Shandong are basically not short of food.

This does not include the fact that after the large amount of soybeans imported from the Shenyang area is extracted, the leftover soybean cake can not only be used to feed pigs, chickens and ducks, but also can be used to fill people's stomachs in times of emergency.

However, once a large number of people gathered due to the development of industry and ports encountered a temporary and incurable plague such as the plague, it would almost be able to destroy the construction of the Beijing-Tianjin-Tang Industrial Belt for more than ten years.

Therefore, compared with the officials in the court and the people in Hebei, Zhu Youzhen was actually much more anxious about the plague in Daimyofu and other places than he seemed on the surface, but he knew that he really couldn't show panic, otherwise the officials and the people in Hebei would become even more panicked. Once the people in and around the epidemic area run around, things will become even more out of control.

Therefore, when Zhang Pu was taken up to the city wall of Fucheng Gate and saw the emperor on the first floor of the city gate tower, he saw a young man in civilian clothes leaning on a cannon, frowning and looking at the scene outside the cannon window. The sunlight from outside shone obliquely through the window, enveloping the young man's body parts from the nose down in golden sunlight, as if it were a statue made of gold, and this strange sight was deeply engraved in his heart, and he never forgot this scene for a long time.

Hearing the footsteps behind him, Zhu Youzhen, who was in a state of distraction, quickly woke up. He straightened up, turned to look behind him, and saw a middle-aged man with a sparse goatee saluting him. After exchanging glances with Lu Qi and confirming that the person in front of him was Zhang Pu, the former leader of the Restoration Society, Zhu Youzhen waved his hand casually and said, "Okay, let's be polite." There's a lot going on in me, so if there's anything you want to say, it's better to make a long story short. ”

Although Zhang Pu has been famous for the emperor in front of him for a long time, and he knows that the other party always does things unexpectedly, he still didn't think about the first meeting between the two, Chongzhen behaved so directly, so that this meeting went to the direction he was most unwilling to see, which made some of the words he had originally prepared suffocated for a while.

At this moment, Zhang Pu's mind was spinning unusually fast, and he knew that if he couldn't attract the emperor's attention at the beginning of the conversation, then the meeting he had painstakingly planned would be a waste.

Only more than ten seconds later, Zhang Pu said solemnly: "Although the minister has been wandering overseas over the years, he has always paid attention to the changes in the country. If it weren't for Your Majesty's dedication to governing this country, then my Emperor's reputation overseas would not be as great as it is today, and we and other people who wandered overseas would not be able to enjoy the afterglow of the great Ming's prestige overseas..."

Zhang Pu said as he secretly looked at Chongzhen's expression on the other side, seeing that the other party's face had eased slightly, quite smug, and then he breathed a sigh of relief and continued: "... Second, as a scholar, the minister is deeply favored by His Majesty, but if he has such a little foolish opinion, he does not dare not repay His Majesty, thinking that the talented people of the world throw stones to ask for directions, so he dares to ask His Majesty to listen. ”

Zhu Youzhen looked at Zhang Pu, smiled lightly and said, "Let's say, since I summoned you to meet, it is natural that I want to hear what you say, just speak freely, I will not blame you for this." ”

After listening to Chongzhen's answer, Zhang Pu adjusted the rhythm of his breathing slightly, and then said smoothly and loudly: "Back to Your Majesty, the minister thinks that the people in power in the court are too pragmatic and fail to inherit the teachings of the sages to unite people's hearts, so that the hearts of the world's corporal people are chaotic, so the court is attacked by the gentry every time, and the policies implemented by the court are either difficult to implement locally, or have been changed beyond recognition.

If this continues, the gap between the court and the localities, between the north and the south, between the officials and the people, will become bigger and bigger, and in the end, it will even be necessary to use force to quell the struggle between the two sides. Such an ending is not a good thing for the people, the court and the country.

Therefore, I ask Your Majesty to reiterate the precepts of the saints, one is to respect the king, the second is to unify the world, and the third is to unify the world..."

Zhu Youzhen, who was originally a little impatient, suddenly became cautious, he raised his hand to interrupt Zhang Pu's words and said, "Mr. Zhang, can you explain first, what is the meaning of respecting the king?" ”

Zhang Pu's body, which had been tense, finally relaxed at this moment, and he said without hesitation: "Your Majesty once said to the students at Yenching University that the so-called Huaxia not only refers to China, as long as you are willing to accept the etiquette, living habits and values of my Chinese civilization, then you can be a member of Huaxia.

Therefore, Mongolia, Korea, Japan, Vietnam and other small princely states at home and abroad who are willing to worship the Three Emperors and Five Emperors and their ancestors can be regarded as a part of China.

However, my Chinese is traced back to my China, and the so-called Chinese, the etiquette of the Xia, Shang and Zhou dynasties, and the system of the Qin and Han dynasties, our emperor is today's China, so the length of China is also my emperor Ming.

Those who respect the king, that is, all the large and small states in China should be subject to the control of our emperor Ming, and the outside should be conquered by the people, and the internal war should not be subordinate. The imperial court launched this series of reform and new policies precisely to correct the division of Huayi in the world, fight against foreign Yiyi for Zhuxia, and protect China. If anyone obstructs the great cause of the king because of a little selfishness, he has betrayed the righteousness of the Spring and Autumn Period written by the ancestors, and he is a rebel and a thief today..."

Zhang Pu just lightly clicked, and Zhu Youzhen understood what the other party wanted to do. In the past ten years, although he has reluctantly linked reform with the ideal of Datong world, the reform policies promoted by the imperial court are really contrary to the way of the master, and even Xinxue has begun to reject the science created by Zhu Xi, a sage.

On the one hand, they realized that the current reform was indeed beneficial to the Ming Dynasty, but on the other hand, they felt that the direction of the reform was completely incompatible with the truth of the Four Books and the Five Classics. This makes many people begin to doubt whether the Ming Dynasty will be able to lead to the world of Datong if they follow this path of reform.

When reform penetrates from the surface to the internal structure of the whole society, the discussion of reform in the whole society becomes increasingly intense. After all, the Ming Dynasty at this time was not the end of the Qing Dynasty with changes unseen in 3,000 years, and they could not see how powerful the Western powers created by the Industrial Revolution were. On the contrary, the Ming Dynasty is now the largest power in Asia.

And the only Qing State that has the ability to threaten the national security of the Ming Dynasty is still burying its head in learning everything about the Ming Dynasty. Since Da Ming is strong enough today, what reason do Da Ming's scholars have to abandon everything they are familiar with in the past and embrace a new era that has not yet arisen.

It can be said that the social change promoted by Chongzhen was congenitally deficient from the beginning, not only because the people of the Ming Dynasty were not ready, but also because the elites of the Ming Dynasty failed to complete the final leap in thought. The reason why Chongzhen was able to persist in the reform until now was because there were too many natural disasters at the end of the Ming Dynasty, which made it difficult for the bureaucracy who was familiar with the old era to resist with the old methods, and finally had to give in to the emperor who was determined to carry out the reform.

Originally, Zhu Youzhen had to build a school with his head covered, wait for the number of intellectual elites in the new era to overshadow the number of conservative old intellectual elites, or wait for those old intellectual elites to die, in order to regain the power of ideological discourse and win the final victory.

But now, Zhang Pu has finally connected the Datong world suspended in mid-air to the ground with the two steps of respecting the king and unifying the world. Therefore, the reformers can also win over the power of some scholars in advance ideologically, which is of course an excellent thing.

Thinking of this, Zhu Youzhen's gaze towards Zhang Pu became much softer. Yes, the man in front of him may be a political opportunist, otherwise he would not have come to offer such a theory to him. However, at least the other party is still an ideal speculator, and Zhu Youzhen does not mind accepting Zhang Pu's surrender to him.

"Ahem, ahem." Zhu Youzhen coughed and interrupted Zhang Pu's explanation, and then said calmly: "There is really enough dust in this place, Mr. Tianru, let's find a quiet place to sit down and talk slowly." Actually, I don't have anything important today. ”

Zhu Youzhen immediately turned his head and glanced at Lu Qi, and the other party immediately understood what the emperor meant, and immediately said loudly: "The minister knows that there is a quiet teahouse nearby, why don't you arrange for someone to rent a courtyard and let Your Majesty and Mr. Zhang go to rest?" ”

Zhu Youzhen nodded, "It's okay, but don't be too loud, try to be quiet." After instructing Lu Qi, he looked at Zhang Pu again and smiled and said, "Mr. Tianru, let's go down together." ”

Zhang Pu bowed and replied calmly: "Please also ask Your Majesty to go first, and the minister is willing to attach Jiwei." 166 Reading Network