After returning to Suiyang, Dai Yan asked the housekeeper about the recent events. Pen, fun, pavilion www. biquge。 Info Then he got the shocking news: Wei Qi and Qi have prepared a king.

Dai Yan began to think about problems with the thinking of this era since he came to this era, and of course he knew how sensational the king of Wei and Qi would be. The king is the symbol of the Son of Heaven and the highest honorific title. Where did the jurisprudence of the princes ruling the country come from? As the son of heaven, the king of Zhou inherited the mandate of heaven and ruled the whole world. However, the king of Zhou was alone and lacked skills and could not manage such a large territory, so he divided the princes to manage it instead of him. This is where the legitimacy of the vassal states comes from. Whether it is the division of the three Jin families or the Tian family for Qi, the legitimacy of Han, Zhao, Wei, and Qi ultimately comes from heaven and from the division of the Son of Heaven. No matter how downtrodden Zhou Tianzi is, as long as the princes still recognize him as the Son of Heaven, this king still has appeal.

For example, today's big powers, Qi and Wei, call each other kings, this is actually beginning to change the legitimacy of the entire vassal states under heaven. The legitimacy between nations no longer comes from Heaven, from the Son of Heaven, but from the recognition of other nations.

Of course, these changes will not affect the hearts of the people of various countries for the time being, and for a country like the Song State, which is particularly strong in terms of public power and divine power, the current impact is even smaller. Dai Yan considered more deeply the actual influence of the two kings of Wei and Qi on the Song State.

The foreign policy of the Song State has always been simple: non-alignment, three kingdoms. Since the collapse of the Jin Kingdom, the war between the world has become more and more intense. The Song State felt that its geographical location was sensitive, and the three surrounding powers, Wei, Qi, and Chu, were all eyeing each other, so it had always pursued a policy of non-alignment and isolation, and did not offend any country; At the same time, for the sake of the Song State's own security, the Song State paid tribute to the three countries of Wei, Qi and Chu at the same time, which is the Three Kingdoms.

The tributary in the pre-Qin period was definitely not like the tributary trade pursued by the Celestial Empire like the Ming and Qing dynasties in the later generations. At this time, the tributary had a strong utilitarian motive and a need for profit. When Zichan was in charge of Zheng State, he strongly opposed the "Suo Gong" of Zheng State by the overlord Jin State at that time, and wrote a letter to the then Jin State ruling to request a reduction in Zheng State's tribute. When the six secretaries of the Jin State fought against each other, the diplomatic power over the small countries was also an important power for them to compete with each other. In fact, the Chinese have never been stupid, from the pre-Qin to the Tang Dynasty, tribute is definitely not a loss-making business.

The first reversal of the tributary trade was in the Northern Song Dynasty. After the Northern Song Dynasty signed the Tanyuan Alliance with Liao, they had to offer New Year's coins to Liao. For the alliance under the city of Tanyuan, it is simply the greatest humiliation to the emperor. In the Han and Tang dynasties, the Xiongnu and the Turks also humiliated the Central Plains Dynasty, so the emperor forbeared, and the people worked together to accumulate strength, and finally counterattacked to destroy the Xiongnu and Turks to wash away the shame. The Northern Song Dynasty was a strange dynasty, militarily weak, but it was too powerful economically and culturally, and the literati controlled the whole country, as well as the whole of East Asia. For the literati, it doesn't matter if the emperor is humiliated or not, as long as it does not harm our interests. If the emperor feels humiliated, then we will help you blow the wind, don't you feel humiliated? They didn't think about how to take revenge on the Liao State and recover Yanyun, they renamed the New Year's coins as New Year's Gifts, and regarded this humiliating behavior as a kind of tribute - anyway, it was all an exchange of gifts. It is nothing more than that you give us a horse, and we give you back these barbarian silk and silver 300,000 horses. And what does the loss of the country have to do with them? Later the same was true for Western Xia. And in their opinion, this is definitely not humiliation for them, on the contrary, they have maintained peace with only such a small amount of money, which is merit, where is this humiliation?

Later, when the Ming and Qing dynasties were established, they followed the tributary trade of the Song Dynasty and began to pursue a tributary policy of "thick and thin". Although the tributary trade of the Song Dynasty was indeed at a loss, the literati used it as a whitewash. However, the merchants of the Song Dynasty made a profit from the trade of Liao and Western Xia, and in general, the Song Dynasty's foreign trade suffered from the loss of the country, and the merchants made a windfall. The tributary trade of the Ming and Qing dynasties was purely the emperor spending money to buy vanity, and neither the state nor the people received any benefits from this trade, which was a pure loss-making transaction. At its worst, tributary power with China was a vital power. In order to compete for tributary rights in Japan's Sengoku period, the daimyo even had a fierce fight in Ningbo.

At this time, the Song State pursued the policy of "three kingdoms", of course, it was not the tributary trade that was rushed to grab in later generations, which was really a last resort in the gap between the powerful countries. Moreover, a policy like this is a great loss and humiliation for the entire Song State. The annual cost of paying tribute to the three countries is almost equivalent to 30% of the fiscal tax of the entire Song State, and this cost is to be spread over the entire Song State. From the monarch to the princes and even the common people, no one is spared. The Song State was originally a noble princely power, but at this time, it had to remove the honorific title of "principality", and the monarch and the entire country were inferior to the three countries. The implementation of this kind of policy will damage the interests of the entire country, the dignity of the country will also be damaged, and fame and fortune will be damaged.

However, despite this humiliation, the Song State still has something to be proud of—that is, the Song State has always maintained its independence and has not become a vassal state. In today's world, there are not many large countries with a long history that can still maintain such a status. Just like the Wei State adjacent to the Song State, although it is also full of talents, but now it has completely become a vassal of the Wei State. Among the countries surrounding the Song State, both the Lu State and the Zou State have all become vassals of the Qi State. The internal and foreign affairs of these countries have all been controlled by the big powers, and their final fate is just like that of the Xue State, just when the time is ripe, the monarch of the great power will issue an edict, and the whole country will cease to exist.

On the second day, Dai Yan and the ministers attended the court meeting together. Song Junzixi is a middle-aged man in his thirties, with a square face and a very dignified appearance. Among all the important ministers of the Song State present, there were three people who Dai Yan valued the most.

One of them is the head of the Le family, Le Cheng, an old man in his fifties. He is the head of the Dai family Le, the great Sicheng of the Song Kingdom, and the minister of the Song Kingdom. The Le family and the Huang clan where Ziyan is located are both descendants of Song Daigong, and they are also a branch of the Dai family. The Le family has been in charge of the state affairs of the Song State many times and has great influence in the Song State. Le Cheng can be said to be the most powerful person in the entire Song State except for the monarch.

The other is Xiang She, the head of the Xiang family. Xiang is the descendant of the son of Song Huan Gong, Zi Di was called Xiang Father by the Song people, and his descendants took Xiang as their surname. The Xiang clan was also one of the strong ministers of the Song State, and the Huan clan represented by the Hua clan and the Xiang clan more than two hundred years ago was extremely strong, and the Song clan had almost no foothold for other clans except for the Dai Huan clan. In the later Huaxiang Rebellion, Hua's power was greatly weakened, and the Huan clan declined. However, after the Huaxiang Rebellion, the Dai people also saw clearly the true strength of the Song State - those declining princes who were loyal to the monarch. Although the power of these declining clans is scattered all over the place, their combined power exceeds that of the authoritarian Dai and Huan clans. As a result, the Dai clan also recognized the reality and did not dare to go too far, so they erected the remnants of the Xiang clan as a banner as a proof that the Dai clan united the princes of the Song Kingdom. The head of the Xiang family, Xiang sacrificed himself to serve as the great Sima of the Song State, and was in charge of the military power, but behind him there were large and small Song families, and their strength should not be underestimated.

The last person to catch Dai Yan's attention was Hua Rong. This person was born in the Chu State, after Hua Yuan, a powerful minister of the Song State who was exiled to the Chu State after the Huaxiang Rebellion. This person is in his fifties, and he is the mastermind of Song Junzixi, and Dai's whole plan to take Song is from him. He is currently serving as the secretary of the Song State and is in charge of the judiciary. However, the people of Suiyang know that most of the major policies of the Song Kingdom are actually written by this person.

Song Junzi looked at all the important ministers of the Song State in the palace, and basically all the powerful figures in the Song Kingdom had arrived. He said lightly: "Summoning everyone back to the capital today, there is really a major matter that needs to be discussed with you. You should know that Wei Qi and Qi have decided to be kings. And the official location has been determined, just north of my Song Kingdom, Xue Kingdom, of course, it has now become the Xue Yi of Qi Kingdom. What do you think about this? ”

Xiao Yi's doctor Shi Wan first stood up and said: "King Wei and Qi Xiang, the upper is not allowed to be the Son of Heaven, and the lower is not allowed to be allowed in the countries, and it is against the hearts of the people in the world. ”

Dai Yan looked at this Shi Wan like a fool, is this talking nonsense? However, what surprised him was still to come, since this Shi Wan exited, Doctor Peng Cheng and Doctor Tao Yi all spoke, and their meanings were similar to Shi Wan's views, all of which thought that the affairs of King Xiang could not be done, and Song Guo did not need to worry. Dai Yan didn't know where these people came from with such optimistic ideas?

Song Junzi was happy to see this scene, shook his head imperceptibly, and then asked Sima Xiangshe: "I don't know what Sima thinks about this?" ”

Xiang She had been silent for a long time, but when he saw the monarch suddenly asking, he immediately stood up and said: "King Wei and Qi, this is a major matter between Wei and Qi; Ming is the prime minister, but in fact, the two countries divide the sphere of influence. The doctors of all the towns think that the matter of the king is not successful, and the king does not need to worry about it, which is extremely absurd. If Wei and Qi make an alliance and divide the sphere of influence, the fate of our Song State will be at the mercy of other countries. The reason why our Song State did not form an alliance and went to the Three Kingdoms was to protect our Song State from becoming a vassal of other countries like Wei, Zou, and Lu. Now is the time for the life and death of my Song State, and His Majesty suggests that my Song State should immediately reform the military system and strengthen my Song Army, otherwise my Song State will wait to be destroyed by the Qi State. ”