Wei Shuo and his party delayed in Zhuqi County for nearly five days, and did not set off again until five days later, this time their destination was Tan County, the seat of the East China Sea Kingdom.

Tancheng is a very ancient city, as early as the Shang Dynasty, here is the capital of the ancient Tan Kingdom, is the center of Dongyi culture and the source of the ancient Xu culture, now Tancheng is the capital of the East China Sea.

The East China Sea is the feudal kingdom of Sima Yue, the king of the East China Sea, who was once the most powerful in the world, and the reason why it is said to have been because since the previous year, Sima Yue, the king of the East China Sea who suffered by himself, has betrayed his relatives and left, and now he is trapped in Yecheng and cannot move.

And there is gossip that the imperial court has announced the crime of Sima Yue, the king of the East China Sea, to the world, and Emperor Huai of Jin issued an edict to take Gou Xi, the general of the expedition to the east, as the general, and asked all parties to crusade. Although there is no official news at the moment, there is obviously some rumors in the East China Sea Kingdom. And the closer you get to Tancheng, the stronger this feeling becomes!

Zhang Erlang looked at Xiao Suo's Tancheng, and said with some disapproval: "Brother Wei, the capital of the East China Sea Country is not very good, and I haven't wished the county a lively one yet." ”

"Erlang doesn't know, Tancheng is the foundation of the king of the East China Sea, as a number of princes and kings in the world, how can his capital not be prosperous? It's just that the king of the East China Sea has been unlucky recently, and since the masters are almost gone, these slaves who stayed in Tancheng certainly have no reason to enjoy themselves. ”

Wei Shuo mentioned that the King of the East China Sea was angry, or that he didn't have a good impression of the eight princes and kings who caused the collapse of the world. The Rebellion of the Eight Kings in the Western Jin Dynasty was completely a self-inflicted performance. These eight princes are more stupid than the other, one is more greedy than the other, if there is one of them, Zhu Di, the king of Yan, the country of the Western Jin Dynasty will not change color in a short time.

"Erlang, I heard that you got a lot of benefits from going back to Laoshan last time?"

Hearing Wei Shuo make fun of himself, Zhang Erlang couldn't help but smile and said, "Brother Wei! It's all the ghosts of those two grain merchants, they treat me as an uncle along the way, don't they just want me to say a good word in front of my eldest brother? But how could I break the rules of our Laoshan Mountain? ”

"Hahaha......" Thinking of Zhang Erlang's embarrassment along the way, Wei Shuo couldn't help but laugh. However, after laughing for a while, he deliberately pointed out: "Erlang, the main reason why those two grain merchants want to curry favor with you is because they want to get our green salt. I am very pleased that you can clearly see the other person's intentions and stick to your principles. ”

"The people of our Laoshan trading company are all from a bitter background, and they have never seen much of the world, and sometimes I am really afraid that everyone will not be able to control themselves in the face of temptation. So, I hope you can learn from this and stick to your principles in the face of the same temptation in the future. ”

Zhang Erlang nodded solemnly and said, "Don't worry, Brother Wei, I know what to do!" ”

"Brother Wei, are we going to sell salt in Tancheng this time?"

"No, we're going to go into the city quietly this time. Now that the situation in the East China Sea is somewhat unstable, we should not make any extraneous troubles. The most important thing is that Sima Yue, the king of the East China Sea, has a very close relationship with the Langya Wang family. If we sell salt here, if we are found out by the people of the Wang family in the city, won't we be asking for trouble? ”

Although Tancheng's consumption power is not much stronger than that of Zhuqi County, Wei Shuo does not have any plans to sell salt here. The most important reason is that there are many people from the Langya Wang family among Sima Yue's staff and henchmen, and Tancheng is the foundation of Sima Yue, and the eyes of the Wang family are definitely indispensable here.

In history, at the end of the Western Jin Dynasty and the beginning of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, there was a very important political pattern, that is, "the king and the horse, the world". It is not only the regional combination of the Langya King and the Langya Wang's family, but also its historical reasons. The historical origin of the combination of Wang and Ma can be traced back to the relationship between Sima Yue and Wang Yan in the later period of the Eight Kings Rebellion of the Western Jin Dynasty.

This should be the initial cooperation of "King and Horse, Share the World", Sima Yue himself has no talent, in order to control the court situation, he took the initiative to cooperate with Wang Yan, the head of the Langya Wang family, and opened the first cooperation between King and Ma.

The most important thing is that in this cooperation, for the sake of the family's future interests, Wang Yan suggested that Sima Yue, who held the power of the imperial court at that time, appoint Sima Rui, the king of Langya, to sit in Jianye to supervise Jiangzuo. It was under the operation of Sima Yue and Wang Yan that Sima Rui, the king of Langya, was able to gain a firm foothold in Jiangdong with the help of the Langya Wang, and formed a new political pattern of "king and horse, sharing the world" in Jianye.

The cooperation between Sima Yue and Wang Yan not only laid the basic political pattern in the early years of the Eastern Jin Dynasty, but also profoundly influenced the basic national policy of the Eastern Jin Dynasty in the future-advocating metaphysics.

According to historical evidence, Sima Yue recruited as many as 91 staff members, and except for 12 who did not succeed, a total of 79 people were appointed to the post. These people are distributed in nearly 50 counties in 15 prefectures, and the vast majority of them are scholars and low-class scholars, and there are almost no children from poor families.

And the vast majority of these scholars are actually metaphysical scholars, nearly half more than the scholars who practice orthodox Confucianism. It is precisely because Sima Yue's staff is the one with the largest scale, the most talents, and the highest degree of metaphysics that it has a profound and direct impact on the Eastern Jin Dynasty, which founded Jiangzuo in the future.

Wei Shuo and his party entered Tancheng in an extremely low-key manner, and after staying in the inn, under Wei Shuo's constraints, everyone rarely came out, even if they ate, they were directly sent to the room by the guys. Hardly attracting the attention of outsiders, the next day Wei Shuo and the others had dinner early in the morning, and they were ready to leave Tancheng for Pengchengguo.

When Wei Shuo and the others walked to the gate of the city, they were suddenly stopped by a rapid sound of horses' hooves. I saw a small group of cavalry rushing in from the west gate, and the leader was a dusty scribe, and this group of cavalry galloped all the way by, without looking at Wei Shuo and the others next to him.

"Humph! What a god! I know that I am powerful and majestic on the heads of the people, and I have the ability to fight with the Hu people in the north! Zhang Erlang couldn't get used to the arrogant appearance of the other party, and couldn't help but turn his head and complain.

"There is no need for Erlang to be angry with such a person, I once heard a poet sing like this:

Some are alive

He's dead;

Some people died

He's alive.

There are people

Riding on the heads of the common people: "Oh, how great I am! ”

There are people

He bent down and served as cattle and horses for the common people.

There are people

carve the name into the stone, want to be "immortal";

There are people

I would like to be weeds, waiting for the fire to burn in the ground.

There are people

If he lives, no one else can live;

There are people

He lives for the better life of the majority.

Riding on the heads of the common people

The common people threw him down;

for cattle and horses for the common people

The common people will always remember him!

The one who carved the name into stone

Names rot earlier than corpses;

As long as the spring breeze blows to the place

Everywhere there are green weeds.

He who lives others cannot live,

His fate can be seen;

He lives for the better of the majority,

The common people lifted him very high, very high. ’”

"Whoever rides on the head of the common people, the common people break him; Whoever makes cattle and horses for the common people, the common people will always remember him...... Brother Wei, what you said is so good, one day in the future, we will completely knock down those nobles and commoners who have acted on our heads. "Somehow, every time I talk to Wei Shuo, Zhang Erlang can always learn something new, no wonder even Mr. Zhu is amazed by Brother Wei.

Suddenly hearing Zhang Erlang's determination, Wei Shuo couldn't help but wipe the cold sweat on his forehead and said carefully: "Erlang, you can't be too radical in your thinking, although the gate lord clan is guilty, not everyone is guilty. Just like the Hanmen Shu clan, there are also good people and bad people. ”

"So what we have to do is to remove the coarse and retain the fine, remove the false and retain the true, eliminate the corrupt and degenerate side of the gate lord clan, and leave its positive factors."

"What else is there to be in the family?" Zhang Erlang didn't believe it.

"Of course, the family can stand for hundreds of years, and it has its own merits. We can't and won't completely wipe out the family, the only thing we can do is to improve it to suit our needs and become our arm. ”

"But with the pride of the family, are they willing to accept change?"

"Hehe, at a certain time, when the general trend of the world has reached that point, any person or thing that blocks the tide of history will be smashed by the torrent of history."