Establishing a thousand-year family from the nobles of the Western Han Dynasty

Chapter 51: Legalists and Confucians

When Empress Dowager Dou Yifang passed away, Emperor Liu Che was extremely sad. He knelt beside her bed for a long time and waited until all the ministers came to greet him. He left only reluctantly after Xu Gong's persuasion.

He then ordered a grand funeral for Empress Dowager Dou and ordered the empress dowager's former confidants Xu Chang and Zhuang Qingzhai to handle the funeral. It was very clear what his plan was.

Without the empress dowager's restraint, Liu Che finally gained control of the real power. With Xu Gong's assistance, no one in the court dared to disobey him.

The Empress Dowager was officially buried, and the first morning court of the Emperor began. This time it was bound to be bloody and the entire pattern of the Han Dynasty would be changed!
Liu Che sat casually on the dragon throne, holding his chin with his hand and looking very interested. At this time, he was in power, in high spirits, and all his ambitions could be realized.

"Xu Chang, Zhuang Qingzhai, how did you two organize the funeral for my royal grandmother? It was a complete mess!" Liu Che was intimidating without being angry, his eyes were calm, but there was an extreme sense of oppression.

"I have failed in my duties, please punish me, Your Majesty!"

The two men quickly knelt on the ground and apologized. They knew that even if they worked themselves to death, they would not be able to satisfy Liu Che. This was clearly a deliberate attempt to make things difficult for them. But there was nothing they could do about it. They had to pay for their sins.

"Punish? I will definitely punish you, otherwise wouldn't it be unfilial?" Liu Che obviously wanted to take the opportunity to settle accounts, and said in a cold voice: "Come here, drag him out and execute him."

"Your Majesty, please forgive me! Your Majesty, please forgive me!"

Xu Gongze immediately tried to smooth things over: "Your Majesty, although these two people were not good at handling funerals, they were still conscientious in their duties. I think they should not be executed at will."

"Since the teacher has pleaded for mercy, you should just resign and return to your fiefdom." Seeing that his goal of establishing his authority was achieved, Liu Che decided to take advantage of the situation.

The two of them were relieved: "Thank you, Your Majesty."

After finishing the work, Liu Che stopped looking at them and said, "Do you have any candidates in mind for the vacant positions of Right Prime Minister and Imperial Censor?"

Xu Gong bowed and said, "Your Majesty, I recommend Weiwei Tian Fen to be the prime minister. He is well versed in Confucianism and is the Queen Mother's brother. Based on his qualifications and abilities, he should be the prime minister."

"Well, let's appoint Tian Fen as the right prime minister." Liu Che nodded. This was also the candidate he had in mind. After all, no one can avoid using external relatives.

"Thank you, Your Majesty!" Tian Fen stepped out excitedly.

"Then let Han Anguo, the Minister of Agriculture, take over as the Imperial Censor."

After resolving the final geographical issue of the new policy, Liu Che asked someone to take out the new policy charter that had been prepared earlier. He wanted to completely change the Han Dynasty and implement the local new policy throughout the country!

The students of the Fu'ang Academy, also known as the Imperial College, are crucial because they are talented people who are proficient in both. The previous experimental results in Hanzhong have proved the feasibility of this strategy.

"Take a look. This is the charter of the new policy. From now on, you will govern the country according to Confucianism. I will begin the assessment in half a year, and those who fail will be dismissed from their posts."

Liu Che's tone was very firm and unquestionable.

Some ministers who had not studied Confucianism and Legalism were a little reluctant, but they had no choice. His Majesty's attitude was obviously very firm, and with the support of Prime Minister Xu Gong, no one in the court could stop him.

Then he promoted Hanzhong County Magistrate Gongsun Hong to Changshan Prefecture Governor, Zhang Tang to Chengyang County Magistrate, and most of the other officials from the Imperial Academy were also promoted and given rewards.

For a time, the Imperial College became a place that countless students and scholars flocked to, because His Majesty would definitely use people from there when he implemented the new policy! In other words, it was easier to gain His Majesty's appreciation there.

With the support of the court, the size of the Imperial College increased several times. In the second year of Guangyuan, there were already thousands of students, and the previous batch of students had been put into use. Most of them were engaged in grassroots officials at the county level, which greatly alleviated the problem of insufficient officials in the Han Dynasty. At the same time, Liu Che re-appointed Zhou Yafu, who had fought in the frontiers and had made great achievements, as the Grand Commandant, and concurrently led the General of the Northern Expedition, opened a government, held the imperial seal, and supervised the military affairs of the frontier counties and prefectures. He did not return to the court for the time being to resist the invasion of the Xiongnu from the south.

Due to the increase in the number of students in the Imperial Academy, the number of doctors in charge of teaching is no longer enough. After all, most of them are still ministers in the court and have their own official duties. Therefore, the top priority is to seek out those true great scholars and sages, and it would be more appropriate for them to teach.

Therefore, Xu Zhou, who was the chief academic officer of the Imperial Academy, went to the Weiyang Palace in person to meet the emperor, hoping to gain more resources.

"Is there anything I can do, Grand Chamberlain Xu?" Liu Che was busy handling government affairs. Since the death of the Empress Dowager, he had become very busy after officially taking power. Xu Gong would send him memorials every time.

He finally realized that being an emperor was not that easy and that his father and grandfather were truly powerful.

"Your Majesty, what I want to report is the affairs of the Imperial College." Xu Zhou bowed.

"You still need to ask me this? Didn't I tell you to go get whatever you need?"

"No, because of your majesty's support, we have sufficient supplies. The only thing we lack is the number of doctors. Now is the starting stage, and there are still too few great sages who study both Confucianism and law."

"So I request the court to issue a decree to recruit talented people and recruit all the Confucian and Legalist masters to the Imperial College. I believe that this will help us better train talents for the court."

Xu Zhou said calmly that those great sages of Confucianism and Legalism would definitely come out of retirement. Literati valued reputation more than profit, and it was difficult for them to be moved by money, but they would definitely be happy to take on such a role as a doctor who had "students all over the world".

Especially for Confucianism, isn't the establishment of a university exactly what Confucius pursued - teaching everyone without distinction? Moreover, the Confucian scholars today are not corrupt yet, and they all take it as their responsibility to help the world.

Therefore, as long as the imperial court is willing to recruit, there will definitely be people who respond.

"A recruitment order? Of course." Liu Che thought for a moment and decided to do so because there were indeed vacancies in the Imperial Academy and the new policy required a large number of talents.

After that, the imperial court began to post imperial edicts in various counties and prefectures, recruiting talents from all over the world to serve as doctors and physicians in the Imperial Academy.

Close friends of Xu Zhong at that time, such as Shen Gong and Zhao Gong, were the first to respond. With these great men taking the lead, the other hermits naturally followed the call of the court and either entered the court as officials or went to the Imperial Academy to take up positions.

Hundreds of people responded, and the problem of Imperial College was completely solved.

By the fifth year of Yuanguang, half of the grassroots officials in the country had come from the Imperial Academy, and the new policy was thoroughly implemented, but as the scale expanded, factions were inevitable.

Now, most of the students who graduated from the Imperial Academy privately follow Xu Gong as their leader, stick together for warmth, and are somewhat repulsive to others.

However, the situation improved after Xu Gong angrily dismissed several people, but it was only temporary. The court favored these students who had been influenced by the idea of ​​"loyalty to the emperor" and made important use of them. In a sense, it got rid of the monopoly of talents by meritorious families and powerful people.

Of course, the premise is that Imperial College has not been infiltrated.

Liu Che himself also took a laissez-faire attitude towards this "grouping" phenomenon. After all, the king only cared about loyalty and talent, and didn't care much about other things.

Moreover, Liu Che also had countermeasures against them, which was to split the "Xuefu Faction" into the Confucian Party headed by Gongsun Hong, Zhufu Yan and others, and the Legalist Party headed by Zhang Tang, Zhao Yu and others.

The two checked and balanced each other in the court, achieving a state of balance.

(End of this chapter)