The revival of the Han Dynasty must start with Dong Zhuo

The envoy sent by the court was Lu Su.

After crossing the river, Lu Su clearly felt the fear in the eyes of the people of Jiangdong.

Jiangbei lost several battles too quickly and too hard.

As a result, many people in Jiangdong did not realize that they not only lost the field combat force they relied on for tactics, but also lost the naval force they relied on for defense.

Jiangdong now is nothing more than a piece of fish waiting to be slaughtered!

All they could do was to adjust their posture before waiting to be killed.

Although Lu Su was an envoy of the imperial court, the first person he went to see was not Sun Quan, but Gu Yong.

When Gu Yong saw Lu Su, his eyes were filled with nostalgia and melancholy.

"When I was an official in Huainan, I concluded that Zijing was definitely not an ordinary person."

"At that time, I still imagined that we could work together in the future and make a career in troubled times."

"I just didn't expect that you and I would become enemies that need to fight each other..."

Lu Su did not see the nostalgia in Gu Yong's eyes.

"Gu Yuantan, is there anything unexpected?"

"Don't forget, you were the first one to use the knife!"

Gu Yong shook his head.

"The one who stabbed you in the back was never us, but Sun Quan."

"Since Sun Ce followed the imperial court's example to suppress us, when have we not been enemies with Sun Ce?"

"At that time, he took advantage of Sun Ce's attack on Jingzhou to cooperate with Sun Quan in launching a coup, just to protect himself!"

"Otherwise, if we really allow Sun Ce to continue to develop, does Zi Jing dare to say that Sun Ce will not be the second Dong Zhuo? The second emperor? Will he attack us?"

"..."

These words left Lu Su speechless.

Ever since Sun Ce saw the court, under the leadership of the emperor, eliminate the aristocratic families and be reborn from the ashes, he has set this as his own development direction.

Sun Ce's path in Jiangdong at that time was bound to go against the aristocratic families.

It is actually a bit inappropriate to say that the aristocratic families betrayed Sun Ce.

"Sun Quan..."

Lu Su shook his head and said, "I really misjudged him at that time."

"Although this boy is young, he has a very deep mind!"

"Not deep."

Gu Yong was very calm when talking about these old things.

"If Sun Ce continues to govern Jiangdong, we and the Sun family will be doomed to fail. Sun Quan's decision is actually good for both of us."

"In addition, I talked to Sun Quan and it was Li Ru who made him finally decide to do this."

"Li Ru?"

Lu Su was very surprised: "I have never heard of it."

“I just figured out a lot of things now.”

A rare flash of resentment flashed across Gu Yong's eyes.

"If Li Ru had not instigated Sun Quan to betray Sun Ce, Jiangdong would have been ruled by the aristocratic families and become a united front."

"And once Sun Quan becomes the ruler of Jiangdong, even if Sun Quan is extremely talented and can balance the forces of all parties, he still has the selfish desire of being a ruler."

"Those who are rulers are all called lonely and helpless."

"They generally have no sense of security and always want to cultivate trusted forces and expand their own wings to protect their own power."

"Li Ru seized this opportunity and was able to take advantage of the opportunity to insert Han Zong's needle at the right time, completely destroying Jiangdong's power."

Gu Yong sighed: "It's my fault too."

"I knew the venomous snake was sleeping next to me, but I always thought that I would be safe if I could just keep an eye on it. Now it seems that was just wishful thinking on my part."

Lu Su had a different view on this matter.

"Yuan Tan can only see the branches and leaves on the surface, but not the roots inside?"

"Li Ru has indeed made great contributions... But you have to know that Li Ru was just a chess piece that the emperor casually played."

“Maybe calling him an idle chess player is an overestimation of Li Ru. At that time, Li Ru could be described as a “discarded pawn.”

"Without Li Ru, would the emperor not have conquered Jiangdong and would he not have been able to defeat Jiangdong?"

Lu Su's words made Gu Yong frown slightly, but the frown soon turned into relief.

"You're right."

"That kind of weapon is the one on the warship that can fire iron bullets..."

"artillery!"

Lu Su reminded Gu Yong——

"It's called Cannon."

"The principle is simple... Have you ever played with a blowgun? Just fill the bottom of the copper tube with gunpowder and ignite it, and it will trigger the iron bullet."

Lu Su spoke in a simple way.

Gu Yong understood.

Gu Yong was amazed for a moment: "It's so simple?"

"If Zi Jing hadn't told me, I would have really believed that the emperor had divine powers!"

"Ha! A man like Yuan Tan also believes in gods?"

"If I believe now, I don't know if it's too late."

Gu Yong laughed at himself.

Lu Su also smiled and said: "This is the root cause of Jiangdong's defeat, not Li Ru."

"When the emperor implements equal distribution of land and the imperial examination system, a large number of scholars will emerge."

"By abolishing the theory of the correspondence between heaven and man and advocating the theory of 'discussion and evaluation', scholars will become wise and study things."

"Jiangdong thought they could defeat the imperial court by plagiarizing gunpowder, but they didn't know that the imperial court had already invented cannons."

"Even if Jiangdong copied the artillery, the imperial court would still invent more weapons."

"And the root cause of this happening is the system."

There seems to be a sense of righteousness in Lu Su's words!

"Even if the intelligence of an ordinary scholar is not as good as yours, Gu Yuantan, what about ten? A hundred? A thousand?"

"The sin of the world lies with the family!"

"Twenty years of war, starting with the Party Imprisonment Disaster and the Yellow Turban Rebellion. With Yuan Tan's wisdom, could he not have noticed it?"

Gu Yong closed his eyes.

After a long time, he slowly opened his eyes.

"Too many readers is not a good thing."

"The scholars who came first occupied the high positions, and the scholars who came after them had no place left."

"And in order to consolidate their power, scholars who occupy high positions will inevitably begin to exclude later scholars."

“It’s like pouring water. When it’s full, it overflows. No one can stop it.”

"In the future, the imperial court will certainly produce new noble families...there will be no changes at all."

"Yuan Tan, you are wrong!"

Lu Su laughed loudly.

"Today's emperor has already begun to enfeoff the princes."

"Jia Zhongshu, Xun Lingjun, and Lu Huqi, although these people are in their prime, they will soon go to their fiefdoms!"

"What you said about the first comers pushing out the later ones is simply because the first comers in the past had no way out."

"Now that the emperor has revived the Zhou rituals and given them a new path, he will definitely not continue to block the way for future generations!"

Gu Yong smiled with a hint of sarcasm, not sure whether he was laughing at himself or at the court.

"The emperors of the pre-Han period used the mausoleum town system to continuously relocate the nobles from Guandong to Guanzhong. This was a blockade."

"Today's emperor uses the feudal system to send important officials of the court to the land of barbarians. This is a lie."

"The former has its own drawbacks; the latter naturally has its own problems!"

Gu Yong stared at Lu Su——

"I just want to ask you one basic question—"

"The farther the fiefdom is, the weaker the imperial court's control will be."

"If there really were vassal states that were granted lands in places like Kushan and Parthia, would the emperor be able to control them?"

"Isn't he afraid that the Han Dynasty will become the second Zhou Dynasty and be destroyed by his former minister Ma Nu?" (End of this chapter)