Who Cares

3

Chapter 3 The Way Forward

The resolute man was exactly Huo Shengzhe who proclaimed himself as the emperor. His father was originally the leader of the Jiuli tribe, but he rose up because of his dissatisfaction with Qin’s tyranny and politics. He wiped out or annexed all forces all the way and eventually became a powerful chief in the Central Plains. However, his knowledge and courage were limited, he only relied on the emperor to make himself a justified vassal lord, and checked and balanced with the other vassal states, live together in harmony. Unexpectedly his son was so outstanding, not only eliminated the rest of vassal lords and a few restless brothers, he also get rid of the little emperor. He then unified the rivers and mountains, ascended to the throne, changed the country’s name to “Wei” with honorary title “Sheng Yuan”, implying that he was the first Holy King to pioneer the world.

This shows how arrogant and self-reliant Huo Shengzhe was.

Although he came from a barbarian tribe, he loved Han culture very much. He possessed superior insight and talent in politics and military affairs. Although he had never governed the country, he understood that as an emperor, the most important thing was not to do it himself, but to be good at discovering and using talents, while at the same time finding the right way to govern the country.

After experiencing the struggle for supremacy among the warlords during the Spring and Autumn Period and Warring States period and the tyranny and fragmentation of the Qin Dynasty, almost every hero who wanted to be the ruler or a literati warrior who tried to save the common people was thinking about the same question, how to govern the country? They were either for personal gain or for common people, and the doctrines of the philosophers and Hundreds Schools of Thoughts had also been greatly promoted.

Legalism, Miscellaneous Schools, Taoism, Mohism, and Confucianism appeared one after another, and they also sent disciples to visit various vassal states to lobby and attempted many progress. Among them, the most successful was undoubtedly the Legalism. Since Huo Shengzhe learned Chinese characters, the first article he read was Han Feizi‘s “Five Beetles”. At that time, he was shocked. He immediately collected all of the Legalism classics. Even if the government affairs was busy, he would set aside two hours every day to study. By contrast, looking at the classics of the Confucian school, he no longer knew where he had thrown them.

Hearing that Jueyin Temple would hold a debate between Legalism and Confucianism, he immediately braved the wind and snow to observe, planning to find a few usable talents.

The white-faced old man was called Baifu, one of the servants left by the emperor of the previous dynasty. Because of his outstanding ability and good at observing people, he was fortunate enough to be favored by Emperor Sheng Yuan and served as Zhongchang Attendant. Seeing that his master only sent death soldier to investigate the two grandfather and granddaughter, but never mentioned the few Legalism scholars who just performed outstandingly, he was puzzled, but didn’t dare to ask more. The new master’s temperament was extremely changeable, sometimes resolute and straightforward, sometimes vicious, sometimes generous and open-minded, sometimes elegant and gentle, even a seasoned courtier could be played on the palm of his hand. He was really unfathomable. Wanting to guess what he was thinking, not to mention Bai Fu was only fifty years old, even if he live another fifty years it would be useless.

The Holy’s ride came and returned in a hurry, actually not as single person knew. As soon as he entered Weiyang Palace, the death soldier had already given a secret letter, which recorded all the circumstances of the Guan family and his nine generations. Huo Shengzhe looked at it for a long time, and sighed, “With both talents and virtues, innocent family background, and loyalty, Guan Qiguang can be used a lot.” After speaking, he raised the brush and wrote two edicts with the handwriting of iron painting and silver hooks. After thinking about it, he felt it was still insufficient, then added three words “Guan Suyi” to the list of candidates for beauties (as in for imperial concubines).