There was a silence in the pavilion.

The Song Dynasty emphasized literature and suppressed martial arts, and advocated literati to govern the country. The status of literati was unprecedentedly high.

It is common for literati to gather together to discuss national affairs.

Especially at the end of the Southern Song Dynasty, the country was in decline and treacherous ministers were in power. Many poor scholars and young students with patriotism felt that they had no way to serve the country, so they became more unscrupulous in the discussion.

If it was during the Northern Song Dynasty, most of the literati gatherings were discussing poetry, songs, music, calligraphy and paintings, or drinking tea and playing chess, and living a relaxed and elegant life.

But in the Song Dynasty, the gentry no longer had this leisure and leisure. In addition to complaining about the decadent national power, there was also dissatisfaction with the court, dissatisfaction with life, dissatisfaction with life experience, and fear of the future of the Song Dynasty.

The people can ignore it and don’t know it, but as long as people with a little patriotic sentiment know that the Song Dynasty is now in danger and the Mongols have long been eyeing the Song Dynasty.

It was just like this that the court, so they all felt a kind of powerless anger.

"Your Majesty is old and weak, not only is he not aware of restraint, but he is bewitched by Dong Songchen and others to summon prostitutes like Tang An'an into the palace to serve. It is so debauchery, it is no different from Emperor Xuanzong of Tang. Moreover, Your Majesty has no descendants, and only one stupid nephew, Zhao Sheng. I heard that Your Majesty wants to make Zhao Sheng the crown prince and a fool. How can a fool become a king? This is the way to destroy the country!" After a long silence, Chen Ji sighed quietly.

"Oh, we have no power and no official status, so we should not talk too much about the court affairs. I still have classes. I won't be with you today. I will have some time to have tea together when I have time!"

Master Yang stood up in fear and continued to chat with these young students who were excited, afraid that his life would be unsuccessful.

"I would like to forgive Mr. Yang for the abruptness that came today and say goodbye!"

"Goodbye!"

Chen Ji, Yao Ran and Zhao Qi had to stand up and bow down.

"Grandmaster, didn't you say you wanted to invite the two young masters and Zhao Dalang to have new tea? I just boiled the water, but why did I leave after saying a few words?"

In the backyard of the private school, the girl in a green dress with a plate of tea sets looked at Mr. Yang sitting alone in the pavilion in surprise.

"Well, they have an urgent matter. Zhao Dalang heard that he was crazy before, but when he saw him today, he only said two or three sentences, but he had a keen mind and extraordinary knowledge. Could it be that the mountain god really appeared?" Old Master Yang stroked his beard and looked weird, as if he was talking to himself.

"Why did the great master say this? Didn't he say that he doesn't say anything about the strange powers? You asked us not to spread rumors everywhere a few days ago!" The girl smiled and said while tidying up the tea cup.

"It's said that, but it always feels like a thick and weird thing. Can you become so smart if you smash it?"

"Maybe Zhao Dalang is not stupid together, he is just pretending!" The girl said naughtyly, spitting out her tongue.

"How is it possible..." Mr. Yang continued to stare at his beard.

Chen Ji and Yao Ran, who left the private school at this time, were also interested in Zhao Qi's identity.

"I really didn't expect that the little brother is the owner of the mountain god who appeared in Yanggong Town. Brother Chen and I were just talking about whether we should take the time to go to the mountain god temple to explore. I didn't expect to meet him on the street today, which is really luck!"

"It's all just a rumor, but I was indeed a little crazy before, and I made people in the town laugh at me for more than ten years. Since you have nowhere to go, you can go to the humble house to sit in. When my brother comes home from school, you can help me give me some advice. By the way, I can also inquire about the boat owners who go to Guangzhou. I will arrange for you to return home smoothly!" Zhao Qi smiled and changed the topic.

"Thank you Brother Zhao for this!" The two of them were so happy that they even had a much closer address.

Zhao Qi was naturally even happier. He could pick up two juren while walking around the street. Although he was a two-stop shop, he was still a real high-level intellectual. This kind of opportunity could not be encountered at any time.

If you want to develop well in the future, it will definitely not work with a group of migrant workers in Maowan Village who are ignorant of their words, and you also need more talented scholars to help.

Although Chen Ji and Yao Ran did not seem to have appeared among the historical figures of the Song Dynasty that Zhao Qi knew, there was no mediocre person who could go to Beijing to participate in the provincial examination.

Thanks to the good education system and imperial examination system of the Song Dynasty, poor students studied and became officials in large numbers, which made the Song Dynasty present a unique innovation and change, changing the situation where the family members of the previous dynasties controlled the court and influenced the subsequent dynasties.

But success and failure are both imperial examinations. With the emergence of scholars, factions and struggles have emerged in different concepts of governance. In addition, the court preferential treatment of scholars and adopts the policy of high salaries to support integrity. Hundreds of people will be admitted in each palace examination. These people will eventually be appointed to official positions, accumulated year after year, resulting in the flood of officials. The court's annual expenses for these officials are astronomical. In order to make up for the deficit, the court had to plunder the people and issue paper money randomly, which made the prices soaring, and the burden on the bottom people is getting bigger and bigger.

Later generations evaluated the reason for the collapse of the Song Dynasty, not necessarily because the Liao, Jin and Mongolia were too powerful and fierce, but because the Song Dynasty system had great problems.

The huge expenses of redundant officials, redundant soldiers and redundant expenses have accumulated to the point where the prosperous and prosperous Song Dynasty could not afford it.

The huge problem can be seen from the comparison of the scholars in the Tang and Song dynasties.

The Tang Dynasty held a vocational examination and received only 30 or 40 people in each term. Although most of these people passed the exam by relying on the nepotism of aristocratic families, the number was small, and they were very stingy in the award of titles and insisted on the tradition of not receiving salaries without merit. When Li Shimin was the emperor, he was even more cautious and strict in opening a vocational examination and recruiting scholars. In order to reduce financial expenses, Li Shimin reduced the more than 2,000 Beijing officials supported by the court to only more than 600. Simplifying officials not only made the bloated imperial structure more simple, but also greatly reduced the financial expenses.

But the Song Dynasty was different. Not only did they receive hundreds of scholars in each term, but they also rewarded idle officials and idle positions. They were particularly favored by the royal family and trusted disciples and were given officials at will. Boys from the royal family could be given officials at the age of seven, and some even had official ranks and received salaries when they were in their infancy. Outside the royal family, other branches, different surnames and disciples could be given officials, and thousands of people flocked to the bureaucratic team every year.

The most terrifying thing is that during the reign of Emperor Renzong of Song Dynasty, there were more than 17,000 court officials, and almost 90% of them had no positions, only official ranks, all of which were idle officials who had a salary of empty salaries. Even in the Southern Song Dynasty, in order to make up for the deficit, they even sold official positions and titles. The ever-increasing huge bureaucratic team consumed a lot of fiscal revenue, making the court unable to make up for the money.

In order to gain real power, a large number of empty officials and idle officials formed cliques and went to the back door, and corruption arises in bribery and accepting bribes.

Corruption of the administration and failure of talent policies, coupled with emphasis on culture and over military affairs, the frivolous prosperity of the Song Dynasty was the bloated imperial institutions and the chaotic appointment and removal of officials, and the struggles of the party formed an extremely chaotic political state.

The Yuanyou Party Fight, which later generations are well known, is the consequence of the literati fight.

Some historians praised the Song Dynasty's civilized governance for two thousand years, believing that the Yuanyou party struggle was the prototype of a political party rule.

First, the new and old parties have already had their own different governance concepts, second, they have their own leaders, third, they will not be killed even if the fight fails, but they only need to step down to achieve their goal.

However, if you study it in depth, this so-called prototype of party and government actually originates from a different cultural position, rather than the two sides representing different classes of interests. To put it bluntly, the purpose of these people is not to fight simply because of different ideas of governing the country, but just oppose because of opposition. They have no political position, but simply oppose the other party's thoughts.

A party that cannot represent the public opinion of a class cannot be called a political party.

Of course, it is not comprehensive to kill with one stick. At least in the era of human civilization, the political model of the Song Dynasty was indeed very advanced. Party struggles were indeed conflicts caused by different groups in order to control the imperial regime and release their political ideas. This conflict also greatly separated the intellectual group and caused ideological confrontation. There was already a faint shadow of party struggles.

The later Taiwan and South Korea's Congress fought like this, spitting and throwing slippers and snuggling their noses and catching their hair. Members of different factions fought in Congress like shrews scolding.
Chapter completed!