Chapter 157 Gentle Means
In the imperial study, the eunuch Su Xibi, who accompanied the emperor in reading, was serving quietly.

The Great Xia Emperor pondered for a moment and asked, "Who was originally in charge of the court newspaper?"

Su Xibi replied, "Your Majesty, it is the Ministry of Internal Affairs that is in charge."

This court bulletin was originally an internal publication, printed by the palace and distributed to ministers, so it was naturally managed by the Ministry of Internal Affairs.

The Great Xia Emperor smiled and said, "They said my general flag is not old enough, so I will find someone who is old enough to do it!"

He wrote, "Ask Zhou Tieyi to handle this matter, and ask Feng Zikuan, the chief eunuch in charge of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, to supervise it."

The Queen Mother took a look and said with a smile, "Your Majesty, this is a very good move."

This praise further confirmed the decision of His Majesty the Great Xia. He relaxed and looked at the mountain of memorials.

I used to be tired of marking papers, and now I feel mentally exhausted and really don’t want to start writing.

So he said, "Queen, you pick the reply and I only need to read it once."

The Queen did not immediately accept this supreme authority, but stood up, half-knelt on the ground and saluted, saying, "Your Majesty loves me, but you cannot let the people of the world talk about me. I can help Your Majesty with the documents, but Your Majesty must do the writing yourself. If Your Majesty does not want to do it, you can follow the reply of the three officials. I will never be able to write again."

Serving the emperor is like serving a tiger. The most feared thing is nine truths and one lie. This also applies to the Queen who shares the emperor's glory.

The Great Xia Emperor looked at his wife with a smile, "You are just too cautious."

However, he did not mention the matter of asking the Empress Dowager to approve the memorial, nor did he personally help the Empress Dowager to stand up. Instead, he tried his best to read it himself.

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April 9th, today is Buddha's Birthday.

Although it was unlucky that the Hall of Supreme Harmony was struck by lightning, the palace servants still decorated the Kunning Palace.

The two elephants woven with vines have hidden mechanisms inside that can spit out spring water to irrigate the lotus seat in the middle that symbolizes the Buddha.

Originally, the elephant should have been made of gold or copper, but the Queen Mother did not like extravagance, so she wove it with green vines, which just happened to suit the spring scenery.

After returning to Kunning Palace, the Queen Mother first went to the study.

Her personal maid immediately spread out the white paper and ground ink for the Queen Mother.

When the ink was ground, the Queen Mother felt ready to write and started to paint.

Tianjing News.

After these three words fell, the Queen Mother instructed the maid, "Take this letter to Feng Zikuan, the head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, and ask him to do his job well. It is the wise thing to open up the channels for people to speak freely. If he dares to neglect it, even if the emperor forgives him, I will not forgive him!"

The Queen seldom said such harsh words, and seldom wrote anything down.

The maid Qiu Sheng knew that this matter was urgent, so she went to the Ministry of Internal Affairs as soon as possible.

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In Qilin Pavilion, Zhou Tieyi practiced martial arts as usual in the morning.

At noon, someone from Changsun Mansion came and reported that the memorial had been submitted.

Zhou Tieyi smiled slightly, and after lunch, he held a tea party in his own yard. His brother Zhou Tiege, Hu Wenlang, his disciple Mei Juncang, and the clerk Wu Qian were present.

Zhou Tieyi was making tea and said to his brother who was already full of doubts, "Brother, if you don't understand something, just ask directly. There are no outsiders here." Everyone present had to deal with the affairs of the Tianjing News directly, so Zhou Tieyi had to give instructions in person.

My brother is the only one who does not handle the affairs of the Tianjing News, so I have to teach him more.

Zhou Tiege was already itching to do it, and he knew the whole process.

The reason was that there was a rumor about "a monster in the country" from the Confucian side, so his brother added a visit to Hu Wenlang in the evening to his original schedule of visiting the military workshop.

In the middle, he also told himself that when there was a "monster in the country", the one that should be most worried about was not their Zhou family, but the Queen Mother.

I have already understood this point.

But as to why Chang Sun Dan was asked to submit a memorial to the emperor and start the Tianjing News with great fanfare, he guessed some of the reasons, but he didn't know whether his guess was correct.

"You are running the Tianjing Newspaper to find a new way to fight against the Confucian saying that 'evil comes from the country'?"

For a long time, even during the founding period when the military strategists were at their most powerful, they were suppressed by the Confucians in their speech. This country has produced evildoers. This was not only used in the Great Xia Dynasty, but also in the Five Dynasties of the North and South three hundred years ago, and even in the era of the Great Yan Saint Emperor eight hundred years ago.

But it is extremely difficult to seize the right to speak from Confucianism. In any case, even if the military strategists put people in the Ministry of Speech, they have never succeeded.

Zhou Tieyi explained with a smile, "The public opinion can guide public opinion. If Confucianism wants to prove that 'evil comes from the country', it will take some time, so I need to strike with thunder and lightning to disrupt the whole process."

At this point, he thought of the peony flowers sent by the Queen Mother that day, and sighed, "The Queen Mother can see it at a glance and make a decision immediately. It is really extraordinary."

He, Zhou Tieyi, could see that he had knowledge that surpassed this era. The Queen could see it at a glance and quickly "sought peace" with her opponent, Zhou Tieyi, not caring about the gains and losses or her own face at all.

This shows that the Queen has an excellent political sense and is also someone who can accomplish great things. She is flexible and adaptable. This is the opponent that we should be really careful about.

"In terms of speech, Confucianism thinks that if they control the academies, the censors, and the novelists, they can control the world. This is indeed a lack of vision for development, but it is also in line with the Confucian style of always liking to 'speak of the sage emperor and speak of the saint'."

When Zhou Tieyi talked about novelists, Hu Wenlang looked a little embarrassed. If they, as novelists, don't cling to Confucianism, who else can they cling to?

He thought for a moment, "Can this newspaper really open up the channels for public opinion?"

He knew that Zhou Tieyi's newspaper got inspiration from the official gazette, but he had also read the official gazette. If ordinary people read it, they would not understand it at all.

Zhou Tieyi smiled and said, "I once said that I have a chance to enter the first rank. You once said that the way you novelists practice is just two things, one is to 'gain fame', and the other is to 'make the fake look real'. If this newspaper is well made, these two things can be done to the extreme. By then, people in the world may not read novels, but they must read newspapers!"

At this time, the water is boiled. Zhou Tieyi waits for the water temperature to drop, and then brews the first spring tea buds using the brewing method.

These young sprouts are precious, and boiling them in water will ruin their taste.

"In fact, I have another method, but it is too radical. I don't want to use it now and completely break off relations with the Confucians. So I will slowly fight with the Confucians and see who has more sophisticated methods."

When you brew tea with warm water, a light tea aroma will flow out, refreshing and very nourishing.

He first handed a cup to his apprentice Mei Juncang.

Mei Juncang knew that the teacher was testing him. He thought for a moment, dipped his hand in tea, and wrote "encourage the people to speak out" on the rosewood table. This was the method the teacher used this time.

Afterwards, he thought about it seriously and wrote, "Please report to the emperor that agricultural science, engineering science, and medicine science should be developed as a rule, and the way of being an official in the world should not be limited to Confucianism and Legalism."

Wu Qian, who was watching quietly at the side, was shocked and terrified. He looked at Mei Juncang with a head full of white hair. This was going to uproot the roots of Confucianism and Legalism!
(End of this chapter)