Silence fell over the palace halls of Bianliang.
This time, even Zhao Kuangyin had no strength to say anything. Zhao Pu, who had served as chancellor for many years, also lowered his head.
Only Zhao Guangyi's gaze kept carefully shuttling back and forth between the light screen and his elder brother's face.
In truth, Zhao Kuangyin was extremely clear about these criticisms from the light screen.
For example, the fact that miscellaneous levies and surtaxes were far more numerous than in Han and Tang times was true.
These extra miscellaneous taxes could be considered historical baggage. Since the late Tang, regional warlords had carved up territory and fought without end.
Everyone knew that only those with strong armies and powerful horses could be called Son of Heaven. And to have strong armies and powerful horses required vast amounts of money and grain. These needs were directly transferred onto the common people, causing taxes and levies to grow heavier and heavier.
Since the founding of Song, because the realm had not yet been fully unified and enemies in both north and south still watched like tigers, these harsh levies that had existed since the late Tang were not abolished by Zhao Kuangyin, but instead were all inherited together.
Naturally, he had also secretly made up his mind that once the realm was unified, he would surely let the people rest and recover. Only…
"Unable to get even one bowl of porridge, they burst into loud crying."
"After toiling for a year, all they hope for is merely one bowl of mixed-fruit porridge."
Zhao Kuangyin muttered slowly to himself, then shook his head and fell silent.
Zhao Guangyi seized the moment to advise:
"If this is so, Your Majesty can order temples across the realm, in the name of the government, to distribute Laba porridge, so that the people will all feel grateful for Your Majesty's heavenly grace."
Zhao Kuangyin immediately grew impatient:
"There are three hundred sixty five days in a year. One needs more than seven hundred meals to live well."
"Giving only one bowl of porridge is like using a cup of water to save a house on fire. It helps nothing and merely deceives oneself while pretending to have done one's duty. It is no different from covering one's ears while stealing a bell."
"You are the Prince of Jin. Is this all you know of governing the people?"
Perhaps it was because he had earlier been mocked by later generations for bullying orphans and widows, or perhaps because the look in his brother's eyes was too easy to read, and also because this suggestion was truly useless, Zhao Kuangyin lashed out with sharp words, leaving his brother tongue-tied and silent.
Only then did Zhao Kuangyin's mood improve a little.
Yet even so, he was even more clearly aware that venting his anger on his brother was much the same as the self-deception he had just spoken of.
Scolding the Prince of Jin would not make the harvest from the people's fields increase by half a dan of grain. Nor would it make him immediately decide to reform the Song dynasty's harsh taxes and levies. After all, the realm was not yet settled, and the imperial army's financial needs still could not be reduced by even a single bit.
In his vexation, the first two names to appear in his mind were those that had just shown up on the light screen:
If Tang Taizong and Zhuge Wuhou were here, would they have a perfect solution?
…
In truth, Li Shimin had never been very clear about how the people of later ages lived.
Of later generations, he knew that they could soar into the heavens and peer into space, dive into the seas to explore the depths, that aircraft carriers roamed the seas to strike pirates, and that the Dongfeng missiles guarded the nation's borders. But as for how the common people lived their daily lives, he knew nothing at all.
Previously, when chatting casually over meals with Guanyinbi in the rear palace, the two had once discussed such matters.
Perhaps because later generations often praised capable women in scattered remarks, Empress Zhangsun had developed a favorable impression of them and thus believed that in later ages, every household probably had livestock and every family had surplus grain.
Li Shimin snorted at this. He very clearly remembered that later generations had a population of 1.4 billion.
Even if each household had only one pig and one sheep, with such a massive population base that would still be nearly a billion head of livestock. Moreover, later generations' territory was even somewhat smaller than that of the High Tang. How could they possibly raise so many?
The empress lived long in the deep palace and thus did not know. Li Shimin had led armies too many times to count, and understood even more clearly that such population numbers were already unimaginably large.
And those later generations also talked about environmental protection, even returning farmland to forests.
Therefore, Li Shimin believed that under such a population, if a household could taste meat once a month, that would already count as a great age of prosperity, and would be enough to show the power of science.
He had not expected that a casual disagreement that had never been settled at the time would now be decided by a single unintentional sentence.
Empress Zhangsun's eyes were full of laughter as she looked at Li Shimin and smiled:
"Does Your Majesty now understand what it means to be a prosperity that surpasses five thousand years?"
But compared to the private discussion between emperor and empress, Wei Zheng could truly be called thunderously awakening.
Although not all scholars under heaven were corrupt Confucians of Qi, revering antiquity and honoring ritual were habits almost none could avoid. Every remonstration invoked the governance of the Three Sovereigns, and every lament yearned for the great harmony of the Five Emperors.
Thus, upon hearing later generations boldly proclaim that their era was the greatest in five thousand years of Huaxia, Wei Zheng, born in Shandong where Confucianism was strong, found it especially hard to accept.
Yet from a selfish perspective, Wei Zheng also knew that what the later generation said was the truth.
After all, no matter how much one revered antiquity, he also knew that iron farm tools of today's Tang did not exist in the time of the Three Sovereigns and Five Emperors. And porridge made from dozens of grains and fruits, which later people complained was hard to swallow, would be unimaginable even to sage kings if they heard of it.
Long-held doctrines were suddenly shattered by undeniable facts. Wei Zheng was instantly full of confusion, muttering to himself:
"Could it be that since the Zhou, each new dynasty is always better than the old?"
"That is not necessarily so…"
Du Ruhui said quietly:
"After Tang there is also the weak Song, and also the Qing that closed itself off from the world."
Wei Zheng was immediately left speechless, his mind growing even more tangled.
[Lightscreen]
[From today's perspective, because Laba is still quite far from the New Year, its festival atmosphere has indeed gradually faded.
Generally speaking, whether it is the widely sung Busy New Year Song of 'Twenty-three, sticky candy melons, twenty-four, sweep the house…' or the folk customs of north and south, people are more accustomed to treating Little New Year as the beginning of the entire festive season.
And the ritual of Little New Year, more precisely, is the worship of the Kitchen God.
This is likewise a very old custom. The earliest beginnings were in the Xia dynasty, though at that time the Kitchen God sacrifice was rather troublesome, once a month. Later it was simplified to once a season, and by the Han dynasty it became even simpler, turning into once a year.
The Kitchen God is one of the Five Household Gods. But in the Analects there is a record of Wangsun Jia of the state of Wei in the Spring and Autumn period sighing, 'Better to flatter the stove than to flatter the inner chamber,' showing that even at that time, the Kitchen God's status among the Five Household Gods was already rising significantly.
The procedures of worshipping the Kitchen God as we know them today were roughly formed during the Northern and Southern Dynasties and the Sui. Sticky sweets like candy melons were used to make the Kitchen God's mouth sweet, and straw horses were made as the Kitchen God's mount. Burning these together was called sending off the Kitchen God, meaning to perform the stove sacrifice.
Then on the first day of the New Year, a new image of the Kitchen God would be pasted onto the stove platform. This was called inviting the Kitchen God.
From sending off the Kitchen God to inviting him back, during these few days, the ancients believed that the household had no Kitchen God's supervision, so they could freely feast, gather to play, and so on. This was also the prototype of ancient New Year celebrations.
This custom has continued to this day. The only change is the timing of Little New Year's Kitchen God worship.
Originally, the Kitchen God was worshipped on the twenty-fourth day of the twelfth lunar month. But starting in the Yongzheng era of the Qing dynasty, in order to save trouble, the royal house simply combined the Kitchen God with the worship of all gods on the twenty-third, and worshipped the Kitchen God a day early as well. With top-down imitation, the northern Little New Year became the twenty-third.
The south, being far from the political center and not needing to follow this practice, has to this day preserved the tradition of worshipping the Kitchen God on the twenty-fourth.]