Chapter 386: Night Visit to the Death Row, Pingbian Strategy Discussion

The Ministry of Justice Prison is located in the northwest of Jinling City. It was built during the Zhenwu period of the previous dynasty and has a history of thirty years.

As a place to detain suspects, the environment inside the Ministry of Justice Prison is naturally not as good as the outside world. It is full of mold and corruption. A heavy iron door separates the inside of the prison from the outside world.

One door separates two worlds.

In the middle of the night, in the dim and damp prison cell of the Ministry of Justice, most of the prisoners and the Ministry of Justice yamen runners who are responsible for guarding the prisoners have fallen asleep.

Only at the end of the prison passage, where the death row prisoners are held, there is still a thin and weak figure, holding a small piece of stone picked up from somewhere with a pair of hands handcuffed by iron chains and handcuffs, and engraving something on the wall of the cell with the help of the flickering light of the oil lamp in the corridor.

This person was Yu Siqian, a Juren from Wuzhou City, who wrote down the words "high treason" on the answer sheet of the first imperial examination of the Tang Dynasty, which made the examiners of the Ministry of Rites exclaim in unison;

The words "Is it possible that the Tang Dynasty only has half of the country" were first mentioned by him in the post station after he was deprived of the qualification for the imperial examination and the status of Juren, while drinking to relieve his sorrow;

Little did he know that it was his drunken words that eventually led to his imprisonment, and he might even be executed at the market.

However, Yu Siqian acted indifferent to this.

Even though he was in the prison of the Ministry of Justice, even though he had been tortured by the yamen runners, even though he was already covered with scars, it still did not extinguish his passion, nor did it make him forget the purpose of his trip to the capital.

Under the dim light of the oil lamp, the four big characters he carved on the wall of the cell could be vaguely seen - Pingbian Celun

Then, there were dense lines of small characters, which were the specific contents of the Pingbian Strategy.

Yu Siqian himself was deprived of his qualification for the imperial examination and his status as a juren because of this Pingbian Strategy. He was also imprisoned because of this Pingbian Strategy and could be executed at any time.

Yu Siqian had a clear conscience about this, and even if he died, he thought that his death was worthy.

Yu Siqian was happy to write and draw on the wall with stones. The rustling and squeaking sounds made the death row prisoner next door upset and unable to sleep.

So he simply turned over from the dirty straw, looking for lice on his disheveled dirty hair, and chatting with Yu Siqian who was carving the Pingbian Strategy on the wall of the death row.

The older death row prisoner said: "Hey, little scholar, you spend every day on the wall, writing your bullshit national integration pacification strategy, is it useful, is it interesting?"

"Do you really think that after you are executed at Caishikou, who will have the leisure to come to your cell to watch?"

"Listen to my advice, save your energy and physical strength, why not save some energy when you are about to die, so as not to be whipped by the ghost messenger when you can't keep up with the pace of the team on the Yellow Spring Road and the Naihe Bridge!"

"I am happy to do so!"

Opposite, Yu Siqian really stopped his hand after hearing the movement next door, turned his head and said to the disheveled old guy: "Now no one can understand the importance of my pacification strategy, in the future, ten, fifty, or a hundred years later, there will always be a wise ruler who can understand;"

"By that time, my name, Yu Siqian, will definitely go down in history;"

"This is called, not afraid of being torn to pieces, but to keep a clear name in the world!"

Hahaha!

In the next cell, the older prisoner on death row suddenly laughed and said to Yu Siqian: "You poor scholar, you are quite interesting;"

"You are an unknown person, but you really think you are Sima Qian!"

After a pause, the older prisoner on death row said: "Little scholar, do you know what kind of person our founding emperor of the Tang Dynasty is?"

"Do you know how he got this world?"

"Do you know that whether it is the Turks on the Mobei grassland, the Tubo on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, or the countries in the Western Regions, or even the Goguryeo countries east of the Liaodong Peninsula, would they give up the plunder and looting of the border of the Central Plains Dynasty for thousands of years just because of the few figures of "mutual trade and intermarriage" you talk about on paper?"

Humph!

Then, the older death row inmate sneered and said, "Naive, so naive!"

"Of course I know!"

Yu Siqian's eyes were firm, and he said word by word, "But, someone has to do this, someone has to try to change it, in order to achieve this goal;"

"You can't just suppress and massacre with force and butcher knives, right?"

"If that's the case, how can we truly achieve long-term peace? I'm afraid it will only arouse endless resistance from foreign races, resistance for generations!"

Original Yu Siqian, who was born in Wuzhou City, an important town at the border of Youyun, wrote this essay on the strategy of pacifying the border in the examination room of the Tang Dynasty's special examination. It was based on the fact that when the Tang Dynasty was first established, it used force to conquer in dealing with the relationship with Goguryeo, the relationship with the Western Regions, and even the relationship with the Arab Empire. In the eyes of the scholar Yu Siqian, this move was not only a waste of money and manpower, but also a bad strategy that would bury endless hidden dangers of resistance at the border of the Tang Dynasty, leaving the dynasty's border in turmoil.

Therefore, Yu Siqian proposed in his "Pingbian Strategy" that the current emperor Chen Huaian should adopt a conciliatory policy of "mutual trade and intermarriage" towards foreign countries and ethnic groups, and achieve the assimilation of foreign ethnic groups through the influence of Central Plains culture in mutual trade and intermarriage, and finally achieve the grand goal of national integration and no more disputes and wars in the world.

It was because of the concept of national integration proposed by Yu Siqian that the Zhaowu Emperor Chen Huaian, who was a time traveler, was completely inspired when he saw his "Pingbian Strategy".

This "Pingbian Strategy" was nothing short of treasonous words for the civil and military officials and scholars of the Central Plains Dynasty in the current era. How could the dignified Central Plains Dynasty integrate with foreign countries and ethnic groups?

Isn't this a disgrace to the civil and military officials and scholars of the Central Plains Dynasty?

In this way, how can the orthodoxy of the Central Plains Dynasty be maintained?

However, for Chen Huaian, a time traveler, this move was something he had always wanted to do but had not been able to do.

From the time when he first conquered the Western Regions, when the Uighur Khan Moyanchuo took the initiative to ask Princess Pijia Yueqiluo to go to the Central Plains for marriage, it is not difficult to see that Chen Huaian wanted to enthrone the empresses of the East and West Palaces;

He hoped to build the Tang Dynasty he established into an unprecedentedly powerful country with ethnic integration and unity through his own efforts, just like the place where he lived before he traveled through time.

However, in the process of actually implementing this matter, Chen Huaian found that there were many obstacles and it was not something that could be accomplished overnight.

Even when he ended the war with the Arab Empire in the Western Regions and began to implement the new policy of "separation of military and politics" in the Western Regions, he was also paving the way and preparing for the future national integration of the Tang Dynasty.

Therefore, after reading Yu Siqian's pacification strategy, Chen Huaian immediately realized that this boy was definitely not an ordinary person. Even if he dragged his exhausted body, he must rush to the prison of the Ministry of Justice overnight to see Yu Siqian, who could write the pacification strategy and put forward the concept of national integration under the thousands of years of feudal dynasty etiquette and moral education.

In the dim cell, the two death row prisoners were still arguing, and neither could convince the other.

Suddenly, the heavy prison door that was originally closed was pushed open, and the creaking sound was particularly harsh in the silent night.

The yamen guarding the cell came hurriedly, first lit the wick of the oil lamp, and then went straight to the cell where Yu Siqian was, with a nervous look as if he was waiting for the arrival of a certain adult.

After a moment, a tall and heroic figure came from the corridor of the prison.

In the cell next to Yu Siqian, the older death row prisoner lifted his long hair that covered his eyes. After seeing the figure of the person coming, he almost subconsciously knelt down and kowtowed.

In the end, the words on his lips were swallowed back into his stomach.

With a nervous but curious mood, he curled up in the corner of the death row, watching the every move of the cell opposite.

At this time, the mysterious man who visited late at night came to the outside of Yu Siqian's cell and asked Yu Siqian who was still carving on the wall as if no one was around: "Are you Yu Siqian, the juren of Wuzhou?"

The mysterious man's voice was not loud, but it revealed the majesty of a superior.

In the cell, Yu Siqian did not say anything and continued to carve on the wall.

The mysterious man said again: "Are you Yu Siqian who wrote Pingbian Celun on the answer sheet of the imperial examination?"

"It's me!"

This time, Yu Siqian finally responded.

After a while, as the last word of Pingbian Celun was carved on the wall, Yu Siqian finally showed a satisfied smile on his face.

He threw the stone in his hand, which had already been ground into a small piece, into the corner of the wall, clapped his hands and said, "Finally finished!"

Then, he turned around and faced the mysterious man who looked extraordinary at first glance, and said calmly and frankly, "Let's go, send me on my way!"

"By the way, are we going directly to Caishikou or Chengtianmen?"