Chapter 3 Thunder, Imperial Examinations and Rebellion
The eldest grandson of Duke Bao is a good boy!
At least, that’s what Duke Yuwen and his wife from the Duke’s Mansion think!
This child basically neither cries nor makes fuss. He goes to bed when he is full every day, eats when he wakes up, goes to sleep after eating, eats when he wakes up, eats, sleeps and sleeps. He has endless needs...
More importantly, this child seems to like staying with his grandparents very much.
On the contrary, this child doesn't seem to be very cold towards his biological father and mother.
Then again, although he is a father, Yu Wenhuaji is actually not yet sixteen years old, and Yu Wenhuaji’s wife is nearly two years younger than Yu Wenhuaji, and they are both childlike young men and women.
, no matter how you look at it, you don’t look like a parent.
Therefore, Mrs. Yuwen did not feel comfortable leaving her grandson to these two young couples who were still children.
Therefore, except when breastfeeding the child, even the child's own mother rarely has the opportunity to hug her own son.
Moreover, Mrs. Yuwen was not fully developed yet and had a bit of small breasts, so she had no choice but to hire a wet nurse for young master Yuwen.
Less than half a year after Yuwen Chenglong was born, Mrs. Yuwen became pregnant again, which also caused Yuwen Wenhua and his young couple to pay less attention to their eldest son again.
At this time, Yuwen Chenglong had already had a huge appetite.
As early as when Yuwen Chenglong was just born, Mrs. Yuwen hired a wet nurse. When Yuwen Chenglong was three months old, the milk supply of both wet nurses was already insufficient. When Yuwen Chenglong was one year old, Yuwen Chenglong's
The number of full-time wet nurses has grown to eight.
Fortunately, children who are one year old can already try to start eating some liquid complementary foods, so the number of wet nurses in Yuwen Mansion has not increased.
This also made the usually stingy Baoguo Gong Yu Wenshu finally breathe a sigh of relief!
"My grandson, you are so good at eating! If you continue to eat like this, I'm afraid your grandpa and I will all eat up all the coffins! Seriously, you are a half-grown man, and I am a poor man.
Well, it’s the poor grandfather!”
There was another thing that made Yuwenshu nervous, that is, when Yuwen Chenglong was almost one and a half years old and had started toddling, Yuwenshu's second grandson was finally about to give birth!
Different from the calm and clear sky when the eldest son Yuwen Chenglong was born, although it was October in the harsh winter, Anzhou City was actually covered by rare black clouds, and there was a constant roar of rolling winter thunder.
Yu Wenshu's second grandson seemed to be an extraordinary person. When he was born, thunder rolled from the sky and split a big hole in the roof of the delivery room.
This was nothing to worry about originally. As the Duke of the current dynasty, Yu Wenshu had always been good at collecting money. Now his family had vast hectares of fertile land and hundreds of millions of wealth. Even if the entire governor's office was burned down and rebuilt, it would still be nothing.
it's not a big deal.
But at that time, Mrs. Yuwen was holding her eldest grandson Yuwen Chenglong and waiting for good news outside the delivery room.
As a result, the thunder struck the fish pond, splitting Old Madam Yuwen and Young Master Yuwen into pieces.
Fortunately, there was a loyal little maid who blocked it regardless of her own safety. As a result, all three of them were struck by the thunder and were charred on the outside and brittle on the inside. They fainted on the spot.
Fortunately, although the thunder was powerful that day, its actual power was not very great, and it was intercepted by the roof. At this moment, there were three more people sharing it, and two more people were conductors directly connected to the ground, and there were still some points in it.
It was inexplicable and mysterious, so, miraculously, no one died.
After some rescue efforts, the adult Mrs. Yuwen and the underage maid were soon out of danger.
Only Sun Yuwen, the chief minister of the government, was in a coma for three days and three nights and almost died.
As the saying goes, if you survive a disaster, you will be blessed later!
But in fact, for now, Yuwen Mansion has not seen any blessings. Instead, there is one more trouble that Yuwen Shu and his wife are worrying about day and night...
That is the eldest grandson of Yuwen Mansion. Ever since he was struck by lightning, he has been very wilted and his appetite has been greatly reduced.
Of course, this so-called greatly reduced appetite is relative to Yuwen Chenglong himself. Compared with a normal one-and-a-half-year-old child, Yuwen Chenglong's appetite is not small, and is even slightly more.
However, although it seems that he still has a large appetite, Yuwen Chenglong has lost weight at a speed visible to the naked eye.
In less than half a month, he transformed from a chubby little kid into a skinny monkey.
Yuwenshu and his wife, who felt sorry for their grandson, went everywhere to seek medical advice. Mrs. Yuwen even visited all nearby Taoist temples, temples, and nunneries, but they could not see any improvement in their grandson.
The only thing that makes Yu Wenshu and his wife feel a little bit relieved is that their second grandson seems to be in good health. He can eat, drink and sleep, just like his eldest grandson before the accident.
In the third month after Yuwen Shu's grandson was born, the condition of the eldest grandson Yuwen Chenglong finally stabilized. Although it did not get better, it did not get worse either.
Therefore, another seemingly important matter was put on the agenda, and that was the naming of this second grandson.
The name of the second son of the third generation of Yuwen Mansion was no longer given by Mrs. Yuwen, the grandmother, nor by Yu Wenhua, the father.
The situation at that time was such that Yu Wenhuaji named his second son Chengzhi.
It's a pity that the eldest son Yuwen Chenglong, who was in the audience at the time, frowned when he heard the name, and his little face wrinkled into the word "bitter", with an attitude of bitterness and hatred, and his mouth was small.
At a glance, it seems that the weather will turn from sunny to cloudy to heavy rain at any time.
Therefore, Mrs. Yuwen, who was suspected to have a close connection with her eldest grandson, immediately spoke out and strongly opposed it, scolding Yu Wenhua and his lack of education, saying "Chengji", "Chengzhi", are these people's names?
A mouthful of saliva squirted down, leaving Yu Wenhua and his body completely covered, and he almost committed suicide in shame.
In the end, it was the old Duke Yuwen Shu who made the final decision regarding the naming right, and he officially named his second grandson Chengdu, with his full name being Yuwen Chengdu.
After hearing this name, Yuwen Chenglong's little face finally stopped making the shape of the word "bitter", and a glimmer of light flashed in his eyes, but no one noticed it at the moment.
When Yuwen Chenglong was born, many courtiers came to congratulate him, and even today people sent people to send congratulatory gifts. But when Yuwen Chengdu was born, not a single heavyweight courtier came, and only a few officials under Yuwen Shu came.
Take the opportunity to flatter the horse.
Because at this time, although Yu Wenshu still held the title of Duke of Shangzhu Kingdom and Bao Kingdom, he no longer served as a capital official, but went to Anzhou to serve as the governor-general.
This is the tenth year of the founding of the Sui Dynasty, that is, AD 590, the tenth month of winter.
The birth of the Second Young Master Yu Wen was naturally not a big event in the tenth year after the founding of the Emperor, and it did not even make a splash.
But just over a month after Yuwen was born in Chengdu, that is, in November of the 10th year of the founding of the Emperor, a big event happened in the ancient land of Jiangnan.
A large number of Jiangnan nobles rebelled!
Wang Wenjin of Wuzhou (ruling today's Jinhua, Zhejiang Province), Gao Zhizhi of Yuezhou (ruling today's Shaoxing, Zhejiang Province), and Shen Xuanyao of Suzhou were those who proclaimed themselves emperors and rebelled.
In addition, there were Li Xi of Jiangshan (now Zhongshan, Nanjing), Cai Daoren of Le'an (now Xianjuxi, Zhejiang), Shen Xiaoche of Wenzhou, Wang Guoqing of Quanzhou (ruling today's Fuzhou), etc. These people did not call themselves emperors, but Called himself Grand Governor.
Several groups of rebels, ranging from tens of thousands to thousands, responded to each other and massacred Sui Dynasty officials. Suddenly, there was a bloody storm in the south of the Yangtze River.
These people did not rebel to restore Nanchen's country, nor did they rebel because a group of peasant uncles could not live anymore and rebelled for survival...
In fact, these rebels were all Jiangnan nobles. Their families had houses, fields, and thousands of slaves. They usually ate well and drank spicy food, and their lives were quite nourishing.
Then someone will ask, if they don’t have to worry about food or drink, then why do they want to rebel?
Of course it’s for power!
Since the Wei and Jin Dynasties, the selection of officials in Jiangnan has been based on the nine-grade Zhongzheng system.
We will not go into details about the nine-level Zhongzheng system, but one thing is that the purpose of implementing the nine-level Zhongzheng system by Cao Pi, Emperor Wen of Wei, was to win over the gentry at that time.
Therefore, there is no doubt that the nine-level Zhongzheng system was completely designed to cater to the interests of the nobles.
Within the intellectual class, the counterpart to the nobles was the common people from poor families. Things that were beneficial to the noble families would naturally suppress the poor families.
The result of implementing the nine-rank Zhongzheng system is that "there are no poor families in the upper ranks, and no noble families in the lower ranks."
Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty, Yang Jian, was the greatest Chinese emperor in the eyes of Westerners, bar none!
One of Yang Jian's most important achievements was the creation of the imperial examination system.
In addition, Yang Jian also implemented the system of three provinces and six ministries for the first time.
After the end of the Sui Dynasty, these two systems were inherited by successive rulers until the end of the feudal system!
The creation of the imperial examination system allowed common people from poor families to see a bright road to climb to the top of the officialdom. Naturally, this system also violated the interests of the gentry.
Thus, there was this collective rebellion of the Jiangnan gentry!
Naturally, Yang Jian would not be merciful towards the rebellion, and soon issued an imperial edict appointing Yang Su, Duke of Yue, as the military commander in chief, and led his troops south to quell the rebellion.
At this time, the Sui army was at its peak and famous generals were emerging in large numbers. However, although the nobles in the south were all educated, when it came to military affairs, most of them were Ma Su and Zhao Kuo.
Therefore, although it seemed that it had the right location, people and people, the seemingly massive rebellion in Jiangnan actually did not last long before being extinguished.
However, the impact of this rebellion was extremely far-reaching.
Taking advantage of this rebellion, the northern gentry also worked together, and finally forced Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty Yang Jian to abolish the newly created imperial examination system, along with all education institutions such as state schools, county schools, imperial schools, and Imperial Colleges that had not been established for long. The institutions were also abolished.
So far, with the active efforts of the gentry across the country, this imperial examination system that has influenced Chinese civilization for more than a thousand years has just sprouted and died, and its roots were uprooted.
Of course, whether the imperial examination system is abolished or not will have basically no impact on the two third-generation officials and second-generation ancestors of the Yuwen family.
On the other hand, Emperor Wen Yang Jian was so troubled by this troubled place in Jiangnan that he almost turned gray with worry overnight.
Originally, Emperor Wen Yang Jian gave quite a lot of preferential conditions to the newly conquered territory of Nanchen. For example, one of the most important measures was to make Jiangnan area tax-free for ten years!
However, the Jiangnan gentry did not seem to appreciate it. Encouraged by a small group of reactionary forces with ulterior motives, rebellions continued in the Jiangnan area.
With no other choice, Yang Jian thought of his most outstanding son, King Yang Guang of Jin.
As the commander-in-chief of the seven-way army of 510,000 that conquered Nanchen, Yang Guang still achieved a lot of military exploits even though he actually did not do much. In recognition of his merits, he was given the title of Taiwei and the governor of the state.
As the saying goes, those who can work hard!
Seeing that the troubles in Jiangnan continued, and even several governors could not solve it, Yang Jian finally could no longer settle down, so an imperial edict was issued to Bingzhou, changing Yang Guang to the governor of Yangzhou, taking charge of affairs in Jiangnan.
Jin Wang Yang Guang became the general manager of Yangzhou. He was happy but also a little worried.
Fortunately, the power of the general manager of Yangzhou is much greater than that of the general manager of Bingzhou! At least, the territory he manages is much larger! And Yangzhou has always been prosperous, and its population base is not comparable to that of a remote and remote place like Bingzhou!
As for being worried, it’s naturally because things in Jiangnan are not that easy to solve!
Feeling deeply that the Jiangnan issue was difficult and that he did not have many talents under his command, Yang Guang began to think that if he wanted to solve the Jiangnan issue, he would first have to recruit a group of younger brothers to serve as his wings.
Yang Guang thought about all the civil and military affairs of the Manchu Dynasty in his heart, and finally, Yang Guang set his sights on Yu Wenshu, the general manager of Anzhou.
This Yu Wenshu farted under the covers. He could smell it (literary) and cover it (wu)! And he was only in his thirties, still very young. He was definitely a blue-chip stock with the potential to appreciate in value!
The most important thing is that Yu Wenshu is not close to his prince brother, and he does not seem to be a die-hard loyalist to his father Yang Jian! He is someone who can be won over.
Thinking of this, Yang Guang then wrote to his father Yang Jian, the emperor, asking Yu Wenshu to be the governor of Shouzhou.
This year is the eleventh year of the founding of the Emperor, 591 AD.
At this time, Yuwen Chenglong was three years old (actually not yet two years old), and Yuwen Chengdu was two years old (not yet one year old).