Chapter 257: Plan to Reform Su Shi, Eager to Return Home

When did Su Shi become a fanboy of Wei Yuan?

Probably when he heard that Wei Yuan killed seven generals in battle.

At that time, many literati and scholars in the Great Zhou were spreading this story.

They said that Wei Yuan was 'Huo Qubing', 'Wei Qing', 'Guan Yu', and that he was feared by the world.

Later, it was heard that Wei Yuan killed a Liao envoy in the street, and that he defeated the envoys of Liao and Xia in the palace.

And Wei Yuan killed the Japanese and other deeds.

After hearing more, Su Shi wanted to meet this Wei Yuan, who was like the rising sun in the east, and meet this invincible general who was highly respected by the whole people.

He was the most dazzling star in this era, without a doubt.

At this moment, he finally got what he wanted.

Wei Yuan directly rejected Su Shi's kindness, which made the former extremely disappointed.

He had just developed a method of making delicious meat, which was very delicious, and planned to let Wei Yuan taste it, but unfortunately there was no such opportunity.

The main reason was that Wei Yuan did not dare to let him do it.

As a scholar who was a Jinshi, and had a high status in the literary world, if he let such a person cook for him, I am afraid that all the scholars in the world would be furious if it got out.

Moreover, once the government knew about this, it would not be appropriate.

So Wei Yuan only asked the accompanying cook to make some simple food, and had two drinks with Su Shi.

During the drinking, Su Shi respectfully asked:

"Lord Wei, I wonder if you can tell me your experience in detail? I want to write a biography for you, I wonder if you are willing to agree?"

Write a book?

Hearing Su Shi's request, Wei Yuan shook his head and refused.

Su Shi was puzzled and asked, "Why didn't Wei Shuai agree? Your deeds that shocked the world should be known to future generations."

"Although the Hanlin Academy and other departments will also record the words and deeds of the officials of the current dynasty, it will not be widely circulated and known to more people for a while."

"I write a biography for you just to let more people in the future know your achievements."

Wei Yuan wanted to say that Su Shi's behavior would only make him like being roasted on a stove.

What he lacks the least and cannot want the most now is fame.

But once he said such a thing, he was worried that Su Shi would become impure.

So far, Su Shi is still the passionate young man who doesn't know what conspiracy and political struggle are.

Su Shi's greatest achievement, or in other words, his greatest achievement in culture, should be those poems and songs.

Because, after thousands of years of sedimentation on this land, there have been two people like him, one is himself, and the other is Li Bai.

If a person is immersed in the secular world, he will lose his spirituality in poetry and songs.

Therefore, Wei Yuan used another way to tell Su Shi,

"Do you think that since I became famous, whether it is the killing of seven generals in battle or the victory of Yanmen, it is all my personal achievement?"

Su Shi was subconsciously stunned and blurted out: "What if it is not?"

Wei Yuan said: "In your eyes, I am unparalleled in martial arts and have the courage of ten thousand men, but if I am really on the battlefield and I am surrounded, how many people do you think I can kill?"

Su Shi frowned slightly, "Although I followed the Fengxiang governor to guard Weizhou, I did not personally go to the door to command the battle to defend the city. I can't guess and have never thought about this question."

"You haven't thought about it, but I have." Wei Yuan said seriously: "Even if I am in my prime, facing a siege of one thousand people, I can only kill forty or fifty people at most, and I will die of exhaustion."

"If the enemy shoots me with a bow and crossbow, I may be shot into a hedgehog on the spot, not to mention killing the enemy."

Su Shi thought about it seriously and did not refute.

Wei Yuan continued: "Individual bravery is ultimately limited. It is difficult to influence the victory of a local battle with personal bravery."

"Whether I killed seven generals in battle or won the great victory at Yanmen, it was not my own achievement, but the tens of thousands of border soldiers standing behind me. Without them, there would be no Wei Yuan today."

Speaking of this, he suddenly drank the wine in the cup, stood up, stood with his hands behind his back, and continued:

"People say that I know soldiers, am proficient in the way of training soldiers, the art of using soldiers, and have never lost a battle I commanded. This is not my ability, but the merit of the soldiers who followed me to fight the enemy, the Ministry of Revenue who worked hard to raise food and wages, and the Ministry of War that mobilized the armies of all parties for unified deployment."

"It is the Ministry of Works and the Military Equipment Supervision that continuously produced military equipment, the spies of the Imperial City Division who rushed to the front line, regardless of the cost of casualties, and the great help of tens of millions of people in the Great Zhou. It is because of them that I can win the battle. . "

"Otherwise, how could I have such luck?"

Wei Yuan saw that Su Shi's face had gradually become silent, so he simply struck while the iron was hot and continued:

"Mr. Su, you have great talent. It is not an exaggeration to say that your poems and articles are the best in the world."

"Every poem you write is widely sung in the Central Plains and Jiangnan. You are a well-deserved great talent."

"You said you would write a book and biography for me, and write poems and songs. I am honored, but I think you should look at the world."

"Your voice should not appear on the powerful, and your articles should not only write about those big people."

"Mr. Su, go and have a look, see the scenery outside the northwest grassland, and see how my border soldiers guard the border."

"Go to the Great Wall in the north, see how the soldiers there eat and sleep in the open, and see what it means to have a horse as fast as Lu and a bow as thunderous as a string."

Wei Yuan stopped here.

Su Shi seemed to have been greatly shocked.

After an unknown amount of time, he suddenly took a deep breath, stood up slowly, and bowed solemnly towards Wei Yuan's back:

"Listening to your words is worth ten years of reading. I, Su Shi, should not only write about the prosperous times, the bright moon, the style, and the powerful in my poems."

"Beyond the Great Wall there is the sound of cranes chirping in the wind, and horses and bows are riding and shooting. This is how it should be!"

"Marquis Wei, I have received a lesson from you!"

Wei Yuan turned around, helped him up, and said seriously:

"I hope that through your poems and songs, the world can learn more about the hardships of the border guards, so that more people can understand that today's peace is hard-won."

"I hope that through your words, future generations can learn about the demeanor of the Zhou generation and the frontier soldiers."

Su Shi nodded firmly and said, "I understand, my official."

At this moment, the road in front of him seemed to become smoother.

He seemed to know what he wanted.

Previously, when he became a Jinshi, he only thought about becoming an official and showing off what he had learned in his life. Only later did he gradually realize that he was not made to be an official at all.

Ever since he was demoted to Shaanxi Road, Su Shi often asked himself, how should he go in the future?

Continue to be an official?

Depending on your character, if you go to the capital, you will be demoted to another place sooner or later.

As for writing poems and songs, they are just boring works in my spare time.

Cultivating oneself, managing one's family, governing the country, and bringing peace to the world are what scholars should pursue.

But now, after hearing Wei Yuan's tirade, Su Shi suddenly became enlightened.

Rather than being obsessed with being an official, it is better to take things as they come and use your own literary talents to record this extraordinary and prosperous era of the world.

Others record the prosperous times, referring to the prosperity of commerce, the wealth of the people, and the beauty of the singers.

The same was true for my previous self.

But starting from today, I will write some different poems and articles, and write about the frontier fortress in the prosperous age that others have not written about.

Write about those heroes of the country who sacrificed their lives and blood in order to stabilize the prosperous world.

Thinking of this, Su Shi suddenly felt that the blood in his chest was boiling. He now wanted to run to Helan Mountain and Yanmen Pass.

"Mr. Su, please remember that there are no individual heroes in this world. This is the saying that one general can make thousands of people die."

"The real heroes are the people of the world, the little-known people."

Wei Yuan only expressed some of his opinions.

He was completely unaware of the impact his words had on Su Shi.

If Su Shi is a poet of the unrestrained style, then from today on, he will become a ‘unrestrained’ one.

In previous history, during the Song Dynasty, there were very few people who wrote frontier fortress poems. Therefore, some frontier fortress poems became famous.

If hundreds of schools of poetry on the frontier are flourishing, why would only one or two poems stand out?

Wei Yuan asked Su Shi to write more about the demeanor of the frontier soldiers, but he actually had his own selfish motives.

Today, due to the reasons of some scholar-bureaucrats, the common people at the bottom feel that being a soldier is inferior, while studying is superior.

A country that only has culture but no military is far from being called a civilization.

Only when there is both culture and military power can it be called ‘civilization’.

Wei Yuan hopes that more and more scholars will understand the hardships of the border guards and know who is guarding this hard-won peace and prosperity.

In this way, ten or a hundred years later, the culture of advocating literature and suppressing martial arts will inevitably improve.

——

Half an hour later, Su Shi no longer disturbed Wei Yuan on his way, and the two said goodbye to each other.

Several officials from Fengxiang Mansion asked Su Shi,

"Lord Tongpan, where are we going now?"

Su Shi looked to the northwest, his eyes seeming to fall on Helan Mountain thousands of miles away.

"Take you to climb the mountain."

climb mountains?

At this moment, Su Shi suddenly thought of what Wei Yuan had just said:

"The horse moves so fast, the bow moves like a thunderbolt."

"Shuai Wei's research on poetry is not inferior to mine. He is really both civilized and military, which is admirable."

"I don't know if Commander Wei has a complete poem. I will definitely ask him if I see him again someday."

In the evening, Su Shi and his party set up camp in an open space.

He sat in front of the bonfire, prepared the four treasures of his study, looked at the bright moon in the night sky, and wondered what he was thinking about.

Suddenly, everyone saw him writing the words "Border Army Collection" on a piece of white paper.

He also wrote the three characters "The Biography of Wei Yuan" below the three characters "Bian Jun Ji". Later he felt that it was inappropriate to call Wei Yuan by his first name, so he changed it to "The Biography of Wei Gong".

The book boy sitting behind Su Shi saw it and asked doubtfully: "Didn't Marshal Wei say that he doesn't want sir to write him in the storybook? Sir, why do you still write it?"

Su Shi smiled and said: "Shuai Wei said that the achievements of all big people are based on the rise and fall of small people."

"Many years ago, Marshal Wei was also a nobody."

The book boy asked curiously: "How did he become a big shot step by step?"

Su Shi smiled and said, "Want to know?"

The book boy nodded.

Su Shi did not rush to write. Instead, he rested his head on the ground, face up to the sky, crossed his legs, held the pen in one hand, turned it around between his fingers, put his hand on the back of his head, and murmured:

"This starts from the time when Duke Wu Xiang died and Lord Wei gave up his writing and joined the army."

"Who is Mr. Wu Xiang?" The book boy was still young and had many puzzles about military commanders.

Su Shi said: "Mr. Wu Xianggong, he was a legendary figure in Han Xianggong's youth."

The scholar suddenly realized, "Is he the same as the current Lord Wei?"

Su Shi nodded, "Shuai Wei is a legend among our generation. There may not be anyone like him again for hundreds or even thousands of years."

Regardless of whether some scholar-bureaucrats admit it or not, based on Wei Yuan's current military talents, as long as he remains in a high position and in the center, he can maintain peace and prosperity in the Zhou Dynasty.

After Su Shi left, Wei Yuan headed east, along the road back to Bianjing.

Late that night, he and the soldiers of the Manjia Battalion settled near the Yellow River in Jinzhou.

Although he has not yet arrived in Bianjing, Wei Yuan has already started writing the "Reorganization of Yanbian Military Letters". This letter is intended to give Zhao Zhen a vaccination in advance.

Wang Anshi was reforming the official system, and he didn't want to be idle.

A few years later, due to Wang Anshi's reform of the official system, all the rising stars became his disciples and old officials.

How could Wei Yuan fare well?

In the big tent, Xiao Yuming had been standing behind Wei Yuan, watching him write the note. After he finished writing the note, a full two hours had passed.

Xiao Yuming asked: "Does Commander Wei still need to eat at night?"

Wei Yuan shook his head, handed the written note to Xiao Yuming, and said, "It will be sent to Bianjing in a hurry over 800 miles."

"No." After Xiao Yuming took the zhazi respectfully, he asked:

"Can the officials agree to our restructuring?"

Wei Yuan sighed, "If the officials want to keep Yanbian stable for a long time, they have no other choice but to reform the system."

"If the officials are worried about the expansion of the side, then the general strategy of turning defense into offense will become child's play."

Xiao Yuming said: "Isn't it possible to rely on the sixteen-character secret that Commander Wei taught to many generals?"

Wei Yuan said seriously: "There is no tactic that can win every battle in this world. If you can be invincible with just these sixteen words, why do you need to recruit and train troops?"

"Besides, those sixteen words can only harass the enemy at most. If you want to fight a large-scale annihilation war in the future, you must change the inherent military system."

Xiao Yuming stopped talking and stepped back with fists in hand.

After he left, Wei Yuan murmured:

"Rather than saying that Zhong Er is my person, it is more like a cooperation between me and him."

"Peng Sun can be reused. With him in Yanbian and the Helan Mountain area, I have the final say."

"Next, let's see if Gu Tingye can gain a foothold in Yanbian. It's best to lead Weizhou's troops like a family army."

"As for this Duke Kang, I am a little surprised."

Speaking of the Yanbian group, the person Wei Yuan couldn't understand the most was Kang Guogong.

"If Su Shi could write a few frontier fortress poems, it might make the common people aware of the sufferings of frontier generals. This would also be a good thing for the frontier soldiers."

"I've been away from home for so long, and I don't know what happened to my two children, Brother Zhuang and Sister Jing."

At this moment, Wei Yuan felt like returning home.