From Chief to Ball

If the punishment is light, you can't give the mad dog an explanation; if the punishment is heavy, your allies will hate you.

But let him admit during the sacrifice that it was his incompetence or mistake that caused the Dongyi people to take advantage of this time, and his own reputation would suffer again.

Last year he was quite satisfied with the history books, especially the scenes and glory of his victory and return, but now he wished there were no such things as history books.

However, the secretary who recorded the major events was Chen Jian. According to the rules set at the beginning, only the history of the major events recorded by the secretary was considered official history. This seemingly useless thing became more and more important.

How will the history of the 35 years of the Chinese calendar be recorded?Just like the widely circulated anecdote about Jixia seeing Qiongxi, at the beginning, all the leaders would smile and think it was very wise, but when history wanted to record themselves, they began to hate this story.

Distorted history is not not true, but only partly true, and which part is recorded depends on who writes it.

Under the headache, some leaders who had opinions on Chen Jian asked: "The mad dog is coming back, what should we do? Leader Suyue always has a way. If he asks why we didn't send troops in public, we should put our face on it." Where?"

The leaders were at a loss, especially those cities that were threatened by Qiongxi and did not dare to follow when Qiongxi's army attacked Mocheng. They expected Suyue to give a solution.

A leader said: "There is no way. Qiongxi pointed out a clear way, saying that a sun will rise in the northwest to dry up the river. Let us use this reason to start a war with Xiacheng and completely destroy Xiacheng. Xiacheng It is getting stronger day by day, originally there were four cities of Xia, Yu, Wei, and E, and now there are two cities with tens of thousands of support..."

But before the words were finished, six or seven people objected in unison and shouted: "If the leader of Suyue adopts this method, we will immediately withdraw from the alliance and will never stand with you. Let's not talk about whether everyone in the city Believe me, our city is so close to Xia Wei'e Yusi, why should we resist the wrath of the Xiacheng people?"

"Yes! If Chief Su Yue agrees to do this, we will withdraw from the alliance and stand aside with Xia Cheng!"

"You stay away from them so that you can support them until the army arrives, but what about us? The Xiacheng people went deep into Dongyi alone, and they were able to break through the city in ten days. With the help of riders and chariots here, who can resist?"

Su Yue rubbed his forehead, shook his head and said, "I don't agree to do this either, this mad dog is really pushed to the extreme, who knows what he will do?"

"After the civil strife in Yucheng, some propaganda about the rights of the city, who the city is, and who represents the city has continuously spread to us. Are Jixia's words just for those escaped slaves?"

"What I'm worried about is when Ji Xia conquers a few cities, distributes the cattle and iron tools, divides the public land in the cities, and the slaves at the bottom of the land will be governed by thousands of children from the school. Fu, struggling for ten years, and another ten years to recuperate. Slaves cannot stand on our side, and the people at the bottom of the country may not be determined. They are short-sighted and only see the small profits in front of them. They are more likely to be deceived by him. Ten years later They are part of Xia City."

"What I'm more worried about is that this mad dog can call his kinsman one today, and tomorrow he can call the tiller has his land. Everyone in the world can read and read. He chooses his sages as officials to cut off bloodlines. He has more than ten thousand in his hand. His slave, Xiacheng doesn’t want him, he started tossing around in Yucheng without looking back.”

"Being defeated by Dongyi, the most we can do is to change our costumes, change our language, pay tribute and surrender. The leader still has the power. How many people can he control in Qiongxi? Shouldn't we control the clan?" He is as human as a poor slave, and our heir has to start from scratch like those ordinary people, he does not need our blood, because he has taught those children in the school what we have hidden in our blood."

"I'd rather be defeated by Dongyi than be defeated by Jixia. I also understand this truth, but he has called for several years to be one family, and he did such a thing again. Compared with these words, than propaganda, than bewitching, don't talk about Ji Xia. Xia, is Xia Cheng's actor, who among us can compare?"

"All ministries are now delighted with Ji Xia's deeds. Whoever opposes Xia Cheng at this time will lose the support of the people of the country."

"Now that we have a covenant in hand, we will not interfere with the city unless it violates the interests of our relatives. If we don't push him to a desperate situation, he will not dare to break with us completely."

"So not only can't conquer him, but also reward him."

Everyone looked at Su Yue, wanting to know how to reward, and Su Yue's next words shocked everyone even more.

"I want to...elect him as the High Priest of the Alliance of Ministries, but as a price, he has to promise us that we only talk about the kinship and not the slaves, nobles and low-level commoners."

"High Priest?"

Everyone was stunned, this reward was a bit too big, and the big one was a bit scary.

The leaders of many cities are themselves high priests, even if they are not, their wives are high priests or people they trust the most, to explain the legitimacy of everything the leader does, and to prove the validity of everything the leader does with the help of ancestors or the guidance of heaven and earth. That's right.

The leader is a secular leader, the high priest is a theocratic leader, and before the emergence of a class society, gods were not hierarchical and there was no complete system, but even if all things are animistic and all spirits are equal, someone needs to make an ideological summary.

Needless to say, the leaders of the tribes are naturally the high priests of the tribes, and they will communicate with the ancestors of the heaven and earth on behalf of the tribes.

In Awayake's view, this new official position called secretary is not only responsible for recording history, but more importantly, it replaces the function of city priests and controls ideological propaganda.

From the original comet to the limited sovereignty of kinship and other systems, these theories and ideological propaganda should have been done by the high priest of the city, but they were snatched by this so-called secretary and did a good job.

Su Yue regretted it very much. When the comet of the alliance of various ministries came, he gave Chen Jian the opportunity to explain the rationality of his behavior for the sake of rights.

The result was unacceptable.

In the name of blood inheritance, they made up statements about the binding of property and morality, which gave the aristocrats a chance to take control of power in a legitimate way, but gave the bottom-level people the rationality to resist; The Su Xia system of interest gave the leaders the opportunity to inherit their offspring, but it also left out the possibility of using this as an excuse to conquer.

Inadvertently, Su Yue realized that the other party had obtained the right to interpret legal principles step by step, and became a high priest without the name of a priest.These people only saw the good, but didn't notice the poisonous snake hidden under the flowers.

What if I don't give it?As long as he doesn't turn his face, this secretary can continue to use his own ideology to explain the world and engage in public opinion propaganda, and no one can compete with anyone.

Fortunately, when the comet came a few years ago, the propaganda broke the theory of divination of heaven and earth signs. Priests may also be wrong or be deceived by bad souls. The ancestor guide in the black and white bear theory may be pretended by bad people. But the simple theory of practice and the unknowable give up and wait for the future to be known, making the original ideology precarious.

Theocracy is no longer supreme since then, may be false or wrong may be deception by bad spirits in the name of ancestors.

According to Xiacheng's theory, when I offer sacrifices, if you have good weather, you are real, so there are tributes; if there are droughts and floods after offering sacrifices, then it is fake and bad, and it will be smashed.

It was this that gave Su Yue the confidence to reward Chen Jian with the high priest, otherwise he would never let go of this right—after the big event of the comet a few years ago, the divine right was caught by the secular right , living behind.

That being the case, Su Yue felt that it would be better to let him live up to his name, but the price is to interpret the world in the way of hello, me, everyone.Just because you don't have children and severing offspring doesn't mean we don't have any. You are willing to toss about in your city. Don't come to our city to mix things up. It's good to talk about the harmony of the family, not to mention the conflict between the bottom and the relatives. It's easy to downplay it as if it doesn't exist.

Here's the bottom line.If you, Ji Xia, accept it, you, Ji Xia, will be the high priest.You, Ji Xia, don't accept it, so everyone breaks up, fighting to lose both, and unite with Dongyi to get rid of you first.

Chapter 57 Pleading guilty

As long as Chen Jian can abide by the rules and not publicize Xiacheng's special policies to the outside world, the clan leaders are still willing to accept such a relative.

The position of the high priest is extremely high, it seems that this is an impossible thing to refuse, since this is taken out as a price, it is inevitable to compromise with each other.

Su Yue also knew that this was to fight the fire with salary, but Xia Cheng had just returned from a big victory, and Xia Cheng's riders traveled to various cities to spread the exciting news. If it becomes a long-term confrontation, the internal covenant will fall apart.

The people of the country are soldiers, and the soldiers are the people of the country, so the people of the country have political rights. This is the inevitable political situation in a small country with few people.It is impossible for a leader to have unlimited authority, and it is even more impossible to use a few people as a tool of violence to rule and suppress the overwhelming majority of the people of the country. Forcing the people of the country to go to war with Xiacheng at this time is to seek their own death.

On a day of desperation, secret envoys sent by Su Yue and the chiefs of various cities went to meet Chen Jian ahead of time. After a secret and brief negotiation, the secret envoys left drunk, very satisfied with Chen Jian's attitude and the money they carried in their pockets. Clinking copper coins.

As a result, the discussions among the various leaders also changed their caliber.

From "the mad dog has crossed the great river to the north and is advancing towards Sucheng" to "Jixia, the hero of the tribes of the great river and the savior of his relatives, will soon resist the exciting Sucheng to worship his ancestors".

This subtle change is reflected in many aspects. Relatives and dignitaries from various cities gathered in Sucheng and prepared various gifts.The tribe slaughtered cattle and sheep, made various sacrificial items with grass, selected sacrifices, and prepared wine and fermented glutinous rice.

It's just that the speed of the team they were going to meet had slowed down significantly, and they still rested for three days a hundred miles away from Sucheng.

It was the end of October at this time, and every day of delay for a team of nearly 2 people was a huge expense, but sometimes the delay was worth it.

This is already within the reach of the caravan of the Yucheng Transportation Department. Everything in the city is safe, and everyone knows the news of the victory.

If the houses, clothes, and food they prepare in advance are strictly rationed, they will be able to survive this winter.

During the three days of the stay, a steady stream of new military uniforms, leather armor, chariots and horses were delivered from near Yucheng.The military merits assessed along the way have also been verified, and the allotted medals, publicity, encouragement silk, cloth flowers, etc. have already been purchased, but these will be rewarded after returning to Yucheng.

The reason why they stayed was to rehearse the upcoming city entry ceremony, and those rumors needed to be supported by strong force.If peace is sought through struggle, there will be peace. Deterrence by force can give Xiacheng a few years of breathing space, and it can also drag other cities into the abyss of reforming armaments.

The relatives and children of those cities who followed Chen Jian back from victory would not have thought so much. They were still immersed in the joy of victory, looking forward to showing their military exploits in the eyes of their parents.

On October 24th, when Xiacheng's army approached Sucheng, the leaders of various cities and clans headed by Suyue rode horses and rode chariots ten miles outside the city to meet them. Thousands of people.

The autumn grass was high and everything was desolate. The envoys on horseback had already informed the movement of the army. Thousands of people were eager to see through it, and finally saw a black shadow as if the sky and the earth were handed over.

The sound of drums and flutes came faintly, and many people stretched their necks to watch.