Jingguo Cabinet, Zuo Xiang Cabinet.
The new cabinet has been successfully built and is located just northeast of the imperial palace, occupying an area far larger than any other government office.
The Left Prime Minister's Pavilion occupied the largest space in the cabinet, and its side hall became the place where the Left Prime Minister handled daily affairs.
In the side hall, more than a dozen officials from the Left Prime Minister's Cabinet stood in front of the desk. Behind the desk, Fang Yun was looking at a document, which was about a family of seven from the Kingdom of Qing.
"What do you think?" Fang Yun put down the document and glanced at everyone.
Li Zhixiao raised his head and said, "Prime Minister, in my opinion, the other side has a master. This method is obviously learning from our Jingguo's use of the Minbao to launch... the propaganda war you mentioned. This matter must be settled. The blow to your literary reputation is secondary. The real problem is to give the other side an excuse to stop the reform and even shake Jingguo."
Fang Yun did not comment.
Xu Changgeng echoed, "I agree with Zhixiao's opinion. Some things, just like what you said in the court of Jing State, even scholars like us do not have true reason and morality, and most of our words and deeds are affected by emotions. The opponent's tactics this time are very clever, which has aroused the anger of many people. Under the emotion of anger, no matter what you do, it is wrong. Therefore, we should choose to make the smallest mistake now."
"What is the smallest mistake?" Fang Yun asked.
Xu Changgeng glanced at Li Zhixiao and hesitated.
Li Zhixiao said decisively: "Admitting a mistake is the smallest mistake."
Fang Yun looked at the two of them with a half-smile, glanced at the other officials, and finally asked: "Dong Yueqian, you seem to have something to say?"
Dong Yueqian nodded heavily.
Fang Yun said: "Just say it."
Dong Yueqian said angrily: "We did nothing wrong, why should we admit our mistakes?"
The other officials were stunned. Some of them looked at Dong Yueqian as if he were a fool, as if to say that it was an insult to the bureaucracy of Jing State that such a person could hold such an important position. They couldn't understand why Fang Yun valued him so much.
Fang Yun nodded gently and said, "Well said!"
The officials looked embarrassed and looked at Fang Yun in disbelief. These were not things a qualified bureaucrat should say.
Fang Yun showed a kind smile and said, "The court of a country has a huge inertia, uh... well, the power of habit. This power is driven by the inside and is difficult to stop or change suddenly. It is very good that you can recognize and admit your mistakes. Although you just want to find an excuse to shirk responsibility, it is better than refusing to admit your mistakes. But many things are just as Dong Yueqian said. We are not wrong, so why should we admit our mistakes? Yes, we can't measure everything in this world with right and wrong, but as long as we admit our mistakes, right and wrong will become the criterion for judgment."
The officials frowned and thought.
Fang Yun continued, "We can make up for their deaths, we can sympathize, we can feel regret, but we did not invade Qing, we did not maliciously kill their people, we did not take the initiative to provoke any form of confrontation, and we were just fighting back. Let alone seven people died, even if seven million people died, we would not be wrong! It was Qing that was wrong, it was the King of Qing that was wrong! If we admit our mistakes, it means that our reforms were wrong! I am not wrong, and I will not admit my mistakes."
The side hall fell into silence.
Then, Fang Yun said: "Back then, we Jing people also had times when we couldn't eat because we were blockaded by enemy countries. We were hungry, we were in pain, and we were resentful. However, we Jing country never used people who died of starvation as weapons to attack the enemy, because this was caused by our incompetence and this is our shame. What we have to do is to continue to develop the country and continue to do what we should do. We will not cover up these mistakes or even crimes, but we can't let those people starve to death in vain! We work hard to develop weapons to protect the country, we must work hard to grow food to feed people, and we must do our best to ensure that no one will starve to death in the future, especially those who work hard. I personally express my deep condolences for the death of a family of seven in Qingguo, but as the left prime minister of Jingguo, I will never stop the pace of innovation! If this happens in our Jingguo, the monarch and the cabinet should collectively admit their mistakes, instead of being complacent because they have found an opportunity to attack their opponents."
"In addition, the incident in Qing Kingdom also taught us lessons and inspiration. I plan to set up several new departments in the Ministry of Revenue, including the Food Emergency Department, the Disaster Emergency Department, and the War Emergency Department, etc., mainly to prevent emergencies and deal with emergencies. Among them, the Food Emergency Department will set up a new subordinate office, which can accept donations, but all money will be taken from the people and used for the people. The whereabouts of all money and food will be announced to the public and subject to supervision by anyone. Any official who embezzles or embezzles the food and money of the Emergency Department will be severely punished, with no upper limit. Our Fang family will start by donating one million taels of silver."
"yes!"
A group of officials looked at Fang Yun, and left the side hall with deep admiration.
Walking away, Li Zhixiao patted Dong Yueqian on the shoulder and said, "Yueqian, I admit my mistake. We used to think that honest people were too stupid to be bullied, but now we realize that many times, we are too shrewd and too calculating, but we ignore the real interests and justice. You are stupid, but because of this, you are not affected by any other factors and you see the essence at a glance."
Xu Changgeng said: "Yes, this time the boss is much stronger than us."
The other officials nodded slightly, and Dong Yueqian just laughed without saying anything.
Xu Changgeng said: "Zhixiao, let's discuss it and publish an article on the discussion list. It's not a response, nor a statement, but just to express the attitude of our Left Prime Minister."
"good!"
That evening, Xu Changgeng published an article on the forum. In addition to his name automatically marked on the forum at the end of the article, he also added his official position as Zuo Xiangge.
The article begins with a normal explanation of the whole story, but later on, Xu Changgeng quotes Fang Yun's words throughout the article.
Finally, Xu Changgeng expressed his own views.
"A family committing suicide because they can't eat should not be a reason to stop reform at any time and in any place, but a reason to continue reform. Any country where this happens is a shame for the entire national administration, and should not be considered anyone's political achievement. When a normal country encounters this, it should investigate whether the officials in the place where the deceased lived were corrupt and should review why the local managers failed to let them live. As an official of Jing State, I said the above. As an ordinary scholar, I want to say that a family of seven in Qing State died, and the whole country of Qing State used this as an excuse to attack and insult the left prime minister of our Jing State, while the left prime minister of our Jing State used this as an excuse to reform and set up a new emergency department to ensure that such a thing would not happen in our Jing State. Perhaps, this is the difference between being a human being and being an official. To put it bluntly, looking back at the way the two countries handled this matter, I have the illusion that it was us Jing people who died."
As soon as this article came out, it was like a mountain entering the sea, causing huge waves.
A large number of Qing people became angry and humiliated, and crazily attacked the officials of the Left Prime Minister's Cabinet and Fang Yun of Jing State.
However, this also sounded the clarion call for a counterattack against the Kingdom of Qing. Scholars from various countries accused the Kingdom of Qing based on the content of Fang Yunhe's article.
Later, tens of thousands of people responded in unison with the same sentence.
"Fang Yun established an emergency department because of this matter. What did the king and officials of your Qing Kingdom do?"
When the number of replies exceeded 100,000, fewer and fewer people from Qing attacked Fang Yun and Jing.
Finally, Zhang Poyue responded with this sentence.
"Of course, he was busy attacking Fang Yun on the discussion board."