The Sage of Confucianism and Taoism

Chapter 2529 Miscellaneous Family's Request

The draft of abolishing slavery caused considerable controversy in the cabinet. Some officials even leaked it and created momentum in the forum and among the people to oppose Fang Yun.

However, Fang Yun immediately forced the officials who leaked the news to resign on the grounds of leaking state secrets.

Afterwards, Fang Yun used emotion and reason to persuade them, presented various evidences to prove the importance of abolishing slavery, and even invited the Criminal Court and the Works Court to help. Finally, he obtained the consent of all the officials in the cabinet. First, he abolished the relevant laws, and then formulated new laws to start abolishing slavery.

If the previous crackdown was guaranteed by the original laws and had a moral high ground, this time the abolition of slavery was completely different.

So, many families joined forces to oppose again, but they all became smarter. They did not block the government office like last time, but kept looking for officials from all over the country to lobby.

The opposition of the families this time was not so fierce, but it caused a lot of obstacles to the abolition of slavery.

Even if the five major families expressed their support and took the lead in dismissing the slaves or changing the employment contracts, it did not have a good effect.

Fang Yun used the same trick again, and asked the Council of State to issue a decree, announcing that from now on, six state councils would be established in Beijing, Xiangzhou, Jiangzhou, Mizhou, Yanzhou and Dongyunzhou, and state council scholars would be recruited.

Fang Yun didn't even need to say that state council scholars must support the abolition of slavery, and some families that had originally opposed it suddenly turned around and strongly supported the abolition of slavery. That is, on the second day after these families supported Fang Yun, they received a letter from the State Council of State in Beijing, inviting them to join the state council.

The families knew Fang Yun's intention very well, but they had no way to deal with Fang Yun because the council scholars were too tempting.

As a result, the major families that had been working together suddenly became a mess, and many families gave up the struggle and turned to negotiate with local officials, hoping to ask for a state council scholar.

In the past few days, the status of all those who served as state council scholars in various places, both in the official and private sectors, has changed significantly. Moreover, the National Council now recruits not only officials, celebrities and family heads, but also elites from all walks of life.

There are a few lucky scholars who are not high-ranking and not officials. Because they represent their respective industries to the Council, they have made a lot of suggestions and opinions to the Council, and they have been personally received by Cai He, the president of the Council, and have been conferred the title of National Council Scholars.

The status of those people has become different. There are even rumors that when local officials meet these people, it is almost equivalent to meeting a fifth-rank official.

So, after only three days, the resistance to the abolition of slavery disappeared.

Cao De'an also joked with his subordinates about this matter, saying that Fang Xusheng still has two opportunities to implement reforms without scruples, one is to establish the government council, and the other is to establish the county council.

Seeing that Fang Yun's reform was so smooth, the pressure on the temporary peace talks department became greater and greater.

Because Fang Yun and Zuo Xiangge were unwilling to join, the establishment of the temporary peace talks department was very slow and inefficient.

Five days before the first group of people from the Miscellaneous Family arrived in Xiangzhou, the Provisional Peace Negotiation Department completed its preparations and began to discuss the details.

Sheng Boyuan originally did not want to join the Provisional Peace Negotiation Department, but because he forced Fang Yun to leave, under pressure from all sides, he served as the deputy director, and the director was held by the assistant prime minister Yang Xuwen.

This negotiation was very important, so the staff of the Peace Negotiation Department often asked the cabinet and various ministries, and constantly asked the Left Prime Minister's Cabinet, especially Fang Yun, for help.

Every time the people from the Peace Negotiation Department came to the Left Prime Minister's Cabinet, they were extremely humble, almost kneeling on the ground and kowtowed. Every official in the Left Prime Minister's Cabinet sympathized with them and wished to leave the Left Prime Minister's Cabinet to serve the country.

However, Fang Yun remained unmoved and did not participate in the peace talks at all.

The day before the first group of people from the Miscellaneous Family were about to arrive in Xiangzhou, the Peace Negotiation Department finally reluctantly took out the first draft of the peace talks, listed the bottom line of Jingguo, and handed it over to the three cabinet ministers and cabinet councilors.

As a result, Fang Yun did not even look at it and directly asked Xu Changgeng to return it.

Many senators were dissatisfied with the conditions of the draft, so the Queen Mother had to hold a meeting overnight. Except for Fang Yun who was ill, the other two prime ministers and senators attended the meeting to discuss the details of the peace talks.

The talks lasted until dawn, and everyone reluctantly reached an agreement. Yang Xuwen sent a letter to Wenxinyuan, hoping to hold peace talks today.

It took an hour before Wenxinyuan replied and agreed to hold peace talks with Jingguo in Wenxinyuan of Shengyuan tomorrow.

So, the Peace Negotiation Department hurriedly made final preparations and then went to Shengyuan.

When they arrived at Shengyuan, everyone in the Peace Negotiation Department thought that Wenxinyuan would obstruct everywhere, but they didn't know that the miscellaneous staff of Wenxinyuan were very polite, without any hostile attitude, and completely handled the matter impartially, and conducted normal negotiations with the Peace Negotiation Department.

When the news was passed back to Jingguo, the officials were relieved. This was a very good start.

The peace talks involved a lot of things and it was difficult to reach an agreement immediately, so the members of the Peace Negotiation Department temporarily stayed in Wenxinyuan and started negotiations day after day.

While the two sides were negotiating, other officials from the Wenxinyuan did not withdraw, but moved to various places in Jingguo one after another and began to verify whether Jingguo officials violated the holy way of the Zajia family.

Wenxinyuan was far less powerful than the Lidian and had no right to directly order Jingguo officials to do things, so they had been secretly investigating, making Jingguo officials unable to defend themselves.

At the beginning, the Peace Negotiation Department was still negotiating normally, but after ten days of negotiations and a lot of details had not been negotiated, even Jingguo officials who were not from the Peace Negotiation Department found problems.

Soon, Jingguo held a court meeting and concluded that Wenxinyuan had no sincerity in the negotiations and they were obviously stalling for time.

Sure enough, after the Peace Negotiation Department solemnly proposed negotiations, the Zajia family also put down their disguise, took out the results of their investigations in the past few days, and began to put pressure on the Peace Negotiation Department and put forward new conditions.

For example, Jingguo should share all its new industrial technologies with Qingguo and Guguo for free; for example, Jingguo must persuade the various halls and academies of the Holy Academy to build as many new-style colleges in Jingguo as they would in Qingguo; for example, completely cancel the Dingfu Treaty and return the compensation that Qingguo has paid...

The conditions put forward by the Zajia family were extremely harsh. Several officials of the Peace Negotiation Department could not bear it any longer, and they slammed the table and loudly rebuked them. As a result, they were directly expelled from the Holy Academy by the Zajia family, and they were forbidden to enter the Holy Academy again on the grounds of offending the Holy Academy.

It was not until this time that the officials of Jingguo realized how naive they were before.

The officials of Jing State were originally in despair, especially the officials of the Miscellaneous School, who were ready to resign or even betray Jing State. The Wenxinyuan suddenly sent a letter to the Peace Negotiation Department, saying that as long as Fang Yun publicly admitted his mistakes, admitted that he would never be hostile to the Miscellaneous School, and would never obstruct the Miscellaneous School's holy path, the Miscellaneous School would make huge concessions.

For the officials of the Miscellaneous School of Jing State, this was a great piece of good news, which meant that they would not have to bear the risk of literary courage being shattered or even death, but they could not be sure whether Fang Yun admitted his mistakes.

Therefore, at the request of many officials of the Miscellaneous School, Jing State held a grand court meeting again, and all officials of the seventh rank and above entered the Fengtian Hall either in real body or by projection to discuss the matter.