Although Zhao Bing was constantly angry about his indecisiveness and wanted to excuse the queen, he also knew that the cost of deposing the queen was too high. This was not only because it required huge amounts of money to be consumed after the reinstatement, but of course, in fact, he really did not have the ability and energy to do it again with the current financial situation. In addition, the political cost was not small, which would damage his reputation, and would make the ministers who advocated Wu Xi as the queen and be frightened. They would definitely try their best to stop it, which would trigger a new crisis. Because in the eyes of the literati class, this matter was not just about abolishing the queen, but about breaking the fence they set up for the emperor.

Although Zhao Bing was very disgusted with Confucian theory and did not like the rules and regulations, the masters' instinctively expressed their intentions and indoctrination of several months of the lectures every year, even if he instinctively resisted, brainwashed education forced him to passively accept it. But he was not the real Zhao Bing, but a "newcomer" with modern thoughts and adult thinking. He could think independently, analyze and judge the pros and cons with his own thoughts, and use it.

With his understanding of this era, Zhao Bing also began to use what he learned to reinterpret the world, seek flaws from it, and find a path that suits his development. Sometimes he wondered if his masters and those famous scholars who started to speak found that they had such thoughts to listen to their nagging, would they be angry to death. This is also the reason why Zhao Bing suddenly changed his mind and began to actively learn classics and history. After all, only by knowing oneself and the enemy can he win every battle.

Zhao Bing carefully examined the various constraints that the monarchs of the Song Dynasty were subject to. Their completeness was beyond the reach of all dynasties, including those that were shared by other dynasties and those that were not found in other dynasties. In the past three hundred years, a dictatorial monarch had never been born. However, a famous prime minister appeared in a large number of people, which could list a long list: Ding Wei, Wang Anshi, Cai Jing, Qin Hui, Han Tuozhou, Shi Miyuan, Jia Sidao, etc.

From this we can find that the Song Dynasty did not solve the problem of dictatorship of power and ministers well, but the power of the monarch was effectively restricted. However, through the combination of theory and practice, Zhao Bing found that the reason why his ancestors and ancestors could not "act happily" like him was not just because they were afraid of the family rules of the ancestors, but because the scholar-official class completed the encirclement of the emperor through a series of measures and means, and built an invisible fence in the use of power, making it difficult for the emperors of the Song Dynasty to make it difficult for the emperors of the Song Dynasty to make the court arbitrary decision and reward and kill as they wish.

First of all, what restricts imperial power is extremely ridiculous to modern people, that is, the nihilistic "Heaven". After Qin Shihuang established the imperial system, the emperor was supreme. During the Han Dynasty, Dong Zhongshu proposed the theory of "rejuvenating the people and extending the king, and rejuvenating the king and extending the sky", setting up a higher-level "Heaven Way" above imperial power, thus transforming absolute imperial power into relative imperial power.

Zhao Bing really couldn't imagine how strong the ancients' awe of "Heaven", but after Qin, the destiny and the way of heaven did indeed restrict the monarchy on earth. The ancient monarchs all believed that God had eyes staring at him and warned the rulers who had lost their virtues through disasters and strangeness. Of course, the kings also successfully used the name of the monarchy's authority and the son of heaven to strengthen their ruler and emphasize their orthodoxy. Under this mentality, few people who dared to challenge the authority of "Heaven" would end up being good.

During the Xining period, in order to persuade Song Shenzong to suppress the theory of strange things and practiced the new law, Wang Anshi said, "The changes of heaven are not worth fearing, the ancestors are not worthy of law, and people are not worthy of politeness." In fact, it is to deceive the emperor from the three constraints of heaven, the ancestors are formed into laws and public opinion. This is a very dangerous practice, because the result is likely to lead to the formation of imperial autocracy. Therefore, when Prime Minister Fu Bi heard Wang Anshi tell Shenzong that "disasters and strangeness are all the numbers of heavens, not related to human affairs gains and losses", he couldn't sit still, and the letter said:

"What a monarch fears is only heaven. If he does not fear heaven, what can he do? This must be a traitor who wants to advance evil sayings to shake his superiors, so that the ministers who assist and advise and fight against have no power. This is an opportunity to govern the chaos and cannot be rescued quickly." As a result, everyone saw that Wang Anshi was demoted to the throne and Shenzong temporarily dismissed the new law. This was largely due to the awe of "destiny of heaven". An innovation that could change history was changed by the nihilistic heaven. Obviously, the monarch respected heaven, so he did not dare to act alone. He made the role of heaven as a mysterious force to control the power of the human king in the political operation of the Song Dynasty.

However, Zhao Bing is also a beneficiary of the Heavenly Way. He successfully used this to consolidate his position and made people believe that he had the ability to communicate with God. Everything he did was guided by God. He knew that things were often successful, Xiao He and Xiao He were defeated. If he was abolished, no matter what kind of astronomical phenomena or major disasters and minor emotions appeared, he would blame him for his actions against the sky and thus suffered from the punishment of heaven.

Zhao Bing found that this was associated with the Taizu oath. Some people may think that even if there is a "vow", it is of little significance. It is just a secret will. But to be more precise, this is actually a covenant between the Song royal family and heaven. If the monarch of Zhao Song violates the "vow", then "heaven will be killed." In an era when heaven is respected by the human world, such "vows" have greater binding force than ordinary wills, which also allowed the scholars and officials to win a gold medal for nothing, allowing them to "restraint" the imperial power.

In addition, Zhao Bing felt that Taizu was considered a wise ruler, but he was simply concerned about his descendants and was always worried that they would find it difficult to preserve the country he had built. Therefore, he set many rules for his descendants, hoping to use the power of scholars to help him maintain the rule of the Zhao family. If the oath was regarded as a special convention of the Song Dynasty, there were also a series of daily systems and procedures that required the monarch to follow. In the Song Dynasty, this was called "traditional sect".

At the beginning of the founding of the country, Taizu realized that the sect was a "wonderful method" to prevent future monarchs from doing something arbitrary, so he vigorously formulated many rules. Zhao Bing thought that from the source, these systems did play a role in preventing future generations from becoming promiscuous, but from another perspective, it also restricted the channels for promiscuous monarchs to make progress, and put their children and grandchildren in the condoms they set, which was difficult to do if they wanted to move. Before, he was impeached for decorating the house, and those people were based on the sect formulated by Taizu. Fortunately, he threatened with force and made random troubles with the other, so he had passed this disaster. What can he do later?

In addition, Zhao Kuangyin also did something that Zhao Bing thought was a big mistake. Once he answered the same answer with Zhao Pu and asked him, "What is the biggest in the world?" Zhao Pu replied, "The truth is the greatest!" Taizu thought it was very good. This may be his temporary idea, but the scholars and officials took advantage of the situation and thought that the founding emperor agreed with the truth. This means that the emperor also admitted that power is not the greatest, the imperial power is not the greatest, and the emperor's words are not always correct, nor cannot be violated. It is precisely because the greatest "consensus" of the truth is reached between the monarch and the ministers, so they do not think that the minister must absolutely obey the monarch.

In Zhao Bing's opinion, Taizu's speech was indeed a mess, but the scholars and officials were not gentlemen. They over-interpreted this and made it a rule that was beneficial to them, which was equivalent to playing a scoundrel. Of course, he also blamed his ancestor in his heart, why was he just talking without thinking about what the truth was? Can it be decided by him? Who should judge it?

Anyone with a discerning eye can see that, of course, it is not explained by the monarch himself. To be precise, the truth is not in the hands of one person, but is contained in the tradition of human hearts, the laws of nature and generations, and discovered and explained by well-educated scholars and officials; or demonstrated through public opinion. In Zhao Bing's view, public opinion is another pitfall. His understanding of public opinion is equivalent to the parliamentary system of European and American countries. If you discuss something, it is a manifestation of democratic co-governance, but this has a different interpretation in the Song Dynasty.

In Zhu Xi's view, the monarch should not be arbitrary. Even if the monarch's judgment is correct, "all should be based on reason", doing so is not a matter of governance. The basis of governance is to obey public opinion; Su Shi's explanation is: "This is to say that power and blessings cannot be moved by the ministers. If you want power and blessings to be moved by the ministers, it is better to sacrifice yourself and follow the crowd. If the public is what I am, I will give it to them, and if the public is wrong, I will leave it to them. There is no unfairness among the people, and the ruler is the ruler of the public opinion in the world. In this way, will the power and blessings be returned?" This explanation also has a bit of "democratic politics".

Their meaning is nothing more than saying that the monarch only uses rewards and punishments and monopolizes authority, which means the monarch's dictatorship. But if the monarch obeys public opinion, it is naturally not a dictatorship of the monarch's power, and at the same time, it also avoids the authority being apt to be the one and two powerful ministers. Therefore, Zhao Bing thought that this system is indeed good from the surface, but democracy without centralization is obviously a rope to limit the imperial power, otherwise it would not be followed by what is right. What is the reason for this?

In actual implementation, the monarchs of the Song Dynasty may not be able to "sacrifice themselves and follow the crowd", but the emperors do respect the power of public debate. If the monarch acts incorrectly, they will be immediately besieged by public debate. Simply put, you are arguing with dozens of mouths, or even hundreds of mouths. Not to mention getting rid of your mouth, you can't win even if you grind your tongue! The result is that the truth is in the mouths of the literati and the emperor can only follow the truths in their mouths.

What's more serious is that Zhao Bing discovered that the benevolent monarchs in the Song Dynasty were often the most law-abiding. There was a consensus between the monarch and his subjects that "the law is the emperor who shares the world with the world". If the emperor betrays his own power and favors his own personal affairs, he would be fiercely opposed by the literati and official groups. They would bring it out to argue with the emperor: "The law of the world should be shared with the world, and there is a minister who will guard it to death. Even if the emperor cannot get it, it will be the great public in the world."

From this we can see that at least in theory, the imperial power of the Song Dynasty was by no means supreme. On it, there were heaven, law, and reason. The imperial power was subject to various constraints and was also a dynasty that emphasized that the emperor must obey the law. If the monarch intends to take over the power, he will be regarded as interfering in the government and invading the legitimate power of the government, and therefore he will inevitably be protested by the ministers: "Now all the officials must obey their duties, but what can Your Majesty invade it?" "If the emperor invades the power of the prime minister, then justice is gone!"

The authority of "oaths", "contracts and consciences" was established by the founding emperor Taizu, but Zhao Bing had long discovered that the so-called ancestral laws may not be the meaning of the former emperor himself, but a system that contains a series of customary laws, conventions, classics, and was shaped by Confucian governance ideals. Because it was preserved in the name of "ancestors", its authority was greater than the power of the current monarch. When the current monarch does an act that does not conform to the Confucian ideals, the literati group will bring out the "ancestor law", which forced the monarch to make concessions.

If these rules and regulations were used by the literati group to control the emperor and force him to achieve co-governance with them, then there is another way to be the ancient historian tradition and daily necessities system, which is also a force that the monarch dares not be disrespectful. If you think of the emperor's words and deeds, anything you do will be recorded by the daily necessities, and the emperor cannot control how to record the daily necessities.

Therefore, if the monarch cares about the historical reputation behind him, he must be cautious in his actions. Of course, he must be respectful of history. The independence of historians is very important, and maintaining the independence of historians in the Song Dynasty was also a consensus among scholars and officials. And according to the traditions and conventions of historians in the Song Dynasty, any occasion when the monarch and ministers discuss matters, the historians need to be present.

This has a similar function to live TV in modern politics. It is both a manifestation of political transparency. One is instant disclosure, and the other is left to history and future generations. However, this system does not have much impact on Zhao Bing's current daily negotiable system, because the historian does not have the power to pre-government. In other words, as long as he does not care about his historical reputation, the historian has no way to deal with himself except to write straightforwardly, and can only be regarded as a negative restraining force.

However, Zhao Bing has always been cautious in his actions and avoids saying too much in the court. He discusses important things in private, and often keeps all idle people out of the door in the name of confidentiality. How can historians record them? What can be left to future generations is just a confused account. Besides, what can be done if he writes them down? He is just a passerby in the Song Dynasty and does not belong to this world at all. Being an emperor is just a coincidence, and he still cares about what future generations say!
Chapter completed!