Chapter 16 (1/2)

CHAPTER 16: CHAPTER JIANG HONG

“My wrath bristles through my helmet, the rain stops as I

stand by the rail

I look up towards the sky and let loose a pa.s.sionate roar.

At the age of thirty, my deeds are nothing but dust, my

journey has taken me over eight thousand.

So do not sit by idly, for young men will grow old in

regret.

The Humiliation of Jingkang still lingers,

When will the pain of the Emperor's subjects ever end?

Let us ride our chariots through the Helan Pa.s.s.

There we shall feast on barbarian flesh and drink the blood

of the Xiongnu.

Let us begin anew to recover our old empire, before paying

tribute to the Emperor.” (# poem copied )

Everybody was surprised for a moment, who could have

expected Zhang Yang to actually read from the black board about Man Jiang Hong

(humiliation of Jiang Hong). Zhang Yang’s voice was slightly hoa.r.s.e, very

masculine, magnetic and also full of penetrating force that the old professor

kept nodding all the time. If the glory of his recitation was to be commented,

then undoubtedly the child was very good, Yue Fei’s agitation and momentum were

manifested in his statements.

“Professor, looking from Yue Fei’s point of view only, this

“Man Jianghong” is worthy of eternal fame, but from the ideological point of

view, “Man Jhonghang” also has a great limitation …”

Zhang Yang’s expression suddenly changed, calm, frank and

confident. The crowd came around.

“How do you say that?”

Suddenly, the

professor looked imposing, and he felt the beginning of the steady change on

the wretched boy, those pairs of eyes flas.h.i.+ng wisdom and confident radiance.

Throughout his life, he had only seen this type of eyes twice, but recently, he

has been seeing it several times in a row. Coincidently, the other one was also

sitting on the exact position of Zhang yang.

“Undeniably, this is a famous masterpiece, it can be

affirmed in our vast poetry. There is no such profound social impact as the poetry,

and nothing has never been as exciting as these phrases, inspiring people to

fight the enemy on the battlefield of strength.” This poetry expressed Yue Fei

to serve the court with a sincere heart, open heartedness and courage, very

touching, and the words such as rivers and lakes, twists and turns

reverberating, this is like a stone inscription.

“Well, go on!”

The old professor nodded, while the other students were

amazed for a moment. Actually they were not fond of “Man Jiang Hong”, but Zhang

Yang incredibly praised the poetry so highly that they all were looking forward

to see why Zhang Yang does not support this eternity fame.

“In fact … I like this poetry, my favorite part is about the

heroism of Yue Fei, that horse (like in a chess piece) riding the Hun’s spirit,

however, this poetry has a lot of limitations about YueFei. First, he is only

fighting, but do not dare to open up a new territory on the divided soil, he

just wanted to drive away the outsiders from JianShan of the great Song (Song

is a feudal state in the Zhou dynasty .. not a melodious voice with music lol ).

While on the other hand he did not consider to seize the outsider’s territory

and include it into the great Song’s territory.

This includes a line of verse to clean Jianshan to ill.u.s.trate his idea.

And of course, this is only the first …”

“What about the second?”

The old professor nodded, eyes tightly fixed on Zhang Yang.

Needless to say, Zhang Yang pointed out Yue Fei’s thinking limitations. Back

then Yue Fei only wanted to stabilize the great Song’s JianShan, but did not

want to expand the layout of the Song. As a matter of fact, no matter if it was

the Huns or the other races invading in the Song Dynasty, they all have become

Chinese people now.

“Secondly, Yue Fei, to be loyal to the soverign and devoted

to the country at that time and at those circ.u.mstances was indeed praise

worthy, however, this also caused his ignorant character. When encountering the

choice between loyalty and patriotism, he chose to be a loyal monarch. In his

eyes, loyalty was more important compared to patriotism, the humiliation of

JingKang, still haven’t wiped away the hate and regrets even when it’s over. This

is the part which consequently explains the way of thinking of general Yue.

Certainly, this was caused by the environment and the circ.u.mstances in those

days, after all, the emperor symbolized the country at that time and loyalty to

the king meant loyalty to the country…”

“I do not know, when each of you fellow students face this

kind of choice, will you be loyal to the king or loyal to the country?” Zhang

Yang paused all of a sudden and looked around all the way.

Everyone was silent, although they had thought about it, but

never from this point where they had to overthrow the patriotic thought of Yue

fei. From the modern point of view, undoubtedly, Zhang yang’s argument was more

reasonable. When the country is in danger, this basically does not even need to

be considered whether to devote yourself to a political party or the country,

anyone would choose the country. A regime may collapse, but a country must not

perish, the truth understood by everyone (idiom).

“You student, do you think the other great soldiers from the

northern Song dynasty (960-1127) are capable to place on a par with Yue Fei

(1103-1142)? The old professor nodded and asked.

“To compare the soldiers of Northern Song with general

YueFei is too much …” Zhang Yang suddenly felt his brain gush out countless

Noethern Song characters.

“Well, explain it” The old professor smiled.

“Zhao Kuangyin, although he is the creation of the Northern

Song dynasty, valuable for the imperial throne, but actually it was the general

of Zhou Dynasty (951-960) of the Five Dynasties (907-960) who ascended the

palace with meritorious military service even before the one by one inspection,

and commander ban. Chenqiaobingbian (the military revolt of 960 that led Zhao

Kuangyin to found the Song Dynasty) captured the later Zhou regime to establish

the reigning Song Dynasty. It took him more than two years to suppress the

internal counterforces followed by the reunification of the National military

operation to take over the first south after the north, the first easy effort

after the difficult strategic approach. More than ten years, the battle of Jing

nan, Hou shu, Southern Han and other separatist regimes was suppressed.

Meanwhile, a series of measures were adopted to reform the military, political,

financial, imperial and other systems to strengthen the centralization of his

reign of seventeen years. The temple of Taizu (great ancestor) nianhao(reign

t.i.tle) was established. During the reign, it basically ended the situation of

separatist regime of the Five Dynasties and Ten kingdom, and played an active

role in the recovery and exhibition of social economy. Though he was the ruler

of the country, still we have no choice but to say that he was an excellent

general!”

“Continue!” the old professor’s eyes light up, he never

expected Zhang Yang to actually answer about the founding emperor of the

Northern Song Dynasty with thorough understanding. It was rare and praiseworthy

that he actually was capable to remember clearly, and yet, Zhang Yang wasn’t

satisfied with this answer. The student’s eyes were also full of disbelief even

to the extent that many of them wanted Zhang yang to continue, but of course,

there were also some people who ZhangYang to make a fool out of himself.

“Cao Bin, Ji Guohua, truly a person of Lingshou. He was a

close relative of the imperial harem of the later Zhou Dynasty and served as

the supervisor of Jinzhou military force acc.u.mulating the recommendation of the

government officials. After the establishment of the Northern Song Dynasty, he

moved-in squire to the central province and committed to the purpose for two

years, by going to the field headquarters as a supervisor to partic.i.p.ate in the

battle of the extermination of Shu but not through ma.s.sacre and then obtained Song’s

Kuangyin’s praise and honor, granted the south court to Xuan Hui and make

righteous army with the Jiedus.h.i.+ (governors). For seven years, he received

a.s.signments to limit the armed forces to wipe out Nan Tang (one of the Five

Dynasties) and restrain them but The Song’s soldiers was not be allowed to

recklessly ma.s.sacre and plunder to avoid sufferings and great damage to

Jiangning, the capital of Nan Tang. After returning, soon he was appointed as senator,

Song Tai Zong ascended the throne of Zhao, plus pa.s.sed judgment on the matter