"Xiao Bao, Xiao Bao, there is a river in front of us." Bi Gou's voice came from outside the car.
Zhang Xiaobao opened the car door and said to Bi Gou, "Grandpa Bi, I know. Without a river, how can there be a village?"
"Xiao Bao, do you want to eat fish tonight?" Bi Gou turned around and asked. It seemed that he had learned the Six Arts of Gentleman well. At least, he could ride a horse steadily.
"Grandpa Bi, we are in a hurry. Stop the car and let Grandpa Bi come up." Zhang Xiaobao stopped the car and helped Bi Gou get up. Wang Juan was busy making tea.
In the car, she and Zhang Xiaobao had prepared all kinds of snacks, small cold plates, preserved fruits, sunflower seeds, a few types of tea, fruit juices, grape wine, rice wine, Chinese chess, Go, Gomoku, Chinese checkers, Army Flag, and Monopoly games. There were even musical instruments such as Qin, Xiao, Hu, and Pipa. Writing brushes, ink, and paper were also necessary.
Many old men were separated from the rest of the group, leaving behind some old men and their children. They would chat with one of them from time to time. Wang Juan had to provide them with different things according to their tastes.
As a result, the old men were satisfied, the juniors were shocked by the talents of the two people, and the two people were exhausted.
Bi Gou liked to drink tea and then eat five-spice sunflower seeds. Usually, Longjing tea and Maojian tea were enough. Otherwise, he would be thirsty while eating sunflower seeds. He didn't like music and found it annoying. It was probably related to his hobby of fishing.
As soon as they entered the car, Bi Gou grabbed the sunflower seeds on the small table and threw them into his mouth. He was waiting for the tea to be ready.
"Grandpa Bi, what do you want to say? We can't stop fishing today. We have to go to Yizhou as soon as possible and finish all the arrangements. Only then can we have time to go fishing."
Zhang Xiaobao grabbed a handful of pumpkin seeds. They were the original flavor, the kind that was fried without any seasoning. He pinched them with his fingernails and stuffed them into Wang Juan's mouth. Wang Juan liked to eat them, but she didn't want to peel them.
Bi Gou looked envious and pushed the melon seeds in front of him towards Zhang Xiaobao.
Zhang Xiaobao shook his head. "Grandpa Bi, your watermelon seeds can only be chewed with one's mouth. I can't pinch them, but I can pinch them with all my might. But my hands hurt, so it's not worth it. Why don't you change them to the sunflower seeds that were brought here with the potatoes from afar?"
"No need, no need. I don't mean anything else. I thought you wanted to eat the sunflower seeds. If you don't want them, I'll eat them myself." Bi Gou pulled the plate back and said, "Since we can't really go fishing, let's talk about fishing."
"Alright. Speaking of fishing, I know a thing or two." Zhang Xiaobao gave another one to Wang Juan and agreed.
"Don't be modest. Who doesn't know that your family produces the best fishing tackle? Your grandpa has organized a fishing association and is selling fishing tackle to you everywhere. He's made a lot of money. Of course, he's also making a lot of money, several times more than what he gave to your family. When your father and mother were together, he didn't agree. As for me, I always persuaded him and told him … "
Seeing Zhang Xiaobao's gaze, Bi Gou was very embarrassed and stopped talking. He smiled without any awkwardness. "Let's not talk about the past, and let's not talk about whether I persuaded him or not. Let's talk about the fishing tackle you designed. Different fish in different waters need different fishing tackle, right?"
"Not really. The same fishing rod and the same bait can catch different fish." Zhang Xiaobao continued stuffing sunflower seeds into Wang Juan's mouth.
"Yes. Xiao Bao, you know more. I want to ask, why? The same fishing rod and bait can catch different fish. Don't you think it's amazing? "Bi Gou confidently followed Zhang Xiaobao's words.
Zhang Xiaobao really wanted to find a medicine that could kill all the fish in the world. Otherwise, he would have to beat around the bush every time he talked about something. Facing Bi Gou's question, he could only nod and say nothing.
Bi Gou said himself, "Since fish can be caught this way, can the same method be used to tempt people?"
"What method?" Zhang Xiaobao cooperated.
"Money. For money, one can sell one's body. For money, one can sell one's soul. For money, one can even sell one's country. Our Tang people have been tempted by money time and time again. They have done things that harm our Tang Empire. What do you think we should do? "
Bi Gou put down the remaining sunflower seeds in his hand, picked up the teacup, and blew on the water.
Zhang Xiaobao breathed a sigh of relief. He thought that there would be some kind of exchange of interests, but it turned out to be just a small problem.
"Grandpa Bi, next time you encounter such a situation, can't you just say it directly? It's about the Chen family, right? "Zhang Xiaobao also picked up the teacup and took a sip.
"How can we fish if we say it directly?" Bi Gou was very dissatisfied with Zhang Xiaobao's attitude.
"Isn't the purpose of fishing to change the topic to business? Why do we have to fish?"
"How can we change the topic to business if we don't fish?"
"Don't say it."
"What did you say?"
"Let's talk business."
"How do we get down to business? Don't you have to switch from fishing? "
"Grandpa Bi, Tong Hua's Chen family isn't a big problem. It's easy to handle, I can make use of it. To be honest, not only is his family colluding with the enemy, but my family is as well. If I don't, how am I supposed to gather information? "
Zhang Xiaobao saw that they were about to end up in an endless loop, so he immediately returned to the main topic.
Bi Xu waved his hand. "That's different. You have mutual exchanges with the enemy. You will consider what things you can give and what information you can give. As long as the Chen family has benefits, as long as they can provide information and materials, they are willing to trade.
You do things for the country, and they do things for themselves. His family definitely had no excuse to say that they were doing this for the country. Otherwise, how could there not be a school in Tonghua County? The only thing left was the government's primary school. If the children wanted to enter, they had to be smart and be able to afford the tuition fees.
If his family had organized the other people in the county to collectively farm, rented out the cattle they had exchanged for at a cheap price, built workshops, recruited people to build beautiful, neat, and sturdy houses for the craftsmen to live in, and led the people in the county to do business with the outside world.
At the same time, they built the best school, gave the children the best food, the best clothes, and spent money to find a knowledgeable teacher. They planted herbs to subsidize the medical center. In that case, if Xiaobei and the others went to investigate, even if they found evidence of him colluding with the enemy, what would the result be? "
"There would … there would be local people … jointly vouching for him. If Xiaobei and the others wanted to take him away, they would have to explain to the people for a long time. If it was not Xiaobei and the others who went, but other officials, it was very likely that they would be intercepted by the local people.
Especially when Xiaobei and the others saw that the children in the school were living a good life, they would have to consider how to help the Chen family reduce the punishment. In the end, if they handed him over to me, I would not be able to kill them. There was a high probability that they would be included in the intelligence system. "
Zhang Xiaobao answered frankly.
Wang Juan also nodded. It was indeed so. Although there was a law, the fairness of the law had always been questioned. There would always be loopholes in the law because it was not detailed enough.
Once the law was too detailed, it would lose the interests of the people who concentrated on social goods. Then, the law would not be successful. If the protection of the interests of these people was written in the detailed law, it would require the support of other people who had scarce goods. They were the majority, so they naturally would not agree. Consent represented the appearance of a class, and it was still protected by the law.
What was the difference between that and the ethnic differences in India? What was the difference between that and the minority policies of Xiao Bao and herself? If there was no difference, how could the law be fair? Why should people support the absoluteness and independence of an unjust law? Losing these two characteristics would be a bad law.
Therefore, the law had always been made for the majority of the people who could not resist the creation of the law. It was made to protect the fairness of the minority who had the majority of social goods and resources, and the majority who could not control the resources and could only control the minority of resources.
To put it bluntly, the rich and powerful were protected by the law. When facing them, the people who did not have money and power could not ask for fairness through the law.
The rich and powerful could get fairness through the law from people like them and from groups without power and money.
The groups without money and power could only ask for fairness from people like them through the law.
Then, under what circumstances could the disadvantaged group ask for fairness from the higher-ups? It was the people they asked for fairness who were abandoned by the higher-ups.
In other words, it was not the law that protected the disadvantaged group to get fairness from the advantaged group, but another advantaged group.
Therefore, when Wang Juan and Zhang Xiaobao dealt with issues related to the law, most of the time, they had to consider the benefits they would lose and gain before deciding whether to act according to the law.
The two would consider breaking the law from the perspective of national interests, and at the same time, they made and supported the law from the perspective of national interests. It was ironic, but this was the reality of the human community.
If it was explained in a classical philosophy of wisdom, it would be: people follow the law of earth, earth follows the law of heaven, heaven follows the law of Tao, and Tao follows the law of nature. What was nature?
Bi Gou didn't think so much. Right now, he was thinking about the reality of the matter. He asked Zhang Xiaobao, "If many merchants did what I just said, in the end, wouldn't they be allowed to collude with the enemy? Or perhaps they would be allowed to make mistakes while using the excuse of improving the local community's living standards to escape the punishment of the law?"
"This is what it means to take bigger steps, to be a bit more daring. Regardless of whether the black and white paths get birds, rats and rats, that is, rats and rats, that is, wuwuwu …"
"Xiao Bao, eat a snack. Once you're full, you'll only have the strength to cross the Bridge of Helplessness after cutting off your head. Come, drink some more tea, don't choke." Wang Juan stuffed a piece of date cake into Zhang Xiaobao's mouth. As she spoke, she brought him tea.
Zhang Xiaobao swallowed the large piece of date cake with the tea. He smiled at Bi Gou and said, "Cuckoo loves me dearly and is always afraid that I'll be hungry. Sorry for the ridicule. Grandpa Bi, I've thought about what you just said. When the war starts, I'll take care of it.
To be honest, I'm not worried about colluding with the enemy at all. As long as His Majesty doesn't collude with the enemy, it's fine. Other countries don't have basic industries. If I give Duoshi a telegraph machine, can he make it? If I give them a cannon, they can't even aim accurately at where to shoot.
The industrial technology of the Tang Empire is in my hands. Even if they work hard to get it, before they can learn it, Cuckoo's soldiers will push it over.
How many years have Cuckoo and I been watching the industrial development technology? Look at the Tang Empire's industrial research institute now. How many things have been produced? It's just a plane with wings that look like bandages for wounded people. Until now, there has been no news of a successful test flight. "
Bi Gou nodded. "Xiao Bao, you're right. I'll wait for you to deal with the problem I just mentioned. Don't let us down, or I won't die in peace. What about the Chen family? "
"I'll take over and continue to trade with Duoshi. They just want guns, right? I'll give them. I'll give them salt and tea as much as I can. As long as the Tang Empire has extra or can speed up production, I won't be stingy. It'll be fine when the war starts. Waiting is sometimes a kind of pain, but it can also be said to be a kind of habit."
Zhang Xiaobao closed his eyes and finished speaking. A smile appeared at the corner of his mouth.
Today, I've finished two chapters. Thank you for your support.
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