Cui Jieren was confused when he heard this, and looked at Cui Pingzhong blankly. According to Han Yi's previous layout, it was obvious that he wanted to push Wu Meiniang into a place of doom. If it weren't for the amulet of the prince, Wu Meiniang might have been deposed. At that time, it was very dangerous for Wu Meiniang. Why did it suddenly come to this last step and a 316-degree transformation? Wouldn't that be in vain?

"It is precisely because of this that I have been unable to see through his overall plan." Cui Pingzhong smiled bitterly and said, "But in fact, if you think about it carefully, you can still find some clues from it. Which aspect of help Han Yi gave the most to Queen Wu?"

Cui Jieren frowned and pondered a little, saying, "In terms of deposing Wang Liwu and overthrowing Changsun Wuji, it has always been Li Yi's mansion. Xu Jingzong and others are charging for the queen, but Han Yi is less involved. Even if he helps, he hides behind and rarely stands up. Han Yi is more helping the queen win the hearts of the people and establishes fame among the people."

"You are right. Zhaoyi Academy was specially tailored for the queen by Han Yi. After that crisis, Han Yi not only did not give Queen Wu a fatal blow, but also intentionally or unintentionally pushed all the charges to Li Yifu and Xu Jingzong, and did not make the queen famous. This is actually because he left room for Empress Wu to return to the court. If Han Yi did not really want to help Queen Wu, then he would not help Queen Wu do these things, because if a woman wants to interfere in politics, she must have a very high reputation among the people."

"Isn't this a contradiction?" Cui Jieren shook his head repeatedly and said, "If he is really helping Queen Wu, why does he still have to create that crisis? He should have the ability to avoid this crisis."

Cui Pingzhong smiled and said, "Before that crisis, Han Yi was just a pawn in Queen Wu's hand, but after experiencing that crisis, Empress Wu became a pawn in Han Yi's hand. That crisis could benefit Han Yi a lot, and this is not contradictory at all."

Cui Jieren shook his head and said, "The child still doesn't understand."

Cui Pingzhong said: "After Changsun Wuji's death, Empress Wu can be said to be powerful in the court and the people. No one except Your Majesty can compete with him. In fact, if it weren't for that crisis, it would not be easy for Your Majesty to act as Empress Wu. Only by paying such a great price can Empress Wu be able to be driven out of the court and the people. This shows how powerful the power of Empress Wu was at that time.

At that time, Han Yi relied on His Majesty's trust in him entirely. Without His Majesty's protection, in terms of strength, he would not be the opponent of Empress Wu at all. Empress Wu could easily get rid of him. But now, Empress Wu's power in the outer court has been completely eliminated by Han Yi, and Han Yi has also gained a high reputation from it. At the same time, he has consolidated his position in the court with the promulgation of the new policy. This change in strength has also changed their identities. With Empress Wu's ambition, she would never be willing to hide in the East Palace to review the memorials. She must still return to the court. So what do you think she would do?"

Cui Jieren pondered for a while and said, "Now all the ministers of the Pure Land are very panicked about Empress Wu's involvement in government affairs and will definitely take strict precautions. If the queen takes action, the ministers will definitely try their best to stop it. They will never let the queen easily establish their own power in the court, because everyone is afraid of Empress Wu's revenge. However, the new policy is implemented very smoothly and is deeply supported by the people. The representatives of the new policy are Han Yi and us, the new ministers of the Pure Land.

If the queen wants to deal with us, she must abolish the new policy, but she has done this before and has led to such a big crisis. If she does this again, the people will not agree. No matter what His Majesty does, he will not dare to take the blame and let the queen do whatever he wants. If she wants to return to the court, the wisest choice is to support the new policy and Han Yi."

Speaking of this, his eyes opened.

Cui Pingzhong nodded with a smile and said, "Her wisest choice is to stand on the side of Han Yi, so that she can quickly return to the court and regain the trust of the ministers. I think His Majesty had already tested her ideas before he asked her to handle government affairs on behalf of the prince. If she opposed the new policy or Han Yi, His Majesty would not let her involve government affairs so easily, because if the new policy is hit, it might be in chaos in the world. However, according to common sense, Han Yi will not be able to form an alliance with Empress Wu again, but if Han Yi did all this for this moment, then he would certainly accept it happily."

Cui Jiebian said: "But why did Han Yi do this? What can he get from Queen Wu?"

"Get everything he wants."

Cui Pingzhong said: "I have said before that Han Yi's ultimate goal is to limit the imperial power. In fact, since ancient times, many ministers have limited the imperial power. When Changsun Wuji was in power, he successfully restricted the imperial power. At that time, nothing was impossible for His Majesty to make decisions, or even for His Majesty's family affairs. However, Changsun Wuji eventually ended up dying in a foreign land. This is because in everyone's heart, the ministers who control the government are all treacherous ministers, heroes, and even traitors, who are unpopular, and the emperor follows the will of heaven.

Therefore, Sima Yan, Wang Mang and others were the ones who simply planned to usurp the throne and became emperors, so that they could be justified. But whether it was the former or the latter, they were actually just a battle for power, just a change of surname. I said earlier that Han Yi did not have the foundation in this regard, and he was not going to this path. He was improving the status of a merchant and trying every means to develop industry and commerce, with the goal of limiting the imperial power from the bottom to the top.

But many facts have told us that if we want to limit the imperial power, we must become Changsun Wuji or Wang Mang. There seems to be no third way to go. This contradiction has always troubled me, which makes me puzzled. But what if a woman is sitting on the dragon throne?"

Cui Jieren's eyes opened suddenly and his eyes were almost falling out, "This - how is this possible?" Beads of sweat slid down from their foreheads.

This is really horrifying!

Cui Pingzhong smiled slightly and said, "Before the crisis, Empress Wu was already in power, and she was the queen. It can be said that she had reached the peak that a woman could reach. Empress Lu was just like this. If she took a step forward, it would be the dragon throne. This person is all greedy, men are like this, and women are like this. She cannot have no idea. If she hadn't, she might not have done that at that time.

But as long as a woman sits on it, the situation will be completely different. Restricting the imperial power will become legitimate, because this is an extremely special situation in itself, so it should be dealt with in particular. At that time, Han Yi will have reason to establish a new system to limit the female emperor. Over time, if the subjects are accustomed to this new system and benefit from it, even if the female emperor is a hundred years later, the situation will be difficult to reverse. After all, it is difficult to go from extravagance to frugality!"

Cui Jie kept shook his head and said, "But this is impossible, this is simply ridiculous. If Empress Wu wants to do this, she will be a big fuss in the world. Even if Han Yi supports it, so no one will support a woman to become emperor. Then she and Han Yi will have a dead end."

"No, there is a group of people who will be willing to support her."

"Who?"

"merchant."

Cui Pingzhong said a little excitedly: "This is also the most exciting thing in Han Yi's entire plan. Why did he create that crisis and dismantle all the forces of Empress Wu? The purpose is to force Empress Wu to the merchant's side and make the merchant the only choice in the queen's heart. But in fact, this is pointing out a bright road for Empress Wu to enable Empress Wu to realize his political ambitions.

Because Empress Wu and the Merchant are actually a combination of heaven. Since ancient times, merchants and women have been very humble. In today's situation, merchants are on the rise, so they will inevitably encounter obstacles from traditional ideas. If Empress Wu wants to get more, she faces the same difficulties as merchants, and even the enemies are the same, why don't they work closely together?

For merchants, the emperor has always suppressed merchants, and no emperor would be willing to trust merchants, let alone spare no effort to support merchants' development. Even if it is His Majesty today, he will not allow merchants to rise. Now he does this based on his own interests. Once he finds that the merchants threaten the imperial power, His Majesty will never be ruthless. No matter how much the price is, he will do whatever he wants. But if an emperor sitting on the dragon throne who fully supports the development of merchants, will the merchant still care about whether the emperor is a man or a woman? Merchants are profit-oriented.

With Empress Wu's wisdom, she must have seen this, so she will definitely support the merchant class this time. In fact, this is the same as her previous plan, and there is no difference. It's just that she was supporting the common people before. She supports the common people not because she appreciates the common people, but because of her own political needs. Because the common people were also rising at that time and faced traditional gentry. Unfortunately, the common people she established had been completely eliminated by Han Yi. It is not easy to re-establish them, and they will encounter greater obstacles than before, because the new policy did not involve the common people. The merchants were the common people at the time, and they were much more humble than the common people. If Empress Wu chose to support the merchants, she would no longer need to establish her own power, and she could get more from the merchants. When the merchants' power was strong enough, it would not be impossible for her to sit on the dragon throne. This would also make Han Yi and Empress Wu's alliance closer."

"this!"

Cui Jieren rubbed his face hard, feeling that his outlook on life had been reversed. If the person sitting opposite was not his father, he would really feel that the person sitting opposite was a drunkard, and there must be several bottles of wine on the table. "This is really unbelievable. Han Yi himself can also represent the merchant class. He is now, why did he let Emperor Wu lead the merchant later? Isn't this an unnecessary move?"

Cui Pingzhong shook his head and said, "Han Yi did not let the emperor lead, but to gain her support. This minister supports a class and supports the same class as the emperor supports the same class. That is incomparable, because the emperor is the center of the country. All policies are based on the interests of the emperor. It is very subjective, so the emperor must support the merchant class in order to succeed. However, Han Yi does not have the time, place, and people to usurp the throne. If he wants to do this, either he is executed by the emperor, otherwise a war will break out, because the emperor will not let him lead the rise of merchants and become the most powerful class in the country. This poses too great a threat to imperial power. Even though Han Yi has extraordinary ability to win this war, he does not have so much time to wipe out the world.

But Empress Wu can give Han Yi great support in this regard, saving Han Yi a lot of time. Because the Empress originally represents the emperor and the prince, her identity is extremely special. This special identity can avoid the conflict between ministers and imperial power. In fact, His Majesty asked Empress Wu to come out, and there must be a purpose of restricting Han Yi. After all, the Empress is the prince's biological mother, while Han Yi is just a minister. Once Empress Wu returns to the court, and with the support of the Emperor and Han Yi, she can support the entire merchant class to follow the path formulated by Han Yi. The only thing that hinders her is traditional ideas. How to break this tradition must be broken and established, and a new idea should be used to replace traditional ideas and a new class to replace the old class."

Cui Jiebian said: "Even if everything is as my father said, how could she be willing to be restrained by Han Yi when Queen Wu sat on the dragon throne? Wouldn't Han Yi be raising a tiger for trouble?"

Cui Pingzhong frowned and said, "This is indeed a problem that Han Yi will face in the future, but since Han Yi dares to do this, he will naturally guard against this. Moreover, the rise of the merchant class was promoted by Han Yi. Except for him, no one knows what to do next. Empress Wu is just a representative of Han Yi's choice. If both of them represent the new class and new ideas, then Merchants naturally will not want them to break, but if it really breaks, do you think they are willing to support Han Yi or support Empress Wu?"

"Of course it's Han Yi, because only Han Yi knows how to lead them."

“That’s exactly that.”

Cui Pingzhong nodded and said, "But I think I will explain this issue clearly before they form an alliance, how to divide power at that time, because both of them are smart people and will be afraid that each other will destroy bridges across the river, so they will definitely restrict each other. The restriction of imperial power will naturally form from the alliance between them, and there is no need to do it deliberately."

Cui Jieren was silent for a long time and suddenly said, "Dad thinks the child should support Han Yi in doing this? Let a woman sit on the dragon throne?"

Cui Pingzhong said: "Han Yi's ultimate goal is not to let a woman sit on a dragon throne, but to cover a cage on the dragon throne to restrain the emperor's power. Loyalty to the emperor is actually a very ignorant idea, which is also the reason why I have always been reluctant to be an official, because the emperor is the most selfish person in the world, and he will only be loyal to power. In the Xuanwu Gate Incident, Emperor Taizong killed his brother and killed his brother, but now His Majesty cannot even tolerate his own uncle, but he can tolerate Li Yi's mansion doing evil.

Empress Wu made such a big mistake and killed many people, but for his own power, the emperor wanted to use Empress Wu again. He would never think about the people who were destroyed in that crisis. It can be seen that power is always the first priority in his heart. In fact, all the struggles in the world revolve around imperial power, but as the emperor, I should be ruthless. Therefore, I admire Your Majesty very much. His methods are much more wise than those of the Emperor Taizong. But as a minister, you also think that doing this is right, so you are no different from your own slaves. But Dad thinks you are not a foolish and loyal person."

Cui Jieren smiled awkwardly and said, "The child is just about supporting a woman!"
Chapter completed!