Chapter 893: The World in Chaos, Rituals Shattered and Music Broken?

The news spread continuously.

——For the current Kyushu, the news of Zhao Gou’s confession was like a bolt from the blue, instantly igniting all of Kyushu!!!

Zhao Gou!

The Emperor!

He confessed to Gu Hui!!!

He confessed to the minister he had already labeled as one of the ten evils.

“The Song still exists, but where is the ruler?”

These six words struck like a heavy hammer on the hearts of countless scholars, officials, and even common folk, invoking vastly different but equally intense reactions.

In the northern regions afflicted by war and harsh governance, in those rural areas oppressed by heavy taxes and powerful figures, the news brought about an uncontrollable cheer, with a hint of relief.

“Retribution! This is retribution!” An old farmer in the countryside, listening to a literate man read the announcement, shed tears from his misty eyes, “Even Zhao from the Imperial Family faces today! He only cared about his escape, when did he care about our lives? Grand Tutor Gu… Grand Tutor Gu has vented our anger for us!”

“The Emperor confessed! The Emperor confessed!” In alleyways and lanes, people whispered to each other, their eyes flickering with a light never seen before. It was a seed named “doubt” and “equality”, quietly sprouting, “It turns out that even the one sitting on the dragon throne, if they make a mistake, must be punished…”

To them, Zhao Gou’s downfall was not a catastrophe, but rather like removing a mountain pressing on their hearts, allowing them to truly feel, for the first time, that the so-called “Emperor” was not naturally high and unchallengeable.

However, among the many aristocratic families and followers of Neo-Confucianism in Jiangnan, this news was no less than an ethical catastrophe, a collapse of norms.

“Rites collapsed, music broken! Rites collapsed, music broken!” Depressing scenes unfolded in a refined garden in Suzhou-Hangzhou, where a white-haired old Confucian scholar thumped his chest and stamped his feet with anguish, “The ruler is the foundation for his ministers, this is ordained by heaven!”

“Even if the ruler has a thousand faults, how can a minister openly trial and compel confession?”

“Once this precedent is set, future rebellious and treacherous ministers can all imitate, what norm and ethics can the world talk about?!”

“Gu Hui! Gu Clan! Despite being the descendants of sages, they performed such a rebellious act against ethics, they are the eternal sinners of Confucianism!” In the academy, a scholar angrily threw “The Analects” in his hand to the ground, as if that would shatter the suffocating reality.

Panic and anger spread among them, their foundation of living — the “Great Righteousness between Ruler and Minister” — was collapsing, causing more fear than any blade.

Some local governors and powerful families, still observing, sensed more complex signals.

Zhao Gou’s confession meant the old imperial order was accelerating towards collapse.

Some secretly calculated whether to pledge allegiance to Gu Hui, who was at his zenith;

Others had ambitions slowly growing, thinking if the Emperor could fall, then perhaps the world should be lived in a different way?

This is a very real question.

Gu Hui’s power is indeed too strong now, even though Wanyan Digü’s Jin dynasty is also at its peak, it is still not the Gu Clan, Gu Hui carries the name of the Gu Clan!

Indeed, even after so many years have passed.

Even if the Gu Clan is not in the court, its name is still like a mountain pressing on everyone’s hearts.

And when danger becomes sufficient enough.

Anyone would consider the gains and losses in this!

Moreover, if living in a different way, who can know what could happen?

This might very well hide opportunities!

That alone is enough to make many people tempted!!!

Of course, the chaos isn’t limited to this point. Not to mention other places, even at the Gu Academy, upon hearing this news, many students threw down their pens and left.

This is the inevitable effect of this act.

The imperial system, developed over thousands of years, rests here.

This is no longer just a thought, but it’s the common sense that many people think and also many people’s cognition!

Julu.

In the center of the academy square, the bronze bell used to assemble students, inscribed with “Seek Truth” and “Save the World”, seemed to fall silent.

The autumn wind swept through the corridors, bringing not the usual resonating sound of books, but suppressed arguments and unquenchable anger and sorrow.

“Absurd! How absurd!” A young scholar dressed in simple Confucian clothing, his face flushed with agitation, slammed the book in his hand onto the stone table, his voice trembling, “That was the Ruler!”

“No matter the faults, how could he endure such humiliation?”

To coerce the Ruler into confessing and then imprisoning him for life, how is this different from usurpation?!”

“Master Gu… the student’s… the student cannot agree with this action!”

Someone immediately retorted beside him, their tone equally passionate but with another kind of insistence: “Brother Li, how can you be so outdated!”

“The crimes of Zhao Gou, are they merely faults?”

“Cowardly and selfish, harming loyal and good men, leading wolves into the chamber, resulting in shattered mountains and rivers, leaving people in dire straits!”

“Such a foolish ruler, if not punished, how can we console the soldiers who died for the world, how can we comfort the thousands of wronged souls in the north?”

“Master Gu, acting according to the law, fully demonstrates the spirit of ‘the law is not partial to the noble’, and is precisely the practice of our usual learning, ‘the people are important’!”

“Practice? Is this what practice is?” Another scholar interjected, pained and distraught, holding a portrait of Confucius, “We read and study the books of sages, what is it that we learn?”

“The ruler commands the minister with rites, and the minister serves the ruler with loyalty!”

“Now the ruler is not like a ruler, the minister is not like a minister, norms overturned, where is the order?”

“Master Gu’s actions, though satisfying, have shaken the foundation of the world!”

“Have we studied diligently, seeking the way, for such a spectacle?”