"Utter nonsense!" Zhang Shijie flatly refused to agree.
But Jiang Cheng said, "Junior Tutor, for the sake of restoring the country, what harm is there in enduring this for a while?"
"They want to make you a puppet!" Zhang Shijie refused to compromise. He would rather take Jiang Cheng to jump into the sea right now than become some Mohist puppet.
Mo Qiong hurriedly said, "You misunderstand. We won't interfere with how you govern the country. We won't even interfere with your efforts to restore it. If the seventy-two of you have the ability to restore the country yourselves, go ahead. We only want you to be responsible for issuing some 'official statements.'"
Jiang Cheng was stunned. Was that all?
"What right do we have to issue anything official?"
Mo Qiong said, "You're the emperor. That's enough. Zhang Shijie believes you're the emperor. In the future, everyone resisting the Yuan will believe you're the emperor, and Kublai Khan believes you're the emperor too. Whatever you say represents the Great Song, which has yet to be destroyed."
"Even if you, as emperor, don't possess a single prefecture or county, even if you can't govern so much as a street, you still count as a government in exile."
Jiang Cheng was instantly speechless. Damn, I'm in an even worse state than the Southern Ming.
The emperor's banner was extremely important.
When the mountains and rivers had fallen and the Mongol Yuan had swept across Jiangnan, Zhang Shijie, Li Tingzhi, Lu Xiufu, and the others had repeatedly disregarded the emperor's orders and forcibly resisted.
That was because the emperor issuing those orders had already surrendered. In reality, they still respected the emperor and orthodoxy immensely. As long as they had even a breath left, they would drag out some member of the Imperial