Winning popular will through poetry.
That should have been impossible.
When he had composed his Timeless Verse and the finest parallel prose of all time, he had gained no popular will at all.
But when he had written the Timeless Famous Saying, he seemed to have gained a little popular will—just so little that he could not detect it.
Back then, he had not even understood what popular will was. Only after he killed the foreign merchants had he gained popular will and nurtured the people's will.
Yet yesterday, his poem Bring in the Wine had earned him an ocean of popular will.
Xu Qingxiao had puzzled over this endlessly, but just now, he had finally figured it out.
Popular will was, in essence, what the people's hearts yearned for.
Having enough to eat and drink was what the people's hearts yearned for.
A powerful nation was also what the people's hearts yearned for.
Having enough to eat and drink needed no explanation. As for a powerful nation, that could broadly be divided into two kinds: military strength and spiritual strength.
At the very heart of spiritual strength lay cultural confidence. Why did Great Wei respect the Confucian Dao so much? Indeed, why did everyone under heaven respect scholars?
Simply because scholars were intelligent? But intelligent people were as plentiful as the sea. Were the princes and commandery princes of the Imperial Lineage not clever?
The main reason lay in the qualities of scholars. They cultivated righteous haoran qi, subdued demons and ghosts, and saved the masses in times of peril. Moreover, studying allowed people to rise through the social ranks, and scholars could earn the recognition of heaven and earth.
Thus, the Confucian Dao was a spiritual foundation that could not be trampled upon.
The Ten Kingdoms’ Talented Scholars