Why did the emperor rebel?

Chapter 862 The Future of Daming

As an emperor who has seen ups and downs for a hundred years, Zhu Qiyu has a deeper understanding of the way of governing the country than previous emperors.

In his previous life, he was thinking about how to secure the throne and inherit the lineage. This cannot be said to be wrong, but it is too narrow.

To this day, Zhu Qiyu is still not sure whether his century-old wandering is a dream or a time travel.

But as every detail and every person he didn't know and pay attention to appeared one by one, he became more and more convinced that even if it was a dream of Huang Liang, it was also a dream of omens given to him by the ancestor gods.

That being the case, his mission is not just to secure the throne, he bears the burden of the rise and fall of the Ming Dynasty.

Logically speaking, the rise and fall of a dynasty has been unstoppable since ancient times, and Zhu Qiyu knew this very well in his heart, but since the ancestor gods gave him this opportunity, he would naturally do his best to change everything he saw.

Even if it still can't prevent the collapse of the dynasty in the end, at least it must be able to pass on for a longer time, so that it can live up to its own failure.

With ambition, Zhu Qiyu thinks more when doing many things.

The Ming Dynasty has been established for more than a hundred years. It should be said that it is still at its peak. Although there is a faint tendency to decline, if there is no such disaster as the Civil War, the family will still be defeated for a while.

But even so, many problems have begun to emerge. Although they are not serious, they will grow into serious troubles if they appear together.

The army is one of them, and the civil and military imbalance is also one of them.

In addition, land annexation, refugees from Jingxiang, official corruption, chieftain turmoil, and even the rise of small tribal countries such as Jurchen and Wa Kingdom are all the culprits that have bitten and hollowed out the giant of Ming Dynasty.

It's so complex and complex that it's really hard to explain in one word.

In fact, since the moment Zhu Qiyu woke up from Prince Yi's Mansion, after experiencing a brief period of confusion, he has been thinking about what method should be used to completely solve these problems.

But even with his eyes, after more than two years of thinking, he can barely come up with an answer that is not an answer.

If the world is not governed in the same way, the country will not follow the law!
The Ming Dynasty does not lack smart people, and never lacks, people who can solve problems, even if you don’t mention Yu Qian, Zhang Juzheng, a minister who is so high in the sky, and the mansion is about to fall, there is not a single important court minister who can do Qiqing It is not outstanding.

However, they couldn't save Daming.

The reason is that the so-called ancestral law bound them. This ancestral law does not only refer to the rules established by Taizu Taizong, but more importantly, there is an invisible imprisonment in everyone's heart.

The way of Confucianism has an incomparable effect on the maintenance of the monarchy and the stability of the society, but it has a fatal flaw, that is, conformity to the old ways.

A century of changes has made Zhu Qiyu see too many new things, new problems, and new changes.

From Chenghua to Hongzhi, from Jiajing to Wanli, too many new problems have emerged one after another, and new solutions are needed to solve them. Unfortunately, many frameworks of Ming Dynasty were already fixed when the country was founded.

Therefore, when encountering problems, the best and most talented people of Ming Dynasty can only tinker with the existing framework, but for various reasons, it is difficult to touch the essence of the problem.

Looking back on the rise and fall of the entire dynasty, especially after seeing a series of changes between Long and Wan, Zhu Qiyu looked back and came to a conclusion unexpectedly.

That is, if there were no heavy blows from civil wars, then this orthodox generation would have been an era of change!

The national power is at its peak, but various problems are being exposed day by day. Many old laws of Taizu's time are increasingly incompatible with today's court society. Although there is a trend of imbalance in civil and military affairs, there is no serious gap. Although the etiquette and law are great, the emperor Supreme, still able to compete with etiquette.

The scholars and bureaucrats are honorable, although they have decayed, they are still determined to forge ahead and do things that are not the same as the ancients.

At this time, it is an era brewing changes.

Even, although Zhu Qiyu's evaluation of Zhu Qizhen is not very good, he still has to admit that if Zhu Qizhen's methods are not wrong, he is too eager for quick success, he is very happy, and he believes in the wrong person, the hope in his heart can be restored. The motivation of his father and grandfather's achievements is entirely possible for him to become the initiator of this era of great change.

It's a pity...he chose the wrong one...

The civil engineering war completely interrupted this unfinished change. On the one hand, it accelerated the momentum of civil and military imbalances, further aggravated the border problems, and plunged the central court into a long-term struggle for the throne and infinite turmoil. On the one hand, it also exhausted the originally prosperous national power, forcing the entire country to enter a long-term recuperation.

Under this situation, any reform will only make things worse for the country.

From this point of view, it is no exaggeration to say that Zhu Qizhen is the sinner of the entire Zhu family!

However, Zhu Qiyu still kept him, not because of any brotherhood, but because, if he wanted to restart the reform momentum of the Ming Dynasty, he needed the stability of the court.

He has too many things to do, but no matter which one, it needs the stability of the government, the peace of the country, and the support of all people.

This is also the reason why he has been unwilling to use thunderous means to solve Zhu Qizhen. Although it is disgusting to keep him, but in the current court situation, with Zhu Qiyu's means, he can't make any waves.

Or rather, he can only stir up what he thinks is a storm.

But if he was killed for no reason, and the monarch and ministers were distracted, and wanted to restart the reform process, it would be indefinitely.

After all, Zhu Qiyu has only one person, even if he has thousands of strategies in his heart, he can't implement them with his own strength.

Intimidating people with authoritarian means will not really win the hearts of the people. They can only be feared and disrespected like Jiajing. In this way, all the ministers flatter their superiors and bully their subordinates. All talk of reform is empty talk.

Prestige in the Quartet, transforming people with virtue, is the right way!

If Zhu Qizhen was going to die, he was looking for death himself, not because Zhu Qiyu wanted to kill him for his own selfishness, otherwise, even if the throne was firmly seated, he would surely repeat the mistakes of Jiajing.

Therefore, for Zhu Qiyu now, Zhu Qizhen needs to solve it, but it is not the main problem.

If you want to solve him, as long as you are willing to pay the price, it's just a backhand. It's just that the time is not enough, and you have to force it. There is too much to make up for and too much delay.

Even if it was the turmoil of these few years, he couldn't afford to delay it, and Daming... couldn't afford to delay it either.

Therefore, for Zhu Qiyu, the biggest difference between him and other emperors is that from the very beginning, he never took the so-called ancestral law into his heart.

It's not that he disrespects his ancestors, but that he has seen it for a hundred years, and he knows very well that Taizu's system is suitable for Hongwu, Yongle's system, and barely suitable for Yongle. As for Jingtai, the previous system is old, and many frameworks are no longer suitable. In Sheji, even if it is repaired, it will not solve the fundamental problem.

Zhu Qiyu once thought about designing a new set of regulations and implementing them to nip all the problems he saw in the bud.

In this way, although it takes a lot of energy, it doesn't take a long time, and it won't be difficult to get rid of Zhu Qizhen first after a few years of delay.

But in the end, he still gave up the idea.

Because the regulations he designed may be able to adapt to the Jingtai era, but in the end, after dozens or hundreds of years have passed, they will eventually become obsolete.

It's nothing more than a new set of ancestral methods, and it's already impossible to reverse the ending.

Therefore, what he has to do is to continue to reform, keep making progress, and break down one by one the ancestors on paper that stand in front of everyone.

Until the end, breaking the immutable shackles of the ancestral law in everyone's heart.

In this way, even if he is dead, every generation will have a new way to solve the problems of each generation.

He can't guarantee that this will make the Ming Dynasty last forever, but at least, this is a completely different path.

In ancient times, there was a saying that Shang Jun strengthened Qin, saying that if the world is not governed in the same way, the country will not follow the rules of the past. Now the belief that Zhu Qiyu wants to forge is that there is no law that cannot be changed if it is beneficial to the country!

This is Zhu Qiyu's ambition, and also... everything he can do for Daming.

Of course, no matter how ambitious you are, you have to start small.

For example, the education of princes and princesses seems simple, but it is actually the most important.

Leaving aside the prince's education, let's just talk about the clan's problems, which will have to be resolved sooner or later. Therefore, starting from Zhu Qiyu's generation, at least the newly-appointed clan and vassal kings will no longer be confined in the fiefdom to do nothing like before.

Emperor Taizu originally entrusted the kings in the hope that they could be like the Western Han Dynasty and dominate the world, but it turned out that this was not a good idea.

These vassal kings not only brought great pressure to the court's finances, but also, the threat of excessive power to the central court cannot be ignored.

But on the contrary, when the Ming Dynasty was at the end of the road, the role these vassal kings could play was minimal.

Without the right to manage the land, without leading the army, and even unable to get out of the city gate, these vassal kings are almost useless except to consume the country's resources.

Therefore, this situation must be changed. It is not bad to prevent the vassal kings from usurping power and usurping chaos.

But it is wrong to combine the two to create a system with four different images.

Therefore, the vassal king is bound to reform. As long as the military system is perfect enough to prevent the vassal king from having access to military power, then usurping power and usurping chaos can be avoided.

Under this premise, the role that the vassal king's clan can play is definitely much stronger than it is today.

And to achieve this, then the education of the clan and vassals should not be treated as usual. Zongxue is only the first step, and the education of princes and princesses is the highlight.

After all, the past vassal kings have been accustomed to the old system, and even if they reform in the future, it will be difficult to eradicate many of their inherent concepts. Only these princes who have not yet become vassals are the new hope.

This is the biggest reason why Zhu Qiyu built the primary school next to the Qianqing Palace. Only if he can take care of it all the time can he ensure that the education these princes receive is what he wants, not the old ideas of the past.

Of course, the focus of this reform is the princes. Although Zhu Qiyu has mixed feelings about the education of the princes, it is more out of political considerations.

Then, for the education of the princess, it is the other way around, empathy is the most important thing, and only a little political factors are mixed in.

In the Ming Dynasty, although the princess of the Ming Dynasty was a golden branch and a jade leaf, it was only the period before she got married.

It was better in the early Ming Dynasty. Many princesses married into honorable families and lived a good life.

However, with the passage of time, the practice of the emperor's concubine marrying only small households was applied to the princess.

At the same time, these scholar-bureaucrats also applied the rule that husbands guide wives to the princess, which led to the fact that after the princess got married, she was subject to various restrictions and even had to visit her in-laws. Women generally serve decoctions and are even more praised.

Later, choosing a son-in-law for the princess became a tool for the slaves to amass money. It often happened that the chosen son-in-law was immoral and unethical, and some even died of illness right after they got married. What's more, just like this, The princess is also required to observe festivals and is not allowed to remarry.

Zhu Qiyu had two daughters in her previous life. The youngest daughter, Qingdeng Gufo, was determined not to marry and spent her whole life with her mother. The eldest daughter was randomly selected and matched with a commoner family. She never returned to the palace for her whole life. According to the news of her, when she died, she was only 42 years old...

Thinking of the lively and fussy little girl just now, and her fate in the future, Zhu Qiyu's heart burst into flames.

To put it bluntly, these ministers are bullying and bullying unfavored princesses. The first emperor had two sons and three daughters. Princess Yongqing died young. The eldest princess of Shunde, who was born against Empress Hu, only married a son of a thousand families.

In this life, since there is a repeat, Zhu Qiyu will naturally say that he will not repeat the same mistakes as before.

But in this way, the teaching of Gu'an has to be tightened up. He doesn't want to wait for his own daughter in the future, who only knows some female red workers, and can't even understand the classics and history books. He was bullied for no reason.

"The concubine also thinks that it's good to read more books. Although Sister Hui's temper is outrageous, it's not a bad thing. Besides, she's a princess, so she doesn't really need to do maid work."

Seeing Zhu Qiyu's complexion was not very good, Wang Shi was also a little surprised. She didn't expect her husband, who has always been mild-tempered, to lose his temper so much, so she had to say.

"It's just that there is no precedent for this matter in the past. Moreover, even ordinary people, when they reach the age of school, men and women go to school separately. Your Majesty let their brothers and sisters be taught together. Will there be anyone gossiping in the outer court?"

"Let them talk about it. My daughter, it's their turn to discuss. You and the noble concubine just make arrangements, and the teacher who teaches me will come to find me."

"It's not up to people outside to dictate matters in the palace."

This sentence reminded Zhu Qiyu that he originally thought that he would find some people from the Hanlin Academy to teach these two children, so he could find more time to take care of them.

But now that I think about it, those people in the Hanlin Academy are still a bit too corrupt. If they say something that shouldn't be said, or have any biases when teaching, it's not beautiful.

It is more appropriate to find some reliable ministers to teach...

Besides this, Zhu Qiyu's eyes flickered, he pondered for a moment, and finally asked.

"Empress, you just said that it was the emperor's sister-in-law who mentioned this matter to the noble concubine, and she came up with the idea to discuss it with you. Afterwards, when the emperor came to the palace, you asked the emperor again, and then she made up her mind."

"I always feel that there is something wrong with this matter. The emperor's sister-in-law is not a talkative character, so why did she suddenly mention this matter?"

(End of this chapter)