this novel is healthy

Chapter 1496: The Sun and the Moon Hanging Upside Down

[PS: I will resume posting four chapters tomorrow]

"So in comparison, Liu Bang was able to found a country because he was truly invincible. He was really just an ordinary village headman. When he first started his army, the number of people around him who could write and calculate probably did not exceed a dozen."

"With his limited talent pool, he can barely manage a Pei County, let alone an empire. That's why he was robbed in the beginning, because the talents under his command simply couldn't manage more than two counties. He could only hand over some territories to Yong Chi, who was capable but not very loyal, hoping that he could at least be a little loyal."

"Then his family was given to him. Why did Liu Bang's sincerity in the early stage lead to betrayal? Because Yong Chi looked down on Liu Bang. He knew what kind of person Liu Bang was. He didn't even have the talents of the two counties here. There was no future for him to follow Liu Bang. So he sold Liu Bang out and defected to the aristocratic Zhao State."

"Because they started out as nobles, the new King of Zhao only needed to shout loudly, and the former Zhao survivors would immediately come to serve as officials for him. All kinds of talents were quickly gathered."

"After that, Liu Bang learned his lesson and gave up his own territory. He turned to Xiang Liang and obtained food and weapons from him. From then on, he only needed to fight the war and no longer had to worry about logistics."

“It was easy, but it also meant he lost the possibility of independence. If he hadn’t attacked Guanzhong in the name of Chu and a large number of officials defected to him, he would never have been able to manage a complete civil service system and talents.”

"Of course, another important reason is that Liu Bang was really lucky. He had two top talents, Xiao He and Cao Shen, by his side. They formed Liu Bang's initial foundation. Otherwise, he would never have succeeded."

"So you say a beggar wants to be an emperor, that's simply impossible. This beggar himself can't read a single word, how can he gather a bunch of talented people to work for him? So unless the rubbish author has no shame at all, he will be crazy enough to give a beggar a cheat, and then give him all kinds of talents for free."

"Or maybe this beggar is not a real beggar at all, but is deliberately pretending to be a pig to eat the tiger, or maybe he is actually the descendant of a poor nobleman, but he used to be a beggar to hide his identity. Anyway, it is impossible for a beggar with no identity or background and purely from a peasant family to become an emperor. This is absolutely impossible!"

This sudden speech by a group member immediately caused surprise among the group members, because this speech was so brilliant, because he actually analyzed the founding of the country from the perspective of a professional civil servant, which had never been seen before and was indeed quite eye-catching.

Moreover, there have not been such high-level speeches in many groups for a long time. After all, since Xiu Shen has not spoken in the group for a long time, everyone has become accustomed to all kinds of nonsense.

Seeing the ability of this group member, someone else immediately asked, "Okay, we all know that a beggar can never become an emperor. We just want to know how long the Tang Dynasty can last and whether it can surpass the Han Dynasty?"

"That's a good question. To comment on how long a dynasty can last, I think we can start with the civil service system I mentioned earlier. After all, since the Han Dynasty, every dynasty has collapsed from within, and there has never been a dynasty that was truly destroyed by external invasion."

"To see whether a dynasty is stable, we must see whether the civil service system of the dynasty is stable and can effectively manage the people and collect social resources."

"From this point of view, we can find that the civil service system of the Han Dynasty was extremely unstable in the early stage. A large number of civil servants were actually in the hands of the nobles of the six kingdoms. Therefore, Liu Bang had to enfeoff a large number of kings of different surnames in the early stage. After the civil servants trained by the Han Dynasty gradually grew up, he eliminated the kings of different surnames one by one."

"But such a civil service system was still unstable, and the ethnic identity of the entire Han Dynasty was still scattered. People at that time would consider themselves Zhao people, Korean people, Chu people, and Yan people, but few would consider themselves Han people. If the civil service system of the Han Dynasty was still used to manage the entire Han Dynasty, it would soon fall into the situation of the Qin Dynasty again. Once Liu Bang died, the civil service systems in various regions would collectively refuse to obey discipline and no longer want to be Han people."

"Another point is that once the civil service system becomes large, it becomes extremely difficult to control it. Not to mention the problems of roads and communications, just how one person can manage tens of thousands of civil servants across the country at the same time is an unsolvable problem." "It's like asking one person to play games on hundreds of computers at the same time. It's simply impossible. Unless he can get an effective centralized management tool to use this tool to manage hundreds of computers in a unified manner, otherwise the civil service system will collapse."

"Fortunately, Liu Bang knew his own limitations, so he still enfeoffed many kings with the same surname and built up all those fiefdoms, including Zhao, Han, Chu, etc. The civil service system also formed an independent circulation system in each fiefdom. In other words, each computer had a separate person to control it, and the civil service system was relatively independent. In the end, the early Han Dynasty was stabilized."

"When Emperor Wu of Han came to the throne, he used the Xiongnu madly to gain military merits. With the stable development of Confucianism's idea of ​​great unification, the Han Dynasty gradually replaced various countries. Don't let all the people think they are Han people!"

"It's just that Emperor Wu of Han was too powerful. It's impossible for his descendants to be as powerful as him. In addition, the civil service system gradually became corrupt. Eventually, the Han Dynasty lost control of the civil service system, which eventually led to the birth of Wang Mang."

"Let alone Emperor Guangwu of the Eastern Han Dynasty, Liu Xiu. He was born with deficiencies. His cultural system was built on the aristocratic families in various places, and almost all officials were from aristocratic families. It's like a bunch of small boats linked together with iron chains. They look stable, but as soon as the iron chains are cut, the aristocratic families will scatter and the entire Han Dynasty will fall apart in an instant."

"Many dynasties that followed had the same problem, which was that the emperor lacked sufficient control over the civil service system, which was based on aristocratic families. If the emperor himself was strong enough, then these aristocratic families and the civil service system would be extremely stable. If the emperor himself was not strong enough, then the civil service system would naturally collapse."

"To conclude, the stability of a dynasty depends on the stability of its civil service system, and the stability of a civil service system depends on the source of its officials. If all officials come from aristocratic families instead of ordinary people, then this official system will definitely deviate from the people in the later stages, eventually leading to the people's misery and chaos in the world."

"And if this official system can come from all the people in the world, then this civil service system will be able to remain stable. Not to mention the emergence of a thousand-year dynasty, it is entirely possible to surpass the four hundred years of the Han Dynasty!"

"So let's finally look at the Tang Dynasty. Until the death of Emperor Taizong Li Shimin, the entire Tang Dynasty's civil service system was still based on aristocratic families, and all officials were basically from aristocratic families."

"But thanks to the invention of the imperial examination system in the Sui Dynasty, the Tang Dynasty could select officials from common people in addition to from aristocratic families. In addition, with the development of papermaking and printing, there were very few bamboo slips in the Tang Dynasty, and most of the books were paper. This greatly reduced the difficulty of cultural dissemination. As long as children from commoner families had a talent for reading, they would have the opportunity to become officials. Therefore, there are already many commoner officials in the court of the Tang Dynasty, instead of being completely dominated by aristocratic families as before."

"Commoner officials have no backers, and the only person they can rely on is the emperor himself, so they are the most loyal royalists and the key to the emperor's intervention in the civil service system. So I make a bold prediction here. As long as Li Zhi, the second emperor of the Tang Dynasty, is not too useless and unswervingly follows the various systems set by his father, he can continuously promote commoner officials through the imperial examination system and reduce the influence of the aristocratic families."

"Then the civil service system of the Tang Dynasty will gradually stabilize, and the aristocratic families will gradually disintegrate. In the end, it will not be a problem for the Tang Dynasty to survive for at least 600 years! If the emperors who come after him have problems, then unless they are top geniuses like "Why Not Eat Meat Porridge", it is a foregone conclusion that the Tang Dynasty will survive for more than 100 years."

"Li Zhi's ability was actually demonstrated after he became the crown prince. I think he was not as good as his father, and he was not worthy of being Emperor Wen of Han, but at least he could be Emperor Jing of Han. So when this rubbish author's new book is published, we should be seeing a story at least 100 years later. All the old people are gone, and we should be seeing the emperor several generations after Li Zhi!"

This speech was immediately greeted with applause in the group, and was also circulated as a model essay among many of Liu Xu's readers. Until one o'clock in the afternoon of the next day, the title of the new book was released together with the first chapter.

Sun and Moon Upside Down

Chapter 1: Li Zhi ascends the throne
(End of this chapter)