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Chapter 734: Inevitable Differences
"speak!"

"Like Chief of Staff Yuan, I have only one son, so I can probably stay out of this matter. However, I still want to ask on behalf of all the civil and military officials in the court, what is your majesty's intention?

Since ancient times, there has been a distinction between civil servants and military officers, and those who are both civil and military are rare. If the descendants of each family are interested in taking the imperial examination, but have to go to war with the army, wouldn’t it be a waste of useful bodies and add to the worry of having gray hair and black hair.”

But there was no way to persuade the emperor not to anger the public in front of so many people. Yuan Yingtai could only remind them in a roundabout way: Although you are the emperor and hold the military power and can take whatever you want, if you really force most of the court officials into a desperate situation, you will not end up with anything good.

“Your Majesty, what you said is wrong… Although I have not read much, I know that since the Zhou Dynasty, it has been an honor for the nobles in each vassal state to fight in battle, and they must lead the troops in every battle.

Most of the scholars in my dynasty respect ancient rituals and often lament the collapse of rituals and music. Now I am imitating the Zhou rituals and restoring the glory of scholars, why are you still unhappy? Is it possible that the books of sages you read are all used to make demands on others? Or are they all used to confuse me?

Cultivating oneself, managing the family, governing the country, and bringing peace to the world are the ideals of scholars, but I think this is wrong. Being a good person, managing a family, and managing a country all seem to rely on morality and family rules or national laws on the surface, but if you understand it in depth, it is not entirely true.

Morality and law are useful within a country, but what is least needed between countries is morality and law. The reason is simple, both morality and law need supreme authority to evaluate and enforce.

As parents and monarchs, they are evaluators and executors. But who should play this role between countries? Without the supreme evaluator and executor, morality and law are just a piece of waste paper and are useless.

When the Mongolian tribes were troubled by natural disasters and had no means of livelihood, they had no choice but to invade the south and plunder if they wanted to avoid starving to death or freezing to death; when the Jurchen tribes found that the military equipment inside the Great Wall was in disrepair and they were powerless to control it, they had no choice but to march west to attack the Great Wall if they wanted to live better; when the Portuguese discovered that the Ming Dynasty was vast and rich in resources, they had no choice but to travel thousands of miles to make more money.

I would like to ask you, who can use morality and law to persuade and restrain them to put down their butcher knives and become Buddhas? Morality and law are useless at this time. Only by being more shameless, more immoral, and more lawless than them can we be invincible.

At this time, whoever has the biggest fist, the sharpest weapon, and the best deception will have the last laugh. This is why I only need tens of thousands of troops to defeat the Jurchens, drive the Portuguese out of Luzon, and make the Mongolian tribes afraid to move south.

But just because I understand this truth, it won't make the Ming Dynasty truly strong. We need more people to understand and get involved. The reason why the people of the Ming Dynasty regard the military as inferior is because of you.

Yang Quan once said, "If the leaders are not upright, the people below will be in disarray. If you don't take the lead in contributing your manpower to defend your country, how can the people be willing to send their fathers, husbands and sons to the battlefield?"
On the other hand, the principles of self-cultivation, family management, and state governance are interlinked, and all rely on personal integrity to set an example. If parents, monarchs, and ministers cannot set an example, how can the people easily believe them?

I can also explain the rationality of the descendants of nobles joining the army from another angle. The royal family, ministers and nobles are the group that benefits the most, followed by the gentry, powerful landlords and common people.

My dear ministers have all partnered with me to open factories and mines. You should understand that whoever invests more will gain more. There is not much difference between governing a country and running a factory. If you want to gain more, you have to pay more.

Only when all the big and small owners have fulfilled their responsibilities, the people will see fairness and hope and then make contributions. In the end, the owners still take the lion's share, and the people get the leftovers.

Anyone who is unwilling to pay and is only willing to sit back and enjoy the fruits of others' labor, who takes the biggest benefits first when there are benefits and lets the common people pay first when it is necessary, is not a qualified boss.

I have a lot more to say, but I will stop here for now. I believe that with your talents and knowledge, it should not be difficult to understand. It is almost noon. Let's stay for lunch and continue the discussion after lunch. We must reach a conclusion today. "Faced with Yuan Yingtai's face-to-face questioning, Hong Tao was neither disappointed nor angry. It is good that someone is willing to express different opinions, but it does not mean that the royalists cannot disagree with the emperor.

But putting forward opinions is only the first step, and explaining the reason and providing solutions are the key points. Now that I have explained the reason and provided solutions, if anyone thinks there is a better reason and solution, please speak up.

No, I can only reserve my opinion and obey the emperor's order. After all, this is the country's highest authority, not an academic debate in a college. It is impossible to spend a lot of time convincing everyone.

If anyone develops distrust or disgust towards you because of this, it is best to keep them as well. Otherwise, you will be treated the same way as you cleared out the opposition forces before, and you will not be given leniency just because they were allies who had fought together before.

Hong Tao never considered anyone as an indispensable ally who could accompany him forever. From Tian Yi, Chen Ju, Wang An, Li Zhi, Yuan Keli, Yuan Yingtai, Du Song, Li Ruzhang, to Zuo Guangdou, Zhou Daodeng, Sun Yuanhua, Yang Sichang, Yang Lian, and Sun Chengzong, they were all passers-by in the process of reforming the Ming Dynasty. Including Li Zhizao, Xu Guangqi, Wang Zheng, and even the members of the Haihu Division, he never expected anyone to support him for a lifetime.

Politics is like this, people's interests change. Today, our interests are the same, so we are allies. We must support each other and fight together. Whoever dares to stop you is stopping me. This feud is irreconcilable.

The next day, if the two people want different things and friction begins to arise, they must make adjustments immediately and look for new common interests. Once the friction escalates and becomes a burden, they must be abandoned immediately without hesitation for even half a second.

To give a more vivid example, I am like pushing a rail car towards the distance, but I am alone and the speed is very slow. In order to get more people to help, I describe the distance as extremely beautiful, which is definitely exaggerated.

A hundred people would probably sneer at this and would be unwilling to give up their current gains to seek more in the distance. But there are always people who are different and think that their descriptions are likely to come true, so Yuan Keli came over to help push the cart, intending to try to go to the invisible and intangible distance.

There must be more than one Yuan Keli in the world. The farther he went, the more people he met. The more detailed his descriptions became, the more people were attracted. Just like Yuan Yingtai, Li Zhizao, Zhou Daodeng, Sun Chengzong and others, they all joined the ranks of pushing carts to the distance, and then the track car went faster and faster.

But no matter how similar the ideas are, people are different after all. It is possible that after walking a thousand miles, Yuan Keli was tired and found a small village along the way with beautiful scenery and a girl who was even more beautiful in his eyes. So his mind changed and he didn't want to go far away anymore, but planned to stay and live there.

At this time, there will inevitably be a debate about whether to stay or leave, and then some people will be persuaded to stay with him, while some people will continue to follow him and push the cart forward.

Keep walking, keep describing it to people you meet on the road, keep accepting people who want to pursue their dreams far away, and keep losing people who are tired and want to stay and rest. Whoever has the farthest destination is destined to be the loneliest.

Hong Tao himself knows that it is difficult for someone to drive a car with him for a lifetime. Because no matter how you describe where the ideal is, what it looks like, and whether it is heaven, only you know it best.

No matter how hard others listen and think, it will not be exactly the same after all, because everyone has different ideals. As time goes by, some people will find that the distant place in their minds seems to have arrived; others may realize that the further they go, the further they are from their dreams.

Or maybe you are tired from walking, or frightened by the ferocious beasts along the way, and realize that the ideal distant place may not be as suitable as you heard before, the dream will immediately wake up, and you naturally don’t want to push the car anymore.

(End of this chapter)