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Chapter 735 Struggle Goal
After lunch, when Hong Tao was sitting on a recliner in the back hall looking at the first list of descendants of officials who would be recruited by the court, Wang Chengen quietly approached and whispered that Yuan Yingtai wanted to meet him alone.

"Your Majesty, if the new policy is successfully implemented in the two capitals and thirteen provinces, the treasury is full, the people are well fed and clothed, and the new army is invincible in battle, what will the Ming Dynasty look like?"

The first sentence after the greeting made Yuan Yingtai become the cart pusher who no longer believed in the distance. But he was not disappointed yet, he just wanted to hear more detailed descriptions and reconsider whether he should continue pushing the cart.

"Da Lai is a little impatient, but I can answer that I will follow the Zhou rituals and divide up the various places. You are from Fengxiang Prefecture in Shaanxi. Are you interested in returning to your hometown to be a king?"

Hong Tao did not point out Yuan Yingtai's psychological activities, nor did he avoid the topic. He pointed to the chair next to him, and asked Wang Chengen to offer him a cigar. After calming down, he gave a very clear answer.

"Dividing the country... Your Majesty, this is absolutely not allowed. This will definitely lead to continuous wars. Not only will the people be displaced, but the country will also be in danger of being saved!"

Yuan Yingtai risked further suspicion by asking for a private audience, just to confirm the emperor's condition. In recent years, the emperor's behavior has become more and more strange, and his actions have become more and more tough. Not only did he deal with the opposition, but he also made drastic changes to the court structure. It was a sign of a demonic obsession, which made him very uneasy.

But no matter how uneasy they were, they were only worried that the emperor would act too hastily. Unexpectedly, there was a bigger problem. The feudal system, this old thing that had been abandoned by successive dynasties in the dust of history, could actually be revived.

There is nothing that cannot be done, only things that cannot be imagined. If I had known that the emperor would bring out the feudal system again, I would rather resign than join the royalist faction!

"War disaster... Hehehe, Dalai is worrying too much. Imitating Zhou Li does not mean copying it. You also know that I hate it most when people use the laws of our ancestors mechanically. This king is not the other king. He only has civil power. Apart from a small number of yamen runners responsible for arresting and guarding criminals, there is no soldier.

At that time, I will collect soldiers from all over the country and have them trained, supported, and deployed by the court. They will be stationed at several key transportation points, hundreds of miles apart from north to south and east to west. They will be stationed at regular intervals. What's the problem?"

Since Yuan Yingtai was still thinking about the future of the Ming Dynasty, Hong Tao thought he was still pushing the cart hard, so he was willing to talk more about the distant future. If you think the distant future is still worth pursuing, then go together. If the two sides really can't make peace, it's a good thing to break up early so as not to hurt the relationship too much.

"…I think it's still inappropriate. Some places are sparsely populated, while others are densely populated. It's impossible for the yamen runners to take care of them all. The army is hundreds of miles away and it's difficult for them to arrive in time. If bandits come together, it will easily become a big problem!"

When it comes to local governance, Yuan Yingtai has a lot to say about it, and he is not an ordinary local official. He has experience as the governor of Liaodong and knows a thing or two about military affairs, so he is not easy to fool.

"Da Lai is getting anxious again. I plan to enfeoff states, prefectures and counties. In principle, local people will be in charge of local affairs. As long as they abide by the laws of the Ming Dynasty and pay taxes in full, the court will not interfere with the appointment of officials and the implementation of government affairs within the fiefdom, except for monitoring, evaluation and assessment, and will not provide relief.

If the governance is good, the people of the hometown will live a good life. If the governance is not good, then they will all starve and freeze together, which is reasonable. Of course, if the local people's livelihood is impoverished and there are complaints, and no suitable person can be found to entrust the land, the court can also take back the fiefdom and manage it like a Zhili Prefecture. "As for how to govern the Ming Dynasty, Hong Tao has been thinking about it since he was wearing open-crotch pants. He has repeatedly pondered the political systems that humans have used, and even slavery and tribal chieftainship. After decades of continuous revisions, he still hasn't figured out a perfect answer.

Any system has time limits and limitations, and it is constantly changing with the development of the times, the advancement of science and technology, and the improvement of productivity. What is an advantage at a certain stage may become a disadvantage at another stage, so it is not easy to apply it directly.

After ascending the throne, Hong Tao has been thinking about this issue. According to the current state of the Ming Dynasty and his own abilities, he gradually has a general idea. To describe it in one sentence, it should be called a monarchy with feudal characteristics.

According to the theories of later generations, this name is a wrong sentence. Feudalism and monarchy are contradictory. If there is feudalism, there can be no monarchy. But Hong Tao does not think that the theories of later generations are all correct, and he must try to mix feudalism and monarchy together to see the effect.

The word feudal has always been misleading in later generations. Saying that there were thousands of years of feudal autocracy is completely an attempt to shift the blame. The purpose is very simple, deliberately avoiding centralization and monarchy so as not to make the lower-class people think too much.

In fact, the feudal system only existed more than 200 years BC. It disappeared after the unification of Qin and was replaced by the county system, which is a centralized rule.

Feudalism is equal to two contents: enfeoffment and construction. Enfeoffment means division. The king divides the land into several small pieces and grants them to his descendants, relatives, friends, meritorious officials, etc. These people are called princes, and their fiefdoms are also called princely states. The Zhou Dynasty in history is the most typical feudal system.

Why did he do this? Did the King of Zhou get rid of the greed and selfishness in human nature and reach the realm of a saint? Definitely not. If there was a way, the King of Zhou would have wanted to rule all the land and population in the world by himself.

That's right, it's not that he didn't want to, but that he couldn't. With the transportation and communication capabilities at the time, the Zhou emperor could only manage one acre of land at his doorstep, and he couldn't take care of more. But he was unwilling to give it to others, so what should he do? He simply compromised and entrusted it to others for a fee.

In fact, the chain stores of later generations can be regarded as feudalism. In order to monopolize the market share, chain stores will desperately open branches, but the management cost is too high, so they can only operate the direct stores themselves and hand over the rest of the branches to others, that is, franchisees.

Franchisees only need to abide by the agreement recognized by both parties and then pay a certain amount of fees to operate independently. The agreement here is the Zhou system, that is, the law. The fees paid are the tributes paid by the vassal states to the king.

But as time goes by, the king's territory will become smaller and smaller, and his descendants may become dumber and dumber, just like the sales of directly-operated stores cannot compare to franchise stores, and their strength will become weaker and weaker.

At this time, problems arose. Some princes thought they were strong and could annex the weaker princes nearby, and even ignored the king. Then rituals and music collapsed, princes fought for hegemony, and whoever had the bigger fist had the final say.

(End of this chapter)