Ming Dynasty: He was ordered to give lectures in prison, but Lao Zhu eavesdropped and made people nu

Chapter 198 The relationship between state officials and the people in "On National Destiny"
"From now on, the Chief Assistant also begins to invite you to attend their gatherings. Now you finally have a backer. A few months later, you were sent to a wealthy place in the south of the Yangtze River to serve as a prefect. That is a lucrative position. , you never dared to think about it before.”

"You were overjoyed to receive this errand, and you were extremely grateful to the Chief Assistant. Only when you arrived and took up the post did you realize that this place turned out to be the hometown of the Chief Assistant."

"You will understand after you have been a local official for a while, why the chief assistant is firmly opposed to the imposition of official and gentry taxes. It turns out that the chief assistant has nearly one million acres of fertile land in his hometown, and with seven relatives and six dependents, he almost occupies this mansion. Nearly [-]% of the county’s farmland.”

"At this time, you suddenly realized that when you opposed the imposition of taxes on officials and gentry in the court, you were not asking for help for the people, but fighting to protect the property of these officials and gentry. You are a villain who is helping the evildoers."

"Every time you go to the countryside to collect taxes from now on, you will see the local farmers who are known as the granary of Jiangnan. They are all sallow and skinny and dressed in ragged clothes. They are no different from refugees. Although this place is known as the land of plenty, it is also very difficult to collect taxes. But in order to complete the emperor's work, you The tasks assigned to us could only allow the government officials, who were like wolves and tigers, to beat up the unarmed farmers. These farmers were beaten until they were wailing on the ground, and the farmers were forced to hand over all their own good seeds."

Hearing this, Zhu Yuanzhang was so angry that the veins on his forehead were exposed, and he held the cup tightly with his palm, almost crushing it.

"Now you finally understand that those in the imperial court who seem to be free-spirited never take bribes, but live a carefree life, and their lives are extravagant."

"After that, you finally understood the true way of being an official, and you began to rise through the ranks, rising all the way up. During the years when the chief minister controlled the government, the public opinion of the government and the opposition was controlled by this small group of people, and you also became If you become one of them, all the officials and gentry in the world will turn to you, and you will occupy various official positions."

"The emperor wants to make money, but you object to it. The emperor wants to do things that are not good for you. Either oppose it, or respond passively, and finally let it go."

"It is true that you people do not accept corruption or bribery, but the more powerful you are, the poorer the people will be and the less money the country will have."

When Lin Che said this, she sighed:
"After that, there were floods, droughts, and insect infestations... The court had no money to provide disaster relief. The farmers had to pay taxes after the disaster, so they had no choice but to abandon their homes and land, beg for food everywhere, and became refugees."

"Once the abandoned fields belong to these officials and gentry, they will no longer need to pay for food, and the national treasury will be even more empty. The officers and soldiers on the border will not be able to pay their military salaries, and they will not even have enough to eat. Of course, they will lose their energy to fight. From now on, every war will be fought again. , defeated once and lost their land, the refugees can only take desperate measures, rise up, rise up, and fight against the government."

"In this way, the imperial court is heading for collapse step by step."

"The emperor was in a hurry for money, so he had no choice but to reuse eunuchs. Once these eunuchs came to power, they began to seize your property. They often found excuses to arrest your people and send them to prison to extort money from you."

"At this time, you are panicking. Please ask the chief minister who has retired and returned to his hometown. What should you do when the world is so corrupt?"

"My Lord, Chief Assistant, tell you calmly: rise and fall are determined by God's will and cannot be reversed by manpower. When we read the books of sages and sages, the most important thing is not to join forces with others. If you can't continue to be an official, don't do it. Save your family business first, and wait until the world is peaceful. , since the Mingjun Holy Lord was born."

"As long as we speak for the officials and gentry all over the world, as long as the officials and gentry all over the world praise us, are we still afraid that the emperor will not give us an official position?"

The words fall.

Deathly silence.

Zhu Yuanzhang leaned on the chair, put a hand on his chest, and breathed heavily.

Lin Che saw Zhu Yuanzhang's face red with anger and his neck thick, and smiled:

"I advise you to stop all other reforms first and make every effort to solve the problem of grain payment for officials and gentry."

"Step by step, steady and steady."

"Your Majesty, you want to become a fat man in one bite, but that's not okay!"

"This is the relationship between the country, officials and the people in "The Theory of National Destiny"."

Hearing Lin Che mention the theory of national destiny, Zhu Yuanzhang immediately thought of what Lin Che mentioned but did not explain in prison, and he immediately became energetic:

"The relationship between the country, officials and people?"

"What does this have to do with what you said about civil servants seeking fame and reputation and forming cliques for personal gain?"

Zhu Yuanzhang frowned, still thinking about the story Lin Che had just told.

They do not engage in corruption or bribery, but they can still enjoy glory and wealth, and even the emperor has nothing to do with them.The interests of the country, the survival of the nation, and the life and death of the people are worthless in the eyes of these people.

Changes of dynasties and changes of ownership do not affect them at all. Those who should be officials should be officials, and those who should be rich should still be their own rich people.

Think about this.

Zhu Yuanzhang felt a chill running down his spine.

"Your Majesty is wrong."

Lin Che shook her head slightly and said with a smile:
"The true rise of a country is inseparable from unity from top to bottom. Only when everyone is united can we move forward towards a common goal."

"On the contrary, if there is a problem in any one of them, it will have immeasurable chain reactions."

"Civil officials' efforts to unite the party not only swallow up the fortune of the dynasty, but also destroy the hard-earned public sentiment."

"It is difficult to unite the people's hearts, and sometimes it requires the efforts of several generations of kings, but it is very easy to destroy the people's hearts."

"As little as three to five years, as many as seven or eight years."

"No matter how powerful the steel empire is, it will collapse!"

After a pause, Lin Che continued:
"I have mentioned before that the basic base of the Ming Dynasty is the common people, not the nobles and scholar-bureaucrats."

"To put it bluntly, water can carry a boat but also capsize it. The fate of the people and the fate of the Ming Dynasty are complementary to each other."

"People's hearts are not only about having enough food and warm clothes, but also a sense of identity from the bottom of their hearts. The power brought by the spirit is endless."

Hear this.

Zhu Yuanzhang's face was filled with undisguised confusion.I just felt that my brain was starting to run out of energy, so I couldn’t help but ask:
"A sense of identity?"

“Is there no sense of identity now?”

"We all grew up in the same land, were influenced by the same culture, and received the same ideas and education..."

Before she could finish speaking, Lin Che raised her hand to interrupt:
"wrong!"

"These things His Majesty is talking about are national identity, things that come from the bones of the descendants of Yan and Huang."

"However, it does not represent identification with the dynasty!"

"This recognition is even more of an honor!"

"For example, during the Tang Dynasty, when the Han Dynasty was at its peak, everyone regarded themselves as Han people and Tang people."

"Whenever I introduce myself, it's a very honorable thing."

"These things have nothing to do with identity or status."

"Even if an ordinary farmer faces a noble from a foreign country and shows his identity as a descendant of Yan and Huang, he can still make the other party extremely envious."

"To put it bluntly, this is the spiritual identity that the country gives to the people, and it is a kind of whole-hearted satisfaction."

(End of this chapter)