People in the Ming Dynasty are lawless

Chapter 468 Reform must stop!

The Minister of Rites was very dissatisfied with his colleagues who were aggressive towards him.

He didn't know why these colleagues suddenly turned against him.

I don’t know why these guys would believe what Zhu Di and others said.

He even more didn't believe it. Don't you people have any backbone as a Confucian?

Because of the reform, everyone’s life is now a little better.

So that the people can live a more comfortable life?
Allow those businessmen to move freely around the world to do business?
Do you think this is good?

At the beginning, Wang Anshi's reforms played a very good role in the initial stage.

The Qingmiao Law, the Junshu Law, the Mianyi Law, and the Baojia Law did allow the court to briefly restore its vitality.

But in the long run, it will not be implemented very well at all.

Because we are all human beings and we all have selfish desires.

In the early stages of reform and change, everyone was willing to abide by the national policy of reform and change and to implement it.

However, in the later period, as the reform and change deepened and pressure came, many officials began to falsify information and use the reform and change to seek personal gain.

Didn’t many officials in the past use this method to force many ordinary people to become homeless, including the wealthy?
These are all bloody facts.

That's all written in the history books.

Wang Anshi was even included in the biography of treacherous ministers, which is already a lesson for him.

Don’t educated people even understand this?
Haven't you even read something like this?
Is it necessary to repeatedly prove the effectiveness of reforms?

The lessons of the past are right in front of us. Does the Ming Dynasty have to go down the same old path again?

He considers himself the most sober person.

He saw that the reforms would eventually fail, so he had to oppose them.

There is a personal grudge here.

Because his younger brother had a stroke as a result of the reform and innovation and his mouth and eyes became crooked.

Because his family was torn apart by the reforms.

Because his relatives and friends were brought down one after another by the reforms.

He hates.

He really hated it.

But he believes that his public spirit is higher than his selfishness.

He believed that the reforms and changes since ancient times had been ineffective. The most important point was that as long as one was an official, as long as one was an individual, he would have selfish motives.

If your reforms must be driven by people, they will fail.

Unless everyone is a puppet.

They are all shadow puppets in shadow play, manipulated by you at will without any thinking, otherwise you will definitely fail.

Since it is going to fail, why not stop the reform before it causes too much harm?

Many officials dare not raise this issue.

This is because His Royal Highness the Crown Prince and His Majesty the Emperor are both pushing it hard.

But didn’t Emperor Shenzong of the Northern Song Dynasty support Wang Anshi’s reforms despite a lot of pressure from conservatives?

The results of it.

It turned out that Emperor Shenzong was wrong.

It turned out that Wang Anshi was also wrong.

It cannot be said that Emperor Shenzong and Wang Anshi had any selfish motives.

We can only say that they are both noble, but that does not mean that the people who implement national policies are all noble.

All I can say is that everyone is selfish, and the lower one goes down the social ladder, the stronger their selfishness.

The greater the possibility of dragging reform into the abyss.

We have seen too many failures.

We have seen too much darkness in people's hearts.

That's why I wanted to end this farce quickly.

But why don’t you understand?

The Minister of Rites was shouting in his heart.

When they were first chosen.

The Minister of Rites also felt that he had found a kindred spirit.

So he is very happy.

With this sense of comradeship, he fought his way north.

The goal is to find opportunities where loopholes in reform begin to appear.

He felt that Zhu Di and his men resorted to fraud just to whitewash the reforms.

This is where the loopholes can be found.

This can be used to strike a blow against reform and change.

Because if it is found that Zhu Di was indeed falsifying and lying about the battle damage ratio, a conclusion can be drawn.

In order to maintain the so-called correctness of the reform, people below have begun to falsify information to support this conclusion.

If this is really the case, we can infer it backwards.

This kind of thing doesn't just happen in the military.

It will happen in other places too.

If this incident really exposed the reform, some people would deliberately falsify information in order to cater to the reform.

Will the officials and people working below also follow suit?

If they follow suit, then the reform will be a joke.

Reform and change have become a tool to whitewash the situation.

If that's all, then is there any need for this kind of reform?

It's simply not necessary.

Because once there are too many reforms like this, it will give more opportunists a shortcut.

Encouraged by this opportunity, they will magnify all the little achievements they have made countless times.

At that time, no one dared to refute such false figures.

why?
Because it is difficult to guarantee that such a report will be readily accepted by the Emperor and His Royal Highness the Crown Prince.

"It is for this reason that I am so opposed to reform."

He looked at the officials present and said slowly: "You are all well-educated and well-mannered people.

When reading through history books, it should not be difficult to find that the situation at this time is very similar to Wang Anshi's reforms in the previous Song Dynasty.

When Wang Anshi first carried out reforms, the early results he achieved made many people blindly believe that the success of the reforms was just around the corner.

So they gave up reality and began to cater to reforms. "

These officials certainly know that the current reforms are somewhat similar to Wang Anshi’s reforms, but they also understand that Wang Anshi’s situation was different from what it is now.

The Minister of Rites said affectionately: "Because Wang Anshi was called the stubborn prime minister, all his opponents were dismissed from office by him.

Even his long-time friend Sima Guang turned against him because his reforms had become pathological.

Later, it turned out to be just as those loyal ministers had expected.

The officials below packaged themselves as supporters of reform, and thus were highly valued by Wang Anshi.

But the results show that those people are all mediocre people, all corrupt and law-breaking. They cater to the reform on the surface, but in fact they use the reform to make money on the one hand and reputation on the other, thus gaining both fame and fortune and rising to prominence.

But it leaves the world in a mess.

Don’t you all see all this?

With all this happening, are you just going to turn a blind eye to it?

All these things should serve as a warning to us scholars to be wary of such things happening again.

But now you turn around and accuse me of being too stubborn. Shouldn't there be officials like me who are stubborn enough to directly criticize these ridiculous reforms?
Even if I have to sacrifice my life, I will put an end to this trend.

Even if Zhu Di did not commit fraud, I will still make him a fraudster and stop the reform."

After hearing what he said, the officials present thought he was crazy and mentally ill. How could he be like this?

Although Chen Han's reforms have many similarities with Wang Anshi's reforms.

But many officials understand that there are many more differences.

So some officials stood up to oppose it.

"What you said is indeed true. When Wang Anshi was carrying out the reform, there were many corrupt officials and fraudsters.

Under the guise of being a reformer, he gained the favor of Wang Anshi and brought chaos to the world.

But you have to understand why the reform failed in the first place?
It was not because there was a problem with the national policy, but because the conservatives made slanderous remarks in front of the emperor, causing Emperor Shenzong's attitude to waver and fluctuate. This was the real cause of the failure of Wang Anshi's reform, not the national policy itself.

A national policy is indeed as you said, there are good and bad sides, and the executors are indeed some who are corrupt and some who are just.

But more importantly, the implementation of national policies needs supervision.

Wang Anshi's reforms were carried out without supervision.

Or in other words, the vast majority of people at the time were the ones who had vested interests and were unwilling to supervise.

But we are different now.

There is a tax inspection department which is transformed from the Jinyiwei and carries out supervision in various places.

The Duke implemented a two-way supervision system, and the Baochao Tijusi ensured that both parties could supervise each other.

The local tax inspection department and the treasure banknotes department are parallel offices. They supervise and restrict each other, which can ensure that the people you mentioned will not appear. "

Another official stepped forward and said: "The most important point is that our Emperor is different from Emperor Shenzong.

Emperor Shenzong was a weak emperor with little opinion of his own.

But our Majesty and His Royal Highness the Crown Prince are both people of great wisdom and firm minds.

Let’s not talk about His Majesty the Emperor, but our Crown Prince. This time, we already knew that His Royal Highness the Prince of Yan and his men did not commit any fraud at all.

But why do we, the civil servants, have to come here to look for the so-called evidence of fraud?
why?
Don't you think about it?
This may be something His Royal Highness did on purpose.

His Royal Highness the Crown Prince actually wants to use our civil servants to tell everyone in the world.

Look, now our soldiers have won such a great victory.

The reason why they were able to win this great victory was because they used firearms reform after the reform of the political system.

It is because of the popularization of reforms that the combat effectiveness of the army has increased dramatically.”

When they said this, they were actually very excited.

Another official was even more excited and said, "From this point, we can see that Your Majesty and the Crown Prince both understand the benefits of reform.

They are not afraid of us investigating, and in fact, it is just as they think.

After we came here, we found that the benefits brought about by the reform are not just about guns and artillery, but more about winning over the hearts and minds of the people.

The common people had cheap food.

With an endless supply of food reserves, they have confidence in the imperial court.

After having confidence in the imperial court, I am more willing to send soldiers to defend the country and cherish the rare peace before me. "

At this moment, everyone was giving psychological counseling to the Minister of Rites.

Because the Minister of Rites always thought he was right.

I have always felt that reform and change are wrong.

That's why there is such madness now.

However, these officials wanted to tell the Minister of Rites.

Your ideas are all wrong.

You have no idea why the current reforms are successful?
You don’t know how much the people today support reform.

The people are very supportive because they see the benefits of reform.

It is because the people are now living better and better under the national policy of reform and change.

Ordinary people don't want to lose such days, so they cherish what they have now even more.

As an official, you should have worked with us to make everyone believe that reforms are beneficial.

But you didn't do anything.

On the contrary, how to do it.

Instead, they try every possible means to find the disadvantages of reform.

Then prove you are right.

What have you proved?
In fact, you are only proving what you think.

In fact, what you prove is just what you think.

In fact, you haven't proved anything at all.

You just haven't stepped out of your own thoughts.

But your idea is wrong.

When the Minister of Rites heard these words, he was actually devastated.

Some officials even said directly, "You really want to mix the Duke's reforms with Wang Anshi's reforms.

Then you should understand even more clearly why Wang Anshi’s reforms failed.

Because they make life extremely miserable for the common people.

This is because the officials below, in the process of implementation, treat the people as objects of exploitation and even want to exploit the people.

Not only the common people are oppressed, but even the rich are oppressed, so they fail.”

Another official immediately added, "But if you look at the people in Beiping Prefecture now, are they being exploited in the slightest?
Do they feel at all that they are suffering under the reforms?
Did you see it?
At first I didn’t understand why we were thrown rotten vegetable leaves and rotten eggs by the common people when we arrived at the city gate. Now I completely understand.”

Finally, an official stepped forward and said, “Yes, I completely understand that too.

At first I was also angry. Why did you common people dare to throw rotten vegetable leaves and rotten eggs at our imperial envoy?

But after I investigated all of this, I found that the people did this completely from the bottom of their hearts.

It's pure resentment towards all of us.

What is resentment?
I hate us for being so blind.

I resent the fact that we only have brains but not brains.

They resented that the people of Beiping Prefecture, who were living well, were being investigated by us.

The people are living well, there is no need to tell us, and the officials do not need to fight.

It was said in the memorial.

But only when you actually come to this place will you realize how good life is for ordinary people.

Precisely because they are living a good life, they do not want their reforms to fail.

Can there be anything wrong with reforms that are supported by ordinary people, even by people at the bottom of society?”

……

(End of this chapter)