Ming Dynasty man

Chapter 608 Retaliatory Looting

It's just that they didn't expect that when they were concentrating on writing their essays and arguing with Li Jing's gunmen, they would have no energy to go to the Yamen to demonstrate with Confucius' tablets all day long, and this is why Li Jing published their articles one of the purposes.

At the same time, the benefits of publishing articles are also highlighted. The article representing the voice of Li Jing presents the facts and makes sense, enumerates the harms of stereotyped selection of scholars, and explains the purpose of the new method of selection. The literati's position quickly tilted towards the imperial court, especially those young literati.

The change in the thinking of these young literati caused scholars to be divided into two camps at once, one was the conservative camp represented by older scholars, and the other was the innovative camp, which was dominated by young people and leaned towards the new law.

Due to the change of attitude of the young literati, the number of people who took part in the rural examination suddenly increased. Although most of these people failed in the final result, these people found that the questions in the rural examination would be of great use to them in the future when they became officials or work.

Therefore, although these people failed the exam, they were not discouraged and began to concentrate on learning practical knowledge.For a time, throughout the Ming Dynasty, the wind of advocating new learning suddenly flourished.The number of people studying in the schools teaching new learning that originally had withered students suddenly increased. Many schools are already overcrowded, and the existing schools are no longer enough to teach such a large number of students.

But at this time, Li Jing had no time to take care of these things, and Li Jing's attention had already turned to Lu Song.

It's not that Li Jing doesn't care about education, in fact Li Jing knows the importance of education better than anyone else.But to open a school and promote education requires money, and the Ming treasury has no money now.

Yuan Shu had asked Li Jing for funding several times, but Li Jing couldn't come up with the money.Once, Yuan Shu got anxious and asked Li Jing to use the cash reserved by Daming Bank.

But how dare Li Jing use those cash?
The silver deposited by Daming Bank is the reserve fund for issuing banknotes. If the money is spent, the banknotes will face the danger of depreciation, and Li Jing absolutely dare not take this risk.

So in order to solve the financial problem, Li Jing had to focus on Luzon, which was at war.

Li Jing's thinking is the same as that of those countries that launched aggressive wars in later generations, that is, plunder.

The only difference is that Li Jing is a retaliatory plunder. Li Jing wants to take revenge on the Spaniards who slaughtered the Chinese and the Luzon natives who were accomplices to Spain.

For plundering the wealth of other countries, Li Jing has no pressure in his heart. The law of the jungle is the law of survival in nature. Li Jing is not afraid that later generations will say that he is cruel and heartless.

In fact, the essence of war is the same. The ultimate purpose of all wars is to plunder wealth. Whether it is an unjust war or a just war, the purpose is the same. If you look at the history of human development, it is actually a history of war. , is a history of plunder.

In fact, there are often no just wars and unjust wars.Generally speaking, wars waged with the sole purpose of plundering the wealth of other countries without any excuses are called unjust wars, also called wars of aggression, while wars waged against aggression are called just wars.

Of course, there are more titles of just wars, such as resisting oppression, resisting tyranny, national independence, etc. are called just wars.

This seems to be the case, but is it really the case?I'm afraid not necessarily.

Li Jing doesn't know much about the history of foreign wars, but Li Jing has read a lot of history books in recent years. Due to his different status, Li Jing thinks that many histories may not be as evaluated by historians.

For example, Qin Shihuang, the world said that Qin Shihuang was cruel and heartless, he didn't know how to show compassion for the people, and spent countless manpower and financial resources to build the Great Wall, the Afang Palace, and his own mausoleum.

But is it true?If Qin Shihuang was really cruel and merciless, how could he unify the six countries and complete the great cause of the unification of China?If Qin Shihuang was really cruel and heartless, I am afraid that Qin would be overthrown by the common people before Qin unified the six countries.

In Li Jing's view, Qin Shihuang is definitely a hero with great talent and vision.It can be seen from the farming warfare system of Qin State that Qin State attaches great importance to agricultural development. Since it attaches great importance to agricultural development, Qin Shihuang will never treat farmers harshly.

Waiting for Qin Shihuang to unify the whole country, to stipulate that books have the same text, vehicles are on the same track, weights and measures are unified, and the system of prefectures and counties is implemented. These things show that Qin Shihuang knows how to govern the country.

Qin Shihuang was by no means idle. He had nothing to do to build the Great Wall. Qin Shihuang built the Great Wall to protect the peace of the country.

The Qin State unified the six countries. At this time, the Huns in the north began to rise. The border stretching for thousands of miles and the flat plains allowed the Huns to freely enter and leave the territory of Great Qin anytime and anywhere.The Huns have been harassing and harassing the Huns for years, and they fought again and again, and the country spent countless military expenses to deal with the Huns.

However, Qin State has been fighting for years to unify the six countries, and its finances have been overwhelmed.It was under such circumstances that Qin Shihuang decided to build the Great Wall and build a city wall pass on the Yimapingchuan plain to resist the cavalry of the Huns.

Qin Shihuang must have done the calculations. Although the construction of the Great Wall will cost a lot of manpower and financial resources, it is definitely more cost-effective than using hundreds of thousands of troops to defend against the Huns who came from nowhere.

The fact is also the same. After the Great Wall was built, there were not many routes for the Huns to invade, and the people in most border areas were much more peaceful than before.Without the harassment of the Huns, these places quickly resumed economic development.From this point of view, who can say that Qin Shihuang's decision to build the Great Wall was wrong?
Later generations commented that Qin Shihuang didn't care about the power of the people when he built the Great Wall. The soldiers urged the people to work, and countless people died under the soldiers' whips. This became the evidence of Qin Shihuang's cruelty.

But combined with the situation at the time, it should be understood that Qin Shihuang did this in desperation.

The Huns are not stupid, they don't know Qin's purpose of building the Great Wall. Knowing Qin's purpose, how could they allow Qin to build the Great Wall safely?Nature wants to destroy it.

The actual situation should be that during the process of building the Great Wall in Qin State, the Huns kept attacking the border of Qin State in an attempt to prevent the destruction of Qin State from building the Great Wall. That is to say, the slower the construction of the Great Wall, the more people died.

Qin Shihuang should have saved the determination of a strong man to cut his wrists. Even if tens of thousands of people die, he must finish the Great Wall as quickly as possible. Therefore, he issued a death order and asked the soldiers to urge the migrant workers to work hard.

If the construction of the Great Wall is regarded as a war, then these hundreds of thousands of migrant workers are equivalent to death squads, equivalent to engineering troops fighting against the enemy. They are using their own lives to carry out construction. Speed, the faster they are, the fewer people will die on their side.

In the end, the tens of 10 people were lost, and the Great Wall was built, and the Huns were blocked.If the Huns wanted to invade Qin again, they would have to face Qin's army. Qin Shihuang bought a solid line of defense at the cost of tens of thousands of people.

If this is really a battle, there is no doubt that Qin Shihuang won another great victory, but what left him is eternal infamy.

In fact, if Qin Shihuang is replaced by any wise and great monarch in later generations, I am afraid that any wise and great monarch will do the same. If Li Jing is replaced, Li Jing will definitely do the same.

In fact, Li Jing did a lot of things like this. In Hongshanling, Li Jing mobilized all the manpower in the cottage to build the Xishan Reservoir. It was winter and the weather was freezing. I am afraid that few people in the cottage were willing to go out to work. Yes, but under Li Jing's strong pressure, it took one winter and one spring to build the reservoir.

From the perspective of the project itself, the reservoir obviously cannot be compared with the Great Wall, but the principle is the same, it is all about working hard and working hard to see results as soon as possible.

Later, Li Jing went to Pingyang Mansion to build reservoirs and build military factories. Almost all the projects used a lot of people's labor. When the projects were completed, many migrant workers died of overwork.Why don't the common people oppose Li Jing?
Because ordinary people are not stupid, they know why Li Jing did this. At that time, the bandits were in chaos, and there was no peace everywhere. Li Jing built the military factory to protect the peace of the place by the armed forces. In those years, Shanxi and Shanxi suffered from severe droughts, and the construction of water conservancy facilities was to save money. Water source, in order to have a good harvest in the future.

The common people under the Pingyang Mansion understood this truth, and the common people who built the Great Wall also understood this truth. The sooner the Great Wall was built, the sooner they could get rid of the invasion of the Huns, so during the process of building the Great Wall, the common people did not make trouble.

Later generations once wondered why Qin Shihuang had hundreds of thousands of elite troops, why didn't he seek a decisive battle with the Xiongnu like Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, and drive the Xiongnu completely from the border?
People who have such thoughts are because they are not in the position of Qin Shihuang and do not understand the national situation of Daqin.

We must know that Qin State has fought for many years to unify the six countries. No matter how rich the country is, can it withstand years of fighting?In addition, after Qin unified the six countries, the whole country did not stabilize immediately, and the remaining forces of the six countries were still resisting Qin.

After many years, when Hu Hai, the second emperor of Qin, was in power, the Xiang family of Chu State and the Tian family of Qi State could quickly form an army to fight against the Qin army.This shows what the state of the country was like when Qin Shihuang was in power.Under such circumstances, how dare Qin Shihuang easily dispatch an army to fight the Xiongnu?
Moreover, the Huns are all cavalry, while the Qin State is dominated by infantry. In the vast grassland, infantry is used against cavalry. Even if the Huns cannot beat the cavalry, they can flee when they turn around.Once the battle situation is stalemate and the remnants of the Six Nations rise up, how will Qin State deal with it?
As for the ability of Emperor Wu of the Han to use troops against the Huns, he must first thank his grandfather and father. Without the wealth accumulated by Emperor Wu of the Han under the rule of Wenjing, what would Emperor Wu of the Han do against the Huns?Moreover, after the rule of Wenjing, the internal worries of the Han Dynasty have been eliminated, and they can deal with the Huns wholeheartedly.Even so, the Huns were not completely wiped out by the Han army, but the treasury of the Han Dynasty was poor and empty, and the national power was almost exhausted.

Of course, it was indeed a waste of time and money for Empress Qin Shi to build the Afang Palace and the underground mausoleum, but which emperor of the later dynasty did not build a palace, and which emperor did not build a mausoleum for himself?During the construction of these projects, which time did fewer people die?Why did Qin Shihuang get scolded?Just because Qin Shihuang was cruel and heartless?

(End of this chapter)