I

  Chapter 963 959 [Envy]

   "The King of Kings - The Biography of the Great Emperor of China", the original version is written in French.

  Like "Golden X Plum", it was banned from publication by Louis XIV, so I just took it out for myself. Because this book is too real, it analyzes and explains the content of "Datong Collection" in detail.

  However, the scholars funded by the Medici family, like the Russian envoys, translated the book into Italian and brought it back.

   Now popular in Italy, but soon banned by more than a dozen states. Only the Republic of Venice dared to continue printing and publishing, and even the Pope couldn’t stop it—Venice was fighting against the Ottoman invasion, and the Cretan War had lasted for more than ten years, and all the states were looking forward to Venice’s victory.

   Alexei I, sitting alone in his study, opened the Latin version of "The King of Kings - Biography of the Great Khitan Emperor".

"About this great emperor, there are many rumors in Europe, and the story of the prince's return to the country is widely spread. Even in Khitan, there are many people who believe that their emperor is a royal descendant of the Song Empire. But the great emperor, Publicly refuted such remarks, claiming that he was just an ordinary civilian..."

"However, His Majesty the Emperor is obviously humble. In Khitan, there are some very ancient surnames with a family history of thousands of years. His Majesty the Emperor and the royal family of the Song Empire had the same ancestors more than a thousand years ago. By the time of the Ming Empire , the ancestors of His Majesty the Emperor were reduced to families of ordinary scholars. In the Ming Empire, the people were divided into many occupations, including military households, civilian households, kitchen households, craftsmen, astrologers (yin and yang households), etc. His Majesty the Emperor belonged to Confucian households, and also It is the family of officially certified scholars..."

   "This may be the reason why His Majesty the Emperor has profound knowledge and wise thinking, because his ancestors are all scholars, and the family has inherited excellent oriental cultural secrets..."

"The Ming Empire was once powerful, but decades ago, there appeared an emperor (Wanli) who ignored government affairs. The officials of the empire retired and died of illness, and he refused to let new officials take office. The huge country lacked official governance, and the gentry They set out to steal power from the Empire."

"When our great emperor was born, the Ming Empire was on the verge of decline. The barbarians from the north continued to invade the borders of the empire. The heavy taxation caused mobs in the empire to rise up, and people rebelled against the rule of the Ming Empire. The last emperor of the Ming Empire Chongzhen is recognized as a hardworking monarch, but his talent obviously cannot save the huge empire..."

"Even the family of scholars, in the face of tyranny and natural disasters, became homeless due to hunger. Yes, His Majesty the Great Emperor once worked as a homeless beggar. And he was only a child at that time, and his father and mother died of starvation , my sister was sold to be a maid, and he needs to take his sister to beg and wander..."

"Such a person cannot become a monarch in Europe. He will die of various reasons in the end. After a long period of suffering, His Majesty the Emperor was taken in by a benevolent scholar and allowed him to become a retinue as an adopted son. The scholar's daughter, who later became the Khitan Empress."

"Understanding this, you can understand why His Majesty the Emperor treats the common people favorably. No, not the common people, but everyone, including prostitutes and slaves. Your Majesty the Great Emperor believes that all people are created equal, and only virtue is truly noble. Instead of family, title and office..."

  The author is obviously not very good at writing popular books, and the opening paragraphs are long and long, describing the social situation in the late Ming Dynasty. He even gave various notes explaining what Confucianism is. The explanation of lattice theory is several pages long, and it is written like a dissertation.

  After Zhao Han ascended the throne and proclaimed himself emperor, he spent a lot of time explaining the content of political reforms and analyzing the differences between these systems and those in Europe.

   Alexei I read this biography for more than half a month before he finished it roughly. Then, start reading again, combining those annotations for a detailed understanding.

  The author writes at the end of the book:

   "The great emperor, is still young and vigorous, and his body is so healthy. Under his rule, the empire will be more expansive and the people will be richer. The story of your majesty is far from over..."

"But we can already conclude that His Majesty the Great Emperor is an unprecedented and unique existence. Regardless of his prominent status, His Majesty is first and foremost a philosopher. He is like omniscient and omnipotent, knowing all the knowledge in the world .He has made pioneering achievements in the fields of mathematics, geometry, and physics. He is a poet and a writer, and his poems are praised by all people..."

"He is kind. His kindness is real kindness, not false kindness. He makes everyone live equally, even the lowest level of common people. He makes all children, regardless of gender, have the opportunity to receive free education .”

   "Just like his title, he is called the Emperor Minshi. To elaborate on this title, all people are equal from him. He is not the emperor of the nobles, but the emperor of the people. Is there such a monarch in Europe?"

   "He is the king of philosophers, the king of kings. His dignity does not lie in ruling the most powerful empire in the world, but in his noble soul that surpasses all others."

   "Praise the great Emperor, may God give him all blessings, and may his body be healthy forever. The rich Khitan has the most wealth in the world. And His Majesty the Emperor himself is the greatest wealth of the empire!"

   Alexey I read it twice, and then handed the book to Prime Minister Nashokin.

After reading it carefully, Nashokin said to Alexei: "Your Majesty, this book cannot be circulated. No one but the royal family must read it, otherwise it will become a plague-like existence. If a down-and-out nobleman reads it, May lead a serf rebellion that will eventually disintegrate the rule of the Russian Empire."

"I know," Alexei sighed, "but I sincerely admire the Khitan emperor. He is the benchmark of all monarchs, and no monarch can surpass him. He can make the common people happy, but ours can only continue tax the people. I know that the citizens of Moscow are complaining, because this year the taxes are heavier again. But what can be done?"

  Na Xiaojin said: "The greatness of the Khitan emperor lies in the fact that he got rid of the shackles of the noble lords, and the emperor can directly rule the people. What we should do most is to weaken the power of the nobles and let the tax revenue be concentrated in the center."

  Alexey shook his head: "It's too difficult."

   "But we have to do it, don't we?" Nashokin said.

  The tsar at this time has not completely completed the centralization of power.

   During the period of Ivan IV, the great nobles were powerful. Ivan IV continued to weaken the influence of the great nobles by reusing service personnel (officials, soldiers, craftsmen, etc.). And through the meeting of nobles and gentry, the joint servants, monks, small nobles, and merchants fought against those big nobles.

  Up to now, the Gentry Conference has become more and more powerful, and has even become a national representative conference.

   However, in addition to the meeting of the gentry, there is also a meeting of the Duma. The Duma Conference is the highest authority in Russia and a tool for the great aristocracy to oppose centralization. This is similar to the House of Lords and House of Commons in the United Kingdom, where the Duma is the House of Lords and the Conference of the Gentlemen is the House of Commons.

   It is also different from the British ones. The great nobles of the Duma meeting can participate in the gentry meeting. This is equivalent to the fact that the House of Commons is in session, and the first three rows are full of nobles from the House of Lords.

  Aleksey was unable to change the current situation throughout his life, and even went back to the situation more than a hundred years ago. The key point is that the tsar had no money, agricultural production was reduced during the Little Ice Age, and the treasury was empty, so he could only acquiesce in the counterattack of the big nobles.

   It wasn’t until Peter the Great came to power that he blatantly canceled the Duma meeting, and the highest power was concentrated in the Privy Council, and the Tsar really started to say what he said!

   Alexei said with emotion: "Khitan is so rich, but the land in Russia is too barren. As long as there are not so many natural disasters and the treasury has a little money, I don't need to look at the faces of the nobles of the Duma."

  Alexey's proud work is the promulgation of the "Congress Code".

   But this "Code of Law" is also a product of compromise. It successfully canceled the tax-free privileges of nobles and monks, but at the cost of changing the time limit for hunting fugitive slaves into...indefinite!

  Local aristocrats can randomly arrest civilians according to the "Code of Law", as long as they identify this person as a fugitive slave, and then legally occupy the property of the civilians. There are also a large number of serfs who escaped to reclaim wasteland, but were caught by the nobles and took the land for themselves. Even the grandfather escaped, arrested his grandson as a serf, and occupied all his land.

   "Let's mint copper coins," Nashokin said, "Khitan can use copper coins, and we can try it too. Maybe this can solve the financial crisis."

  Alexey said: "That's the only way."

   This pair of monarchs and ministers is simply whimsical, because in the history of Russia, copper coins have never been issued.

  Two years later, they will usher in bad results. Inflation has increased dozens of times. Not only Moscow citizens rioted, but other cities also engaged in riots. After the suppression, the issuance of copper coins was quickly cancelled. Reluctantly, they once again focused on the peasant class and continued to increase taxes, eventually brewing the Racine peasant uprising that lasted for several years.

  At night, Alexei fell asleep holding "The King of Kings—The Biography of the Khitan Great Emperor". How much he wanted the great nobles in Russia to disappear, all serfs to become peasants, every peasant to have land, every peasant to be able to pay taxes, and all power concentrated in him.

  The tsar asked craftsmen to make exquisite boxes, kept the book properly, and took it out to read a few pages when he encountered troubles, as if he could become a great Khitan emperor himself. His sorrow lies in his hard work, and he doesn't have so many troubles when he just lies down.

  This dude, a bit like Chongzhen, has been raising taxes all his life and suppressing uprisings all his life. The more taxes are collected, the more frequent the uprisings, and then continue to collect taxes.

  Thanks to the excellent regional matching mechanism and the backward national government, some great nobles are dedicated to countering the rebellion, otherwise Tsarist Russia will be completely finished in the bad Little Ice Age just like Ming Dynasty!

   This book has become Alexey's exclusive reading material.

   And far away in the Italian region, this book has gone crazy. More than a dozen countries jointly banned it, but the more it was banned, the more famous it became. Even the nobles secretly read it, just wanting to know why this thing was banned.

  (end of this chapter)