Daming Town Haiwang

Chapter 1740, The Way of Governing

In the cabinet, Liu Jin is studying with his eyes closed, thinking about some things carefully. He has been an official for more than ten years, and finally sat in the position of the chief assistant of the cabinet. Liu Jin does not feel too much joy, but feels a lot of pressure.

Every cabinet chief assistant comes up, as long as he can sit firmly, he will basically have his own style of doing things.

Like Liu Jian, who has been the chief assistant of the cabinet for more than ten years, his style of doing things has always been mature and prudent, emphasizing frugality and opposing redundant officials.

This can only be regarded as quite satisfactory, without any characteristics, and it does not have much effect. Of course, in itself, Liu Jian can only be regarded as a mediocre person among the many chief ministers of the cabinet in Ming Dynasty, but it is also better than his maturity and prudence. Under the auspices of the Hongzhi Dynasty, the Hongzhi Dynasty changed into the evildoers and weird waves of the Hua Dynasty.

Restoring the peace of the Ming Dynasty Bureau also greatly restricted the power of the factory guards, and the civil servants of the ruling and opposition parties were living a good life.

But it is limited to this. For all aspects of governing the country, the set he followed was still the Confucian way of governing the country, such as benevolence, righteousness, morality, and filial piety. The slogans were very good, but in reality The above is useless in the way of governing the country.

That dynasty did not say to govern the country with benevolence and righteousness, and that emperor did not rule the world with filial piety. This has been the case in all dynasties, and there is no big difference.

This thing is used to fool the unreasonable emperor. Many times, the emperor seems to be unfilial and benevolent.

In fact, Liu Jian did not solve any of the many problems faced by the Ming Empire.

Internally, the treasury is empty, the frontier defense is empty, the armaments are slack, and the people are poor. Liu Jian has done nothing. If he has no money, he calls for frugality every day, calls for redundant officials, and asks the emperor to be thrifty and so on.

This is not nonsense, there is nothing new at all, you can put this thing in any dynasty, it can be said in the past.

Emperor Hongzhi had a wife and a son, and he was always frugal, and the palace was not willing to rest. Just like this, he was told to be frugal every day, but those ministers, which one was not extremely luxurious, which one was not extravagant and wasteful.

He didn't have it at all, or he didn't dare to face the root of the problem.

The root cause of the emptiness of the Ming treasury was that land annexation became more and more serious. A large amount of land was annexed by gentry and landlords, and the grain that was supposed to be paid to the treasury was turned into tax-free land.

In addition, there is the issue of commercial tax. Commercial tax has been unable to be levied because there are many, many people who oppose it. He Liu Jian does not have the courage and ability to do this. Of course, he may not want to sit because it will damage his own. Benefit.

He can't solve the two main problems of the empty treasury. He can only call for diligence and thrift, oppose extravagance and waste, and talk about redundant officials and other nonsense.

The emptiness of the border defense and the slackness of armaments are related to the national defense of the Ming Dynasty. The root of it is the corruption of the military household system. Serve as a soldier?

If he wanted to rectify it, he would offend the Xungui Group, hundreds of households, thousands of households, guards, etc., all large and small, he would not dare at all.

As for the dismantling of armaments, in the final analysis, it came back to the matter of the empty treasury. If there is no money, there will be no armaments. What's more, civilian officials are still in charge of the army, and corruption is common. It is strange that the armaments are good.

Internally, Liu Jian can be said to have done nothing, just a mediocre chief assistant.

To the outside world, the Tartars in the northern grasslands, the Jurchens in Liaodong in the east, the Japanese pirates in the southeast coast, and the chieftains in the southwest all took turns, and none of them were resolved.

I have neither the financial resources nor any good solution, so I can only procrastinate, watching the Tartars go south to plunder every winter, as long as they don’t come to attack the city of Beijing. Enough is enough, and I will go back naturally.

As for the Japanese pirates in the southeastern region, they were left to their own devices. Without sea ships and warships, and without a strong army, there was nothing they could do to them.

Just let them loot, anyway, for Daming, the loss is not too big.

It is precisely this kind of attitude of letting things go that caused the Japanese pirates to become more and more rampant and rampant. By the time of the Zhengde and Jiajing dynasties, the Japanese pirates had become quite serious, and they had to be vigorously suppressed.

If the Japanese pirates could be severely suppressed and attacked during the Hongzhi Dynasty, there would be no follow-up matters at all, and some things were raised slowly like this.

The same is true of the chieftains in the Southwest. Knowing that they are capricious, they continue to be chieftains and emperors after they are wiped out.

To sum up, Liu Jian's years as the chief assistant of the cabinet can be said to be very mediocre and ineffective.

That is to say, with the strong support of Emperor Hongzhi, Liu Jin continued to introduce many new policies and carry out reforms in many aspects. Only then did the current Daming Empire come into being.

If he followed Liu Jian's previous routine, Daming's life would only become more and more difficult now.

Land mergers intensified, salt merchants, Huizhou merchants, and grain merchants continued to grow in power, Jiangnan Shilin continued to grow stronger, party struggles gradually formed, and gradually turned into fierce confrontation.

What awaits the Ming Dynasty in the end will be the same as other dynasties, and will eventually perish.

In fact, the Hongzhi Dynasty was considered to be the most critical moment for the Ming Dynasty. It was in the middle period, and many problems had begun to be exposed and highlighted. If changes can be made effectively, it can become prosperous and powerful.

If there is no change, then the demise of the Ming Dynasty will be inevitable, and its various problems will continue to be exposed, and the final result will be a change of dynasty.

Now that Liu Jin has become the chief assistant of the cabinet, as the head of the ministers, Liu Jin is also thinking about what he can do and how to do it, so as to bring the Ming Empire to a more brilliant future.

Although the Ming Empire is rich and strong, the treasury is sufficient, the people are rich, the army is strong, and the country is vast, it does not mean that the Ming Empire has no problems.

On the contrary, the contradiction will never disappear at any time, it will only change.

There will be problems at any time, and sometimes it is common for the month to be full and then to lose, and the prosperity to decline. Under the governance of Li Longji, the Tang Empire was extremely powerful, and the prosperity of Kaiyuan is no joke.

However, they did not pay attention to the serious problems in the Tang Empire. The local Jiedu Envoy had too much power and could not lose its tail. Once An Lushan rebelled, the entire Tang Empire would be in turmoil, and it only took a few years for it to turn from prosperity to decline.

After the Anshi Rebellion was put down, the Tang Empire was completely abolished, and the power of the local governors was even greater, and the power of the eunuchs was unprecedentedly strong. Compared with the eunuchs of the Tang Dynasty, the eunuchs of the Ming Dynasty were really childish.

The eunuchs in the Tang Dynasty killed the emperor just like killing chickens. They killed the emperor if they felt uncomfortable. The eunuchs in the Ming Dynasty were always the emperor's dogs.

So in many cases, it seems powerful, but also has its empty side.

For the current Ming Empire, there are many problems.

The land area of ​​the country is too large, so it is more difficult to control and develop overseas land. There are many unstable factors. For example, the Golden Continent is too far away from Daming. The Golden Continent is also vast, fertile and rich in resources. , if you don't strengthen your rule, there will definitely be someone in the Golden Continent who will crack the soil and seal the king.

There is also the natural contradiction between the new learning and the old learning. The old learning reads Confucianism, and always reads the four books and five classics, and the Confucian classics can't get out of it. What contributes to social progress.

In fact, Confucianism has developed to the present, and the set of stereotyped essays has severely restricted and hindered the development of the Ming Empire.

If you look at history, you will know that from the Ming Dynasty onwards, it gradually lagged behind the world. By the time of the Qing Dynasty, the continuous use of such a strategy, whether in the ideological or technological circles, was completely silent. Any thinkers, scientists, etc. are born.

Of course, although this is also due to the fact that Mi Qing, as a foreign ruler, continuously suppressed and squeezed the development of Han people's thought and culture, it is an indisputable fact that Confucianism has completely decayed.

Confucianism developed to the Ming and Qing Dynasties, and it has no use for the country, the nation, and the society. On the contrary, it is constantly hindering the progress of the country, nation, and society, and making us fall behind the world.

New learning is different. Beginning with basic education, it advocates practicality and the integration of the strengths of a hundred schools of thought. The students who come out of the new education begin to shine in all aspects of the Ming Dynasty.

Daming was able to produce cars, telegraphs, etc. in such a short period of time, which is inseparable from the education of new learning.

The number of new learning is increasing, and its development is getting faster and faster, and now some new thinkers are beginning to emerge in the ideological world, and what they advocate is completely different from the Confucianism.

The contradiction between the two is inevitable and irreconcilable.

In addition, the most important thing is power. Traditional Confucian scholars occupy the officialdom, and new-school scholars cannot be officials. It was better at first, but as more and more new-school talents and power grow, they will inevitably move toward the imperial court. They demanded more power and at the same time introduced policies that were more in line with the new learning ideas.

This contradiction will inevitably erupt in the future, and if one is not careful, a large-scale civil war may break out within the Ming Empire, and the final result will inevitably be that the new learning defeats the traditional Confucianism.

The Ming Dynasty was not without problems. On the contrary, there were still many problems. In the final analysis, it was the contradiction between the feudal system and the capitalist productive forces, between the productive forces and the relations of production.

(End of this chapter)