People in the Ming Dynasty are lawless

Chapter 674 In Chen Han's eyes, Emperor Yang Guang of the Sui Dynasty was not a tyrant

So this is the particularly troublesome situation for Zhu Biao now. He learned so much from Chen Han.

At the same time, after learning about the theory from Chen Han, I recalled it carefully and found that my father seemed to have really thought about it that way.

It can even be said that even if his father was not as far-sighted as Chen Han thought, he was definitely almost there.

Because he found that his father seemed to be really intentionally controlling the corruption of officials, making it meaningful for those officials to fall into the trap of corruption, making it meaningful for those officials to fall into the trap and eventually be harvested without any choice.

Under such circumstances, if we really want to make the people or the officials focus on their work, it is actually very difficult to do so.

This is also the reason why Chen Han must carry out reforms, and this is also the reason why Chen Han must change Confucianism.

Because under this situation, if no changes are made, there will be big problems. Others don't know that Zhu Biao himself is very clear. Those officials are now frightened like birds with a bow and arrow. Will they really work for the country? Not necessarily. They may just put money in their own pockets.

This is the current situation, and this is why Zhu Biao has always supported Chen Han so much. This is because under this situation, if he no longer supports Chen Han, he will be in extreme trouble in the future.

Now Chen Han can still use his own methods to fight for the entire Ming Dynasty. He can also gain many opportunities for the Ming Dynasty, which can slow down the demise of the Ming Dynasty in the future, or even save it.

Because according to Chen Han's inference, no matter how the reforms will be carried out in the future, no matter how many people want the reforms, no matter how vigorous the reforms are, as long as the trauma of the early Ming Dynasty is not healed, then this trauma will continue to accompany the entire Ming Dynasty.

This problem must be solved, and it will require some sacrifices. Even if the officials sometimes ask for more, if they can be made obedient one by one and follow the court's policies in the future, then they can be given what they want.

So what Zhu Biao needed now was to compromise with his father and get his father to do these things with him, and even to go against his father's previous methods for such a thing.

What kind of person is the old man? Zhu Biao knows very well that he is a person who trusts him absolutely.

So if you really want to change these things now, you will definitely encounter some obstacles, the first of which is the emotional problem between father and son.

I am the person that the old man trusts the most, but now I also want it, even though the old man seems to be treating everyone the same.

The idea of ​​making some changes has been proposed, so the question is who the old man should trust in the future.

In fact, Zhu Biao had never wanted to hurt his father's feelings. He always felt that he was an excellent spy. His father had handled these issues so well, which was a breakthrough in what a founding emperor should accomplish.

Because even if we look at the entire history, his own father has done a very good job. First of all, although Qin Shihuang was great, after he laid the foundation for the entire Qin Dynasty, there were actually many problems left behind.

Not to mention Liu Bang, the first emperor of the Han Dynasty. Right after he conquered the whole world, he fought a war with the Huns, which led to the Siege of Baideng. The Han Dynasty was unable to hold its head up for decades, and his successors had no choice but to negotiate terms with the Huns.

Even the Hun envoys wrote letters to directly humiliate the Empress Dowager Lu, who was such a powerful person.

However, she was humiliated by the Huns' envoy and was told directly that since her husband had died, she should go to the grassland and live with the Huns.

But even if it reached this level of humiliation, there was nothing that could be done, because the Han Dynasty at that time was really too incompetent. Not only was it extremely poor, but it was also being defeated militarily.

What can you do? You can only swallow your anger. After decades of coldness, the Han Dynasty finally prospered after the reign of Emperor Wu of Han. Only then did they have the ability to confront the Xiongnu head-on.

And which founding emperor of Sui and Tang dynasties did a good job?
Emperor Wen of Sui, Yang Jian, seemed to have done a good job, but he made the power of the aristocratic families so great that each of them seemed to want to be on equal footing with the emperor.

That was why after Yang Guang succeeded to the throne, Emperor Yang of Sui could only use constant wars to deplete the power of the emerging clans.

Emperor Wen of Sui, Yang Jian, seemed to have governed the country very well and indeed set a precedent for a benevolent monarch to rule the country. However, in fact, what he brought to Emperor Yang of Sui, Yang Guang, was not necessarily that good.

If Emperor Yang Guang of Sui really thought that the world his father had given him was a good one, he would not have been the first to use the imperial examination system during his reign.

Why use the imperial examination system?
This is not because it was first invented by Emperor Yang Guang of the Sui Dynasty, nor was it invented by Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty, Yang Jian. In fact, the imperial examination system already had its prototype during the Wei, Jin, Southern and Northern Dynasties.

Especially after the Five Barbarians Invasion of China, so many countries emerged and took turns to govern the world.

They have long known that once warlords or powerful families gain control of power, they will inevitably establish their own regime.

So how can we break up the power of the powerful families?

It is necessary to introduce more talents from other channels.

On the one hand, these talents will be grateful to the emperor after they come to power. On the other hand, after these talents enter the central government, there will not be so many circles of aristocrats. He does not need to guard against these people forming a larger force. They can only obey the emperor.

To put it bluntly, the imperial examination system was a power game between the emperor and the aristocratic families.

This thing was not invented by Emperor Wen of Sui, Yang Jian, nor by Emperor Yang of Sui, Yang Guang, but it had already existed in its prototype before, and had even begun in the Northern Zhou Dynasty and had been tried out locally.

In fact, the reason why we always insist that our Chinese civilization has not been interrupted for 5,000 years is that even if the dynasties change, the living habits and so on have always been the same. It is not that a dynasty changes, and then the entire system and customs change.

That's not the case. Even though the Five Barbarians were so chaotic and even though so many ethnic minorities came in, they were still mixed with the Han people of the Central Plains dynasty.

This kind of mixed blood is a good thing, as most of the children born from close relatives’ marriages have genetic defects.

It makes sense that children with more distant blood relations are smarter.

This is why the children born to the Thai royal family in the south and the royal family in the daily life are all mentally retarded, it is because of inbreeding.

In that chaotic era with confused thinking, everyone wanted stability and wanted to gain longer-term rule, so they would constantly change policies.

For example, the imperial examination system appeared at that time and took shape at that time.

The reason why it was not implemented was because there was too much resistance at that time. During the Northern and Southern Dynasties, the military power was in the hands of those door handles. How could they be willing to see the emperor implement such a system?

They will definitely strangle the imperial examination system with all their might, and from multiple aspects and levels, from the bottom up.

It was not until Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty, Yang Jian, unified the entire Central Plains that the country was able to achieve a relatively centralized and powerful force. But even so, Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty, Yang Jian, did not implement the imperial examination system.

Because there was a reason that bound him, he himself was from a noble family and he was a relative of the Northern Zhou Dynasty.

Those who supported him in unifying the country were all the aristocratic families. If he used the imperial examination system to buy talents from poor families after he came to power, wouldn't that be destroying his own rice bowl?

That is why he did not use the imperial examination system.

Why was Emperor Yang Guang of the Sui Dynasty able to use it? First of all, it was because after Emperor Wen of the Sui Dynasty ruled the country, the country was strong and the national army was strong.

At the same time, Emperor Yang Guang of the Sui Dynasty was a rather diverse person. He was different from his father. He saw how the big families were pointing fingers at his father when he was governing the world.

After this trauma, he had to change.

Of course, this change came at a heavy price. First of all, as soon as he proposed the implementation of the imperial examination system, he was besieged by the gentry.

What should we do? We must weaken the power of the nobles, so that they have no strength or no real strength to challenge us.

What strength did the nobles have at that time to be able to challenge Emperor Yang Guang of the Sui Dynasty?

That is, those noble families actually raised a lot of private soldiers. It is hard to imagine that the troops raised by those emerging noble families could challenge the imperial army. This is not because the imperial army is too weak.

This is because each noble family has private soldiers numbering at least three to four thousand and sometimes tens of thousands.

These soldiers eat and drink from the gentry's homes, so they only serve the gentry and do not listen to the imperial court.

So how can we consume this power? Start a war.

Once a war was launched, Emperor Yang Guang of the Sui Dynasty could legitimately requisition the private soldiers from the homes of the gentry.

Because this was an open conspiracy. You have to know that the Sui Dynasty was conquered by the aristocratic families, which means that everyone had a stake.

The Sui Dynasty was probably a large joint venture company in which everyone had shares. If the company went bankrupt, everyone's interests would be harmed.

So under this passive situation, they could only send their own soldiers to the battlefield. After a war, countless people were killed and wounded, and most of the dead were soldiers from the gentry.

With so many soldiers killed in the aristocratic families, they no longer had the strength to fight against the imperial court. So Emperor Yang Guan of the Sui Dynasty used his second trick - implementing the imperial examination system, hoping to allow people from poor families to come to power and replace the power of the aristocratic families in the court.

Of course, we can only say that Emperor Yang Guang of the Sui Dynasty was a bit naive.

He overlooked one problem, that is, even if the main force on the battlefield might be the soldiers from the aristocratic families, after all, these soldiers had combat experience and would definitely be at the forefront.

However, the food and fodder for these armies and the transporters who transported the food and fodder were all civilians.

If you only have one or two wars, or a major war with a long interval between them, everyone can still tolerate it.

However, Emperor Yang Guang of the Sui Dynasty was anxious to weaken the power of the gentry as quickly as possible.

He frequently launched wars and in order to facilitate the transportation of food and fodder, he also dug or dredged the various waterways that were once used to transport grain, thus undertaking an unprecedented project, the excavation of the Grand Canal.

Many people think that he dug the Grand Canal in order to travel to the south of the Yangtze River. That shows that he does not understand politics at all and that is slandering Emperor Yang Guang of the Sui Dynasty.

First of all, he did not do this just for sightseeing. Emperor Yang Guang of the Sui Dynasty must have been an ambitious man who wanted to become an emperor like Qin Shi Huang.

Because what he did was similar to what Qin Shihuang did. Qin Shihuang built the Great Wall, built straight roads, unified the writing system, and standardized weights and measures.

Emperor Yang Guang of the Sui Dynasty also wanted to accomplish such a great feat, but he did not have the same conditions as Qin Shi Huang. Qin Shi Huang had accumulated hundreds of years of experience from previous generations and finally conquered the six kingdoms and unified the world in one battle.

His Sui Dynasty had only lasted two generations, and had just ended its state of division. How could the world recover so quickly?

He dug the Grand Canal and went to the south of the Yangtze River several times not for sightseeing, but to move the political center from Luoyang to the south of the Yangtze River.

In this way, he left aside the aristocratic families in Guanlong. After arriving in Jiangnan, there were not so many aristocratic families in Jiangnan yet. He could directly select talents in Jiangnan to join his political group.

It’s a pity that his wish had already been clearly seen by the Guanlong gentry.

Therefore, the Guanlong gentry took advantage of the opportunity that the common people in the world were unable to tolerate the many great heroes of Emperor Yang Guang of the Sui Dynasty and started a rebellion, and they quickly rose up in arms.

Didn't Li Shimin's family take advantage of this opportunity to become bigger? To be honest, the Li family was really not in the right in this matter.

This is simply ungrateful. You should know that Emperor Wen of Sui, Yang Jian, was the uncle of Emperor Gaozu of Tang, Li Yuan, and Li Yuan called Emperor Yang of Sui, Yang Guang, his cousin.

The Li family was definitely a staunch in-law of the Sui Dynasty, but because the world was in chaos, not only did their family not help Emperor Yang Guang of the Sui Dynasty to quell the rebellion, but they took advantage of the chaos to raise an army themselves.

Emperor Yang Guang of the Sui Dynasty was not as cruel and incompetent as history says. It can only be said that people who do things will generally leave a bad reputation. For example, wasn't Qin Shihuang known as a tyrant among the people?

Wasn’t Emperor Wu of Han, Liu Che, also seen as a tyrant in the eyes of the common people during his time?

Because Emperor Wu of Han had to fight against the Huns, he had to increase taxes.

Emperor Wu of Han, Liu Che, was a relatively lucky man. Not only did he have a huge legacy left to him by Emperor Wen of Han and Emperor Jing of Han.

He also met a large number of capable commanders and generals, such as Wei Qing and Huo Qubing, the two pillars of the empire.

Otherwise, Emperor Wu of Han, Liu Che, would have ended up like Emperor Xuanzong of Tang, Li Longji...

(End of this chapter)