People in the Ming Dynasty are lawless

Chapter 709: The Scholar's Insidiousness
Sometimes the more people worry about something, the more they want to accomplish something. For example, he has always been worried about the old man's health, thinking that he might not be able to hold on, so he has been thinking about how to make the old man live longer. This would actually be more beneficial for the Ming Dynasty.

But later he realized that the quality of the old man's work is what matters most. Just like now, the old man is alone in the palace. Although Crown Prince Zhu Biao is filial, he has so many affairs to deal with that he simply cannot spare the time to do so many things and can only leave the old man alone.

Seventy-year-old Chen Han could see that the prince had always owed the old man something, but with national affairs at hand, even if he wanted to go and accompany the old man, the old man might not give him such an opportunity at all and would definitely drive him away.

So the communication between the father and son was actually very ugly. It can be seen that the old man always wanted to communicate more with his son, because he always valued his son Zhu Biao very much and always regarded this son as his lifelong pride.

It is precisely because of this that the old man would never let the prince practice and waste Guanyin in front of him. He always feels that His Royal Highness the Prince must do something big.

In fact, the old man had the same idea about Chen Han. Many times, the old man always hoped that Chen Han could talk more about some topics in front of him, but he was afraid that if he talked too much in front of him, it would delay Chen Han from doing big things.

This is where the old man is very conflicted. On the one hand, he actually hopes that Chen Han can speak more in front of him, give him more comfort, and let him know who has the highest evaluation of him and who has the worst evaluation of him among so many people in the future. Sometimes he also has this rebellious mentality, but the old man has always put the country first.

It is precisely because of this that even if the old man sometimes wanted Chen Han to come to the palace to talk to him, he would not say it, nor would he think that Chen Han must do so, because in the old man's heart, the Ming Dynasty is the most important.

Therefore, in these very contradictory psychological states, he had to endure the loneliness and desolation. In fact, in the whole world, the only person who could chat with the old man and express his thoughts in a dignified manner was Chen Han.

Even his son, the Crown Prince, sometimes found it impossible to express his thoughts so smoothly and naturally in front of him, because the Crown Prince was a very filial person and would never say anything disobedient.

So now when Chen Han and Zhu Youwei saw Zhu Yuanzhang walking by the lake with his son, and talking about himself, some things that he would never say in front of ordinary palace maids and eunuchs, even though Chen Jin was so young and had no idea what the old man was talking about, the old man really liked to talk like this.

It can also be seen from here that the old man has always been rather lonely, otherwise it would be impossible for him to talk so much to such a young child.

Chen Han said to Zhu Youwei, "You don't know that in history, in the words of the old man, there will always be a word called tyrant."

After hearing what her husband said, Zhu Youwei felt like a string in her heart was suddenly plucked. In fact, she had always felt that there were major errors in the records about her royal grandfather in history books.

First of all, as an emperor, my grandfather could not be as kind and indecisive as ordinary people.

Especially for the founding emperor of the Ming Dynasty, what he had to do was not only to get rid of the cancer left over from the Yuan Dynasty, but also to turn the entire Ming Dynasty into a true civilization.

If it were the founders of other dynasties, they would not need to be as anxious as their grandfather, nor would they need to do so many things, because they could accept everything naturally, because the common people or officials, as long as they were used to the previous rhythm, there was no need to change anything.

Just like Liu Bang of the Han Dynasty, after he destroyed the Qin Dynasty and became emperor, he didn't need to change anything, he just needed to make some repairs like a tailor.

The Qin Dynasty had already prepared the general framework for the Han Dynasty, which was the legacy of the previous dynasty.

The same was true for the Sui and Tang dynasties and the two Song dynasties. Although the Sui and Tang dynasties also accepted a lot of messy foreign things after the Five Barbarians' Invasion of China, it should be understood that after hundreds of years of integration, what the Sui and Tang dynasties inherited was still the main part of the Han Wu nation.

So they don't need to change anything, they don't need to be anxious, and they don't need to carry out drastic reforms like the Ming Dynasty did.

Zhu Youwei actually understood why her husband, her father, and her grandfather supported her husband in reforming the law. Was it because he had nothing better to do? No, it was because there were too many things left over from the past. If no changes were made, the foundation of the Ming Dynasty would be unstable.

There was no need to change anything during the Sui and Tang dynasties because they did not need to face foreign rule. The Central Plains before the Ming Dynasty under the rule of the Yuan Dynasty was essentially a confrontation between two civilizations. So the Yuan Dynasty also underwent a little bit of sinicization, but most of the systems still relied on the Yuan Dynasty's systems.

Even because the Mongol Empire before the Yuan Dynasty had already come into contact with other civilizations, they had a strong rejection of Central Plains civilization.

It is precisely because of this that their rule seems to be very stable, but in fact, to the common people of the Central Plains dynasty, it is simply a group of foreigners ruling them.

They even use some alien living habits and civilizations from other places to rule themselves, so it seems that they are slowly merging, but deep down they are actually still somewhat different.

Therefore, the situation that the Ming Dynasty took over was actually very pessimistic.

In this situation, if his imperial grandfather did not carry out drastic reforms and clean up, it would be equivalent to leaving behind all the very regrettable things of the entire Yuan Dynasty.

No one can tell what will become of the entire Ming Dynasty by then, and no one will be responsible under such circumstances. The only option is for the emperor to take the blame. But can he take the blame?
You cannot be blamed for this at all, for a very simple reason: no matter whether you are the founding emperor or the later emperor, if you have not changed all these things, how can your descendants survive according to the customary life of the nomadic peoples of the Yuan Dynasty?

If the Han people don't have their own civilization, how can they become great again? This is a huge contradiction. So what can the old man do in the face of this contradiction? He can only remove all the auxiliary from this body with a drastic move. Because looking at the changes of dynasties, most of the time, the body of the Central Plains Cultural Journey still has the bones and organs left over from the previous dynasty.

But because the bones and body have not been completely decayed, they do not need to remove them, they only need to treat the injured areas.

Under such circumstances, there was not much foundation for changing anything, but the Ming Dynasty was different from the Yuan Dynasty, which had already polluted the entire body of the Central Plains civilization with its will, so what needed to be done under such circumstances was to cleanse the entire body.

Whether it was her husband, her father, or her royal grandfather, what they did was to gradually improve the bodies that had been polluted by the Yuan Dynasty based on the foundation of the Yonghan nation itself.

Their relatives and friends were killed and exiled, which made them feel resentful. So although they did not dare to write insults against their own grandfather in the book, they would use innuendo to portray their industry as a tyrant.

In fact, Zhu Youwei has always understood the methods used by scholars. It is precisely because of this understanding that she is so disgusted with them.

Just as she is now very worried that her husband will be slandered by those literati, in fact, she can already imagine that the reason why those literati want to slander her husband is that her husband has touched their interests during the reform.

The reason why his royal grandfather was slandered as a tyrant by those literati was that the real reason was not even written into the history books.

They don't even bother to analyze why they do this and think that it's because of their relatives or their concerns, or that they themselves have already suffered some exclusion when they were removing the rotten meat.

Thinking of this, Zhu Youwei couldn't help but look at her royal grandfather, watching her royal grandfather chatting so happily with her son, watching her son follow her royal grandfather so happily, and said angrily: "Those scholars, those pedantic literati, don't even look at the reasons behind this and just write nonsense."

After hearing what his wife said, Chen Han smiled slightly: "My wife, you are wrong. Don't they know these reasons?

“In fact, they know it very well, but the reason why they don’t write it is that they want to use the style of the Spring and Autumn Annals to directly put all these sins and resentments into the book they wrote.

"After reading this, future generations will never think about why His Majesty did this in the first place. They only know that His Majesty killed so many people to promote reform."

After hearing what her husband said, Zhu Youwei nodded and said, "It is true. In fact, as the saying goes, the people who wronged you actually understand better than you how wronged you are. However, they still do this because they have lost their conscience and are only motivated by profit."

Chen Han said again, "In fact, this is equivalent to the burning of books and burying of scholars by Qin Shihuang. Everyone knows who was killed.

"The so-called Confucian scholars were nothing more than scholars who deceived Qin Shi Huang. The books they burned were not the so-called Four Books and Five Classics, but personal poetry collections or creations that were not allowed to be circulated in the market.

"The real agricultural books, the real Four Books and Five Classics and other classics were not burned, but why did Confucian scholars still want to portray Qin Shihuang as such a tyrant?"

Zhu Youwei heard her husband's words at this time and asked with interest, "What is the reason?"

Chen Han explained his temperament, "First of all, it's because the Qin Dynasty was a legalist dynasty, and Confucianism was simply disdained by the Qin Dynasty. This is the first hatred.

"Secondly, since the Han Dynasty promoted the idea of ​​Confucianism as the only doctrine, Confucianism had to elevate its own status. The first way to improve it was to cater to political needs, that is, to cater to the needs of Emperor Wu of Han or the Han Dynasty.

"They want to portray the Qin Dynasty as a corrupt and dirty dynasty, and Qin Shi Huang as a tyrant who killed people and set fire to people, and did not treat the people as human beings. This is the only way to highlight the destiny of the Han Dynasty and its brightness and greatness."

Zhu Youwei thought what he said made a lot of sense, because in the Qin Dynasty and before the Qin Dynasty, Confucianism had not really become a religion, and was even belittled everywhere at one point.

In particular, Mencius' idea of ​​the importance of the relationship between the monarch and his parents made the monarchs sneer at Confucianism.

Then Chen Han said again, "In addition, those Confucian scholars need to portray themselves as victims. They need to attribute the reason why Confucianism was not taken seriously before to the unwarranted attack or slander by Legalist thought.

"Only in this way can people understand Confucianism. It was very popular in the Qin Dynasty, and it was also bright and great before the Qin Dynasty. Only in this way can they raise their own status. They want to raise the status of scholars by raising the status of Confucianism.

"And why do they want to portray Your Majesty as a tyrant? It's because they hope to use history books, notes, and even unofficial history to portray Your Majesty as a tyrant who suppresses the willful behavior of scholars. On the one hand, they can directly blame the emperor for the scholars' misleading the country and the internal fighting among scholars that led to the country's demise, and get rid of his own guilt."

……

(End of this chapter)