Thousand-year-old family: its rise began with Shang Yang’s reforms

Chapter 495 Measuring the World
Gao Shilian was very angry, and he should be angry, because this was a "massacre" that came without warning, a massacre of Gao Shilian and his affiliated forces. The emperor sitting on the throne simply cut off the two most important components of the force he was proud of.

Not only did he not have the strength to fight back, he couldn't even foresee this happening in advance.

This made Gao Shilian feel very confused and helpless.

What was he in the eyes of the emperor and Chen? Or what was his resistance in the eyes of Chen and the emperor? Was it nothing? Was it just the meaningless struggle of an ant?

When the anger passed, Gao Shilian was filled with endless helplessness, confusion and struggle.

a long time.

When the tea in the cup became cold again, Gao Shilian finally let out a long sigh.

He sat there very calmly, and then looked for the "thoughts" he needed. No matter what, he had finally stood on the opposite side of Li Shimin and Chen, even though he was just like an ant to them.

"How can we do this?"

Gao Shilian fell into silence and thought.

He kept deducing the direction of the "chess game" in his mind, deducing what the emperor and Chen wanted to do next.

But in the end he still couldn't make a judgment.

I can only make some simple guesses about what will happen in the future.

Tai Chi Hall

In this palace that controls the greatest power in the world, Li Shimin sat here peacefully, his expression quiet and cold.

He looked at the person in front of him and said softly, "Have you decided?"

Li Shimin was very excited, even feeling an indescribable excitement.

Chen Ruohan also sat there excitedly, even with a hint of uneasiness on his brow, because the things that were about to happen were so serious that they would even affect the whole world!
"Your Majesty, I think we are ready."

"Father will personally bring up that matter at tomorrow's court meeting."

"We have already made preparations for the subsequent series of actions."

"The disciples of the Mohist and Gongshu schools, or in other words, the disciples who have now been integrated and merged into "scientists", have already prepared what they have been preparing for many years."

Chen Ruohan even smiled wantonly.

This is something Chen has been preparing for many years!
He exhaled slowly, then stood in front of Li Shimin and said to the great emperor: "Your Majesty, perhaps you would like to see Chen's "preparations" in advance, or to meet those Chen disciples who are hiding in the dark but are ready to step out of the shadows!"

Li Shimin nodded slightly, he looked at Chen Ruohan with a faint smile on the corner of his mouth.

"of course."

"I am ready."

Zhen Wang Mansion
The night enveloped this ordinary yet extraordinary mansion. The moonlight slowly enveloped the mansion, and also illuminated Chen Zhan's face and expression.

Chen Zhan!

Perhaps he is the person with the longest life span in the world today.

He has come all the way from the era of Emperor Wansui, and experienced Emperor Wansui, Emperor Wen of Sui, Emperor Yang of Sui, Emperor Dade, and now the Emperor of Tang!

Five emperors, three dynasties!
But he is still alive, which is simply a miracle. Even among the ancestors of the Chen family, there has never been such a long-lived old man.

He is nearly a hundred years old!

And now, he is sitting in this room, wearing the "Qilin Jade" on his waist that has been passed down from the pre-Qin era. The slight "coldness" coming from the Qilin Jade allows Chen Zhan to remain calm and rational even at the age of a hundred.

This may be the Chen family head who has used Qilin Jade for the longest time.

Chen Zhan's old hand slowly stroked the jade pendant, and then he sighed deeply: "Is what I did right?"

His voice was old and muddy, and his eyes were filled with confusion as he couldn't determine the answer.

but.
Even though he was not sure whether the path he was taking was correct, Chen Zhan still walked firmly on this path.

He looked at the manuscript of "Long Live the Emperor" placed in front of him with a very calm expression.

Because what he was about to do, what Chen was about to do, and what the emperor was about to do were all things that Chen had been preparing for for a hundred years!
Was it really an ordinary and coincidental thing that Chen Zhan's father, the gentle old man, took the Emperor Wansui away from the palace?

Was that old man really just being schemed by the Wansui Emperor?

Does the Wansui Emperor have such great ability that he could deceive Chen Zhi at such a young age?

wrong
That was not a calculation, but a "two-way rush".
Wansui Emperor was the seed that Chen had carefully nurtured, but in the end, this seed did not grow in the direction Chen had expected, but instead grew in another direction completely.

When they learned about this, both Chen Zhi and Chen Zhan felt helpless.

Sometimes fate is just like that and it never lets you get what you want.

but.
The subsequent developments were beyond the expectations of Chen Zhan and Chen Zhi, and also made them seem to see the light of another path.

Until that night, Emperor Wansui died in the palace.

Chen Zhan held up an oil-paper umbrella and took away the descendants of Zhang, or rather, the children of Emperor Wansui, from the heavy rain.

Chen began to really work on another plan, a plan that sounded, looked, and even seemed ridiculous to implement.

Here we have to talk about Chen’s “thoughts”.

Chen’s foundation is “establishing the people”.

But what does it take to completely change the lives of those people?

What is needed is a political bottom line and system that is aboveboard, or at least the most basic one, and cannot be changed by anyone. We must even consider the possibility that the system will be corrupted in the future. After being corrupted, the system must be able to achieve the bottom line they set.

In this way, the people of Guizhou can truly live the life that Chen had envisioned.

This is the common wish of generations of Chen ancestors.

In the generation of Chen Zhan and Chen Zhi, they saw the foundation for the realization of that wish. Later, Emperor Wansui, Emperor Wen of Sui, and Emperor Yang of Sui did not let the Chen family see hope, so the Chen family continued to hide and study what they should study, such as an idea that can be spread - this idea must have a most basic bottom line, that is, even people who cannot understand it can use it subconsciously and will not cause harm to the people.

Then this idea must have a "benevolent" slogan, and it must be accepted by the people, so that even if the rulers are unwilling to implement this idea, they have to put on the cloak of this idea.

Even if they want to transform this thought and turn it into a disgusting hybrid product, they must always wear that coat and cannot change it - as long as they wear this coat, they must do things and systems that are in line with these coats, and these things and systems are the guarantee for the people.

Thus, the realistic and scientific thought was born. It contains the core ideas of "people-oriented" and "seeking truth from facts", and also led to the emergence of the concept of "scientist".

However, in the eyes of Chen's many disciples and Chen Zhan, transforming the thoughts of the people and the entire society is something that needs to be done gradually - because they control part of the power, there is no need to carry out reforms from the bottom up, but they can carry out reforms from the top down.

This is a comforting thing - because top-down reform will not be so bloody and violent.

But it is precisely because of this that top-down reforms are not as effective as bottom-up reforms, and they cannot be as crude and simple as that. They must package this matter softly and without lethality, just like peeling off a cocoon.
Therefore, the first thing to be carried out must not be any "institutional" reform that affects the interests of the supreme ruler.

Nor can it be a "thought reform" that comes right from the start.

Then
Only science.

This is also one of the reasons for the birth of scientific thought.

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Because they need scientific reforms to lay some foundation for their "thoughts". Only when the foundation is laid can they slowly continue to build their magnificent house on this solid foundation.

Therefore, at the end of the Sui Dynasty, or during the reign of Emperor Yang of Sui, "gunpowder" or "explosive" appeared.

This requires us to talk about another question: what is the purpose of scientific progress in the first place?
In times of war, scientific progress must be for the purpose of better waging war, and in times of peace, it must be for better production.

For example, the first and second industrial revolutions.

The tremendous progress brought about by the Industrial Revolution was due to the need for better production and also because the backward productivity could not keep up with people’s ideological reforms!
So, what about the other way around?
Backward thinking can no longer keep up with the development of productivity!

Naturally, new productive forces will give rise to new classes, and these new classes will want to seize the rights that they should have.

This is what Shang Yang's reform was like.

Why was Shang Yang's reform successful?
Whether in the version of history that includes Chen or in the version that does not include Chen, the fundamental reason why Shang Yang's reforms were successful was due to the development of productivity.

Or it can be summarized as "the emergence and expanded use of iron farm tools and ox-drawn plows", which is the development of productivity.

Then the development of productivity gave birth to another class - a weak and "new" class in the pre-Qin era, in that semi-slave and semi-feudal dynasty era, and it was called the "landlord class."

After the emergence of the landlord class, they greedily wanted to acquire power and status because they already had the stepping stones to power and status, namely: money and land.

Thus, Shang Yang's Reform came into being.

Among Shang Yang's reforms, at least one of the most critical laws was created specifically for the landlord class.

That is: private ownership of land.

Then, the landlord class won. They defeated the original slave owners and took control of the land firmly in their own hands from the hands of the state.

then
The feudal landlord class emerged.

And since the "Shang Yang Reforms" in the pre-Qin period until today, they have been one of the rulers of the entire Kyushu China, and the emperor is the largest landlord in the world.

The landlord class ruled China, so they consolidated their interests and then opened their bloody mouths to devour the ordinary people, wanting to devour all their flesh and blood.

And what are their thoughts?

Their thoughts have not changed. They have inherited the thinking of the "slavery" slave owners. They feel that the "common people" and "peasants" should become their slaves.

This is why China has taken a different path from the West throughout history.

After the collapse of slavery in the West - that is, after the enlightenment of thought in the Middle Ages, they began to gradually abolish slavery and also began to cleverly package their own "thoughts". They began to believe that "slaves" were not their "slaves" but their "employees".

At the same time, their thinking has undergone tremendous changes.

They no longer thought of treating these people as their own private property - instead they took another path, which was to oppress their surplus value.

But compared to ancient China, they are still lucky.

Because they just want to squeeze out your surplus value, but after you provide them with enough value, you still belong to yourself, and they don’t ask you to treat them as “masters” - but this period was different in ancient China. Even if you provided your value, they still believed that you should give everything for them, and even be grateful to them for providing you with an opportunity to serve them and be their slave.

This is the difference between a “landlord” and a “boss”.

So, how to deal with these stubborn "landlords"?

Only powerful weapons!
For example, thermal weapons that transcend the times.

Then, dynamite appeared.

It appeared in a way that no one could have expected and no one would have suspected.

Gunpowder appeared quietly in front of the rulers and separatist warlords, so at least in terms of weapons, China entered the era of hot weapons and left the era of cold weapons.

There is another thing I want to emphasize here - once the door to science is opened, you can't limit it to just one aspect.

For example, the invention of some weapons is often not because they are intended to be used as weapons to kill people.
And the same is true in reverse.

Some "other" inventions were often initially developed because people wanted to study them as weapons.

It can be said that nearly half of the products in this world were originally developed for the purpose of studying their war uses.
Chen Zhan slowly closed his eyes, waiting for tomorrow to come.

He was about to begin a great transformation.

This is equivalent to his own opposition to the decision made by the predecessors of the Chen family.

"A memorial to the emperor on land reform throughout the country".

His first step was to measure the land of the world.

PS: I have been really stuck in writing these days, because I have to touch upon some deep things. Ah, I finally understand why many authors lose their integrity in the later stages of their books.

As a salted fish, I must protect my dignity in my later years!
(End of this chapter)