Bronze door through time and space

Chapter 602: Sober Zhang Jue and Miserable Liu Hong

Liu Bei left some things behind and left, but Yan Xu never expected that he would have an unexpected gain.

Because he died so hastily, Cheng Yuanzhi had no time to destroy some private things, including some women's underwear, letters sent by Zhang Jue and a spell from the Taiping Yaoshu.

In the letter, Zhang Jue first praised Cheng Yuanzhi for his good work, and then gave him all kinds of encouragement, encouraging him to keep up the good work. Only at the end did he vaguely express his concern for the future, hoping that Cheng Yuanzhi would be well prepared.

Seeing this, Yan Xu raised his eyebrows. He didn't expect that Zhang Jue was a smart man. He was not confused by the current optimistic situation and remained sober.

But this doesn’t matter, because there is no shortage of smart people in this world, and many people knew from the beginning that the demise of the Yellow Turban Army was only a matter of time.

Because the Yellow Turban Army was irreconcilable with the upper-level rulers from the very beginning, and then continued to destroy the foundation of its own foothold at the bottom, it was completely seeking its own death.

This is also the reason why the Yellow Turban Army lacked talent and no wise men joined, because these people were smart people, and smart people never did stupid things.

Zhang Jue was not a fool. He was not carried away by the early victories and noticed the huge hidden dangers hidden behind the victory.

Although the Taiping Dao was very powerful, with hundreds of thousands of Yellow Turban troops spreading to several states and putting the imperial court in a passive position, and its influence was still spreading, anyone with eyes could see that the so-called Yellow Turban troops were mostly a mob, without sufficient weapons, organization and training, and even without qualified generals, let alone accurate strategic goals and solid bases.

The current results were achieved entirely by catching the imperial court off guard. Once the imperial court reacted, hundreds of thousands of Yellow Turban troops were simply there to deliver credit.

Zhang Jue saw the problems the Yellow Turban Army was facing now and the difficulties they would encounter in the future, but how to solve them became a headache for him.

It is not impossible to train soldiers, but the Taiping Dao lacks both talent and time, and has no military equipment. It can be said that the Yellow Turban Army lacks everything except people.

Without sufficiently strong attack and defense capabilities, it would be impossible to capture a city or hold territory. This forced the Yellow Turban Army to not stay in one place for long. They had to keep moving and plundering more easily available supplies and populations, because only by constantly snowballing could they maintain their huge scale and pose a threat to the imperial court.

However, by doing so, the people who would suffer the most would be the common people, which was exactly what Zhang Jue did not want to see, because his original intention of rebelling was to save the people from dire straits, but the Yellow Turban Army had now become the biggest destroyers.

In fact, Zhang Jue had considered this issue at first, which is why he spent a lot of time and energy placing many followers in the palace in an attempt to assassinate Emperor Ling of Han.

In addition to naively believing that he could end the unrest in the shortest possible time through a palace coup, he also naively believed that as long as the emperor was killed, the rebellion would be considered a success, and then he could set about changing all the injustices.

If it were really that easy, Dong Zhuo would not have carried out a series of outrageous operations, and finally simply overturned the table and destroyed everything, learning from Emperor Ling of Han.

What Zhang Jue didn't know was that Emperor Ling of Han wanted to change all this more than he did.

As an emperor, Liu Hong didn't care how many people from the noble families died. It can even be said that the more people died, the happier he was. At the same time, the richer the people, the better, because the whole world belonged to him. The rich people meant that the treasury was sufficient, and a large amount of taxes could be collected while a large number of high-quality soldiers could be used. This is why the status of farmers was nominally so high in ancient times in the East, because it was the farmers who provided food, paid taxes, worked, and sold their lives.

On the contrary, if the aristocratic families became rich, it would mean a large-scale concentration of wealth, land and means of production. While absorbing resources and creating a large number of poor refugees, it would also significantly reduce the court's income, because those who were responsible for taxation came from aristocratic families themselves. How could they collect tax themselves?

The most terrible thing is that as the aristocratic families grow stronger, they will also become a country within a country, and eventually threaten the imperial power. After all, the so-called royal family is nothing more than the largest aristocratic family, and a short-lived one at that.

Therefore, every emperor was eager to suppress the aristocratic families and distribute the wealth and resources evenly. Only in this way could stability be achieved.

But this is unrealistic, because there is a real ruling class between the emperor and the people. Any order of the emperor must be implemented through this class. If the order is distorted in the process of execution and implementation, it is difficult for the emperor to know, or even if he knows, he cannot change anything, because his eyes and hands are blocked by high walls on all sides.

This is also why only the founding emperor can hold real power and dare to kill people at will, because he has the confidence.

The old power structure was broken and the power to build a new power class was grasped. The founding emperor didn't care who you were. He would replace you if you were not satisfied. If you dared to make him unhappy, he would kill you, because he was the founder and the rule maker. The choice of materials as the pillars of the new country was all under his will.

This was not the case with later emperors, because they stayed within the framework built by the founding emperor. Although it gave them the convenience of shelter from wind and rain, it also restricted them. At the same time, the new interest classes that had already taken shape would not allow the emperor to act recklessly. This is why the ancestral laws are so-called immutable, because once they are changed, their interests will be harmed.

The emperor can be replaced, but the laws of our ancestors cannot be changed. This is a matter of principle.

By the time of Emperor Ling of Han, the entire Han Dynasty was no different from a dilapidated building with leaks everywhere and about to collapse. The key point is that there were a bunch of old men holding crutches standing in front of him. You could give them money and let them do the renovation themselves, and that was fine. As for whether they put the money in their own pockets or really did the renovation, it was none of your business. Anyway, it was impossible to do it yourself or hire workers to repair it, because the building would collapse.

There's no way to deal with them by force. These old guys are not only in collusion with each other, but also have a large number of strong descendants standing behind them. If you really use force, they will demolish your building.

In some ways, Zhang Jue and Liu Hong had the same position. They both wanted to break the existing interest groups and change the world.

Unfortunately, Liu Hong was trapped in the palace, and Zhang Jue's vision was still limited by the times. In other words, the interest class that controls the dissemination of knowledge and the right to speak has tied the injustice and suffering of the world to the emperor. Whether it is a natural disaster or a man-made disaster, it is the emperor's fault. Therefore, whenever there is a problem, it is the emperor's fault and he must issue an edict of self-blame.

This led to the rebels wanting to kill the emperor because they believed that the emperor was the source of their suffering and labeled him a tyrant.

What they didn't know was that no matter how foolish or tyrannical the emperor was, he could only spend, eat, and kill as many as he wanted. He didn't buy the eggs that cost dozens of taels each, nor did he set the price. He didn't even know the real prices of goods.

To put it bluntly, compared with a class, even if the emperor tossed things around for his whole life, the harm he caused would probably not even a fraction of that. However, most of the infamy in the world fell on him, and he was the one who was being taken advantage of.

(End of this chapter)