Ming Dynasty: Domination of the World from the Imperial Examination

Chapter 188: Gaining a country in the most righteous way, but having the most unrighteous heart!
Side hall.

Xia Zhibai waited in the hall for a while before Zhu Biao finally arrived.

Zhu Biao looked a little tired.

When he saw Xia Zhibai, he yawned unconsciously, seeming a little exhausted. He asked the eunuch to make him a cup of strong tea, and asked him to prepare a cup of light tea for Xia Zhibai. The two of them sat like this, one in front of the other.

Zhu Biao didn't say anything.

Xia Zhibai also did not speak first.

Both of them remained silent.

When the tea was served, Zhu Biao blew away the hot air, took a sip with a tense face, then looked at Xia Zhibai and said, "Xia Zhibai, you have been away from Kyoto for more than nine months, right? Tell me where you have been. I am very curious about your route."

Xia Zhibai nodded and said calmly: "When I left Kyoto, I told Your Majesty that I wanted to integrate the salt market in the north."

"In the past nine months, apart from the initial stay in Peking, I have been running around various prefectures in the north, telling local officials about my plan to integrate the salt market. Although there were many twists and turns and difficulties, I finally got what I wanted."

"Ten days ago, I went to Dongping, Yanzhou, Shandong."

"Yanzhou?" Zhu Biao was stunned.

I don't know why Xia Zhibai suddenly mentioned this place.

But after pondering for a while, he knew what was going on. A strange look flashed in his eyes, and he asked curiously, "If I remember correctly, you were not present when Guo Huan died. When Guo Huan was interrogated by the court, you did not go to the prison to see him. When Guo Huan's house was confiscated later, you did not go at all. How did you fulfill your promise?"

Zhu Biao looked curious.

He just reacted slowly for a moment.

After all, he didn't get much rest last night and attended an early morning court session. He was tired, his mind was a little unclear, and his reactions were a little slow. But he quickly figured out that Dongping, Yanzhou was Guo Huan's hometown. Before Guo Huan got into trouble, he met with Xia Zhibai and asked Xia Zhibai to send his clothes back to his hometown.

But as far as he knew.

After that meeting, Xia Zhibai never had any contact with Guo Huan again.

Where did Xia Zhibai find Guo Huan's clothes and other belongings?
Could it be that the two had met before?
Xia Zhibai nodded, then shook his head and said with a smile: "I did go to Guo Huan's hometown. There is no family with the surname Guo in Dongping now. The original families with the surname Guo took the initiative to change their names to avoid disaster. As for the clothes, haha."

Xia Zhibai suddenly laughed and said, "I didn't send Guo Huan's clothes back."

"I only brought back a few bricks and tiles for Guo Huan."

"Every brick and tile of the Guo Mansion."

"After Guo Huan dies, there will be a brick to rest on and a tile to shelter him from the wind and rain."

"So that he won't become a wandering ghost after his death."

"As for the so-called 'clothing', it doesn't mean much to Guo Huan. Instead, it will cause some unnecessary trouble. Dongping is very poor. Even a piece of cloth will cause a fight if it is found. Guo Huan is dead, so I hope he can rest in peace after his death."

Zhu Biao was stunned.

He stared at Xia Zhibai in a daze, and approved of Xia Zhibai's approach.

Because of the incident involving Guo Huan, all nine clans of the Guo family were exterminated in Dongping, Yanzhou, which had a great impact on a small county like Dongping.

If Xia Zhibai really built a nice cenotaph for Guo Huan, it would probably cause a lot of trouble and cause a lot of unnecessary trouble.

Brick by brick, it is indeed the best choice. It not only gives Guo Huan a decent face, but also gives Xia Zhibai a relatively perfect explanation for his original promise.

Very wise indeed.

As for where every brick and tile comes from.

This is even simpler. The entire Guo family was executed and the entire family was raided.

Bricks and tiles were also scattered all over the ground.

Xia Zhibai found someone and took one or two intact pieces. It was very simple and no one would notice it.

Zhu Biao said: "You did a great job."

"Guo Huan served the Ming Dynasty for quite some time. Although he committed a heinous crime, he still made contributions. Your consideration is so thorough, which can be regarded as fulfilling Guo Huan's wish before his death."

Xia Zhibai smiled and said: "Businessmen value trust."

"I accepted 100 taels of silver from Guo Huan, so I must fulfill my promise. Otherwise, I will ruin my reputation."

Zhu Biao looked at Xia Zhibai, shook his head and said, "You are a really strange person. Sometimes you seem extremely unruly, and sometimes you seem polite. Sometimes you become extreme and crazy, but you can also appear very rational and calm. You can do all kinds of things that make people stunned, and you can also do things that make people admire you."

"It's really hard to see through, understand, or understand."

"I'm very curious."

"What on earth are you thinking of?"

"I read your first memorial. When I received it, just the beginning of it gave me a chill, a stabbing pain. When I finished reading it, I felt a surge of fear and uneasiness."

"I know you have great ambitions and you really care about the world."

"But I just want to know."

"What on earth do you think the Ming Dynasty is?"

"You have made such a profound analysis of the world and put forward such horrifying views. What exactly do you want to express?"

"What will the world look like under your vision?" "I can't imagine!"

Zhu Biao looked at Xia Zhibai with deep eyes, waiting for Xia Zhibai to give an answer.

Xia Zhibai was silent for a moment, then slowly said, "The ancients once said: When the great way is practiced, the world is for all."

"It also proposed a groundbreaking idea of ​​a harmonious society."

"What I want the world to achieve is such a harmonious society."

"It's just that your Majesty and your Highness are worrying too much."

"The world has never been a straight path, but a tortuous one, with ups and downs, progress and regression. It will take at least hundreds of years, or even thousands of years, to achieve such a harmonious society."

“But what I’m after is indeed the world, the direction I’m destined to go.”

“It just takes a long time of exploration.”

"I don't force it."

"But in your eyes, my Ming Dynasty is the Qin and Sui dynasties." Zhu Biao said coldly, his eyes somewhat icy.

Xia Zhibai nodded, then shook his head again, and said with a smile: "As far as I am concerned, the Qin and Sui dynasties played a connecting role in the world at that time. They were in the exploratory stage of the world after the chaos, so they made many mistakes when governing the world. They were eventually replaced by the subsequent Han and Tang dynasties. The Han and Tang dynasties learned from the lessons of the previous dynasties and then created a prosperous era for the world."

"The Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms, Xia, Liao, Jin, and Song were also in a period of division and a period of great destruction and reconstruction."

"It was only because the Mongols destroyed the process with their brutality."

"Da Ming continues."

"At the end of the Song Dynasty, the traditional politics of the world had become increasingly corrupt, and the old system was already facing collapse. In the eyes of the current emperor, it was business and commodity production that led to this situation, so he extremely suppressed business, hoping to restore the world to its past system through this action."

"But your majesty miscalculated one thing."

"Commerce and commodity production are only the surface of changes in the world."

“It’s not the root cause.”

"The fundamental reason is that with the disintegration of the old social hierarchy, the traditional hierarchy is no longer applicable in the world."

"It's just that the world today is still unable to prove, or is unwilling to accept, that the old social system has undergone fundamental changes, and is still allowing the world to follow the inertia of the past. But the fact is that the fundamental changes in the world, in addition to the most superficial business, are more prominently manifested in the society's powerful and wealthy."

"Today's obvious class society has long replaced the original traditional hierarchical society."

"The social hierarchy of the past has long lost its former glory."

"Your Majesty has actually noticed something, but you don't want the Ming Dynasty to be like the Sui and Tang Dynasties. You want the Ming Dynasty to be like the Han and Tang Dynasties. Therefore, you directly patched up the Yuan Dynasty and even relied on your own power to forcibly maintain and support this old social hierarchy system."

“This is a historical regression.”

“It’s just that I can understand why this happened.”

"Because the development of history is spiral, not straight."

"The society in which the Ming Dynasty existed had indeed not yet broken away from the structure of a hierarchical society, but the old concept of hierarchy had changed."

"The Ming Dynasty is in a stage where it can neither go up nor down."

"If the Ming Dynasty wants to move forward, it must accept this change and reorganize the structure of the world."

"If the Ming Dynasty really did this, it would very likely become the 'Qin and Sui dynasties'. The result of doing it all at once would be chaos. Chaos means uncontrollability. For a unified dynasty, uncontrollability means the danger of overthrow."

"Your Majesty's choice today is to go down."

"Relying on absolute centralization and absolute strength, he forced the world to return to its old form, so that the world would remain in its past form, and then ensure that the Ming Dynasty would not die early. Many people of relatively low status in the world have long wanted to take off their old clothes, but the current emperor did not allow it. He forced them to wear them, otherwise they would be killed."

"This kind of coercive forced retreat is very scary."

"It also caused great damage to the world."

"The ultimate result will either be a complete historical regression or a complete disconnect between the upper and lower classes. That is, over time, the lower classes will gradually push aside the closed and solidified natural social structure, break down many unfair policies and customs, and constantly break down the traditional hierarchy of the lower classes, seeking to improve their social status."

"And the upper layers gradually decay and eventually become completely irreparable."

"If we continue to maintain the current situation, a very contradictory phenomenon will appear tomorrow."

"Traditional politics is becoming more and more corrupt, while on the other hand, social economy and other aspects are becoming more and more prosperous. This is also inevitable in the process of institutional transformation."

"It's just that the corruption of the upper echelons will eventually lead to the Ming Dynasty's officials becoming less and less courageous and spineless. If there is an external threat, it may completely collapse. No matter how strong the body is, if there is a problem with the brain, no matter how strong the body is, it will be useless."

"If this strong body were to undergo another brutal destruction, the original course of history would be set back even more dramatically."

“This will also be the greatest sorrow in the world.”

"If we want to revive it, I'm afraid it will take an incalculable amount of time and will result in countless casualties."

"The Ming Dynasty gained the throne in the most righteous way."

"But after gaining the kingdom, his heart is no longer right!"

Xia Zhibai sighed, a hint of sadness flashed in his eyes.

In a sense, the Ming Dynasty perished in the second generation, but Zhu Yuanzhang relied on his personal wisdom to allow the descendants of the Zhu family to regain the world. It was only because of their common bloodline that the world eventually went in a huge "Z" shape.

(End of this chapter)