Ming Dynasty: Domination of the World from the Imperial Examination

Chapter 19 The village man Xia Zhibai meets the Hongwu Emperor!
Xia Zhibai glanced at the eunuch who was frightened, his waist still straight as he faced him, just bowing slightly.

"Villager Xia Zhibai pays homage to Emperor Hongwu."

As soon as these words were spoken, the whole hall fell silent.

Not only Pu Gouer, who was kneeling on the ground, was stunned, but even Zhu Yuanzhang, who was sitting on the high platform, was also startled.

He had expected that Xia Zhibai was full of hostility towards him and would speak harshly to him as soon as he entered the hall, but he was also stunned by the title.

Pu Gou'er felt a black screen before his eyes and he almost fell to the ground. His face turned pale with fright and his body was shaking constantly.

He looked at Xia Zhibai in horror, angry, anxious, afraid, and terrified, and whispered, "How dare you, a criminal, be so presumptuous!"

"Kneel down quickly and beg for forgiveness, Your Majesty."

Pu Gou'er looked anxious. Xia Zhibai was adjusting his clothes in front of him. He thought Xia Zhibai knew a little bit about etiquette, but he turned out to be so arrogant when he entered the palace.

This is clearly a request for death.

Zhu Yuanzhang put down the memorial in his hand and looked at Xia Zhibai for the first time. He closed his eyes slightly, and a chilling light flashed in his eyes. He said in a cold voice: "Why don't you kneel when you see me!"

Xia Zhibai groaned.

I felt like I was being stared at by a ferocious beast. My hairs all over my body were trembling, and it felt like a huge rock was pressing on my chest, making it difficult to breathe.

Xia Zhibai gripped the ground with his toes and tried to stay calm. Facing a high-ranking person like Zhu Yuanzhang, it was actually very difficult for ordinary people to keep calm.

Especially since Zhu Yuanzhang had fought his way out of a sea of ​​blood and corpses, his aura was even more terrifying. Ordinary people would probably be frightened speechless just by standing in front of him.

Captivating.

Xia Zhibai took a deep breath and kept recalling the century of humiliation in his mind. Finally, he calmed down. He raised his head, his eyes shining like stars.

He looked at Zhu Yuanzhang, and Zhu Yuanzhang was also looking at him. The two of them were looking at each other from a distance of a hundred steps.

Xia Zhibai asked: "Why do you have to kneel?"

Zhu Yuanzhang laughed, but his laugh was cold, "Because I am the emperor, the master of the world, and the father of all my subjects."

"Shouldn't you kneel down?"

"Your Majesty?" Xia Zhibai chuckled, shook his head, and said seriously, "Your Majesty, do you take the officials' flattery seriously?"

"If Your Majesty really believes this, then I would like to ask Your Majesty whether every citizen of the Ming Dynasty is qualified to inherit the Ming Dynasty."

"presumptuous!"

Zhu Yuanzhang stood up suddenly, glaring at Xia Zhibai with murderous eyes.

Xia Zhibai sneered and said slowly: "Judging from your Majesty's reaction, no."

"This is your majesty's family empire."

"This family can only be your Majesty's Zhu family, not the country that the world thinks of. If this is the case, how can your Majesty be the emperor and father of the world?"

"besides."

"If kneeling is useful, there would be no dynasty change in the world, and the world would have been peaceful long ago. Your Majesty rose from obscurity to become an empire."

“I have experienced that turbulent time.”

"At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, the country was in depression. The Yellow River burst its banks, and there was a severe drought in the south. People were displaced and had to trade their children for food, which was common at the time."

"At that time, people knelt down to pray for rain, for a shower from heaven, and for favorable weather. Were there not many people who knelt down at that time?"

"And did the heaven and earth really send down a sweet rain, bringing prosperity to the world and allowing the people to reproduce?"

Zhu Yuanzhang closed his eyes slightly, suppressing the anger in his heart, "So it was only because the Yuan Dynasty lost the world that I was able to rise from obscurity and unify the world. This further proves that I am destined to be the one, and I am the well-deserved True Dragon of Destiny."

Xia Zhibai smiled, looked at Zhu Yuanzhang, and said, "Your Majesty, do you believe this yourself?"

"If the heavens really knew, why would they rely on human intervention? If Your Majesty really believed that you were the man of destiny, the so-called true dragon of destiny, why would you have guarded the world so strictly after establishing the country?"

"Your Majesty actually knows that too."

"There is no such thing as destiny. You conquered this world entirely by your own ability." "If Your Majesty really believed that you had destiny, you wouldn't keep saying, 'I am a commoner from Huaiyou, what can the world do for you?'"

"Instead, he keeps saying that he is the man of destiny."

"Your Majesty is actually very clear that the so-called destiny is that whoever has the bigger fist is right."

"Your Majesty won in the end, so Your Majesty is the destiny. If someone else won in the end, then that person would be the destiny."

"But this Mandate of Heaven is actually a way for the victor to consolidate the legitimacy of his own regime and establish his prestige among his subjects."

Zhu Yuanzhang was silent.

He looked Xia Zhibai up and down, with a fierce murderous intent flashing in his eyes. What Xia Zhibai said made Zhu Yuanzhang feel uneasy.

There are some things that cannot be said.

Xia Zhibai's words have threatened the legitimacy and authority of the imperial power. If other people also question it, the Ming Dynasty may be shaken.

"You really don't want to kneel!" Zhu Yuanzhang's eyes became extremely cold, as if he wanted to eat someone, but he was determined to make Xia Zhibai kneel down.

Xia Zhibai shook his head with a firm attitude.

Zhu Yuanzhang sneered, "Do you think you can avoid kneeling if you don't kneel?"

"You have no say in front of me."

"Someone is coming."

"Break his legs. We want him to kneel down for us from now on. You don't want to kneel, so we'll make you kneel down for the rest of your life."

"Not only do we want you to kneel, we also want your three clans, nine clans, and all your descendants to kneel before us."

A hint of cruelty flashed in Zhu Yuanzhang's eyes. He hated people who disobeyed him. Whoever dared to disobey him, he would definitely strike back with double the force.

Xia Zhibai showed no fear.

From the moment he came to the Ming Dynasty, he put life and death behind his mind. If he was afraid of death, he would not have written anti-government articles in the imperial examination, let alone contradict Zhu Yuanzhang to his face.

Xia Zhibai said, "If your majesty insists on making me kneel, there are countless ways to do it, and I, Xia Zhibai, cannot resist."

"I won't stain your eyes."

"I will go and take the punishment myself."

"But before I die, I would like to kindly remind Your Majesty that it is easy to make people kneel down. It is only when a person with conscience, backbone, courage and pursuit is forced to kneel down by power that he will be defeated."

"This person is already dead!"

"And what they are kneeling for is not dignity, but the integrity that the subjects of the Ming Dynasty should have."

"Instead, they are like the officials in the Ming Dynasty court today, willing to be humble and serve as slaves and domestic servants."

"The backbone of the Ming Dynasty was broken from then on."

"At the end of the Yuan Dynasty, many Jinshi died for the Yuan Dynasty. I would like to ask Your Majesty, given the current situation of the Ming Dynasty, if it really comes to the end of the dynasty, will there be people who will die for the Ming Dynasty? And how many people are willing to die for the Ming Dynasty?"

"If a group of people who are too cold and have itchy scalps come, I am afraid that the Ming Dynasty will fall even faster. After all, we are all slaves. Whose slaves are we not? Whose kneeling is not kneeling?"

"And you caused all this."

"The literati do not have the character of literati, the officials do not have the actions of officials, and the monarchs do not have the awareness of being emperors."

"What the superior likes, the subordinates will like even more!"

"Emperors are selfish and treat their officials as farmhands and the people as slaves. Officials are even worse and treat the people as animals."

"The Ming Dynasty will surely fall due to popular rebellion!"

"Because you, the Hongwu Emperor, have no intention of treating people as human beings. You only want the people of the world to be your slaves, and to be slaves for your Zhu family for generations to come."

　Today, two.
　　
　
(End of this chapter)