Ming Dynasty: Domination of the World from the Imperial Examination

Chapter 197 Covering one's ears and stealing the bell!
Sunset.

Xia Zhibai went to the palace.

He wasn't surprised.

Zhu Biao failed to persuade Zhu Yuanzhang.

Xia Zhibai knew this very early on.

Zhu Yuanzhang was indeed very satisfied with his eldest son, but that was all.

As an emperor, the relationship between father and son is always an afterthought, especially for those who have been emperor for more than ten years, they have long since turned into a political machine.

He would not allow such a big change in the world.

Outside Fengtian Hall.

Xia Zhibai was waiting outside.

He raised his head and looked at the two words "Fengtian" still hanging above, with a faint smile on the corner of his mouth.

As long as the word "Fengtian" remains, Zhu Yuanzhang will not change.

soon.

Xia Zhibai entered the hall.

Compared to the last time they met, Zhu Yuanzhang had lost a lot of weight.

There are also many age spots on my cheeks.

Xia Zhibai bowed and said, "Xia Zhibai pays respect to His Majesty."

Zhu Yuanzhang raised his eyes and looked at the man in the gray gown below him, with a hint of disgust in his eyes.

He said: "Xia Zhibai, you want us to agree to open the sea."

Xia Zhibai nodded and said, "Your Majesty, this is not what I think, but what Your Majesty thinks."

"Haha." Zhu Yuanzhang laughed and said sarcastically, "When did we say we would open the sea? We never wanted to open the sea. In recent years, we have repeatedly issued orders to close the sea."

“Although I am old, I still remember things.”

Xia Zhibai nodded and said with a smile: "Your Majesty did not say so, but he requested it."

"I just followed your majesty's wishes."

Zhu Yuanzhang was stunned.

He looked at Xia Zhibai suspiciously, not quite understanding what he was saying.

When did he make such a request?

Xia Zhibai raised his head, looked at Zhu Yuanzhang, and said calmly: "Your Majesty is the emperor of the Ming Dynasty. All matters of the world need your Majesty's handling. What I have done is naturally no exception, and this is indeed what your Majesty is thinking."

Zhu Yuanzhang snorted coldly, "What I hate most is you scholars."

"Slick tongue."

Xia Zhibai did not explain, but just asked: "Your Majesty must have heard about what I discussed with His Royal Highness the Crown Prince. Since Your Majesty summoned me here, if I am not mistaken, I am afraid that Your Majesty is not satisfied with my idea."

"In your majesty's design, the world is fixed and allocated."

“How much salt, how much iron, and even how much cloth is produced each year are all carefully planned.”

"The amount of things each person can buy is also fixed and quantified."

"It's just that the data your majesty has received is always from the previous year, and the world changes every moment, so there are often deviations in these quotas. Once natural disasters or man-made disasters occur in the world, the court often needs to make great efforts to solve them."

"There is another way."

"It means murder."

"This has been the practice throughout the dynasties."

"Every year, between 2/1000 and 1/2 percent of the world's population is killed."

"Your Majesty is well-versed in history books and has a profound understanding of the lessons learned from past dynasties. During these years of governing the country, Your Majesty has gradually discovered that it is not so easy to govern the country according to the lessons learned from history."

"It's not very practical to use."

"Because your majesty has planned a governance model for the Ming Dynasty during its prosperous period."

"Through measures such as equalizing labor, rotating the service of the lijia, reducing corvée labor, and avoiding the farming season, the heavy corvée labor was relatively evenly distributed to the people, making them accept it. A complete embryonic guarantee system for saving tax expenditures was established, such as the official land system with high rent rates, such as military settlements, civilian settlements, manor fields, and official fields."

"The government promulgated policies to crack down on local tyrants and restrict the annexation of land by wealthy households. It also introduced a household registration system that required military service, craftsman service, and kitchen service to be passed down from generation to generation, a system for criminals to redeem their sins through labor service, a salt tax system that required merchants to deliver grain to military towns, and a system for tax grain to be transported nearby."

"We have built a country with low agricultural and commercial taxes for the world."

“Even if there are natural or man-made disasters, we can forcibly conscript the people to provide disaster relief through methods such as conscription.”

"If there is a financial shortfall, we will issue money through Ming Baochao."

"According to your majesty's theory, this is already a beggars' version of a harmonious society."

"But all of this is based on a peaceful and prosperous world with abundant resources, clean governance, harmonious people, and no troubles or unrest. As long as the world is peaceful and everything is carried out according to plan, the world can be maintained for a long time. Even if there is a population explosion, the excess population can be cleared through severe punishments."

"And in the past ten years, Your Majesty has been trying to complete these things."

"We sent troops to the north many times to wipe out border troubles. Under the frequent invasions of Japanese pirates, we made up our minds and thought of banning the sea in order to achieve that ideal environment."

"But your majesty should have discovered it."

“This is all self-deception.”

“It’s simply impossible.”

Xia Zhibai did not hold back and directly exposed the dream woven by Zhu Yuanzhang.

Zhu Yuanzhang idealized everything too much.

From the emperor to the subjects, and even the world, everyone believed that things were unchanging. But how could this be possible, especially when the world was entering a mini ice age? This system, which had learned too many lessons, was already burdened with too much historical baggage.

This system, which was strong on the outside but weak on the inside, had in fact collapsed when Zhu Di came to power.

Even now, as he traveled all the way from the north, he found that the military settlements were either abandoned or occupied by powerful military officers, and were simply unable to provide enough food reserves for the army. Zhu Yuanzhang's promise of feeding millions of soldiers without spending a single grain of food from the people was simply impossible.

It's now.

The Ming Dynasty transported hundreds of thousands of shi of grain to the north every year.

Otherwise, Zhu Yuanzhang would not have been so cruel as to use the Guo Huan case to plunder wealthy families across the country to collect military pay and food.

Zhu Yuanzhang knew all this.

But he felt that this was the only way to the prosperity of the Ming Dynasty.

He designed a foundation for the Ming Dynasty that would last for thousands of years. Now that the Ming Dynasty has only just been established, it will indeed face various problems. However, as the Ming Dynasty's national strength grows, his current dominance over the world will gradually weaken, and he will eventually achieve his vision of a country that will last for thousands of years.

Zhu Yuanzhang's face turned pale.

He stared at Xia Zhibai coldly, his eyes were so fierce that he looked like he could eat the man alive.

Before he could even lash out, Xia Zhibai started counting the words down on himself.

Zhu Yuanzhang snorted coldly: "Can't do it?"

"What do you know? How much effort we have put into this world is beyond anyone's imagination. Our Ming Dynasty is just getting started. When the world is stable in the future, all of this will become the long-term foundation of the Ming Dynasty."

Xia Zhibai sneered.

He looked at Zhu Yuanzhang coldly and said indifferently: "Your Majesty, as the emperor of the world, you know the most about the situation in the world, but you also choose to ignore the most things. I used to travel in the north and also learned some of the situation."

"During my investigation, I found that in the Guo Huan case, many officials made up excuses when collecting taxes."

"They collected a variety of taxes that were not collected by the imperial court, such as water fees, food fees, treasury fees, and fees for gods and Buddhas, and used them to line their own pockets."

"Under the edict promulgated by your majesty, only these people were written down for making up names."

"But it doesn't mention why so many people come up with so many excuses."

"Ming officials are certainly very greedy, but from the initial 'empty seal case' to the later 'Hu Weiyong case', everyone in the world knows how your majesty dealt with problematic officials. Moreover, the country has just been stabilized and there are many things to be done. Even the most ignorant officials will be more restrained."

"But under your Majesty's rule, corruption has not only not decreased, but has become more and more serious."

"Your Majesty knows the reason better than anyone else."

"Your Majesty is well-versed in history books, but you can only see the things in history books that are useful for centralization, but you can't see the disadvantages beyond centralization."

"In previous dynasties, the imperial court gradually took over the local financial power. In the Song Dynasty, the imperial court took away almost all the local financial power. The financial power was completely concentrated in the imperial court, but the imperial court did not bear the local fiscal expenditures, which led to the local officials in the Song Dynasty directly becoming the tax collectors of the imperial court."

"And the imperial court wants local officials to do their job, but doesn't provide extra financial support."

“What can the local authorities do?”

"They could only collect taxes outside the law, which eventually evolved into arbitrary levies, which then aroused public resentment. The court then sent people to integrate these arbitrary levies into regular tax revenues and took them all away. When local governments encountered problems and the court did not have enough funding, they could only continue to levy arbitrary levies."

"This situation is particularly serious in the Ming Dynasty."

"Last year, Shouzhou and Chuzhou were hit by floods, and the imperial court only had more than 100,000 taels of money and grain to relieve the chaos."

"How can this little money and grain be enough for governance and resettlement?"

"In the end, the money will still have to be collected from the people, even by charging high interest rates and forcing them to sell their property."

"There is also the case of the empty seal."

"In your majesty's eyes this is official fraud."

“They think it will open the door to corruption.”

"The root of the empty seal is the court's regulations that every year each provincial government, prefecture, and county must submit accounts of money, grain, fiscal revenue and expenditure, and taxes to the Ministry of Revenue. The figures of the Ministry of Revenue and the provincial government, prefecture, and county must be completely consistent, without any difference, before the account can be closed. If there is a discrepancy in one item, the entire account book will be rejected."

"But the taxes paid by the Ming Dynasty were in kind, namely grain."

"During the transportation process, there will inevitably be some damage, and it is easy for the account books to not match the actual items. Once the court finds a problem during the review, it will be sent back for re-reporting."

"It's OK in places with convenient transportation, such as Yunnan, Guizhou, Guangdong, Guangxi, Shanxi, Shaanxi, Sichuan, etc. The transportation is not well developed and the journey is long. Once a problem occurs, a lot of time will be wasted on the journey. If it is not handed in on time, it will be convicted by the court."

"They could only prepare blank books that had been pre-stamped for use."

"This practice has existed throughout the dynasties."

“It has never been expressly prohibited.”

"Zheng Shili from Zhejiang once wrote a letter explaining the cause of the Empty Seal Case."

"But His Majesty did not approve of it at all. Instead, he ordered a thorough investigation. In the end, he failed to find the mastermind, and was exiled by His Majesty in anger."

“I am still in exile now.”

"Except Zheng Shili, many officials involved in the empty seal case are still in exile."

"I will not speak for them."

“Because they did something wrong.”

"But what happens after that?"

"Has the court done anything to make up for it?"

"No."

"If you can't solve the problem, then solve the person who raised the problem. Is this your Majesty's solution?"

"To cover one's ears and steal the bell is only deceiving oneself."

"Your Majesty has given everyone else a list of mistakes, except for yourself, and has not patched the system. Even if it is eventually found that these people did not commit corruption or bribery, but just subconsciously did this habitual behavior, Your Majesty still did not let them go."

“Closing your eyes and pretending to be blind will not solve any problems.”

(End of this chapter)