Ming Dynasty: Domination of the World from the Imperial Examination

Chapter 339: The people of our Ming Dynasty are more sad than happy!

"enough!"

Zhu Yuanzhang waved his sleeves, his hair standing on end with rage.

It had been a long time since he had been scolded like this.

Zhu Biao was frightened by Zhu Yuanzhang's voice, but a hint of determination flashed in his eyes. He gritted his teeth and said, "Not enough. I have to say all the unhappiness in my heart in one breath today. Otherwise, I am worried that I will never have the courage to speak out again in the future."

"I have more to say!"

"In order to enforce the law, your father promulgated the Great Edict on top of the Great Ming Code, and also used it to admonish all officials. But now I am confused. Which is more important, the Great Edict or the Great Ming Code? Your father keeps setting rules for you, but at the same time he keeps breaking them."

"Father, do you want me to follow that rule?"

"No rules no standards."

"But there are more and more rules, and they are being added layer by layer. Isn't this also breaking the rules?"

"The laws of the Ming Dynasty are now meaningless. All officials must memorize the Great Edict at the request of my father, but shouldn't our Ming Dynasty be based on the Great Ming Law? Ming officials already have a lot of political affairs to deal with, and they have to spend a lot of time memorizing the Great Edict. How much time do they have to memorize the Great Ming Law? If they can't even memorize the Great Ming Law, how can we expect them to use the Great Ming Law to report and handle affairs?"

"Wasn't it that the Great Edict eventually replaced the Great Ming Code?"

"But the Great Edict was written by my father to warn all officials, not to warn the people. The people are ignorant and stupid, so how can they understand so many principles? They just want to fill their stomachs every day. After all this trouble, the people only have complaints and curses about my father's Great Edict, and no praise."

"In addition, the Ming Dynasty's salary is also too low."

"My son knows."

"Father doesn't want to collect more taxes."

"I want the people to live as well as possible, but the reality is not as my father thought. The land tax is not much, but various levies and taxes have never been reduced. Since the Ming officials have low salaries, they naturally have to take 'silver' from the people. In the end, the 'saved' money and grain still have to be handed over."

"The key is that the imperial court still knows nothing."

"Father's economic measures are equally messed up."

"The emperor issued a large number of Ming Dynasty treasure notes. Although my father said that these were issued to officials, the officials eventually asked the people to pay for them. The court did not accept the Ming Dynasty treasure notes. In the end, these Ming Dynasty treasure notes became a pile of waste paper. However, the people could only look at this pile of waste paper and cry without tears, because their money and food were replaced by these waste papers, but they still had to pay taxes, pay grain, and serve in the military. The people became more and more miserable."

"I can't remember who gave Father the advice."

"But I still remember the faces of those scholars at that time."

"They said that the Ming Dynasty's treasure notes were just a pile of waste paper, and that the court had exchanged a pile of waste paper for silver. They also said that it was a profitable business with no investment, that it would only benefit the court and not harm it, and that it could also continuously enrich the country's capital. I, your son, also believed that at the time."

"But now I have figured it out."

"The Ming treasure notes were issued, but they didn't fall into the hands of officials. They all fell into the hands of the people. The people already had a hard life, so how could they bear this kind of exploitation? In the end, they would have to sell their children or their lands."

"Won't this make my Ming Dynasty repeat the mistakes of the Yuan Dynasty?"

"The Scholar Who Made Advice"

"His heart is to be killed!"

"And if I remember correctly, during the Yuan Dynasty, the currency was changed several times, which eventually led to unrest in the country and the people were full of complaints. If not for this, the Yuan Dynasty might not have fallen so easily. The situation of our Ming Dynasty is even worse now." "The Yuan Dynasty's Zhiyuan Baochao can still be circulated, but it is becoming less and less valuable, but the Baochao of our Ming Dynasty is just a piece of waste paper."

“Remember the past and learn from it.”

"Did the Ming Dynasty really not learn any lessons?"

"And now the officials of the Ming Dynasty are incompetent. After several purges of the court, my father killed most of the original court officials, and the Fengtian Palace was flooded with blood. My father was worried that the officials promoted from the local areas were unreliable, so he mostly recruited from the Hanlin Academy, the Imperial College and other places. However, these scholars were all buried in their studies before and had no knowledge of politics. When they participated in political affairs, they seemed to be very serious."

"In fact, it is a silver-plated spear head, which looks good but is useless."

"I have been handling government affairs for so long, and I am still trembling with fear, treading on thin ice, fearing that I will make a mistake and let the people suffer. However, these newly promoted officials are all old-fashioned and give advice, but in reality they are all empty talk and have no substance."

"It sounds reasonable when you talk about it, but when you really put it into practice, there are problems everywhere."

"No matter how many political affairs they helped my father handle, they never went to the local areas to understand the real situation, nor could they understand the suffering of the people. They only had their own ambitions in their eyes. My father repeatedly asked officials to be pragmatic, but these officials of the Ming Dynasty have never even touched the ground, so how can they be pragmatic?"

"Can a country be healed with just a few sage books?"

"I don't think so."

"These people are good at giving advice, but most of them are incapable of doing practical work. What they learn is always floating around. Moreover, these officials do not have much interaction with the local authorities. Their words have little binding force on the local authorities. They all rely on the prestige of the court."

"If one day the imperial court loses its power, doesn't that mean that the Ming Dynasty may not issue orders beyond Yingtian Prefecture?"

"The current Ming Dynasty is like having two courts, one is the small court in Yingtian Prefecture, and the other is the big court outside Yingtian Prefecture. Father's original intention was for the small court to control the big court, but the big court is too powerful, and the court has not achieved effective supervision at all."

"I am terrified."

"In the eyes of my father, the Ming Dynasty is thriving."

"But in my eyes, the Ming Dynasty is in ruins and shocking."

"Private law is higher than national law, the imperial court is inferior to the current management, the localities are alienated from the central government, and the people are more sad than happy."

"The Ming Dynasty has only been established for less than 20 years."

"I am afraid."

"Father has given so much to the world, but with my meager ability, how can I bear the heavy trust of Father? My body is weak to begin with, and I really can't follow the path of Father, and I am powerless."

"The system designed by my father is only suitable for him, not for me."

"It is also not suitable for future emperors of the Ming Dynasty."

"I want to tell you from the bottom of my heart, father. If I am still the crown prince, if I can live to the throne, I will definitely make great changes to the world after I take over the throne. I will make the system of the Ming Dynasty gradually institutionalized and standardized, so that it won't be too laborious, and I will use more reasonable methods to strengthen control over the world."

"Let power truly be concentrated in the government!"

"Not just on the surface!"

(End of this chapter)