The Ming Dynasty did not revolutionize

Chapter 420 Rules and Reliance

Zhu Jingkun sorted out his thoughts a little:

“I should have analyzed this with you. I will probably be directly excluded from the succession sequence, so my future goal is to obtain the title of prince and live in retirement.

“You… and other brothers may not have this awareness, so you think about the problem in a different direction from me.

"We can now put ourselves in their shoes. Let's not think about ourselves as the only Crown Prince in the future. Let's think about the Crown Prince's brothers first.

"Our father now has more than a hundred sons, and there may be nearly a hundred who will be able to pass the practical training and assessment in the end.

"What can these brothers do in the future? How can they live in peace?
"Have you ever thought about this?"

Zhu Jingkun had just started speaking, but the princes present fell silent after hearing this beginning.

They can actually think of these things, but they are unwilling to bring up the topic.

I don’t even want to think about what will happen if I fail.

Because according to the experience of previous dynasties, the fate of all those who failed in the competition for the throne will be extremely miserable.

Being demoted to a commoner and imprisoned until death is considered good.

The key is that their own father, the emperor, would not allow them to hide their incompetence from the very beginning.

When they were just beginning to understand things and didn't even know what an emperor or a crown prince were, they had already undergone this kind of examination and test.

Whether they are smart or not is basically revealed at a very young age.

The education I received later was more modern, and the content included various economic and violence principles, as well as practical political training.

The learning and training process is to push them into the reserve competition system.

By the time they discovered the problem, there was no turning back. In addition, the current Ming Dynasty throne was truly the supreme one in the world, and it did have an appeal far beyond the traditional throne.

They can only continue to move forward with the rhythm.

They will never carefully consider the consequences of failure, and instinctively feel that there is no need to consider it.

Because that is decided by the winner, not by yourself.

Now they suddenly realized that their elder brother seemed to have been thinking about these issues from the very beginning.

They also realized that while their father was pushing them onto the path to succession, he also seemed to be considering their future escape route.

But they all immediately began to question: Will such an arrangement really work?
The fifth prince frowned and asked:
"Brother, do you think that our current cooperation may be our father's arrangement for our future?"

The eldest prince Zhu Jingkun also frowned and thought about what angle he should speak from and how he should guide his younger brothers who all had their own ideas to think:
"Our father never does meaningless things. All the instructions that the parties involved at the time felt confused about were basically arrangements made for the long-term future.

“It may be ten years later, or it may be twenty years later, that the significance of the arrangements made at that time may be revealed.

“The arrangement that our father made for us must have a profound meaning.

“At the same time, I think Father certainly hopes that we can live in peace with each other and have healthy competition, or at least fight without breaking each other.

“But also hopefully we can make a difference.

“However, we all have a wealth of knowledge, we have all undergone more than ten years of practical training, and we are capable of taking on most of the court positions.

“Although we did not actively solicit or make acquaintances with them, we all got to know a large number of bureaucrats during the practical training.

“This is all known to everyone.

"After any one of us becomes the crown prince, can we really trust our other brothers?

“How will the other brothers cope with it?

“I think my father should have considered these things and has been making some specific arrangements, which is why we have this strange training.

"We can all guess and analyze for ourselves how the way we do things now will work in the future."

After listening to this, the Ninth Prince Zhu Jingtan pondered for a moment:
"Does your Majesty want other princes besides the Crown Prince to be Imperial Censors? Or to be Grand Secretaries? But what's the point?

“Of course Father can ask us to cooperate with each other, but no one else can do that.

“If our father is the guest of honor after his death, and the future crown prince succeeds to the throne, he will not allow other brothers to play such a role, right?
"Unless it is absolutely necessary, which monarch would not want to reduce the power of the vassal states?
"Jianwen made so many promises during Emperor Taizu Gao's lifetime, but he immediately started to reduce the power of the feudal lords after he ascended the throne."

The ninth prince Zhu Jingtan may be the most traditional one among Zhu Jianxuan's older sons.

In Zhu Jingtan's opinion, no matter how his father adjusted and arranged things, the situation would definitely get out of control after he died.

The emperor certainly wants to have the final say and hold all the power, and he will not allow a group of brothers to comment on his decisions.

If other brothers stayed in the capital, we could simply arrange a group of trusted men to break into their houses or meeting places and arrest them all.

If other brothers were arranged to be vassal kings, we could also find a reason to reduce their power and arrange for the army to attack.

The scene was silent for a while, and the Seventh Prince tried to say:
“So my father arranged a guard corps for everyone, and also asked us to go to America.

“This may just be the beginning. Our titles will be upgraded and our guard corps will be expanded.

"We are now wondering... whether our father will adopt the method of Emperor Taizu Gao during the Hongwu era and arrange for us brothers to become kings of the frontier.

“However, this fortress is no longer the northern border as before, but is located in the Americas, Linzhou, Africa and other places outside the ocean.

“At the same time, instead of having one prince alone in one place, a dozen brothers should be in charge of one place.

"That's why we are asked to make decisions through internal consultation and let's work together..."

The Ninth Prince asked directly after hearing this:

"How many guard corps must our father give us so that we can withstand the imperial court's reduction of power?

"If Father really gives us too much, how can we guarantee the safety of the court?"

The eleventh prince tried to analyze and said:
"So, will Father create some kind of balance?
“The power of a few vassal kings is definitely far from that of the imperial court.

“But if most of the vassal kings unite, they will be able to resist the power of the imperial court.

"After all, we have more than a hundred brothers.

"If we follow the prince's standards, everyone will have a corps of guards.

“Then our combined military would number over a million people.

"My father has more than a dozen brothers, a large group of important meritorious officials and vassal lords, and a group of overseas barbarian monarchs.

"They would have to be able to support an army of millions.

“The imperial court cannot eliminate all the vassal states at once, as that would be equivalent to starting a world war.

"If there is no fatal threat, the vassal kings will definitely not unite on a large scale, so the imperial court still has an advantageous position under normal circumstances." Once the imperial court begins to reduce the power of the vassal kings, all the vassal states will become vigilant and may then unite to fight against the imperial court.

"The scale of the war will become very large, and the ministers in the court will have to consider whether it is worth it.

“However, how should the prince who usually has the final say cooperate with other princes of similar status be a very big problem.

“If there is no ready-made experience and rules, it will be like the 18 princes fighting against Dong Zhuo, arguing with each other and getting nothing done.

"So that's why Father tied us up and forced us to train together, so that we can adapt to this method in advance?"

When the Ninth Prince heard this, he shuddered suddenly. He didn't know whether the Eleventh Prince's last statement was intentional or a coincidence, but it definitely irritated him.

Most of the time, the ninth prince Zhu Jingtan didn't want to argue with his brothers and didn't want to insist on the current training arrangement for a moment.

Zhu Jingtan felt that they were wasting time now. If they drove the other eleven brothers away and handled Guangdong's affairs by himself, it would be faster than with the current twelve people.

The Ninth Prince had never doubted his instinctive thoughts, but the Eleventh Prince's words suddenly alerted him:
Handling Guangdong's affairs alone not only gives me unique decision-making power, but also has the potential to improve the efficiency of work and decision-making.

But the risk can only be borne by one person. If I mess up, my father will definitely deal with it without hesitation.

But if the twelve brothers mess things up together, then the father will have to think about it.

The situation switches to the future, after the father passes away, one of the brothers becomes emperor and the other brothers become princes.

If the new emperor wanted to reduce the power of the princes, and if the princes fought each other, they would definitely be defeated one by one.

If the princes work together, the emperor will have to consider the consequences.

Even if the princes united, they could in turn restrict the emperor's actions.

If more than a hundred brothers became princes, they would gather together to hold a meeting and reach some kind of consensus.

Even the emperor would not be able to veto it directly, unless he wanted to start a world war to reduce the power of the feudal lords.

As long as the opinions and demands formed by the princes do not directly harm the interests of the emperor, the emperor should not start a world war for this.

The Ninth Prince thought about these things in his heart, and muttered with a complicated expression:

"Those meeting principles and basic rules for discussing things that we have agreed upon with great difficulty, are they used to coordinate the relationship between the vassal kings?"

The analysis of the Eleventh Prince, combined with the summary and association of the Ninth Prince, represented the thoughts of most of the princes present.

A group of people couldn't help but nod their heads, and then continued to analyze in this direction.

Unless one of the vassal kings wants to seize the resources of the other by force, it can only be achieved in this way of overall equality of status.

Seizing resources from other vassal kings by force is equivalent to a vassal king weakening other vassal kings, which is more difficult than the emperor weakening the vassal kings.

The emperor should step in to stop it, otherwise he would be like the Zhou emperor in the Spring and Autumn Period and would gradually lose his prestige.

As for the vassal kings directly rebelling against the emperor who controlled the world, although some people had succeeded in the history of the Ming Dynasty.

But any normal person knows that there is no way to reproduce it.

If Yongle had tried it again himself, he would most likely have failed.

Emperor Tiangong succeeded to the throne after the Northern Expedition to destroy the Qing Dynasty, which was a special case under the special circumstances at that time.

No one can have the inventive and creative ability of Emperor Tiangong, and now there is no Qing Dynasty waiting to be beaten.

At the same time, the cooperative method of joint decision-making among the princes is not suitable for supporting any prince to seize the throne.

There is no clear leader with enough prestige within this kind of compromising coalition, and whoever chairs the meeting can argue for days.

The key point is that the host has no decision-making power and can only control the meeting process. If the control is unreasonable, others will stand up and oppose it.

Anyone who wants to push anything forward has to convince the majority of the princes with reason and then vote to pass it.

Unless the current emperor has very serious problems and is hopelessly incompetent, while also pursuing unlimited destructive policies.

Only at the meeting of vassal kings could a motion be proposed to replace a vassal king as emperor.

In fact, according to the current way of inheritance of aristocratic titles, it is impossible to allow a useless heir to succeed to the throne, unless the emperor becomes crazy or stupid after he succeeds to the throne.

The new emperor elected through the resolution of the vassal kings will be more familiar with the logic of the vassal kings' meeting, and the possibility of conflict will be reduced again.

No matter what the rules are, they will only become truly effective and deterrent after they are actually implemented.

At the same time, according to the meeting experience of the past two years, only after a conflict has occurred will the parties participating in the meeting be willing to compromise.

This type of meeting will only produce efficient decisions when things are at stake and need to be resolved.

Otherwise they don't want to do anything.

It’s not that the person involved is really lazy, but everyone wants others to change the status quo.

When joining a meeting, everyone is completely equal and has equal status and influence.

But once things start happening, some people will stand out and have the potential to have an impact.

Everyone knows this, so no one wants others to do this. Therefore, when there is no emergency, this kind of meeting is used to restrict each other.

After a long and noisy discussion, the eldest prince Zhu Jingkun finally made a simple summary and also made a reminder according to his own understanding:

“I think Eleventh Brother’s analysis makes sense, and I think we can use it as a reference.

“But we cannot easily draw conclusions now. Even if there are such aspects in the arrangements made by the emperor, we cannot rule out other aspects.

“It is usually difficult to directly see the truth of the emperor’s long-term arrangements until they are actually implemented.

"Because some things are simply not visible now, we can't imagine what we don't know, so the prediction will definitely be biased."

No one questioned what Zhu Jingkun said. Instead, everyone felt it was very reasonable.

The princes are all convinced of their father's abilities. The current Ming Dynasty was created by him.

The analysis of the Eleventh Prince and the Ninth Prince was indeed biased, and there were indeed some things they were completely unaware of.

Zhu Jianxuan, who was far away in Shuntian Prefecture, received the secret annual report submitted by the Academy of Engineering.

In accordance with Zhu Jianxuan's instructions, the Academy of Engineering has produced a high-power, high-speed centrifuge made of electroslag remelting steel, which has passed the acceptance test.

It is indeed possible to separate fluorides composed of different uranium isotopes, and we can start to enter the factory production stage.

At the same time, the continuous production reactor experiment of element 94 has been completed, and the formal element production reactor can be built.

Element 235 is plutonium. The isotopes of uranium 239 and plutonium are the core raw materials for the direct production of atomic bombs.

(End of this chapter)