Diqin Designer

Chapter 151: Enfeoffment of the Princes

The ministers were not surprised to see Li Nian become the Minister of Education. This move was obviously intended to allow Li Nian to enter the court and pave the way for him to become the crown prince in advance.

After talking about the official system reform and rewarding all officials and generals, Ying Zheng announced another decree: dividing the world into nearly forty counties.

Once this decree was issued, it meant that the original six kingdoms were now all incorporated into the county system of the Qin Dynasty.

This was something that had been decided earlier, and the ministers were not surprised. But then, Ying Zheng dropped a bombshell and said:

"Confucianism has a saying, 'If jade is not polished, it cannot become a tool; if people do not learn, they will not know.' 'Therefore, when God is about to give a man a great responsibility, he must first make his mind and will suffer, his muscles and bones tired, his body hungry and empty, and his actions frustrated, so as to stimulate his heart and harden his nature, and increase his ability to do what he could not do before.' I deeply agree with this."

"Although my sons are noble princes of the Qin Dynasty, they grew up in the deep palace and have never experienced the world. They don't know the sufferings of the people. How can they take on great responsibilities?"

"For the sake of the Qin Empire and the people, I have decided to assign you to local areas for training, to help you understand the people's affairs and their sentiments..."

Except for Fusu, who already knew Ying Zheng's decision, the other princes of Qin were all surprised, followed by excitement, confusion, uneasiness and worry.

The good news is that my father wants to enfeoff them to other places, so they can leave the palace and govern the local areas themselves. The bad news is that they have no experience and don’t know if they can govern well.

And why did your father want to divide them up into fiefdoms? Didn’t your father always hate dividing up fiefdoms the most?

Now that we have finally conquered the six kingdoms and unified the world, why are we immediately dividing them up into local fiefdoms?

Seeing Li Nian fiddling with the strange object, the princes except Fusu had two thoughts:
First, could it be that the emperor drove them all away in order to pave the way for this adopted brother to become the crown prince smoothly and then ascend the throne smoothly?

Secondly, the emperor has not yet decided on the candidate for the crown prince. He has granted them fiefs in various places in the hope that they can compete to see who can govern the place best and then choose the crown prince from among them?

Needless to say, the former can just go to the countryside and eat and wait for death. The throne does not belong to them, so there is no need to think about it. But if it is the latter...

All the princes who aspired to the throne became excited. If it was the latter, then they still had a chance to ascend to that position.

It's just that the younger brother behaved very strangely. When he heard that the emperor was going to divide them, he wasn't even surprised. He either didn't care about it, or was too stupid to know what was going on, or he already knew about it...

But this man was obviously not stupid. The princes of the Great Qin, who had just been excited, felt depressed again, thinking sourly: Maybe this decree of our father was made after consultation with the other party.

The ministers were also surprised. In this matter, Ying Zheng did not inform them in advance. It was a surprise attack, although Prime Minister Wang Wan had already proposed the strategy that the Qin Dynasty could not control the entire world now, and it would be better to seize the core areas first and enfeoff the remote areas to the princes to guard.

But Ying Zheng had never confirmed it himself, so the ministers thought that Ying Zheng was not satisfied with this strategy and did not want to adopt it. Unexpectedly, Ying Zheng suddenly dropped this bombshell today: It turned out that His Majesty was not unwilling to adopt it, but he had already made up his mind, but just did not want them to know.

Li Si's eyes flashed with a look of sudden enlightenment, thinking that he had figured it out. The reason why he did not replace Wang Wan as prime minister in this reform of the official system was because Your Majesty wanted to adopt Wang Wan's strategy, but he advocated that the fiefdoms should not be divided, so he deliberately suppressed him. "Your Majesty, I can change it. As long as you let me take the position of prime minister, I can also support the division of fiefdoms!"

Li Si sighed in his heart. After all, he was one step short of the mark. But he couldn't stand up and oppose the enfeoffment that Ying Zheng was going to implement.

Today is the ceremony of Emperor Ying Zheng being crowned emperor. If you jump out to oppose it, won’t that ruin Ying Zheng’s mood?

If he really jumped out and gave frank advice, Ying Zheng would definitely hold a grudge against him. Not only would he no longer have a chance of becoming prime minister, but his life would also be in danger.

Those ministers who were usually famous for their courage to speak out in the court were not seen to be calm and quiet today, and did not say much.

Confucian scholars such as Chunyu Yue all showed delighted expressions on their faces. He had wanted to write another letter to persuade Ying Zheng to implement the enfeoffment after today, but he did not expect that Ying Zheng would take the initiative to enfeoff the princes.

Although Ying Zheng certainly had other purposes, this was still a good thing. With this good start, how far would they be from their dream of enfeoffment and restoration of Zhou rituals?

Even at this time, Confucian scholars such as Chunyu Yue still held on to the idea of ​​governing the country by enfeoffment, benevolent government, and restoration of Zhou rites.

Because although the Zhou Dynasty was divided into the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period, and although it led to hundreds of years of war among various countries, its reign was indeed long. It was the longest dynasty in history that they could see. If the Qin Dynasty did not learn from the Zhou Dynasty, who else could it learn from?

As for the collapse of the Zhou Dynasty, it was not a problem of feudal fiefdom, Zhou rituals and benevolent government, but a problem of people. People did not abide by Zhou rituals and the king did not practice benevolent government, so rituals and music collapsed and this led to this situation.

Hearing that Ying Zheng was actually going to enfeoff the princes, the Qin royal family, who had been watching the ceremony calmly and peacefully, and only reacted slightly when Ying Zheng said he would set up a clan office and appoint Prince Ying as the head of the clan, could not help but feel a little bit of anticipation at this time:
Ying Zheng was famous for his hatred of enfeoffment, but now he can enfeoff his sons. Will he also modify the restrictions on the royal family?
This Great Qin is not just the Great Qin of Ying Zheng and his sons, it is also their Great Qin. They have a common ancestor. Compared with those ministers, they are a family.

Since we can enfeoff all the princes and let them govern the local areas, it may not be impossible. Apart from anything else, as members of the royal family of the Qin Dynasty, governing the local areas can always guarantee their loyalty better than others!

King Jian of Qi and other six kings and princes who were forced to watch the ceremony did not have many ideas. Their countries were destroyed and their people were captured in Xianyang and became prisoners. Even if they had ideas, what could they do?
The best they can do is curse the Emperor of Qin in their hearts for a bad death. If he were to enfeoff the princes now, Qin would follow the same path as last week, and those princes would sooner or later suffer the same fate as them.

It was not difficult for smart people like Liu Ji and Xiao He to see that this was a transitional policy that Ying Zheng had to adopt in order to solve the problem that the Qin Dynasty was now unable to completely control the world. Once the Qin Dynasty accumulated enough strength, it would sooner or later abolish the feudal system.

Ying Zheng ignored what the people below thought and continued, "Appoint Prince Gao as the King of Langya, ruling Langya County, Qi County, and Julu County. Appoint Prince Jianglu as the King of Changsha, ruling Changsha County and Gan County..."

Gan County was a county that did not originally exist in the history of the Qin Dynasty. It was formed by dividing a part of Jiujiang County. The purpose of doing this was to enfeoff the princes in local areas. Qin Shi Huang did not want the areas they controlled to be too large.

After listening to the places that Ying Zheng had divided up, those who had not understood at first gradually came to their senses. His Majesty really did want the princes to gain experience in the local areas. Look at what these places were divided up.
They are all far away from Xianyang, located in the corners of today's Daqin.

This is to let all the princes guard the remote areas of Daqin!

(End of this chapter)