Ming Dynasty: Ask Zhu Yuanzhang to abdicate at the beginning

Chapter 282 Xu Miaojin's analysis! The key reason!
Ever since Gu Panjun appeared on the streets of Jinling City, Xu Miaojin, who was active by nature and usually liked to wander around in a carriage or on horseback, rushed over to join in the fun.

With a woman's keen intuition and her intelligence, Xu Miaojin immediately felt that this matter was not simple.

It is not impossible for ordinary families to produce beautiful women.

Excluding the damage caused by acquired malnutrition, improper maintenance, etc., in theory, the probability of a beautiful woman appearing in an ordinary family should be the same as that in a wealthy family.

After all, God is fair.

But the number of ordinary people is countless times more than that of wealthy families.

The larger the population base, the more likely it is that there will be beautiful women.

It's just that a lot of them were destroyed.

However, even if a girl from an ordinary family is born in a scholarly family, grows up in a small mountain village, has read a lot of books, and has been pampered since childhood, there will still be a clear gap between her and the children of wealthy families in Jinling City in terms of how to treat people.

It's like a well-read country scholar who has passed the imperial examination and is the top scorer, but at the beginning, he still cannot talk freely with the son of an official family without feeling embarrassed.

This is not a big problem.

As long as the top scholar is given a year or two, he will be able to fully adapt and even surpass his teacher.

After all, anyone who can pass the imperial examination or even get the top score through studying is undoubtedly extremely smart.

Things like dealing with people are just the accumulation of simple experiences.

Smart people will watch it a few times and learn it with all their heart, and they will soon be able to master it with ease.

But the problem lies in the timing.

Logically speaking, a country girl like Gu Panjun, no matter how smart and well-read she was since childhood, should not behave so gracefully and considerately as soon as she enters the city.

Unless someone taught her and trained her secretly.

Who would do this?

Who could have picked out a woman as stunningly beautiful as Gu Panjun from among the tens of millions of people in the Ming Dynasty, like looking for a needle in a haystack?

It must be a powerful official or dignitary in the court.

However, since His Royal Highness the Crown Prince came to power, especially after the Huang Zicheng case, the Ministry of Posts and Communications was established, the spirit of reporting and supervision prevailed, the three judicial departments were overhauled, and the Censorate monitored the actions of all officials and dignitaries in an almost all-pervasive manner.

Who else has the courage to hold a "beauty pageant" in secret?

Even top nobles like the Xu family don't dare to do that.

I'm afraid even a vassal king like Prince of Yan Zhu Di was the same.

The answer is obvious.

The current Crown Prince is still unmarried!
If Gu Panjun was one of the lower-ranking people, specially selected to be presented to His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, then everything would make sense.

The Censorate would certainly not interfere in the "beauty pageant" for His Royal Highness the Crown Prince.

Perhaps Yang Shiqi, who is now in charge of the Censorate, is also involved.

After all, the person who did this must be a close confidant of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince.

And Yang Shiqi is undoubtedly one of them.

After making this bold guess, Xu Miaojin tried to contact Gu Panjun, and felt more and more that this girl was not only beautiful, but also well-educated, thoughtful, and smart.

At the same time, Xu Miaojin also noticed that someone was secretly protecting this girl to prevent her from being harassed and violated by playboys.

This further confirmed her guess.

So, Xu Miaojin proposed marriage on behalf of her elder brother Xu Huizu.

Through this move, she wanted to establish a different relationship between the Xu family and His Royal Highness the Crown Prince.

Xu Huizu disagreed with this.

He thought that if this was really a woman that the ministers of the court wanted to present to His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, they could have presented her directly. Why would they have to let Gu Panjun show her face on the streets and make such a big fuss?

However, Xu Miaojin believed that His Royal Highness the Crown Prince always acted unconventionally and unexpectedly, and his thinking was also different from that of ordinary people. The people around him might have resorted to this desperate measure because they had no other choice.

If you offer it directly, it may be rejected outright.

Xu Huizu did not believe this judgment.

But on the one hand, he did dote on his sister, and always followed Xu Miaojin's arrangements on household matters.

On the other hand, although Xu Miaojin seems to be a bit capricious on the surface, she is actually very prudent and never does anything rash.

Since she was so sure, maybe she really guessed it right?

Xu Huizu followed her.

In any case, Xu Huizu didn't want to marry a nobleman of equal status.

As he himself said, the nobles were once comrades in the same front and had a life-and-death friendship. Anyone who became emperor would become suspicious of this.

Only by keeping a distance from each other and maximally avoiding contact can the emperor's doubts be dispelled.

Therefore, it would be wise for the Xu family to either marry into the royal family or marry the daughter of an ordinary family, rather than marrying a noble family of equal status.

Even if Gu Panjun was not a woman who was planned to be presented to His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, she was just an ordinary civilian woman. As long as she was well-educated and well-mannered, and not unruly and uneducated, there would be nothing wrong in marrying her as the Duke's wife.

But what happened later was a little beyond Xu Huizu's expectations.

Gu Panjun's brother and sister-in-law agreed to Xu Miaojing's proposal and promised to marry their sister into the Xu family.

But Gu Panjun himself was unwilling to do so.

Xu Miaojin thought this could better illustrate the problem, so she went there every day to "persuade" them.

Xu Huizu also felt that something was strange, but after a few days, nothing happened and he became confused again.

When he heard Xu Miaojin's words at this moment, he was deeply surprised.

"Can I still lie to Big Brother?" Xu Miaojin rolled her eyes.

Then, he recounted in detail how he met Zhu Yunhuan and his group at the market and how he dealt with the aftermath.

Xu Huizu nodded slightly and said, "From your analysis, that person should be His Royal Highness the Crown Prince. The man next to him should be Yang Rong, who was recently promoted by His Royal Highness the Crown Prince."

"It seems that this girl, Gu Panjun, is indeed involved with His Royal Highness the Crown Prince."

"You are so good at predicting things. You guessed it right."

He paused and said, "However, now that you have gone to the Gu family to cancel the engagement, my family will no longer have any connection with the Gu family. Isn't all your busy work in vain?"

The little girl smiled and said, "How can it be considered nothing? Didn't I acknowledge Gu Panjun as my sister?"

Xu Huizu smiled and said, "It's just a polite remark, who can take it seriously?"

He paused, and then said, "Besides, although it has been confirmed that Gu Panjun is someone who is prepared to present her to His Royal Highness, even if His Royal Highness takes her as his own, whether he will make her the Crown Princess is still a matter of debate."

"It's possible that I won't even get a concubine."

"If the great Ming crown prince wants a woman, just give her a name."

"Even if they don't give it to me, it doesn't matter much."

"How can you be sure that if she gets to be with His Royal Highness, she will be favored and will be able to climb to a high position?"

Xu Miaojin sat down at the table in the pavilion, stared at the words Xu Huizu had just written, and said, "If that Gu Panjun is just good-looking, then what you said makes sense, brother."

"It's just a beautiful vase. Your Highness can take her home, enjoy her and keep her. There is no need and no need to canonize her as a concubine."

"Not to mention the Crown Princess, even a concubine is impossible."

"But I have met this girl. She is not only well-educated and polite, but also smart and clever. She has a very smart mind. Although she is young, she is very experienced in handling things."

She paused, then pulled out some snacks from her bosom like a magic trick and started eating them. As she ate, she said, "According to my analysis of His Royal Highness, although he is smart and has great talent, he is different from the diligent Emperor. He is a very lazy person." The little girl said leisurely, "Only a lazy person would come up with the idea of using briefings to review memorials and handle state affairs."

The "Daily Brief" that Zhu Yunhuan read was top secret of the court and could not be seen by outsiders.

However, compiling a briefing is no small task, as it requires summarizing and editing the memorials, and then reviewing them repeatedly to confirm that they are correct. A considerable number of people are involved.

Of course, for the sake of confidentiality, even editors and reviewers are mostly only aware of the small part of the content they are responsible for, rather than the entire briefing.

However, it is no secret that hundreds of people were mobilized to compile the briefing.

All the court officials knew about it.

Of course Xu Miaojin had heard of it a long time ago.

Xu Huizu frowned slightly, not understanding what the connection was between his sister's talk about Gu Panjun's ability and the Crown Prince's character.

But his sister wouldn’t bring it up for no reason. He couldn’t figure it out for the moment, and didn’t interrupt to ask questions. He just continued to listen.

"With the briefing, it is much easier to handle state affairs."

"But in addition to government affairs, there are also household affairs to deal with."

"The emperor's family affairs are very troublesome."

"Your Highness the Crown Prince has come up with lazy and tricky ways to handle state affairs, so he will be even more so when it comes to household affairs."

"But household affairs are different from government affairs. You can't be lazy or take chances."

"The best way is to marry a good wife."

"As the saying goes, 'Men work outside, women work inside.'"

Xu Miaojin kept stuffing snacks into her mouth, but there was no sign of her talking stopping.

"He is His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, and he will ascend the throne in the future."

"Harem chores are not easy to handle."

"Although there are many talented people in the court, the ministers are all men."

"The affairs of the harem cannot be handled by one man alone."

"Your Highness, if you want to be lazy, you must find a woman. This woman must be well-educated, smart, and know etiquette and how to advance and retreat."

"If such a request is placed on a man, I may be able to find a thousand, ten thousand, or even more people in the Ming Dynasty."

"There are a lot of officials in the imperial court who can do this."

"But when it comes to women, it's not that simple."

"Most women in the world who can read and write come from wealthy families."

"To have the knowledge to reach the level of an ordinary scholar is already extremely rare, and there are not many of them in the whole world."

"Even with the nobility of His Royal Highness the Crown Prince, it is not easy to find such a person."

"It just so happens that Gu Panjun fits the bill perfectly."

"Don't even mention her beauty. Even if she looks ugly, as long as she can help His Royal Highness handle the affairs of the harem, I'm afraid His Royal Highness would be willing to take her into the harem."

"Your Highness is the richest man in the world. He will naturally have three palaces, six courtyards, seventy-two concubines, and three thousand beauties in the harem. What kind of beauty can't he get?"

"What is really rare is a woman who can help him handle the affairs of the harem."

Xu Miaojin spoke freely and expressed his own analysis and judgment.

In this world, the education men receive is thousands of times better than that of women.

For a boy from an ordinary family, even if the family is very poor, as long as there is still food to eat, most people will grit their teeth and send him to school for a year or two when the child is young.

This is not for the purpose of taking the imperial examination or anything like that.

That would require decades of full-time study, which ordinary people at the bottom simply cannot afford.

Just to learn a few words and write my own name so that I won’t be a blind person.

Most of the readers of "Da Ming Daily" are this kind of people.

Otherwise, the circulation would not be so high.

In this era, those who could pass the examination to become a scholar were considered to be people who had read a lot of books, almost equivalent to a PhD in later generations, or even higher.

Knowledge levels have always been hierarchical.

Just as in later generations there are doctors, masters, undergraduates, associate degrees, high schools, and junior high schools.

Among them, the number of junior high school students is definitely a thousand times that of doctors.

In the Ming Dynasty, the number of people who had only read a few days of books, attended private schools for a few months or even shorter periods of time was thousands of times the number of scholars and juren.

Don’t think that children from poor families don’t study at all.

Most of them simply did not read many books and their knowledge reserves were not enough to take the imperial examinations.

In fact, even a family as poor as the Zhu family was able to study for a year or two as monks in a temple, which laid the foundation for their future development.

Among the founding military generals of the Ming Dynasty, which one of them didn’t come from a poor family when he was a child?

But basically, they all know a few words, they just haven't read much.

But this only applies to men.

The vast majority of women cannot even write or recognize their own names.

He had never even entered the school.

Even many daughters from relatively well-off families do not know a single word.

Of course, wealthy families are exceptions.

The daughters of wealthy families are still able to read and write.

However, they would not be required to read a lot of books and receive a high level of education like men who were going to take the imperial examinations.

Generally, you learn it for three to five years when you are still young.

Lin Daiyu in "Dream of the Red Chamber" only studied for six years (she modestly said it was only one year).

In later times, it would take six years to graduate from elementary school.

Although in ancient times children only studied Chinese and therefore learned more and more in-depth content, except for a very small number of geniuses, the receptive capacity of most children was limited after all.

It is already very remarkable for a normal person to reach the level of Chinese language and cultural level of junior high school students in later generations after three to five years of study.

What's more, because women in this era have no pressure of exams or further studies, whether they study well or not depends entirely on their personal willingness and interest.

In fact, except for a few geniuses like Li Qingzhao, most people, after studying for a few years, are not as good as junior high school students in later generations, and may even not be as good as elementary school students in later generations.

After all, there are very few people who are born with a love for reading, especially children, most of whom study under pressure from their parents and teachers.

It is easy to imagine what kind of results women in this era would achieve if they studied without being forced or under any pressure.

Therefore, Xu Miaojin said that women like Gu Panjun are rare and there are not many of them in the entire Ming Dynasty.

After finishing her analysis, Xu Miaojin changed the subject and said with a smile: "You didn't recognize me as your sister for nothing."

"If my guess is correct, His Royal Highness the Crown Prince should have brought that Gu Panjun to visit my Xu family by now."

……

(End of this chapter)