The Han culture is spreading strongly in Southeast Asia

Chapter 628 The Stubborn Qianlong

"Nanyang was the domain of the Great Yu Dynasty, and Tangshan was also the domain of the Great Yu Dynasty. How could there be two systems that differ under the same holy ruler?"

"The legal system inside and outside Tangshan is vastly different. This is the path to national ruin. We, the young students of the Imperial College, should write to Your Majesty and request the convening of a republican parliament to bring about unity inside and outside the country."

“Many Western sages have said that human rights are endowed by nature. Although I do not completely agree with this view, I do agree with the implicit affirmation of human beings.

Since we are all naturally equal, and all His Majesty's children, why do the people of Nanyang have the right to participate in politics, but we, the people of Tangshan, do not?"

"Yes, we should petition His Majesty to take the initiative and convene a republican parliament."

Asen sat on the lawn outside the library of Nanjing Hongwu Imperial College, listening to the lively discussions of his classmates around him, and taking careful notes of everyone's speeches.

The Hongwu Imperial College was named after the reign title of Emperor Taizu Zhu Yuanzhang of the Ming Dynasty and was expanded from the original Yingtian Jinling Imperial College.

Because some people said that it was inappropriate to use the word Yingtian for a Taixue, so they simply removed the word Jinling and changed it directly to Hongwu.

Before entering the Law Department of Hongwu Imperial College, Asenxian had studied at the Guazhou Army Officers Academy for two years.

Of course, two years was not enough for the Crown Prince to learn all the subjects, let alone acquire the ability to lead troops.

He transferred schools at the request of his father, Emperor Mo Zibu.

Because Mo Zibu discovered that Asen had no talent for military affairs. At the same time, as the crown prince, his schedule was very tight and it was impossible for him to stay in the Military Academy for five years.

So it is better to understand the basics first and then shift the focus to what Arsen is best at.

"Brother Zhenji, please say a few words. We still don't know whether you agree to hold a republican parliament in Tangshan."

The person who presided over this "keyboard politics" activity was Tao Biquan, an assistant lecturer at the School of Literature and History of Hongwu Imperial College.

This person is from Anhua, Hunan. He has a generous personality, is willing to help others, and is enthusiastic about public welfare. He is known for having friends all over the world.
He took the examination for the scholar three times but failed each time, so he was not destined to be an official. So he settled for the second best and became an assistant lecturer at the Hongwu Imperial College.

However, although Assistant Tao's own test-taking ability is average, his eight-year-old son Tao Shu is a well-known child prodigy and is said to be skipping grades to enter higher education next year.

Asen's pseudonym in Hongwu Imperial College was Wang Zhenji. Well, actually it wasn't really an pseudonym. This name belonged to an official in the Right Spring Office of the Crown Prince. This person was also the distant cousin of Asen's first love, Wang Zhenyi, who was about to enter the palace.

"Brother Tao, I've only been in school for two months and I'm still a bit clueless. I really don't dare to weigh in on such a national matter. But seeing that all of you elder brothers and wise men agree, I think it must be very reasonable."

This is the most powerful skill that Asen inherited from Mozibu, which is the ability to say a set of words in various situations that can make others feel comfortable while not putting himself in a situation where he has to make a choice.

He is the crown prince. If he makes a selective statement at this time, it will be bad if it is dug up in the future, so Arsen simply does not answer.

Tao Biquan looked at this freshman who seemed to want to improve but was a little evasive at critical moments. He always felt that this person had a temperament he had never seen before. His sixth sense always reminded him not to mess with this person.

Thinking of this, Tao Biquan nodded and said, "Brother Zhenji is always cautious in his work. You are right. We can't let anyone point fingers at national affairs.

If you are not familiar with the classics of the saints, do not understand the study of things and the transformation of the elixir, do not read your majesty's great works, and do not know the differences between the domestic and foreign countries, the East and the West, then you must speak carefully."

At this time, since the Mo family was an overseas descendant, the name Tangshan, which was used by the Chinese in Southeast Asia to refer to their motherland, had been accepted by people all over the country.

Tangshan originally meant the Great Tang Dynasty, and refers to China in a broad sense.

In a narrow sense, it refers to the traditional 25 provinces of Han area (including Guangnan and Lelang), and other places are called Nanyang, Dongyang, Saiwai, Snow Region, Western Region, etc.

At present, the broad sense of the term is rarely used, and most people refer to Tangshan in a narrow sense.

The reason why there were so many students in the Imperial College was that they were having a lively discussion about writing a letter to the emperor to request the establishment of a republican parliament.

This is because Dayu’s economic structure has undergone tremendous changes, at least in Dayu’s most developed Jiangnan and Pearl River Delta regions.

For example, in Jiangnan, the term "Jiangnan gentry and wealthy merchant group" is very misleading, making people feel as if in Jiangnan, the business is controlled by the aristocratic families and the gentry, and the wealthy merchants all come from these families.

This may be true in the Ming Dynasty.

But in Dayu, this is not the case, because the productivity, demand, supply, market size, etc. of the Dayu Dynasty have expanded more than five times compared with the Ming Dynasty.

This drastic change has caused many business activities to be out of the control of local tycoons. The huge profits cannot be controlled by a so-called group.

Because we cannot regard a large interest group as a person and assume that they have a unified will.

In fact, there are all kinds of people in this interest group. Some of them are from aristocratic families, but they work for themselves.

Some people are the white gloves of aristocratic families, but they don’t want to continue to be dogs for others and want to control their own destiny.

There are people who are indeed members of the wealthy family, but they don't want to use their abilities to serve the family, and in the end they don't get much.

Business has never been an easy career. People who have invested in it have always been more likely to lose money than to make money.

It not only requires the right time and place, but also a smart and visionary person to control it.

Therefore, for those who truly control the aristocratic families, firstly, they need to devote a lot of energy to their official careers. Secondly, it is not necessarily the case that if you are good at studying and being an official, you will be good at business.

A typical example is the early days of reform and opening up, when a large number of second-generation people who held power were just selling permits. Strictly speaking, there was not a single one who could truly build a business empire.

Therefore, these aristocratic families who hold local power can only use various means to select some people to replace them and use the power in their hands to carry out business activities.

This was possible in the previous environment of emphasizing agriculture and suppressing commerce, because economic activities at that time were more dependent on power and were not as large in scale.

But now, it just doesn't work anymore.

Therefore, now, when the interests are getting bigger and bigger and more and more talents are needed to take the helm, the gentry and wealthy merchant groups in Jiangnan have inevitably begun to split sharply.

A large number of successful businessmen are eager to break free from the control and constraints of the families and power behind them.

Their most promising way to succeed was for the emperor to convene a republican assembly, and they would be elected as members of parliament with their strong financial resources and influence.

Although the status of a legislator is not equivalent to that of an official and does not have much real power, it has a high status and identity.

If you successfully run for a Republican member of a province, even if you become the governor, it will have to be a current governor of the province. It will still take a lot of effort for him to take advantage of you.

Similarly, under these big businessmen, there also emerged many people who came from commoner backgrounds and became small and medium-sized capitalists and bourgeoisie.

They may not reach the level of provincial legislators, but even if they are legislators of prefectures, states, and counties, they can largely avoid the rude harassment of prefecture, state, and county officials, and deal with the bullying of customers by behemoths like the Fuxing Company.

Most of these students at the Imperial College came from bourgeois families.

For example, Tao Biquan's brother was a middle-class capitalist who supplied iron ore to the Jiangnan Iron and Steel Plant in Xingtang Taiping Prefecture (Ma'anshan).

If a republican parliament were to be established in Tangshan, his brother would most likely be elected as a councilor in Xingtang Taiping Prefecture where he was settled, and the Tao family's property would be even more secure.

Not only these people, but also other people such as the leaders of dock workers, the gang leaders of the City Fox and the Rat, and local celebrities who cannot become officials but are very prestigious in the local area, all hope to be elected as members of parliament to fight against the powerful control of officials.

Asen watched the seniors expressing their opinions passionately and nodded his head. His father often said that the power of parliament cannot be granted from top to bottom, but must be given from bottom to top and finally in accordance with the trend.

Because the power is granted because the foundation below is not solid and the power cannot be held firmly, the monarch needs to strengthen it with prestige.

This is tantamount to forcing things to grow. The power gained is like duckweed in the water, without roots or ties. It will disappear without a trace when a wave hits it.

Only when the people below have the strength and begin to constantly demand their own power through their own voices or even struggles, then the foundation has been established, and the emperor can give a little support, and the general trend will be established.

Asen also understood clearly why a Republican Parliament had to be established to share power.

Only when these second forces born from the people are used by the king, they provide the king with public opinion and money, and the king uses his authority to guarantee them. Only when both sides need each other can the Dayu royal family truly influence the people.

The relationship here was stable, and the Inner Court Transportation Bureau and the Fuxing Company formed relatively independent financial power.

The Inner Court Staff Officers Office and the Five Military Governor's Office formed a relatively independent military power, controlling the core elite of the country.

The secret police and spy organization composed of the Jinyiwei Beizhenfu Division, Nanzhenfu Division, Shenxing Division, Jili Division, and Dianqian Division held the power of supervision.

Then the emperor's position would be quite stable, and he could hand over the most tedious governance of central and local affairs to civil servants headed by the prime minister.

Therefore, we should break out of the framework of being the person directly responsible, and act as a referee, a mediator, a stabilizer, and a true ruler and father to all Chinese people based on the mixing of different opinions. Only then can we maintain our position for a longer period of time.

Feeling that he had observed the most significant changes below, Asen was very excited. As soon as he finished, he hurried to the palace to tell his father the good news.

Meanwhile, in the Chunhui Hall of the Forbidden City in Nanjing, Mo Zibu was jokingly teasing an elderly man across from him, his hair and beard graying and his air of resentment, who always seemed to keep strangers away. "Hongli, how's it going? I've toured all the prefectures in Jiangnan. Compared to your time, I'm doing pretty well, aren't I?"

It turns out that this tall and thin old man is actually the former Qing Emperor Qianlong.

Speaking of Emperor Qianlong's vitality, it is really not an exaggeration. Ten years ago, when he was 67 years old, he suffered a stroke due to anger. He collapsed and could not move, and could not even speak.

After that, he lost his empire and was detained by Mo Zibu. He experienced the humiliation of trying to go on a hunger strike but having his mouth pried open and meat porridge forced into his mouth.

Mo Zibu almost thought that Qianlong would not live for many more years, but it turned out that Qianlong was still alive in 1788. He was years old and looked even more energetic.

Not only did he show no signs of dying, but apart from his expression being expressionless, he had no problem speaking and could even walk a few steps with the help of a cane.

"Hmph!" When Qianlong heard Mo Zibu teasing him, he immediately hid the resentment on his face. He didn't want Mo Zibu to get even a little bit of pleasure from him.

After taking a deep breath, Qianlong recalled many beautiful things in the first half of his life, which made his face less distorted, and then replaced it with an expression of pity as he looked at the silly boy.

"Mo Zhao, you are an idiot!

Do you know what you are doing? Do you know what this republican parliament represents? The last such parliament took the head of King Charles of England.

What that Republican Parliament represents is not what you think. The so-called Magna Carta is nothing but evidence of separatist regimes and the oppression of their masters by ministers. It is just a replica of the Qing Dynasty's Council of Princes and Ministers."

Qianlong became more and more excited as he spoke, and even laughed out loud, "Hahahaha, you must be saying that China is different from England.

Haha, that’s right, it’s different!

Because doing so in China is nothing more than stirring up trouble with different opinions, and in essence it still fails to break the mold of party strife.

And in party struggles, no matter how evenly matched they seem at the time, there will always be losers!

Whether it was the eunuch party and scholars of the Later Han Dynasty, the Niu Party and Li Party of the Li Tang Dynasty, the New Party and the Old Party of the Northern Song Dynasty, or the eunuch party and Donglin Party of the Ming Dynasty, they all decided the winner in the end.

What often accompanies this win or loss is the collapse of the world, because party struggles mean disregarding the world as a whole and opposing for the sake of opposing. At the very least, the people will suffer, and at worst, the country will be overthrown.

Mo Zhao, just wait and see. If retribution comes quickly, you might even witness it all with your own eyes! "

Seeing that Qianlong was speaking with gritted teeth, Mo Zibu walked up to Qianlong with a relaxed demeanor, stretched out his hand, pointed at him and smiled.

"Hongli, you're getting anxious, your defenses are broken, you're cursing me, and you're starting to see the worst in everything."

"Me!" For some reason, when Qianlong saw Mo Zibu showing his frivolous side in front of him, his anger would burn uncontrollably. He wanted to shout at Mo Zibu: "You are laughing at your mother!"

But Qianlong held back, unless he wanted to cut off his lineage and grandchildren.

"Actually, you have a point. Factional strife has always been dangerous. No matter what kind of king, starting a faction strife is like piling dynamite under one's throne."

Mo Zibu first affirmed Qianlong's insight, saying that the old man's judgment in this regard was very accurate, but then, Mo Zibu stretched out his right index finger and shook it in front of Qianlong's eyes a few times.

"But I am different. I am not here to be an emperor for the Leizhou Mo family. I want to be a true ancient wise king like Yao, Shun, Yu and Tang.

In this era of great contention, only countries that can do their best to tap into the national energy can stand at the top of the world. And by giving up power and delegating authority, I am releasing the great national power of China that has existed for thousands of years!

I gave power to the people of Southeast Asia, not to ask them to repay me with taxes or rare treasures, but to ask them to occupy a large amount of fertile land for their descendants.

I delegate power to small and medium-sized capitalists. Consolidating the foundation of the dynasty is only a side effect. My main purpose is to unleash all their energy and allow them to bring more coal, iron, guns and cannons to this great nation!"

Mo Zibu paused and stared at Qianlong, "For this purpose, even if the reign of my Great Yu Dynasty is only a hundred years longer than that of your Qing Dynasty, it is still worth it.

Because by then, the honor of one family and one surname will be gone, but thousands of families and surnames will gain a true era of peace and prosperity.

This is the difference between me, a true Han sage and wise ruler, and you, a barbarian ruler!"

This sentence really hurt Qianlong.

Because this old guy has always regretted that he is not Han Chinese.

He also knew clearly that if he were a Han king, he would have unlimited possibilities, at least he could truly carry out drastic reforms to this ancient country according to his wishes.

Qianlong was confident that he could at least do better than Peter the Great of Russia, but all this was ruined by the fundamental problem that he was only the emperor of a few million bannermen.

Qianlong couldn't even revolutionize himself!
"Wow!" His face turned red and white, and after shaking twice, Qianlong spat out a mouthful of blood directly to the ground, and quickly became weak.

"Your Majesty is truly like Yao and Shun!" After hearing Mo Zibu's words, others were not surprised, but a middle-aged woman bowed gracefully, full of admiration, "The ancient sages and wise kings are no better than this!"

Mo Zibu looked at the woman, feeling a bit amused and helpless. "Your brother-in-law has already vomited blood, and you are still so angry with him for your son. Don't worry, Fukang is fine, he won't die."

This middle-aged woman was none other than Fukang'an's mother, Yehenara.

Yehenara's elder sister-in-law and elder sister were both Qianlong's concubines, so Mo Zibu said that Qianlong was Yehenara's brother-in-law.

"Bitch, bitch, this southern barbarian is a bullshit Yao and Shun, I... "

Plop! Before Qianlong finished shouting, Yongyan, who came with him, that is, Jiaqing in history, was almost scared to death. He was living a good life now, but he didn't want to be beheaded like this.
"Father!" He fell to his knees with a thud and wailed loudly.

Qianlong's eyes were filled with tears as he looked at Jiaqing kneeling on the ground. He swallowed back the words that were on the tip of his tongue.

Yehenara didn't even look at Qianlong, nor did she deny what Mo Zibu said. Instead, she immediately knelt down and said to Mo Zibu with a sad look:

"Your Majesty, please pardon Fu Kang'an. For six years, Fu Kang'an has lost the three northeastern provinces and is struggling to survive in the old forest. Even his closest relatives have betrayed him.

He has to face the encirclement and suppression of Dayu while also being wary of the Russians. Even if he has three heads and six arms, what good will it do? Your Majesty, please forgive him. My Fu family is willing to give away all our wealth to seek Your Majesty's forgiveness."

The problem with Fukangan was not that he could not be caught, but that Mo Zibu did not really want to catch him, nor was he willing to deploy too many resources just to catch such a stubborn little fish.

In addition, Mo Zibu had a little idea. Outer Northeast was too far away, and he needed someone with some ability to gather the various ethnic groups in Outer Northeast so that Mo Zibu could mobilize them at any time.

The person who is most familiar with this operation is undoubtedly Fu Kang'an.

In terms of ability, Fukangan's ability is unquestionable, but he is very arrogant and easily complacent.

For example, the classic battle of the Qing Dynasty in the snow-capped mountains against the Gurkhas. The first half was perfect, he was simply a god of war.

But in the second half, this guy became arrogant and actually asked the soldiers to carry him in a sedan chair with four people carrying him in the snow. When he arrived at the place, he sat in the tent to give orders and started a war like Liu Hou and Zhuge Wuhou.

As a result, the Qing army was arrogant and despite having a great advantage in the early stage, they failed to capture Yangbu (Kathmandu). They also suffered certain losses in the Battle of Palanggu and were forced to accept the Gurkhas' surrender in a whimper.

Well, if the experience in Outer Northeast can grind away Fukangan's bad temper, then Mo Zibu will be in need of someone to guard the plateau.

Mozibu has always been dissatisfied with the current Dalai and Kashag governments, and even has great vigilance against them.

"Ye, you should know that I am not after your Fu family's money, otherwise you wouldn't be able to keep it until now, and Fu Kang'an is not going to take his life, understand?"

Yehenara knelt on the ground and nodded repeatedly, but in her heart she was roaring, "Don't keep waiting there. If I continue, my son will either be beaten to death by the Russians or tortured to death by the harsh climate of Outer Northeast China."

But Yehenara didn't dare to say it clearly and could only beg Mo Zibu for mercy.

Qianlong, who had just vomited blood, felt sad and struggled to get up because he was also worried about Fukangan.

Not only because this kid might be his child, but also because, looking at the whole situation, Fu Kang'an was the last one among the bannermen to persevere, and Qianlong hoped that he could have a good ending.

"Then, Ye, you should understand that if Fu Kang'an really wanted to surrender, he would have written a letter begging for mercy long ago, but he has never done so in all these years."

Mo Zibu thought about it and felt that the time for keeping the eagle awake was almost up, so it was time to close the net. He asked Fukangan to lead the tribes north of Yaxica to surrender, and by the way, he could clear out all the Russians.

When Yehenara heard that Mo Zibu had finally given in, she was overjoyed and knelt on the ground and replied:
"Fukang'an is the most face-conscious. I will write a letter to him immediately, telling him that if he does not surrender, his mother and I, his wife Yi, will offer ourselves to enter the palace and serve as bed-warming slaves for Your Majesty. He will surely be unable to endure this and will voluntarily surrender."

Damn! No one knows a son better than his mother. You woman, you are really reckless!
If his mother and wife were captured and forced to serve as slaves to the emperor, that would be nothing. Fu Kang'an could use this as a source of hatred to rally the people.

But if the mother and wife took the initiative, that person would be in big trouble, and it would also greatly damage Fukangan's prestige.

"Bitch, you Yehe tribe are really dogs of the Han people!"

After hearing this, Qianlong was defeated again when he saw his former beloved wife behaving like this. He cursed loudly, spat out blood, and fainted from anger.

(End of this chapter)