The Ming Dynasty: A bookstore sells the history of the Ming Dynasty, leaving Emperor Chongzhen bewil

The imperial court is incompetent, but there is one person who is.

"Who?"

Emperor Chongzhen quickly pressed for more information.

Zhu Ziming replied, "Disaster victims."

"Disaster victims?"

Upon hearing this answer, Emperor Chongzhen frowned even more deeply: "Let the disaster victims loot? That's tantamount to condoning their riots, how can that be allowed?"

In fact, what Chongzhen wanted to say was that even if you don't allow the disaster victims to loot, they probably would want to loot anyway. Isn't that how uprisings have occurred throughout history? These disaster victims are so hungry that they're capable of anything.

Rather than letting the disaster victims loot, it would be better to let the imperial court loot.

Zhu Ziming's analysis was so logical that Chongzhen thought he really had a solution, but now it seems he was just grasping at straws in his desperation.

Faced with Chongzhen's doubts, Zhu Ziming remained calm and said, "Let me analyze it for you, see if that works?"

If it were anyone else, Emperor Chongzhen probably wouldn't have had the patience to listen, but since this person was Zhu Ziming, Chongzhen still restrained himself: "I would like to hear the details."

Zhu Ziming said: "From a philosophical perspective, there are many contradictions in a complex problem. To solve this problem, we must first find the main contradiction in the problem, and then we can prescribe the right medicine and solve the problem. So, let's first analyze the main contradiction in the whole disaster relief event."

The principal contradiction?

Emperor Chongzhen frowned; he couldn't understand what Zhu Ziming was saying, but he didn't interrupt him.

Zhu Ziming said, "Currently, millions of disaster victims in the affected areas urgently need relief, but the imperial court has neither money nor grain to provide disaster relief. Isn't this the main contradiction in the current situation?"

Emperor Chongzhen nodded; he roughly understood what he meant.

Zhu Ziming said, "We have found the main contradiction in the whole incident, but this main contradiction is difficult to reconcile, that is, there is no solution, right?"

Emperor Chongzhen continued to nod.

Although he didn't quite understand the main contradiction, he understood that there was no solution.

The imperial court had no money or food, the disaster victims were crying for food, and the entire court was helpless. What else could this be but an insurmountable problem?

Zhu Ziming said, "Since the primary contradiction is irreconcilable, we can only try to look at the secondary contradictions."

"The main conflict lies between the imperial court and the disaster victims. However, there is actually an important third party involved in this whole affair. Who is it?"

"As we just mentioned, they are officials and gentry!"

"Officials and gentry hold the reins of money and grain, yet they stand idly by, or even try to profit from it. Doesn't this create a conflict between the disaster victims waiting for relief and the imperial court, which wants to provide relief but lacks the funds and grain?"

"But in this whole disaster relief effort, the officials and gentry who held the money and resources and had the ability to provide relief were either invisible or almost entirely uninvolved. Why was that?"

Yes, why?

Emperor Chongzhen suddenly realized the problem and showed an anxious expression.

Zhu Ziming said, "Because they are a secondary contradiction, they were overshadowed by the primary contradiction. In the entire disaster relief event, everyone's attention or focus was on the primary contradiction between the court and the disaster victims. Because the primary contradiction was too intense and dominated the whole matter, the officials and gentry, as a secondary contradiction, were naturally ignored."

Emperor Chongzhen suddenly realized something; he seemed to understand some things, but not completely. This feeling of not grasping the key points made him very uncomfortable.

Zhu Ziming continued, "Since the primary contradiction is unsolvable, and the secondary contradictions are overshadowed by the primary contradiction, what should we do?"

"This brings us to another important principle in philosophy: under certain conditions, the principal contradiction and the secondary contradiction can transform into each other. The principal contradiction can be transformed into the secondary contradiction, and the secondary contradiction can be transformed into the principal contradiction."

"Therefore, at this time, since the main contradiction cannot be resolved due to objective limitations, the only way to solve the problem of disaster relief is through human intervention to shift the main contradiction to other entities, change the target of the contradiction, that is, to transform the contradiction."

One moment it's the primary contradiction, the next it's the secondary contradiction. Chongzhen felt his head spinning again, completely confused by Zhu Ziming's explanations. He didn't know what use these things were, or what their connection was to disaster relief.

In short, he had many questions, but he didn't know where to begin, so he could only patiently continue listening.

Zhu Ziming could tell that the other person was completely confused, because even in this freezing weather, beads of sweat were seeping from the other person's forehead.

He was also a little puzzled; was it really that hard to understand?

The principal contradiction, the secondary contradiction, and the transformation of contradictions—these are all things taught in junior and senior high school political textbooks.

Judging from the bewildered look in their eyes, they are either someone who slipped through the net of nine years of compulsory education, or someone who didn't listen to their teachers properly when they were in school.

With this level of skill, you might as well deliver food; why are you even writing novels?

However, seeing how seriously the other person was working up a sweat, he probably also had the ambition to become a master. As the saying goes, fortunes change, and one should not underestimate a young person's potential. Therefore, Zhu Ziming couldn't bear to discourage the other person.

"We just talked about the principles. Now let's go back to the actual operation. If you put it into practice, you should understand."

"When natural disasters strike, people are displaced and become refugees. To prevent them from causing trouble, local officials certainly won't allow them into the city. But at this time, the refugees can only move towards towns and wait for relief from the imperial court and the government, right?"

Emperor Chongzhen nodded.

Zhu Ziming said, "At this time, the imperial envoy in charge of disaster relief arrived in the area. He had no money or food, and he came with only an imperial edict."

"What should we do?"

"There was no other way, so the imperial envoy had to find officials and gentry who had money and grain and ask them to donate money and grain to help the disaster victims and overcome the difficulties together. But these officials and gentry would certainly refuse, or they would pretend to donate a little to fool the problem."

"We can't steal it, there's nothing we can do, right?"

Emperor Chongzhen continued to nod.

Zhu Ziming continued, "Since there is no other way, we can only issue a public notice to the disaster victims, saying that the court has done its best, and the officials and gentry have money and grain, but they are unwilling to donate even a penny. Then, we will post the donation information of the officials and gentry on the city wall for public display. Once the pitifully small amount of money and grain donated by the officials and gentry is announced, it will surely cause a huge uproar."

The saying "Behind the red gates, meat and wine go to waste, while on the road, frozen corpses lie" is vividly illustrated at this moment, and the disaster victims must be cursing those officials and gentry.

"Of course, no matter how much you, the disaster victims, curse, the officials and gentry will ignore you. Anyway, you can't curse them to death, and you can't even enter the city. While you starve and freeze to death outside, they are still living a life of luxury at home."

"So what is our purpose in doing this? Our purpose is to exacerbate the conflict between the disaster victims and the officials and gentry."

Emperor Chongzhen was still puzzled: "But... what's the use of this?"

Zhu Ziming said, "Don't rush, let me finish. As I said, our goal is to exacerbate the conflict between the disaster victims and the officials and gentry. Now, the disaster victims' emotions have been stirred up, but the officials and gentry are still unaffected."

"So, at this point, we can let the disaster victims into the city."

Hearing this, Chongzhen became even more puzzled: "Let the disaster victims into the city? The disaster victims are already agitated. If we let them into the city now and allow them to loot, wouldn't that make it even easier for chaos to break out?"

"No!"

Zhu Ziming shook his head: "We didn't just let the disaster victims loot; it was premeditated and organized looting!"