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Chapter 351 What is imperial power?

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    "fart!"

    However, Zhao Liben sneered and said with disdain on his face: "Does your kid have anything to do with Chun Chun?"

    "Grandpa, have you ever said that about your grandson?" Zhao Hao immediately felt aggrieved: "I am still a child in every sense of the word."

    "That's a matter of time." Zhao Liben snorted and said, "Don't just think about hugging your thighs. Tianjia's soft rice is not as delicious as you think."

    "Oh?" Zhao Hao immediately showed an open-minded look. After all, grandpa is the real king in this matter.

    "Oh, I used to think that you were still young and didn't have access to that level, so I never mentioned it to you. I didn't expect you to be so troublesome. If I don't explain it to you clearly, I'm afraid it will cause a big disaster.  .¡±

    Zhao Liben picked up the tea cup, took a sip and said, "Let's have a good chat with you today."

    "Yes, grandpa." Zhao Hao immediately sat upright and listened.

    "The Ming Dynasty is no longer the Ming Dynasty in the era of the Second Ancestor. The supreme and murderous imperial power in the hands of the Second Ancestor has long been wrapped in layers."

    Then Zhao Liben said expressionlessly: "That is to say, in these northern provinces, because you still have to rely on the court to resist border troubles, you can still feel the presence of imperial power. Back to our south, who is still sitting on the dragon throne?  Do you take it seriously? In the southeast, let alone the eldest princess, it is just an imperial decree, and sometimes it is no different from papyrus."

    ¡®If you wipe your butt, I¡¯m sure the imperial edict will be more comfortable.  ¡¯ Zhao Hao complained in his heart and recorded this matter in his bucket list in this life.

    "However, these words coming from the mouth of a dignified second-ranked Jinshi and former Minister of Household Affairs in Nanjing are indeed enough to make people's hair stand on end.

    "Is it really that exaggerated?" Zhao Hao's voice was a little astringent.  He always thought that this was the Long Qing Dynasty, and the situation should be better

    "Haha" Zhao Liben smiled coldly and said: "What is imperial power? Is it the big set of books in the Forbidden City? Or is it that the emperor tells the minister to die and the minister has to die? Those are just things to make the emperor happy and trick the people into obedience.  .¡±

    Zhao Hao was frightened when he heard this, and thought that grandpa was indeed drunk.

    "Don't worry, your grandma's people are already watching."

    Zhao Liben saw his worry at a glance and said teasingly: "You dare to slap Mr. Xu Ge in the face in public, and are you afraid of hearing a few gossips?"

    "My grandson is indeed not very courageous." Zhao Hao said sarcastically: "I was careful enough at Lingji Palace, but I didn't expect that the old man would be really angry."

    ¡°Do you think that because Xu Ge¡¯s old topic of ¡®a hundred schools of thought contends¡¯, different voices are allowed to speak nonsense on the stage?¡± Zhao Liben laughed and said:

    "The so-called lectures in Lingji Palace are the dojo where he used Wang Xue and his body to become a saint. As long as all the scholars in the world abandon Neo-Confucianism and believe in Wang Xue, then it doesn't matter whether he, the spiritual leader of Wang Xue, is the prime minister or not.  , anyway, they follow the law and no one dares to violate it, it is more effective than the imperial edict."

    As he spoke, he kicked Zhao Hao on the left buttocks without any trace, and said, "It would be better for you to go to someone else's place. Talk nonsense in front of someone else's boss, saying that you should take care of yourself and leave the rest to science.  .¡±

    "Oh, you can only cultivate yourself and your family by studying together, and the country and the world must rely on your science?" Zhao Liben gave a thumbs up to his grandson and said: "This is my son, Zhao Liben, who is fierce and crazy!"

    "A family's opinion, a family's opinion." Zhao Hao has now basically figured out the old man's temper. He just likes to play big games and have fun cross-country. He is so respectful and honest all day long, but he doesn't like the old man.

    Is it because I have been depressed all my life and feel so panicked that I have to step off the stage to rest before I can use my fists?

    Zhao Hao made a random guess, and then said with a smile: "Grandpa, why should we talk about imperial power?"

    "Don't interrupt me in the future. I wonder if my grandpa, at his age, is talking about the previous sentence and the next sentence?" Zhao Liben laughed and scolded, and then continued:

    "Imperial power actually consists of two words: soldiers and taxes. If you don't have soldiers, you won't fart, and if you don't have money, you can't raise soldiers. But officials are needed to collect taxes, and strong men are needed to transport grain, build roads, and develop water conservancy projects. Therefore, if you want to be stable, you must  Add two more words, official and ding."

    "Bing, tax, Ding, official." Zhao Hao nodded silently.  In this era, we can still say roughly that tax is food and food is tax.  If you have soldiers and food, you can conquer the world, and if you have officials and officers, you can rule the world. The old man is worthy of being a former deputy ministerial level cadre, and he is very capable when looking at problems.

    "So imperial power is not just what you think is right. You have to look at these four words to see if you can play it well." Zhao Liben took a sip of tea and sighed:

    "Taxes cannot be collected; soldiers cannot be dispatched; officers cannot be recruited; officials cannot be summoned. Such imperial power is nothing, and no one will take it as a??Things.  "

    Zhao Hao used the old man¡¯s trick on Daming, and he suddenly broke out in a sweat¡ª¡ª

    Tax.

    ¡°Obviously, the southeastern area is extremely rich. Every year, hundreds of millions of taels of silver flow in from overseas just from smuggling alone, but Taicang is empty, and the country is in a serious financial crisis.

    Soldiers.

    The soldiers in the guard camp were so rotten that the Tatars felt like they were in a deserted land and were killed by the Japanese pirates until they cried for their fathers and mothers.  At that time, more than a hundred Japanese pirates fought their way to Jinling City, but the two to three hundred thousand defenders were unable to retreat.  It was still up to Qi Jiguang to recruit miners to deal with the Japanese pirates.

    Man.

    In order to escape the heavy corvee, ordinary people either joined the wealthy families as slaves, or left their homes and became refugees. Governments at all levels basically could not catch young men.

    Officer.

    Let alone.  The officials of the Ming Dynasty did not take the emperor seriously at all.

    This point is unparalleled throughout the ages.

    The reason is, to a large extent, caused by the imperial examination.

    But it was not as later generations commented that the imperial examination system failed too much.

    On the contrary, it is because it is so successful.

    Although relatively objective examinations, layer-by-level selection mechanisms, and strict invigilation and marking systems cannot completely eliminate fraud, they are enough to ensure that most of the selected officials are the best.

    But this has brought about two serious consequences. One is the harsh and long selection process, which requires candidates to make absolute efforts all year round.  After experiencing failure again and again and starting over again, they will only be grateful for their own personal struggles and the examiners who selected them.

    Although they talk about the emperor¡¯s grace, they do not admit that their success comes from the emperor¡¯s gift.

    Second, the overall quality is getting higher and higher, which gives civil servants the conditions to refine, legalize and complicate the governance of the country.  The threshold for government decision-making has become higher and higher, to the point where the emperor, eunuchs, and military attach¨¦s are intimidated.

    It is also the so-called ¡®professional knowledge leads to industry monopoly¡¯.  Today, the Ming Dynasty can only rely on a group of civilian officials to govern the country. These "technical bureaucrats" form a strict system and are responsible for maintaining the operation of the state machinery.

    In the absence of foreign invasion, the emperor became redundant.

    In fact, there is another consequence, which is caused by Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism, the designated textbook for the imperial examination.  This is a theory that seems to uphold imperial power at all times, but in fact it isolates the emperor from specific government affairs.

    It is actually the defense, compromise and restraint of the reason for the existence of imperial power when the gentry group gained a clear advantage in the struggle against imperial power but had no intention of replacing it.

    After all, Emperor Taizu read too little. He was able to depose the visible prime minister, but he was still ambushed by the scholars - he chose Cheng-Zhu Neo-Confucianism as the designated textbook for the scholars.

    We all know that textbooks are tools that shape the outlook of educated groups.

    Therefore, it has become the collective unconsciousness of generations of civil servants to respect the imperial power on the surface but restrict and undermine it secretly.

    ¡°Even many officials have restricted the emperor for their whole life, but they still firmly believe that this is a manifestation of their loyalty to the emperor and patriotism

    ¡°Of course, there are also people like Zhao Liben who have thoroughly understood and seen through it. Naturally, they will be like the old man and have no respect for the imperial power.

    ps. I suggest you read this chapter carefully. It can be regarded as my new harvest from studying history in the past few years. After reading it, you should be able to understand a lot of your confusion about the Ming Dynasty.  (Remember the website address: www.hlnovel.com
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