Xinshun 1730

Chapter 1007 The Transcendence of Imperial Power

Whether Niu Congyun has read "The Legend of Xin Ang" is of course not the same thing as the emperor asked him to read "The Legend of Xin Ang".

Since he told Niu Congyun to read the biography of Xin Ang, it was actually the same as the emperor hinting at Niu Congyun: let it go, I will take care of things for you.

In the matter of taking the blame, Li Gan, the emperor, was still very conscious.

At least he acted according to his wishes, and he had the courage to take the blame, because Dashun had a deep memory of what happened in the last few years of Daming.

Looking at the two people in front of him, the emperor was very satisfied with their performance.

Although his mouth was full of new knowledge, the emperor was not very worried, but took it for granted.

In fact, Dashun has come to this day, and Li Gan has experienced Liu Yu's innocence and cosmic sorrow. Although he doesn't want to admit many things, he has to admit that the road of the past has come to an end.

The talented officials that have emerged in recent years are all related to the new learning, or at least basically influenced by the new learning.

This is not accidental, because with the development of Ezo, Jinghai, Nanyang and other places, the activeness of private capital, and only those places can perform well enough.

It's like being a county magistrate in Henan. How much can you do if you are a flower and a genius?

But if you are a county magistrate in a place where private capital is invested, it will be difficult for the old-fashioned to achieve results, while those with a little more active mind who can learn and apply new knowledge can perform extremely well.

A Taiwanese government has poured in an investment of at least 100 million taels of silver in just ten years.

Wasteland reclamation, rice plantations, shipbuilding cypress management offices, gold mines, investment in naval bases, military camps prepared in advance for the recovery of Luzon in the future... private and official investments are constantly pouring in.

The canal was abolished and sea transportation was developed. This is the basis for capital willing to invest in rice plantations and farmland.

And capital can make the population surge there.Dashun lacks gold, silver, and copper, but there is no shortage of labor.

If there is money, there will be political achievements: the surge in Dingkou, the skyrocketing taxation, the supply of rice needed for some operations after the dismantling of the canal, and the guarantee of sufficient cypress for the construction of warships are of course political achievements.

And if you are a county magistrate in a place like Henan, you have great skills, and you can't get millions of taels of investment. How can you have outstanding political achievements?
Dashun is also a dynasty that was broken but not established in Song and Ming Dynasties. Culturally, it has carried out a comprehensive reflection on the previous dynasty that almost perished in the world. The mainstream of the reflection is: too much nonsense, too little practical work, and righteousness should be reflected in profit , rather than empty talk about rationality.

And to make political achievements in this place where private capital has become active, you can't cling to the Thirteen Classics, you have to get in touch with new learning.

Nothing to do with hobbies.

Nothing to do with faith.

related to promotion.

Not to mention the army, the hardest hit area for the spread of new learning.

Li Gan is very confident that he can handle it, but this kind of emperor usually thinks that he is very good, and his son must not be as good as him.

So Li Gan also has a plan for his succession in the future.

Is the new learning useful?Useful, not useless.

Because there are a lot of powerful countries out there whose annual income is not much different from the big surplus.

If it was before, it would be fine, now that Dashun has just used naval strategy to mobilize Japan, he is afraid that this kind of thing will also happen to him in the future.

In addition, the canal has been abolished, the connection between the north and the south is entirely in the navy, and the safety of water transport in India and Southeast Asia is not in my hands, so I have to acquiesce in the spread of new learning.

However, is there any crisis in Xinxue?

Yes, and in Li Gan's view, this crisis is very conspicuous.

That is, there were not many official vacancies in Dashun originally, and with the rapid increase in population, many people squeezed their heads to take the exam and seek a way to rise.

Originally it was only an internal volume of the Confucian imperial examination.

Dashun also has unique Wude Palace and Liangjiazi's practice system, which can also be vigorously rolled.

Now with the addition of this wave of new students, paper after paper.

A group of people with knowledge and knowledge, and some of them are not just nonsense, talkative knowledge, but people who open their mouths, raise their heads, measure latitude and lower their heads to calculate trigonometry, but they are excluded from the system. There are no officials in the orthodox imperial examinations. Ascending channel, so what will these people do?
Now Dashun has been kidnapped by special traditions and systems, and has no choice but to expand abroad.

This is different from the external expansion of the market required for the development of capital.

It is that the internal imperial examinations have already occupied the upward channels, and only the external and border areas can use these people with practical education background to give them some upward channels.

It depends on the navy, engineers, artillery, industry and commerce, and colonies to accommodate these people and suck them into the system, even if it is the fringes of the system.

Li Gan did not dare to move the imperial examination itself, nor could he move it.

Not to mention that the abolition of the imperial examination will necessitate major events.

Just one imperial examination reform, how many magical things have happened?

The original intention of the previous imperial examination reform of "in the name of imperial examinations and the truth of filial piety and honesty" was good. Emperor Taizong consciously constrained people's thinking in stereotyped articles and wanted to change them.

and then?
The most classic example is the exam in Shanxi that year.

At first glance, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the content of the cited questions.

Said: Those who have bean millet may not be enough for poultry and fish, and those who have poultry and fish may not be enough for bean millet.

Yi said: Japan and China are the city, to the people of the world.Gather the world's goods, trade and retreat, each gets his own place, and takes all the food.

In the former dynasty, the Portuguese from Western Yi took Macao as their city and imported...

The general idea is that, "Yi" said that because of the emergence of social division of labor, exchanges have emerged, and exchanges have emerged in order to realize that those who have millet may not be as good as poultry and fish, and those who have poultry and fish may not be as good as bean millet. profit.

Then, try to analyze the Portuguese trade in Macau and its influence on this dynasty.

It seems that there is nothing wrong with this topic, and it highlights Dashun's sense of openness.

Then, a group of scholars in small villages and small counties, do you know where Macau is?Do you know what the trade between Macau and Dashun is?

On the contrary, the big families, gentry, and people in the official circle in big cities have their own money to socialize, and they discuss things thousands of miles away every day in the circle.Some grandfathers are officials in the capital, some relatives are government officials, and some run around in business.

How did a group of poor children who had to borrow books to study get into this circle?How do you know these things?They are not taught in official schools.

After this incident broke out, the officials in the court who originally opposed the imperial examinations to become filial and honest wrote a special article insulting: saying that it is so troublesome for you to select materials like this, why don't you just draw coconuts, lychees and longan on paper, ask these The children in Shanxi village, which one is coconut and which one is lychee?

This incident also led to the most powerful public opinion petition of the Northern Ancient Confucianism School, Yan Li School, etc., hoping to restore the ancient school system.

The ancient Confucian school publicly declared: the imperial court is the foundation of politics; schools are the foundation of talents, and without talents there is no political affairs!Talents are the foundation of politics, and schools are especially the foundation of talents.

The imperial court is required to set up official schools widely, and to borrow Wang Jinggong's three-shelf law. Anyway, there are precedents for good families in this dynasty, and they can be selected through school education.

In the end, "separate fasting teaching" was carried out.

Wenshizhai: lessons on rites, music, books, mathematics, astronomy, geography, etc.; Wubeizhai: lessons on the art of war of the Yellow Emperor, Taigong, Sun, and the five sons of Wu, as well as offensive and defensive, battalion, land and water warfare, archery, martial arts, etc. Subjects; Yi Neng Zhai: subjects such as water science, fire science, engineering, and mathematics; classics and history studio: subjects such as thirteen classics, history of successive dynasties, imperial system, chapters, poetry and prose.

Ideas are beautiful.

the reality is cruel.

The Li family thought for a while, and said that my school education, pension for the five battalion brothers and good family members, and the Wude Palace's three-shelf selection system have already made it impossible to support the finances.

He received 3000 million taels of silver a year, throwing out one-third of the military expenditure, throwing out one-third of the canals and the Yellow River, and guaranteeing the basic plate with variants and school-based selection.

You asked me to engage in national school education, as well as divide the meal...

Where is the money?your turn?Do you know how much hanging money the court can collect in a year now?
The emperor went straight back, and the Yan Li school also went back straight away.

No money, land reform!

If you can do well, you will get well; if you can't, you will be equal.

Not only the rural areas, but also the wells and balances, even the urban lands were also taken over by the government.

Yan Xizhai's closed disciple, Wang Kunsheng, was even more radical and proposed three proposals.

One is: Well fields and equal fields, the land is owned by the government, and taxes are paid by the mu, so that middlemen are not allowed to make the difference. Granted the land at the age of 15 and harvested it at the age of 60.

The second is: urban land is owned by the government, and the imperial court collects house taxes and rents.

The third is: merchants are taxed according to capital.If the tax payment is 2400 taels, he can be named Deng Shilang and given a nine-rank crown belt to honor his body and reward his meritorious service. The 2400 taels of tax went up and gradually increased, from Deng Shilang all the way to Tongzhilang and Chengyilang of the sixth and fifth grades.

The court of Dashun looked at the suggestion of the Yan Li school, and thought that I still want to live a few more years, forget it... Isn't this bullshit?

Whose top-down reform can make such a change?Can this be changed?
Under the reform, the imperial examinations can change many magics, and the land needs to be changed?

If you have the ability, you can pull the pole and form a team to do it yourself. Anyway, the court can't do it.

Originally, the Yan-Li School had a good reputation, but as soon as this radical idea came out, it immediately fell into a crisis of public opinion.

Someone carefully read the articles of the Yan-Li School, saying that the Yan-Li School not only understands ghosts, but also emphasizes profit, and also clearly said such words as fraternity and universal love. This is not Confucianism.

Our Confucian criticism of Song and Ming Neo-Confucianism is our own internal matter, but outsiders cannot get involved.

In addition, Yan Xizhai's mouth is indeed... smelly.

It is said that Confucian scholars are now a bunch of sissies. Since the Song Dynasty, Confucianism has been de-masculinized, and they have all learned to be women.Those who can do "nothing to do, talk about their hearts, and die to repay the king" are the top and the best among the motherfuckers. How can you expect them to be able to do business?

White-faced scholars, white-faced scholars, regard white noodles as their beauty, but they don't have the strategy of the world, the talents of soldiers, farmers, etiquette and music, they are as soft and fragile as women, and they have no bold and suave aura, and they are eunuchs...

It is conceivable that if this is not criticized, it will be hell.

After this incident, the Yan-Li School focused their energy on one thing: to demonstrate that we are also Confucianists, we are definitely not some pre-Qin Xianxue taking advantage of criticism of Song and Ming Neo-Confucianism to counterattack, we are really Confucianism too.

The main energy of the follow-up disciples is also to complete the world view of the school, and eliminate elements such as ghosts and heavy profits.

Such as Cheng Tingzuo, etc., are busy changing the face of Jianai into Panai, supplementing the world view, etc.

A similar story is that Newton did not dare to publicly declare his opposition to the Trinity all his life, and some manuscripts could not be published until after his death.

Generally speaking, the ideas of these ancient Confucianism are utopian, and they are the most standard utopian petty bourgeoisie, because the supporting policies that sound good to them are completely reactionary.

Many things sound beautiful, but upon closer inspection, they are attempts to restore the old means of production and means of exchange, thereby restoring the old ownership relations and the old society, or attempting to force modern means of production and means of exchange back into the They break through and must be broken through the old frame of ownership relations.In short, the patriarchal economy in agriculture and the guild system in industry.

It is impossible for the Dashun court to have such a theoretical basis to deny the proposal of this school.

Just purely from an administrative point of view, I think this idea is pure nonsense.

It is absolutely impossible to change it from top to bottom, and such a change will cause chaos in the world.

This is because he is afraid that he will not be able to become Wang Mang.

And after this turmoil, Dashun's imperial examination reform has become a scar that he dare not touch easily.

In the past 20 years, with the rise of real learning, the emperor now thinks that he can completely suppress and grasp it, but he also has to think about what will happen to the next generation of sons after his death.

Dashun has no money to carry out a national school system reform, because it does not worry about the shortage but the inequality, so it must be reformed in an all-round way or not.

There is no such shackles in the promotion of practical learning by folk forces like Liu Yu, because it is clearly stated that learning this stuff cannot be subject to imperial examinations, and the imperial court does not recognize it as learning.

Either enter the navy or go to the colonies. In any case, the existing cakes cannot be cut. The people who got on the car before have welded the door to death.

If you have the ability, go outside and make a big cake.

The choice before the emperor is to expand outwards and provide more channels for the cake that is not the original cake, otherwise something will happen.

Dashun admired Li Tang and Li Tang all day long.

If you admire him, you will get everything from him.

The promotion channel in the army is monopolized by the Liangjiazi of the old fifth battalion who are not regarded as Guanlong nobles.

The promotion channel of the imperial examination is basically monopolized by the big family, especially the previous reform of the imperial examination, which makes it too difficult for poor families to give birth to noble sons.

Originally, there were single-plank bridges everywhere, and there were more and more people on the bridge, and now there is an additional knowledge, and this knowledge is practical, and it is really lethal.

In the end of the Tang Dynasty, there was no ascending channel at the bottom. How many people gathered to go to the rebels during the Anshi Rebellion?
In the end, the one who buried Datang was also a hopeless scholar in this life.

Now Dashun's many policies are all about drinking poison to quench thirst.

For example, there is no age limit for the imperial examination. A group of people in their 40s and [-]s have taken the exam for so long, so they can only be properly given some "degrees" and some hope.

But this is basically drinking poison to quench thirst. There are more and more educated people, so how can there be so many official vacancies?

And the external expansion in these years seems to be drinking poison to quench thirst, but it has indeed solved many problems.

First-rate talents go to the Academy of Sciences; second-rate talents go to the navy, artillery, and engineering; third-rate talents go to industry, commerce, and colonies;

Just like the two people lying on the ground in front of them, those who have sprung up in the past few years are basically people who have studied new knowledge.

It's okay for them to say that their backgrounds are all in the old cake system, they just studied some new knowledge.

Liu Yu used to be humble with the emperor before, saying that he was a middle-of-the-road person only because he was close to the water and got the moon first, and the third-rate level also crushed the old second-rate talents in the past. The emperor originally only regarded it as modesty.

But judging from the situation in the past few years, I found that this is not modesty at all, but a fact.

Although this fact is essentially the power of capital:

All the things that have sprung up in the past few years are all in places where capital has already flowed.And to make political achievements, you have to get in touch with some new knowledge to understand how to improve your political achievements to the greatest extent.

However, seeing the essence through the phenomenon is a difficult technology, at least for now, it is difficult.

The phenomenon that the emperor saw was that the competent officials who had sprung up in the past few years, those with outstanding achievements, were all proficient in practical learning, and understood various theories and logics in new learning, including capital, land rent, and interest.

These phenomena made the emperor feel the crisis sensitively.

But beyond crisis, there is also opportunity.

The emperor seized the opportunity and thought of how to balance, how to control, and how to take advantage of the situation to strengthen the imperial power.

He will rely on the constraints of imperial power to create two governments.

Through imperial power, the two governments were fused.

He wants to engage in the extension of the inner court.

One government is the traditional six-government cabinet, which is also in charge of traditional affairs in Kinai.

The other government, which was gradually established, does not occupy the quota in the country, is not under the control of the cabinet of the six governments, and is controlled by the emperor.

Including Southern Jiangsu, Nanyang, Ezo, Whale Sea, Trade with Japan, Western Trade, Western Regions, Northern Jiangsu after the Huaihe River was repaired, banks, navy, Privy Council, reformed salt administration, mining, and the Southwest region to be dealt with now .

Through the supreme imperial power, as the head of the two governments, regulate the funds and power of the two governments to achieve a balance.

This is the solution Li Gan left for his son, and he has been trying to change it in this direction over the years.

Use Confucian bureaucrats to frighten capital; use capital to frighten gentry.The imperial power acts as the transcendent mediator, the entity of abstract national power.

The reform in Jinai ended in northern Jiangsu and Yanzheng.If it goes further down, you can't move, just keep it as it is.

Externally, we must continue to expand externally without using the funds and strength of the cabinets of the six governments as much as possible, and ensure enough radish pits for those new radishes.

However, the emperor understood that such a change required teaching his son a very important thing.

That is, how to ensure the absolute centralization and rule of the second government, and let the people of the six governments continue to talk about it. As long as the interests of industry and commerce, the navy, and the South and the West are pinched, there will be money, people and power.

And how can we firmly grasp the power of the second government?Instead of being fooled and foolishly giving up all these powers and wealth?
Of course, some people must "walk with themselves" when they walk by themselves in the future.

But that's not the point.

The point is, can the prince learn all this now?

Can you hold the power of the second government, or the power of the inner court that has been stretched out so easily, like yourself, and control it?
Can you understand that only when you have money, soldiers and food in your hands can you stand upright in the cabinets of the six governments?

I can understand that Dashun is now following the Han Dynasty model. Liu Yu, the navy, and industrial and commercial monopoly are all extensions of the inner court, and they do not belong to the outer court government at all, nor should they belong to the outer court government. Can't you hand it over?
Can understand that the selection of good family and practical students is the Langguan system, which is used to restrict the imperial examination. It must be made through the cake of official shortage and by shaping the two completely different economic bases. One is based on land rent and the other is based on overseas business. Is the contradiction so that the imperial power can arbitrate?
The prince read the history books and understood that the inner court officials continued to become the outer court officials, so he had to set up new inner court officials to restrict the outer court, so as to guarantee the imperial power?

The crown prince studies practical knowledge, and understands that Liu Yu and others who have risen in the past 20 years are actually the new inner court officials?Can you understand that these official positions must never be held by imperial examination officials?

In other words, because of the eunuch problem of the former dynasty and the idea of ​​female officials who founded the country in Dashun, special marginalized people had to be used.

Qie Diao is a marginal person.

Those who do not study Confucianism are also marginalized.

In the past 20 years, the emperor has taken back the most important financial rights-the land tax belongs to the government, the industrial and commercial tax and the monopoly fee belong to the Shaofu, which is really the essence of chasing the Han.

To be an emperor, you need to understand that there can be a prime minister for the affairs of the outer court, and even after the Indian land tax is taken down in the future, the affairs of the outer court can be ministered at will.

The prime minister doesn't care about Nanyang, business, southern, southern, northern, western and Indian affairs, and the internal affairs can be tossed in the same old way. Anyway, the old internal system can almost work without the emperor, and the emperor can focus on grasping the inner court.

We must hold the affairs of the inner court firmly in our hands and not let them go.If you are really fooled into being fooled and take away the new inner court that has been built with great difficulty in the past 20 years, then what will you rely on?
Li Gan thought it was easy to control and never give up.

But I am afraid that the prince will either completely abandon it or lose control.

Dashun cannot reuse eunuchs, and it is destined that the prince must train his team from an early age, if the prince succeeds to the throne and does not want to be really a loner.

Therefore, the emperor wanted to send the prince's people to follow Liu Yu to southern Jiangsu to practice and learn the skills in this area.

And now, people from the prince's side are also needed to go to southern Sichuan.

He wants to hear what the prince thinks of this matter after witnessing all this.

To determine whether this son understands, understands, and whether he can survive in the future.

You only need to listen to the prince's attitude towards this matter, and you will understand.

(End of this chapter)