Emperor Ming's grandson

Chapter 53 Conflict between Master and Servant
Later, Zhu Xiongying gave away the six antique radio stations and hand-operated generators that he had recently collected. He didn't have much money left on hand, so he could only accept these. As for more goods, he had to wait. He could collect all the paintings and calligraphy only after selling them at auction for money.

Looking at these newly delivered radio stations, Zhu Yuanzhang, who had already experienced the convenience of efficient communication, was naturally overjoyed.

After delivering the antique radio station, Zhu Xiongying remembered two more things. He opened the memo on his phone and said.

"Grandpa, I asked the teacher about the two problems that troubled you last time. The first one was about the power of the prime minister."

------

Ming Dynasty, Zhongshan.

Zhu Yuanzhang and the palace bachelors a little further away, such as Wang Jing, Dong Lun and others, were listening attentively to the words coming from the yin and yang sea.

"It is precisely because the Ming Dynasty relied on agriculture for its economy, and then relied on these landlords and gentry, that it could never suppress the civil servant group represented by the Prime Minister?"

Zhu Yuanzhang murmured to himself, pacing back and forth with his hands behind his back.

It’s not that he didn’t understand this principle, but the problem was that in Zhu Yuanzhang’s blueprint for the Ming Dynasty, the Ming Dynasty was to build a large rural society. Zhu Yuanzhang’s vision was the so-called “the ancient sage kings are above, and the fields are far apart, and the chickens are far apart.” Dogs hear each other, and people do not interact with each other until they grow old and die, so they are self-sufficient."

In other words, the more small-scale peasant economy and the more self-sufficient it is, the more in line with Zhu Yuanzhang's vision. For this reason, he even ordered the demolition of large hydraulic spinning wheels that affected agricultural water use and facilitated the development of handicraft industry.

Is Zhu Yuanzhang stupid? Of course he is not stupid. There is a reason why he does this and why he is committed to building a large rural society.

First, "Zhu Chongba", who was born as a farmer, knew that for all those who had experienced the war at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, being safe and having a full stomach was the greatest blessing. Others were ranked behind. In addition, the war destroyed society. In terms of economic order, only by attaching importance to agriculture and taking agriculture as the first priority can the agricultural country of the Ming Empire restore order and prosper in just a dozen years, because agriculture can produce food, and food will bring stability. No matter how much cloth the handicraft industry produces, it cannot be used for food.

The second is that for "Zhu Yuanzhang" who rules the world as an emperor, what he needs is a low-risk and stable ruling order. Low-risk means that he needs to try less new things, because the family foundation of the Ming Dynasty is not strong. , couldn't afford to bother, so Zhu Yuanzhang chose the Song Dynasty, which could learn from historical experience, that is, the idea of ​​​​the king and the scholar-bureaucrats co-ruling the world. Under this idea, the king does not need to face the peasants directly. In fact, a stable pyramid structure of king-scholar-official-peasant is formed, which is sharp at the top and thick at the bottom. The gradual waist-tightening link of scholar-official-peasant is like mountain climbing and can be carried out. Class crossing and mobility, that is, through the imperial examination system, farmers can also be promoted to the scholar-bureaucrat class. This is the so-called "Being a farmer in the morning and ascending to the emperor's hall in the evening". In the Ming Dynasty, these people were not called scholar-bureaucrats. They were usually called scholar-bureaucrats. Called a gentry.

The benefits of this model are obvious. Through the involution between peasants and gentry, the emperor can sit firmly on the throne and overlook them from above without being threatened. However, there are also disadvantages, that is, in this ruling order, due to the gentry, They were all promoted from peasants, and the gentry themselves were landlords, controlled the land's means of production, and owned a large number of tenant farmers, so they actually controlled the economic foundation of the Ming Dynasty.

When the gentry controls the economy, in order to expand their own interests, they will annex land to create conflicts between man and land, and strive to pay less or even no taxes. Since all civil servants are gentry, even if they are farmers, they will soon become new The gentry, so all emperors will face the dilemma of Zhu Yuanzhang - the civil servants are greedy and slippery. He kills batch after batch, but he can never finish them, and he is fearless in going forward and succeeding.

This also means that under traditional thinking, the power of the prime minister can never disappear unless Zhu Yuanzhang completely overthrows the ruling order of the Ming Dynasty and resets it. Is this possible? If he really did this, the Ming Dynasty would soon be at war. After all, this was equivalent to offending all the landowners in the world, and Zhu Yuanzhang himself was actually the largest landowner. "Isn't it the king's land in the world?"

Therefore, to overthrow the existing ruling order is to overthrow himself.

This was exactly where Zhu Yuanzhang was helpless, and these truths were also understood by Wang Jing, Dong Lun and other great scholars as gentry.

But it is useless to understand, because under the existing ruling order, this is an unsolvable problem. If you want to eliminate the power of the prime minister, you must change the overall ruling order and economic foundation, otherwise it cannot be changed at all.

After Wang Jing and Dong Lun looked at each other, they concluded that the teacher Shengsun asked must be an expert, maybe the prime minister of which dynasty was staying in the underworld. Fang Xuanling, Yao Chong, Pei Du, Zhao Pu, Lu Duan , Fan Zhongyan, Wang Anshi, who knows?
But that's all.

After all, this is an unsolvable problem that has never been solved.

But then, the words that came out from the Yin Yang Qi Sea made Dong Lun and Wang Jing instantly change their expressions!
"The teacher said that the contradiction between imperial power and prime minister power can be transformed into the contradiction between master and servant."

(End of this chapter)