Imperial Master of the Ming Dynasty

"Since you ministers have no doubts about the 'change without change' of the reform, the last topic is 'how to change' the reform." Dao Yan said calmly.

There is no fool here. Of course, I understand the meaning of "how to change" in Dao Yan's sentence. It is by no means an adjustment to the content of "Eight Strategies for Reform", but a question about where, when, and what to start the reform.

This is undoubtedly a rather troublesome matter.

Frightened by Zhu Di's tough attitude, some ministers, represented by Jian Yi, had to direct the question to the critical point of the reform, that is, "whether a new class can be supported."

Use this as a shield to euphemistically express disagreement.

But as Dao Yan took out Jiang Xinghuo's "Philosophical Correspondence: Alienation, New Nobles and the Psychoanalysis of All Classes in the Future Society of the Ming Dynasty", he had fully explained this and provided the opportunity for reform to break this. The key weapon of face shield.

However, some conservative ministers, or some who represent the interests of the gentry class, are still trying their best and using all their temple wisdom to solve various possible difficult problems and create some obstacles to the decision-making of further reforms.

Although they all knew that in the face of Emperor Yongle's strength, this was just a futile effort to express their attitude.

In fact, the reason why Dao Yan took action so decisively was.

It is to identify the balance of strength between the enemy and ourselves, and our own side has the most advantage at this time.

The reason why Dao Yan made this judgment is also very simple.

That's what Jiang Sheng once said.

"Because the Ming Dynasty cannot repeat the founding of the country and the Jingnan period forever, but it must repeat the imperial examination every three years."

The Battle of Jingnan has just ended a few months ago, which is the stage when the potential forces of the Gengfa faction are at their strongest.

The so-called potential Genghua faction here refers to, first of all, the noble class who are interested in allowing future generations to continue to gain military merit through Genghua in the vast overseas world.

The desire for military glory is not limited to the newly wealthy.

The new nobles in Jingnan definitely don’t want to have no battles to fight in the future, because there are still so many princes waiting to become dukes, and there are so many middle- and high-level officers waiting to be knighted and enter the aristocratic class.

But in addition to the new upstarts at Jingnan, the generals of the Southern Army, mainly the founders of Hongwu, who had suffered a complete defeat in the Battle of Jingnan, were also eager to rise again by gaining new military exploits.

Could it be that Li Jinglong, Xu Huizu, Ping An, Sheng Yong and other generals of the Southern Army were willing to bear the title of defeated generals for the rest of their lives? This is of course impossible.

It is impossible to fight for peace again. If they really want to conquer Mobei, I am afraid it will not be their turn to take credit. Going to sea to fight will be another new world for them.

The second one is the Northland civil servants who came from the vast small and medium-sized landlord class in the north.

There may be a doubt here, that is, why are they "small and medium-sized landowners"? The reason is that the north, especially the Youyun area, has experienced the Liao, Jin and Yuan dynasties for hundreds of years. Although the Han landlord class was the main force used by foreigners to rule the region, the continuity of the landlord class was very poor because the Han people As long as landlords become big, they will be targeted by alien regimes and suppressed.

In addition, foreign races have always had the habit of enclosing land. Whether it is the Khitans, Jurchens or Mongols, they all occupy a large number of fields in the north, leaving little land for Han landlords.

But correspondingly, the continuity of the small and medium-sized landowners in the north is very good. The aliens must use these local forces to rule the grassroots, and these local forces are unable to pose a threat to the aliens, so the aliens often adopt a "tax farming system" loose policies towards small and medium-sized landowners in the north.

Although civil servants in the north and those from the gentry class in the south were both landlords in their attributes, they were completely different in terms of interest orientation, value identity, and cultural orientation.

During the Jingnan period, what the Yan army relied on to maintain its rule in the occupied areas was precisely the bureaucratic system composed of northern civil servants from the small and medium-sized landlord class in the north.

As for the northern civil servants who have the merit of following the dragon, they naturally have temple demands that match them.

When King Yan was not the emperor, we could not enter the core of the imperial court. The imperial court was like "the Imperial Academy has many good waters, and the court officials are half of Jiangxi."

After King Yan became emperor, he couldn't end up being a civil servant from the gentry class in the south, serving as minister or minister, right?

Then didn’t we follow King Yan in rebellion for nothing?

It is precisely because Genghua can gain the support of these two classes that Daoyan has no intention of continuing to delay. He must pave the way for Genghua in advance before Jiang Sheng is released from prison after giving his last lecture. good.

"The old minister believes that if we make further changes, we must not spread the business all at once."

After several ministers briefly exchanged glances, "Tianguan" Jian Yi took the lead in speaking.

Zhu Di, who had made breakthrough progress, did not pursue the matter and try to directly finalize the changes. Instead, he grasped the relaxed rhythm of the national policy meeting and signaled Jian Yi to continue to express his views.

After all, the issue of "change without change" has been broken through. Now it is just a question of "how to change." Although it is also very important, it is definitely not as tense as before.

Jian Yi pondered for a moment, twisted his beard and said slowly: "The Song Dynasty and the Ming Dynasty are not the same thing, and Song Shenzong is completely incomparable to your Majesty. If the Ming Dynasty is determined to change its methods to become stronger, then the first thing is to slow down and not repeat it. Follow the same path as Wang Anshi’s political reform.”

"What I want to say here is that as a teacher who never forgets the past and the future, the most important thing to learn from the Ming Dynasty is the recent reform of Wang Anshi. Wang Anshi was too hasty."

Hearing this, Xia Yuanji, Zheng Ci, and Li Zhigang all nodded in agreement, regardless of whether they supported the reform in their hearts or were speculative in the temple.

The Ming Dynasty wanted to carry out reforms, and Wang Anshi's reforms in the Northern Song Dynasty were a hurdle that could not be bypassed!

Because this is the closest national reform to the Ming Dynasty and the greatest reference significance!

Therefore, carefully finding the hidden pits in Wang Anshi's reform and avoiding Ming Dynasty stepping into it is the most important part of Ming Dynasty's reform decision-making.

The reason why Wang Anshi's reform failed was because Wang Anshi could only rely on the emperor's trust to implement the reform, and the emperor's trust had a shelf life.

If the young emperor fails to see the results of the reform and the opposition continues to criticize the reform, his position will soon waver.

The opposition does not need to prove itself right because it has been that way for hundreds of years. Wang Anshi must prove that he is right, and he must prove it in a short time.

Wang Anshi knew exactly this, so all reform measures must be implemented vigorously and resolutely, and the results must be seen immediately.

What has the most immediate impact?

Of course it’s money from the treasury!

Therefore, the "reform" became a pressing target. In order to achieve the target, officials forced the people to borrow money from the government for young crops. If the money was not paid, they sold their children and married women. The money for exemption from military service became another additional regular gift.

And if officials are sympathetic to the people and refuse to do this, they will face the possibility that they will not be able to meet the targets set by Wang Anshi and will be dismissed from office and get out.

Therefore, many scholar-bureaucrats, such as Su Shi, became resistant to Wang Anshi's reform after seeing the distortion of the reform at the grassroots level. Su Shi certainly knew that the Song Dynasty should reform, but it should not be like this.

"Of course our Ming Dynasty must learn this lesson from Wang Anshi's reform." Zhu Di frowned and said: "But Wang Anshi doesn't know that the reform is eager for quick success and quick benefits, and in the end it will fail?"

"Know."

Dao Yan didn't want to continue arguing about Wang Anshi's reform, a topic that could last three days and three nights. What he wanted was to decide on the implementation of the reform at the highest decision-making level of the Ming Empire today.

Therefore, Daoyan only answered briefly.

"Song Shenzong said: People are also quite bitter after hearing about the new method."

"Wang Anshi said: Qi is cold, summer is raining, and the people still have complaints and complaints. How can I care about them?"

These two simple words suddenly made Zhu Gaoxu, who was standing behind the emperor and listening, feel cold in his heart.

Zhu Gaoxu thought to himself: "No wonder I secretly read history books these days. I saw that Wang Anshi's reputation was not good for hundreds of years after his death. History books say that the Northern Song Dynasty died due to Wang Anshi's reform. He knew that the people were suffering as a result of the reform, but turned a deaf ear. To succeed only for the sake of one's own reform is really to betray the trust of the emperor, to fail to help the ministers, and to betray the benevolence of the people."

Zhu Gaoxu couldn't help but sigh when he thought about Mr. Jiang who was also interested in changing the world.

"I heard from my third brother that my father intended to worship Mr. Jiang as his national teacher. Although Wang Anshi was called 'Master Chen' by Song Shenzong, he was still a teacher. Compared with Mr. Jiang, regardless of other things, he was just a benevolent person. This is far from enough for the people.”

Zhu Di didn't know that after his death, his foolish son was no longer Wu Xia Amon after being trained by Jiang Xinghuo.

Zhu Di just raised his head and asked Jian Yi: "Then according to Jian Qing, how can we slow down the changes in the Ming Dynasty?"

Jian Yi looked at the stern-looking emperor, and of course he understood that from the emperor's point of view, he hoped that the changes would be effective immediately.

Not to mention that the faster the better, to the extent of a hundred days and a hundred edicts, it must be said that in a year or two, we can see the increase in the national power of the Ming Dynasty.

But in fact, with Ming Dynasty’s current grassroots control capabilities and communication conditions, it may be difficult to convey all government orders in place, set up a governance organizational structure, and adapt measures to local conditions within a year or two.

And could Jian Yi directly tell the emperor that reforms must be calculated in units of ten or twenty years in order to achieve solid results?

cannot.

Because once such words were spoken, regardless of whether they were his estimate of the real situation in the future, the emperor would think that Jian Yi was using another method to oppose the implementation of the reform.

Therefore, Jian Yi was silent for a few breaths and could only say: "What the veteran said about slowing down is just like testing the effectiveness of chemical fertilizers at the large altar in the eastern suburbs. There should always be one or several experimental fields to cultivate new varieties first. See if it is acclimatized to the soil, see if it grows well, and then generalize."

What Jian Yi didn't see was that as soon as he heard his words, a trace of pride flashed in the emperor's eyes.