Imperial Master of the Ming Dynasty

The door was pushed open.

In the winter in Nanjing, Hu Jima was wearing a dark blue cotton robe. A few strands of silver hair with a slight curvature struggled to escape from the bottom of the hat on his forehead and then jumped to the sky, showing a bit of inexplicable comedy. .

But when anyone sees his tall and sharp aquiline nose and the deep nasolabial wrinkles at the corners of his mouth, they will subconsciously feel that this person is definitely not a kind person.

"Is there any coke here?"

Jiang Xinghuo sat on a chair, holding a knife for cutting paper in his hand, and asked Hu Jiya who was standing in front of him without raising his head.

Although the Ming Dynasty did not have the habit of conferring dukes or marquises to foreign descendants, and Hu Jishen did not have a title in the Ming Dynasty. He is currently only a scholar who participated in the compilation of the "Yongle Dadian" as a scholar, but the metaphor is the same. .

Looking at the expression and movements of the young man in front of him, Hu Jisao seemed to feel the indifference of not letting strangers in, but he still grinned his lips, and the white beard on his lower jaw trembled along with it, and seemed to be exposed He made some humble prayers. A gesture that should not appear on him, like an old tiger and leopard bending down with all their strength before hunting. This is not bending the knee, but accumulating strength.

"In the great country of China, rituals and music are prosperous. Although it is a bit uncomfortable to revisit the old place, it is ultimately enjoyable."

Jiang Xinghuo put down the paper knife without hesitation. He looked past the slightly shaking pen holder and looked at Hu Jima's face.

"Old sir, please sit down."

Hu Jisha lifted the hem of his blue cotton robe and leaned comfortably on the chair opposite Jiang Xinghuo, with his hands on his knees. At first he wanted to tap twice, but then he seemed to realize something. Then he stopped this habitual little action.

Jiang Xinghuo smiled noncommittally and said just now: "I heard from Mr. Rong Guo that when the old gentleman was in Annan Kingdom, he also carried out a series of reforms in the country, with successes and failures, but he also has some experience. This time The president's reform affairs yamen, firstly, wanted to seek explanations from the vice president about participating in the revision of the "Yongle Dadian", and secondly, he wanted to see how the Ming Dynasty was reformed."

"Yes, please give me some advice from Master Jiang."

The grammatical structure of the Annan people is not much different from that of the Ming Dynasty, but there are some slight differences in the specific naming habits.

It is also worth mentioning that the Annan people’s systematization of Chinese characters was promoted by the former emperor.

Jiang Xinghuo didn't know whether the other party did it intentionally or unintentionally, but it didn't matter, because no matter how Hu Jisao tried to take the initiative in small details to make himself look less embarrassed, there was an obvious fact. But he can't change it.

——He is the king of subjugation.

In the land of Ming Dynasty, he neither has nor can he ever have the honor and power of the past.

Therefore, all his pretense seemed like a paper tiger in front of Jiang Xinghuo.

As a political animal with an inner desire for power that is always ready to move, Hu Jishen must be trying to get something from Jiang Xinghuo. It may not necessarily be actual benefits, but it may also be through snooping, guessing, and inferring some of the Ming Dynasty temples. Otherwise, there would be no need for him to come here, and he would just take the opportunity to come to Xie Jin to ask about work matters.

Jiang Xinghuo simply pointed out his idea of ​​retreating in order to advance, and said: "To be honest, we know very little about Annan's domestic reforms, so let's talk about Annan first."

"Since Yuzong abandoned the country and ignored it."

After listening to the beginning, Jiang Xinghuo already roughly understood that this was an Annan version of the story of Wanli → Apocalypse → Chongzhen.

In short, Chen Yuzong, who was hiding in the harem, did not see the day when the Chen Dynasty was overthrown. But after him, Annan Kingdom's political principles gradually deteriorated, and the country's power declined greatly. Although Annan Kingdom could not compare with the semi-slavery society of Luzon Kingdom, , but it also has the characteristics of slavery and feudalism coexisting, so as the conflicts between slaves, commoners and nobles intensified, civil upheavals occurred one after another.

Because Hu Jiya repelled Peng'e's attack and changed the offensive and defensive momentum of the Annan Kingdom and the Champa Kingdom, he was reused by Chen Yizong and was worshiped as Pingzhang, an important military officer. This was a man from the Song and Yuan Dynasties. The official position was abolished in the early Ming Dynasty and was approximately equal to the prime minister.

In order to save Annan State's national power and quell internal unrest, Hu Jishen led Annan State to carry out a series of reforms in the more than 20 years before and after usurping the throne.

The effects of these reforms, some were good, some were a mess, were eventually completely interrupted by the Ming army's conquest. With Chen Tianping's restoration of the country, some were overthrown and started over, basically returning to the barriers of the old system.

This is due to the fact that the Ming Dynasty did not allow the emergence of a powerful Annan Kingdom that had long-standing reforms, and it was also due to the fact that Annan Kingdom’s conservative forces were too strong and eager to return everything to the old track.

But in any case, the failure of Annan's reform was obviously inseparable from Jiang Xinghuo.

But as the saying goes, stones from other mountains can attack jade, so it doesn't hurt to have a calm chat now. Maybe we can learn something useful from the other party's experience and lessons.

Hu Jishen clearly observed that Jiang Xinghuo in front of him remained silent most of the time even when he was talking. However, he was careful and noticed that when he mentioned During certain policies, the brightness of his eyes was always more obvious than usual, as if he was hiding some indescribable emotion.

After listening to Hu Jiyou's narration, Jiang Xinghuo took a long breath and gave his evaluation.

“Education policy is first-rate, administrative policy is second-rate, and economic policy is third-rate.”

Hearing this evaluation, Hu Jisao must have been unconvinced at the moment of his first reaction, but he was very deep-seated and did not show it. After all, people have to bow their heads under the eaves.

Emperor Annan is now Li Jinglong, not you Hu Jiya.

There is nothing to say about education policy. Hu Jishou has always been committed to cultivating his own officials, and spent 20 to 30 years placing his disciples and former officials in various positions. This group of people is exactly what he can do. The most powerful supporter who can seek to usurp the country.

At the same time, in terms of the content of the imperial examination, in order to adapt to the increasingly prosperous business in Annan, after the usurpation of the country, Hu Jima added an arithmetic test to the imperial examination. At the same time, he also removed a large amount of memorization and memorization content in the imperial examination and used it to discuss politics It was replaced by policies and articles. Because Hu Jishan himself hated the red tape in Neo-Confucianism and believed that it was of no benefit to the country or politics.

"The officials trained by the Ming Dynasty's current imperial examination system lacked basic governance abilities. Moreover, according to Lao Lao's observations along the way, extravagance is particularly prevalent in the upper and lower ranks, even worse than in Annan."

Hu Jishen's evaluation sounds very rude, but in fact it is quite objective.

And this kind of evaluation that revealed part of his true thoughts undoubtedly also made the conversation between the two less superficial.

"The gentry was the leading force in the Ming Dynasty."

Jiang Xinghuo didn't say much, but this sentence was enough.

The gentry were the real rulers of the Ming Dynasty. Although the Yongle New Deal led by Jiang Xinghuo had stimulated and weakened the power of the gentry class in all aspects, especially the Jiangnan gentry class, in this ancient country, apart from the military aristocrats and their Among the emperors he supported, there was still no one who could truly compete with the gentry. Even Jiang Xinghuo, if his power was essentially derived from the imperial power supported by military power.

But military aristocrats cannot rule the world. Under this power paradox, the vast majority of civil officials are from gentry, and if one group is killed, the next group will follow.

The reason why this situation occurs is because of the imperial examination system. The imperial examination system is like a filter, allowing batch after batch of scholars to change from civilians to officials, and the mesh of the filter treats everyone equally. This makes the originally fair examination, to a certain extent, less fair because it costs a lot of money to buy or rent books, and the cost of going to school without work is also not something that an ordinary farmer family can completely afford.

So far, apart from increasing the content of Xunzi's theory to one-fifth of the total number of questions in the imperial examination, Jiang Xinghuo has not taken action against the imperial examination system, because this will directly violate the fundamental interests of the gentry class. If Jiang Xinghuo is not fully sure, Jiang Xinghuo will We will not act rashly.

In addition, the Science Department was added to the Imperial College to slowly promote science, and the newly built Daming Administrative School was used to train officials in rotation. The three-shelter method was used to provide all-round funding to students in the school, in an attempt to gradually transform the modern society. Some education systems have formed a three-legged situation. After 20 to 30 years of development, the official system has been slowly replaced.

However, this kind of education reform that boils frogs in warm water, in the opinion of Hu Ji-sao, who has already had successful experience, is undoubtedly constrained and the results are too slow.

Hu Jishen was also a little speechless. Although he didn't think much of Jiang Xinghuo's minor improvements to the education system, what should I say? Ming Dynasty had its own national conditions. Coupled with Ming Dynasty's land and population, it was almost a dozen Times, twenty times that of Annan State, and the difficulty of reform increased exponentially, so he put himself in Jiang Xinghuo's position and thought about it, and he also understood the difficulties of the other party.

Jiang Xinghuo also saw the other party's emotions.

As the Prime Minister → Emperor → Supreme Emperor of a country, Hu Jiyou has always stood at the top of power. He has lived in the world for decades, so he naturally has a sense of arrogance. Now that the country has been destroyed, he has been reduced to the status of a commoner in a foreign country who relies on others. The feeling in his heart There may be a lot of anger and resentment, but it's just not expressed on the surface.

"Jiang Guoshi believes that Annan's policy reform is second-rate. I feel that Jiang Guoshi's reform pace is too small."

Sure enough, there is only one kind of right, but there are infinite equal parts of left.

Seeing that the former Emperor Annan had a hint of dissatisfaction, Jiang Xinghuo smiled happily.

That's right, we are all human beings, why do we want to be so deep in the city? Why don't we just jump to this step?

Of course Jiang Xinghuo knew that the other party was not looking for trouble, but wanted to use this reasonable excuse to understand the intentions and trends of the Ming reformists, so as to feel how deep the pool of water in the Ming temple was.

Obviously, the old guy is still evil-minded and has a terrible ambition and desire for power. Even if he becomes a surrender, he still does not forget to study whether he can become a superior man again in the Ming Dynasty.

How should I put it? This kind of person is quite scary.

Think about it, if it were someone else who worked for a lifetime and finally sought to usurp the country, but was ruined by the Ming Dynasty's southern expedition, and was captured by the Ming Dynasty, how could he adjust his mentality and regain his independence in such a short period of time? Have you planned your future? Without even thinking about it, it must be impossible. Either the heart is filled with hatred or self-pity.

Hu Jishen, on the other hand, does not need any psychological massage at all. When he arrived in a foreign country, the first thing he did after changing his identity was to take the initiative to contact high-level politicians in the foreign country through reasonable excuses to understand the situation in the temple and whether he would be a good person. Take the next step to gather information for decision-making.

However, when the conversation between the two gradually entered a more substantive stage, Jiang Xinghuo's words were no longer so polite.

"The pace of reform is not that bigger is better. I have here a few letters from the newly appointed Chief Envoy and Advocate General of Cochin. I can't show them to you, but it doesn't hurt to talk about them."

Following Jiang Xinghuo's words, Hu Jima's expression slowly became serious, and the undetectable trace of dissatisfaction in his eyes gradually converged until it disappeared without a trace.

Hu Ji-mo's administrative policy reform is actually something that he has always been proud of.

Take the land system for example. During the Chen Dynasty, the emperor of the Chen Dynasty enfeoffed a large amount of land to the clan and cronies. These nobles recruited and purchased a large number of slaves, predatoryly reclaimed wasteland and established manors. However, Hu Jishen made the land state-owned. , restrict land grabs, confiscate the land of the previous princes and nobles, no one's land should exceed ten acres, and the excess land will be confiscated for violators. Only those who are crowned kings or eldest princesses, that is, members of the Hu family's royal family, can have no rights. In addition to restricting land ownership, various roads, prefectures, prefectures, and county officials were ordered to set up land surveying agencies. People who own land must go to the agency to register the amount of land, write their names on a board, and insert it on the All fields without registration information will be confiscated as public fields.

This kind of reform of the land system can only be said to be one-size-fits-all, or it is cut with a forty-meter-long sword, which is very ruthless.

Moreover, the Annan Kingdom has remnants of slavery. This remnant of slavery is somewhat similar to the Sui and Tang Dynasties in China. The laws of the Chen Dynasty at that time stipulated that the royal family, princes and nobles had the right to support as many as a thousand domestic slaves. Most of these domestic slaves They were all discriminated against and engaged in heavy manual labor. House slaves had no right to sue their masters and were prohibited from marrying civilians.

After Hu Jiyou usurped the country, he revised the relevant laws, stipulating that except for a very small number of people who could raise a small number of domestic slaves, others were prohibited from raising domestic slaves, which had the meaning of the Tang Dynasty and Sui Dynasties.

In addition to the two major areas of land and population, Hu Jisao also carried out reforms in administrative divisions, converting some roads in remote areas into towns. For example, Qinghua Town was changed to Qingdu Town, Guowei Town was changed to Guangwei Town, Tuojiang Road was changed to Tianxing Town, Yanzhou Road was changed to Wangjiang Town, etc. At the same time, military attachés were dispatched to rule these remote towns.

In addition, for local governments, local officials who opposed the reform were replaced, and local governments were required to regularly submit to the Eastern Capital the books recording the fields and cases under their jurisdiction.

But it is precisely these things that he has done and been proud of in the past ten years that in just a few months have ushered in a violent counterattack that he could not have imagined.

In the report of the newly established Chief Envoy of Cochin, the most mentioned things were civil land disputes and the large number of free people who wanted to become slaves again.

Obviously, the shortcomings of the administrative reforms carried out by Hu Jishan quickly emerged after losing the constraints of power, and it was like a spring that had been squeezed for too long. The harder it was squeezed, the harder it rebounded. It was so strong that the energy that burst out at this moment could even fly away those who were pressed against it.

After hearing about the situation of the current Chief Envoy of Cochin, that is, the original northern roads in Annan, Hu Jiyou did not feel that Jiang Xinghuo was lying to him because it was unnecessary.

After a moment of silence, Hu Ji Yao said again: "I heard that Master Jiang has a lot of research on the art of managing the country and benefiting the people. These days of bumpy travel, I just have time to reflect on it. I hope Jiang Guoshi can give me some guidance on all the incomprehensible things. .”

This time, Hu Jiyou began to let go of his arrogance.

Jiang Xinghuo recognized his education policy, but also disagreed with the reform of his administrative policy. In the Ming Dynasty version of the reform process, Hu Jishen more or less had some sense of superiority from the "bystander" , or in essence, he is an extremely proud person.

But regarding economic policy, judging from his own reflection, there are indeed some shortcomings.

But Hu Jisha also didn't think that what Jiang Xinghuo did in Ming Dynasty must be better than his own.

The reason is also very simple. Judging from the reforms in education and administration, Hu Jisha changed himself to Jiang Xinghuo's position, thinking that he could do better than Jiang Xinghuo.

This comparison did not occur on the surface, but only existed in Hu Ji-sao's heart. On the surface, he was still the calm old fox.

And the confrontation between the two people, overtly and covertly, was also a bit over the top.

There is no winner or loser, no referee, it all depends on your own heart.

But in general, according to the rumors he learned, Hu Jishen did not really recognize Jiang Xinghuo's ability. He just believed that he could win the favor of the Supreme, and he was pushed to this position at the right time.

After all, Jiang Xinghuo didn't give him much to convince him just now.

And if Jiang Xinghuo cannot reverse his judgment, it is obvious that Hu Jishou is not very optimistic about the Ming Dynasty's reformists and believes that sooner or later, they will suffer a complete defeat.

Jiang Xinghuo pondered for a moment and said: "According to what I just heard, Annan's domestic economic policies should be classified into two categories, one is monetary policy and the other is commercial policy, right?"

"yes."

Hu Jiyou nodded.

In fact, Hu Jishen's reform measures look the same as those of many dynasties in China. They have good original intentions and are quite similar.

For example, Hu Jiya's monetary policy. In order to strengthen the court's control over the economy, Hu Jiya imitated the Ming Dynasty's treasure banknotes and forcibly issued a banknote called "Tongbaohui banknote" eight years ago to exchange for private copper coins. The face value ranges from ten coins, thirty coins to consistent (one thousand coins). At the same time, Hu Jishou ordered that all people must exchange copper coins for consistent two-bao banknotes at the exchange rate of consistent two-bao banknotes. If they are not convinced, that is Anyone who dares to forge banknotes or hide copper coins without exchanging them will be directly beheaded and their land and property will be confiscated.

What do you say about this monetary policy?

I can only say that it was an eye-opener for the Mongols to come.

After Hu Jishen's persistent efforts, Annan's economy was already close to bankruptcy before Tongbaohui banknotes were completely circulated across the country.

There is no doubt that Hu Jiyou learned this treasure money from Lao Zhu.

How should I put it? It’s the economy. Sometimes the policy promoters don’t understand the economy, and the final results can only be said to be very different.

This point actually has nothing to do with whether the person has political wisdom and superb skills in doing things, and it can be said to be negatively related. The more scheming and power-savvy people engage in economics with only a little knowledge, they will get results. It could get worse.

Is Lao Zhu awesome enough? what's the result?

In addition, when it comes to commercial policy, it is not that Hu Jiya has not carried out commercial reforms. He ordered the unification of weights and measures across the country, established municipal supervisors in various markets across the country, closely monitored the illegal behavior of merchants, and unified the commercial tax for foreign merchant ships. At the same time, he also committed to Improve trade routes, open canals and build official roads across the country, and set up post stations along the way.

However, all these factors still caused Annan's economy to collapse.

This has also been a doubt that Hu Jisha has always had. When he was in Annan, he could still find some excuses, but when he came to Daming in person and revisited his old place here, Hu Jisha discovered that what he had done in economic policy Everything he did seemed to be on the wrong track, and he didn't quite understand the various economic policies newly promulgated by the Ming Dynasty.

It is for this reason that Hu Jisao paid this visit today.

“So, issuing or replacing currency, no reserves?”

"Have you not investigated the price level and economic volume before formulating national economic policies?"

"How do you control the total amount of currency issuance? Is it based on the growth rate of the national economy?"

A series of questions quickly silenced Hu Ji Yaqian.