Chapter 12 It is impossible for Ming Dynasty to repeat its founding and peace forever

In fact, the ruling class of the Ming Dynasty was not completely ignorant of overseas knowledge.

On the contrary, due to the great conquest of the Mongol Empire, both the complete Eurasian land bridge and the intermittent maritime connections from the Yuan Dynasty to Malumuk have provided a new direction for the East-West trade that has lasted for thousands of years.

An opportunity to get to know each other.

Mongols, Semu people, Westerners, and Persians were all common in the south in the late Yuan Dynasty.

Therefore, the top brass of the Ming Dynasty were fully aware of the huge profits from maritime trade.

Zhu Di was very aware that the resistance to lifting the maritime ban stemmed not only from Zhu Yuanzhang's ancestral precepts, but more importantly, the court was worried that overseas trade would drive farmers away from the land, thus causing instability in Ming society.

To put it bluntly, the first thing to be lost when the maritime ban was lifted was the interests of the Ming gentry, with civil servants as their spokespersons.

How to combat the gentry’s resistance to maritime trade?

Zhu Di took a deep breath and waited for Jiang Xinghuo to show him the path hidden in the fog.

Jiang Xinghuo calmed down his thoughts and said slowly.

"You also know that since the late Song Dynasty, there have been many 'scholar-officials' in the local area. They own a large amount of land and property, and the Mongolian tax farming system has made their land annexation more and more unscrupulous.

Who can the future emperors of the Ming Dynasty rely on?

Relative? Or eunuch?

But what can I do?

Zhu Di suddenly remembered the word Jiang Xinghuo mentioned when he talked about "three life-saving lines" not long ago.

Zhu Gaoxu listened with rapt attention and couldn't help but ask: "Who do you think Mr. Jiang can win among the gentry, civil servants and noble military officials?"

Across the wall, Zhu Gaoxu pondered for a long time, and finally asked: "Since gentry and civilian officials will sooner or later replace the noble military ministers, is there any way to avoid it?"

After the founding of the Ming Dynasty, these people transformed into the gentry class of the Ming Dynasty. They were widely distributed and ubiquitous, and their influence was extremely huge. They were prestigious in the countryside and colluded with local officials. They monopolized the land and controlled the population.

He controlled the direction of public opinion and even controlled the test questions for the lower-level imperial examinations."

"Gentlemen and civil servants."

Famous generals are all killed on the battlefield, not coddled in the prince's house.

He felt that if he did not do something that could fundamentally change the Ming Dynasty while he was in power.

"At this time, the gentry and civil servants became the common enemies of the emperor and the noble military ministers. The gentry and civil servants had a fierce confrontation with the newly emerged noble military ministers."

Maybe it's the underworld, maybe it's the paradise of heaven.

Ji Gang was a scholar, and he was also deeply shocked by these words.

Then the future of Ming Dynasty may be as Jiang Xinghuo said.

And Jiang Xinghuo is the one who can stand high in the sky and tell him what will happen in the future from a perspective overlooking everything.

"These gentry are not only landowners but also academics. This leads to the relationship between gentry and civil servants, which is basically derivative and derivative. It is an intertwined force. There is me in you and you in me. It cannot be cut off.

."

"The only solution is for the emperor, the clan, and the nobles to jointly invest in large-scale and lucrative overseas trade."

But Jiang Xinghuo actually told Zhu Gaoxu that the gentry and civil servants could win a longer-term victory?

"Why?" Zhu Gaoxu was puzzled.

The wine glass that Zhu Di had been holding in midair fell to the ground.

The two generations of his father, Zhu Yuanzhang, and his, Zhu Di, supported the noble military ministers who fought against the gentry and civilian officials. They would gradually become corrupted, degenerate, and eventually become stepping stones under the boots of civilian officials.

And without the support of nobles and nobles, the vassals were raised like pigs again.

It's like hearing thunder in a silent place.

All meritorious generals will grow old sooner or later, and the probability of being a dog is much greater than that of a tiger.

It's a very simple and straightforward truth.

Just a word.

Jiang Xinghuo simply replied: "In at most fifty years, the noble military ministers will completely lose their power. In another hundred years, the noble military ministers will have to kneel down and lick their boots when they meet the gentry and civil servants."

After a long time, Zhu Di just repeated silently.

Zhu Di suddenly felt a strong sense of urgency.

"All questions must go back to our original topic."

"With such huge profits from overseas trade, relying on the emperor alone is destined to lead to the collapse of the people and the government. And even if all the clans are tied up, that is, the power of the Ming royal family is used, it seems a bit insufficient."

But the gentry and civil servants are destined to pass on knowledge from generation to generation and annotate books from generation to generation, accumulating them more and more.

"Snapped!"

"The second solution to the clan support problem."

"On the other hand, Emperor Taizu Gao began to support a new class at this time. In this land, a new class of military elites gradually emerged."

"There is a way." Jiang Xinghuo nodded.

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

It seemed that I was in a vast fog, and I could only see a few steps in front of me. No matter how hard I ran, no matter how hard I imagined, I couldn't know what was outside the fog.

The delicate porcelain cup splashed onto the ground and turned into irregular fragments.

——Limitations of the times.

"These founding noble military ministers, who were like the Guanlong clan in the Northern Zhou, Sui and Tang dynasties, controlled a large amount of wealth and power, gradually overpowered the old land annexers, and even controlled the right to speak in the court."

How can it be?!

Zhu Gaoxu was a little unbelievable. Whether it was the founding nobles of the Hongwu Dynasty or the current noble Jingnan of the Yongle Dynasty, their power and arrogance suppressed the civil servants. The civil servants simply could not compete with them. This was a typical era in which warriors ruled the country.

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

There was no time to clean up or even wipe the skin scratched by the porcelain shards. Ji Gang, who was listening beside Zhu Di, fell into the same sluggish state as Zhu Di.

"This is also a solution to the 'involution' trend of agricultural civilization. I will also discuss this issue in "On National Destiny"."

"When Emperor Taizu Gao of the Ming Dynasty first came to the throne, he took measures to weaken this force. On the one hand, he checked the land annexation, and on the other hand, he cracked down on corruption. In the process, the status of these land annexers dropped sharply."

It's "On National Destiny" again!

Zhu Di remembered this name deeply.

"To use a metaphor, the emperor as the supreme ruler, his clan, which is composed of kinship relationships, and his noble military ministers, which are composed of meritorious service relationships, are two concentric circles formed from the inside to the outside, and the emperor is the center point."

"In the Ming Dynasty at this time, only when their interests and directions were consistent, could the power they exerted be able to fight against the traditional scholar-bureaucrats, which is today's gentry class."

"Otherwise, once the Ming Dynasty loses its heroic and enterprising emperor, the vassals start to raise pigs, and the nobles start to play martial arts, the Ming Dynasty will completely lose its ability to fight against the conservative gentry class that was born based on agricultural civilization and is destined to boycott overseas trade, and will return to the

In the dynastic cycle law of "The Theory of National Destiny"!"
Chapter completed!