Liu Jingxuan sighed: "In the Western Han Dynasty, there was no clear system for selecting officials and relatives were rampant. Emperors often valued the people they wanted, and then favored the women of their families to appoint talents. Even Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty
General Wei Qing and the Huo family all rose to power in this way. Later, after the mausoleum system was abolished, these powerful families in Guandong quickly expanded and developed. They also used various means and methods to send their daughters to the palace as concubines.
, Emperor Yuan of the Han Dynasty married Wang Zhengjun as his queen. Unlike Wei Qing, the Wang family was already one of the few powerful families in Guandong before becoming the queen."
Liu Yu said seriously: "Ah Shou, you may have reversed the causal relationship. The strength of the Wang family is not only that it occupies a large area of land in Guandong, but also that as the queen and queen mother of the four dynasties, the Confucian scholars in Guandong regard it as
Hope, spokesperson, and the abolition of the mausoleum system were these Confucian scholars who made suggestions to Emperor Yuan of the Han Dynasty through various channels of speech and relationships. When he was still the prince, he was influenced by these people."
"In fact, the so-called benevolence and righteousness is an agreement on the rights and obligations between kings, rulers and the people of the world. The so-called herdsmen are ordered by heaven, which means that the land in the world belongs to heaven, and the king, as the emperor, is responsible for
God is in charge of the people, and all land and power in the world are distributed by him. If the king wants the country to be strong and the official warehouse to be rich, then he should let the officials appointed by the state take the interests of the country as the first priority to manage the people.
Collecting taxes and urging them to do corvee work. However, these will offend the interests of the local powerful families. If they do more for the country and pay more taxes, they will receive less benefits."
"The Han Dynasty had a system of military merit and nobility. Powerful and powerful families could occupy more land than ordinary people by relying on their titles. After Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, external military expansion gradually stopped. However, without military merit and nobility, the powerful domestic landowners had to rely on their relatives.
Or they are abusing their power in the local area to seek more benefits for their own family. The existence of the Lingyi system was originally to restrict the powerful people in these places from becoming powerful, so it has become something they hate deeply, especially in the land of Guandong and away from Guanzhong.
The farther away the ruling center is, the greater the influence of local powerful people, and the more they hope to end this system, so the Confucian scholars began to influence the successive princes. Their Confucian theory of ordering the elders and the younger ones and inheriting the eldest son,
He also catered to his eldest son and prevented many attempts to seize the throne. Therefore, starting from Emperor Yuan of the Han Dynasty, he became close to Confucianism until the mausoleum system was abolished."
Liu Jingxuan frowned: "Don't these emperors of the Western Han Dynasty starting from the Han Yuan Emperor not want the country to be strong, and just sit back and watch the powerful become powerful? Why not send such a weak king and a strong minister to take away the Han Dynasty from him in the future?"
Liu Yu sighed and said: "Since Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty, he has done great things, vigorously strengthened the centralization of power, concentrated the world's resources to do great things, and fought great wars. Although he expanded his territory, he drove away the Xiongnu, conquered Southwest, South Vietnam, and Korea.
, had great martial arts, but the household registration in the country was reduced by half, bandits in Guandong were on the rise, and the country was in danger of destruction. This was why Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was forced to issue an edict. As an emperor with such achievements, he ended up being betrayed by everyone in his old age.
It was such a painful realization to almost lose our country."
"In view of this, the emperors of the Han Dynasty after Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty basically stopped large-scale wars and expansion. Once there were no wars, the national treasury would not be in such need of money and food, and the number of household registrations in the world would also increase rapidly.
, in the past few decades, the world's population has nearly doubled, from less than 30 million to about 60 million, and this does not include the large number of hidden households. It is necessary to control such a rapidly growing population.
, it is not enough to rely solely on officials sent by the imperial court to local areas. Especially in the Han Dynasty, the military merit system was also implemented. Veterans who returned to their hometowns were used as officials. Once the war was over, no one could be awarded titles for merit. Then the state appointed
There are naturally fewer and fewer rural officials. In the end, we can only rely on local powerful people to manage the world."
Liu Jingxuan breathed a long sigh of relief: "I see. In this way, many of the powerful people in these places were actually developed after the earliest meritorious soldiers returned to their hometowns."
Liu Yu nodded: "Yes, that's right. The earliest officials, even those who dominated places like Guanfu in the early Western Han Dynasty, all made great contributions in the war. Only after they returned to their hometowns with titles could they run rampant.
, with official positions and power in hand, not only can they legally occupy the land themselves, but they can also substantively occupy and control the land of these villagers by controlling local households. In the end, it will become an area of thousands of hectares, with child servants.
In order to suppress the thousands of local powerful people, the mausoleum policy was implemented. This was actually the imperial court's recognition that they had the privilege to be rampant in the local area for a while, but this privilege could not be allowed to continue hereditary, which formed the shape of the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period.
It is a kind of compromise that a vassal state has no choice but to make."
Liu Jingxuan gritted his teeth: "That is to say, the Lingyi system allows the local powerful powers that have developed in the recent period to be forcibly moved to Guanzhong, but soon, in more than ten years or decades, new powerful powers will be formed.
clan, so they took advantage of the new emperor's mausoleum period, which happened to be around these decades, and moved the next batch of powerful people to Guanzhong to guard the tombs. This suppressed the local powerful people for generations and prevented them from forming a climate.
A real threat to the imperial power, right?"
Liu Yu sighed: "Yes, in fact, this can be seen as the emperor cannot send officials directly under the court to govern the place, and can only rely on local powerful people to manage the place. However, this management is not hereditary, but how long the emperor lives. This powerful person
How long has it been in charge? After the emperor died, the powerful family with official status had to move to Guanzhong obediently. The land and titles left in the local area were given to the new powerful family. Starting from scratch, this was the Western Han Dynasty.
The mausoleum system was originally considered to be effective in balancing the relationship between the central and local governments. As long as the emperor lived, powerful people could control the place. When a new emperor ascended the throne, the old powerful people had to move. However, Emperor Yuan of the Han Dynasty was influenced by those Confucian scholars.
Because of their influence, they believed that this was an unkind act that would alienate the powerful people in the world, so they abolished this system so that the Wang Zhengjun family could use the power of the queen mothers of the four dynasties to accelerate the expansion of the Wang family in Guandong, and finally formed the
The powerful force that cannot be defeated will be enough to usurp the Han Dynasty and establish itself on its own."
"But, on the other hand, the queen who married into the palace, the queen mother, after all, gave birth to a son who is her own flesh and blood and belongs to the Liu family. From her point of view, she does not want her natal family to really change the dynasty and replace her own flesh and blood.