Chapter 55 chapter Five

After every vigorous peasant uprising in ancient China, there was a change of dynasty without changing medicine.Although the scale of peasant uprisings in Europe was not as large as that in China, they were also very frequent and dealt a devastating blow to feudal rule.However, few of the rebels wanted to be emperors themselves. They hated the feudal aristocracy. The purpose of the uprising was to eliminate them, abolish serfdom, and establish a village system of public ownership of land.In the minds of the leaders of the Chinese peasant uprising, their purpose was not to overthrow the emperor or destroy the emperor, but to replace him and climb to the peak of power by himself. "The emperor takes turns to do it, and he will come to my house next year." This sentence reflects the general mentality and mainstream thinking of the Chinese people.Therefore, the newly established regime is nothing more than a copy and reprint of the previous dynasty. The so-called "true dragon emperor" - the emperor is at the top, and the bureaucracy below remains the same.The difference is that after the destructive sweep of the peasant uprising, corrupt officials and bully landlords were wiped out. The founding emperor of the new dynasty was wiser, the court bureaucrats were cleaner, and landlord exploitation was gentler.But over time, dirt accumulates, and the rule will gradually become darker, and another large-scale peasant uprising will be needed to carry out the "cleaning up" work.The development of ancient Chinese history has gone on and on like this.It doesn't matter whether it is going forward or backward, just as Hegel summed up the Chinese Empire as a "stagnant empire".

The Ming Dynasty established by Zhu Yuanzhang was no exception. In terms of his peasant consciousness, not only could he not break free from this model, but it would strengthen its operational functions.The difference is that the leader of the peasant uprising succeeded and sat on the throne. In terms of the chaos in the world at the end of the Yuan Dynasty, if there is no peasant army of Zhu Yuanzhang, another one will take its place and achieve the goal of overthrowing the Mongolian Yuan Dynasty regime.Therefore, Zhu Yuanzhang's main influence on Chinese history was not the war period, but a series of political strategies after he established the Ming Dynasty and ascended the throne.

The first thing he did was authoritarian centralization.Power is a magical potion. Once taken, one will be addicted to drugs, self-aggrandizement, and alienated. Power without restraint is even more so.Once a poor man whose ambition is to fill his belly, once he tastes the taste of power, one can imagine the ecstasy and nostalgia in his heart.And his power was taken from others, so of course he was afraid that someone would take it from him.Therefore, he had no choice but to exhaust his efforts to stabilize his power, and even "struggle for life". Apart from the emperor, prime ministers (or prime ministers) are the most powerful in the world, and Zhao Gao may be a typical representative of them. "Under one person, above ten thousand people" is a high-level summary of the prime minister's status and power.Many emperors were worried about the separation of powers among the prime ministers, and they all made certain restrictions on their authority.

There have been three contests between imperial power and relative power in history: The first time was when Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty.Emperor Liu Che changed the past tradition of "not being a Marquis unless he has meritorious service" and "not worshiping a minister unless he is a Marquis", and let Gongsun Hong, who was only qualified as a Confucian scholar, be his chancellor.In this way, the prime minister not only has no pride in taking credit for the emperor, but also repays the emperor with gratitude; The second time was during the Sui and Tang Dynasties.Divide the post of Prime Minister into three parts: Shangshu Province, Zhongshu Province and Menxia Province, each of which performs its duties and restricts each other;

The third time is the Ming Dynasty.In order to implement absolute autocratic centralization and unified leadership of the emperor, Zhu Yuanzhang simply abolished the positions of Zhongshu Sheng and prime minister.And it is strictly stipulated that whoever proposes to establish a prime minister again will have his head cut off.The prime minister is no longer, and his position is concurrently managed by the emperor. Centralization has reached its peak, and Zhu Yuanzhang has become the most powerful emperor in Chinese history. Different from Zhao Kuangyin's "robe plus body" method of seizing power by playing with political power, Zhu Yuanzhang's rule was won through blood and fire.Therefore, his method of consolidation is quite different from that of Zhao Kuangyin.Zhao Kuangyin's centralization of power is mainly based on the softness of hiding needles in the cotton, while Zhu Yuanzhang governs the country with might and strength, and even sacrifices the butcher's knife to kill people in peacetime.

He felt that Zhao Kuangyin's "drinking wine and releasing military power" was too weak, what price could he say to the ministers?Not to mention power, even their lives are in the hands of the emperor, there is no need for "mother-in-law and mother-in-law" at all, and simply executing those founders one by one will save a lot of troubles and no worries at all. The first person he operated on was Liao Yongzhong, the general who secretly drowned Xiaoming Wang Han Lin'er for him.Killing King Xiaoming was originally the biggest taboo and secret in Zhu Yuanzhang's heart, but as a general, Liao Yongzhong didn't know the slightest bit of strategy, so he foolishly asked Zhu Yuanzhang for credit and reward.In the eighth year of Hongwu (AD 1375), Zhu Yuanzhang charged him with the crime of stealing dragon and phoenix clothes, and suddenly issued an order to kill him.

As soon as Liao Yongzhong died and Zhu Yuanzhang started the killing ring, the heroes were in great trouble one after another.Perhaps because he felt that killing one or two was not enough, Zhu Yuanzhang simply reinvigorated the party prisons and carried out mass massacres. The most famous ones are the Hulan Party case, the Kongyin case, and the Guo Huan case. Prime Minister Hu Weiyong is shrewd and capable, far superior to Zhu Yuanzhang in some aspects.It is a taboo in an autocratic society for subordinates to surpass themselves.The subordinates are stronger than themselves, and their personal rule, reputation, and prestige are severely challenged, which is unacceptable to any ruler.Zhu Yuanzhang endured again and again, and finally in the thirteenth year of Hongwu (1380 A.D.), he killed Hu Weiyong and slaughtered the three clans for the crime of arrogating power and perverting the law.Therefore, he "rightly and confidently" put an end to the dispute between imperial power and prime minister power, and abolished the prime minister system with a history of more than 1,500 years.

After that, as long as anyone was slightly displeased, Zhu Yuanzhang included him in the Hu Weiyong case, said he was a member of the same party, and then executed him mercilessly.A large number of court officials and aristocratic landlords were executed. Later, even Li Shanchang, the founder of the country in his 70s (it was he who inspired Zhu Yuanzhang's imperial desire hidden in his heart, only then did he have a clear and ambitious goal) Don't let it go. Hu Weiyong's case involved as many as 20,000 people who were executed.Most of the people killed were civil servants, because the country was not completely unified at that time, and he still needed military officers to serve him on the battlefield, so he temporarily spared them.With the completion of the great cause of reunification, Zhu Yuanzhang's plan to massacre generals was included in his schedule.

The second large-scale massacre was in the twenty-sixth year of Hongwu (AD 1393), when someone accused the general Lanyu of treason. Lan Yu made outstanding military exploits, but Zhu Yuanzhang didn't think about his merits. After receiving the secret report of rebellion, he immediately executed him and exterminated his family.They also adopted the method of chaining and spreading, and spent more than two months killing more than 15,000 people who were involved in the case and their families. Even the meritorious ministers who "slipped through the net" in the two cases of Hu Lan, Zhu Yuanzhang still had to find opportunities and excuses to execute them one by one.

Xu Da, who enjoyed the reputation of "the number one founding hero of the Ming Dynasty", suddenly had a carbuncle on his back. When his condition recovered, he suddenly received "the emperor's meal" from Zhu Yuanzhang.Xu Da opened it and saw that it was a steamed goose.The doctor has repeatedly ordered that steamed goose should not be eaten for this disease.Since it was given by the emperor, Xu Da had to eat it with tears.The consequences were self-evident, and within a few days, he became seriously ill and died. Zhu Yuanzhang also poisoned Liu Ji, the founding father of the country, hanged Wang Guangyang, who was one of the prime ministers, and executed Zhu Liang's grandfather, father and son who pacified Guangdong, and his childhood friend Jiang Xiahou Zhou Dexing...

As long as he is suspicious and slightly dissatisfied, Zhu Yuanzhang's only way to deal with it is to kill him.He was so jealous that he didn't even let his own nephew Li Wenzhong go. Zhu Yuanzhang used the party prison several times to kill more than 45,000 ministers, and almost killed all the brave generals and meritorious officials. Once, Zhu Biao, the more kind-hearted crown prince, advised Zhu Yuanzhang tactfully, saying: "Your Majesty has killed too many people, and I am afraid that it will hurt your harmony." Zhu Yuanzhang remained silent.The next day, he put a thorn in the ground and asked the crown prince to hold it in his hand.The Crown Prince looked embarrassed, and Zhu Yuanzhang said, "Are you afraid that the thorns on the top will not be taken by the hands? Wouldn't it be better if I cut off all the thorns and hand them over to you?" Until the eve of his death, Zhu Yuanzhang was still deliberately "cutting the thorns" in order to consolidate the "country" of future generations.In the repeated massacres, Fu Youde, Feng Sheng and other "only surviving" heroes and veterans were finally left. Zhu Yuanzhang was worried that after his death, they would not accept the dispatch and would take these "fish that slipped through the net" again. Kill them all, leaving no one behind. Zhu Yuanzhang's goal of centralizing power has been achieved, and his ruling position has also been consolidated, and he no longer has to worry about someone rebelling against him to usurp power.However, what he never expected was that the fortress was the easiest to breach from the inside, and the struggle for imperial power since then turned into an internal strife.Not long after his death, Zhu Di, the king of Yan, sent his army south from Beijing to seize power, but the court could not find a military general who could resist and fight against the king of Yan.Zhu Yuanzhang reaped the consequences, and the imperial power passed down by him unknowingly changed color within the Zhu family.If there is knowledge in the underground, how will he feel?