Chapter 15 Chapter 14 Ming Dynasty: An Introverted and Non-Competitive State

Among the entrepreneurs of all dynasties in China, only Zhu Yuanzhang came from the humblest background.When drought and famine hit his hometown in 1344 AD, his parents and elder brother died within weeks.At that time, he had no money to buy a coffin, so Zhu Yuanzhang and another brother had to bury them hastily by themselves, and then parted ways.The ancestor of the Ming Dynasty was an apprentice in a temple and a handyman at the beginning. He was not yet 16 years old at the time.Soon after, he became a traveling monk, begging for food in the Huai River valley. In this situation, he came into contact with the rioting farmers and secret societies of the day, and these figures later had a great influence on the reform of the dynasty.It turned out that in the last years of the Yuan Dynasty, the imperial court did not properly deal with the floods and droughts in various places: the large water conservancy projects recruited a large number of laborers, and their remuneration was not guaranteed;Therefore, all kinds of conditions made the reckless heroes with great ambitions feel that the time is ripe, and it is the best opportunity to launch an army.Zhu Yuanzhang is self-taught and good at playing with characters, so relying on his organizational skills, he collected and synthesized various factors.It took him 12 years of hard work, through desperate battles and tricks in his chest, he finally absorbed and merged the territories controlled by others, and his status has been irresistible from now on.In 1368 AD, the Yangtze River Basin under his control was already impenetrable, so he officially announced the birth of the Ming Dynasty.The Yuan Dynasty of the Mongols was easily expelled, and their last emperor also took an unprecedented action: he neither died in the country, nor kept the ritual of walking meditation, but opened the gate of the palace and ran northward to return to his hometown. Go to the grassland where our ancestors came from.

Zhu Yuanzhang founded his capital in Nanjing (it used to be called Jiankang or Jinling). In the eyes of many people, this is an "unlucky" capital. No dynasty has established its capital here and can stand for a long time in history. Even the modern Taiping Heavenly Kingdom and Chiang Kai-shek were not spared. However, Sun Yat-sen said that Nanjing "mountains, deep waters and plains are in one place", but this great background and his vision are connected with each other.It seems to be in line with his aspirations. Today, his mausoleum is made of granite and marble. It is located in the sun of Zijin Mountain, overlooking Nanjing City, and has an unobstructed view.

Zhu Yuanzhang became the monarch of China in the 14th century.Since he has ascended to the Ninth Five-Year Honor from an extremely humble position, he can only act boldly.The walls of his capital city were nearly 30 miles long (the large brick structure still exists today), making Nanjing the largest city surrounded by brick walls in the world. Nanjing does not need the suburbs, it is itself the countryside. At the same time, the traces left by Zhu Yuanzhang in China's political history, economic history, and social history are equally dramatic, and its influence has not faded.The biggest feature is the extreme centralization of power. If USA Today is also prepared according to the law, not only the governors of California and Texas will be appointed by Washington, but the mayors and police chiefs of each state will also be appointed and dismissed by Washington, and they will even be paid. The budget of Heyamenli also needs to be approved by the central government before it can be counted.There is no such example in the history of the world, with such a huge country controlled by the central government to such a strict degree.

This strict control is based on the mistakes of previous generations.When the Mongol regime was expelled from the country, the Yuan Dynasty was of course denied. Even the Zhao and Song Dynasties in the past were criticized for their lax management. Looking back on the past, if the Chinese bureaucracy and people maintain discipline and maintain unity, this great country It will never be subject to foreign minorities.All autocratic regimes are always inseparable from morality as a talisman. Taking the example of the Ming Dynasty, Zhu Yuanzhang himself was his spokesman. Tianming ordered, otherwise Ji Gang could not be purged.

In fact, discipline alone is not enough to maintain a high degree of centralization, and most of the results are actually achieved by the politics of terror.Zhu Yuanzhang presided over four political purges in history, between 1376 and 1393 AD. The targets of the prosecution included senior government officials, senior generals, public-funded students, ordinary people, landlords, and family heads.The prosecution procedure seems to have been finalized. At first, the first offender was sentenced to prison under the name of corruption and treason. Whether there is any truth or not, the scope of the prison is only getting bigger and bigger, and more and more accomplices and suspects are recruited. , Having contacts with the principal culprit is also evidence of guilt, and a vague moral crime can put a person to death (experts have estimated that no less than 100,000 people died due to such reports).When the case was over, the emperor also executed the judges for various crimes.

After these 4 purges, the country and society were considered extremely even by Chinese standards. From then on, there was no prime minister in the center, and this system remained unchanged until the end of the Ming Dynasty.State affairs, big or small, were all presided over by the emperor.The so-called "speech officials", that is, supervisors, have the right to report illegal administration or unconventional bureaucratic institutions, and can also advise the emperor when necessary.If they keep silent, they are negligent in their duties, but the officials of the speech are not innocent of the punishment just because of their speech.In the Ming Dynasty, many speech officials died in prison because they offended the emperor in the performance of their duties and were not pardoned before the imperial court.

Bismarck once believed that Germany, under his management, had reached a saturation point by the end of the 19th century, so he would not expand further.Zhu Yuanzhang also had a similar view 500 years ago.He is determined to stick to China's "inland" and no longer develop outward to avoid additional side effects.As the founder of the dynasty, he passed it on to his descendants, claiming that there are 15 countries that the Ming army will "never conquer". These 15 countries are led by Korea, Japan and Annan (Vietnam), and even small countries in the South China Sea.When Japanese pirates invaded the coast, Zhu Yuanzhang withdrew the Chinese residents along the coast in order to calm things down and ordered that all subjects of the Ming Dynasty were not allowed to sail to the sea.However, contact with foreign countries has not been completely abandoned. Limited commerce, generally carried out under the guise of tribute from foreigners, continues, but it is strictly monitored.Facing the defense line in the north, the construction of the "side wall" has become a cause worth focusing on. Most of the Great Wall of China appreciated by outside tourists today are relics of the Ming Dynasty. They were built by Xu Da, a general under Zhu Yuanzhang. It was added by another famous general, Qi Jiguang, in the 16th century.For the Mongols and Semu people who were still in China at this time, the new emperor of the Ming Dynasty ordered to deal with them: they are not allowed to marry each other of the same species, that is, the marriage must be for the Han people, and those who violate this order will be punished by 80 After that time, he was issued as a slave.

The military design of the Ming Dynasty imitated that of the Yuan Dynasty, but instead of dividing the race into social classes, the whole people were divided into "military households" and "civilian households".General military households do not pay taxes or only pay a small amount of taxes, and they allocate impoverished land to cultivate as much as possible, and their descendants succeed each other, but they have the obligation to serve the country in the military.The so-called "guards" and "thousand households" are equivalent to the headquarters of each regiment and battalion, which are not only deployed on the border defense line, but also placed sporadically in the interior.Each "station" has a designated "military household", and there will always be no shortage of soldiers.When mobilizing for combat, the battle sequence equal to the division and brigade is drawn and compiled from the above units, depending on the needs.During Zhu Yuanzhang's Yuyu period, there were 1.7 million to 2 million military households across the country.During the effective period of this system of organization, the work of recruiting military personnel was thus simplified, and above all, the ordinary peasantry was not disturbed by conscription.

Zhu Yuanzhang has another set of facilities, which is about finance and taxation, and its relationship is more important.After his four political inspections, there are indeed countless small farmers scattered throughout the country.The general land tax is very light (although there are still great differences between regions), and the collection is mostly based on the collection of rice and cloth.However, although the tax rate is low, the taxpayer is under the supervision of the leaders of the Lijia in each village, and has the obligation to pay to the warehouses designated by the state. These warehouses are sometimes far away in the border areas, and the services required by the government offices do not last long Affiliated to various units, but requisitioned from the people with a free system. For example, the messengers and prison workers in the yamen are dispatched by each village in rotation. Even stationery, paper, and even the repair of tables, chairs, and benches are also collected from the villagers sporadically. .Official travel is also supported by the people. There are thousands of post stations across the country, that is, guest houses and relay houses, which have various equipment for transportation, board and lodging. , each post station has the obligation to entertain, and the designated households also have the burden of supply, but each region takes its officials from one post station to another as a principle.

Each county keeps an account of the manpower and materials it collects from the people.All the people are organized into squads and take turns to supply and serve.When the dynasty was founded in the 14th century, each household only had a turn to serve in the military for one year out of 10 years, but some of the titles included uncertain financial obligations: the account collector who managed the warehouse was responsible for every stone. rice to the account of each candle; the local chiefs sent to deliver food to distant places must also make up for the loss on the way; all post stations must provide for all passengers.The more reconnaissance and cooperation issued by the Ministry of War, the greater the support from the people, because all the necessary food, vehicles, horses, sedan chairs and staff are collected from the people at no cost.In principle, this financially responsible service designation was undertaken by wealthy families. In 1397 AD, the Ministry of Household Affairs reported that there were 14,341 households with 700 mu of land (about 120 acres) across the country, and the list was submitted to the emperor.Obviously, under Zhu Yuanzhang's personal supervision, these more than 14,000 people will serve in various regions with relatively heavy financial obligations.In this case, it seems that some spirit of progressive taxation has been adopted.

After more than 600 years, we looked through this record, and what impressed us deeply was not the details of the programs in it, but the fact that such a plan could actually be put into practice.Obviously, Zhu Yuanzhang's Ming Dynasty has a lot of utopian colors, it looks like a big village rather than a country.This degree of centralization is possible because all organizations and structures have been simplified, and a country spanning millions of acres of land has been purged into a tight and uniform system, in special cases, dominated by private economy, Although the process of forming a formula for mutual exchange of manpower and materials and determining the procedures for division of labor and cooperation is complicated, under the supervision of Zhu Yuanzhang, it can be implemented through administrative control. Only praise and criticism of Zhu Yuanjin cannot fully explain the mystery.No matter whether the designer is indeed a genius creator or a venomous schemer, he still can't answer the most critical question among them: why can this weird design actually work?From this point of view, the complex situation left behind by the Mongol military occupation of the Yuan Dynasty must have surpassed our general understanding procedures.At the same time, we can also imagine that because the Song Dynasty integrated its financial resources with the most advanced economic sectors, and encountered disastrous results, it was necessary to retreat and make conservative adjustments in the future.In Chinese history, the Ming Dynasty was the only dynasty that succeeded through peasant uprisings. When it was founded, it took the most backward sector in the countryside as the basis, took it as the standard for the whole country, and cited the personal service of each person as the basis. In principle, it seems to be in line with the needs of the day.Zhu Yuanzhang is not ignorant of literature and ink. He himself has written several books, and many civil servants around him plan for him. This person's ideological views cannot attract ordinary readers today, but his designs, at least in a short period of time, do appear.He sacrificed quality for quantity, thus uniting a nation dominated by peasants. However, the long-term impact he planned is only embarrassing, which is tantamount to announcing to the world that China is the largest rural group in the world, and it can be satisfied without business. The government itself is not interested in service organizations and businesses. Nor is it intended to diversify the national economy, let alone to organize the judiciary and legislation sufficiently to make economic diversification possible. Therefore, the degree of strength and inflexibility of the bureaucracy of the Ming Dynasty is unparalleled in the world.The degree of relying on social values ​​as an administrative tool is also deeper than before: men are stronger than women, old people are better than young people, educated people are better than illiterate ignorant people, just like natural laws that do not need to be explained Life.The above three conditions have nothing to do with the economy and are not blocked by regions, which can promote the unity of the whole country and pass through the north and south without hindrance.It's just that relying on cultural cohesion also made the Ming dynasty quiet and not active.With little change here and there, this form blocks progress in any direction.By the end of the dynasty, the actual conflict of interests could not be expressed in actual words. Some power struggles, originally caused by technical problems, had to be pretended to be moral issues. The courtiers used it as a starting point to support their argument. At the beginning of the 15th century, all plans of Zhu Yuanzhang seemed to be vetoed by his fourth son Zhu Di. When Zhu Yuanzhang passed away in 1398 AD, the throne of Nanjing was inherited by the emperor's grandson Zhu Yunqi according to the method of passing on to the eldest son.Within a year, Zhu Di rebelled, and after three years of civil war, the uncle defeated the nephew (who probably died in a palace fire).After seizing the throne, Zhu Di took several actions to overthrow all the policies of his father Zhu Yuanzhang: First, he disregarded Zhu Yuanjin's death order and marched into Annan.At first, the Ming army marched very smoothly, and Zhu Di designated the northern part of today’s Vietnam as a province of China. However, later the Vietnamese adopted guerrilla tactics, and the Chinese expeditionary force was lost, and transportation and communication were difficult. At the time of his death, this issue remained unresolved. In the north, Zhu Di also did not believe in a policy of non-intervention.He personally led the army to fight against Mongolia five times and crossed the Kerulen River twice (in the territory of the Mongolian Republic today).Before this, a Chinese monarch had never personally led such an expedition with such a large army. Zhu Di's troops numbered about 250,000 each time.On the way back from his last expedition to the south, he died of illness near Duolunuoer in present-day Inner Mongolia. The reconstruction of Beijing's palaces and city walls took place under his supervision for 12 years, employing 100,000 craftsmen and millions of laborers. The city walls were 40 feet high and surrounded by 14 miles. Until 1962, due to smooth urban traffic, The city wall was demolished, and today there are only Qianmen and Di'anmen, two fortress-like buildings still exist, with several floors of watchtowers, which seem to show the vitality of China in history. Experienced a lot of wind and frost in this incident.In addition, the Forbidden City in the Forbidden City is completely preserved. There are 9,000 houses in the palace. It was originally built by Zhu Di, and new ones were added later. Due to the large-scale renovation of the Qing Dynasty, the existing Forbidden City has become the largest traditional Chinese building. present display.With these, the third emperor who ran the Ming Dynasty revised Zhu Yuanzhang's design: he moved his capital to Beijing in 1421 AD, and called Nanjing the "Liudu"; Building, not only digging the river deep, but also building gates and dams to improve its efficiency. When all this happened, Zhu Di even ordered the eunuch Zheng He to go to Nanyang many times.The first voyage was launched in 1405. There were 62 large ships and 225 small ships, carrying 27,800 soldiers and civilians. The largest ship was 440 feet long and 186 feet wide, and the second ship was also 370 feet long and 150 feet wide. foot.Such a huge ship can be seen in books but not in real objects. However, in 1957, archaeologists discovered a ship rudder near the shipyard on that day. After estimation, the height and width of the rudder blades should be more than 20 feet. Zheng He made seven voyages to Nanyang, and the last voyage was in 1432, after Zhu Di.The person who presided over the dispatch later was Zhu Zhanji, the grandson of Zhu Di, the fifth emperor of the Ming Dynasty.On average, each of the seven voyages took 20 months.This fleet fought against pirates in the Malacca Straight, intervened in the internal affairs of Java, captured the king of Ceylon (today's Sri Lanaka, trying to rob Zheng He's ships), sent Nanjing to listen, He also persuaded dozens of kings and chiefs to pay tribute to China, and some kings even came to China for sightseeing.The fleet cruised the Indian Ocean, sending detachments to places outside the main shipping lanes, from the Persian Gulf to Hormuz, Zanzibar on the coast of Africa, and Aden at the entrance to the Red Sea.Seven people in the fleet also went to Mecca, the holy place of Islam. After Zheng He never sent a fleet, the crew was demobilized, the ships were left to be abandoned, and the nautical charts were burned by Liu Daxia, Shangshu of the Ministry of War.Modern Chinese scholars are both surprised and resentful that the next generation of Zheng He did not continue after the above-mentioned brilliant and brilliant pioneering work.Seeing that only a hundred years later, the southeast coast of China will be ravaged by the Japanese invaders, and Macau will fall into the hands of Portugal, which will inevitably make readers gnash their teeth.From then on, China had no navy at all until the 19th century.In the 19th century, the ironclad ships purchased from abroad were also sunk or towed away by the Japanese navy during the Sino-Japanese War in 1895. This question has not yet been definitively answered.However, Zhu Di's experience does have a strange coincidence in history: in 1045, Tamerlane was about to invade our country, but he died on the eve of raising his troops.China's lucky monarch thus avoided dealing with one of the world's greatest military leaders; the maritime authority of Western Europe did not begin to emerge until several years after Zhu Di's fleet showed its might and invincibility in the South China Sea; The unfavorable consequences left by Jiaozhi were not exposed during his lifetime, but left behind for his descendants.Why are these events so coincidental in timing?We cannot comment.However, in what has happened, we can come up with several explanations: that is, Zhu Dizhi's actions have exceeded his ability to pay, his empire has accepted an extreme burden, and it is close to the breaking point. Avoid the fall of the dynasty. What needs to be pointed out at this juncture is that Zhu Di's expropriation can only be obtained from the rural economy according to his father's plan.However, the rural economy lacks both inter-provincial connections and no inter-industry operations. Therefore, the method of raising funds is either directly controlled or used to produce counterproductive means. Adding banknotes, or else just putting pressure on the lower layers on a flat level, sending extra donations frequently, and adding unpaid labor.Zhu Di is alert and has a city mansion, and he also has a bit of charm. He often has a group of literary scholars by his side. It has been widely used and cannot be completely concealed.For example, the local chronicles of various places mentioned that the capital was moved to the north, and various taxes were added, and 800 miles of travel expenses were allocated to the empty land; the report of the Ministry of Industry mentioned that craftsmen should have served unpaid labor, and each person was only 30 days, but when Beijing was built, there was a case of not returning for a whole year; a magistrate was placed on a sill car and escorted to Beijing because of his opposition to additional expropriation, and was interrogated by the emperor himself; Xia Yuanji served as an official for 20 years, and was imprisoned by Zhu Di for 3 years only because he opposed the use of troops in Mobei. He was not freed until the death of the emperor. Existing materials confirm that Zheng He had the right to directly requisition manpower and materials from coastal areas when he was preparing to sail.Although merchants also participated in the dispatch of this fleet, it was criticized because of its lack of profit.Zheng He's largest ship has 4 decks, and there are cabins for family members and public halls inside. Some cabins have wardrobes and private toilets, and users have keys.Accompanying family members include women and children.Although there are businessmen among them, they are not individually investing in business.There is no indispensable commodity for large-scale transportation in the round trip of sea ships, so it is even more criticized because it involves a lot of labor and labor.The export commodities carried by these ships are silk, copper coins, porcelain and camphor. The import commodities on the return journey include spices, treasures, knives and scissors, ointments, medicinal materials and exotic animals. Suitable for mass market.Even if pepper and sumac were used by the government as part of the salaries of civil and military officials, the price was still not worth building and maintaining such a large fleet.Although the army led by Zheng He won the land and sea battles, thousands of people may be killed or injured in one battle.In addition, the Longjiang Shipyard in Nanjing used to build thousands of ships of all sizes, and all manpower and materials were requisitioned from the people, which aroused public resentment. When Zhu Di died in 1424, the throne was succeeded by Prince Zhu Gaochi.In less than a year, the latter also passed away one after another, and the successor was the fifth emperor Zhu Zhanji. He was only 26 years old at the time. He had received excellent Confucian education and had good advisers before the emperor. There is no lack of ability to judge state affairs, which is rare among the emperors of the Ming Dynasty.Compared with Zhao Ji, the emperor of the Song Dynasty, his artistic genius may still be superior to that of Zhao Ji.Today his work can be seen in the Fogg Museum in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the Nelson Gallery of Art in Kansas City, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, among others.Zhu Zhanji is different from the indecisive monarchs of the Song Dynasty. If the situation requires it, he can be extremely tough or extremely determined. Not long after he ascended to the throne, the situation on the northern border has been quite relaxed. The reason is that the Mongols were divided into two groups, the east and the west, busy with internal quarrels, and had no time to aspire to the Central Plains.The difficult problem comes from the south: Zhu Di's conquest of Annan has been used for nearly 20 years, and the day of the truce is not yet in sight. China's resources and manpower seem to be thrown into a bottomless pit.When Zhu Zhanji ascended the throne, the Vietnamese defeated the Ming army with guerrilla tactics. The new emperor sent his men and generals to bring reinforcements, but the situation only got worse. The commander of the reinforcements had to negotiate with the Vietnamese to let the Chinese civil servants and the remaining troops withdraw. Mingjing, and he was detained and sentenced to death when he returned to China in 1427 AD. The full-scale rebellion in the country has not yet begun, but the signs are quite obvious. The Yangtze River Delta is the most prosperous area in the entire empire, and it seems that it is also the most dangerous area today.This also involves a legal issue, because the Southern Song Dynasty forced the purchase of private land in this area until the dynasty fell, and the price payable was not paid in full. The Yuan Dynasty had evidence that it was public land and expanded the scope of this property. .When Zhu Yuanzhang founded the Ming Dynasty, he also avoided legal and sovereignty disputes. He only said that the people here had supported a local leader who opposed him before he ascended the throne, so he confiscated all the problems with the status of the victor. industry.However, he did not set up a bureau to take charge of the land, and the so-called rent was also included in the land tax of ordinary people. After a long period of vicissitudes, the terrain has also changed, and the sale and purchase of the division of people's land is therefore ambiguous.By this time, the question was no longer the sovereignty of the property, but the annual payment by the stewards to the government, whether it was called land rent or land tax, far exceeded that paid by taxpayers everywhere, and caused many Small owner farmers can't support it.Zhu Di's additional collection added to the complexity of the problem. In Zhu Di's last few years, the taxes in this area have begun to be arrears.The tax arrears of the Chinese people is generally contagious. Many taxpayers will follow suit when they see their neighbors not paying taxes. They also know that if there are many people who owe taxes, the government has no choice but to exempt some of them. Paid or not, they are all equally in arrears.In 1430 AD, Suzhou Prefecture owed 8 million shi in taxes, which was the amount payable for this place for three years.Therefore, on the day Zhu Zhanji ascended the throne, he did not inherit a comfortable throne. The problem of Annan and the problem of tax arrears in the Yangtze River Delta were at the same time, and the young emperor had to take decisive action: he proposed to withdraw from Annan, which immediately divided the court, because this area had been nominally a province of China for 20 years. Of course, the credit and prestige of the entire empire are at stake, so Zhu Zhanji had to use his own power to silence the mouths of the main fighters.When the full retreat was carried out, he also pardoned the condemned commander.To deal with the problems in the Yangtze River Delta, he appointed Zhou Chen as the local governor.His method is to implement the tax cut plan in a non-obvious manner, thus avoiding the embarrassment of succumbing to current pressure.He also often inspected various villages, started dialogues with farmers, investigated the tax collection and payment procedures, studied the long-term and remote reasons for tax arrears, and at the same time filled in the gaps in the process and corrected sporadic mistakes.Regarding the currency issue, the emperor accepted the suggestion of the Minister of the Household Department. This person was Xia Yuanji, who was imprisoned by his grandfather Zhu Di for 3 years. His construction newly introduced some commercial taxes, and all the collection was in banknotes to moderate inflation.Zhu Zhanji did not stop all Zheng He's voyages, but reduced the number of voyages. He Yuyu only approved one within ten years.In addition, he delayed countless architectural careers. His policy was entirely on the negative side, so that it could not extend the authority of the empire, nor increase its prestige.If these corrective steps are not taken, it is hard to say what the future outcome will be, but judging from the need for retreat and austerity, we can at least say that if the development of the environment is slightly different from the actual situation, Zhu Di's historical achievements His reputation is likely to be on par with Yang Guang, the second emperor of the Sui Dynasty. When Zhu Zhanji died in AD 1435, it was no longer possible for the Ming Empire to be manipulated at will by the top.China's dynasties are built on a large-scale social basis with a framework of power (even if we don't intervene in economic factors), so it cannot be created at will, or subverted at will to apply to short-term purposes, even if Fundamental reorganization cannot avoid some degree of violence.When Zhu Yuanzhang presided over the state affairs, the society at that time was still in a state of swimming, which could be organized and manipulated by him with a thrifty mood.His rural policy is still mainly local self-government, avoiding interference as much as possible, so his spirit is simple and frugal.His civil service organization is no more than 8,000 people at best, and the salary is low, which is considered special even by Chinese standards, because Zhu Yuanzhang regards peasants as the emperor, and in his mind, bureaucrats must be public servants of the people. Be a public servant literally.Under similar circumstances, all those who are called "officials" also form another system, and they are still the lower level of the bureaucratic organization.Most of the officials are called to serve, and they are generally not paid. If they are paid, at most they can only maintain the food of the family. At this time, each village formulated its "township treaty" according to the instructions of the imperial court.A "Shenming Pavilion" and a "Jingshan Pavilion" were also built. The names of villagers who have good deeds and bad deeds will be identified and announced by the elders.In addition, villagers who have disputes due to heredity, marriage, property transfer, and fighting are also judged and resolved by the elders in front of these two buildings. In the first month and October of the lunar calendar, twice a year, each locality hosts "rural drinks", and all households must participate.Before the distribution of food and drink, there are various programs such as singing, speeches, announcing imperial decrees and criticizing villagers' irregular behavior. People", according to the circumstances, it can be presented to the Ming government and sent to the frontier.In this way, all the formal duties of local government have been carried out in the countryside, so that the bureaucrats can carry out their tasks within the city walls.In the era of Zhu Yuanzhang, all bureaucrats were not allowed to go to the countryside unless they gave special permission. If anyone went to the countryside without authorization, he could be convicted of "disturbing the people" and sentenced to death. After 70 years, the above-mentioned laws and regulations have largely been eliminated by the times and are no longer in force.The civil service organization has been expanded again and again, and its staff has more than doubled and tripled.The general bureaucrats live comfortably, even though the nominal salary remains the same, they already have various semi-legal extra income.No one mentioned the original 14,341 wealthy household registration at this time.They have been replaced by the "gentry" class, which Western scholars call gentry according to the British custom.This class of gentry includes all civil officials and members of their families, as well as those who are prison students, tribute students, and those who donate money to the prison. They are "crowned and honored" by the government. Less than 2% of the national population.And it was only at the end of the dynasty, when the land was already quite concentrated, and donations and prisons were flooded, that this was the case.The actual figures are not available, but I have read a lot of local chronicles, biographies, official documents, etc., and roughly estimated that there may be 250,000 households each owning fields ranging from 200 mu (about 30 acres) to 2,500 mu (slightly stronger than 400 acres), and the number of households at the lower end is far more than that at the upper end, and the number of households exceeding the assets above is extremely rare. If the gentry class is not in communication with the civil official group, it is a member of it. Therefore, they are middle-level and large landlords in the country. They are not only the deacons of the imperial court but also the local leaders of the villages. contact.They recognize that good government is based on maintaining traditional social values, and that members of this elite molecular group change from time to time because of the upward and downward mobility of society.Generally, the success or failure of scientific examinations affects the rise and fall of a family. This also helps the group find new people and eliminate old households.The Ming Dynasty was followed by the Qing Dynasty. This organization and its functions played a role in the modern Chinese history and became a factor of stabilizing the situation.However, accumulated habits have also become a real obstacle when China needs to transform its society in the 20th century. The bureaucratic class regards the government as a cultural cohesion in their minds, and their eyes cannot be separated from the small farmers who use precision farming to maintain their livelihoods, so they cannot appreciate the vigorous power of the modern economy.The latter generated momentum from an unbalanced situation, while the Chinese bureaucrats and gentry class created a balanced situation in advance, making the various regions reluctantly make do with each other. Contrary, and the performance of the whole introverted. The tax system of the Ming Dynasty was also a major hindrance.To put it simply, the first emperor of the Ming Dynasty ignored the world trend and created a financial system that was too crude; the third emperor ignored the purpose of its design and only pulled it over to abuse it; Back off policy so that it does not collapse altogether.But at this point in the evolution, the opportunity to reform the system has gone forever. If a more economically efficient organization is to be formed, a different accounting system must be adopted. If this is the case, the entire civil service group must be retrained. Not to mention organizing banks to cultivate service-oriented businesses.But in fact, the monetary tools in the hands of the Ming government at this time, even if the status quo is maintained, is still far-fetched.Despite the plans of Zhu Zhanji and Xia Yuanji, banknotes were gradually rejected due to excessive printing.This malady should be traced back to the Yuan Dynasty. Since the previous dynasty issued paper money indiscriminately, that is, it ignored the production of silver money. The five baht money is traditionally the medium of folk transactions down to the countryside in China. As a tool of exchange, silver has been in circulation for a long time. Not only was the Ming government unable to prohibit the use of silver in private transactions, but even its own financial units gradually took silver as the standard. As a result, the government lost control of the currency as a whole, and neither knew the amount of currency used. Not to mention helping to control its circulation. The separation of the Ming government from the power of the natural economy is one of its administrative characteristics.Its yamen agencies lack the power to increase the scope of activities in business, and they can only emphasize the ideology of Confucianism, and their political authority is becoming more and more excessive.In many cases, this political authority has a negative character, and even affects the emperor's use of privileges.The emperor can punish any bureaucrat or a group of bureaucrats, but it is extremely difficult for him to promote a trusted person or order him to an important position. He can approve exceptions in existing laws, but he has no power to implement new laws to affect the whole country.If the imperial decree is announced on the emperor's dragon chair, it is either a ceremonial affectation or a ratification of a certain fait accompli. This is not to say that the history of the dynasty is dry and tasteless. On the contrary, there are countless twists and turns in this stalemate, including various conspiracies and tricks.It's just that if readers don't have some basic knowledge, they may be confused among these various tricks, and they can't distinguish which ones are important and which ones are not, which ones are bizarre and hypocritical, and which ones are true spiritual heroes.Readers should not forget that when the Cultural Revolution arose in the People's Republic in the 1960s, the history of the Ming Dynasty was used as a weapon tossed around by propaganda experts.