"Father, you can't retreat! The world cannot be without your leadership. I am young and have little virtue, and I cannot bear such an important responsibility. Otherwise, if you had to work hard for another ten or twenty years, I would be able to follow you." The more you learn..."
When Zhu Cihong saw Chongzhen, he knelt down and began to give in without waiting for the old man to ask questions.
Yielding doesn't mean you don't want to do it, it's the rule. That is to say, the emperor's position is not a matter of electing a commander-in-chief. You cannot take the initiative and shout for everyone to vote for you.
Faced with the hard work of being an emperor, you have to push hard to push the throne away. No matter how much you want it in your heart, you have to say that you really don’t want to be the emperor... Even if this throne is usurped or snatched with great difficulty, You can't agree to it all at once, you have to give in a few times, and finally you are forced to do it.
However, in Chinese history, it is more difficult to push the throne away than to grab the throne... As far as Zhu Cixiang knows, no one seems to have succeeded in this matter.
Wang Mang, Cao Pi, Sima Yan, Liu Yu and other loyal ministers and generals... as well as Li Shimin, the filial son of the Tang Dynasty, Zhao Kuangyin, the loyal minister of the Zhou Dynasty, Zhu Di, the good uncle of the Ming Dynasty, etc., so many outstanding people have not succeeded. Zhu Cixiang feels that his ability is quite small, and he must not be successful. There is no ability to push the Ming Dynasty throne out.
So he must be the emperor in the end!
However, the atmosphere now seems a bit strange. After Zhu Cixiang said his refusal, he did not hear Chongzhen's firm request to give up the throne to him... Moreover, Emperor Chongzhen looked at him with a very strange look.
What's going on here? What does Chongzhen mean? Shouldn't there be three concessions and three bows? This is a concession and a bow! It won't be over like this, right? Don't give up? Then I won’t give in, okay?
Thinking of this, Zhu Cixiang quickly winked at Zhu Cijiong, but when he saw Zhu Cijiong's stunned look, he knew something was wrong.
"Boss," Zhu Youjian already showed a gentle smile, "do you want to be the emperor?"
"I..." Zhu Cixiang already knew that he had said the wrong thing. Of course, he couldn't say more at this time. Too many words would lead to mistakes! So he quickly winked at Zhu Cijiong and asked for help.
Zhu Cijiong was still very interesting, and immediately said to Emperor Chongzhen: "Father, the boss must have listened to half of our conversation, and misunderstood what you meant, thinking that you wanted him to be the emperor, so he surrendered... .”
What? Don't you want me to be the emperor? Zhu Cixiang was completely stunned. So what did Chongzhen retreat from when he said "retreat" just now?
Chongzhen snorted and looked very angry.
Zhu Cijiong glanced at his brother, smiled bitterly, and said to Chongzhen: "In fact, you can't blame the elder brother. The most important thing is that our family's situation is really special! Since ancient times, there has been only one throne in the imperial family, but now our family has three. I have the throne. My son has the Emperor of Japan. Father, you have two thrones. One is the Mongol Sky Khan, and the other is the Ming Emperor... You didn't say which throne you were resigning from just now. It's normal for the boss to misunderstand. .”
It turns out that what the old man wants to retreat from is the Mongolian Great Khan!
Zhu Cixiang also couldn't laugh or cry. The system created by Emperor Chongzhen in which the emperor, the Great Khan, and the Emperor were all equally surnamed Zhu was weird enough. In particular, the co-monarchy system in which the emperor also serves as the Great Khan looks a bit like it was moved from Europe...
"Can this kind of thing be misunderstood?" Zhu Youjian said coldly, "Isn't he probably thinking about replacing me as emperor sooner?"
After hearing Chongzhen's words, Zhu Cijiong was still laughing. He smiled and said to Chongzhen: "Father, you can't wrong the boss like this. The boss really doesn't mean it... He has already said it, please work harder for ten more years." Twenty years! You have to believe him!"
As he spoke, Zhu Cijiong waved to Zhu Cixiang again, asking him to get up quickly - he was kneeling just now to yield, and now he is kneeling to beg for mercy. Zhu Cixiang, the great nephew of Emperor Ming Dynasty, is not guilty of asking for mercy!
Zhu Cixi understood what his brother meant. He couldn't give in to Chongzhen at this time, he had to toughen up!
Because the relationship between Zhu Youjian and his three sons, Zhu Cixuan, Zhu Cixuan and Zhu Cijiong, is very special. It is not a simple relationship between emperor and prince. Zhu Cixuan, Zhu Cixuan, and Zhu Cijong are not only Chongzhen's sons, but also partners of Chongzhen's version of the Celestial Empire. If Chongzhen doesn't want to ruin the plate he worked so hard to build, then he will take it. Zhu Cixiang had no choice but to compare the life spans of father and son!
And Zhu Youjian has nothing to do with Zhu Cixiang, then Zhu Cixuan and Zhu Cijiong can happily be the emperors of the Great Khan, and will not be controlled by me and become puppets...
The reason why this situation of the prince being unable to lose his power is because Emperor Chongzhen had to enhance the feudal elements of the Ming Dynasty and adopted many methods of delegating power and enfeoffing in order to "liberate the combat effectiveness" to the greatest extent.
The Ming Dynasty was originally a dynasty with a mixed system that was mostly bureaucratic centralization and half feudal decentralization... In fact, this was the top-level design Zhu Yuanzhang had back then, so it was easy to follow the old path.
The prosperity of the Ming Dynasty in the early years was also due to this top-level design that allowed the Ming Dynasty to support at least hundreds of thousands of fighting soldiers when the world was in chaos and all industries were in ruins. At the same time, it could also allow the old brothers who followed Zhu Yuanzhang to conquer the world (the old brothers were not only Dozens of princes, as well as a large number of middle- and lower-class people) share the fruits of victory - the old brothers can share the fat, so the fight will be full of energy!
Similar to Zhu Yuanzhang's approach back then, Emperor Chongzhen's feudalism and decentralization of power reached the end, and he had to reuse his own son. Sons are always more reliable than heroes!
And everyone who farms knows that the fertilizer does not flow to outsiders' fields, let alone the emperor?
Therefore, among Zhu Yuanzhang's heroes, only Mu Ying, who was suspected of being an illegitimate son, received a great title. The other thirteen kings of Sai and the two kings of Chu and Shu were all princes.
Most of the heroes who followed Zhu Youjian in the war, such as Hong Chengchou, Sun Chuanting, Lu Xiangsheng, Chen Qiyu, Sun Yingyuan, Zhou Yuji, Huang Degong, Man Gui, Yuan Chonghuan, Shi Kefa, Mao Wenlong, Zhao Lijiao, etc., were granted the title of duke, and were given Xunzhuang. , closed households, houses, gold and silver, the treatment was much better than that of Zhu Yuanzhang's heroes, and some of them continued to be high-ranking officials and held power. But no one got the title of king, and no one got their own kingdom outside the Ming Dynasty. The only exception is the Mu family, which has a very "mysterious" relationship with the Zhu Ming Dynasty. Mu Tianbo has gained almost king power in Myanmar.
However, Zhu Youjian is luckier than Zhu Yuanzhang in that he has an education system for cultivating military talents, and he also has the richest son in the world, who can continuously provide sufficient military expenditures for his empire... .If Zhu Biao could have spent several hundred million on military expenditures for Zhu Yuanzhang, the old man would have wiped out all the bits and pieces around him.
The Chongzhen disciples, headed by the three sons Zhu Cixuan, Zhu Cixuan, and Zhu Cijong, all grew very strong under Chongzhen's decentralization and reconstruction of the feudal system, far surpassing Zhu Yuanzhang's sons. This is Zhu Youjian's success, but it is also something that makes him angry... There are more and more traitors, and they are getting stronger.
All of them have a lot of money, soldiers, and abilities, but they don’t listen to me at all...
Zhu Cixi stood up at this time and said to Chongzhen with a smile: "Father, it's great that you still want to continue to be the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty. As a prince, I already feel that my talents and virtues are insufficient and it is difficult to match the position, so really I don’t want to be the emperor... Even if you must pass the throne to me, you still have to let your sons and daughters accumulate virtues and talents for another twenty or thirty years."
"Oh..." Emperor Chongzhen really didn't expect that there would be such a shameless prince in the world, and when faced with the suspicion of seizing power, this guy actually acted so confidently that he couldn't even get angry - he really didn't want to Be an emperor!
"Okay," Zhu Youjian nodded and had to change the topic, "I understand... Then I want to give up my position to the second child, what do you think?"
"I think it's good," Zhu Cixi said with a smile, "In the future, you don't have to go back and forth from Monan to Mobei. How hard it is!"
"I understand... you have worked hard enough," Zhu Youjian said, "First go to your adoptive mother and biological mother to say hello, and then go back to Duanben Palace to rest!"
