[Current historical influence rating: High. 】
[Distribution of phased rewards: 10,000 stones of sweet potatoes. 】
Zhu Di was in a trance for a while and returned to reality.
He asked doubtfully: "What is this sweet potato?"
[Sweet potatoes are a crop with extremely strong vitality. Whether it is hills or sandy soil, regardless of whether you are rich or poor, sweet potatoes can grow tenaciously. Except for a few areas with particularly high altitudes, most areas are good places to produce sweet potatoes. 】
Zhu Di touched his chin: "I don't know if this thing is good or bad."
If he remembered correctly, more than a hundred years later the Ming Dynasty would be plunged into a continuous crisis of natural disasters. The original Ming Dynasty fell because of this influence.
Zhu Di is no longer the original Zhu Di. He now looks at things from a very long-term perspective.
"According to the system, sweet potato should be a food suitable for planting and capable of large-scale production."
Zhu Di thought, "With developed agricultural production, the population can rise. The rise in population means that the demand for food will increase. Once there is a natural disaster in the original history, agricultural production will not be able to support the population demand, which means that the Ming Dynasty will fall into In the midst of a food crisis.”
This is a very magical logic: because agriculture has developed, agriculture has fallen behind.
But Zhu Di also realized that he seemed to have overlooked a more important issue: "Wait a minute, according to the original history, the time period when the natural disaster broke out should be two hundred years later..."
"At that time, if Ming Dynasty had a food crisis, the whole world would donate blood to Ming Dynasty."
This is the key!
With the speed at which Xiaosi expanded his territory after he ascended the throne, it would not be possible to wait until two hundred years later. In twenty years, he would almost become a star for the earth.
When the Central Plains falls into a food crisis, will the dozens of provinces in the west not be able to supply blood obediently?
"Forget it, wait until Xiaosi comes back from the south and let him make the decision."
After Zhu Di returned to the real world, he lay flat again, without the high spirits of pointing to the sky in the fantasy world.
If you have anything to do, just ask Xiaosi, and whatever Xiaosi says will be accepted.
…
The scenery in Yangzhou is just right at this time, the sky is high and the clouds are clear, the breeze is gentle, and under the bright sun, a small table is placed for drinking tea.
Opposite Zhu Gaojie is the prime minister in black, Yao Guangxiao. This senior monk is already over eighty years old. In the Ming Dynasty, when the average life span was about fifty years old, eighty-year-olds were already quite rare for long-lived elderly people.
"I have made countless karma in my life, and I don't know how many people have died because of me. When I die, I will fall into the eighteenth level of hell and suffer endless suffering."
Yao Guangxiao may have known that his end was approaching, but his voice was still calm and calm, "I am also afraid, afraid that I will not be able to bear the endless suffering. Therefore, I want to do some good deeds before dying to eliminate some of my own karma. You can suffer less when you go to hell."
Zhu Gaojie chuckled and said: "A good person has done good deeds throughout his life, but if he does one bad thing before his death, he is a hypocrite. And a bad person has done bad things all his life, but only needs to do one good thing before he can put down his butcher knife." Become a Buddha immediately."
"There are so many likes and dislikes in this world, it's just your own conscience."
Yao Guangxiao shook his head and said with a smile: "I can't listen to what you said. Because I believe that there is a god in this world, but you don't believe it. Not only you, your father, your grandfather, they don't believe in this world." There is a God above.”
"Your grandfather once became a monk and served in temples. Your father also carried out large-scale construction to build Buddhism. They claim to be the sons of God, but neither your father, your grandfather, nor you yourself believe in God. .”
"In your hearts, there is only one god in this world, and that is yourselves."
Zhu Gaojie smiled and did not answer, which seemed to be acquiescing to what the old monk said.
The three generations of the old Zhu family are all atheists.
Rather than expecting blessings from gods, they are more willing to use their own hands to achieve themselves.
Zhu Gaojie asked: "Old monk, what do you think?"
Yao Guangxiao felt a little confused: "What are you asking about?"
Zhu Gaojie said: "How do you see the power of the world and the people of the world seeing the connection between humans and gods?"
Yao Guangxiao chuckled and shook his head, avoiding answering.
Zhu Gaojiu asked: "What you asked was answered by Gu, so why didn't you say a word?"
Helpless, Yao Guangxiao could only say: "Today's world is not the world of the Zhu family, nor the world of the people in the world. I once thought that if King Yan and I took over the world, the world would become ours, but I was wrong , the world we conquer is not the real world."
Zhu Gaojie frowned slightly: "Why does the young master express such emotion?"
Yao Guangxiao said slowly: "The emperor's authority can be exercised by princes or generals. But for local governments, they recognize the emperor's authority, and that day is the emperor."
Place does not refer to the people, but to the families who are entrenched in the place.
The intertwined roots of one generation after another have formed a complex chain of interests in the local area. When all the chains of interests intersect, it is clearly a structure built on the people. The blood and sweat of the people are used to divide the interests, but the table of interests is not there. There is no seat for the common people.
The emperor is just a diner sitting at this profit table.
"This is true for any country. When a dynasty was first established, there was still room for improvement at the bottom level. But as the structure and rules of the dynasty gradually improved, this channel that allowed the bottom level to reach the upper level was completely cut off."
Zhu Gaojie said calmly, "My grandfather was a poor monk who lived through alms at first. General Chang Yuchun was a bandit who followed the green forest bandits to rob homes and houses. General Xu Da grew up with my grandfather herding cattle. General Mu Ying At the age of seven, both his parents died and he wandered and begged in Haozhou. Song Lian, the founding official of the founding civil society, came from a poor family and could not even afford a book when he was young..."
"But if you look at it now, how many of the people in this dynasty who have been granted the title of Prime Minister are the sons of farmers?"
"Everyone has been labeled as a third, sixth, or ninth class person since birth. No one can cross this class gap. The son of a prince is a prince, and the son of a general is a hereditary general. Although civil servants are not Hereditary rule does not matter, but in a family with hundreds of generations of ministers, which minister's son would grow sorghum?"
"Take the two brothers Su Wen and Su Wu as an example. They were beggars picked up on the street. But if it weren't for the fact that they came from a wealthy family in Fujian and received the teachings of famous teachers since childhood, would they have achieved what they have today?"
"It is true that what Su Wen and Su Wu really make Gu value is their talent. Su Wen can draw inferences from one instance by looking at the art of war, and Su Wu can figure out the finance of a province by just flipping through two or three volumes of financial books. But if it weren't for the fact that they have been young since they were young. If you receive a first-class education, how should you use your talent?"
"The children of ordinary tenant farmers cannot read a single word. No matter how talented they are, they have no chance to use their talents."
"What really makes a country destroy its foundation is the monopoly on the education of children in ordinary people's homes."
What Zhu Gaojie said made Yao Guangxiao fall into deep thought.
This was a problem he had never imagined.
In the Han Dynasty, the inspection and examination system was implemented, with filial piety and integrity as the main subject for selecting talents for appointment. The main feature is that local governors inspect and select talents at any time within their jurisdiction and recommend them to superiors or the central government, and then appoint officials after probationary assessment.
However, under this system, the wealthy families worked together to block the channels for poor families to rise. There are no poor families in the upper class, and no noble families in the lower class. This is the most realistic situation in the Han Dynasty.
The introduction of the imperial examination system in the Sui and Tang Dynasties opened a door to the highest power for poor families.
The rise of the imperial examination system ensured that dynasty officials would not be selected exclusively from the elite gentry, so the elite gentry could not monopolize political resources.
Despite this, the system is dead, but people are alive. There are ten thousand ways for aristocratic families to block the channels for poor families to rise.
Zhu Gaojie asked: "Master, do you know when the aristocratic family's absolute monopoly on upper-level channels began to break away from their control?"
Yao Guangxiao pondered for a moment and asked tentatively: "Huang Chao is causing trouble?"
When Wuhu was in chaos in China, it was the golden period for the development of aristocratic families. Since the end of the Han Dynasty, aristocratic families have owned forts, land, dependent farmers, books, and reputations. The Hu people mostly destroyed the properties of common people or powerful people. Instead, the refugees were attracted by the aristocratic families, which made the aristocratic families stronger. Hundreds of years of accumulation led to the birth of monsters like Qiwang with five surnames in the Sui and Tang Dynasties.
The invasion of foreign tribes from the north just made them submissive, and the family was almost over as early as the Anshi Rebellion. From the beginning of Zhenguan to the prosperous age of Kaiyuan, the family declined, and during Wu Zetian's reign, the family was crippled.
Huang Chao's rebellion was not for the common people, nor for the poor classes. He himself was not considered to be from a poor family. He was very rich because of his smuggling career. The reason why he failed to pass the imperial examination was obviously because he was too poor and not even qualified to operate behind the scenes.
As long as Huang Chao has some level of skill, he will not have no level at all.
This guy purely belongs to the bandit class and is at the bottom of the class contempt chain. He did not start the uprising for the so-called equalization of wealth and land, nor for the interests of the people, but purely for himself.
But Huang Chao still did some personnel things. For example, he stabbed the throat of a noble family member.
For Huang Chao, the aristocratic family class is not important to him, and the poor class is not important to him either. The money of the aristocratic family is very important to him.
This guy just burned, killed and plundered all the way, and by relying on his lack of martial ethics to run rampant, he robbed the aristocratic family that had been crippled by the Tang Dynasty royal family and reduced them to paupers.
However, Zhu Gaojie shook his head: "Tang Emperor? Huang Chao?"
"No, they only crippled the aristocratic families of one dynasty. The Tang Dynasty crippled the aristocratic families, Huang Chao killed and conquered the aristocratic families, and the chaotic times of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms completely wiped out the remnants of the old clans."
"But after the chaos of the Five Dynasties and Ten Kingdoms ended, aristocratic families sprung up again. Only with the establishment of a new dynasty, aristocratic families will exist."
"However, do you know why the Northern and Southern Song Dynasties, and even the Ming Dynasty, were not as powerful as the Qiwang of the Five Surnames in the early Tang Dynasty, so powerful that the court bowed its head?"
(End of chapter)