Chapter 156 Zhu Yuanzhang’s Ambition
The prince looked at He Xi with a hint of sigh in his expression.
He Xi could not see the slightest fluctuation on Zhu Yuanzhang's face, but he could see something was wrong from the prince.
I just don’t know what’s wrong.
Zhu Yuanzhang said calmly: "Yes. But is it just that?"
He Xi weighed it in his mind for a while and said, "This is all I can think of."
Zhu Yuanzhang said: "Do you think the most fundamental issue is opening up the sea?"
He Xi said: "Your Majesty means -----"
Zhu Yuanzhang did not sell out, and said: "In my opinion, it is a question of what power the people of the world have? In the words of later generations, it is personal power."
He Xi was greatly shocked. He never expected that when Zhu Yuanzhang mentioned this matter, he felt a faint throbbing in his heart. He didn't know what Zhu Yuanzhang was going to do. But I have a vague feeling that what Zhu Yuanzhang is going to do this time will make a lot of noise.
Now that Zhu Yuanzhang had spoken, he didn't hide it. The prince's slightly helpless look told He Xi that the prince might have known about this for a long time. It's just that the prince doesn't seem to be too willing.
Zhu Yuanzhang said: "I have been thinking about why democracy and freedom must be upheld in the development of capitalism. The books you brought, as well as those bourgeois bills, the American Declaration of Independence and the French Bill of Rights, Why advocate freedom and equality? Capitalism itself is neither free nor unequal?"
He Xi knew what was going on? It’s just that I can’t say this.
Because capitalism’s freedom and equality are compared to whom.
What socialism advocates is naturally neither free nor unequal. But compared with feudal society, that's not the same thing. Because the replacement of feudalism by capitalism is historical progress. There is a reason for this conclusion.
Zhu Yuanzhang saw that He Xi was not able to speak out, so he did not continue the topic. He said: "I have learned so many new things, and the one I agree with the most is that law is a tool for the rule of the ruling class. I did not make good use of this tool before. Although the Ming Code has been revised many times, it has not gone beyond the scope of the Tang Code. Now, what I want to do is to revise the Ming Code. Under the imperial power, everyone will be equal, exempt from low status, and protect the personal rights of the people. Including Property, the right to participate in imperial examinations, do business, and personal freedom. The right not to be lynched unless it violates the law."
To He Xi, this passage was simply shocking.
He Xi has ideas about the Ming Dynasty's superstructure.
Because technological development is easy to solve. But the changes in the superstructure of the Ming Dynasty are difficult to solve.
This infringes on the interests of many people.
As mentioned earlier, the tenants were physically dependent on the landlord. It is said that modern India is composed of more than 100 million Indians and more than a billion talking animals. In fact, this situation is not unique to India. It’s just that India has more remnants of the feudal era.
Although there are some problems in classifying the Qin period into the feudal era in Western historical significance. But on some fundamental issues, it cannot be said that it is completely wrong.
Because there is no feudalism among officials, but there is feudalism among officials. There was no feudalism in the imperial court, but there was feudalism in the local areas.
During the Sui and Tang Dynasties, who was the most influential person in the local area? There are five surnames and seven families, although these people do not have actual fiefdoms. However, due to the inheritance of knowledge and officials in the past dynasties, feudalism had practical significance in local official circles. And the fifth generation destroyed all of this.
Zhu Wen was on the edge of the Yellow River, throwing the clear current into the turbid current of the Yellow River, which represented the end of this academic and powerful family that had emerged in the late Western Han Dynasty. But history is development, that's all. After the short-lived civilian society in the Northern Song Dynasty, new local forces emerged.
On the one hand, there are officials. In the Tang Dynasty, officials were nothing. But the officials in the Song Dynasty have become a hidden undercurrent. On the other hand are the local clan forces.
Many people think that the old-fashioned big family in literary works has the head of the family. It has always existed in China, no. Because before the Song Dynasty, ordinary people did not have the right to worship their ancestors. Those who have the power to worship ancestors are either officials and families with a title for generations, or they are direct descendants. The branches that branched off were not included in the sacrifice at all. Therefore, there is no common local clan structure.
And all this started from Song Confucianism.
In the Northern Song Dynasty, many families were actually just a few members. There will not be more than one generation of parents plus children and grandchildren. And Fan Zhongyan began to build a school field to support the study of his own people. Ouyang Xiu and others advocated new sacrificial methods. When Lu Dalin arrived, he proposed a treaty with Lantian Township.
In this way, the transformation activities carried out by the Northern Song Dynasty scholars in the scattered rural areas reached their peak.
And the clan power has also come to the forefront of history.
The Yuan and Song dynasties, the Yuan and Ming dynasties, and even Zhu Yuanzhang's attack on local forces, large-scale immigration, etc. In fact, it severely damaged the power of the scholar-bureaucrats on the ground, and the scholar-bureaucrats and local clans were often one and two, and two and one. They don't completely overlap, but they are inextricably linked.
Without him, clan is something that also costs money. If there are no dignitaries or prominent figures in the family. The clan gradually dispersed. However, there are dignitaries and prominent figures in the family, and the clan power gathers around these people. On the one hand, these dignitaries need some caring people. There is no one more caring than your own family. On the other hand, if a family is like a dragon and a phoenix, if one person is prosperous, everyone will benefit.
As time goes by, if a family has been promoted to Jinshi from generation to generation. Then this family naturally became the local social elite, represented by scholar-bureaucrats.
Of course, these families that prospered because of the imperial examinations will also perish because of the imperial examinations. Not much to say here. However, the replacement of local powerful clans does not mean the demise of these powerful clans as an overall force.
Confucianism governs the country by etiquette and law, and the original interpretation of the Daming Code, that is, the annotation of the Daming Code, is a very important legal document. It uses a lot of space after the ten major treasons mentioned at the beginning, that is, the ten major sins of rebellion and immorality. I talked a little bit about what to do if my father dies? What should I do if my mother dies? And what's the name of your father's father? What's the name of dad's sister? Such seemingly unimportant family ethics issues.
If you don’t understand this, you don’t understand Confucian logic.
Zhang Zai's article makes it very clear: "The great king is the eldest son of my parents; his ministers are the ministers of the eldest son's family."
The Confucian governance model is that the emperor is not only the emperor, but also the head of the royal family. And officials are not just officials, they also copy this model and are the heads of local families. Therefore, in the world, the clan of the Son of Heaven rules over the local clans, and everyone settles in his or her own way. Therefore, as the emperor, the emperor must pay special attention to etiquette. Because etiquette and law not only regulated the emperor, but were also important rules used by the emperor to regulate local noble families. Therefore, why, in the great rituals of the Ming Dynasty, the competition for status was so fierce that many people would not give in even to death. Even one after another.
Of course there is an element of political interest in this, but more importantly, it is an important pillar of the Ming Dynasty in governing the country, and an important link between the Ming royal family and the scholar-bureaucrat families. If the royal family does not care about this, how can the local patriarchs of the big families be in an orderly manner? , to suppress other challengers?
As mentioned earlier, within a clan, individuals do not have independent property rights. Even among clans, individuals have no guarantee of life.
Family lynchings, parents killing their children, are often not punished. In the eyes of later generations, some parents viewed their children as their own property. They are all condemned and cannot be included in the mainstream of society. In the Ming Dynasty, the mainstream of society was that children were the property of their parents. Later generations said that parents sold their children, which was more of an exaggeration. In this era, it is natural for parents to sell their children, and it is even allowed by Ming law.
On the other hand, look at Zhu Yuanzhang's simple words, what do they mean? It represented a subversion and negated the ideology of Song Confucianism from a legal perspective. This is something He Xi has thought about countless times but never dared to do.
After having these basic rights, some follow-up things can be carried out one by one.
But there will be huge backlash.
This is also the reason why He Xi has been reluctant to take action.
