Chapter 158: Behind the Screen
King Yan pondered for a long time and knew that the reform was the biggest event in the court in recent years. This was a test question given to him by his father, but King Yan hesitated again and again and decided to answer it according to his own wishes.
Without him, King Yan thought about it over and over, and finally decided not to play tricks in front of his father.
What kind of person is Zhu Yuanzhang? I am determined not to get away with it that easily. I lied in front of Zhu Yuanzhang today. Even if there is no problem for a while, in the long run, it will definitely be exposed.
What will happen then?
King Yan felt that the gain was not worth the loss.
More importantly, King Yan had a way out. It would be great to be the Emperor of the Ming Dynasty, but if you can't, it's not impossible to go back and be your own King of Mobei. Why bother to make yourself neither up nor down? When the time comes, it is very likely that you will not get both ends.
King Yan said: "Father, I have had a lot of dealings with He Xi. To be honest, I think He Xi is smart and witty and the best in the world. I have never seen such a person. What matter is in his hands?" , all have new solutions, which are completely different from the ideas of famous ministers in the world, or even completely opposite, but they are very effective. If I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes, I wouldn’t believe that there are such people in the world.”
"I'm just thinking of someone."
Zhu Yuanzhang said: "Who is it?"
King Yan said: "Jia Yi. Jia Yi is a genius in the world. Even if we talk about it now, his talent is not inferior to the three heroes of the early Han Dynasty. Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty has also been a wise king since ancient times. Then he surrendered Jia Yi to Changsha. Is it not without a holy master? Why is this happening? ? The ministers have carefully thought about it, and Jia Yi’s strategy was to cut down the vassals first, and then Emperor Jing used it. It can be said that the opinions put forward by Jia Yi were used one by one between Wen and Jing. It can be seen from this that Emperor Wen of the Han Dynasty did not Recognize talents? Yes, as for all the geniuses in the world, their talents are beyond the times. Even if they are seen thousands of years later, they will still shine brightly. However, the way of doing politics is like using soldiers. It requires timing and the timing will never come. , Even if tens of thousands of people die in front of the battle, we must stand still. When the time comes, even if we only have a few hundred soldiers in our hands, we must still attack them. This is the same with military use, and the same is true with government."
Zhu Yuanzhang said: "You mean that many of the things He Xi raised are not at the right time."
King Yan said: "Exactly. I'm not saying that what He Xi said is wrong. It's because it was decided in the early Ming Dynasty that state affairs should focus on stability. If people in the world are opposed to one thing, then this thing is right or wrong. The people of the world support this matter, and in this matter, both wrong and right are right. Lao Tzu said: "Don't dare to be the first for the world, this is what I mean."
He Xi listened and sighed secretly in his heart.
But I don’t know how to defend myself.
Is it wrong to say that King Yan said it?
He Xi couldn't tell. Without him, he had already seen the starting point of all this for King Yan. King Yan never thought about the impact of He Xi's new law. But out of the protection of one's own power.
As an emperor, what is the most important thing?
It is not about expanding territory or refreshing politics, but to secure one's throne. After all, if the throne is not secure, then everything is in vain.
Of course, from this incident, we can also see the advantages and limitations of King Yan.
The advantage of King Yan is that he is pragmatic. If you want to get King Yan's support for something, it is actually very simple. Just let King Yan know that this thing is useful. Just like the silage method, there are also options for cultivating improved varieties on grasslands.
As long as King Yan finds it useful, he will implement it more actively than anyone else.
However, once some ideas exceed the concept of usefulness. Then there will be problems with the intensity of King Yan's implementation. King Yan naturally disliked things that sounded both mysterious and mysterious.
Even though He Xi made a sound statement about the benefits brought by the development of productivity, King Yan did not refute it. After all, King Yan has memorized it since he was a child; "the journey of the great road is the same as the world is one." Such words and phrases, Confucianism talks about the world of great harmony, which sounds much better than what He Xi said.
But what is the reality?
King Yan would not believe it.
It's like He Xi is dedicated to climbing the technological tree. This is not the case with King Yan.
Today's Ming army mainly uses cold weapons, supplemented by gunpowder weapons. In He Xi's view, it was a transitional stage, but in King Yan's view, it was enough. Especially on the battlefield, it has been proven that the Ming Dynasty's armaments have surpassed those of the Mongols by an era.
From a general's perspective, there is actually no need to upgrade Ming's armaments. Without him, even if they have advanced weapons, such as all-firearms troops with light infantry artillery, so what?
It is also a battle of defeat. After all, it is difficult to fight a battle of annihilation on the grassland.
The equipment of the former is available now, but the equipment of the latter needs a new round of technological innovation, with hundreds of thousands or millions of taels invested in upgrading it? It is very clear what King Yan will choose.
After all, in He Xi's view, he is just reproducing the technological route that has already been taken. But in King Yan, some people say that aircraft carriers are now obsolete because nuclear fusion is about to succeed. When the time comes, we will use aerospace battleships driven by nuclear fusion reactors.
as a pragmatic politician. Should you believe what you see before you, or bet on nuclear fusion in the next fifty years?
Zhu Yuanzhang nodded. He was not surprised by what King Yan said.
Because any development has its pros and cons. As far as the reform is concerned, there are more advantages than disadvantages at the beginning. After all, He Xi only made slight improvements at the beginning and played a huge role in the battle of Yunnan.
It can be said that He Xi's ordnance reform saved countless lives for the Ming army. Precisely because of the large amount of armor and the almost inexhaustible steel crossbows, the Ming army had a great advantage in quelling the Yunnan chieftain war.
If we calculate all the wars from the reform of ordnance at that time to today, this kind of savings will be an astonishing number.
And in fact, most of He Xi's improvements to the Ming Dynasty's ordnance remained at the level of improvement at that time. It's not that He Xi doesn't have new designs and ideas, it's just that he doesn't have any.
But now, the power of industrialization brought by He Xi has reached a critical point.
With increased investment, from He Xi's perspective, future gains can be expected, but from the perspective of others, this may not be the case. What's more, the financial game played by He Xi may seem brilliant to those who appreciate it, but from the perspective of outdated financial concepts, it is simply playing with fire.
It's a Ponzi scheme that will explode sooner or later.
Of course, they don't know what a Ponzi scheme is.
Under such circumstances, it is naturally very difficult to convince the court to continue investing. Although a large part of He Xi's capital was saved by He Xi himself, the imperial court also invested a lot. It invested several times, totaling more than 10 million taels, which was enough money for a large army to go out for a war.
Even though He Xi managed the business well, the money was not He Xi's own money after all, but the court's money.
This is also the reason why the prince always felt that he had to figure it out slowly.
Zhu Yuanzhang said: "You mean to abolish the reform."
King Yan said: "Of course not. Everything my father did was for the benefit of the Ming Dynasty. But in the past few years, first the emperor was cleared and then the law was reformed. The officials of the Ming Dynasty were afraid of tossing. I just felt that the relaxation of civil and military affairs road."
"But the results of previous reforms must naturally be retained. When there is an opportunity in the future, it is not impossible to start over."
He Xi, who was behind the screen, shook his head slightly. restart?
Starting over sounds nice, but in reality, it’s even harder. First of all, the social structure of the Ming Dynasty, or the social structure of China, was that the emperor and scholar-bureaucrats ruled the world together, with agriculture as the foundation. This political system was very stable from the Han Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty.
Such traces have even been left in the minds of Chinese people. Western economics puts forward the hypothesis of rational people, that is, people who completely obey the actions of economic efficiency, but Chinese people rarely act purely based on interests.
Because many Chinese people actually understand the truth that if something is beneficial to everyone, it is likely to be detrimental to everyone involved. Just like the gentry officials in the late Ming Dynasty, they spared no effort to weaken the center of the Ming Dynasty. No one paid taxes, everyone fooled the superiors, and made a lot of money. However, the big tree of the Ming Dynasty fell. Jurchen came with a knife.
Some people died, but not completely...
