Ye Feng endured the turmoil in his stomach, but his expression remained unchanged and he continued:
"Actually, among the above three reasons, the first one - "land annexation" - is the most important one.
"There were a lot of military strategists and a lot of politicians in the history of China, but there were almost very few reformers, and the few reformers ended up miserable.
"Those reformers all realized that the root cause of dynasty change was "land annexation." However, no dynasty has been able to solve the problem of land annexation for thousands of years, so successive dynasties have continued to perform the three-hundred-year dynasty historical cycle. Drama.
"But first we must make it clear: "Land annexation" is not a specialty of feudal society. "Land annexation" belongs to the contradiction between man and land. Since it is a contradiction, its existence is objective and does not depend on human will. This is Dialectical materialism.
"Land annexation is the product of the formation of private ownership and exploitation systems. Primitive society is not an exploitative society, so there is no land annexation problem in primitive society. Therefore, land annexation actually started in slave society.
"In fact, the emergence of land annexation, to be more precise, should be the product of the development of social productive forces. Therefore, it is not a phenomenon unique to feudal society. However, in feudal society, land annexation was particularly serious, resulting in the contradiction between man and land. It is also particularly prominent, so when we mention land annexation, we will naturally think of feudal society.
"We all know that during the feudal dynasty, the system was determined by the interests of the supreme ruler, the emperor. In the Zhou Dynasty, the well field system forced the people to cultivate the royal fields, and the people could only keep the rations that could only sustain themselves, and other production Everything belongs to the royal family and the nobility. From the perspective of human nature, the people will inevitably use laziness as a way of resistance, which will eventually lead to a shrinking of production. Later, the emperor adopted the private ownership of land, allowing the land owner to pay taxes, and the rest was his own way, so as to improve the People’s enthusiasm for production. However, private ownership of land means that land can be freely transferred and bought and sold, which also creates the prerequisite for land annexation.
"Furthermore, farmers have poor ability to withstand risks, and it's okay if the weather is good. But once in the middle and late dynasties, there are droughts and floods, and farmers have no harvests. They have to pay taxes and survive. In the end, most farmers have to mortgage their land and ask the landlords for help." The loans were usurious. However, few farmers could afford to repay them, which eventually led to a high degree of land annexation by landlords and other classes.
"The emperor needs bureaucrats to act as agents to manage the people. If the bureaucrats don't have power, they can't control the people, and they can't make money and benefits from the people for the emperor. So the emperor has to give power to the bureaucrats. But bureaucrats, as human beings, also have selfish motives, and their power In addition to making money for the emperor, you must also make money for yourself and your relatives. This is the human nature of people. So bureaucrats rely on their power to seize other people's land, and the relatives of bureaucrats also rely on bureaucrats to seize other people's land. The ruffians in "Water Margin" Yin Tianxi took advantage of the fact that his brother-in-law was the prefect and seized the land belonging to Chai Jin's family.
“In the end, not only the rich and landowners spend money to buy the land of the poor, but the powerful people will not only seize the land of the poor, but also the wealthy but powerful landlord class.
“So money does not compete with power, which has been a wise saying since ancient times.
"Over time, social conflicts increased, and the arrogance of the rulers caused them to no longer regard the people as humans, but as animals. But the people are objectively human beings. Since they are human beings, they have human hearts and human nature. When the people live If we can't go on, we will naturally rise up and overthrow the dynasty. After all, as a human being, who would want to die?"
When Ye Feng said this, Xia Yimo's face turned obviously ugly.
But Ye Feng didn't seem to notice Xia Yimo's expression. After all, Ren Xiaojin on the side was looking forward to Ye Feng finishing the last bite. Ye Feng covered his eyes and said:
"Actually, the common people's pursuits are not high. They don't need gorgeous palaces, delicacies from the mountains and seas, silks and satins, or the title of prince or prime minister. They just want to be able to have a roof over their heads and not sleep on the street, and to have a simple meal without being raped. If you starve to death, you can wear coarse linen clothes without being frozen to death, and you can sleep until dawn without worrying about your body and head being missing. If any dynasty can allow the people to do this, then this dynasty will be a truly peaceful and prosperous age. It is a pity that in history None of those dynasties could do that. The common people were just cattle and horses in the so-called prosperous times and cannon fodder in troubled times."
“The above is the first reason. The logic behind human nature is fully revealed.
"The second reason, "a high-level coup of the ruling class and a top-down change of power," is easier to explain. The "Tao Te Ching" says: The way of heaven damages more than it can make up for the deficiencies. This is not the case with humanity. If there is insufficient damage, there is more than enough. .
"So in dynasties throughout history, the poor will inevitably become poorer, and the rich will become richer. In modern theory, this is the Matthew effect - "To everyone who has, give him twice as much to make him redundant; to those who don't, Even what he has will be taken away." In fact, the Matthew Effect not only reflects the polarized social phenomenon of "the rich get richer and the poor get poorer", it also reflects a common phenomenon in today's society, that is, winner takes all.
"The human heart is inherently evil, and it is inherently greedy and selfish, seeking benefits and avoiding harm. Those with power will sooner or later take action against the emperor, the apex status that symbolizes power and money. Therefore, high-level coups are due to the immutable nature of human nature. , and it is almost an unsolvable historical law.
"As for the third reason of "foreign invasion", it is more about human nature. Most of the foreigners in ancient times were nomadic peoples. It can be imagined that under the premise of strong force, if they did not have enough food and clothing, they would inevitably plunder Living space for the weak, land, wealth and even women.
"To sum up, the above three reasons are the historical law that causes each dynasty to not survive for three hundred years. The ancients were not stupid, or in fact, in terms of intelligence, there is no difference between the ancients and today's people. Today we The ancients may not have thought of what they could think of, but so what if they thought of it. The most fundamental way to truly break the law of historical cycles is to change the human nature of people's hearts, but the human nature of people's hearts is not so easy to change.
"Confucius, Mencius, Lao Zhuang, and Sakyamuni were all extraordinary and unprecedented figures. They spent their whole lives creating "Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism." The three schools of thought have been circulated for countless years, but in the end they could not change everything. They were still defeated in the end. Under the four words "humanity in the human heart". Even if I were to take "humanity in the human heart" as my opponent, I would definitely lose.
"So from the beginning, what we can do should not be to go against human nature, but to make the best of the situation and make people, countries, nations, and societies develop in a good direction. This is the development of humanity that is in line with the way of heaven. right way.
"And this is the so-called 'unity of man and nature' in history."
