emperor!
The emperor is the biggest obstacle to the continuity of the country.
One sentence made Zhu Biao silent.
Su Jing smiled and said: "What's wrong, are you scared?"
Su Jing thought Zhu Biao didn't dare to speak because he was afraid after mentioning the emperor.
"Master Su, what is the possibility? The student wants to know."
Zhu Biao's firm eyes showed extremely persistent belief.
He must find a way to make the Ming Dynasty sustainable!
"Oh, not bad."
Su Jing nodded slightly, he admired this young man's character very much.
"Then I'll explain it to you."
Su Jing directly dipped her hand into the tea in the cup and wrote the word "field" and the word "人" on the table.
"You know these two words, right?"
Su Jing asked Zhu Biao.
Zhu Biao replied: "Students know each other, one is a field and the other is a person."
Su Jing continued: "Okay, then do you know why the word Tian is written like this?"
Zhu Biao replied: "Qin destroyed the six kingdoms and established the Qin Dynasty. The books were in the same track and the cars were in the same text. From that time on, the word Tian was written like this."
"That's not wrong, but let me tell you, even before the Qin Dynasty destroyed the Six Kingdoms, the seven Spring and Autumn Kingdoms had different writing styles, but the writing of the word "tian" was basically the same. Do you know why?"
Su Jing asked again.
Zhu Biao thought for a moment and said, "It's because the word "tian" is similar to the shape of the land, so it's written like this."
"very good!"
Su Jing was very satisfied and said: "Then the question comes again, how did the shape of the land become like this?"
Zhu Biao was stunned this time.
In his subconscious mind, the land was this square shape.
But he also knows that in actual production, most land cannot be so organized.
More irregular shapes.
So why do I subconsciously have this understanding?
"Students don't know, students just think it should be like this."
Zhu Biao answered truthfully.
Su Jing was not surprised and said with a smile: "It should be used well. In fact, it starts with the well field system."
"The well-field system appeared in the Shang Dynasty and matured in the Western Zhou Dynasty."
"At that time, roads and fields crisscrossed the land, dividing the land into squares, much like tic-tac-toe, so it was called well fields."
“The part of the well field looks the same as the current word Tian. This is the origin of the writing method of the word Tian.”
"The well-field system stipulates that all land belongs to the state, that is, the king of Zhou. The king of Zhou will allocate land to the princes layer by layer, and the princes will allocate it to the ministers, and the ministers will distribute it to their children and subordinates."
“These land owners at all levels, or slave owners, divided the land into public land and private land. The public land is the best land that they enjoy, and the private land is the poor land that is distributed to ordinary people for cultivation. "
"The output of public fields needs to be taxed, because all land belongs to the king of Zhou, and private fields belong to the slave owners themselves."
"This resulted in a large number of slave owners driving slaves to reclaim wasteland and expand their private fields."
“Originally, private fields were difficult to cultivate and the output was not high. However, the emergence of iron cattle farming has made these private fields a popular commodity.”
“And when all the private lands that could be cultivated were cultivated, they set their sights on public lands.”
"As the power of the Zhou king gradually declined and slave owners continued to expropriate public lands, the Western Zhou Dynasty gradually declined until it died."
"Slavery society has thus entered its final stage."
"This is what I said before. The emergence of iron farming led to the disappearance of slave society."
"But in fact, what is the core reason? Niu Yi, can you see it?"
This is Su Jing's habit. When talking about a key point, she always pauses and asks Zhu Biao.
Zhu Biao listened very seriously and immediately replied: "It is because the slave owners embezzled private lands and continued to expand their power, while the strength of the Zhou royal family continued to decline, resulting in the weak master and the strong ministers. This is the reason for the collapse of the Zhou royal family." reason."
Being in an imperial family, Zhu Biao learned history very well, especially the history of the rise and fall of dynasties.
After all, history is the best mirror.
Su Jing nodded slightly and encouraged Zhu Biao, but then her face changed and she said: "This is the most straightforward reason, it is a phenomenon, and we should see the essence through the phenomenon."
"In the final analysis, it is actually the contradiction between these two."
As she spoke, Su Jing pointed to the two words just written on the table:
"When people want more land, they first look outside for ownerless wasteland. After the ownerless land disappears, they will merge with each other until the largest landowner emerges."
After Zhu Biao listened, he asked: "Master Su, you are right, but you said before that the feudal dynasty started from the Qin Dynasty, and the demise of the Western Zhou Dynasty was related to changes in the economic foundation. Why did the feudal dynasty definitely perish? "
"It seems you still don't understand!"
Su Jing shook her head slightly and said with a smile: "Then I will tell you about this feudal dynasty."
"I said before that in the early days of a dynasty, the war has just ended, the population is sparse, and everything is prosperous, right?"
"At that time, there were fewer people and more land. Whether it was used to reward meritorious generals or let farmers reclaim wasteland, there was plenty of it."
"But as the dynasty continues to develop and recover, the population will skyrocket in a few generations!"
"An ordinary family of two has three children in one generation. Roughly speaking, there are 27 children in the fourth generation. This is an exponential increase. I have taught you the calculation method before, so I won't go into details."
"Normally, population growth is a good thing for a dynasty, because population represents the labor force."
“But there’s a question, what happens if there are too many people and too little land?”
"There is an upper limit to the food that can be grown on each piece of land. What will be the final result of the continuous growth of the population?"
Zhu Biao was stunned. He said blankly: "The more poor people are, the more frequent famines will be. If the dynasty cannot suppress it, there will be a peasant uprising."
This is exactly the family history of his father Zhu Yuanzhang!
Incomparably true!
The beginning of the Ming Dynasty was based on the collapse of the previous dynasty.
Su Jing nodded and said: "Yes, whether it is famine, war or disease, these are the most direct ways to consume the population, and war is also the most effective method."
"What's more important is that in the process of population explosion, rich bureaucrats continue to annex farmers' land, causing farmers to become poorer and social conflicts becoming more serious."
"Existing productivity levels cannot keep up with population growth, and that's an unsolvable problem."
"In the conflict between man and land, one party must make a compromise, and this compromise can only be made by man!"
"Now, you understand why feudal dynasties always change periodically."
Zhu Biao replied blankly: "Because there are too many people."
