After hearing Emperor Hongzhi's question, Liu Jian immediately didn't know how to reply.
Each dynasty had its heyday, but often it quickly declined and eventually perished.
There is no way to draw lessons from the history of past dynasties and guide the development of the Ming Dynasty now.
At this time, the prosperity of the Ming Dynasty had surpassed that of any previous dynasty, and problems that had never occurred in any previous dynasty appeared. This made Liu Jian, who had read traditional books all his life, deeply feel that his abilities were insufficient and he did not know how to deal with it.
When asked by Emperor Hongzhi, he didn't know how to reply.
I deeply feel the great responsibility, but I cannot talk nonsense easily. It took great effort for Ming Dynasty to reach the current situation. If it is affected by my wrong views, I am afraid I will be a sinner for the ages.
"I don't know what to do."
After a long while, Liu Jian shook his head slightly and said.
"Hmm~"
"What good ideas do you have?"
Emperor Hongzhi nodded slightly, not surprised, and turned to ask Xie Qian, Li Dongyang, Ji Zhong, Zhang Mao and others.
When everyone heard this, they fell silent.
"Your Majesty~"
After thinking for a long time, Li Dongyang slowly spoke.
"The prosperity and prosperity of our Ming Dynasty today far exceed that of the Han and Tang Dynasties, and the vastness of its territory is even greater than that of the Mongol Empire back then, with a population of tens of millions."
"Managing such a huge country is a huge challenge for our court and our officials. We can no longer do as we did before, just doing light corvee and paying little tax, and exhorting farmers to teach farming.
Let the huge country be well managed.”
Li Dongyang said very seriously that this was his most intuitive feeling in the past few years.
The Ming Dynasty has gone beyond the trajectory of previous dynasties and embarked on a path that has never been taken before. Naturally, the court is also facing new challenges in the management of the country.
Not to mention anything else, just looking at the territory that the Ming Dynasty now owns, it used to be only two capitals and thirteen provinces, and it can still be managed by relying on traditional methods.
But now, there are the vast grassland provinces and Liaodong Province in the north, and the vast Western Region and Hezhong area in the west. It is inevitable that there are more Nanyang provinces, and there are also the huge Golden Continent and Australia.
If you include the many overseas colonies, vassal states, etc., it would be even bigger.
With such a huge territory, the time required to communicate between various places is much longer than before. Not to mention other things, it takes more than two months to send a unilateral letter between the imperial court and Australia.
In addition to the inconvenience and long time required to travel, there are also many ethnic groups, tribes, etc. living in the huge territory.
There are tribes and countries descended from the Shang Dynasty here in Huangjinzhou, there are Australian aborigines here in Australia, and there are a large number of local aborigines in the Nanyang region. The prairie people on the northern grasslands, the Jurchens in the deep mountains and forests of Liaodong, and the Western Regions are all large and small.
Various tribes.
With such a vast territory and such a complex population structure, it is inconvenient to communicate with each other, the language is not clear, and the life, customs, etc. are also completely different.
For the imperial court, there was definitely no way to effectively manage such a huge country and so many ethnic groups and tribes by just relying on the previous methods.
In the past, in this remote area with few Han people, the imperial court would often appoint local tribal leaders to manage the area. This had many benefits.
The imperial court could govern a large area, stabilize the territory, and consolidate the borders without much effort.
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But the disadvantages are also obvious, because under such extensive management, the sky is high and the emperor is far away in these places. The leaders of these tribes surrendered to the central dynasty when they were weak, but once their own strength became stronger, or the central dynasty weakened, they returned
He will quickly claim to be a country, and even seek to prosper China.
This kind of history has been played out countless times, over and over again, and again and again.
Therefore, even if it can occupy vast territories when it is strong, it will quickly lose these territories once it becomes weak. Only places with a large number of Han people will always have strong centripetal force and always be united with the Central Plains dynasty.
In this regard, the Western Regions are the best example.
Both the Han and Tang Dynasties occupied and ruled here, but eventually lost it.
Now that the territory and territory of the Ming Dynasty exceeds that of any previous dynasty or country, and it rules such a huge territory, will the Ming Dynasty continue to follow the same old path?
At the court, many officials have already written to govern such a vast territory according to the methods of previous dynasties, which can save energy and facilitate management.
For example, in the Golden Continent, local Yin Shang tribal leaders were reused to manage and maintain the rule of the Golden Continent. As long as they were loyal to the Ming Dynasty, it did not necessarily require a large number of immigrants, nor did they necessarily have to appoint officials.
to manage them.
Because it is very far for exiled officials to go to these places, and secondly, they will encounter strong resistance from the local people. The Ming Dynasty will be tired of dealing with this, which is not conducive to the rule of the Golden Continent.
The same is true in the Western Regions. When Liu Jin requested to immigrate one million people to the Western Regions, he was strongly opposed by many ministers in the court.
Their opinion is nothing more than wasting money and wasting people. Millions of immigrants have immigrated, and the financial and material resources that the court needs to consume are too huge. That is to say, the court has money now, otherwise it will not be able to support it at all.
Secondly, immigrants have to travel long distances. The journey is long and very hard. The emperor must be considerate of the people and should not let them move away from their homeland and go to other places.
In addition, the influx of a large number of immigrants will inevitably be opposed by the local people, and it will be difficult to form effective local management due to language and customs.
Therefore, it is better to reuse the leaders of the local tribes and let them manage the Western Regions. This would be simpler and save trouble.
Obviously, if the methods of these officials were followed to manage such a huge territory, even the mighty Ming Dynasty would be able to control these areas.
However, as time goes by, local separatist forces will inevitably breed, and eventually the entire huge territory will fall apart.
Therefore, it was strongly opposed by Liu Jin at that time, and Liu Jin refuted it with lessons learned from history. Emperor Hongzhi, Liu Jian, Li Dongyang and others also expressed support for Liu Jin.
The problem of the southwestern chieftains has been completely solved in recent years due to the strategy of reforming the local chieftains and returning them to the locals. The foundation of their rule has been lost, and the local chieftains have been unable to make waves at all.
Immigration was also a strategy formulated by Emperor Hongzhi, so the strategy of appointing officials and migrating large numbers of Han people was adopted in all places.
Judging from the current situation, although it has encountered strong opposition and resistance from local people in many places, for example, a large number of exiled officials were killed in Jiaozhi and the Western Regions.
But the imperial court also quickly mobilized the army to carry out suppression and bloody clean-up. After a few times, even if you disobey, you must obey. The tribes and people who disobey will lose their heads.
After the initial problems were resolved, the Ming Dynasty's rule in various places became smoother. The tribes in the newly incorporated areas became more supportive of the Ming Dynasty's rule and management, and actively assisted the appointed officials in the past to manage all parties.
Just from this point of view, the huge territory and territory of the Ming Dynasty brought huge challenges to the management of the imperial court, and the previous management methods were obviously not suitable for the current Ming Dynasty.
However, this is only one aspect. Today, Ming Dynasty faces many problems.
Huge territory, huge population and complex population structure, numerous ethnic groups, tribes, different languages, characters, customs, beliefs, etc.
In addition, within the Ming Dynasty, the emergence of capitalism brought about tremendous changes.
The rapid development of capitalism has brought about many problems, such as population mobility. A large number of people are concentrated in urban areas to work in factories, workshops, businesses, etc.
Another example is the influx of a large number of overseas people. Koreans and Japanese people now like to come to the Ming Dynasty to work and settle down. There are millions of slaves in the plantations in Nanyang.
There are also problems with the development of capitalism, the raw materials needed and the market, the soaring price of cotton, and the concentration of people living in cities, resulting in the fields in Beizhili being uncultivated, and the original grain-producing province has become
A place where cotton is grown.
What changes will this bring to Ming Dynasty, and how should Ming Dynasty deal with this change?
There is also the market problem. Taking textile factories as an example, there were tens of thousands of textile factories in the Ming Dynasty. In addition to the cloth produced by the Ming Dynasty itself, a large amount of cloth was sold overseas.
But as production capacity increases, what should we do when there is excess capacity?
Insufficient raw materials, overcapacity, population migration, and the emergence of unscrupulous businessmen in factories, workshops, trading houses, etc., workers work all day long, without rest, their bodies cannot bear it, etc.
There are just too many problems, too many.
These problems have never appeared before. The key is that when the officials and officials of the Ming Dynasty face these problems now, they don't know what to do.
From Liu Jian, the chief minister of the cabinet, to the magistrates and officials of ordinary county offices, many times they don't know what to do. And the key is that according to the past model, everyone has no idea how to manage and operate a place.
Basically, it's all done by doing nothing.
Sometimes, if a local official can be fair and honest, he can be regarded as a senior official. If he builds some bridges and paves some roads, he will be given an umbrella to all the people.
We could live like this before, but can we continue like this now?
Can this continue in the future?
Obviously, this is not possible, and Li Dongyang has already deeply felt this.